Astrology and the Antidotes to Human Suffering

by Robert Wilkinson

Yesterday’s article ”How Astrology Relates to the Sources of Human Suffering" offered an introduction to the way destiny and free will intersect in astrology, and how some of our mental hardwiring sets us up to suffer through our attachments, aversions, illusions and delusions, and the mind’s inherent pessimism. Today we discuss how to antidote these sources of suffering.

One or more of these things that create suffering are found in every difficult situation, every challenging relationship, and every personal crisis. However, we have the power to choose wiser responses when we most want to clutch, stick our heads in the sand, or fall prey to illusions and pessimism. It involves self-awareness and conscious choice in the moment, but with diligent practice we can master the sources of suffering in ourselves, which enables us to know what to do when we find attachments, aversions, illusions, or pessimism creating problems for others.

Both “Big K” and “little k” karmas play a part in what shows up in our lives that challenge us not to fall into behaviors that generate suffering, as well as antidote the past karmic patterns that keep us suffering. Both types of karma are explored in my book “Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend,” which is useful in sorting out various types of challenges we deal with throughout life. Once we understand the sources of the problems, and know what to do, then negative karmic patterns can be turned to positive karmic opportunities in a very short time.

Astrology gives us a way to know when our karmic challenges will present themselves, giving us opportunities to generate and perpetuate good karmic patterns, as well as turn negative karmic patterns and responses to more productive ones. As I offered in yesterday’s article, the octile series aspects (semisquare, square, sesquisquare and opposition) indicate points of friction or tension in the “whole cycle.” These are periods in time when we are most challenged in some way symbolized by the planets in frictional contact.

These aspects tend to focus our attention so we can deal with the internal and/or external friction going on. These are the exact points in any cycle when we can override responses that will perpetuate suffering, replacing them with better, more productive responses.

After these points of friction and potential crisis, whether in the waxing or waning phases, we find ourselves in relatively productive, stabilizing, and even specializing phases in the “whole cycle.” These periods allow us to incorporate the better response into our hologram, creating the tendency to more productive responses in the future. It is useful to see all difficulty in the moment as a product of prior causes of commission and omission, and as an opportunity to choose not to play to responses that will generate more suffering.

That’s why the frictional aspects are the best times to shift negative to positive responses, and the favorable aspects are times to understand and practice productive views and responses, stabilizing them as habits in our consciousness. With enough practice, we will be able to greet all negative circumstances without falling into suffering or behaviors that are ineffective in dealing with suffering.

So what are the antidotes to the 4 sources of human suffering residing in the brain-mind? If these are universal human problems, then there must be universal solutions we can apply whenever inner or outer friction leads us into confronting attachments, aversions, delusions and illusions, and the negativity of the mind. And because all of Life is One, as we master healthy responses in ourselves, then we can be the Light of “the corrective Force of Nature Herself” whenever we find ourselves in situations where others are in difficulty through any of the sources of suffering.

The antidotes must be practiced diligently and consistently until they become fixed habits in our response. While it’s human to fall back into getting attached, or avoiding tough people and hard lessons, or getting lost in misunderstanding why things are as they are, as we apply the antidotes to negative circumstances as they arise, over time the tendency to fall back into unproductive behaviors will end.

Each time the tendency to fall back into getting attached, avoiding the problem, buying into illusions and delusions, or being pessimistic comes up, it’s the perfect time to examine what in our mind continues to go there. Is it the self-conscious mind, or the subconscious mind? As I told you, weeds are tough to exterminate, but they must be eliminated from “the garden of the flowering mind” if we are to realize our Divine potential.

So let’s explore the antidotes to suffering. The obvious antidote for attachment is Detachment. Perhaps easier said than done, but once you form the habit it becomes a natural response. Even to detach from detachment teaches detachment, much like the reward of patience is more patience.

It is easy to see how various types of physical, emotional, and mental attachments lead to suffering. Attachment to perceptual traps leads to wars and conflicts, both internal and external. Through detachment we come out of clutching, wandering aimlessly through painful experiences, and learn how not to magnetize unfortunate experiences and people to us.

Over time, detachment helps us not fear that the good will end or the bad won’t. As all forms pass away down the timestream of Life, we learn not to clutch at things, people, and attitudes that no longer have any purpose in our lives. That allows us to enjoy the moment, and come out of fear.

The antidote for aversion is Dispassion, or indifference to the separate, fear-based ego-self and its opinions and perceptions. We all tend to avoid seeing certain things. With dispassion we can observe life without seeing only what we want to see. It doesn’t mean we will agree with all things – but it can result in a point of view where we see the impermanence of all views and attitudes.

Practicing this virtue helps us learn not to take things personally. Most of us are invested in subjective points of view. This gives rise to a degree of suffering when those views change or are challenged.

Dispassion and inner equilibrium are naturally linked, with equipoise the strength and refuge of dispassion. Another benefit of dispassion is that a certain degree of detachment will naturally arise as well, as these two virtues tend to be mutually reinforcing.

The antidote for delusions or illusions based in misunderstanding is Discrimination, or Divine Discernment. This is the ability to know the more valuable from the less valuable, the more relevant from the less relevant, “the real from the unreal.” With discrimination we examine the relativity of a thing to everything else in the field of perception to come to an understanding of its place and function within a larger whole.

Through discrimination we learn about what is valuable for our Higher Self's evolution, and can see why our ego had to go through certain lessons so we don't have to be trapped in those situations again. Even a negative or difficult experience can be turned to a positive realization if we see how it fits into our larger evolutionary path.

Discernment helps us attach to our best interests, detach from unproductive behaviors when it’s time to move on, and avoid needless problems and suffering. By understanding what to do or not do, what to say or not say, we come to precision in our efforts to be the best influence we can be in our world. We can know the truly real, the apparently real, the conditionally real, and the inherently unreal, and help others come out of illusions and delusions.

The antidote for the tendency to suffer over suffering is an intense Positivity, also known as Goodwill. This “Will-To-Good” is a self-generating radiance that external affairs cannot affect, but which can turn what is stagnant into something dynamic. The more you practice this eternal radiance, you are attuning your personality in harmony with your Inner Flame. Once a habit of positivity is practiced, you find that many things that once bothered you just glance off your “shell of personality” harmlessly, and you expend less effort struggling with things.

Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes harder to practice the ideal of positivity, knowing the important from the unimportant, with detachment and dispassion. And of course the level of difficulty doesn’t matter, since it's all an evolving process of your own self-realization, and therefore it's all good. Generating positivity is the power we have to turn the moment from a problem to an opportunity.

As you can see, the antidotes to suffering are fairly simple, universal, and only need to be practiced with an open mind and heart to work. No one else can buy them for you, sell them to you, or practice them for you. That’s the genius of the Plan for each of us. We are totally free to take any evolutionary leap at any moment of our choosing.

The trick to leaping is to keep your eye on where you’re going, and avoid the twists and turns that once led you into proverbial ditches wondering why things turned out as they did. Even if you still find yourself dealing with these from time to time, practicing any forms of one or more of these antidotes will restore the sunshine in your day, and peace in your heart. Take the power!

Every tendency can become a habit, and habits create lifestyle. To paraphrase a great astrologer-philosopher, character is destiny, in the sense that as you shape your character you shape your destiny. Your habits either contribute to your well-being, or not. A habit of positivity definitely makes one feel better than not. Give it a try!

Enjoy the practice, and each time you are successful, you are generating personality integration. Eventually you will transcend suffering, will be able to assist others to transcend their suffering, and be stronger, clearer, and a blessing to your world. Aum.

Copyright © 2017 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Eugenia Sapershteyn]

Robert,
these two articles are great! I am practicing these 4 antidotes without having it so clearly stated, or at least I think so, when it concerns the "big world".

Could you please elaborate on how to reconcile "love, loyalty, devotion, and care" with detachment. They should not be in contradiction, should they?
I grew up with those virtues being imprinted on me as positive, and detachment seem to contradict them.
I would appreciate your sage advice.
Eugenia

[Robert]

Hi Eugenia - Good question! Love, loyalty, devotion, and care are of course virtues to be cultivated. However, we must practice detachment so someone else's version of "love" doesn't get in the way of us knowing what love is and is not. Love is a universal, and from one point of view, is infinitely detached, since one cannot "possess" love. There is Love, and then there are the many distorted versions of "love." Many look for an abstraction they call "love," or they are actually living that radiant wisdom that love IS.

Loyalty? To whom and what? Even loyalty to deeply held beliefs must be questioned and reevaluated from time to time, since the loyalties of childhood may not be adequate for what we must live today. Be loyal only to your Wisdom, your Way, and your Spiritual Community. Be loyal to the purity of your loving heart. Nothing else needs your loyalty.

Devotion? Again, what are you devoted to? Devotion is a 6th Ray quality, but is an attribute, not an affect. We learn devotion to a host of lesser things so we may know what is truly worthy of our devotion. If the only worthy things to be devoted to is "God and Guru" (as I once heard it put), then yes, be devoted to being aware of the Creative Force of the Universe, and be devoted to that which dispels darkness in your life. Still, as our conception of these change throughout our lives, we must detach from lesser things and embrace a greater Way, Truth, and Life/Light.

Care? We all learn to take care of many things. It is all a practice so we can learn to care for what really matters. If care for a lesser thing damages our ability to care for ourselves in healthy ways, or frustrates our quest for ever-greater truths and realization, or blocks us from caring for greater things, then that "care" doesn't serve the purpose of the service we are trying to do. Why are we caring the way we do for what we do? This question is necessary if we're ever to redirect away from obsolete form of loyalty, devotion, and care into more appropriate forms of these as we evolve in skill and awareness.

We ARE Love; we do those other things as a function of our love. But true love is unconditional, and therefore we learn to detach from all things when they pass away. True love does not clutch, nor fear. Love is loyal to love, love is devoted to love, love cares for love. When there is true love, then loyalty, devotion, and care will shine forth in their native purity; when there is not true love, then we will experience distorted or lesser forms of these. Then we detach from the lesser love, and embrace the quest for a greater love.

[Nic]

Great writing, great two posts. Making the complicated clear and simple is the trademark of wisdom. Thank you Robert for the wisdom shared in the post (and the following comments).

Blessings be to all.

[bomega]

Robert,

Thank you once again for sharing your wisdom. This happened to be exactly what I needed at this very time.