27.

1 Selfishness

The first line always establishes a foundation. When we were dealing with the sixth line of the 3rd
hexagram which is called ‘Surrender,’ the very next hexagram is the 27.1. This line is called
‘Selfishness.’ Think about what caring is all about. The foundation of caring is Selfishness and if you
look at this line, it has the Sun exalted and the Earth in detriment. Whenever you see Sun/Earth
together in the same line, you know that this line has enormous impact. It is speaking for one of the
basic structures that we have. Sun above/ Earth below. (the other lines with Sun exalted /Earth in
detriment are: 8.2; 12.6; 14.6; 15.2; 20.3; 23.4; 29.5; 31.1; 38.3; 40.6; 48.4: There is one line Earth
exalted/ Sun detriment: 9.3)

Here, the Sun exalted, The ego-driven first law of caring for oneself which is not necessarily at the
expense of others. First lines have to know what it is to care. Caring begins at home. It begins with
yourself, it begins with your own life. To care for yourself is to enhance the quality of your own life,
this is where it begins: Selfishness is not bad. It is the foundation of caring. First you have to care
for yourself. The Earth in detriment, Envy and its attendant misfortunes. In the white book, The
power to care for oneself first. You cannot give to anyone unless you have looked after yourself first.
One the other side, we have The power of selfishness that is manifested through envy. “I cannot
look after myself. I want somebody to look after me. I wish I could look after myself the way they
do.”

The other side of this energy. You are always going to have that. We are a binary. Every single step
along the genetic path goes into two different directions all the time. There are some of us who
recognize intrinsically that we have to care for ourselves first and there are the others in our society
who say, "I can’t care for myself. Somebody has to care for me.” This is the preemptive strike. This
is weakness and strength. The strong ones can care for themselves and the weak ones cannot.