Hari Nam and Healing Heart Center

#33 Line 2, #1

The Superior Person avoids the petty and superficial by keeping shallow men at a distance, not in anger but with dignity.
Such a retreat sweeps the path clear to Success.
Occupy yourself with minute detail.Retreat in this instance is not a desperate flight in disarray, but a conscious choice to distance yourself from forces that would rob you of your peace.  It is not a surrender, but a regrouping.
Retreat from this conflict is actually an advance toward your own center.
You move toward balance, and thus a much stronger position.
While the superior men retreat and the inferior press after them, the inferior man represented here holds on so firmly and tightly to the superior men that the latter cannot shake him off. And because he is in quest of what is right and so strong in purpose, he reaches his goal.
The time for action has come.
You now have the focus and the stamina necessary for accomplishing great tasks.  The path before you is being cleared and reward lies ahead.

#23

The Superior Person will use this time of oppression to attend to the needs of those less fortunate.  Any action would be ill-timed.
Stand fast.
This pictures a time when inferior people are pushing forward and are about to crowd out the few remaining strong and superior men. Under these circumstances, which are due to the time, it is not favorable for the superior man to undertake anything.
The right behavior in such adverse times is to be deduced from the images and their attributes. The lower trigram stands for the earth, whose attributes are docility and devotion. The upper trigram stands for the mountain, whose attribute is stillness. This suggests that one should submit to the bad time and remain quiet. For it is a question not of man’s doing but of time conditions, which, according to the laws of heaven, show an alternation of increase and decrease, fullness and emptiness. It is impossible to counteract these conditions of the time. Hence it is not cowardice but wisdom to submit and avoid action.