Vedic astrology - My perspective

Hello all,

Namaste! Until now we were discussing philosophy, culture and a bit of biology. How about Astrology for a change, which is another area I am very much interested in. There is both Vedic astrology and Western astrology and I am interested in the Vedic. This is the knowledge that was passed down orally during Vedic times and later written down as part of Vedic scriptures. It is as vast as an ocean and I consider myself standing in front of that ocean, awed at the depth and breadth of it. In this post wherever I mention astrology, please assume it as Vedic astrology.

There are many astrologers who are efficient in predictions or guiding people in the right direction. But there are also astrologers who use their knowledge to take undue advantage of people and make them fearful of everyday life. Can we dissect and see how can we apply astrology as a tool of guidance and use it more aptly?

 

Horoscope - a light house to show the way of life!
Image credits - Pexels.com

OK, how about we begin with a story line. Assume there is a great ocean, sometimes rough, sometimes calm and many a time turbulent. Think each one of us is a lone human in that ocean. We are given one vessel, either a plank, a boat, a yacht or a ship. With the plank sometimes we have an oar and other times none. The boat or ship can have a good or faulty equipment or may be a leak. The permutations and combinations of the vessel are endless, or sometimes we don't even have a plank on the ocean. How does it feel? Terrifying, puzzling or amusing?

Now let us thicken the plot. Think there are stacks of rocks sticking out of the ocean; it is pitch dark and we cannot even see our hand in front of our face. Each one of us is trying to manage our vessel, but how can we do that without knowing the direction to proceed, without a map (or a GPS in modern terminology), and how to even steer our vessel. We are not even able to judge whether we have a leak in the vessel or whether the equipment is faulty, due to the darkness and above that assume we have no knowledge of fixing the boat in case there is a problem. Insane, isn't it? To add to this predicament, suppose there is a storm brewing in the distance and our vessel has started to rock side to side. What can we do now?

This is a metaphor for our everyday life. Every one of us is given a physical existence and asked to carry on. We are not given a map for life, the direction to proceed or how to go about it. All of us do the living by trial and error; if something doesn't work out and the experience was bad, we leave it behind and go in a new direction. That is why the English proverb quotes 'Experience is the best teacher'.

Let us come back to our wild ocean! Suddenly we see a lighthouse showing us the way. The lighthouse is a structure, which just shows or guides us to a shore using its light. But it is Us, as the captain of the vessel who makes the call to go whichever way we choose. The lighthouse is not going to say go between the rocks or go and crash on the rocks. It just shows us the way using its light and it is up to us to go through the rocks, chart a path or jump into the ocean and swim!

 

Whether to take advantage of it or not or go as we wish, is our choice or free will. Overriding, everything is our free will to choose our own experiences. But the tools that are given to make our free will choice may be limited or abundant, which is decided according to one's  Karma or the good or bad will one has earned through past lifetimes; for people who don't believe in Karma or past lives, there is the 'Cause and Effect' Philosophy (topic for another post).

Let us assume now that in that choppy, pitch-dark sea, we are given the blessing of the moonlight. Should we use it to steer our boat and take advantage of it or should we not? Now think it is the morning, shouldn't we want to take advantage of the Sun? Or should we close our eyes and maneuver our boat blindly? Free will and our choice!

To make matters more difficult, presume everyone has their own personal ocean to cross. Your ocean laden with boulders may have to be crossed using a yacht while mine may have a plank to cross the ocean, which has clear waters. Yet another person may have his/her awesome ship and clear waters. We are never able to judge what another person is going through. So it can be any scenario; this is how life presents itself to each one of us. No way of knowing how the next day or next minute is going to be. We just assume that everything is going to be alright and take each day or second as it comes.

Now when the ocean is churning due to a storm, don't you wish that there was a lighthouse or at least some light to show the way. That lighthouse is the Vedic astrology in my mind, which people can use in case they wish to take advantage of, during really trying times in life. If a person has a ship at their disposal and clear waters without boulders, then there is no need for a lighthouse or Astrology. But someone who is struggling with everyday matters and who sees no way to go forward, why not take advantage of the light shown by a lighthouse?

Of course, there is always the caveat of finding a good astrologer who knows his/ her trade and who practices Astrology to guide people and not having a money minded mentality. Another map or GPS, which is already built into our central processing unit (CPU) or our body, is the intuition represented by Moon and the higher self, represented by Sun in Vedic astrology. These are the small voices, which sit inside, guiding us towards our true path. Listening to that is another way we can cross our own personal ocean. This personal ocean is known as 'Samsara Sagara' in Sanskrit. 'Samsara' is worldly existence and 'Sagara' is the ocean.

Image courtesy- Quotes zodiac

To conclude, Astrology is never a remedy for everyday living, but it can be used as a lighthouse or a tool to cross the ocean of life if one chooses to, when things get extremely tough. This is my perspective on Astrology and the vessel or the horoscope, which can give us a snapshot of our true potential.

I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday! 😉



Next week: Everyone of us is an Arjuna!


Note: Image by pexels.com and Quotes zodiac. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried". 
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