by Robert Wilkinson
Today we take a new look at how Astrology relates to intuition, hunches, belief systems, and other internal reference points. I originally wrote this article as a response to a friend’s question, "Why can't someone just rely on their intuition instead of astrology?" Welcome to the intersection of Fate Street and Free Will Street on Eternity Boulevard!
I last gave you this 3-part series about 4 years ago. As usual, I’ve substantially rewritten parts of this series to make it more readable, or easier to understand some of the key points. Please enjoy the journey of exploring internal filters and possibilities of shifting angles of perception! I suppose I could call this part "The Tricks Our Conditioning Plays on our Perception," but the subject matter does relate to astrology, if only in the difference between hunches, intuition, and astrological analysis of trends.
The short answer to my friend’s question is that you can rely on your intuition instead of astrology, but just be ready to take the consequences of acting with incomplete or inaccurate knowledge. While true intuition is always accurate, the problem is knowing whether we're operating from intuition or an astral set of assumptions and feelings that may have been formed by inaccurate perceptions.
So we’ll begin by examining “feeling-knowing.” Usually these are "hunches," but they’re not the same as “inner tuition.” Most “gut instinct” operates on the astral level, and is unreliable. Intuition can only be cultivated by strict discipline across time for it to operate unerringly. Mainly it involves training our mind to recognize our heart. I’ll pick this up downstream a bit.
All of us 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. We all make our decisions limited by our blind spots, our prejudices, and our wishful thinking. We all carry feeling-impressions in our astral body, and these impact our choices until we become aware of them.
Everyone we meet that evokes a feeling-response are our teachers, and offer us opportunities to raise our awareness of what’s going on and why our responses are as they are. Since all of life involves interacting with others, all our experiences in life offer us opportunities to perfect how we respond in the moment. We can always transcend our old instincts and training, but we have to a) know what they are, and b) have the self-discipline to follow through.
Knowing what they are involves being aware of when you are being driven by subconscious or unconscious patterns rather than self-aware chosen behavior. We are a combination of the subconscious mind, the self-conscious mind, and the Super-conscious mind. Our task is to train the self-conscious mind to fuse with the Superconscious Mind and take command of the subconscious mind, eliminating unhelpful images and engraving those which lead us to our Highest Self.
We are a blend of human patterns of acting, feeling, and thinking in a forever changing reality. Throughout our lives, our personalities have been shaped by cultural biases, assumptions, inferences, and delusions that created the causes and effects in our lives, both pleasurable as well as painful. This afflicts the entire human race.
The higher Law of our Being teaches us that everyone is limited by perception, regardless of the assumed certainty of our view. All forms change, even our pre-set belief systems. As we understand this as a function of time and experience, we learn humility and compassion through adapting to this very curious, strange, and ever-changing world.
Most of us have not been 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 training with an ability to know the boundaries between one's own subconscious and others', as well as the collective unconscious.
Then there’s the empathic factor. We all have Pisces somewhere in our chart, and that’s where we often 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 in the Agni Yoga lessons 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 on the astral (or emotional) level. While feelings can seem real because of their strength, we often misjudge the meaning of what we're feeling and come to an incomplete or erroneous understanding of what that feeling is really about. Most of us have not been trained to distinguish between the truly real, the conditionally real, the apparently real and the obviously unreal. These are important distinctions in all phenomena that we perceive.
Astrology serves an entirely different function than intuition. Astrology is the road map and weather report on our journey of human experience. While intuition is always a blessing and power, astrology shows us the timing of all the factors in our holistic reality as each planet fulfills various potentials shown in the charts during various chapters of our lives.
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. It is very useful when we need to figure out widespread generic patterns and what we specifically need to work on, regardless of the larger patterns in play.
Astrology helps us mark the timing on shifts in the effects of prior causes, applying just the right energy in just the right way for the circumstance we’re in. Astrology helps us know whether it's a good time to launch our boats, mend our nets, or just enjoy life. 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 or Sages 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 or wise in our thinking, feelings, and actions, astrology is 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.
As I offered before, astrology is 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 or impassible straits, 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.
© Copyright 2017 Robert Wilkinson
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