by Robert Wilkinson
My book Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend is an exploration of destiny, spiritual growth, karma, Dharma/Tao, and how to work with our understanding to master certain difficult elements of life so we don’t have to go through them again. Because it seems so many are trying to come to terms with their family members, today we take a new look at personal karma, family karma, and our freedom to reject toxic behavior.
The book is a manual on how to take command of our personality so we’re not at the mercy of outer forces which may not be operating for our greatest good. While we cannot prevent certain experiences which are baked into our karma so we may fulfill Dharma/Tao, we have the ability to change our future karma by how we respond to events happening now. Often by changing our “response ability” we change how the future will unfold and how skillfully we’ll manage future challenges.
These are both from Chapter 4, “Saturn, Dharma, and Karma.” The first commentary is from the section titled “Transcending the Family and Cultural Matrix.”
When we are younger and developing the lower ego, of necessity we use the tools and values we’ve learned from the cultural matrix. Our pre-formed ego is not really who we are; it is a manufactured entity and a temporary place holder until we find ways to enhance its power, or transcend it entirely. It is a construct that helps us deal with the pressures of the social environment, the accumulation of influences and learned responses to social and cultural demands on our evolving awareness. Some of them are consciously chosen, while others are unconscious patterns we’ve built into our mental and emotional vehicles for coping purposes.Over time and experience, we find ourselves confronting situations where we either reaffirm learned values and responses, or rebel against them because they are inadequate to explain or deal with the crises we confront. The key to mastering evolution is to learn to be ever-more conscious in the choices we make and why we are making them. Are we trying to conform to a set of inadequate or unfulfilling behaviors? Are we trying to fit the unknown into the known? Are we trying to use the skills of a child to deal with the crises of our adult life?
Saturn helps us understand the boundaries of our religion, belief systems, and social-cultural matrix in dealing with life experiences assisting our personality growth. While the values and responses of our childhood conditioning and early adult assumptions are necessary up to a point, because of our eternal nature, the evolutionary process leads always to crises of individualization. These crises challenge us to learn and/or bring forth skills helping us transcend conscious and unconscious patterns which create trouble, problematic emotional responses, and ineffective ways of dealing with crises.
All of this serves to make us more aware of self-perpetuating negative influences we must transcend. As we become more aware, and choose to transmute negative and ineffectual responses into positive and more effective responses, we individualize as Soul/Spirits who can cultivate and maintain good human relationships as well as healthy attitudes about who we are, who we’re not, and what we’re here to do and be. Then we’ve effectively transcended any sense of helplessness when confronted with a crisis, since we have the power to change our patterns of response, unhindered by family, religious, or cultural limitations.
From that same chapter, in the section titled “Family Karma,” we read:
The choices our parents make influence our lives, but only up to a point. When our lower ego begins to take shape through our mind’s sequence and selection process, we find we rely on some of those family and cultural patterns, but also separate from some of them.As we individualize, we understand how we were conditioned by the family and cultural matrix of beliefs, superstitions, taboos, and aspirations, and can consciously choose to renounce and grow beyond those which are no longer adequate to our evolving higher awareness. Put another way, many family systems were fine for who we were when we were born, but are not appropriate for the Higher Self we are to become.
There is a widespread belief that often one or more family members are part of our larger “group Soul,” and we are bound to the Karma generated by our group Soul. However, this illusion still places the power of how we evolve with external factors, when in truth our evolution is entirely determined by the interactions between the lower ego and our Higher Self.
Whatever Karmas we deal with as part of a group Soul, even those we share with others in our family, in the final analysis we each have our own karmic path and lessons. It is impossible for any of us to live a previous generation's Karma, or anyone else’s karma, since each of us has our own ticket to ride as we navigate the River of Life.
We all are born with a unique “vintage” within a larger “vintage” of the times. Each generation must deal with the issues and detritus of the previous generation, as well as the aspirations, illusions, and qualities of their own. There is also the all-important factor that life is a continuum that flows ever onward, and as we are constantly learning from and reacting to our past experiences, we also are forever compelled to deal with unintended developments in the here and now.
Throughout the book I offer insights into how we are shaped and inhibited by our family and cultural matrix and the fears and assumptions of our parents. I explore what we can do to break free of childhood patterns which keep us from enjoying the power to shape our lives to a fulfilling end. We may have been born into the family and cultural matrix we were, but we are not trapped within that matrix. Even if a family member relates to us a certain way, we have the power to respond as spiritual adults.
If we ever want to be happy and feel like we’re fulfilling our purpose on Earth, we have to identify and eliminate unhelpful family and social patterns we learned in the past while refocusing our intention to new points of view and new ways to understand who we are and who we aren’t. Many feelings and attitudes we learned when younger have no place in what we’re learning about being our Higher Self. To life a fulfilled life, we must leave behind lesser views and attitudes and embrace the greater adventure of Self-unfoldment.
Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend offers you an entirely new look at our inner Saturn and the power it gives us to take command of our lives and destiny. If Saturn represents all that limits us and holds us back, it’s only so we can master those lessons, becoming spiritual adults living our lives on our own terms. As we grow in our spiritual understanding and awareness of our “response ability,” we naturally fulfill our purpose and are at peace with our power and intention.
By awakening to our Saturnian strengths, as we apply them we overcome fear, hopelessness, despair, and any lurking feelings of victimization or powerlessness. It is the one power we have to persist despite all adversity, and gives us patience, determination, and self-sufficiency. What I offer about using Saturn for personal growth was written for both astrologers and non-astrologers, and gives perspectives readers can use to understand why some things happened when they did. As we learn to “make friends” with our inner power we begin to re-shape our destiny, setting paths to finish difficult patterns and embrace more fulfilling ones.
As you move on this journey of self-discovery, you’ll naturally become more aware of how everything has led you to Soul growth. This book will help you see how your Higher “Is-Be-Ness,” also known as Destiny, Dharma, or Tao has led you through various types of karma, some of which you created and some you didn’t. It will also help you understand the importance of Saturn as our “Ring-Pass-Not,” or that part of us which must learn certain lessons so we can find purpose, meaning, and skill as we navigate each chapter of life.
The second part of the book examines how Saturn cycles mark major points of choice and change throughout life, and what we can expect when Saturn makes conjunctions, squares, and oppositions to our planets and Ascendant. There are tables assisting the reader to know when Saturn was in each sign, so even those with little or no understanding of astrology can track the timing on their major life changes. Of universal importance is the chapter dedicated to the Saturn Return, perhaps the most crucial times of choice and change in life when our decisions profoundly shape our future.
Part two closes with a chapter on one of the most significant factors in our personal unfoldment: how the progressed Moon and transiting Saturn cycles track each other throughout life and relate to our emotional growth, and a chapter on a global phenomenon which happened between 2003-2020 impacting everyone on Earth for decades to come. The Epilogue offers insights about living “the spiritual life,” spiritual forces we use to come out of suffering into Wisdom, and the multiple dimensions of higher and broader possibilities of personal evolution, regardless of which path to Truth we may be on.
This is a book you will reference many times for many reasons, and each time you pick it up you’re sure to find undiscovered gems of insight on each page. This book can help you throw off all the attitudes and memories which have held you back from finding and living the life and purpose you’ve been searching for since you were young. Welcome to the journey of self-discovery, and finding your power to live your life on your own terms, fulfilling your reason for being alive as an Eternal having human experiences!
You can order your copy by going to the Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend Amazon page. If you would, please write a review on the Amazon site, since the more reviews, the bigger the boost on their site.
© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson
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