Tag Archives: fate

Philosophy

Depends how you look at it

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I stepped into a bright sunny morning on Kensington a few weeks ago; it had just been raining for three days. A chipper fellow sitting on a bench reading the news-paper said good morning to me immediately. I returned it and asked him how he was on this beautiful morning. “Miserable, how can anyone be happy in this rotten country. And you?” he asked. “Oh, I’m good, how could anyone be miserable on a morning like this. Toronto’s been great to me.” I replied. His response was: “It all depends on how you want to look at it.”

He was reading the news and thinking about business, I was looking up at the bright blue sky anticipating an aimless wander thru the city. He was standing between the past and the future. I was in the moment. Nature and beauty are natural techniques for attaining the moment. We all know this. Awe too functions in this way. So does excitement. We kinda loose control of ourselves and forget about the past and the future and we are hardy able utter a “wow.”

In yoga we want to have this feeling internally. The same wow we have for a majestic mountain should be felt when we stand before Ourselves gazing at the majesty of our own minds; our inner levels of consciousness. That’s where it’s all coming from: the perception, the mountain; the past and the future undoubtedly.

Or where else is it coming from? A question for everyone to ponder. And then where does it go?

So many thoughts arising and then passing away. It’s the ones we grab hold of that cause problems. These are the ones that dominate our thought and lead our perception away from what’s really going on. It’s not just the moment that’s happening, but our desires and our capabilities are continually fulfilling themselves. We are being fulfilled we just don’t see it. Our “true paths” are no different than the normal course of our fate; what differs is how we look at it.

This is where self-knowledge comes in. If you know what you really want from life and what you’re really willing to put effort towards, as well as knowing the pattern of your luck, you will get exactly the thing you expect. Awareness!

Inner awareness begins to blur: the line between inner and outer. From where does it all arise and to where does it go? The thought? The past and the future?

Some mornings we cant see the sky because we’re too busy looking at the news or planning our days. The sky isn’t in us so we just don’t see it. If it’s in us, if it’s what we were expecting, what we’re looking for, bam, it will be there as plain as day. You can’t miss it if you’re looking for it, but if you’re looking for other things, the sky won’t even exist.

It all depends on how you look at things!

Philosophy

Putting the Mind on the Self

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How does one satisfy all desire by putting the mind on the self?

If we know the self, then we know our desires and our potential; we know what we want and what we can get. It often seems, however, that we don’t know ourselves. This is why we practice meditation and yoga and travel and contemplation and even foolishness; so that we can come to know the self. This is also why many people come to me to have their astrology chart read for them. But something that becomes clearer and clearer to me is that people do know themselves. Pretty much everyone I talk to has self-knowledge. People know their hopes and desires, their skills and abilities much better than I’ll ever know from looking at their chart. If people start disagreeing with everything I get from the chart, I have to assume the chart is incorrect or I am incorrect. It would be madness for me to say that the chart is correct and they merely don’t know themselves. Their own self-knowledge is confirmation of the chart and not the other way around.

Knowing our true selves, it should be easy to put our awareness there and forget about everything else going on. When we do this, we align our abilities with our desires so that what we hope for matches closely to what we receive. This is how we use self-knowledge to achieve satisfaction in life. You could say that once we have knowledge of our true selves we don’t have to worry about anything anymore. We know the program so why worry about the details. The details, of course, being the karma; the daily grind of making effort to achieve results. If we accept karma, not just our own karma, but the concept of karma and its effectiveness of giving results, then it becomes really easy to put our minds in places other than where our next meal will come from, or how we will get educated.

Our physical existence runs on a kind of automatic pilot thru our karma. We use the moment of our birth as the first action, which leads to the next and the next and so on. From our limited perspective, this first action appears to be beyond our control and without our consent. And from that moment onward our lives generally feel split between being the active subject choosing our fate and being a passive object being swept away by the currents of fate and time. In one sense our path is absolutely determined, but in a more immediate sense, we continually affirm our path through our free choice. So what’s going here?

I’m beginning to believe that our material existence is more or less fixed at the moment of birth. Our health, our wealth, our aptitude, our studies, generally everything the typical person associates with their “self” is pretty much fixed. This is the stuff most of us spend our time worrying about. Some will complain that we have to put effort into things or nothing will get done; such worries are the hallmark of modern ambition and are necessary to advance as individuals as well as a society. Or it could be that the effort is also fixed.

Cause will follow effect, which will be the cause for further effect. But when we focus on the cause and effect nothing seems fixed. The very nature of cause and effect is change, but the whole process is fixed. According to Vedanta, whatever is unchanging is truth or true-self according to Tantra. The true self does not change

If we take the example of chair, we find that many things about a chair can change and it will still be a chair. The number of legs can change, the colour, and many things about the design can change. Even some of the firmer qualities can change such as the amount of weight the chair can bear and whether you can move it or not. But at some point there are certain things that are common to all chairs; certain qualities that make a chair a chair. This essence of chairness can be summed up as a thing made for sitting up off the floor. Humans are no different from chairs. We come in all shapes and sizes and abilities but there are certain qualities we all share that make us all human.

On a deeper level we can even say that there are certain qualities that we share with chairs that that are also the same so that we can say things are things. For everything to be there must be some base upon which ‘beingness’ rests that is the same for all beings; both chairs and humans.

It’s this foundation of ‘being’ that we seek through meditation or contemplation or awareness or yoga or whatever your practice might be. Finding the sameness of humans will surely help you to be a better human (a more aware human) in society, while finding the sameness in all beings will surely help you to be a better being on this planet.

So, as I read a birth chart, I see the individual moving thru his or her dasha periods, changing and evolving as they progress as an individual. I also take note of the transiting planets and the changing and evolving world that we have as a ground for action. Both ourselves and the world we live in are being swept away by time and karma. I think often of the scene in the Gita where Krishna shows his true self to Arjuna, the whole of the world rushing to its destruction, being swallowed unflinchingly by the great movement of time (MahaKaala, a god whose important shrine sits outside of Ujjain in the west of India). If I focus only on this change I loose the true individual sitting in front of me. The change is only happening to the object, the mind and body in front of me. My own body and my own fortune too are constantly in motion. If I focus on these things I will only see the object measured in relation to my own bodily object. In this condition we are no more than beasts of burden with the strongest among us doing the least work while the weakest toil.

Life will carry on of it’s own accord. Our functional minds will also complete their tasks over time. Much of this is set for us, but if we begin to search our own minds probing the various layers, we find a layer that is quiet like a placid lake. It’s from this lake that thoughts emerge like trout leaping out of the water; some of which are caught by our lower minds and sustained in thought, from which point we may use this fish to give us the power of action; or we could just put the fish back in the water and leave it disappear into the depths.

The placid lake is our deeper self, our true self, the unchanging consciousness from which all change emerge. This is where we are advised to put our minds. From the silence we can witness the change while keeping our inner consciousness focused on the silence of the true self.

I can see this too in an astrology chart, the layers of our being that don’t change. Just as change occurs on various the individual that persists in the body, the things that make us all human and of course that space in which everything takes place; that space from which everything arises. When we focus on these things our expectations tend to match with the results and we find satisfaction. We experience the peace because we have found the place of peace within ourselves and put our minds there. Otherwise we only experience the change: the suffering of the Buddhist aspirant and the binds of the Tantric that keep us from freedom.

Vedic Astrology

The Method of Vedic Astrology

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I want to share a few things about how Vedic Astrology works. Vedic astrology uses predictive methods to test the chart. Quite often one or two fairly specific things will pop out at an astrologer from your past that they will be able to predict to a time frame. The ability to give such accurate prediction lends a heavy emphasis towards fate. For many people this might be the first time they come up against the notion that they personally are not the actor. In the context of astrology, ones sense of ego cannot deny it the power of fate over their lives. This alone can be helpful and bring positive response. But once an astrologer has determined the relative accuracy of the chart, he then knows which energies are working in which way and therefore can figure out which energies need to be worked with in which way. That’s the complicated way of saying that I then know which birth-stones to suggest for you.

From this point it’s up to you. If you can attach some emotion to that stone and that energy then you will get a positive result. Without any input from you and the stone will not work. But even if you wear it continuously after some time it will begin to work since you will naturally form an attachment to it. For those people more inclined to self-improvement from the perspective of Vedic astrology there are various mundane activities that can be incorporated over time. But these things depend on your inclination as much as by indications in the chart. What are you willing to do to fulfill your desires?

Astrology, from a Vedic perspective it is the foundation upon which things like yoga and Ayurveda rest. Astrology can determine our dosha as well as any health complications that might come your way. It can also suggest treatment possibilities. The Vedic birth chart is perhaps the clearest pathology report a person can get. From this point a person can focus their energies in simple ways to achieve positive results in their life. Though of course, even with the help of astrology you will still have to experience you karma, but with grace perhaps we can all lessen the effects of the bad karmas while improving the good karmas.

But same as any other method you use for self-improvement, positive results will be directly proportional to the effort you put in; and the amount of will power a person is able to muster is directly proportional to their belief in the effectiveness of the method. If you have belief in the method (Vedic Astrology in this case), and sincere desire for self-improvement thru this path, then it can guarantee results (by grace of true will, knowledge and desire, results will come).

If your will, your knowledge and desire are all acting in the same direction you will get positive results for yourself. Everything you get comes by this method. The desire created by the thirst gives the will; if you have right knowledge then it’s easy to satisfy that desire; whether it’s a thirst for water or knowledge or something simple like sex. But you have to know how to operate that thing that you want; this is important whether it’s a tap for water, a book for knowledge, the opposite sex for the obvious; or in this case, yourself so that you can have satisfy deeper desires for contentment.
A yogi spends years gathering self-knowledge through their body and their breath, looking inward for the reflection of the outward. Vedic astrology offers a opportunity to look outward at the position of the planets to see the inward reflection. There are always subtle (sometimes even mundane) things we can do to polish that double-sided mirror. Learning to operate our own bodies, minds and senses as well as the material world that surrounds us is how we polish that mirror.

The Vedic astrology of India is quite different from the astrology we grew up with in the west, it can be much more specific in regards to events. It’s not just and entertaining interlude, you have to be prepared to look at yourself in the mirror. The Vedic method is spiritual and philosophical as well as psychological and mundane. Fate is not a random occurrence. But the energies of the planets that help direct our fate can be manipulated. Change, after all, takes place on all levels. But usually change takes place slowly in increments. Regardless of the technique you choose to use, you must give it time to work. Hasty action without full knowledge is often a source and a symptom of what we generally consider to be bad luck while patience tends to produce the opposite.

Philosophy

Free will, Fate, and Astrology

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Many westerners reject astrology in principle. They may read their own horoscope daily in the news-paper but when it comes down to it they cling to their illusion of free will and believe that the essence of astrology regects this very will. But astrology does not reject free will, quite the contrary, astrology can point us in the directions in which we can excersise our free will most effectively.

You could say that astrology assigns a probability to certain events or actions. They have a familiar name for these actions in general: karma is commonly translated as action. As karmas ‘ripen’ the events of our lives unfold. Many people have a vague idea of karmas role in cause and effect, but few stop to consider how vast a role karma has in our lives.

There are three kinds of karma: fixed, changeable, and both. Generally speaking, we can easily recognize many things in our lives that we are helpless to change. The place and time and culture and social standing under which we are born will shape our lives immensely. There is nothing we can do about this. But there are many other things that may have a high probability, but will not necessary happen to everyone; like getting married or having children. Although cultural expectation or even biology will lead us in these direction we are still free to accept or decline. Many other things it seems we’re absolutely free to accept or reject: like job offers, or turns on the freeway. Life is mix of fate and free will.

Before I continue, I should clarify that there are two main schools of astrology. Most of my readers in the west are familiar with western astrology that deals with generalities and tendencies without going into predictive forecasts or remedial measures. Western astrology has an emphasis on the sun and seasons. Vedic astrology on the other hand has a system of planetary periods that is unique for each persons birth time that allows the astrologer to see how and when your karma’s will unfold. Regarding this point my astrology teacher asks, “What is the point of astrology if people don’t believe in remedial measures.”

And this is where I don’t understand westerners. They demand their free will, but when an astrologer offers them an opportunity to exercise their will to alter they fate, they don’t believe in that either. This whole universe is an interplay of vibration. The simplest way to change something is to change the vibrations that something is subjected to; to tinker with the wave length. This is essentially what a microwave oven does; it’s also the essence behind different colours of light.

Astrological remedies were created to tinker with the subtler energies around us. By subjecting ourselves to certain vibratory energies we can influence some of the more stubbornly negative karmas to unfold less harmfully, or perhaps have our good karma’s unfold more resplendently. Wearing precious and semi-precious stones along with certain mantras are the most common remedies, but everything from the food we eat to the clothes we wear can be adjusted in a remedial way. In many ways it’s just all those little things in our lives that make up a lifestyle that determine the vibrations to which we are subjected.

When we are born, we are born on a particular path with a particular personality. As the path unfolds, the personality will exert itself in various ways causing us to make certain choices over others. What we gain thru learning and experience will also influence both the path and the personality. There is no doubt that the possibilities in this world are unlimited, but each person is limited both by their location in the world and by their own minds. There may be many options, but we can only choose from the ones that come to mind.

There’s really no clear separation between free will and fate; it’s as though they simultaneously spring forth from each other as time passes. But this is also the way of karma: as time passes we burn one karma and create another, each of the simultaneous weaving and burning of our individual karmas while layer upon layer of collective karmas likewise go into the flames and come out again whole.

If free will could be depended upon more people would choose happiness, or choose to quit smoking, or choose to chase their dreams. Many times it’s nothing more than fate that leads us one way or another. We all have our burdens to carry that remain upon our back despite our strong intention to shake them off. Luck, whether good or bad is often the deciding factor regarding the ultimate direction of our lives.

I was reading one book by an astrologer who is making a living from cancer. He says he will screen your chart for cancer and prescribe certain remedial measures if it looks probable. He claims to have abut a 60% success rate. We can never really know if one thing or another has changed our fate or if we are merely on the natural course set by the stars. I do know that in the west, if the medical establishment claimed to have a test to see if you might get cancer in the future many people would be quite curious; if they said that they had a pill you could take to reduce your chance of cancer if it seemed likely, many people would take it, despite severe side effects.

My question now is: do people contract cancer thru free will, or is it fate that decrees it? In many ways the whole discussion of whether or not we have free will is just a distraction from the essence of Astrology and eastern thought in general. Free will is essentially the will of the ego, it is the framework under which selfish people seek to fullfill selfish desires. “The whole world revolves around me.”

Eastern thought generally follows a principle of all is one. Nothing acts in a vacuum, everything and everyone are in relationship. When we begin to see these relationships more clearly, we can then begin to really make choices that can alter our destiny.