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Astrology is perhaps the oldest subject and, in a sense, the most despised subject as well. It is the oldest because, in all the exploration of human history that has been possible, there has never been a time when astrology did not exist. On bone remains found in Sumer twenty-five thousand years before Christ, astrological signs are inscribed. In the West, the oldest exploration found is of these bones from twenty-five thousand years before Jesus, on which astrological marks and signs of the moon's journey are inscribed. But in India, the matter is even older.
"The Rigveda mentions the positions of the Nakshatras as they were ninety-five thousand years ago. On this basis Lokmanya Tilak concluded that astrology is certainly more than ninety thousand years old."
Because the Veda mentions the positions of the Nakshatras as they were ninety-five thousand years ago, that mention must itself be that old. At that time there was no way to learn the positions of the Nakshatras later. Now, of course, we have acquired scientific instruments through which we can know how the positions of the Nakshatras may have been in the past.
The deepest beliefs of astrology were born in India. The truth is that mathematics was born because of astrology. Mathematics was first born for the purpose of astrological calculation. Therefore the numerals of arithmetic are Indian. The numerals from one to nine used in all the languages of the world are Indian. And in the whole world nine digits (nine numerals) have been accepted. Those nine numerals were born in India and gradually spread across the world. What you call 'nine' in English is only a transformation of the Sanskrit 'nau'. What you call 'eight' is only a transformation of the Sanskrit 'ashta'. The prevalence of the nine numerals of mathematics in all the civilized languages of the world, from one to nine, has happened only under the influence of Indian astrology.
The first rays of astrology reached the Sumerian civilization from India. The Sumerians first opened the door of astrology for the Western world six thousand years before Christ. The Sumerians first laid the foundation for the scientific study of the Nakshatras. They built very tall towers, seven hundred feet high, and upon those towers the priests of Sumer studied the sky twenty-four hours a day, for two reasons — one was that the Sumerian philosophers had discovered this deep formula: whatever happens in the world of man, the original source of that event is connected in some way with the Nakshatras.
Six thousand years before Jesus there was a belief in Sumer that whatever disease is born on Earth, whatever epidemic arises, is all connected with the Nakshatras. Now scientific foundations for this have also been found. And those who understand today's science say that the Sumerians began the real history of the human race. Historians say that all kinds of history begin with Sumer.
Scientific Evidence: The Discovery of Alexander Chizhevsky
In nineteen twenty, a Russian scientist named Alexander Chizhevsky (A. Chizhevsky) began a deep investigation of this matter and found that a very great change takes place on the sun every eleven years. An atomic explosion takes place on the sun every eleven years. And Chizhevsky found that whenever an atomic explosion happens on the sun every eleven years, at that very time wars and revolutions begin on Earth. And according to him, in the long history of the past seven hundred years, whenever such an event occurred on the sun, accidents happened on Earth.
Chizhevsky had made such a scientific analysis of this that Stalin had him arrested and put in jail in nineteen twenty. Chizhevsky could be freed only after Stalin died. Because for Stalin it had become a strange matter. Marx and the communists hold that the revolutions which happen on Earth have their root cause in the economic inequality between human beings. And Chizhevsky says that the cause of revolutions is the explosions that have occurred on the sun!
Now what connection is there between explosions on the sun and the poverty and wealth of human life? If Chizhevsky is right, then the whole of Marx's explanation falls to the ground. Then the cause of revolutions would no longer be class-based. Then the cause of revolutions would become astrological. Chizhevsky could not be proved wrong, because the calculation he gave of seven hundred years was so scientific, and he had established such a deep connection between the explosions on the sun and the events happening on Earth, that proving him wrong was difficult. But putting him in a Siberian jail was easy. Only after Stalin's death could Khrushchev free him from Siberia. Fifty precious years of this man's life were destroyed in Siberia. Even after release he could not survive more than four to six months. But even in six months he gathered new evidence for his thesis. He also connected every epidemic that spreads on Earth to the sun.
The sun, as we ordinarily think, is not some inert ball of fire, but an extremely active and living organization of fire. And every moment transformations keep taking place in the waves of the sun. Even a small transformation in the waves of the sun makes the life-forces of the Earth vibrate. Nothing happens on this Earth that could happen without having happened on the sun. When there is a solar eclipse, birds stop singing in the forests twenty-four hours in advance. During the whole eclipse, the entire Earth becomes silent. Birds stop singing and all the animals of the forests become frightened. They become afflicted with some great apprehension. Monkeys come down from the trees. They gather together and begin to arrange for some protection. And one wonder is that monkeys, who are always engaged in constant talk and noise, become at the time of a solar eclipse as silent as even saints and renunciates are not while in meditation.
Paracelsus and the Inner Music of the Planets
This idea was first born in Sumer. Then, later, a Swiss physician named Paracelsus restored it. He established a very unique belief, and that belief, if not today then tomorrow, will prove to change the whole of medical science. So far that belief has not been given much emphasis. Because astrology is a despised subject — the most ancient, but the most despised, although also the most believed.
Just recently in France, when the calculation was made last year, forty-seven percent of people believe in astrology. In America five thousand prominent astrologers remain at work day and night, and they have so many clients that they cannot even complete all the work. America pays millions of dollars to astrologers every year. It is estimated that some seventy-eight percent of people across the whole Earth believe in astrology. But that seventy-eight percent are ordinary people. Scientists, thinkers and rationalists are startled just by hearing astrology mentioned. C. G. Jung (Carl Jung) has said that for thirty years the doors of universities have been closed to astrology, although in the coming thirty years astrology will break these closed doors and re-enter the universities. It will enter because there was no means until now of proving the claims that were made about astrology. But now there is a means of proving them.
Paracelsus gave movement to one belief, and that belief was this: a man becomes ill only when the harmony between him and the Nakshatras connected with his birth is broken. It is necessary to understand this a little. Long before him, Pythagoras, in Greece, about twenty-five hundred years ago — six hundred years before Christ — had given birth to a very great philosophy concerning 'Planetary Harmony', the relationship of music among the planets. And when Pythagoras was saying this, he had returned from a journey to the two countries of India and Egypt. When Pythagoras returned from India, deeply immersed in the ideas of Buddha and Mahavira, many important things that he said after returning from India concerned Mahavira and especially the Jains. (Pythagoras called the Jain philosophers 'Janosophists'. He also said that they remain naked.)
Pythagoras believed that when every Nakshatra, every planet or satellite travels in space, its motion produces a special sound. The motion of every Nakshatra produces a special sound, and every Nakshatra has its own individual private sound. And there is a harmony among the sounds of all these Nakshatras, which he called the musicality (Harmony) of the universe. When a man is born, the arrangement of music that exists among these Nakshatras at that moment of birth is imprinted on his primary, simplest, most sensitive mind. That same music keeps him healthy and unhealthy throughout life. Whenever he keeps tune with the musical arrangement found at his original birth, he becomes healthy. And when his tune falls away from that original music, he becomes unhealthy.
Paracelsus did a very important work in this regard: he would not give any patient medicine until he had seen the patient's birth chart. And it is a matter of great wonder that by looking at birth charts, Paracelsus cured those patients with whom other physicians had fallen into difficulty and could not cure them. His statement was, "Until I know in what position of the Nakshatras this person was born, it is not possible for me to grasp the thread of his inner music. And until I know what the arrangement of his inner music is, how can we make him healthy?"
What is the meaning of health? If ordinarily we ask a physician what the meaning of health is, he will only say that it is the absence of disease. But his definition is negative. Health is a positive thing, a constructive state. It is strange that the definition of one who lives in the house has to be given by a guest. We are born with health; disease comes upon it. Paracelsus used to say, until we know your inner music — because that itself is your health — at the most we can free you from your diseases. But we will free you from one disease and another will immediately catch you. The real matter was that your inner music should be established.
Cosmic Chemistry (Brahma-Rasayan)
It has been some five hundred years since Paracelsus. His words were also lost. But in the past twenty years there has been a revival of astrology in the world. You will be surprised to know that some new sciences have been born. In nineteen fifty a new science was born. The name of that science is 'Cosmic Chemistry' (Brahma-Rasayan). The man who gave birth to it is Giorgio Piccardi. This man is one of the few most precious men of this century. Through countless experiments in laboratories on scientific foundations, this man proved that the whole world is one 'Organic Unity'.
The whole world is one body. If my finger falls ill, my whole body is affected. The meaning of body is that the pieces are not separate; they are united, gathered together in a living way. If there is trouble in my eye, my toe also feels it. Cosmic Chemistry says that the whole universe is one body. Nothing in it is separate; everything is united. Therefore, however distant a star may be, when it becomes more heated, the streams of our blood change.
The last time there were fiery explosions on the sun, a Japanese physician, Tomatso, was greatly astonished. That physician had been continuously working on women's blood for twenty years. Women's blood has a special quality that men's blood does not have. At the time of their menstruation their blood becomes thinner, while a man's blood remains the same throughout. But when there were very strong storms on the sun, he was amazed that even men's blood became thinner! When an atomic storm rages on the sun, even a man's blood becomes thinner. This was a very new event. If the blood can be affected, then anything can be affected.
Another American thinker is Frank Brown. He kept working to arrange facilities for space travelers. It was believed that beyond two hundred miles space is empty, that there is nothing there at all. But the discoveries of space travelers proved that space is not empty; it is very full. The truth is that the layers of air two hundred miles around the Earth prevent all outer influences from reaching us. In space, streams of wonderful flows keep running — whether man can bear them or not. Brown sent potatoes into space. Because his view was that there is not much inner difference between a potato and a man. If the potato rots, man too cannot survive. One astonishing thing Brown proved is that a potato, or any seed that grows lying beneath the ground, grows in relation to the sun itself. The sun is what awakens it, lifts it up, and calls it upward.
Planetary Heredity
Brown is also an explorer of another discipline, which is called 'Planetary Heredity' (satellite inheritance). The word in English is 'Horoscope'. It is a form of the Greek 'Horoscopus'. The meaning of Horoscopus is — "I see the planet being born." When a child is born, at that very time, all around the Earth on the horizon, many Nakshatras are born and rise. Just as the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, so too throughout the twenty-four hours the Nakshatras rise and set in space.
Until now it was understood that the moon and the stars have nothing to do with the birth of a man. For three hundred years the argument has been given that there is no connection between the Nakshatras and the birth of a person. But the discoveries of scientists like Brown and Piccardi have had an astonishing result, and that is that life is certainly influenced. And if life is influenced, then as our search becomes subtler, we will find that the individual is also influenced.
"Astrology is not a new science that has to develop, but rather it is a science that was fully developed, and then the civilization that developed it was lost. Incomplete formulas of astrology remain in our hands."
At the birth of a small child, the state of his mind is exactly like that of a very sensitive photographic plate. Try a little to understand twins. The two children who are born from one egg have the same moment of conception and also the same moment of birth. The I.Q. (intelligence measure) of two children born from one egg is almost equal. If two children born from one egg are raised completely differently — one in Hindustan and one in China — still there is no difference in their intelligence scores. When the child in China catches a cold, the child in India will also catch a cold. They die in the same year; at the most there is a difference of three months in their deaths.
Our skins are different; they are individual. If my hand is broken, your skin will not work on my hand; the body will reject it. What scientists cannot recognize, my body recognizes. But the skin of two children born from one egg can be transplanted; the body will not reject it. Does the moment of birth influence matters so importantly? Astrology has been saying that the moment of birth is the most influential.
The Sensitivity of Water and Cosmic Influence
We know that the ocean is influenced by the moon. But we do not realize that the proportion of water and salt in the ocean is the same proportion of water and salt in the human body. A man's body contains sixty-five percent water. If the water of the ocean is influenced by the moon, why would the water inside a man's body not be influenced? As the full moon approaches, the number of cases of madness rises across the whole world. On the day of the new moon (amavasya), the fewest people in the world go mad. There is a word in English — Lunatic, which means "moon struck". In Hindi too there is the word 'chand mara' (moon struck) for a mad person.
Whatever influence from the world, from space, reaches man through the stars, its medium is 'water'. Any radiation enters a human being only by influencing the water of the body. The most mysterious quality water has is that the greatest sensitivity resides with water. When the child floats in the mother's womb, he floats exactly as he would in the water of the sea. There is no direct connection between the mother and the embryo forming in her womb; between the two there is water, and whatever influences reach the child from the mother reach only through water.
The Philosophy of the Future: The Time Track
Since science is fundamentally a search of the past — science is the investigation of what the 'Cause' is. Astrology is the investigation of what the 'Effect' will be. Astrology is very scientific thinking. It says that the future is our ignorance, and that is why it is the future. If we had knowledge, there would be no such event as the future; it would already exist somewhere.
Mahavira used to say, "What is happening has, in a sense, already happened." If you have set out, then in a sense you have already arrived. We always see from the past — the bud will become a flower. Astrology believes that the past is pushing and the future is pulling. The whole future is giving an invitation: 'open up'. Under the pressure of both the past and the future, the bud will become a flower.
L. Ron Hubbard has begun a new discovery in the West — for the East it is very old. That discovery is the 'Time Track'. Hubbard's view is that wherever each person has lived, on this Earth or in infinite journeys — the entire current of time is still preserved within him. Hubbard has said that there are 'Engrams' within man. One is the memory we have with which we remember, and deeper than that is a memory which is the essence of all the experiences of our life. It can be opened, and when it is opened, Mahavira calls it 'jati-smaran' (remembrance of past lives), Hubbard calls it 'Time Track' — returning backwards in time. Seventy out of a hundred diseases are based on the Time Track, which takes us back to the past.
Astrology is not merely the study of the Nakshatras. Astrology is an attempt to probe the future of man. To grasp it, it is necessary to grasp the past. Since astrologers became stuck only on the outer signs of the body, the depth of astrology has been lost. The real depth is hidden in the inner chakras and energy. Nature can give each man a thumbprint of a different pattern — it is capable of such distinctness — then there seems to be no reason why it could not give each person a distinct soul and life.
"Mulla Nasiruddin said at the end of his life that I was always sad. Then one day I suddenly became happy. People asked what is the secret of this? Nasiruddin said: I have learned to cooperate with the inevitable. I have learned to cooperate with what is unavoidable. Now there is no cause left for sorrow."
Astrology was the search of many things. In it, cooperation with what is inevitable — not a futile struggle with what is going to happen. Not a futile demand for what is not going to happen. Astrology was a means to make man religious, to take him to 'tathata' (suchness), to take him to ultimate acceptance. It has many dimensions.
The world is a living body, an organic unity — nothing in it is separate — everything is united. What is farthest is also connected to what is nearest. Therefore let no one remain under the illusion that he is an isolated island. We are constantly influencing each other and being influenced by each other. Only if this awareness of oneness comes to mind can astrology be understood; otherwise astrology cannot be understood.