Patricia E. West Quotes

WHY PARADIGMS MATTERIdeas drive results. People's beliefs drive their actions. Actions that stem from a simple, complete and accurate paradigm result in personal fulfillment, harmonious relationships, and economic prosperity.Actions based on false, incomplete and inaccurate paradigms, however well intended or passionately defended, are the cause of widespread misery, suffering and deprivation.As detailed in Rethinking Survival: Getting to the Positive Paradigm of Change, a fatal information deficit explains the worldwide leadership deficit and related budget deficits. In a dangerous world where psychological and economic warfare compete with religious extremism and terrorism to undo thousands of years of incremental human progress, a healing balance is urgently needed. Restoring a simple, complete and accurate paradigm of leadership and relationships now could make the difference between human survival on the one hand, and the extinction of the human race (or the end of civilization as we know it), on the other. p. 7.

The extraordinary value of the I Ching is that it reveals the secrets of dynamic natural law. Working with its changes opens up access to the middle level of the Positive Paradigm Wheel, the “e” energy layer of Einstein's Unified Theory.This middle level serves as mediating, two-directional gate-keeper between the ever-changing surface rim and the universal, timeless center. You can't get from here to there, except through the middle layer which, in Western thinking, is effectively taboo, buried in the inaccessible "unconscious." To the extent that natural law is a blind spot in the prevailing, linear and exclusively empirical paradigm, we are left powerless to move beyond the surface level of experience. The realm of light and conscience which rests beyond, on the far side of the dynamic energy level, remains functionally inaccessible. Moral codes promoted by religionists or politicians are sometimes equated with conscience. But they're no substitute for direct experience. Only by becoming intelligently competent in managing the subtle energies of the middle level is it possible to travel further inwards for the immediate, personal experience of inner light. When the middle level becomes clogged with painful memories, negative emotions and socially taboo urges, it becomes a barrier to deeper knowing. The Book of Change is indispensable as a tool for restoring the unnecessarily "unconscious" to conscious awareness, so that the levels of human potential can be linked and unified. In Positive Paradigm context, survivors who prevail in dangerous times aren't those with the most material wealth, possessions or political power. They're the ones who've successfully navigated the middle realm, reached the far shore of enlightenment and returned to the surface with their new information intact. Those who succeed in linking the levels of experience are genius-leaders in whatever fields they choose to engage. They're the fortunate ones who've acquired the inner wealth necessary to both hear the inner voice of conscience and act on the guidance they receive.

Lao Tze's vision is compatible with the Positive Paradigm of Change. In fact, placing the language of his passages into the levels of the Wheel serves to clarify his vision. The model is therefore shown here, along with its application to the subtitle: Common Sense. The right-brain compliment to the left-brain words of Passage One is also supplied below as a hint of what's possible.Einstein's warning, the basis of Rethinking Survival, could well have been spoken by a Chinese sage: 'Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison [of separatist thinking] by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. . . We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." Prominent themes which link Einstein with the Chinese yoga tradition include not only Compassion but also Unity and Survival. In addition, anticipating the Positive Paradigm, Lao Tze repeated alludes to a timeless center at life's hub encompassed by the surface rim of fluctuating events. 1. The Eternal is beyond words, undefinable and illusive, all-pervading yet mysterious.The timeless, though ungraspable, is the unfailing source of all experience.To transcend mortality, and attain sublime peace, turn inward, releasing desire and ambition.To manifest inner vision, accomplishing every goal in time, extend outward with passionate conviction.Unmanifest and manifest are two sides of a coin, seamlessly joined, though apparently opposite.Entering this paradox is the beginning of magic.