Gate 2 ⌇ The Gate of the Direction of Self

The first line always gives you the basis. It is called ‘Intuition’ here. It says as an overview, Sensitivity to disharmony and atrophy. This is very important. Venus exalted. The importance of aesthetics, whether inborn or acquired. What is direction? One of the things that pleased me the most about human design was that it was pretty. It has to do with aesthetics. It sounds poetic but it is true that our direction is about trying to find the most beautiful way. It  really is our direction. What we are trying to avoid is ugliness and disharmony. We are trying to find a way to avoid ugliness and disharmony. So the importance of aesthetics, whether inborn or acquired. 

Of the Mars in detriment, The assertion of Ego in spite of wisdom. Look, this is a first line. It tries to figure out what the direction is. What is the direction and how does that direction work? In the white book Higher knowing through aesthetics. The thing to recognize about our direction is: what we are trying to find, what everybody is looking for, what people call paradise, happiness, bliss, is a direction that brings us pleasure in this life. That brings us beauty and harmony in this life. Not such a bad thing to know that humanity, at its foundation in terms of the direction it is moving towards,  is looking for beauty and harmony. It does not mean that it is going to get it. However, it is a very nice place to go.

The other thing is: Ego, willpower is not what direction is all about. It is not about the Ego that dictates whether you go this way or that way. Direction is not something we control. Direction is a mutative force. So in the detriment here is, The urge for action that will ignore the wisdom of the higher Self. The wisdom of the higher Self says: the direction is already there. Do not impose will on this. People who have the first line in detriment will try many times in their life to alter direction by willpower, only to discover that that is disastrous for them. So the first thing to think about - this is the Sphinx after all -  part of the great mystery of what the Sphinx is: our direction is towards beauty and harmony. Not bad, lets keep working at it. It is my North Node.

You will notice that in three of the six lines the word ‘Ego’ is mentioned. In the other three lines, where Ego is not mentioned, it is implied. This is the great dilemma of the Self which is that Ego is a motor and it always  claims  direction, i.e. in this gate. The Ego wants to be able to say “I am in charge of the direction”,  rather than seeing that the driver simply drives and the passenger sits in the back seat. Whenever you see the Ego applied here, understand that this is the basic conflict that always exists between G center gates and Heart gates. The Ego wants to make claims on the Self

The second line is ‘Genius.’ It is a very special line because when you think about what second lines are:  the light in the room where people look in from the outside.  Everybody looks at the 2.2 and  says, “they know where they are going.” The person that has that second line, they do not know that they know where they are going. They may be deeply confused about where they are going. They may have no idea that they are in the right direction, but everybody is looking inside and saying: they know where they are going.

Unconscious and unlearnable alignment of stimulus and response. The natural. That is somebody who is naturally going along in the right direction not because they have the talent or the skills, but simply because that is what they are meant to do. The gift of all second lines is that they do not know how to interfere with themselves. That is a blessing, because it just comes out. What happens though is that other people jump in and it is their interference that create dilemmas. Because the moment others jump in and they say, “do you realize that you are going in the right direction? That is terrific.”  Thus others are pumping up their Ego, trying to get that second line to think: “yes, it is me.”

So the natural, Saturn exalted. The inner strength to focus and realize. Just to be in your direction, without even knowing that this is a direction. It means, just to be in your life. When you come to the Mars in detriment, you have  Genius as madness. Knowledge exclusively as power for the enhancement of the Ego.  This is the moment where somebody steps in and looks inside, sees the 2 and their direction and says, “wow, you have really done it” and they say “yes, and I tell you how I did it.”  Then they really get into trouble. These are people you know are always claiming that they have  achieved power out of knowledge. In the white book,  A natural gift for unlearnable knowing or The delusion that knowledge is power. The delusion that your direction is the result of your genius, your hard work, your being marvelous. Paper tigers. They will get a terrible surprise.

The driver in the lower trigram does not even know that there is a gas pedal at the other end, and therefore you can’t expect that that capacity to drive is something that necessarily happens. They are always surprised that there is a gas pedal because they do not expect it to be there. They are basically just reading maps. The first line is looking at all the various maps that are around, and the second line has a map that is just wired into its brain. It is just there but it does not mean that they go anywhere unless they get access to energy nor does it mean that they know how to handle the energy when it is there. It is one thing to be a good driver,  but if you don’t know how to use the gas pedal you can end up smashing into a tree simply because you are out of control, because you cannot handle the fuel. So this is still lower trigram.

As you see when we discuss the gates of the G center,  their lines are often very special in comparison to other lines of the same kind. This is particularly true for the 2.3. We know third lines represent an adaptation process. These are lines of trial and error. This is a high exalted third line. Mutation is a matter of trial and error. This is something that we know. Mutative processes are going on all the time and they are trial and error until the right and most successful mutation takes place, takes hold and gains its strength. The other mutations just disappear because they were not productive. What that means is that the mutative process at its very best is exemplified through the third and the sixth line. The third line provides in the mutative process just the right mix. Trial and error to find the right mutation.

So here we have ‘Patience.’ The teacher that never stops being a student. This is the trial and error. Everyone who carries the second gate is a teacher in life in the sense that they are always providing direction, whether they want to or not. That is what teacher means in this sense, but they can never stop being a student in life. In other words, they think that they are in the right direction and something happens and they try something else, until they finally get it. Jupiter exalted, Dedication to a lifetime of receptivity, with the maturity to accept that the process never ends.  Mutation is not going to stop. It is an ongoing process. We must never lose our vigilance and we must realize that all kinds of mutative possibilities are in the world at the same time looking for supremacy. In the same way that our genetic material is constantly in competition for which genes will dominate in the global gene pool. This is an ongoing process that we are involved in. 

When you get the Uranus in detriment though, you get For the revolutionary, patience is a vice. This is the pole of the Ego again that says, “oh, not another change. This direction is the right one, and I will stay with it. I can’t afford to go to another one.” Or the opposite of that which is jumping from one thing to the next rapidly, constantly breaking the bonds. This is very destabilizing. It is important to see that those people that have the 2.3, they have to be aware that for them  to have many directions in life is not only natural, but healthy. It is healthy for them to break the bonds of direction and try another one until you finally see what really works in that sense. In the white book,  The recognition that receptivity is a lifelong process. For these people it is an ongoing process of seeking out the mutative way. By the way, though it is a process that never ends, it does not mean to change direction until the end. They can mature into this process and simply become those that provide others with a guide to the best and the most mutative directions in life. 

On the other side,  Higher knowing that cannot wait and demands expression.  The reason that this third line learns so much is that it does not know that there is a gas pedal, and gets to meet it regularly. And because it is adaptive, every time that it gets a new fuel it experiments with a new direction. People often misunderstand what that means: you may be the driver but the fact of the matter is that the driver alone does not control the direction. He can’t. The driver cannot control the direction without the gas pedal and the fuel. An example: I am a carnivore. If I want food, I will look for a place that has meat. Jürgen is a vegetarian. If he wants to find food, he will go for a place that is vegetarian. We may both go in the same direction - we need to feed ourselves - but we will actually take a different course, because the fuels are different.

So what happens to the third line is that it experiments with all the different fuels that it meets until it finds the fuel that works. What you have learnt in terms of hexagram structure, resonance and harmonies, you can see right away what will happen to the third line is that when it meets a 14.3 or a 14.6, it will find the kind of fuel that it can really work with. But it will still have to go through the dissonances, the difficulties of matching up with fuels that do not necessarily work. It is a learning process. But this is a very mutative line.

When you get to the upper trigram, things change obviously. You come to a transpersonal line which knows that there is something on the other side. All fourth lines are rooted in opportunism. Opportunism exists in all fourth lines and waits for the opportunity. Fourth lines are one-tracked, are unidirectional. They are there to externalize. Here we have ‘Secretiveness.’  More than modesty, the ability to preserve harmony through discretion. It is so important for a 2.4 to externalize the very foundation. The reality is that in doing that, it has to be very careful about not letting other people interfere with the direction. This is an individual gate. Individuals particularly in highly mutative gates are not around to be influenced by anyone else. The whole business of direction carries with it a lot of weight. If a 2.4 is driving a car and you are driving with them and you both know where you think you are going, that 2.4 is not going to tell you - until they make that funny left turn - that they are going on their own direction. They have another way to get there. If they tell you beforehand, you are going to interfere which will result in a problem.

Venus exalted. The higher goal transcends personal acclaim. The team player, acknowledged as the leader but never the captain. Nobody wants a mutative person as their captain. You don’t, because they are unreliable. But they can be great leaders. In other words, that turning of the wheel in that direction may annoy the captain but it may turn out to be good advice and good leadership and the captain will go along with it. The whole thing for 2.4’s is to recognize the importance of secrecy in their life. Don’t let other people in on the direction. Just do your thing. After all, individuals are here to be examples. They are not here to lead, they are not here to be witnesses, they are just here to be examples. This mutative direction is all about living it out as a example.

When you come to the Mars in detriment,  Loose lips sink ships. The unquenchable fire of the Ego engenders enmity.  This is the Ego saying, “I know that you are over there but I will make a left turn now, o.k.?! I want to take a different way.” And everybody else gets upset and the 2.4 says, “I want to go this way and I know this way.” In the white book,  Where higher knowing does not have to be expressed to be recognized,  and the other side, The inability to keep silent when the opportunity arises for expression. This is what happens to the Self the moment that the Ego comes in. As soon as the Ego comes in, it creates all kinds of difficulties. It takes away the value of the possibility of spiritual recognition.  Direction is something that is given to us and not something that we can claim. 

When I was a teenager in Canada, we had all kinds of movies that showed groups of three or four boys and one of them would be the acknowledged leader but this one would not have the driver’s license of a car. So somebody would have to drive the car, the one who would do this would be the 2.4. If they kept it secret they could enjoy being in charge of everybody by driving that car, even though the leader was sitting in the car. That is the exalted side, but the moment they say “hey, we are going my way because it is my car,”  that is the moment they get into trouble. That is the detriment.

Fifth lines are the way society wants to see direction. The people with the 2.5 get projected on that they are the ones that know the direction, that they are the ones that have the way. The line is called  ‘Intelligent application.’ The strategist. It is about developing a strategy of how to deal with that projection. If people project on you that you know the way, well, what do you do with that? Do you really know the way? There are two sides to this. One side is the Mercury exalted, The strategist. Reasoned management of resources.  After all, the 2.5 is at its very best, gas pedals are always recognizing them. Gas pedals always come up to them and say, “you are the one that has the direction. Do you want my fuel?”  The whole thing for a 2.5 is to learn how to manage those resources because they do not have the resources themselves. That is inherent in the gate, but how it operates is dependent on the Design. So they are always looking for the resources from others that come to them, and they manage those resources to be able to maintain their direction. 

The other side, the Earth in detriment. The inability to share responsibility or recognize the abilities of others.  Again, you can feel the flavor of the Ego coming into this. The Ego has always tainted  the Self in this way. This whole business about the inability to share responsibility. This is an individual gate, after all, which will take fuel but that does not mean that it is also taking somebody else’s telling it where to go. It will not. The 2.5,  even though it gets projected on that it is the one that knows the way, the moment that it refuses to take you, it gets projected on that it does not know the way or that the way it does know is the wrong way. This is the other side of the coin.

In the white book, Higher knowing as an exclusively individual and selfish process.  What happens to these detriment people is that everybody is projecting on them that they have the direction and they push everybody away because they do not want to be interfered with and they keep their direction for themselves. “You are going up into the mountains? Can I join you?” “ No, I don’t want you to tell me which way I go up the mountain. Do not dare to tell me. I am smart enough to go up into the mountain with somebody who is giving me the energy, but is not going to bug me. If I don’t have it myself, I wait for a transit to get the fuel.” The 2.5 is always projected on that they have the direction and they should be the driver. If you have a party and a couple of people are drunk, it is the 2.5 that everybody goes over to and says, “could you drive them home?”  Others think that the 2.5’s know where these people live. If you are lost on a street and you end up asking somebody for direction, the person you think is the one that can tell you the way, if they really can tell you,  is probably a 2.5. You have this sense of  “aha, they know the way.” They may or may not. If they do, you think they are wonderful and their reputation grows. If not, they run into problems. If you project on them that they know the way and they get involved with the Ego in that, they also run into problems. Individuality is not here to be best. Individuals go to hell the moment they try to be best at anything. The only individual connection of the Ego that goes directly into the Self, in order to be worked out in that case. It is one of the things about projection, and the confusion between the Self and the Ego, always to keep in mind. These people that get projected on, it is not because they know the direction. They are the direction. If you have the second gate, you are the direction.

Sixth lines are always different than their hexagram because they are outside of the process. Here you have a line called  ‘Fixation’  with an overview that says, Unable or unwilling to see the whole picture. The first thing to recognize about this is that all sixth lines are desperate to see the whole picture. That is what a sixth line is all about. It sits on the roof and tries to get the best perspective that it possibly can to take everything in, and here is this sixth line and we have: Unable, unwilling, to see the whole picture.  Think about what mutation is all about. We absolutely must have mutation. It is essential for our evolutionary process. Society, humanity, the totality is dependent on direction, on this mutative force and then you have these sixth lines that do not want to mutate. Their not wanting to mutate is not of benefit to the totality, however, this is not about moral distinction. It is negative in this sense, that is why the negative is there. It is negative because it is denying mutative possibilities.

Think about the 24.6, which is about the possibility of being deaf when opportunities knocks. This is very true of the 2.6. In other words, that it is unable to see the whole picture, so it is not ready to mutate and as such may miss the opportunity for mutation and direction in its life. These people don’t seem to be going anywhere. At least, not to themselves. Mercury exalted. Less negative, though, The intellect becomes absorbed in constant rationalization.  That is why I put you back to the 24.6, because it is the language of it. It takes you into what that process is all about. The possibility,  literally,  of not taking the opportunity to mutate. Because, if you are the 2.6 sitting there on top of the roof, you don’t really see all the different roads that could be driven, because you are limited in that way.

In the Saturn in detriment, The need for security may distort awareness to its ultimate perversion, destructiveness.  This line is rarely understood. It resonates deeply with the 28.6, which is also part of the individual process. ‘Blaze of glory,’  also a sixth line. Remember, our theme throughout this hexagram is the conflict between the exalted Self and the  Ego in detriment. This is not about good or bad. That is simply the conflict that is inherent there. So what happens in this part is that unable to see or unwilling to see the whole picture, they get fixed and what they get fixed on is mundane direction. They get fixed on dealing with what is on the other side, the 14,  which is all about security and making money and bringing rewards into your life, because the 14 is all about resources, about filling up your wagon.  So what happens to the 2.6 is that they get fixed on the mundane and in doing so, everything becomes their Ego and in that becomes destructive of themselves. They don’t mutate and because of that they go through all kinds of problems and they suffer, because it is not up to their Ego in that sense.

In the white book, Higher knowing that is extremely narrow in its receptivity. Even at the exalted level,  chances are that you are not going to get mutation out of these forces but, as with all sixth lines, it is possible. Like with all sixth lines there is the possibility to come down from the roof  the moment there really is something that is of value, and the moment that one can see from that 6 perspective that fulfillment can take place, whatever the circuitry dictates. Individual circuitry - the Knowing, Centering and Integration circuit - are enormously complex. In order for that 2.6 to decide on a direction, it has to deal with that whole circuitry. It is vast, and so it is deeply limited in that sense. However, the mutations that do come out of the 2.6 are very powerful because they are very selective mutations. They can be good for us and bad.   

The joke is that before the 2.1, is the 24.6. In other words, the individuality in the 24.6 leads to the 2.1, and when you get to the 2.6, this leads to the 23.1, ‘Proselytization,’  which is about the ability to explain yourself. That is why you have the limitation here. The limitation is this sense of  “wow, it is not just a direction. It is that I have to be able to explain the direction,” and this is very difficult because this is always the dilemma for the individual process, to be able to explain knowing. The position in the 2.6 is looking out and saying, “oh, boy. I have to explain this, because otherwise I will not get other people onto this direction and if I can’t get them onto this direction, it is not mutative and it will not work.” That is why the 2.6 is rationalizing. That is why intellect is mentioned in this line. The mind is constantly trying to figure out:  what is a direction that I can actually explain?  Because that  really is the key.