EWS #41: On Astrology, avoiding its influence (3)
Aug 24, 2019
Topics:
Narad (0:00:00)
Namaste! Welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. And today we continue with Sraddhalu's study of astrology and what astrology possibly could do for us. Namaste.
Sraddhalu (0:00:47)
So this is the third in our sequence on astrology. In the first one we looked at the overall scheme of astrology, how it captures in the horoscope, the symbolism, a cosmic symbolism of the relationship of the two extremes of absolutes, God and the human soul and an in-between nature, which is represented symbolically by the zodiac which has a sense of permanence and the universe and the human soul in the sense of the 12 houses and all aspects of your personality, parts of your body, activities of your life and between these two, there is a movement of rotation with nature playing in between represented by the nine planets and we looked at the whole symbolism and the way the symbolism works and the influences of the planets. In the second session we looked at what astrology is not and particularly highlighting the fact that although astrology is mathematical, your destiny is not. Astrology is a mathematical science just as stock market prediction is a mathematical science. You do analysis based on numbers in the stock market but how accurate is your stock market prediction? Not very. As good as astrology. So to use Sri Aurobindo's language he says some of them are right, sometimes they are not and he says I've never known anyone who is infallible because you can't be. You can't be infallible because the future is not fixed and astrology even as a science distinguishes between what comes by compulsion of circumstances and what comes by the free choice of the individual and it's a complex mixture of these. Especially when dealing with many individuals, you have a mix of so many wills, as well as so many impulses and so what astrology actually describes is not what will happen, is not what you will do or not do, is not whether you will succeed or fail. It describes only trends of influences acting upon a given situation at that moment. Trends of influences, not all the cosmic influences, but only of this layer of influences associated with the planets. And primarily Sri Aurobindo observes they act through the life energy, through the vital energy. So here is a very interesting idea, if you look at the full spectrum of reality you have the physical world, the vital world, the mental world and ranges of spiritual and many finer gradations in between. The only influence of astrology is in the vital and that also is not all the vital, a particular grade of the vital. How valuable is that in the full scheme of things? It's one of so many influences. And what it does at that point is nudge you at an energetic level in certain tendencies. So let's say in the chart or in the current positioning of the planets on your chart, Mars which represents a physical energy or a physical vital energy is in a debilitated condition then it would mean that your energy right now is more chaotic, unstable, unsteady or impulsive, disorganized energy of that grade. On the other side, let's say Venus representing a certain more artistic influence of the higher vital, which is in a very good harmonious place. It would mean in your higher vital, there is a tendency of that influence operating. The moon, which would represent the emotional mind, is placed in a particular position of the enemy, it is as if your emotional mind feels suffocated or bound or captured in circumstances alien to it or contrary to its comfort. Now all of this would create a tendency for you to get upset or agitated or to misread or to misunderstand people because your emotional mind is more active and your analytic power as represented by Mercury, a discriminating analytical power is as if dulled. What happens? What's going to be your behavior? Now nobody can say exactly what you will do, but they can say you will get into trouble. And that's all the astrology would describe. Here is a complex of influences which makes for this kind of instability in these parts and that kind of pull and push based on which given your current situation you are likely to end up with this kind of problem. It's not telling you your future, it's only describing your character and the tendencies of your character given those influences and what the chart will say is, 6 months down that positioning changes, now Mars moves out into a more stable and good place and your courage and your higher vital energies will come forward you will be more stable and your discriminating power of Mercury will kick in etc. and so you can say, if you have to take serious decisions for your life this is not the time to do it, do it later when you are more clear headed.
[Narad] But it's all taking place in this vital area.
[Sraddhalu] Exactly, the influence of the vital nudging, pushing, pulling. As long as you live in that, this description will be reasonably accurate. Even there, you see, you are not taking into account the fact that you are married to a person who is very clear-headed and whatever your sentimental confusion may be right now, the clear-headed influence now tells you, no you will not do this nonsense. That's enough to knock out the astrology. Isn't it? Because you are not separate, you have a mixed, let's say karmic bond. So you are not taking into account all that. You are not taking into account the fact that you are living in a household where there are people who have created an atmosphere of prayer and grace and protection. Where in spite of your internal confusion, you were prevented from getting into trouble in spite of your stupidity. And so what can the chart say? Other than describing the influences on you on that narrow band, it cannot say anything else. All the rest is dependent on everything else which astrology is not able to perceive. But a good astrologer might perceive intuitively things and then it is the intuition which is giving you this as a let's say a point of support, point d'appui in French, as a point of support the mind turns, 'oh yeah this guy's in trouble emotionally right now', and the intuition flashes, 'watch out you might just end up having an accident, if you're driving be careful', right? That's all it does, that's all you can see. But that came by the intuition not by this.
Narad (0:08:52)
I read just recently about a comment from Sri Aurobindo about a young man who had an accident. You know that story I'm sure. He was on his cycle and he tried to get out of the way of the car by going in front and was run over. And the question to Sri Aurobindo was, could Mother not have saved him? Sri Aurobindo posits many other possibilities. He said perhaps he was not in the right consciousness at that time to ask the protection. Or perhaps it might have been even a life choice of his soul. So many things that it seems astrology doesn't touch.
Sraddhalu (0:09:32)
No, it cannot, it cannot touch. Because those things are not part of a planetary configuration and influence. It's not a machinery. In fact, there's an example Mother gives. This was a group of students from the ashram school who had gone to the Gingee fort, and one boy drowned. And Mother spoke of that, in the Agenda she records how the boy was instead of reaching out to her for help he was constantly trying to reach out to somebody who was part of the group head and as a result was not receptive to her help. Now this is the problem people have. They think the Divine help should be instantaneously accessible at all times. You may be doing something utterly stupid but somehow Mother's hand must come and protect you at each step of your stupidity and prevent you from falling and even if you don't call the protection should act automatically. And it doesn't work like that. And also that the protection should be infallible and so if something happens 'God willed it, Mother wanted me to fail', that's how people actually say and I get so upset when people blame the Mother. So earlier I would keep quiet and then I decided that's not fair. So I tell them when people say, 'you know, I lost this and well it is Mother's will'. I say, why do you blame the Mother for your foolishness? And they are a bit shocked and then they don't say that again. But I think we should say it. Why are you blaming the Divine for something which you did knowing full well it was dangerous?
Narad (0:11:12):
And one goes out of the sphere of protection because of all kinds of desires.
Sraddhalu (0:11:17):
Absolutely. When you knowingly do something that is wrong ,you have put yourself out of the protection. if in your innocence you make a mistake the protection might still be active if you are in a state of alignment with the protection, if you are not in alignment the protection may try to help you but you are the one coming in the way blocking it. So the way the Mother explains this, she says, 'the help is always there with you but your call makes it effective'. So I use this analogy let's say you have and we all are living in the little shell and cocoon of our little ego and self-interest and we are so wrapped up in it we are not even conscious of anything significant outside our little bubble of self-interest and you are in trouble you are drowning and you are saying, 'well I will fight, I will overcome' and you keep beating the water. Meanwhile there's the Divine hand that puts out the hand and says, 'hold my hand, I'm going to pull you out', you said, 'no, I'm going to beat my way through'. How will the help work and it's only when you say, 'help mother', you reach out your hand that you've cut through a little shell remembering there's something greater, someone greater waiting to help you, you've given your hand that she can hold and pull you out. And so the active call for help or a state of alignment, I will use the word state of grace, where you are aligned to the Divine Grace allows that help to be constantly effective.
Mother made it a point in the earlier days of the ashram that anytime someone went out they had to inform her including the details of what time they were leaving, which train or whatever it was, when they went for the picnics like this she would ask for the names of every single person, what time they were planning to go, what time they were planning to come, everything was written and given to her. Now, it didn't mean that she needed to see every single name in detail, sit down and connect to each one separately. In her consciousness, the whole thing was taken and as if the whole group consciousness was held, wrapped in the protection. But the necessity of the time was because the special protection was activated for the purpose of that picnic. Today nobody cares. Nobody in the ashram cares about it. They go for their picnics, they do their things. Well, 'mother is not there 'or it's flattened out to 'Mother is everywhere, so, why do you need to do it'? Well, that's the relationship you have set. It was, I think, Udar who shared with us this incident where Mother, he was going to go for some work, he was in a train and the train had a head-on collision and the other side the train completely fell off the track and his train bounced off the track and fell vertically next to the track and hardly anyone was injured. So he immediately took the next means of return, came to the Mother and went to report to her what happened and he said before he could say anything, Mother said, 'I was not sure in which bogie you were, so I had to save the whole train'. But you see, the importance of that precision. Now mother did not need that specific data, the protection was there generally but the specific data would allow a more precise intervention which of course is there even today and of course you don't need to write it on a piece of paper and put in a slot in her room the point is to be in that connection with her and yes the help will be there but when the protection tells me do not do this and at that point my desire overrides the guidance and says, 'ah but I want', you have set aside the protection, you have gone on and put yourself in trouble and that's when you end up making a mistake, and then you say, 'ah yes it was Mother's will that I was to make it'.
Narad (0:15:35):
These are questions that were given to Sri Aurobindo about going to restaurants outside, same thing. 'Mother would not have allowed it but you chose to do it'.
Sraddhalu (0:15:42):
Yes, yes. So coming back to the theme of astrology, the important idea here is this. All that astrology is doing is giving you this very narrow band of influences and those influences are also on a very general level if at that point, let's say my Mars is debilitated and I am feeling this emotional disturbance, if at that point I say, well, I don't like the state in which I am and it's not right to take a decision in a state of emotional confusion and I shift my consciousness to bring myself to clarity and calm, I center myself more deeply than my emotional instinctive desire nature, already I am free of that astrological influence and if at that point from the poise of a deeper or higher calm I bring that calm into my emotional nature, I have snuffed out the astrological influence. And all I can say is that influence which you have brought in may not last too long if your nature is not sufficiently transformed and so after a night sleep you wake up and you have the old tendency of the astrological influence still creeping in but I could still push it out and if my nature is sufficiently made conscious I can be completely free of it. Just the moment where you come into pure thought, clarity of conscious awareness, you have put that part of you free of the astrological influence and so how valuable is astrology if you think from a yogic point of view, in fact Mother observes, 'when you pay attention to the planets, they pay attention to you'. This is very interesting observation she makes, those who don't believe in astrology are actually more immune to it than those who believe in astrology. And remember the idea is these are influences which are conscious and of course they are influencing everything but there are other things which are influencing everything and above all there is a Divine Mother who is influencing everything. To whom do you align more? And if I am thinking every morning, today Mars is in such and such a house, Jupiter is now debilitated, what will happen to me by putting attention on those things I am opening myself to their influence and engaging with them and they are conscious beings, you pay attention to them, their influence on you grows because they say, 'ah yes, here's a nice guy, he likes me, let me connect more strongly'. Instead I say, 'I don't care about charts, my relationship is with the Divine Mother and every morning I invoke her presence, her help, her guidance that connection grows. And even if the other connection is there, it's no different from the weather. This is my favorite example, every morning the weather report tells you things- your humidity will be high, temperature will be high or It's going to rain, it's going to be cloudy and of course it influences your life but does it determine what you will do? No. If it's going to rain very hard, well it does influence you, it does affect you but I can say I'm going to go and take an umbrella and go anyway and you're free to do you just have to work a little harder, get around it. If it's too hot, well you find yourself perspiring, you're uncomfortable, you're tired but you still are free to do what you want. So it's more like a subtle current that astrology captures, it describes, but you can swim against the current, you put a little more effort, or you open the sails, you are on a boat, you open the sails, catch the wind, the action of the grace, or your will power which is your motorboat you can go against the current. You see the analogy is quite apt for this. Recognizing the place of astrology and as a genuine science as valuable as the science of stock market prediction. it's a good analogy there, accurate, mathematical within limits, utterly failing beyond those limits, we can choose to not be embedded in it and open ourselves to a higher source both of fate and free will.
So I am going to qualify this. What exactly is fate? Because this is the big question that comes. Amalkiran, after reading everything Sri Aurobindo had said about it, was still very confused. So he went to the Mother and said, Mother tell me clearly once and for all yes or no. Is there free will or not because I'm too confused after reading, and of course Mother said, yes. But the explanation is very simple putting it in this way, what is fate? in the true sense of the word is the free choice of the self of the soul when the soul chooses this is the line of development that I wish to fulfill because it is the self that chooses, it is the Divine which chooses, nothing can prevent that from happening but it doesn't mean it will happen in a fixed time or in a fixed circumstance. It's rather a compelling intention held by the Divine will and eventually you can wander all you want, eventually you will end up there. Things may come which may oppose, but eventually in spite of them you will still get there.
Narad (0:21:19):
Even if it is life, it could be other lives.
Sraddhalu (0:21:22):
Yes, across lives. So really the sense of fate is an expression of free will. That is the point. There is no absolute fate that someone else chooses. It is the free choice of your soul, of the self which wants to achieve something or realize something. Of course at an intermediate level there are secondary, we may use the word fate, a series of energies have been released which have coalesced to a point where they have become almost material, it's very difficult to stop it, sometimes an accident even very difficult to stop but one can still stop or modify or ensure that you are not hurt. So I will share another interesting incident. I was in Delhi. At that time there was a place called Chattarpur. I don't know if you have heard of Chattarpur Mandir. It is a whole complex of temples which was created by one Baba Nagpal. He was a very famous saint and nobody knew where he came from. He just built these and they were all on public land, so they were illegal constructions but the government just accepted it and well, things worked out eventually. When the government had sent during the emergency, they had sent bulldozers to raze the temples, this man sat with a shawl over his head before the temple deity and just prayed and one by one all the bulldozers broke down, that's what they say. So since then they stopped bothering him. So as it turned out my friend, the astrologer, the guy who was in astrology and business, he took me to meet that man and he was an exceptional person. I had a very beautiful experience meeting him. He is now no more. He was wearing oxygen mask because his body was very frail and he said certain things to me and it was I said I'm from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and then he suddenly started about when a tree is growing sometimes there are branches which are deadened and you have to keep pruning the tree to make sure it remains healthy. Now why would you say that? It is very symbolic Very symbolic, oh, yes, you can see what it means
Narad (0:23:35):
Oh! We don't want to go further right now, but I would ask you about if there is a difference between predestination and fate.
Sraddhalu (0:23:43):
Yes, okay. I'll just, let me finish this incident. So I'm sitting with him and we're talking about things and then I came back, I was in my friend's house and my friend now starts narrating an incident. Someone had gone to Baba Nagpal, he was to leave and Nagpal said wait, wait, wait held him back for two full hours for no reason at all, just said wait and then after two hours he said you can go. So the guy asked why did you hold me back and Baba Nagpal says, "you know, I saw there was a potential for accident. I held you back to avoid that. Now you're fine, you'll be. Go ahead". So my friend tells me the story. Then a group of friends, old family friends, they come to meet me and suddenly they narrate an incident which took place two years ago and asked me, it was about an accident. So what had happened was two years ago I was sitting with them and they were talking about somebody, one of their relatives in the United States and as they were describing it, I had this very distinct vision of a car going and it was on the edge of a cliff and the danger of accident and the sense of a time span of two years. It was so vivid I said what do I do when something like that comes? Well it's my duty to say it. So I said, 'I don't know what to make of it but just tell them to be careful two years from now, maybe some problem with car accident or so, I don't know'. And those days I was naive, I didn't know what to make of these things. And so these people come to me and say to me, you know exactly two years ago you had told us this, is it still valid? And I tried to feel and I could feel nothing and I said no it feels like there's nothing, whatever it was I don't know, I just said what happened at that time, very odd. And then a third person came who also narrated a story about some accident. And I am wondering what is this? Something unusual. Everyone is talking about accidents. I said, okay, work done. That evening I take my flight back to Chennai. I reach late in the evening. The car driver is there waiting. He is an old man. Maybe he was very aged. He was drunk, half drunk. I don't know what, his eyes were red and we're driving home and it's so late I go to sleep in the car and suddenly I wake up from sleep hearing loud screeching of brakes and the whole car is going zigzag and the shock of that obviously some inner part you know was vigilant, it woke me and it happened so quickly I immediately pushed braced myself against the seat and just calling out Mother's name loudly. It was all so immediate, I was not even conscious. I was just calling Mother's name and I was bracing myself and the car careened off the road, it missed some other car and went and slammed into a wall and the engine / radiator was leaking the steam and that's it. This driver was stunned, the whole seat had moved forward and it's as if the wheel was pressed against his stomach, a little more and it might have broken a rib. Nobody was injured, luckily. We call up the taxi service, they send another car which came within half an hour and went back. And then I'm wondering, three people talking about accident.
[Narad] Did you see your own?
[Sraddhalu] I don't know. Well it was clearly seen in the US, but it was as if something happened. I still cannot explain what happened. Was it the energy of that accident which might have happened which got somehow diverted or I was given a warning by the three people speaking of it at the same time, I don't know what to make of it but it's interesting and I give this as an example of how sometimes energies can coalesce for a particular outcome they can be diverted, they can be mitigated, one can ensure that there is no injury by an intervention but the accident itself, that form of it may be unpreventable because it has got too rigidified. And I remember one of my friends he was in my class, he was in Bangalore and they went for a picnic they were driving at night. Their van went off the road, down a cliff, slammed at the bottom, the person behind him broke his head, the person in front of him broke his head and he was untouched. Obviously the protection was active with him. How can that happen? Well, that's how it is. The intervention may not always be able to prevent the physical outcome, but it does not mean it was fated. This is my point. There's an accumulation of energies which leads to an outcome, but it's not that you had to have an accident. But sometimes energies join up, little pieces, tendencies which could have dissipated have joined up and once they have joined up, you cannot prevent, but you can still modify and the grace will intervene, will act if you are in that state of attunement to save and protect. So my point is this is not fate, the true sense of fate is the free choice of the self. Freedom is the fundamental principle of this creation and the soul is the poise of your nature, of your whole being, in which you have the full freedom. As you move away from the center, more and more into nature, you have less and less freedom. In the outermost machinery of matter, you have the least freedom because that's where you have the law of physics, so to say the mechanization of the energies, but you step back a little bit, you can modify. A little step back more you can modify more and from the poise of the self you can intervene to change everything or create a new fate.
Narad (0:29:51):
We see this in book seven of Savitri when she has to go through this and she goes deeper and deeper and finds her true way.
Sraddhalu (0:30:00):
Yes and unless you're poised or at least aligned to that, you do not have a true freedom. So to bring this into the context of astrology, would you rather submit consciously more to the influence of the freedom of the Divine Will, of the self, of the divine Mother or would you rather submit to the machinery of low vital grade of energies of nature. That's the choice really. And especially for those who are in the yoga, you have to make a conscious choice. And I would recommend therefore, do not look at your horoscope. Do not let people speak to you of what they read in your palm or in your horoscope. Some of them unfortunately can be quite perverse. And so I will give an example of how it works. The fellow I mentioned last time in Bangalore that I happened to meet. I very genuinely asked a question and it was a very casual thing, I said you know I am planning to do such and such a project and what do you think about it? and he very forcefully said, No! and the way he said the no, it was as if he put an intention, it was like a curse. This is a very important principle of astrology or astrologers. No astrologer wants to be proved wrong. Isn't it? So when they tell you something, they may believe it, they may just be making a rule of thumb guess, doesn't matter. They put a force that it should come true because it is their reputation at stake, it is their pride in their skill or their job. And so they put a force that wants this to happen. If they say you are going to have an accident or you are going to fall ill, they are saying it with force like a curse. Tell me how is this different from a curse? They don't intend it as a curse, but the force they put is effectively, if it's a negative statement, is effectively a curse. So each time you expose yourself to someone like that you are exposing yourself to someone's curse who wants that statement to work out and no astrologer tells you only positive things. Their sense of self-importance is in telling you things which will shock you, so if they are going to tell you something negative, well they are putting an energy to make it happen I know of a case of someone in the ashram who used to see the palm and he met somebody and said you will die in 15 days and the fellow died in 15 days and it was reported to the Mother. Mother said to him, 'you should never speak of someone's death'. But the point was this - in the act of saying it, you are releasing or pushing out an energy to make it happen. So you remember the line of Narada speaking in Savitri, 'this day returning', when he says that, 'Satyavan is to die', and the word Sri Aurobindo uses it's as if I don't remember the exact words, he says, when he speaks, it's as if he is releasing the spring of the energy, releasing the action of the fate. This idea is very important. Even if there is a tendency of energies circumstances trying to work out, they are trying, against many other forces the moment a person aligns to one of these and says this will happen, you have given to that force a greater possibility of outcome and given it a connection now to your consciousness, whereas all these days I lived thinking I am free no problem I'm not going to have an accident and here's a person who gives me with certainty in two weeks this will happen and it goes into my subconscious and it pops up. I may not be conscious but it pops up is it two weeks yet? Is it two weeks? Oh my god today is the day, I better be careful and anything happening within those two weeks I say, 'see that man said it. Now, it's come true'. And if it doesn't happen in two weeks, I say well maybe I've just missed it it might happen tomorrow and that whole turn of my consciousness waiting for it to happen, is opening a channel for that energy to work out and execute itself. So my recommendation from a yoga perspective is DO NOT expose yourself to any kind of soothsayer, whether astrologer, palmist, face reader or any kind, any of these nadis. Expose yourself only to the Divine Mother, Her protection, Her will and your soul's choice and your soul's allegiance to the Divine Will and its service. Nothing else should ever be allowed to come in between, even as a suggestion. And if somebody were to say something like that, even without your permission, I didn't show my palm but the guy just grabbed my hand and said something, well I'm going to say to him, 'I'm sorry, I do not wish to hear, do not speak'. That's the way you should ideally do it, IF you want to maintain this sense of freedom. To put it in other terms, even if certain energies had coalesced for a particular outcome, by putting yourself in acceptance of that prediction, you are giving it a chance to take place. By not knowing it, and remaining in alliance with the Mother's consciousness, you are allowing her to intervene to prevent it from happening. And Mother puts it like this, she says, we thank the Divine Grace every time that we avoid an accident, but we don't realize how many more times an accident is avoided and we don't even know about it. You see, the example I gave earlier of Baba Nagpal preventing a person from leaving for two hours, how many times we have got delayed for some silly reason, we curse the reason which delayed us and maybe it's the Grace preventing us from getting into bigger trouble. We don't even know it and so it's better we remain in that allegiance and alliance rather than allowing such suggestions.
Where is astrology useful? So I just share with you a few observations. There was a person I had mentioned maybe in the first session who was such a good astrologer, he could actually describe a person's appearance from the chart and so for a while I played with him, trying out this. I would look at what came from an intuition and I would ask him to see what came from the horoscope and in most cases it lined up. But at some point I found the intuition was not only more precise in detail, but when he gave a suggestion, it interfered with my sense of freedom and so I came to that conclusion very quickly. if you need to know something, rely on a higher intuition to guide you and where you don't need to know rely on the intuition to withhold it from you., which is an interesting case. It would happen often, just before the new year I would as if try to turn my awareness to try to feel what the year would bring. And sometimes you get glimpses. And there was one particular year when I tried to turn and it was like a blank wall. Nothing. It's as if I'm being prevented. It was opaque, prevented from seeing. And that was the year when I had some of the worst, unimaginably worst difficulties that I had to go through - psychologically, perhaps materially, I don't remember, but mostly internally and if I had known it was to come, it would have been more unbearable and so I said, trust the intuition to withhold from you when it is better for you not to know. Equally to reveal to you when you do need to know so that you can do something about it and from a yoga perspective this matters. So where is it useful? In a normal life, where somebody is not interested in the yoga, when somebody is not interested in a higher spiritual development or an attempt to grow in consciousness to be free from these lower tides of energies, which is what astrology maps. For them, it may help them to give some indications, some directions. You want to launch your ship, it's useful to know what is the phase of the moon and when the tide will move, when it will be high tide for you to launch the ship, useful perhaps. And so for that part of the world where you are living by largely instinctive movements in the groove of nature which is mostly instinctive and you want to catch certain tides, here's a good time, auspicious moment, certainly use the chart. I used to say in the past that the only thing left after you have removed all this is when you have to face extreme uncertainty, for example, when you have an arranged marriage, you don't know whether the couple is compatible, look at the chart to make a match, maybe it works, maybe not, but it's worth trying. But even that, today I have changed my mind. I come to the conclusion that seeing the number of failures of marriage today, largely because of the highly individualized nature of humanity, even that is not something I would recommend. And rather let people meet and choose and find their own compatibility or not. Give them the reference points on which to base their choice or decision but astrology is not going to be helpful there either. I have some passages from Sri Aurobindo which might be worth reading and these are of course he is describing astrology but also the conditions in which an astrologer is effective.
Narad (0:40:11):
Perhaps before you do this, I'd like to go way back and ask you how did it formulate and wasn't it true in the Vedic times?
Sraddhalu (0:40:22):
Absolutely, in fact astrology as I said is a science. It was formulated by a perception of these realities by those who could see them. Just as if you go to the ocean you can notice that tides have cycles, you notice that they are synchronized with the moon and if you are a sailor, well that observation is of extreme value and if you can calculate the position of the moon you can anticipate when you would want to launch your ship and if this is true with the moon, on a slightly subtler level it's true of all these planets and their influences for so many things. For example, if you want to plant seeds, the best time to plant is when the moon is beginning to wax because the energies are rising. Equally when you, if you want to bring something to come and to end, you catch the movement of the tail end of the moon waning. And so, these are tides of energies. You have tides relating to the Sun. And there is one particular transition of the tide which is from December about 24th, where the Sun has gone to the extreme South and now they reverse and they become longer and the nights are beginning to dim, to become less long. That's the point of transition of tides on the subtle worlds where the light is now pushing back against the dark and the balance changes and in certain occult traditions they say that shift in the occult, in the vital worlds, makes it now easy for the soul to cross this passage to enter the higher regions of light. Till then the dark pushing the light being dominant, it's difficult for the soul to make that passage. Now this insight was greatly valued in the old days, when they would in fact say you wait for that day before quitting the body. In the Mahabharata there is this famous incident of Bhishma who had the gift of choosing when he could die or when he would leave his body. So he is now full of arrows, he is lying down on a bed of arrows and he says I have to wait for this date, December 24th, and once that date is reached, he says, 'ok, now I am ready to leave'. What I discovered was, this was also formulated in other ways. When I went to Ireland they had this big mound which is called Newgrange if I remember right. And it was one of those mounds where they had an opening for the rising sunlight to go straight through on 24th of December only. The light would go right through. And there is a very narrow crevice you walk through to get to the caves inside. So I went there, as tourists go there, I went there and there were three cubicles and what they explained was after people died their bones would be placed here and on 24th December the sunlight would come through that hole, touch the bones as if lifting the person now to help make that transition to the next. And symbolically you can see how valuable it would be for those who recognized this shift of tides. I had a similar experience at Stonehenge. Only that one point of the year. And keeping in mind that in those days you didn't have clocks, you needed very precise stone alignments to catch those special moments and sometimes they align them to certain stars as you see in the Great Pyramid, they are aligned to a couple of stars, there are long passages cut through the pyramid and of course the whole thing is aligned to the constellation of Orion. The three pyramids are placed in the exact same proportion of position as the three stars of the belt of Orion and in exact proportion of brightness the pyramids are large. And there are three little stars which are next to the belt which are often called the dagger of Orion and exactly in proportion on earth you find those three little pyramids. And then if you take it now to conclusion, there are four other stars which make for the body of Orion and exactly on earth in Egypt you find temples on those locations. So they literally replicated the whole of the constellation of Orion in exact proportion on earth as if aligning earth with heaven. For what? If you think about it and remember they were invoking or evoking certain energies of heaven upon the earth for a particular benefit or an outcome. So astrology emerged from these insights and the science itself was built on the observation on the subtle levels of these tides, their utility and how they could be applied to helping human affairs. The whole goal is really helping you to grow.
Narad (0:45:41):
At that time it was not in that small vital range.
Sraddhalu (0:45:44):
It was still in the same vital range but humanity lived much more there. The age of individualism and reason is a relatively recent phenomenon, isn't it? Before that people lived much more in the sentimental mind, emotional mind and the mass of humanity even today is largely living in that. But the individualization was not so strong. These were helpful means and one of many helpful means. Not that everybody consulted astrologers or looked at the horoscope. So if you see in India, it took a form where when a child was born, the astrologer would give a reading of their whole life and write down at this age, with this change of tide, this is likely to happen, that is likely to happen and so on. But in the horoscope they would sometimes say, this is a horoscope in which there is far greater freedom because of certain combinations which show that the person lives in a higher state of consciousness. Jupiter exalted, the Sun in a particular position, so Jupiter representing the higher wisdom of the mind or the Sun representing the soul and its influence. If those are strong then whatever we say is only indicative at a certain level. So all that, how useful is it? I don't know. But as long as it helped people to give them a sense of direction or a sense of certainty or stability in a world of uncertainty, why not, it is useful. In the Vedic age, in the Vedic tradition, its primary utility was for certain rituals, Where the Vedic, they use the word sacrifice, but I don't like that term, it is not the correct word, where the Vedic ritual of the fire ceremony, Vedic ceremony is the word we will use, the Vedic ceremony itself sometimes had to be done at specific points of alignment with certain planets or positions of Sun and Moon for optimizing the alignment with the cosmos for a particular outcome. There it was critical to have this calculation.
[Narad] Could you read it?
[Sraddhalu] Yes, so Sri Aurobindo writes this. This is that text which I told you people have not understood its value. He says, "Astrology depends on three things, the position of the planets in the heavens and with regard to each other, the condition of planets at the natal hour or at the moment of inquiry and the general character or tout ensemble of the horoscope. Any error or deficiency with regard to any of these three elements separately or regards to their mutual relations will affect the work of the astrologer and vitiate its correctness or its completeness. To cast a horoscope completely is one of the most difficult operations known to science”. And he says, “the astrologer is born, not made. It is as impossible to manufacture a perfect astrologer by education as to manufacture a poet". Interesting. So you see here, the analogy he gives tells you straight away, it is primarily an intuitive consciousness as the poet. "Hence the disrepute into which the profession of astrology too lightly and numerously followed has fallen in the Kali Yuga. In addition, sure truths of the true science are lost, and the little that remains is replete with errors. Astrologers make lucky hits or stumble on the truth, but it is only a rare genius here and there who can predict correctly, or even if he is never safe against error and even he is never safe against error for even when his intuition divines correctly, his authorities mislead him". Very interesting, straight away he is pointing out that the key to the success of the astrologist's precision is the intuition but if the authority is relying upon say something wrong then obviously he has a conflict between intuition and the authority. So there is another text which I had mentioned earlier, where he says something similar. I will just read out from there. "The astrology of the rules handed down by Parashara and other writers, with all the crowd of errors that have been accumulating since the beginning of Kali Yuga. The professors of the science do not understand it to begin with, and what they do know, they continuously misapply by careless miscalculation and deliberate falsification. Only a few who either have powers inborn or developed by yoga or are gifted with the intuitive eye which no astrologer can do without, are able to get some of their calculations strikingly right amid a mass of errors". Straight away you can see the value of astrology, a few things right and the bulk is mass of errors, why would you expose yourself to errors needlessly, just for one right thing and you wouldn't know which is error and which is right. And then he says, "this is the present position of the science, in order to get rid of the element of error it is necessary, first, that the real authorities should be known. Secondly, the meaning of the rules should be revealed. Thirdly, that none but yogis should practice the science."
Sraddhalu (0:51:49):
Okay, which among us is ready to practice the science? This knocks out the whole mass straight away. None of the astrologers today are first yogis, if at all they are second yogis. But if you see the schools of astrology which gives you certificates because you pass the rules and apply mechanically the rules. In fact most of it now has been computerized. Because if the whole calculation is mathematical mechanical the application of rules is mechanical, you don't need a human being put it into a software package and you get more precision there and I've actually looked at some of that stuff what is interesting though is the software of course does not know how to join contradictions or interpret. So for example, in a chart the house, 11th house is the house of income, 12th house is the house of expenditure. So the chart shows for example huge amounts coming in and huge amounts going out. So the guy is going to be extremely wealthy. That's what the computer will tell you. Except a human intuitive astrologer would say, ah ah, this fellow will have a huge inflow of money and if the intuition kicks in, he will say you are going to be a bank clark. Every day you have millions coming in your hands and going out, you don't own it, it doesn't make you wealthy. Just an example. So I don't go further into this, but you get the idea. So now I come finally to the big question and we'll end with this. As I have said very firmly, it is best not to expose yourself to it.
And there is this one example which was narrated to us by somebody in the ashram. We had done a series of interviews like what you are doing now. In those days we did it with audio tape only. And one of the persons whose name I don't remember now had narrated this incident. There was a family in the ashram. Someone in the family was going through a series of problems. They consulted an astrologer. The astrologer said, you've just begun such and such a cycle of a planetary influence. It's going to last many years now and too bad you're going to suffer. Literally, the family reported it to the Mother. Next day, suddenly things have changed. All the problems stopped. And a few weeks passed, all problems had stopped. So now again the family goes back to the Mother and tells the Mother, 'Mother, since we informed you, all the problems have vanished'. Mother said, naturally, I have erased his destiny. That's the phrase which was told to us. And you see the power of the divine Shakti. When you place yourself in her hands, she can take whatever burden of karmas of destiny that you have, and that's what really it is, and change everything, wipe out everything, give you a clean slate to build upon. And so now I come to the second incident which is even more important. Someone writes to Sri Aurobindo saying that ‘in my family lineage we have such and such a person’, you know every family has a family guru or a village guru. So, ‘we have such and such a person who is our family guru and my family insists that I should go to him and take initiation from him because that's the ritual everybody used to go through traditionally. Do I have your permission?’ He asked Sri Aurobindo because he has come to the ashram and accepted Sri Aurobindo as his Guru. So Sri Aurobindo writes back explaining, “when you came to us, we have taken upon ourselves the entire burden of all your karmas. If you were now to go to that guru and expose yourself to his initiation, all of that karma would come back upon you”. And I'm putting this in context today of so many people casually going through initiation rituals not realizing what they're opening themselves to. People have gone to get initiated into pranic healing or Reiki. Oh some Reiki master, Reiki grandmaster. What did he do? He just went through a two-day course and paid a lot of money. Now he's named grandmaster. Master is a word so far reserved for someone who has mastery. None of these people have mastery. All they have done is done courses. That doesn't make you a master. And now you're going to go to this grandmaster or master and get initiated for Reiki, so that you can heal better and I have spoken to people who have gone through that and they will say things like 'yes, since I got initiated, the power is stronger'. Which power have you plugged into? The originator of that system who is led by some vital being; you have just plugged into the network of that vital being's vital influence upon the earth and now the power is greater in you for what? For him to do what he wants, through you, you are a little puppet in his hands and it is sad to see that. And often there are people who are connected with the ashram who profess to be devotees and for some little power of healing which is not even going to be their career, they are going to get initiated not realizing how serious that is. And perhaps it doesn't matter because they never gave themselves totally to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, maybe they never accepted Sri Aurobindo as their Guru, then it doesn't matter. But if they have accepted and have been accepted by him, after that to turn to any inferior source and put yourself under its influence is spiritually dangerous. And this statement of Sri Aurobindo should be for us a warning and a reminder.
Equally there were other examples which were indicative of what Mother could do. There was someone who came to the Mother with a report. 'Mother, the astrologer says so and so will die in 15 days'. And Mother said to him, go and inform everybody in the ashram of this prediction. And so, accordingly everybody was informed and of course nothing happened. What did she do? Very interestingly, the force of the astrologer's statement, you know when he says you're going to die, he's putting a force, his curse, not knowing it in that way, but his curse to make sure it happens. She took the energy and had it dissipated and when everybody is told of a prophecy it never happens. An account, for example, a doctor comes to the Mother and says I just diagnosed X somebody, he has only one functional lung. Mother says to him, 'do not tell him. Do not tell anybody'. And the fellow lived on had a happy comfortable life died at a ripe old age functioning only on one lung not knowing it was the case. Had he been told, he would have become sick. So if you understand the principles behind these forms of intervention of the Mother, and most importantly, the power to completely take the full burden of your karmas, erase your destiny that you can start on a clean slate. This is so important for us who want to be, who aspire to be practitioners of the integral yoga and the supramental yoga, where you want to not have any anchors, shackles pulling you into the past, whether the past is hereditary, biological or psychological or family or any other attachments which would bind you and limit you in the world. When you want to belong entirely to the divine and exclusively to the divine, you want to cut off all these things and be free of it all. For such people, it's very clear what we have to do. And I have shared this in great detail over these three sessions because I went through the exploration to understand the science, to understand its importance, its strength, its limitations, its mechanism of working and I have shared this in a summary form so that it will make sense to you but now maybe you can take the benefit of my explorations to come to the conclusion that it has led me to and save yourself the trouble of having to go through all that study. We respect it as a science as we respect stock market prediction as a science but we don't give to it any further value than that.
Sraddhalu (1:01:04):
Namaste.