Astrology

Astrology is a survival guide to the material world we live in. To go beyond yourself you must first know yourself. By wisely relating the macrocosm (the solar system) with the microcosm (you) astrology becomes a tool for increasing your knowledge of yourself and the people impacting your life. Since knowledge dispels fear, astrology also becomes a tool for fear-elimination. Besides the ultimate goal of taking you closer to God, there are many partial goals on the way, such as finding happiness, that astrology can assist you with. The amount of practical knowledge that astrology can bring is well beyond any other cosmic device, but its complexity also requires more time to master.

What’s Astrology?

Astrology is a vast subject not easy to quickly define, but at its core astrology holds knowledge on how to read our cosmic surroundings, particularly the planets in relation to the stars, in order to assess the characteristics of a point in time and therefore the qualities and development of anything and everything taking birth at a particular moment.

There is no magic to astrology, and astrology is not a substitute for religion, but it can make you more religious and increase your trust in God. Contrary to much of modern psychology, astrology is not a set of loose, often materialistically biased and always severely limited, personal theories, but instead a thorough frame of reference for all facets and variations of life that has withstood the test of time.

Astrology is in one sense neither a science, nor an art, but a most practical cosmic device from the very beginning perfectly designed for your benefit. Unlike natural science of modern Western definition, astrology is less concerned with the questions of how and more focused on the what, when and why.

In another sense astrology is both a science and an art since its predictions should be, can be, and have been repeatedly tested and validated. All the great astronomers you read about in school were also practising astrologers and modern astronomers still use the Tropical Zodiac, by which the planets receive their sign placements.

Astrology has been described as a lamp in darkness. The sanskrit word for astrology is jyotish, meaning the science of light. Without it, life easily becomes a lightless nightmare where we roam about groping in the dark. This website will try its best to provide the amazingly simple and practical lessons the author wishes he had known about years ago.

How it Works

Astrology rests on the Hermetic principle As above, so below. A key tenet of Hermeticism is the Unity of the Cosmos and the sympathy and interconnection of all things. This unity is what makes astrology work. As an analogy to the movements of the planets and the movements of people think of the hands of a clock moving ahead as a train leaves the station. The hands of the clock does not cause the train to move or vice versa, but they are related through the concept of time, or in the word of Carl Jung: Synchronicity.

Basic Terminology

The planets, The houses, and the signs, are the keys to astrology. Each planet has a position or placement in a particular house and a particular sign. The Earth’s movement around its own axis determines position by house or sector of local sky. The Earth’s movement around the Sun (or more correctly vice versa from our viewpoint) determines position by sign or sector of global sky. In the tropical zodiac the signs are given by subdivisions of the four seasons starting with Spring. The houses themselves also have signs. In the sidereal zodiac these are given by the band of distant stars. Signs are counted relative to one specific star or point in this band (such as the fixed star Spica or the Galactic center).

Questions Answered

No other science can eliminate so much confusion out of life as astrology – the science of light. In particular astrology can objectively reveal your life circumstances (obstacles and possibilities), your character (tendencies, biases, abilities, etc.), and your projected future (a combination of the two plus the unfolding of events), Since it can do the same also for everyone you meet it can help you make sense of people. By assisting you in making wiser choices in counselling, hiring and partnering astrology increases your chances of finding happiness, which in turn increases your trust in God. By accurately and objectively pointing out people’s differences (both of fate and character) astrology ironically brings people together. Through revealing predestination it opens your eyes to a reality beyond the illusion of matter and closer to the Whole where unity reigns.

There is guaranteed confusion upon entry into this world even in the event of spotless karma (It is not without reason that babies cry). Life without astrology would be like having multiple classes without any teacher, not knowing the subjects nor your fellow students, or even how long any particular class will last, not to mention for what reason you are having any of them to begin with! Astrology can rapidly clear the confusion and make your life a lot less tense or downright scary and a lot more beneficial to both yourself and the people around you. Jyotish can help relieve mental problems that block your spiritual path, just as ayurveda can help remove bodily problems. To go beyond ourselves, our material conditioning, we must first know ourselves and that includes our past, present, and future. Astrology shows you the path you have taken so that you can retrace your steps out of the jungle. Knowing the problem is half the solution. We all have problems. Astrology can get to the very root of the most important ones in a much more practical way than just the generalities of science and religion. It will pinpoint the exact areas where we fail and in what way. An astrological reading of your birth chart will also rule out other areas where you have already made good progress and that you can use to master the remaining. The degree of focus that astrology offers can make problems almost solve themselves.

At this point in time and in a few but culturally influential western countries where tolerance is at a low point astrology also brings freedom by revealing that we are all different and that you neither have to be or can be a certain way other then the way you are. The same goes for everyone else. In this way the practise of astrology removes the selfishness of sameness and the cruelty of conformity, and instead promotes the selflessness of differentness.

Objective Confirmation

Your Best Self

Basically astrology can give you the opportunity to be your very best self! Astrology will reveal your otherwise hidden potentials and it will do so completely objectively. It can tell you what kind of situations you will encounter a lot of and the sort of reactions that will challenge you and push you to change. Even more specifically astrology can tell you what periods of time will be best for your work, all the benefits and challenges of any particular relationship you form, as well as when, if at all, you should look out for illness, what general type of illness it will be, and how long it will last.

Tolerance and Individualism

On this planet, at this particular time and especially in the West it is common to prejudge individuals by minor physical attributes such as age, gender or color of skin instead of realizing that people have more important individual differences that go far beyond physicality. These personal differences are recognized by astrology, promoting tolerance and individualism over prejudice and fear.

A Way Ahead

Looking to leave the material illusion behind astrology can show you the obstacles on your path. Outstanding issues (so called unlearned lessons) must be dealt with before checking out. There is also some kind of mission or special purpose for you to fulfill in this particular lifetime. If you have taken a wrong turn in the past your birth chart can put you back on track.

Horoscopic Limitations

Astrology does not cover everything, but builds upon given circumstances already known at birth. The astrological birth chart is the same for someone born into a poor family as for a rich. It is also the same for a cat as it is for an eagle. None of these births will result in the exact same lives. Basically a birth chart reveals differences in life experience relative to physical reality and how one individual of a species, social background, or family differs from another within the same group. To give a concrete example physical gender is, as far as I know, not revealed by a birth chart, sexual tendencies are, however. Knowing the two one can draw the correct conclusions about sexual orientation.

The behavior and future of any one individual is never predetermined to such a degree to be inescapable. While some events and a number of circumstances in your life are fated, your reactions are not. No event or circumstance can force you to become a murderer, criminal, saint, great lover, famous commander, etc. You can ultimately decide not to take a life or ruin another's and likewise you can opt to relax before ever reaching your limits of success, fame, love, etc. These choices are yours and yours alone!

Another important thing never to forget is that we are spiritual beings and as such we evolve in spirit – not in matter. The spirit is not bound by any temporal limits (the kind of limits imposed on your mind and ego and detailed by your horoscope of birth). Therefore, no matter how high or how low your birth, your spiritual evolution is completely and utterly up to you. All astrology can do with supreme accuracy is to reveal your evolutionary stage at birth.

Predictions having their basis in the character of the individual only work one hundred percent for people completely unaware of their charts of birth. The better someone knows his/her astrological blueprint the less bound by it he/she is. The awareness gives choice a chance and this spoils absolute prediction. This liberation is of course one of the main points of using astrology to begin with.

Confidence in a Reading

An astrological reading is based on multiple indications, such as Moon sign, Ascendant and various combinations called Yogas. No single indication will ever be exclusive. In practice this usually means that different indications need to be synthesized. While some indications reenforce each other, most will contradict. These contradictions will either moderate and even cancel each other out, give rise to a contradictory character, or reveal one behavior at one time and a completely different at another. So called transits and planetary periods decide the timing.