Gate 21 — Biting Through — The justified and necessary application of force to overcome deliberate and persistent interference

Full breakdown

We've reached a gate of enormous consequence in our lives. These are the gates that very often create a great deal of trouble, because they're the only gates designed for control. They can be gates of control solely because they carry the most powerful Ego of all. That fact — control exercised by a powerful Ego — is legitimate and justified. In other words, this controlling force is necessary in order to serve and protect the tribe.

Gate 21 exists to serve community. Its job is to establish what's vital for the community, what actually works. It has to find out whether the community has what it needs — food, shelter, and the work it requires. Another part of its job is making sure labor and effort are rewarded, that the community isn't only working but also has time to rest. In other words, it takes care of the material needs of everyone living together. This is the Channel of Materialism. Because gate 21 is a gate of control, other people tend to find it hard to tolerate, and very often it's just as hard for the people who carry gate 21 themselves.

The gloss over the lines reads: the justified and necessary application of force to overcome deliberate and persistent interference. These are strong words, and no other gate is described in this kind of language. In other words, gate 21 shouldn't and won't suppress interference that's unintentional or occasional. It has no business dealing with interference that isn't sustained. Its job is to keep things under control, and its use of force is justified and sanctioned. An Ego like this has to attack. That's exactly why it brings discomfort and difficulty both to the people who carry it and to the people who have to deal with it. Exactly how gate 21 plays out depends heavily on the rest of the design it belongs to. An undefined Heart center with gate 21 looks very different from a defined one. Gate 21 in a defined Heart center looks very different again depending on whether you're a Generator, a Manifestor, or a Projector. In other words, once you look at how these gates actually behave in reality, you find a great deal of complexity.

If you're a Projector with gate 21, the people present in your life need to recognize your right and your ability to hold something under your control — otherwise, they're the wrong people for you. If you're a Generator with gate 21, you can only take on control by responding to someone else's request. If you have gate 21 and you're a Manifestor, you first have to ask permission from the people you're going to control. If you have gate 21 in an undefined Heart center, all you can do is wait until you're invited to take control. If you seize control on your own, you destroy your own heart — these gates are directly tied to the heart. And if a person with gate 21 is never allowed to spend their strength holding something under control, then whoever denies them that chance becomes, quite literally, their killer.

This hexagram gets badly misread. Gate 21 has a right to control. It carries a legitimate, genuine right to control, but depending on the design, that control gets permitted and expressed through different paths. Gate 21 needs this work entrusted to it, so it can serve the community in exactly this way. An Ego like this serves the community completely, for as long as its strength is recognized.