Practical Astrology
and the Mystical Order
Practical Astrology and Mystical Order
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are Dreamed of in your Philosophie."
Astrology is an encrypted language. Astrology's holographic codes contain information about the structure of the universe. One born an astrologer is assigned the duty of decrypting this Awesome Information. Will the tiny human astrologer succeed or fail?
In Esoteric Astrology, Bepin Behari quotes Eliphas Levi, who says:
"God sows the Idea of the infinite, and the rays of the suns bring to birth the germs of the Plan."
Behari himself goes on to say,
The process of Cosmic Ideation, the transmission of the Idea to the planetary regents, from them to the terrestrial system and then, to the human individuals is indeed a very complicated one which could be effectively explained only in the language of allegories, mythologies, and symbols.
-- Esoteric Principles of Vedic Astrology by Bepin & Madhuri Behari
Astrology is the art of interpreting the "allegories, mythologies, and symbols" associated with the "planetary regents" (our local sun's orbiting planets) as they affect "the terrestrial system" with particular attention toward "human individuals." Assuming an accurate recording of the infant's first in-breath, it is fairly easy for humans to construct a snapshot of the planets at the moment of birth, based on straightforward geometric calculations.
What is not easy for humans is to understand, and clearly articulate, the greatness of the Plan revealed in those geometric patterns.
Practical astrologers know that:
All reality begins with God.
God's Plan extends even into such obscure nooks & crannies of the universe as the Milky Way galaxy.
The Plan reaches into this remote little 12-planet solar system we call "Home"!
The Plan moves with absolute order into the "terrestrial system," of our beloved planet Earth.
The Plan creates an ordered Life Experience for each tiny human.
It's Awesome.
But can they communicate it, especially at the level of daily human experience?
Usually, not.
I'm not expecting to ever completely understand Jyotisha. Not with better Sanskrit & not with more seasoning. Not even with more puja & purification.
Might progress - but will never arrive. No lifetime Jyotishi, whether scratching glyphs in the dirt floor of his banana-leaf hut in Sri Lanka or typing notes to clients on a Blackberry from her seat on a 747, will tell you any different.
Not only are there major obstacles to understanding in the tangle of ancient & medieval texts; interpretive conflict due to major unresolved linguistic & historical issues; and all the expected complexity of a subjective-objective "vidya" which sits on the border between mysticism & mathematics.
There is also the undeniable experience of religious awe . Jyotishi spend their waking hours like astronomers, contemplating of our galaxy. In modern times Jyotishi aren't licensed astronomers. We see the world through paper, pencil, & printout rather than high-powered telescopes. (And a portion of what we "see" is still unknown to astronomers, which means we have an ever broader galactic view.)
Its massive size - and this is only one little galaxy! - paralyzes the rational mind. Of course, at the most mundane level, Jyotisha is rule-driven computational mathematics. Software can be written because the connections between planetary interaction and human experience can be defined and entered into tables.
Jyotisha works well as a divination & prediction system. But why? "Simple" synchronicity? Even if synchronicity is the reason, the very fact that synchronicity is occurring on multiple (countless?) numbers of perceptual levels is itself mind-boggling.
So no, I'm not intending to ever completely understand Jyotisha. But I will keep practicing, and keep remembering the predominant patterns.
I remember the patterns that attract me personally. For other practitioners, alternative patterns will predominate. Some Jyotishi are good at predicting disasters or foretelling the outcome of wars. Some are brilliant marriage makers. Others specialize in business decisions, financial speculation, horse-races, politics. It's all in the synchronicity between the diviner & the Divine.
Me, I am most interested in marriage, children, education, spirituality, wealth & career. But of course: I am a middle-class housewife & mother, and schoolteacher too! Education for me includes religious education; so I have a personal interest in the lives of saints & world leaders.
What you see on these pages is what interests me. If it interests you too - you want to know about your own career, marriage, children, wealth & education - ask for a reading.
Mysticism in Astrology
Fortunately or unfortunately, astrology "works" as a Truth Vehicle only to the extent that the Astrologer comprehends the duties of the planets executing the Will of God **and** accurately explains those duties (if not that Will!) to the querent. This is a tall order, indeed! So, generally, due to human limitations, an astrological reading will fail to reveal complete truth.
However, thinking about Big Systems for a prolonged period of time will transform just about anyone into a mystic. A mystic is a spiritual person who seeks and finds a penetrating truth in all of Life. Mystics are intuitive, which means they receive teachings through meditation, reflection, and certain kinds of prayer.
"The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding."
--Francis Bacon
A mystic is someone like Albert Einstein who could understand, in some small way and from personal experience, "how the Old One thinks." And as Einstein knew very well, it's incredibly difficult to explain mystically derived knowledge to people who are not themselves mystics.
Einstein wrote:
Cosmic religious feeling...is very difficult to explain...to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. ... How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology?
-- Lecture on "Religion and Science" in The World as I See It - p. 27, Citadel anthology
The language of astrology is hard to decrypt. The language of astrology is hard to interpret. But if the astrologer is an educated, reflective mystic, and the person receiving the reading is truly looking for knowledge and substantially intuitive, Astrology can reveal a shockingly accurate slice of the Awesome Truth.
It does happen, often enough, to keep all us astrologers sufficiently hopeful, and increasingly enchanted, with the possibility of full revelation.
updated: 05 May 2008
