Human beings are always anxious about their future. Astrology, palmistry, numerology, and Tarot reading are some of the methods that quench their anxiety. Past and future are the two components of time, and we live in the present that consists of life. Memories of the past are already gone and the dreams of the future are yet to come; and we are living the real life in the present moment. Our life is closely connected with everything in the universe. Due to this deep interconnection, the planets, stars, sun, moon and all celestial phenomena in the cosmos have a profound influence on us and vice versa. Astrology interprets and reveals the meaning of the influences of celestial bodies in our lives.
History
Astrology is the most ancient form of science and can be investigated its traces from the very early years of human history. Astrological inscriptions were found on bone remnants from the Sumerian civilization which existed twenty five thousand years ago. It was Sumerians who initiated the scientific study of Astrology and spread to the western world. The first historical documents of Sumerian astrology are available in the form of clay tablets, which belong to more than 3500 years before Christ. In India, Astrology has its reference in Vedas. Mathematics was essential for doing intrinsic astrological calculations and it was invented in India with all its digits and decimal system.
How Astrology works?
The whole universe is an organic unity or one body. That means, everything in the universe is organically interconnected and whenever a single part is disturbed, it will affect the whole body. Whatever happens to any part of the cosmos will affect us to some extent, even though it may not be visible to us. Reality can be experienced only with a spiritual vision, because it happens in a subtle level.
Our body is a very sensitive instrument that interacts with everything in the cosmos at a wide range of radiant frequencies and all of them are still not identified by science. The traditional belief in astrology is that each planet is an expression of life-force intended to persuade destinies of life-forms. In this process, we become self-conscious about our destiny and take the right route through skillful methods and our free will. As mistaken by some people, we are not slaves of inevitable fate, but we are masters of our destinies!
Every star and every planet produces a unique vibration due to its individual movement. The vibrations of the constellation of stars at the time of our birth create an inner harmony that is inscribed in our mind. Our tuning with this fundamental inner harmony decides our personality, health and illness.
The cosmic current produced due to the vibrations of stars is not by chance. It has some specific purpose and is governed by some specific law. A real astrologer should be able to use his knowledge with deeper intuition, understand all probabilities and perceptions in our life due to the cosmic current resulting from the specific planetary alignment, and should be capable to convert our fate into destiny.
Sun and Moon Influence Us
Every living being possesses an internal awareness that senses cosmic influences. When sun changes its mood the whole earth is affected. During solar eclipse the birds stop singing and animals keep silent and frightened. It is Sun that induces the growth of all seeds in earth.
Impact of moon on the life of earth is a well-known fact. Seeds when planted based on moon cycles produce higher crops during harvest. The menstruation cycle of women is synchronized with moon cycles. We have experienced that Moon influences the ocean tides. Insanity of human beings increases during full moon days. If it influences the insane, it should influence the sane too!
In Japan, there is a town bird, the complete team of which will evacuate the town twenty four hours before an earthquake that helps the people to take necessary precautions. Similarly there are animals that are very sensitive to natural phenomena and will give signals before a natural calamity occurs. We, human beings, too possess these intuitional powers, but somewhere during the stages of evolution we have lost this unusual talent.
Astrology is Scientific
Is Astrology a scientific method? This question has been asked several times by the doubtful minds. What does science do? Science reveals us the underlying principle behind almost everything, starting from the minute sub-atomic level to the gigantic stars and galaxies. Science describes a phenomenon, creates some hypothesis relevant to that phenomenon, carries out experiments to produce useful results, formulates a theory or law based on the results and finally applies this law creatively for our benefit. Deep intuition, combined with hard work and team effort, produces great scientific inventions.
In Astrology, significant symbolic patterns are created based on scientific observations and intricate mathematical calculations. Such patterns form the basic parameters to evaluate and predict the socio-political situations and the different features of life. Procedures vary depending on the subject of the query.
Similar to science, new techniques are developed in Astrology as per the necessity of time, to improve the accuracy of prediction. Obsolete techniques are discarded and the effective ones are widely used. More research and great contributions are going on, incorporating the effects of recently discovered planets and the latest findings about the galaxies.
Science involves the analysis of the mutual relationship of cause and effect. Science is interested in studying the cause of everything that exists while astrology looks for the effects. Astrology declares that the future will be emerged only out of the past. And in a philosophical view it proclaims that tomorrow’s happenings are present in today in some subtle way; the past is pushing it from behind and the future is pulling it from ahead.
Beauty of Astrology
Astrology is an interpretative process of the symbolic patterns using scientific data and accurate mathematical calculations to map the general trends in our lives. The deep knowledge attained through thousands of years of research and observation is the great strength of astrology that helps to manifest human consciousness. The unknown geniuses who created this system of zodiac based on the constellations were great sages with deep intuition attuned to the universal vibrations.
It is an accepted fact that every person or every being is born with a built-in program. A big tree is involved in its seed. Everything is within the seed, otherwise where does the tree come from? How can something be created from void? There is a pre-determined program and an order; otherwise a coconut tree would have come out of a mango seed.
Same is true with man. He is conceived in his mother’s womb, with a built-in program that completely defines his full nature throughout his evolution towards a complete man. Astrology can decode the language of this program and develop specific mappings that will give the vivid pictures of his life. That is the idea behind the birth charts and horoscopes.
Multi facet Structure of Astrology
Astrology is a vast subject and depending upon the three areas of life, it can be classified into the following three layers that most of the people are not conscious about.
- Outermost layer: It is the non-essential part of astrology where everything is uncertain or unpredictable and coincidence is the ruling factor.
- Middle Layer: It is the semi-essential layer, where we can use our free will and there is a possibility to effect necessary changes if we take the right decision.
- Innermost Core: It is the essential and the totally predetermined part that cannot be changed even if we want to. This innermost essence resembles a scientific law and there is no other option but to cooperate with it.
Normally we are all curious about the non-essential layer. We used to ask the astrologer curious questions like: what do the stars foretell about my today or this week? When will I get a job? When will I get married? When will I build a new house?...and so on. These are all non-essential questions. Stars and planets cannot answer you regarding these events that are happening on the periphery. They are unpredictable and have nothing to do with real astrology. But, as we see, we are always interested to ask these kinds of questions and the astrologers are busy handling the same kinds of stuff. That is the main reason why astrology lost its respectability. How can an educated person believe that the stars have written the descriptions of his today’s events in his destiny, long before, when he was born!
There are some semi-essential matters that belong to the middle layer, such as some tragic happenings in the life of a person. Once we are aware about it, necessary remedies can be taken in advance to redirect it or reduce the effect; but if nothing is known in advance, nothing can be done.
Only in rare case, we extend our curiosity to know the essential world of Astrology, that even if known shall remain unavoidable and cannot be changed. We are always eager to know when the different events will occur in our life; but we are least bothered about the essence of our life, and the how and what of it.
Accuracy and Reliability
Astrological prediction made by an expert astrologer can definitely be tested to see whether the prediction is true or not. When the predictions are not accurate, the general trend is to blame the astrologer and regard it as a non-scientific method. There are several ignorant and business-minded people who act as astrologers, just for gaining money, who are responsible for such blind mistakes.
Mistakes often happen with good astrologers too. This may happen due to the complexity of the situations, involving large number of inconsistent parameters. A situation of similar nature can also happen in medical science due to complicated symptoms, where a qualified doctor may fail to recognize the actual disease and give the patient a different medicine. But medicine will still remain as science, whereas astrology will be dismissed as pseudo-science.
Let us take the case of meteorology, the science that studies atmospheric conditions and predicts weather. The meteorologists will forecast that it will be generally sunny but some ‘occasional showers’ or some ‘intermittent showers’ are expected in some part of the areas. They cannot tell you at what time the rain will come or in which street the flood will affect at a large. And, surprisingly, in most of the cases their predictions will not be accurate. The fact is that they are just warning the people about the atmospheric conditions that will help them to adopt necessary precautions. Similarly, based on the planetary positions, Astrology warns the people whether the conditions are favorable or not that will help them to take some advanced measures. And, meteorology is always an undisputed science!
For better results, astrology should be handled by experienced and trained astrologers, who are quite familiar with recent astrological innovations and know the heart beats of this wonderful science. Hard work and deep intuition are the indispensable qualities of a good astrologer, who can make the predictions accurate. Any highest science will become useless if it is handled by ignorant people.
Conclusion
Science is capable of explaining the material world based on some specific principles, but there is a limit, beyond which it cannot go. We are grateful to science for its remarkable efforts to eradicate so many superstitions from human mind, the majority of which are based on pure ignorance. But, like several other knowledge, science is also imperfect; it fails to distinguish the effects of our relationship with cosmos.
Astrology is a science, the mother of all sciences, but it is not acceptable to the majority of scientists of the elite class, because it defines the world and the life in it using a different hypothesis that is not digestible to the conventional scientific community.
We, each one of us, are not alone in this universe, but are connected to each other, like inseparable links of an infinite chain. The wonderful name of this cosmic interconnection is Astrology!