The mad world of astrology
Every Sunday I see many of my friends and relatives pulling the newspapers to open the astrology page to read their weekly predictions. Sometimes, even I do the same thing. What changes every week, what do we expect to change so often? What’s that we all want from our lives? And does astrology give explanation for every few months for everything improper in our life? Some planets will always retrograde and some will prograde. While one astrologer lists what to do, the other one just says the opposite. When one says travel, someone else says stay back home. When one says ‘’invest’’ the other says ‘’don’t invest for now’’.
And who does not visit astrologers/soothsayers? From the Prime Ministers, Presidents of nations, to the working class of people each one visits or sees soothsayers with a hope in heart that someday things will change for good. Astrology is full of fiction, intuition, nostalgic longing and archetype-driven poetry. It is a rich engine for psychic exploration. It gives us a hope, a dream, a vision, an intuition, an insight, something to look forward to…. It has the magic. Between the two extremes of life – yes and no, it provides thin gruel for our monotony and boring life. It helps people’s imaginary longings related to economic, emotional and social consequences.
Human beings are very reactive by nature. It’s a sad puzzle; some believe in an invisible deity responsible for the planet’s well-being, for our well-being. People have faith in the unknown. And hence we see astrology mushrooming all over. We pick out trends that fit our narrative. A Vedic astrologer might help you pick the ‘best date’ for your wedding, but if the marriage breaks up into a divorce, well, that too becomes part of the ‘plan.’
People want to know their future because they believe that they have greater things set for them. They don’t want to be stuck in their present, where they believe that nothing amazing is happening to them. They dream big, and realize that someday they will be able to do something stunning, without even realizing that they have the present, in which they don’t realize that that “something big” was the future that they were dreaming about in the past.
Astrology’s premise is that the planetary movements influence the moments in time. Since we’re part of the story of the Universe, our moment of birth recorded on the celestial clock is meaningful. The planets continue to move, engaging with the fixed in time energies of our birth chart. People cannot take in the mystery of things, they are also eager to unfold all the solutions the earth has to unravel.
Why do people believe in astrology? The answer to the question lies very much in the same realm as why people believe in just about any superstition. Astrology offers a number of things which many people find very desirable: information and assurance about the future, a way to be absolved of their current situation and future decisions, and a way to feel connected to the entire cosmos.
Astrology is an absurd tool of self-discovery, no matter how far you decide to take it. At first, the pieces of the puzzle may not seem to fit. But if you stick with it, at a certain point it “clicks” and the orchestrations of the cosmic dance make sense. Astrology shares this with many other beliefs which tend to be categorized as “New Age,” for example the idea that nothing in life is truly coincidental. On this view of life, everything which happens to us, even the smallest or seemingly most insignificant event, happens for some particular reason. Astrology then claims to provide at least some of the answers as to why they happen, and perhaps even a way to predict them in advance. In this way, astrology purports to help people understand their lives and the world around them – and who doesn’t want that?
In a sense, astrology does work. The way it is practiced today, it can work quite well. After all, most of those who visit an astrologer end up feeling satisfied and feeling that they have benefited. What this really means is not that astrology has accurately predicted the person’s future, but rather it means that visiting an astrologer or having a horoscope cast can be a fulfilling and personally satisfying experience.
If you take astrology as a truthful means of prediction, then you will be dissatisfied. If you use it as a useful motivation to your own thoughts and insights it’s ok to some extent. If you depend too much on it, for taking those important decisions in life, its vagueness may lead you nowhere.
