Why I wrote this manual
The most difficult decision I have had to make is to follow my conscience and be a faithful witness to the true value of the I CHING. This same decision I left it to my most trustworthy advisor, the I CHING itself. I asked the I CHING, should I speak publicly in favor of the I CHING, and risk my position as a Financial Advisor? Should I join the voices of the other individuals and speak publicly of the I CHING’s surprising accuracy in advising investors on choosing their investments? Should I seriously propose the I CHING as an additional investment alternative to be used together with fundamental and technical analysis? The I CHING says yes. Nevertheless, because it is an innocent instrument, it warns me that it can only be used to serve high ideals and to make sure personal rewards are not the main thrust of the effort.
This decision has been very difficult for me. Nevertheless, as I grow older, I have learned that it really does not matter what others may think of me. I keep on thinking about Mark Twain’s advice that when we reach the end of our lives, we never regret what we did but rather what we did not do. The price I may have to pay for defending the I CHING as the ultimate coach for CEOs and investors is nothing compared with the happiness I will experience by being faithful to my conscience.
I decided to write this book for a number of reasons:
· The I CHING works. I have had the opportunity to see how it works up close thanks to the extensive information I receive from so many sources, and the extensive financial instruments I have seen in numerous portfolios.
· We should educate the investor to be open minded,
· We should educate the investor, indeed the man, of the future. The investor of the future will probably live physically isolated from the rest of his neighbors, but at the same time he will be mentally close to the markets by means of all kind of sophisticated electronic and telecommunication equipment such as the internet, cellular phones, computers and satellites. To him distances will not be important because he will have the necessary telecommunications to access the necessary information to arrive at an investment decision. This is happening even today as more and more portfolio managers leave the large cities and head for the Rocky Mountains and Colorado. Through portals, he will be able to get advice from experts from afar, access libraries and data banks all over the world. Yet he will also require of an independent, honest, innocent and completely disinterested advisor such as the I CHING. Whether he accesses the I CHING through computerized programs which prepares the Hexagram for him immediately, or whether he prepares his own hexagram manually, still the I CHING’s advice will be very valuable if he approaches the I CHING with the proper attitude: with humility, respect, appreciation, faith and honesty. In this sense, the man of the future will be very close to the man who used the I CHING thousands of years ago for the very first time. To both of them, the I CHING has been and will be a great advisor to arrive at the correct decisions.
· Even though there are millions of people in the world today who firmly believe in the power of the I CHING because they have seen its value in foretelling the future and its applicability to almost any subject; nevertheless; only few investors would be willing to talk about it in the open. I know of many who have tried it, but very few would be willing to publicly recognize its value, and even less would be willing to publish a manual for the investors to use it systematically.
· The man of the future will be an idealist, or a Superior Man, like the I CHING itself. Only a man with great ideals will be able to get the best advice and the best words of wisdom from the I CHING. In the future the idealists will have a real place in the world and the so-called pragmatists will be out of favor. After all, the idealists are the real pragmatists. Only the idealists have given mankind the greatest discoveries and have left us as their legacy an appropriate code of conduct and morality to enable us to live like decent human beings, while the so-called pragmatists have only left us ruin and destruction.
· We have to make a collective effort to interpret the poetic language of the I CHING so that it will become applicable for a given field of knowledge. Only if we all work together will we arrive at some basic conclusions.
· I believe the I CHING is a powerful tool to travel within our spirits. It can help us carry out the mandate of two of the greatest men in the history of mankind to achieve happiness and success:
· “Work without ceasing to find your own salvation” BUDA
· “Know thyself” SOCRATES
· The I CHING reduces stress. It does it because it is an ideal instrument both to know the fundamental laws of the universe and to find spiritual harmony. Wise men have always said that obedience is a path to humility and that humility is the true way to spiritual growth. One of the most important vows monks make is the one of obedience to his superiors. In that way the monk destroys once and for all that pride he might feel when making the “correct” decision. Through obedience he diminishes his ego and focuses on his salvation.
· Sometimes we choose an investment, and if by the grace of God, we do well, we then go around feeling we are geniuses. But if the investment goes wrong we feel stressed. The right attitude should be one of detachment from the investment. If an investor asks the I CHING about a stock and the answer is positive, the investor should buy the stock and wait patiently for the events to unfold. By appealing to the I CHING as a coach for our future key decisions we become more humble because we rely on a portal that can project into the future. Once we learn to trust the I CHING, our level of stress diminishes substantially. It is always comforting to know the I CHING wants the best for us.
· Every individual must make a contribution to society, no matter how small. If I can contribute with the long overdue revival of the I CHING and encourage CEOs and investors to share their own experiences with those of us who believe in the I CHING as a real coach for CEOs and investors, then I think I would have made my small contribution.
