Hidden Mysteries
Astrology: The Science of Cosmic Oneness: OSHO
Astrology is perhaps the most ancient subject and also in a way the most tabooed. It is the most ancient because as far back as we have been able to investigate the history of mankind, astrology has been in existence. Astrological inscriptions have been found on bone remnants from the Sumerian civilization which existed twenty-five thousand years before Jesus. Bone remnants have been discovered with astrological inscriptions and with an outline of the moon’s orbit in the sky.
But in India this science is even older. In the Rigveda, reference is made to a certain constellation of the stars which could only have occurred ninety-five thousand years ago. Because of this, Lokmanya Tilak concluded that the Vedas must certainly be even more ancient: the constellation of the stars as the Vedas described it could only have occurred at a certain moment ninety-five thousand years ago, so that particular vedic reference must be at least ninety-five thousand years old.
That particular vedic reference could not have been added at a later period. Other, younger generations would not have been able to work out a constellation that existed many years before. But now we have scientific methods which we can use to discover where the stars were at a particular moment in the distant past.
The deepest laws of astrology were first discovered in India. In fact it was only because of astrology that mathematics was born. To make astrological calculations, first mathematics was needed.
The digits used in arithmetic were invented in India — the numbers one to ten which exist in all the world’s languages are basically Indian in origin. And throughout the world the decimal system has been accepted: the decimal system was born in India, and it slowly spread throughout the entire world. When you say “nine” in English, it is only a modification of the Sanskrit word nav. When you say “eight” in English, it is only a modification of the Sanskrit word acht. The numerals one to nine, prevalent in all the world’s languages, came into existence only because of the influence of Indian astrology.
The first knowledge about the existence of astrology reached the Sumerian civilization from India. Six thousand years before Jesus, the Sumerians were the first to open the doors of astrology to the Western world. The Sumerians laid the foundation for the scientific study of the constellation. They constructed a gigantic tower, seven hundred feet tall, and from that tower Sumerian priests used to observe the sky twenty-four hours a day. Sumerian metaphysicians soon learned that whatever happens to mankind is somehow ultimately connected with the stars — they are the source.
Six thousand years before Jesus, it was the view in Sumeria that whenever illness occurs, whenever epidemics are born, the stars are somehow connected. These days there is a scientific basis for this view. And those who understand the science of astrology today say it was the Sumerians who began the history of mankind.
In 1920 a Russian scientist, Chijevsky, investigated this matter deeply and discovered that every eleven years, enormous explosions take place on the sun. Every eleven years a nuclear explosion occurs on the sun. Chijevsky discovered that whenever such nuclear explosions occur on the sun, wars and revolutions commence on earth. According to him, during the past seven hundred years, whenever such phenomena have occurred on the sun, there have been disasters on earth.
Chijevsky’s analysis was so undeniable, and because it went against the Marxist viewpoint, in 1920 Stalin had him arrested and thrown into prison. Only after Stalin’s death could Chijevsky be released. For Stalin, Chijevsky’s conclusions must have seemed very strange. According to Marxist and communist thinking, whatever revolutions occur on the earth are fundamentally caused by economic differences among men. But Chijevsky declared that the cause of revolutions is the explosions happening on the sun.
How can explosions on the sun possibly be related to the existence of poverty or wealth in the lives of men? If Chijevsky’s thesis is correct, then Marx’s entire system disintegrates into dust. Then you can’t explain revolutions any longer in reference to economics and class struggle; then only astrology can explain revolution.
Chijevsky could not be proved wrong. His seven hundred year calculation was so scientific, the connection he established between explosions on the sun and phenomena on the earth was so close, that to prove him wrong was difficult. But to send him to Siberia was a simple matter.
After Stalin’s death Khrushchev released Chijevsky from Siberia. Fifty valuable years of this man’s life were lost in Siberia. After his release he could not live longer than four to six months, but in those few months he gathered together even more evidence for his thesis. He also linked the spread of epidemics on the earth to solar influence.
The sun is not a static ball of fire, as we ordinarily think, but rather an infinitely alive and dynamic, fiery organism. Every moment the sun changes its mood. And when the sun changes its mood even a little bit, life on earth trembles. Nothing happens on the earth without something happening on the sun. When there is a solar eclipse, the birds in the jungle stop singing twenty-four hours before. During the entire time of the eclipse the whole earth becomes silent. The birds stop their singing and all of the animals in the jungle become oppressed and frightened, full of apprehension. The monkeys abandon their trees and come down below. They form themselves into groups, apparently as a means of protection. And it is a surprising thing that these monkeys, who are always gossiping and making a hue and cry, become so quiet at the time of the eclipse that even sadhus and sannyasins in meditation cannot compare with them.
Chijevsky explained this entire matter, but such thinking first originated in Sumeria. Afterwards, a Swiss physician named Paracelsus discovered more information. He made an unparalleled discovery — and this discovery will transform all of medical science, if not today then tomorrow. Up until now this discovery could not be considered valid because astrology is such an ignored subject — the most ancient, the most ignored, and the most respected at the same time.
Last year in France it was calculated that forty-five percent of the people believe that astrology is a science. In America, five thousand leading astrologers are currently at work night and day. They have so many clients that they can never finish their work properly — Americans pay millions of dollars yearly to astrologers. It is estimated that throughout the world, seventy-eight percent of people believe in astrology. This seventy-eight percent who believe in astrology includes a very large number of scientists, thinkers, and other intelligent people.
C.J. Jung said that the doors of the universities have been closed to astrology for three hundred years, but that in the coming thirty years astrology will open those doors and again enter the university. It will be able to because claims that astrology has made which have up to now been unproved can now be proved.
Paracelsus gave birth to one discovery — that man becomes ill only when the harmonious relationship between him and the constellation of the stars at his birth somehow breaks down. For this, a little explanation is necessary. Many years before Paracelsus, a Greek named Pythagoras gave birth to the very valuable principle of planetary harmony. When Pythagoras proclaimed this principle in Greece, he had just returned from a journey to Egypt and India. When he had come to India, it was intensely absorbed in the ideas of Buddha and Mahavira. After his return to Greece, he included in his reports a specific reference to Buddhist and Jaina sadhus. He gave the Jaina seers the name Jainosophists, and also reported that they walk about naked.
Pythagoras believed that every star, every planet and every satellite gives out a unique vibration through its movement as it travels in space. Every movement of the stars gives out a vibration, and every star has its own individual movement. All the vibrations of the stars together make a musical harmony which he called the harmony of the universe.
When you are born, the melody that is created by the tuning of the stars at that time is inscribed on your mind in its freshest, most unsophisticated, and most sensitive state — that of birth. Throughout your life this will cause good health or ill health. When you live in tune with the original musical harmony that existed at the time of your birth, then you are healthy. And whenever your tuning with this fundamental musical harmony breaks down, you become ill.
In this connection, Paracelsus has done very significant work. He would not prescribe medicine to any patient until he had seen his kundali — his astrological birth chart. And it is a surprising thing that after having examined a patient’s birth chart, Paracelsus would cure patients who had confused other physicians — patients who could not be cured by any other physician. He used to say, “Until I know the position of the stars at the time of this man’s birth, it is not possible to know the notes of his inner harmony. Unless I know the arrangement of his inner harmony, how can this man be made healthy?”
But what is meant by health? This we must try to understand. Ordinarily, if we ask a physician what the definition of health is, he will only say that health is the absence of sickness. But this definition is negative. It is unfortunate that we must define health in terms of illness. Health is a positive thing, a positive state: illness is negative. Health is our nature; illness is an attack on nature. So it is very strange that we must define health in terms of illness. To define the host in terms of the guest — this is very strange.
Health coexists with us; illness comes occasionally. Health accompanies us at birth; illness is a superficial phenomenon. But if we ask a physician what is the meaning of health, he can only say that health is present when illness is absent.
Paracelsus used to say that this interpretation is wrong — the concept of health needs to be positively defined. But how can we reach a positive definition, an interpretation of the concept of health that will be creative?
Paracelsus used to say, “Until we know the state of your inner harmony, we can at the most release you from your illness — because your inner harmony is the source of your health. But when we release you from one illness, you will immediately catch another, because nothing has been done about your inner harmony. Your inner harmony has to be supported.”
Five hundred years have passed since Paracelsus, and his discoveries have disappeared into oblivion. But now, during the past twenty years, astrology has re-emerged. During this time a new science has been born. I will describe this new science a bit, and then you will be able to understand the ancient science of astrology more easily.
In 1950 a new science was born called cosmic chemistry. The originator of this science is Georgi Giardi, one of the most significant men of the century. This man, after endless experiments in the laboratory, proved in a scientific way that the whole universe is an organic unity — that the whole universe is one body. If my finger is hurt, then my whole body is affected. “Body” means that no limb is separate, all are joined together. If my eye is in pain, then my big toe also experiences that pain. If my foot is hurt, the message reaches the heart. If my mind is ill, my entire body will be disturbed. If my whole body is destroyed, then it will be difficult for my mind to find anywhere to be. The body is an organic unity: touch a single part and the whole body vibrates; all parts are affected.
Cosmic chemistry says that the entire cosmos is a body. Nothing in it stands apart, all things are joined together. So no matter how distant a star may be from us, when it changes our heartbeats also change. And no matter how far away the sun may be, when it becomes very disturbed our blood circulation is also disturbed. Every eleven years an atomic storm occurs on the sun. T he last time such a great atomic storm and fiery explosions were going on, a Japanese doctor named Tamatto made an amazing discovery. This doctor had been doing work on women’s blood for twenty years. There is one property unique to female blood which is absent in the blood of males. At the time of menstruation the blood of women becomes thin, but men’s blood always remains the same. Women’s blood at the time of menstruation grows thin; at the time of pregnancy also their blood grows thin. This is one basic difference between the blood of men and women, according to Tamatto. But when atomic energy storms were occurring on the sun with great intensity, the blood of men also grew thin. This was a very novel phenomenon. Before this it had never been recorded that men’s blood was affected by disturbances on the sun. And if blood can be so affected, then anything can be affected.
There is an American thinker, Frank Brown, who has been trying to arrange facilities for travelers in space. For half his life, he has made it his task to ensure that the men who travel into space will face no difficulty. The most serious problem is how they will be affected as they leave the earth. No one knows how much atomic radiation they may encounter or how it may affect them.
For two thousand years after Aristotle, in the West it was thought that space is empty, that nothing is there: two hundred miles away from earth the atmosphere ceases and there is empty space. But the investigations of space travelers have proved this notion to be wrong. Space is not empty, it is very full. It is neither empty nor dead — it is extremely alive.
The truth is that the two-hundred-mile wide layer of the earth’s atmosphere prevents many harmful influences from reaching us. But in space all kinds of strange currents are flowing, the effects of which man may not be able to withstand.
You will be surprised to learn this, and you will laugh, but before he would let a man be sent into space, Frank Brown sent a potato into space. It was Brown’s contention that there is very little essential difference between a man and a potato. If the potato rots, then man cannot survive; if the potato survives, then man may also survive. The potato is a very hardy organism, and man is very sensitive. If even a potato cannot survive in space then for man there is no hope of survival. If a potato returns alive, and if it sprouts after being sown in the ground, then man can be sent into space. However, there would still be fear concerning man’s ability to survive.
From his experiment Brown proved one more thing — that a potato seed lying in the ground, or any seed lying in the ground, grows only in relation to the sun. The sun alone arouses it and encourages it to emerge. The sun alone summons the embryo plant and induces its growth.
Brown also did research in another field. This other subject has even now not been given a suitable name, but at present it is called planetary heredity. There is another word in English, horoscope, which comes from the Greek horoscopos. The meaning of the word horoscopos is: I observe the emerging planets.
When a child is born, at that moment many stars are emerging all around the earth’s horizon. Just as the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, so stars rise and set in space twenty-four hours a day. If a child is being born at six o’clock in the morning, at that time the sun too is rising. At that time some stars are also being birth, and other stars are setting. Some stars are ascendant; some stars are on the decline, other stars are rising. This child is being born into a certain arrangement of stars in space.
Up until now we have doubted — and even now many people not deeply familiar with the subject still doubt — that the moon and stars can have anything to do with man. Wherever the stars may be, what difference will it make to some child being born in a village? And then too, on the same date, under the same constellation not just one child but thousands of children are born…. Among these one may become the president of some country, but the remainder will not. Among these one may die after one hundred years, and another after two days. Among these one will be a genius and one will be an idiot. So from a superficial viewpoint one might ask how a child can be related to a horoscope just by being born under a certain constellation and planetary pattern.
The logic of such a question seems clear and direct: Why would the stars be concerned with the birth of a single child? And then also, not just one child is born; under the very same stars many are born who are not all alike. From such logic it seems that the birth of a human being has no connection with the stars.
But from the investigations of Brown, Picardi, Tamatto and others, we can draw a great conclusion. All these scientists say that while we can’t yet claim that a child as an individual is influenced by the stars, still, we can now say for certain that life as a whole is affected. Whether a child is influenced as an individual we cannot now say or know, but life as a whole is. And if life as a whole is, then as we investigate the facts of the matter more deeply we will discover that the individual, too, is affected by the stars.
One thing more must be considered. It has been thought that astrology is a science which, because it originated in an earlier time, could not develop. But in my view the situation is just the opposite. Astrology was an infinitely developed science in some extremely advanced civilization, but that civilization has been lost and only incomplete fragments of its astrology has remained in our hands.
Astrology is not a new science which needs to be developed, but a science which was at one time very advanced. Then the civilization which developed it was lost. Civilizations come and go every day: the fundamentals, the basic sayings and the basic principles of those things which have been developed by them, become lost.
Today, science is approaching the point where it will accept the thesis that life as a whole is affected by the movements of the stars.
At the time of birth, the condition of a child’s mind is exactly like a very sensitive photo plate…. Two or three things need to be thought about if we want to understand how life is affected. And only if life is affected can there be the possibility of astrology — not otherwise.
We should try to understand the phenomenon of twins. Two types of twins exist. One is identical twins — those who are born from one egg. The other type is those who, although they are twins, are born from separate eggs; in the mother’s womb two eggs become fertilized, and two children are born. The first type is more rare — two children from one egg. They are very significant subjects to study, because they are born at the same time. Out of necessity we call the children born from separate eggs, “twins,” but the moment of their birth is not exactly the same. It must be understood that birth is an ambiguous phenomenon. The first aspect of birth is conception — the actual birth takes place on the day when the foetus is conceived in the mother’s womb. This is actual birth. What you call birth is really birth number two — when the child comes out of the mother’s womb.
If we were to carry out a complete astrological investigation — as the Hindus alone have done, and done very thoroughly — then our actual concern would not begin when the child is born. Our actual concern begins when the child starts its journey in the mother’s womb, when the embryo takes shape — because that is the actual birth. So Hindus have also come to feel that if a particular type of child is to take birth, it will be born if intercourse and pregnancy occur under an arrangement of planets and constellation most suitable for that type. Now I will explain to you a little of the background of this, because much work has been done in this area and many things have become clear.
Ordinarily, when a child is born at six o’clock in the morning, we think that the constellation which exists at that time influences the child. My view is different, fundamentally different. Just because a child is born at six o’clock in the morning the stars don’t cast their influence over him. No. Rather, the child chooses to be born under those stars which will influence him as he wishes to be influenced. This is a radically different thing. When the child is taking birth, then it chooses the planets and stars and the moment at which it will take birth. And if we go still more deeply, then the child also chooses the time of its conception.
Every soul chooses its own time of conception — when it will accept a womb, at which moment. The moment of conception is not insignificant. It is significant in that it is a question of how the entire universe exists at that moment and to what sort of possibilities the universe opens the door at that moment.
When two children are conceived together from one egg, then the moment of their conception is the same and the moment of their birth is the same. It is interesting that the lives of the two children who have taken birth from one egg are so alike that it is difficult to say that the moment of birth has no influence. The I.Q. of twins born from one egg is just about equal. And the fractional difference which arises — those who know say that it is because of our faulty measuring devices. Even now we have not been able to develop adequate criteria by which we can quantitatively measure intelligence.
Even if twins born from the same egg are brought up far apart from each other, still their I.Q.’s do not differ. Even if one child is raised in India and another in China, and neither is aware of the existence of the other, this will still be true. Cases have occurred where such twins have been raised far apart from each other until they have attained maturity, but their I.Q.’s did not differ. It is surprising that the I.Q. can be associated with the child’s potential at birth.
When the twin who lives in China suffers from a cold, at that time its twin in India also suffers from a cold. Generally, twins born from one egg die in the same year. At the most, three years elapse between their deaths, and at the least, three days — but never more than three years. If one twin has died then we can assume that after three days or within three years, the other will die. Their attitudes, their behavior, their feelings, are parallel, and it seems that the two live in almost exactly the same way. Their similarity is seen in many other things also — each acts like a copy of the other.
Is the moment of birth so influential that their lifetimes are of about the same lengths, that their I.Q.’s are almost equal, that their bodily behavior is the same, that when the two fall ill it is from the same illness, and that when the two become well again it is from the same medicine? Can the moment of birth be so influential?
Astrology has been saying that the moment of birth is even more important than this. Up until now science has not agreed with astrology, but now it is beginning to do so. In coming to this increasing agreement, some new experiments have been helpful.
For example…. At the time when we launched an artificial satellite into space, we learnt that a network of infinite types of radiation continuously pour out from the universe and from the constellations, and are diffused throughout the earth. On the earth, nothing is unaffected by this phenomenon. We know that the ocean is influenced by the moon, but we have not taken into consideration the fact that the same relative proportion of water and salt that occurs in the ocean occurs also in the human body — the same proportion. Forty-five percent of the human body consists of water, and the proportion of salt contained in that water is the same as is contained in thousands of bays. If the water in the ocean is affected by the moon, then how could the water inside the human body remain unaffected?
Now, in this connection, two or three facts emerging from recent investigations must be kept in mind. For example, as the day of the full moon approaches, the amount of madness in the world increases. And on the last day of the darker fourteen days, the least number of people go mad. As the moon grows brighter the proportion of madmen also begins to increase. On the day of the full moon, the greatest number of people enter madhouses; and on the last day of the moon’s waning period, the greatest number of people are discharged from madhouses. Statistics are now available….
In English there is the word lunatic; in Hindi there is the word chaandmara. Chaand refers to the moon, just as lunar does in English. Chaandmara is a very ancient term, and the word lunatic also is some three thousand years old. Some three thousand years ago, the thought came to men that the moon does something to the insane. But if it does something to the insane, then how can it avoid affecting the sane?
In the final analysis, the construction of the brain and the internal composition of the body are the same for all. Yes, it may be that the moon affects madmen to a greater extent, and the sane to a lesser extent. This is simply a quantitative difference. But it is impossible that the sane remain completely unaffected by the moon. If that was true, then nobody could go mad — because everyone who goes mad was once sane. The moon must first do something to those who are sane.
Professor Brown made an interesting study. He was a man completely without faith in astrology. He was a disbeliever, and in his earlier writings he had very much ridiculed astrology. But despite his skepticism he began some investigation. He gathered together the kundali, the birth charts of many famous generals, doctors, and other professions. But then he found himself in great difficulty because he discovered that members of a certain profession were born under a special planet, under the same constellation. For instance, among all famous generals the influence of Mars upon their lives is very strong. In the lives of professors the influence of Mars is completely absent.
The study which Brown carried out on some fifty thousand men who are generals, reveals that in the lives of these men the influence of Mars is very strong. Generally, when such personalities take birth, the planet Mars is ascending. The moment of their birth is the moment that Mars begins to rise. Just the opposite to this, no matter how many professors there are in the world, they never take birth at the time of the planet Mars’ ascension. If it happened only occasionally, you could think it a coincidence — but there cannot be a hundred thousand cases of coincidence.
Mathematicians are born under a specific constellation; poets are never born under this same constellation. In an occasional case there can be a coincidence, but when it happens so often it cannot be a coincidence.
In fact there is a great difference in behavior among people of different professions and occupations — for example, between poets, mathematicians, generals, and pacifists. On the one hand there can be a man like Bertrand Russell who says that there should be peace in the world, and on the other hand a man like Nietzsche who says that the day war ceases the world will cease to be meaningful. Between them is there only an intellectual dispute, or also a dispute of stars? Is there only an intellectual distance between them, or does the moment of their births also separate them?
The more research is done, the more it is being discovered that the talents of a man are revealed by the time of his birth. Those who know even a little bit about astrology say that this happens by his being born under a specific constellation. But I want to say to you that man chooses the constellation under which he is to be born. According to what he wants to be — whatever his innate possibilities, whatever the shape of his last life taken in its entirety, whatever his motivating consciousness — he will be born under the appropriate constellation. Every child, every new life, insists on a specific moment for birth before its entry. It wants to be born at a specific moment, only at this moment does it wish to be conceived. His desire and that moment are interdependent.
As I have told you, the water of the ocean is subject to certain influences. But all life is created out of water; without water, no life is possible. So in ancient Greece, seers used to say that only from water is life born, that water is life. Ancient Indian, Chinese and other mythologies also say this. Today scientists who believe in evolution also say that life was born in water, that perhaps the first life on the planet lived in the water. This was the first form of life, and then out of this, man eventually evolved.
Water is the most mysterious element of all.
Whatever influences from the stars reach man from the universe, from space, reach him through the medium of water. Having once affected the water in a man’s body, any radiation can gain entrance into him. Much work is being done with water, and many mysteries concerning water are coming to man’s attention.
The biggest mystery about water which has come to the attention of scientists in the last ten years is that water possesses a lot of sensitivity. Whatever influences are active from any direction in life are first felt by water. The water in us is the first thing to be affected. Once the water in us is influenced, then it will be very difficult for us to avoid being influenced.
You will be surprised to learn that when the child swims in the mother’s womb, he swims just as if he were in the ocean. The water in which the child swims in the mother’s womb possesses the same proportion of salt as is present in the ocean. Whatever influences reach the child from the mother’s body do not reach him directly; between the mother and the child growing in her womb there is no direct connection. Water is the mediator. Whatever influences reach the child from the mother do so through the medium of water; there is no direct relationship. Then throughout our lives the water in our bodies behaves just as the water in the sea.
Fish in the ocean have been much studied. There are fish which come onto the seashore and lay their eggs when the tides of the ocean are ebbing, when the sea is receding. Riding with the waves, the fish come onto the sand, lay their eggs, and return with the ocean waves. At a fixed time the ocean waves return. By then the eggs will have burst and the spawn will have come out. Then the incoming waves will take the spawn back out to sea.
Scientists who studied these fish were very surprised, because the fish always come to lay their eggs at the time when the tide is ebbing. If they were to lay their eggs while the tide is rising then the eggs would be washed away in the flood. They lay their eggs when the tide is going down, and withdraw for a little time in the recess of the waves. The waves do not wash a second time over the place they lay their eggs, otherwise the waves would wash the eggs away.
Scientists are very puzzled as to how these fish know when the tide will go down — when the time of the ebb-tide has arrived. If there were even the slightest mistake in timing, the eggs would be washed away. But they have never made a mistake in hundreds of thousands of years. If they had made an error they would have disappeared as a species. But they have never made any error. What equipment do these fish possess by which they can know about the tides? What sense organ do they possess that tells them when the tide will ebb? A hundred thousand fish will be gathered together at one time over the entire seashore…. There must be some code, some informative mechanism in the possession of these fish. A hundred thousand fish will come from thousands of miles away to lay their eggs on the ocean beach — and all at the same time.
Those who study the phenomenon say that besides the moon there can be no other source. The moon is the source of the fish’s intuition, nothing else. It is from intuition that the fish know when the tide is ebbing and when the tide is rising. The impact of the moon is the only way they have of knowing the tides.
There is another possibility. It has been conjectured that these fish might somehow be informed by the waves of the sea. So scientists put them in a place where there are no ocean waves: in water, in an unlit room. But the results turned out to be very surprising. The fish were enveloped in darkness, the moon was not in view. No light was in view at all, but when the moon reached the exact point at which the fish in the ocean would go and lay their eggs on the shore, at just exactly the same moment the fish in the laboratory laid their eggs. What does this fact show? That it is not a question of the ocean waves.
Someone may say that the race begins only when the fish receive signals from each other, but this hypothesis cannot stand either. Scientists have witnessed the fish when they were isolated from each other. They have tried to disturb the brains of these fish in every way. They have placed the fish in darkness for twenty-four hours so that the fish do not know when it is morning and when it is night. They have observed these fish after placing them under a bright light for twenty-four hours so that the fish would not know when it is day. They have observed them after setting up an artificial moon, and daily they either lessened or increased its brilliance. But these fish could not be fooled. When the authentic moon came to the right point, at that moment only did the fish lay their eggs. Wherever they were, they would lay their eggs at that moment.
A hundred thousand birds every year fly hundreds and hundreds of miles. The winter is on its way, and soon snow will fall, so the birds begin fly away from the areas where snow will fall. They will stop at a place thousands of miles away. To reach their winter encampment, two months are required. These birds depart exactly one month before the coming of snow. At the time of departure snow has not yet begun to fall, but after exactly a month it will fall. How do these birds calculate the date on which snow will fall? Our weathermen, who have the most elaborate observatories, cannot come up with such exact information. I have heard that some weathermen first ask astrologers sitting on the roadside, “What do you think — will it rain today or not?”
The arrangements which man has made seem juvenile. Birds know a month and a half or two months before snow falls. After thousands of experiments it has been observed that the day birds fly is fixed for every type of bird. Every year the date changes, because there is no fixed date for snow to fall. But it is certain that every bird will fly away one month before snow falls. If snow is to fall ten days later than the previous year, then they will fly ten days later. If snow falls ten days earlier, they will fly ten days earlier. If the date of the first snowfall is uncertain, then how are these birds informed?
In Japan there is a bird which will evacuate a town twenty-four hours before an earthquake occurs. It is just an ordinary town bird — in every town there are many of them — but twenty-four hours before an earthquake these birds will evacuate the town. At present, scientists are unable to predict whether an earthquake is coming, even two hours beforehand. Two hours before they are still uncertain, they are still unsure. There is only a probability, a possibility, that an earthquake can happen. But in Japan, people know twenty-four hours in advance that an earthquake is coming. From whichever town this bird flies away, the people of that town know that now there is only twenty-four hours’ time. This bird has retreated; not a single one of that species remains in the town. How does this bird become informed?
For ten years now, scientists have been saying something new — that every organism possesses an internal sense organ which feels the outside world. Perhaps man too possesses it, but has lost it through depending on his intellect. Man is the only living being in the world who has, through intelligence, lost many things which he once had. Through the same creative intelligence he has also gained many things he did not have, but at a great loss. What he had he has lost, what he did not have he has invented. But even miniature organisms possess an inner source of feeling. And now scientific data is becoming available which proves that such an inner source exists. This discovery of an inner source makes us aware that nothing alive on this earth is isolated or separate. Everything is joined to the cosmos. If anything happens anywhere its results will begin to be felt here.
I was talking about Paracelsus…. Present-day physicians are also arriving at the conclusion that when spots emerge and grow on the sun, illness on the earth increases, and that when sunspots decrease, illness on the earth also decreases. We will never get rid of disease on earth while sunspots last. Every eleven years there is great turmoil on the sun and huge explosions take place. When explosions and turmoil occur on the sun, at that time wars and disturbances occur on earth. The wars that take place on earth follow a ten-year sequence. Epidemics also follow a ten or eleven-year sequence. Revolutions also follow approximately a ten or eleven-year sequence.
Once you have the idea that we are not separate or isolated but joined together in an organic way, then it will be easy to understand astrology. This is why I am explaining all this to you.
Some men have thought, and even now think, that astrology is superstition, blind faith. To a great extent this seems to be true. Those things that it is difficult to find a scientific explanation for seem to us to be based only on blind faith. But astrology is very scientific. The meaning of science is the investigation of the relationship between cause and effect. Astrology says that whatever happens on this earth is not uncaused. However, we may not be aware of the causes. Astrology says that the shape which the future will take cannot be isolated from the past but must be joined to it: what you will be tomorrow will be joined to what you are today; what you were until today is joined to what you will be tomorrow.
Astrology is a very scientific way of thinking. It says that the future will emerge only out of the past: your today has emerged from your yesterday; your tomorrow will emerge from your today. Astrology also says that whatever will happen tomorrow is in some subtle way present even today. Now try to understand a little about this.
Three days before his assassination, Abraham Lincoln dreamt that he had been murdered and that his corpse was lying in a special room in the White House. He even noted the number of his room. At that point his sleep was broken, and when he woke up, he laughed. He said to his wife, “I dreamt that I was murdered and that my body was lying in such-and-such-number room, and in such-and-such wing of the White House” — he was sleeping in that wing of the White House. “You stood at my head, and such-and-such people were standing all around.”
It was a joke, a laughing matter to him. Lincoln and his wife went back to sleep. Three days later Lincoln’s assassination took place. Three days later his body was lying in that number room, in that very place, and in that sequence people were standing around his body.
If what was to occur three days later had not in some fashion already occurred, then how could such a dream have taken place? How could the dream resemble, in such detail, what actually took place? Such a glimpse is given in a dream only if in some way it is already implied in the present moment. Then only can we get a glimpse of what will take place in the future.
If we open the window of the present, then we will be able to see that the future is just outside this window. It is the thesis of astrology that the future is simply our ignorance — so, it is “the future.” If we were to see, then the future would not be a “happening” for us — we would know it is already present here and now.
There is reference to one event in Mahavira’s life, over which there has been much dispute. Because of this dispute, a group of his disciples broke away from him, in his very presence. Because of this dispute, five hundred of Mahavira’s munis created a separate order. Mahavira used to say that whatever is happening has in some sense already happened: if you are walking, then in a sense you have already arrived at the destination; if you are growing old, then in a sense you have already grown old. Mahavira used to say that whatever is happening, whatever is in process, has already occurred.
One senior disciple of Mahavira lived far away from him during the monsoon. He was sick, so he asked a junior disciple who was present to spread out a mat for him. The junior disciple began to spread out the mat. He had just unfolded the twisted, rolled-up mat a little when the senior disciple remembered Mahavira’s saying. He said, “Stop! Mahavira says that what is happening has already happened.” The mat was in the process of being rolled out but it was not yet opened. It had suddenly occurred to him that Mahavira had said a very wrong thing. The mat was half-opened, but in what sense was it already opened?
He left the mat there. After the monsoon he went to Mahavira and said, “You are mistaken when you say that what is happening has already happened, because right now the mat is lying half-opened. It was being opened, but it has not been opened. So I have come to prove that your saying is wrong.” Mahavira told him that he had not understood the saying. This disciple must have had a very childish mind; otherwise he would not have come with such talk. Mahavira said, “You have stopped the process. It was happening but you interrupted it. The mat which you prevented from unfolding was already actualizing itself in the very unfolding process. It had, in fact, already been actualized. You only saw the mat in the process of unfolding, but one more process was going on, and that is what has already happened. So, for how long will your mat remain folded? It is becoming opened, and will open. You go back.”
When the disciple returned he saw that a man had opened the mat and was lying on it, resting. This man had upset everything; he had destroyed the whole thesis of the disciple!
When Mahavira used to say that whatever is happening has already happened, he was saying that whatever is happening is the present, whatever may be is the future. The bud which is coming into blossom somewhere has already blossomed, so it will blossom, it will become a flower. Right now the bud is in the process of flowering, right now it is only a bud. But if it is in the process of flowering, then it will flower. Its having flowered has also in a sense already occurred somewhere.
Now we should look at this from another angle. It will be a little difficult. We always look from the viewpoint of the past. The bud is blossoming, but our thinking is generally past-oriented — bound to the past. We say that the bud is blossoming, that it is becoming a flower, that the bud will become a flower. But the reverse may be the case. For instance, if I push you from behind, I am making you go forward. But it may also be that someone is pulling you from ahead. The motion can be in both directions. I am pushing you from behind and you are going ahead. It may be that someone pulls you from ahead, but that no one is pushing you from behind. In this case too you will go ahead.
Astrology recognizes the incompleteness of the view that the past gives the impetus and that the future happens as a result. If one views a phenomenon in its totality, one sees that the past is providing the impetus, but also that the future is exercising a pull, an attraction. The bud becoming a flower is not all that is happening. The flower is calling out to the bud to become a flower; it is exercising a pull. The past is behind; the future is ahead. Now, in the present moment, there is a bud. The entire past is pushing the bud to become a flower and the entire future is calling on the bud to become a flower.
Under pressure from both directions, past and future, the bud will become a flower. If there were no future, then the past by itself would not be able to create the flower, because the future must provide space for the bud to become a flower. In the future a place, a space, is necessary. If the future provides a place, only then will the bud be able to flower. If there were no future, then no matter how much the past tried, no matter how much it pushed you, it would be in vain. No matter how much I push you from behind, if there is a wall in front I cannot make you go ahead. Space is needed to go ahead. If I push you and the space ahead accepts you with the invitation, “Come! be my guest,” then only can my pushing be significant. For my pushing, a space in the future is needed. The past does the work; the future gives space.
It is the view of astrology that looking from the standpoint of the past alone is insufficient and only partially scientific.
The future is calling all the time, drawing us all the time. We do not know, we are not aware. This is the weakness of our eyes, this is our shortsightedness — we cannot see very far. About tomorrow nothing is revealed to us.
If you look at Krishnamurti’s kundali some time, you will be surprised. If Annie Besant or Leadbeater had cared to look at Krishnamurti’s birth chart then they would have seen that to work with Krishnamurti was wrong because his birth chart clearly shows that to whichever organization Krishnamurti belongs, he will be its destroyer. It shows that whichever organization he belongs to, he will bring about its disintegration; whichever organization he joins, it will die. But Annie Besant was not ready to accept this. No one could think such a thing — but this is the way it happened.
The Theosophical movement tried to groom Krishnamurti as its leader. Theosophy made such an effort on Krishnamurti’s behalf that the movement died forever. Annie Besant created a big organization called the Star of the East, just for Krishnamurti. Then one day, after having inspired the organization, Krishnamurti separated himself from it. Annie Besant had surrendered her entire life in order to put the organization on its feet, and destroyed herself over it. But for this Krishnamurti cannot be blamed. The star under whose influence he was born clearly announced that he would be a destructive and disruptive force within any organization.
The future is not utterly uncertain. Our knowledge is uncertain; our ignorance is weighty. Nothing of the future seems to be revealed to us. We are blind; nothing at all of the future is revealed to us. Because nothing seems to be revealed to us, we say it is uncertain. But something of the future is revealed to us — and astrology is not merely the study of what the stars and planets say or of calculating their significance. This is only one dimension of astrology.
Then there are other dimensions of knowing the future too. People have lines on the palms of their hands, people have lines on their foreheads, people have lines on the soles of their feet — but this too is superficial.
In the human body there are hidden chakras. Every chakra has its own unique sensation. Every chakra vibrates in its own unique fashion, at its own frequency, all the time. There are ways to check what these are. Human beings have concealed within them the mental impressions or seeds of the past.
Ron Hubbard has brought a new word, a new science, to the West. For the East it is ancient. The name of this science is time track. Hubbard thinks that in whatever form a man has lived — whether as man or beast, whether as plant or stone… in whatever form he has lived throughout his infinite span of lives, this entire stream of memories is still contained within him. This stream can be exposed, and a man can even be made to re-experience those memories.
In all of Hubbard’s research, this is the most valuable discovery. About time track Hubbard has said that within man there are engrams. On the one hand, we possess a memory by which we recall what happened yesterday and what happened the day before. This is our “working” memory, this is our everyday memory. Just as every shopkeeper or office worker keeps a daily register, this is our working memory. It becomes useless every day. In fact, it does not exist — it is not at all permanent. This is the working memory through which we do our work every day, and then every day we throw it out.
But even deeper than this is a memory which is not merely for getting the work done — which is our life, which sums up our entire experience, the accumulated essence of our experience throughout countless lives on the path. This, Hubbard has called engram — it has become ingrained within us. It lies in its entirety, locked deep within, just as if a tape is kept locked in your pocket. It can be opened, and when it is opened, it becomes what Mahavira used to call race memory. Hubbard calls it time track — it makes it possible for you to go back in time. When it is opened the experience is not that you are remembering; it is not as though you are remembering, you relive the experience.
Now it is unlocked. When the time track is unlocked, you do not feel “I am remembering” — no. You relive it. Try to understand. If your time track is unlocked, it will not be difficult. In fact, without it astrology is incomplete. The deepest realization of astrology is that your past must be unlocked — because if you become aware of your entire past, then you will be aware of your entire future, because your future will emerge out of your past.
Without knowing your past you cannot know your future, because your future will be the child of your past, your future will be born out of your past. So first it is necessary that your entire memory track be exposed to view. If your memory track is unlocked — and for this there are techniques and methods — then if you think that you will remember how you were a six-year-old child and your father slapped you, you are incorrect. You will not remember how you were when you were six years old, you will relive it.
You will relive the event. Also, at the time you are reliving it, if I ask, “What is your name?” you will reply “Junior,” not “William Smith Junior.” A six-year-old child will be replying. You will be reliving the event at this time; you will not be remembering. William Smith Junior is not remembering when he was six years old, no, William Smith Junior has become six years old. Now he will answer “Junior”; whatever reply he gives will be the reply of a six-year-old child.
If you are brought back to a past life and you remember that you were a lion, then if you are allowed to remain at this point you will begin to roar just like a lion. You will not speak like a man. It is possible you will even attack someone with your fingers and nails. If you remember that you were a stone and someone asks you a question then you will remain completely silent. You will not be able to speak; you will remain like a stone.
Hubbard has helped thousands of people. For instance a man who cannot speak — Hubbard would say that this man has been blocked by some childhood memory and cannot go ahead. Then he would take him back along his time track and break open his engram of the time when he was six years old, or the point at which his growth became blocked and he could not proceed. As he returns to this point, the influence of this childhood memory will disperse. Then this man will come back to again being thirty years old. The twenty-four years’ difference will be put aside. The surprising thing is that thousands of medicines might not help the man to speak, but by going back along the time track and then returning, he becomes able to.
Many illnesses come to you only because of this time track. Many illnesses fit into this category — for instance, hay fever or asthma. For the patient who suffers from hay fever, there exists a fixed date: every year at the same date, at the same time, his hay fever returns. So there can be no remedy for hay fever. Why? — because hay fever is not actually a bodily illness, it is a time track illness. Somewhere a memory has been fixed, somewhere a memory has been blocked.
For instance, a man may remember the twelfth of a month during the rainy season. When the twelfth comes, when the rainy season comes, the man is getting ready; he is already afraid of what will happen. You will be surprised that the hay fever which will now attack him is just something he is reliving — it is not real hay fever at all. He is only reliving what occurred on the twelfth, the previous year. If you give him any treatment now, you will only be putting him in trouble. Treatment is of no use because he is not the same man who existed a year ago and who at that time could have been treated. You are unnecessarily throwing away medicine — because it is going into the man who exists now, not into the man who was sick a year ago. There is no connection between the two, no relationship. Every medicine will fail, every medicine will only increase his hay fever, so he will say that nothing is happening. He is again getting ready to repeat what happened the previous year.
Seventy percent of our illnesses have happened through the time track — they have been caught and grasped so tightly that again and again we relive them.
Astrology is not merely the study of the stars, although it includes that. We will talk about this. Besides the study of the stars, there are other, separate dimensions by which astrology tries to probe man’s future, by which it can get hold of the future.
To become aware of the future, it is necessary to become aware of the past. To be aware of the past, it is necessary to read the inscriptions traced on your body and on your mind. On your body there are inscriptions and on your mind there are also inscriptions. From the time astrology became obsessed with these bodily inscriptions it could not go very deep, because these bodily inscriptions are very superficial.
If your mind undergoes a change, then the lines on your palm will immediately change. If under hypnosis you are assured that after fifteen days you will die, and if every day for fifteen days you are made unconscious and assured in your unconscious state that after fifteen days you will die whether you like it or not, then by the fifteenth day your age line will be broken. A gap will have appeared in your age line; the body will accept the notion that death is on its way.
The lines traced on the body are a very superficial phenomenon. Deep within is the mind. The mind with which you are familiar, however, does not exist deep down; it is superficial. Deep down there is a mind which you do not know at all. The centers that exist deep within this body alone, which Yoga calls chakras, are the accumulated forms of many lives. One who knows can, by placing his hand on a particular chakra, discover how active it is. By touching your seven chakras, it can be known whether you have ever experienced them or not.
I have experimented with the chakras of hundreds of people, and I have been surprised to find that at the most one or two — and only rarely three — chakras have begun to be activated; generally, they remain dormant. You have never used them, but they are your past. If a man who has experienced them comes to me and I can see that all his seven chakras are in motion, then it can be said that this is his last birth. Then there will be no next birth, because if all seven chakras are in motion, then there is no possibility of a next life. This life will be nirvana, this life will be liberation.
If anyone came to Mahavira, he made it his concern to discover how many chakras were active in him — how much work must be done with him, what his possibilities were, when and whether his labor would bear any fruit or not, and how many more births he would need.
Astrology is an attempt to probe the future by many, many paths. Among these — the most commonly used path — is the study of how the planets and stars influence man. For this, more scientific evidence is becoming available every day. This much has been decided — that life is affected and cannot avoid being affected by these influences. Only the second part remains difficult to determine — whether each person as an individual is also affected. It worries scientists a little whether each person is affected individually — whether the three or four billion men on this earth are each affected as individuals. But they must realize that this is so.
Why are they so troubled? Nature can give each man a thumb that is uniquely his, that is individual and unrepeated. Nature can keep such a subtle account that it gives to each man a thumb which is uniquely his and a thumb print which can never belong to anyone else, neither now nor in the future. Several billion people may have lived on the earth, several billion people may live in the future on the earth, but my thumb print will not be repeated. You may be surprised to learn that in the case of twins born out of one egg, which I have spoken about, even their thumb prints will differ from one another.
If nature can bestow so much individuality on each man with regard to a worthless thing like a thumb — a thing which is of no special value and which seems to fulfill no special purpose — if nature can even give a thumb a uniqueness, then can’t it give each man a unique life and a unique spirit? There seems to be no reason why not. But science moves in slow motion — and it is good! For science, slow motion is good. Until a fact has been completely proved, it is not good to move forward even an inch. But prophets can take a leap. That which will happen a thousand or even a hundred thousand years later, they can declare right now.
Science moves forward inch by inch. It sees only facts — facts, that can be experimented upon. Dreaming is of no use to science — but prophets can discover truth even in dreams. For them, even the future is just the expanded present.
Astrology is basically the investigation of the future. And science is basically the investigation of the past and the present. Science is the investigation of what is today and what is its cause. Astrology is the investigation of what tomorrow will be and what will be its consequences. Between the two there is a huge gap. But every day science experiences new things, and theories to which it has become attached can never be proved absolutely correct — they only seem correct.
As I have said, science has only recently accepted that every man is born with built-in individuality. For a long time it has been reluctant to accept the validity of this idea. But astrology has always been saying this. Just try to understand….
For instance a seed, a mango seed: when we sow the mango seed there must be contained within it some sort of built-in program, there must be a blueprint. If this were not so the seed would be helpless. It neither takes advice from a specialist nor does it study at a university. How then can a mango tree develop out of this seed? Still, it produces the mango tree leaf, it bears the mango fruit. In the stone-like seed there must be concealed a complete program. If not, without such a program what can the seed do? Everything must be present within it. Whatever the tree will be must somehow be concealed within the seed. It is not visible to us. We can smash it and dissect it, and still it will not be visible. But it must be there somehow, otherwise a neem tree might possibly emerge from the mango seed…!
It seems that there is never a mistake. Only a mango tree emerges; everything is repeated correctly. In this tiny seed is stored all the information which relates to what the seed must do. How it must sprout, what type of leaf, how many branches to produce, how big a tree to become, for how long it will grow, how tall it will grow — all this must be hidden within the seed. How many fruits, how sweet, whether they will ripen or not — all this must be concealed within the seed. If all this is concealed within a mango seed, then when you come into your mother’s womb will there be nothing latent in your seed?
Now scientists agree that even at this stage the color of your eyes must lie concealed, that the color of your hair must lie concealed, that the height of your body must lie concealed, that the possibilities of health and ill health must lie concealed, and that even your I.Q. must lie concealed — because without it how will you develop, and by what means? You must have a program that is built in advance. How will certain bones join together as a hand, others as a foot? One bone will begin to see, another bone will begin to hear. How can all this be?
Scientists used to say that it is just coincidence. But the word coincidence seems very unscientific. Coincidence means chance. By chance a foot may begin to see and a hand to hear. But there does not seem to be much coincidence; everything seems to be in order, prearranged.
Astrology says a more scientific thing. It says that everything is available within the seed. Astrology says that if we can study the seed, if we can discover the language of the seed, if we can decode this language — if we can ask the seed, “What is your intention?” — then we will be able to draw up the complete blueprint of a human being too. Scientists have already begun to draw up such blueprints for plants. Up to now we have considered astrology to be superstition, a matter of blind faith. But if science draws up such blueprints, then it will in fact become astrology — and science has certainly begun to draw up such blueprints.
Astrology declares that if by divine grace we come to know the whole, then the future as such will not exist at all. But because we do not know the whole — only a little fragment — what we do not know becomes “the future.” We are obliged to say, “Perhaps it may be like this,” because much is unknown to us. If the whole were to be known then we could say, “It will be like this” — and it will be exactly so.
If everything is latent within the human seed, then it is only a matter of studying the seed. What I am talking about today must in some form have existed in my seed as a potentiality; otherwise, how can I talk about all this? If some day it becomes possible to observe a human seed, then after observing my seed, a blueprint could be drawn up indicating what I will say in this life, what I will become, what I will not become, what I will make of myself, what I will not make of myself, what will happen. All this could be forecast. It will not be surprising when tomorrow, if not today, we have the capacity to peep into the human seed. The first steps have already been taken in this direction.
Birth charts and horoscopes are only for probing into all these matters. For thousands of years we have tried, when a child is born, to find out what will happen to him. If we could get some estimate, then perhaps we could make some arrangements, perhaps we could increase the child’s opportunities. Then whatever is to happen, we could become accepting of it.
Mulla Nasruddin declared towards the end of his life that he had always been miserable, but that suddenly one day he had become happy. The entire population of the village was struck with wonder that a man who had always been depressed, who always used to see the dark side of things, should suddenly have become cheerful. He was a man who had always been pessimistic, who always used to look for thorns.
Once there was an excellent crop in Nasruddin’s garden. There were so many apples that the trees were overloaded. In the neighborhood, one man inquired whether Nasruddin could now possibly have any complaint. He said, “This time the crop is such that it will rain gold. What do you think, Nasruddin?”
Nasruddin, in great sorrow said, “Everything is okay, but where will I get rotten apples to feed the animals?” This man remains miserable: “Where will I get rotten apples to feed the animals…!” All the apples were good, none were rotten — this was his difficulty.
This man suddenly one day became happy, and so the people of the village were curious. They asked, “You are happy, Nasruddin? Has the kingdom become yours?”
Nasruddin said, “I have learned to cooperate with the inevitable. After many years of struggling, I have realized something. Now I have decided that what must be, must be. Now I cooperate with the inevitable, so now there is no reason to be miserable. Now I am happy.”
Astrology investigates many things. To whatever is inevitable, it lends a cooperative hand. Whatever is to be, it does not madly struggle against. Whatever is not to be, it does not demand, does not reach out towards.
Astrology was a means for making man religious — for bringing him to suchness, for bringing him to an ultimate acceptance. It has many dimensions, it has many aspects. We will gradually discuss each dimension. For today, just this much — that the universe is a living body, an organic unit. In it nothing is isolated, all is joined together. Whatever is far away is joined to that which is near — nothing is separate.
So no one should misunderstand this. No one is an isolated island, no one is aloof. Each is joined to the whole, and each one is all the time affecting the other and being affected by the other. Even when you pass by a stone lying on the road, it is throwing its vibrations in your direction. The flowers too are throwing out their vibrations. And you are not just passing by, you too are throwing out your vibrations.
I have said that we are affected by the moon and the stars. I also wish to say that the moon and the stars are affected by us, because influence comes from both directions. Whenever a man like Buddha is born on the earth, the moon may not realize that it is because of him that storms are not arising on its surface — that because of Buddha, storms are subsiding. The moon is affected and the sun is also moved. When spots occur on the sun and storms arise, disease spreads throughout the earth.
When a person like Buddha is born on the earth and a current of peace is flowing, and the pillar of consciousness grows strong, and the deep beauty of meditation moves over the earth, then too a storm spreads throughout the sun — a storm of peace, bliss and consciousness — because all is joined together.
A tiny blade of grass has an impact on the sun, and the sun has its impact on the blade of grass. The blade of grass is not so tiny that the sun can say, “I do not care about you,” nor is the sun so big that it can say, “What can this blade of grass do for me?” Life is joined together. Here nothing is big or small; everything is one organic unity.
Life is a whole. If you can perceive this wholeness, only then will you understand astrology; otherwise you will not. Astrology is an aspect of spirituality, a dimension of spirituality. It is the science of wholeness, unity, nonduality.
OSHO
THE SCIENTIFIC ASTROLOGER . COM 