I Ching Concerns: Repeated Questions
People often believe that the toss of the coins or separation of the stalks is too random to be considered relevant. They also argue that if you ask the same question more than once and receive different hexagrams it makes the I Ching invalid. To clarify this misconception, we'll take an example. Suppose someone were to ask you, "What is your opinion of Mr. Yang". You answer that he is a nice and quiet type of guy. Now, if the next day you heard rumors in the neighborhood that Mr. Yang came stumbling home drunk at 4 AM with a woman on each arm while his wife was at the hospital spending the night with her sick mother, and someone asks you again your opinion of Mr. Yang...your answer this time is drastically different from the first answer. Perhaps somewhere along the lines of having to do with a womanizing, lousy, drunk. Then you find out it was all a rumor and in fact Mr.Yang was sailing the Seven Seas on his million dollar yacht. Someone now asks you the same question a third time, "What is your opinion of Mr. Yang". You now say what a rich and lucky guy he is to be able to travel like that. In the end you find out that it was Mr. Yang's wife's third cousin who was actually doing the traveling.
You were asked the exact same question three times and you gave three totally different answers. Why ? It is because the information you received after the first question influenced the way you answered the second. The same thing happened between the second and third question. It is the same with the I Ching. If you should ask the same question more than once, the information gained from the first inquiry would interfere with a receptive state of mind causing altering hexagrams. Rest assured that if you asked the I Ching the same question 20 times and you received 20 different hexagrams, the I Ching answered correctly 20 times. This is extremely difficult for a rationally dominated mind to accept or comprehend. To avoid the confusion of multiple hexagrams it is advisable to ask your question or concern only once and concentrate on the received hexagram until you understand the information completely. In this way, you avoid the barriers........the barrier being mainly the ego.