Astrology should be understood in right perspective

[dattaswami]

Astrology should be understood in right perspective

 

Continuous difficulties bore the soul and the attitude of God as the divine father is to make the souls happy and not to bore.

 

For this purpose He arranged the cycles of the lives with alternative happiness and misery. Unless the soul is a demon, it cannot get continuous difficulties because a demon only does continuous sins. A human being is neither a bad demon nor a good angel. He is a mixture of both (Anistamistam Mishramcha….- Gita). Therefore, continuous problems cannot be accommodated in the cycle of deeds of human beings. Hence, happiness has to come after some period of misery like winter after summer or day after night. In such case the problem of devotion to God during the period of happiness becomes impossible.

 

Therefore, some clue should be adopted to foresee the misery in the future so that God can be worshipped even during the period of happiness to avoid the misery in future. The knowledge of alternating happiness and misery of the cycle of deeds is sufficient to realize the misery in the future. But for ordinary ignorant human beings such general concept will not give a real psychological effect. Unless an individual case is specified and unless the misery in the future is specifically indicated, the human being will not take up the worship of God with utmost care during happiness. For this purpose only, the subject of Astrology is born. By Astrology an individual can foresee the misery in the future.

 

Astrology is Jyotisha Shastram, which means the science of light. It is the torchlight to foresee the misery in the future. It shows both misery and happiness in the future. But a human being will be alert only to avoid the misery in the future by taking some action in the present as prevention. If the misery appears after a long time, the human being will again sleep in the present happiness. Therefore, the design of the recycling periods of the nine planets (Dasha) is arranged in a wonderful manner so that you can see some misery even in the next hour. This is done by the system of Dasa – Antardasha – Vidasha – Sukshma Dasha – Prana Dasha etc., among these nine planets some planets are good and some planets are certainly bad for any Zodiac (Raasi) in which one is born.

 

By these systems of period, sub-periods, sub sub-periods etc., one can find the involvement of a bad planet (intensity may vary) even in the next hour. Based on this system only astrologers can calculate the time of the incident very precisely even up to hours and minutes. Therefore, Astrology helps the human being to foresee the misery in the future and advises to avoid the misery by worship of God and by doing certain specified sacrifice (Daanam). This covers both theoretical and practical devotion continuously through out the life. Therefore, Astrology is justified because the ends justify the means. In fact it is a part of spiritual knowledge because God is also mentioned as the ultimate light (Paramjyoti rupasampadya - Veda, Jyotiridhikaranam of Brahma Sutras). Hence, these torch lights of the planets acting as secondary lights help the human being to worship the main ultimate light (God).

 

Today the human beings approach astrologers and hear the prophecy for one year. There was no difference between the Satguru (God in Human form) and Astrologer because the Satguru adopts the method of Astrology for ordinary ignorant human beings to create interest in God. In the beginning the interest may be as means but slowly on realizing the taste of God, they may become real devotees. This is the right spirit and direction of our tradition. If you observe today you can find the fate of such well-established divine tradition. The astrologer is not at all a Satguru.

 

He is just giving the prophecy to collect some money on that day for the prophecy. He also designs the future plan of his work in the year to earn money through the remedies suggested and his prophecy is just the annual financial budget. He sows the seed of fear of future misery in the minds of some rich people so that the future remedies can give some financial benefits to him or to his secret partners who are the priests involved in such remedies. Astrology is a part of the divine philosophy because the planets are the executive authorities of implementing the cycle of deeds based on the constitution spelled by God.

 

If you insult the astrology, God will also be furious because if a constable is insulted, the state police authority will feel seriously. Astrology is expected to lead the ordinary ignorant human beings into the spiritual path. If the astrologer realizes this truth and behaves accordingly, God will be pleased with him because astrologer will become a servant in the divine mission of the Lord. In such case all the problems of the astrologer will be taken care of by the divine grace and he need not worry about himself any more. The ordinary human souls are always like children who will sit and study only due to fear of cane appearing before their eyes and such cane is the misery in the future indicated by the astrologer. Either devotion or fear (Bhakti or Bhayam) can give fruit. If devotion is impossible the fear is used to develop the devotion at the ground level.