Titles like the one above start popping up at this time of year. I am temporarily adding to this mass delusion to make a point. While it is true that if you know it may rain, it would be wise to carry an umbrella, there is absolutely no virtue in trying to “know the future.”
“Well, if I knew what would happen tomorrow, I would do something about it,” we sometimes say.
The problem, as my esteemed colleague Jerry Epstein has put it, is that this violates the fourth commandment, “Thou shall not bear false witness.” Every time we speculate on tomorrow, we sacrifice the “Now.” Every time we sacrifice the “Now” for “knowledge,” we slip further into the delusion of imagining that we actually know something. Of course, we have provisional knowledge: how to tie our shoes, fix a car, play chess, etc., but none of this leads to any understanding of who we really are, why we are here, or what we should be doing.
Scriptures and Sages the world over keep telling us that who we are is unconditional love and radiance, extending far beyond the appearances of time and space. We are children of the Most High, and the inheritance of human life is nothing less than this: Divine Realization. This is not some idealistic goal for a gifted few, rather, it is who we actually are and what we actually experience when the obscurations of conditioned mind are removed.
What seems to have happened in our culture is that so many have become so conditioned by mind, by petty dramas, by the many stories of “me, myself, and I,” that we drag around; that the ability to see and be in this beautiful sacred, divine world with our eyes and ears open has been lost. The burdensome practices of judging, regretting, condemning, yearning, scheming, and all the rest have left a toxic morass that masquerades as “normal” daily life; just turn on the news!
“Then why do you do astrology?” you might justifiably ask.
My answer to this is, “It all depends upon how you use it.” If Astrology (or any mantic art) becomes another construct to believe in, you are indeed digging yourself further into the pit of desire, apprehension, and mental slavery.
If, however, you understand that you are not a Pisces, or a Libra, or whatever, that you are ever pure, true, and whole, then the configuration in a birth chart can pinpoint where you tend to get stuck. Do you tend to fall into nostalgia (Moon), aggression (Mars), exaggeration (Jupiter), and so on? A serious astrological reading can help show how you do this, when you tend to do this, and what alternatives might be available. In fact, just seeing this process is revelatory. Maybe this should be called “Liberation Astrology,” but the idea is to observe where consciousness gets fixated: on what story, what drama? Then, each “uncoupling” reveals more spaciousness, more possibility, and more access to the “Ever-Present.” Instead of a future threat, the One and the Many are experienced as intermingling in the dance of life/death/breath/body… and the dawning of Recognition may shine through.
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