Gate 54 — The Marrying Maiden — Interaction within its mundane social context, as well as mystical and cosmic relationships

Full breakdown

Hexagram 54 is, at once, the most mundane fuel to come out of the Root center, and the most un-mundane — there's really no single word for that un-mundane quality; call it heavenly, spiritual, exalted, or transcendent, the opposite of everyday and worldly.

For the vast majority of people who carry this gate, the fuel exists to achieve success within the tribe. We know gate 54 is called The Marrying Maiden. Rearrange the digits and you get the place a marriageable girl wants to reach — the queen's place in gate 45. Gate 54 is the gate of driving ambition, the gate of Drive. Very powerful fuel. It's a drive toward success, because on the other side sits the fear of defeat and failure. It's a drive to be successful on the material plane, since the energy travels its natural path toward 21/45. It's a drive to live inside a community that is, first and foremost, occupied with material matters — a communal society where you have your own shops and your own customers, who become your family's customers. Gate 54 is the drive to transform, or not, and inside that transformation, or the absence of it, lies its own magic, expressed most vividly in the fourth line.

Gate 54 always carries within it the possibility of transformation. Remember, the gate at the other end doesn't just fear defeat — it's also the most conservative of all the gates. Transforming that kind of conservatism is no easy task. This is a very powerful field. The mechanics of this energy are tied to the production of fluids. Gate 54 governs the production of fluids, meaning this is where the formation of memory storehouses begins. Instinct has its roots in the deepest memories, and memory is held in cellular fluid. Gate 54 has a remarkable gift: it remembers only victories and successes, instinctively. Gate 32 on the other side always remembers only defeats and failures. That's how balance gets established. Over the lines it speaks of interaction within its mundane social context, as well as mystical and cosmic relationships. That's the nature of this gate: the most exalted spiritual experience can be present inside the most down-to-earth, mundane one.

On the other side of the bodygraph sits 19/49, the mystical channel of the tribe. Here, in this mirror image on the spleen side, an incredible potential is held. I've spent a lot of time around sannyasins. One of the things I love most about Osho's sannyas is its recognition of the importance of the material in our lives — the understanding that you have to go out into the world and win a triumphant victory on the material plane in order to live true spirituality. It's very easy to be enlightened sitting high up in the mountains where no one sees you and you see no one. It's a completely different matter to be enlightened while working in a supermarket that serves customers around the clock. That's a whole different story, and if you can pull it off under those conditions, that's real mastery. So inside these truly mundane gates lies the knowledge that what's genuinely earthly is the only spiritual path there is. You have to live awareness moment to moment, from one breath to the next.

The fact that this stream of the tribal circuit has an individual nature shouldn't disguise its tribal, communal essence. Here it's all about support. This is very important to understand, because these gates are usually misunderstood. Everything about the nature of these ambitions and drives tends to get read the wrong way.