How Astrology Works Pt.1 - Belief systems and checks and balances

by Robert Wilkinson

Today's article is a response to a question a friend posited, that being "Why can't someone just rely on their intuition instead of astrology?" I suppose the short answer is that you can, but just be ready to take the consequences of acting with incomplete knowledge. We all make our decisions limited by our blind spots, our prejudices, and our wishful thinking. We all come from a family and culture with dualistic and inconsistent internal belief systems, and have been shaped by others in ways we barely suspect, by friends and foes, loved ones and strangers alike. In this sense it is useful to remember that all are our teachers, and show us how to raise our experience of life and response, human patterns in a forever changing reality leading us to our Higher Self.

Without belaboring the obvious, our personalities are for the most part products of cultural biases, assumptions, inferences, and delusions regarding the cause and effect process. These are the source of pleasure and pain for us, and afflict the entire human race. To believe differently is to invite the higher Law of our being to teach us that everyone is limited by perception, regardless of assumed certainty of view. All forms change, even our pre-set belief systems. This is useful to teach us humility and compassion as we learn how to adapt to this very curious, strange, and ever-changing world.

We are not trained to assess with accuracy what we feel, or why. Often our feelings mislead us, and what many believe to be intuition cannot be entirely trusted to bring clarity in what is happening and why. With self-knowledge we can come to a place where we can know the difference between true higher intuition and feeling-hunches, but it takes an amount of training with an ability to know the boundaries between one's own subconscious and others', as well as the collective unconscious.

We are a combination of subconsciousness, self-consciousness, and Super-consciousness. The works of the venerable Florence Scovel Shinn are particularly efficacious in fostering an understanding of the distinctions between these three, and how to bring our subconsciousness into line with our Superconsciousness. Often we feel that which others feel, and through wanting to be agreeable, take on belief systems which may or may not be true for us. Though we may try to build a sense of certainty about what we feel, this is not the same as true intuition, derived from "inner-tuition," or "inner instruction." It is immediate cognition, also referred to as "straight knowledge."

Intuition is an inner power to be cultivated. It is not the same as "psychic ability." The former works from heart knowledge, the latter from gut knowledge. While it might seem I'm splitting hairs, it's really quite a difference. Heart knowledge operates from loving-wisdom, while gut knowledge works from the astral (or emotional) level. While feelings can seem real because of their strength, often as not we misjudge the meaning of what we're feeling and miss the ideal. Most of us are not trained to distinguish between the apparently real and the conditionally real, much less the conditionally real versus the inherently real.

Astrology helps us to see the cycles of what's happening, and what is widespread versus what is particular. The planets can help us get a fix on whether we're beginning something, bringing something out into the world, or fulfilling the various areas of our human existence, preparing for other chapters of life about to open. We can see the timing of shifts in the effects of prior causes, and know whether it's a good time to launch our boats, mend our nets, or just party. We can know whether the storm we're in is personal or not, and when it will pass. We can know if it is in fact a good time to buy or sell something, or if it's better to hold back a little. And we can know what both we and others are going through, and hopefully choose the highest manifestation possible in the moment.

I suppose if we were saints we wouldn't have to worry much about timing, since we'd be doing our highest being all the time. However, since most of us are usually not very saintly in our behavior, thinking or feeling, it seems like astrology could be a valuable tool to give us a consistent yardstick with which to measure what's up and why, and remind us of what's possible in our human-ness. It's like a road map and a weather report. You may not need either of these to drive across the continent, but they can be useful to know when there are storms, as well as alternate routes to take.

Of course, winding up in a flood zone or a blizzard also teaches us patience and compassion, so I guess it all works out in the end. I'd just rather do it with least suffering along the way, given what we all have to learn anyway. There are other means of testing whether we are working from our intuition or our astral impressions, but that's another article for another time.

(Originally published 29 March 2005)

Comments

[Don]

The core of me now 'gets it' and will continue to harden like concrete. Now it's time to "do the work" and I willingly embrace it. This post is not an effort to 'claim' or "boast", it is my post on the REAL understanding I've come to, thanks to a wonderful mentor, the universe, and of course, myself.

Robert the last post I communicated my emotional "out of balance" and "not sitting with the feeling-experience of it." It just kept spilling out and spilling out.

Your response to my post was crucial, and it was exactly the guidance I needed.

Out of a previous-post mistake comes 'thank your brothers'...my unveiling of Don's most poignant new away message!

Thank your brothers,
Don.

[victoria]

i love your posts!!!!!

[Robert]

Hi Don - Glad you're doing well with Jupiter on your Sun and Saturn in Leo helping some things "harden like concrete." When Mars goes through Scorpio you're launched!

Hi Victoria - Thanks for your encouraging enthusiasm! I believe God loves gratitude, since it's such a universal upper for all of us. And there is sooooooo much to be grateful for, it's a miracle in itself. That's why I believe that eventually the bizarre violent reality we are enduring right now will pass totally into the rearview mirror, and what is to come is better than we imagine.

[Joseph]

I like your view and the background details you provide.
I do think that the end goal is to elevate our conscienceness to the point in which we can outgrow astrology. Astrology is the training course and road map. However, I think this is one of those "it's not the end but the process" kind of issues. In that few reach that level of mastery...fully self aware and awake.

[Robert]

Hi Joseph - Well, of course we're here to elevate our consciousness to whatever degree we are able in the relatively short time we're here. But I don't believe we ever outgrow astrology. In this article I outlined the relative place of astrology in the life of enlightened beings. When we've learned what we're here to learn, then we get to practice that wisdom in ways that alleviate the suffering of others.

[Caleb]

I tend toward Joseph's line of thinking a little bit. Among other things, a movie I saw one time, Pi, demonstrated the limitations of numerically-based systems. The upper limitation being that even if you crack God's code - it/he/she/whatever may not dig it, and/or you might go nuts in the process.

Best of both worlds to me is to train/check the intuition while studying things like astrology, the i ching, etc. Eventually, as someone develops they can hopefully lean on their intuition/heart more often. Of course, everybody gets to decide what works best for themselves.

[emma]

caleb, i saw that movie too!
daaaaang. it impressed me very much.
coincidentally, two days after i saw Pi, i a talented musician friend told me he was concerned about a pain in his brain and a twich in his hand (!!!).

robert, thank you for yet another great article. you have a beautiful way of expressing your understanding. thanks also for the reference.

[Robert]

Hi Caleb - I also saw Pi, and since it's a movie written by someone and not necessarily "real," I take it and its assumptions as so much drama. A person who develops their intuition is allowed their special techniques to verify and crosscheck the subjective impression. Always good so that we don't become too arrogant in our presumed accuracy, since one error at a critical time can destroy worlds.

Hi emma - Thanks for your praise of the article. I assume you mean the linked article about whether an enlightened being would have use for astrology or any other "oracular" or analytical tool. Even the esteemed Sri Yukteswar was a very respected astrologer, and he encouraged his disciples to learn as much as they could about it, since it's a great mental and spiritual discipline, and offers opportunities to connect neural synapses that few other disciplines do, being a synthetic art/science of symbolic mathematics.

[Caleb]

You put more faith than I do in numerically based systems then, Robert, and perhaps discount the phenomena that we all interact with on a daily basis as it's own source of wisdom and/or indicator of the cosmos more than I do, too. If Pi was nothing but a movie without meaning to you, then I guess it was a movie without meaning to you.

Of course, what we are suppose to reverse-check our numerically based readings with IS our intuition, so I guess if one's intuition is failing them then they can still have an error that destroys the world - even if they received the perfect astrological and/or ching which tries to warn them (e.g, they see/don't see what they desire/fear/etc from the reading).

It's a conundrum.

[Robert]

Hi Caleb - Your reply deserves an in-depth response. Number theory is holistic enough to explain the totality of perceptual reality, unlike most other conditional disciplines. "Nama" and "Rupa," Sanskrit for "name" and "form," are the basis of all vibrational manifestations and shifts. Mantra yoga = some very powerful thoughtforms not to be lightly dismissed, as is demonstrated by those bramacharyans who have mastered the Spiral Force. From one perspective, if all is vibration, then all is numerical. Number theory is the basis of all science, which as the Fifth Ray archetype, brings forth the knowledge of all that is.

I used to suggest that my students check astrology not with intuition or feelings, but with observable correlations to the real world around us. The aspects may seem to mean something, but things are happening as we speak, indicated by the aspects.

This is a discipline of what educators call "critical thinking," in that there must be correlations if there is to be validity to any perceptual system we're buying into. I have found most feeling referenced systems unreliable. Mental systems are somewhat reliable, depending. But most people do not know the difference between the two. We haven't been trained to distinguish between fact and opinion, much less astral awareness contrasted to Buddhic awareness.

This is only a conundrum to the rational mind. Intuition NEVER fails, only astral feeling-hunches fail. And remember that apparant failures serve to bring forth either discouragement, which though natural, is a waste of time, or an intensified striving, which is the substance that through magnetic attraction aligns us with our future.

[Caleb]

This is incorrect:

"Number theory is holistic enough to explain the totality of perceptual reality..."

A billion words or a billion numbers describing a book does not equal the being of bookishness. "Bookishness", of course, being predicated on the idea that there's such a thing as a "book", which is separate from everything else.

[Robert]

Hi Caleb - Sorry, but you're confusing number theory with numbers. "Zero" is not a number, but a pure concept without form. Yet from zero arises ONE-ness. This is not the same as the number one. "Nothingness" is nothing, but from nothingness arises "limitlessness," one and yet not one.

"Bookishness" and "book" coexist without separateness, just as all limits exist within limitlessness, a concept none of us have ever experienced despite suffering or enjoying limits. And a book cannot exist apart from bookishness. An expressed form is not necessarily separate from anything, though it appears distinct as a discrete entity. In fact, it is part of a field, and we are told in ancient commentaries about form that even what we believe to be separate forms actually have simultaneously occurring multiple identical forms in non-chemical substance.

Leaving the Vedic and Tibetan concepts, we now turn to Kabbala, which teaches there are the worlds of Origin, Creation, Formation, and Expression. These pervade all that is. For example: the idea of "sittingness" originates in "Divine Mind." The creation of the infinite things to sit on, both what we know and what we haven't yet imagined, occurs in the world of Creation. The world of Formation further elaborates on the pure potentialities of "sittingness" which express as prime models, and distinguish as various forms that are further shaped in the world of expression.

So sittingness begets creation of chairs, tables, couches, benches, rocks, tree stumps, high wires, floors, sand, etc. However, the world of formation brings forth infinite number of possible forms of these, e.g., short chairs, tall chairs, fat chairs, skinny chairs, wooden chairs, steel chairs etc, or wood benches, long benches, short benches, metal benches, upholstered benches, etc. and so on into - literally - infinity! The specific composition of these is in the world of expression. But they all exist simultaneously.

You cannot imagine any form of distinct reality that does not somehow include the concepts of point, line, and plane. You cannot speak, you cannot think in distinct images, you cannot have one piece of information from the 5 senses or the mind without it relating to the principles of number theory. Your mind cannot send a neural impulse without it being described by the principles of number theory. Even "amoeba-ness" shows the principles of number theory. All we perceive (and my original comment did mention perception) was brought forth by the thought forms of the Kumaras (Eternals) who created, formed, and expressed the "plan" resulting in all life as we know it on Earth, using what we call the principles of number theory, to accumulate chitta at various vibrational levels. Can the expression of the concept ever be separate from that which created it through a thought form?

[Caleb]

Both of your last two answers have this in common:

1. An opening statement which is not true, and which forms the basis of
2. ...all sorts of things that are true but actually have nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

All explanations aside, this is still a specious statement:


"Number theory is holistic enough to explain the totality of perceptual reality..."

However you want to define it - "numbers" or "number theory" is not the totality of the tao, even if the tao contains the totality of numbers and/or number theory.
3. No concession, or even an address, about ANY limitations of number theory and/or dualistically-based knowledge/systems. All can be known and some individual unit of consciousness can know and command it all, apparently.
4. ...somehow at the end you and your supreme knowledge end up placed atop the whole construct.

[Robert]

Hi Caleb - I am willing to concede that you believe some statements as untrue. However, the original subject is about intuition. I stated there is a difference between intuition and mind and feeling, though they all coexist. Even to believe we're referencing "intuition" involves a degree of subjective duality. Where there is any multiplicity at all, this involves number theory, which encompasses all knowledge. Without knowledge, we cannot discuss any thing, since it takes knowledge to describe anything.

I am assuming this is a dialogue on the basis of our knowledge and experience. It has nothing to do with supreme knowledge, though we are exploring how some of that manifests, and I certainly did not invent the concepts we're exploring here.

In any dialogue we must try to define terms so we can have a common language. I may not be understanding the abstract concept you're describing, and vise-versa. There is no point in talking of things beyond description. Dialogue is about what we can describe, and all description arises from "name and form." That's number theory. It's the basis of metaphysics, including all sciences and philosophies, as well as ethics. Perhaps we can name it differently, such as "the nature of things," or Tao, or whatever. It is the eternal process and structure to all that is. I call it number theory. I don't believe our differences are in that.

So let's get back to your original post which was number based systems cracking "God's code" can make a person insane (proved incorrect by innumerable yogis), it's better to train/check the intuition while studying, and lean on their heart more often. I agree with your last two statements. Then you accused me of discounting the living wisdom of the cosmos, which you of all people know I don't.

Then you asserted "if one's intuition is failing them then they can still have an error that destroys the world - even if they received the perfect astrological and/or ching which tries to warn them (e.g, they see/don't see what they desire/fear/etc from the reading)." And I said true intuition never fails, though I admit imperfect knowledge of how to interpret "oracles" often fails us.

Then you challenged the validity of number theory as a method to describe how to know some of the distinctions between feeling, thinking, and intuiting. How do we know what is intuition rather than logic, abstract thinking, or a hunch? I tried to clarify what I thought was a misunderstanding around my use of the term number theory. And now we come to here.

So your statement that "but actually have nothing to do with what I'm talking about." is not exactly true. Are we speaking of how to describe intuition, or how to know it is intuition rather than something else, or are we speaking of the right of mind to judge what is and isn't, whether it's experienced it or not? Are we trying to describe that which is beyond description, or are we seeking to discuss how to know how intuition fits into Divine Mind, Lower mind, ego, or limited belief systems, which was the point of the original post?

Systems theory transcends all systems. Number theory is a useful descriptor to attempt to approach something which is beyond description. As for your demand for a "concession" about the limitations of dualistic systems, they are throughout the post and responses. In fact, upon rereading the article, it is TOTALLY about our limitations due to our relative lack of perfect understanding of what, why, how, when, and if. I never said any human, perception-based system is perfect. I merely raised the issue that many who believe they are working off of intuition may be working off of something else, and that something else may be imperfect, especially to the degree it is subjective and not able to be cross-checked with reality, astrology, or any other reliable measuring stick.

Your statement "All can be known and some individual unit of consciousness can know and command it all, apparently." is absolutely true, once the consciousness reaches a certain vibratory level, which may or may not involve being a teacher of humanity. There is an ancient saying that "He who would command nature must first obey its laws in order to have its secrets revealed." Those who are able to demonstrate the siddhis have totally surrendered to all that is, both dual and non-dual. And yet even they do not have "perfect knowledge." Even the Kumaras do not have "perfect knowledge." The Great Work reveals itself in each moment, and each moment is a building block in an infinite series of moments. Time, like light, can be viewed as wave-form or aggregate of particles. This is the secret of precipitation of thought forms into real substance. All of this exactly addresses your concerns about intuition versus limited, conditional dualistic perceptual tools.

[Caleb]

True enough:

"...many who believe they are working off of intuition may be working off of something else, and that something else may be imperfect, especially to the degree it is subjective and not able to be cross-checked with reality, astrology, or any other reliable measuring stick."

...but it seems incomplete without explicitly stating what's on the other side of the coin:
One does not need astrology, an iching, or anything else if they are in in tune with their heart/intuition, though some may find it consoling, or even helpful at times, to check their heart/intuition with a reading.

Finally, this statement by you seems like more than a bit of an overreach, and brings into question the role of ego, in my mind:

"All can be known and some individual unit of consciousness can know and command it all, apparently." is absolutely true"

Perhaps it would be better to let the consciousnesses that know and command all to speak for themselves and not presume to speak for them.

[Robert]

Hi Caleb - I have had a few transcendent realizations over the years, and have glimpsed things that many have not. While many people might achieve a moment or even a lifetime of enlightenment, I still get to claim my experience, however limited it may be in the cosmic scheme of things, along with the direct and very much absolute knowledge of unconditional truth revealed in those transcendent moments.

I am allowed to speak on behalf of the enlightened beings I have studied and sat with for the benefit of those who are ignorant of such teachings. No one has the right to say I do not; they may correct me if I have misquoted or misunderstood the teaching, but I have been exposing people to the teachings of various masters for decades.

I do not believe that anyone on this earth (short of a Sai Baba, who does use astrology, as Amma also recommends it, as do many saints and sadhus on earth!) cannot use an astrology reading, and learn things they did not know before, even with intuition. Even natural intuitives are still limited by the language and conceptual complexity of their frame of reference. That's why it's good to get concepts outside of familiar systems. No intuition is worth a flip without knowledge with which to interpret it, and contrast that with other forms of understanding to know the place and function of each within the whole. That's the true flip side of the coin. Intuition requires specific knowledge through which to apply it, or it's powerless.

You seem to be paraphrasing Krishnamurti, who upon achieving limited higher awareness of some things, willingly threw out the baby with the bathwater and put the corrosive seeds of useless doubt in his students who did not have the same awareness. While intuition may indeed reveal what is within us, we also are a part of a field, and unless you can do without your 5 senses and your mind, then you are dependent on them for interpreting the subjective intuitive impressions, since they never express as linear ideas, but awareness. We can cultivate intuition, but good luck communicating your impressions without the requisite knowledge.