Workshop Segment Three
Human Design in relation with Taoist Inner Alchemy.
Taosim and Human Design deal with the same reality. The wisdom of Taoism is to understand reality in terms of metaphors of life, nature, and the ever changing flow between polarities of soft and hard, of dark and light, of yin and yang.
Human Design takes a different and complementary approach.
The big picture.
In the Human Design view a field of living consciousness is determined by relationships of planets of the solar system as they move around the sun in the plane of the zodiac. The zodiac is divided into 69,120 unique points. This division is organized in 64 hexagrams, each hexagram being subdivided by six lines, each line subdivided by six colors, each color subdivided by six tones, and each tone subdivided by five bases. The sun traverses a base point approximately every 7 minutes and 36 seconds.
The changing pattern of this field is quantifiable through calculations made with Human Design software. The pattern of the consciousness field, expressed through the positions of the eleven planetary bodies and the two nodes of the moon, is ever changing and never repeats. It is through this pattern that Tao manifests in our reality. Human Design information allows us to quantify the manifestations of Tao. Astrology is also a way of quantifying the manifestations of Tao. Human Design brings a different and more comprehensive context of understanding than Astrology to the quantification of Tao.
The sixty four hexagrams of the I Ching are mapped on to the three hundred and sixty degrees of the zodiac. The way in which hexagrams are arranged around the zodiac is significant and information is drawn from this arrangement as the planetary bodies and the nodes move along the zodiac.
The earth's rotational axis is not constant in relation to the solar system. Every 26,000 years the angle of rotation of the earth goes through a cycle and the track of this cycle goes around the zodiac in the opposite direction to the sun. This movement passes very slowly through the hexagrams that are mapped on to the zodiac and this determines another pattern in the consciousness field that determines our lived experience. Here we can understand how the movement of the planets drives forward the evolution of biology and consciousness.
The Human Design bodygraph serves as the context of understanding where the quantification of Tao is expressed. The constitution of different life forms can be described in terms of a subset of the full bodygraph. The unique configuration of one living instance of the form shows in the imprint that form receives from the consciousness field when it comes into existence. The Human Design circuits and channels in the bodygraph represent similar relationships as are seen in the channels or letters between the sephirot in the kabbalah. The centers in the Human Design bodygraph function similarly to the Hindu chakras. The points of value in the consciousness field are expressed in terms of I Ching hexagrams and lines.
The consciousness field once in a while undergoes a sudden and significant increase in its degree of of complexity. When such a change happens the bodygraph also changes significantly. We live in an extraordinary time sandwiched between one such change that took place in 1781, and another that is coming in 2027. The bodygraph used currently in Human Design represents the mutation that took place in 1781.
The main focus in Human Design is on the way the bodygraph can explain an individual human life. We begin life with two imprints from the consciousness field, one from the time of birth and one from a time eighty eight degrees of the zodiac prior to birth. These two imprints define the unique imprinting of Xing, called Personality in Human Design, and of Ming, called Design in Human Design. Knowing accurately the moment of a person's time of birth allows us to be precise in a quantified way about the person's life, and a great deal can be known from this mapping.
Each of the two imprints consists of thirteen values taken from the sun and earth, the nodes of the moon, and nine planets. There are sixty four gates in the Human Design bodygraph. Each imprinting value is assigned to the gate it activates based on a mapping of the sixty four hexagrams of the I Ching on to the three hundred and sixty degrees of the zodiac. As more than one value may activate the same gate, there are twenty six or less gates activated in a bodygraph. Each channel connects two gates. When both gates in a channel are activated the channel itself locks in to a constructed value that remains fixed for the duration of the life of the individual and this is called a definition. The centres at each side of the channel become defined on account of the channel definition, so the defined centres also acquire a value that remains fixed for the life of the individual. Centres are either defined or open, and gates are either activated or not. Each activation brings with it a line value between one and six. There is significance in each of the six possible line values.
Ra Uru Hu the founder of Human Design has called Human Design a system. It is a complex living system, and not a system as is commonly understood in relation to Newtonian mechanics. If it were a system in this sense we would be fixed in our nature. We can understand our potential and we can understand why we are not yet living our potential. Human Design asks us to live into our experience of who we are, and gives us particular ways to engage with ourselves so that we can allow our potential to emerge through the light of the precise information provided to us in the quantification of our uniqueness. The ways we are given through Human Design to understand and to engage with ourselves include the understanding that knowing the information about ourselves is the beginning of a process of realization that is only actualized if we experience the truth of the information. Human Design is not offering a formula we can impose on ourselves in order to realize our potential, but it is offering a way to systematically and accurately go through a process of transformation and integration.
When we put together the descriptive and metaphorical understanding of reality offered by Taoist Inner Alchemy with the precise quantitative understanding of reality offered by Human Design, we have the possibility of a synthesised understanding that neither Taoist Inner Alchemy nor Human Design alone can provide.
The Human Design bodygraph enables us to be informed about our characteristics. Each characteristic that we grasp enables a recognition that we will have known in our experience but one we could not name or place in the context of reality. From Human Design we can name our characteristics and place our understanding of our characteristics in the greater picture of reality. In these moments of recognition, when the description of the characteristic and the experiential knowing of the characteristic resonate we have the experience of knowing ourselves more accurately and more intimately, and this recognition promotes relaxation, self acceptance, and self love.
The information provided by Human Design about each actual characteristic places the characteristic within a spectrum of possible values. Not only do we come to learn more intimately who we are but we learn also in relation to each characteristic who we are not, and this is also self validating. On the journey of self development or self realization it is essential to be able to discriminate between what is accurate and what is speculative or constructed. If this is not possible people make problems of what are not problems and try to dissolve or manage true characteristics that are not for dissolving or managing, but rather for loving, for accepting, and for living.
Understanding the characteristics of others through the patterns provided by the information in their bodygraphs makes it possible to accept and understand them. A relationship between two people who each understand themselves and each other in this way can have grace, clarity, ease and mutual acceptance that is not otherwise easily realized. It is also easier to understand and accept the consciousness of people who are not on any journey of self exploration or who are on a journey of self exploration that has not yet come to the refinement of self understanding and self knowing that is enabled by Human Design. There are specialized aspects of Human Design knowledge that can be applied to small group relating and to large group relating. Each of us experiences moment by moment the prevailing consciousness field as it rolls along and we individually and collectively experience the way the consciousness field modulates moment to moment our own nature, the nature of others and the nature of the collective consciousness.
The detail.
The first step in understanding the information provided in the Human Design bodygraph is that of understanding type. There are four different types of people. Here we will learn about the different types, and about the different characteristics of the auras of each type. We will learn about the way each type can participate correctly or incorrectly in their own life, what practise of awareness and self understanding is appropriate for making the transition from living incorrectly to living correctly, and we will learn about the experiences of living and of not living correctly.
In the next step we will learn about the characteristic that enables us to know our own truth. There are seven different ways this can happen.
The next two steps in understanding ourselves have to do with knowing how we are subject to conditioning. This has to do with understanding how we are drawn away from our truth by pursuing experiences we are drawn into by the parts of the bodygraph that are not defined or activated. We become conditioned by these parts and we come to believe that our conditioning is our nature. The process of deconditioning where we unwind these beliefs shows us how we are designed to learn about reality, and how these learnings enable us to become wise about life. The first of these understandings has to do with patterns of behaviour that derive from undefined centres. The second of these understandings has to do with whether all the definition in the bodygraph is organized in one, two, three or four pieces, or with whether there are no defined centres at all. Each kind of organization leads to different behaviour characteristics in how we experience life and in the way we relate with others.
After these steps there is the step of understanding the style in which we play out our role in life. There are twelve different characteristic ways that roles in life are played out. When we understand the way in which we play out our role in life we again come to know who we are in a way that enables relaxation and self acceptance, and this helps us towards realizing who we are here to be.
The next step in understanding ourselves is to understand how we can be fulfilled in making our own unique contribution to life. There are one hundred and ninety two different characteristics ways of being fulfilled in making a unique contribution to life and each one has twelve different refinements. They occur along the circle of the zodiac and there is significance in which part of the year we are born.
The last basic step in understanding what the bodygraph can tell us is about the parts of the bodygraph which are defined, the gates, the channels, the lines within the gates, the circuits and circuit groups that give additional significance to the definitions, and the planets driving the activations. Half of the definition comes from the personality imprint of the consciousness field at the moment of birth and half comes from the design imprint of the consciousness field 88 degrees of the zodiac prior to birth. We have conscious access to the personality imprint and unconscious or hidden access to the design imprint. The challenge of living consciously is to discover how to live the unique marriage of these two imprints. As we align more with our definition and less with our conditioned self we come closer to living our truth.
These are the basic steps in understanding what the bodygraph can tell us. They are not the end of the story but they are enough for laying the foundations and for beginning the journey of transformation.
Beyond the basic steps there are further powerful and significant refinements of understanding we can engage with in later stages of the journey. These have to do with nourishing the physical body so that it is strong enough to hold a refined consciousness, and to do with becoming conscious about environmental considerations that keep the physical body in a nurturing relationship with environment that allows it to relax and flourish.
There are also refinements related to psychological imprinting in which we explore how the consciousness becomes locked in to conditioning and how to release these locks.
For laying the foundations and setting out on the journey of transformation it is enough to establish a growing understanding of one's own characteristics, of how to engage in realizing the truth of these characteristics in one's own experience, and of understanding the greater reality inside of which one's own unfolding is taking place.
When presenting this segment, Human Design in relation with Taoist Inner Alchemy, to those who have already an established familiarity with the Human Design system, the focus is primarily to review the aspects of Human Design mentioned in this segment, and to evaluate and engage with how to hold these understandings in the context of the Obsidian Essence approach of inverting the course and illuminating the journey with the wisdom of Taoism and Taoist inner alchemy.