Astrology is a very deep subject, but most people consider it a kind of superstitious guide to material progress. If you use astrology only for guidance in material matters, you will be doing its teachings an injustice. Astrology is too vast, both mathematically and philosophically, to be rightly grasped except by people of profound understanding. In ancient times, astrology was seen primarily as a guide to spiritual development. To use astrology for material purposes was considered a lower application of what is essentially a divine science.
Astrology is the study of man’s response to planetary stimuli. All parts of creation are linked together and interchange their influences. No matter what your environment, the surrounding rays of the earth and universe will have an impact upon you. Astrology was intended to assist you on your inner journey, by helping you become more aware of the interrelationships between the objective universe and the inner aspects of yourself.
The relation of the stars to the human body and mind is very subtle. There is a correlation between the six centers (chakras) in the spine, which become twelve by polarity, and the twelve signs of the zodiac. Millions of volts of electrical current are lodged in these spinal centers. If your body and your mind are very strong, you will be impervious to the evil vibrations from the stars when they begin to shed their rays upon you. But if your body and mind are weak through transgressions of wrong eating, wrong thinking, bad character, and bad company, then the stellar rays will have the power to affect you.
How the stars affect us
The stars influence your life only in accordance with patterns that you yourself established in the past. A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma (past actions). The astrological configurations serve only as symbols of karmic influences, which you have set into motion in the past. The stars and planets themselves can no more choose how they will affect you than you can select your own karmic destiny.
The message boldly blazoned across the heavens at the moment of birth was not meant to emphasize fate, the result of past good and evil, but to arouse your will to escape from this universal bondage. What you have done, you can undo. You can overcome whatever effects are now prevalent in your life because you created them by your own actions in the first place, and because you have inner spiritual resources which are not subject to planetary pressure.
The best way, therefore, to improve your lot is deliberately to act in such a way as to counteract the evil effects of past deeds. Especially if this course of action springs from inner attunement with God, or is adopted under the wise guidance of one who knows God, it will serve as an antidote to all baneful actions of the past.
The stars influence your life only in accordance with patterns that you yourself established in the past. A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma. The astrological configurations serve only as symbols of karmic influences, which you have set into motion in the past. The stars and planets themselves can no more choose how they will affect you than you can select your own karmic destiny.
Paramhansa Yogananda
Excerpted from www.ananda.org. The 125th birth anniversary of Paramhansa Yogananda was celebrated on January 2.
