INCREASE:
...This is a time for divergent thinking. While some seem to think that this crisis will spark World War III, I choose to deny that dark vision. In it's place I see the crisis sparking World Peace I. But to get there, from here, it will take vision, sacrifice, love, respect, generosity, magnanimity, and the entire panoply of higher human traits and abilities, including the one perhaps most difficult to attain...impartiality. For how can one be impartial when it comes to the death of friends and family? This is why I call the coming age, The Age of Radical Forgiveness. This Herculean effort will result in a breaking of the chain of causation that has allowed the now organic hatred to pass from generation to generation.
A sacrifice of the higher element that produces an increase of the lower isIncrease. Profit. What we have here is a new way of looking at profit...written thousands of years ago.
called an out-and-out increase: it indicates the spirit that alone has power to
help the world.
Sacrifice on the part of those above for the increase of those below fills the people with a sense of joy and gratitude that is extremely valuable for the flowering of the commonwealth. When people are thus devoted to their leaders, undertakings are possible, and even difficult and dangerous enterprises will succeed. Therefore in such times of progress and successful development it is necessary to work and make the best use of the time. This time resembles that of the marriage of heaven and earth, when the earth partakes of the creative power of heaven, forming and bringing forth living beings. The time of INCREASE does not endure, therefore it must be utilized while it lasts.
Thus the superior man:Increase. Profit. Benefitting from the current Middle East crisis. Each person and leader mining their own personality for that which is best, and removing that which is worst. The war is not with other people. It is within yourself. You must conquer your own evil, and make flourish your highest angels.
If he sees good, he imitates it;
If he has faults, he rids himself of them.
While observing how thunder and wind increase and strengthen each other, a man can note the way to self-increase and self-improvement. When he discovers good in others, he should imitate it and thus make everything on earth his own. If he perceives something bad in himself, let him rid himself of it. In this way he becomes free of evil.
This ethical change represents the most important increase of personality.
True kindness does not count upon nor ask about merit and gratitude but acts
from inner necessity. And such a truly kind heart finds itself rewarded in being
recognized, and thus the beneficent influence will spread unhindered.
* Woody's House
