This article presents traditional and philosophical perspectives. The scientific and historical statements described here belong to the original article; they should not be regarded as established science or certain prediction.
Some things are essential to understand. First of all, it is essential to understand that, from the scientific standpoint, the entire solar family — Mars, Jupiter, the Moon, the Earth — was born from the Sun. All of these are parts of the Sun itself. Then life was born on the Earth — from plants to human beings. Man is a part of the Earth, and the Earth is a part of the Sun. If we understand it this way — there is a mother, she has a daughter, and she has a daughter — the bodies of all three are built from the same kind of cells, the same kind of corpuscles.
And scientists use a word called 'Empathy' — the feeling of oneness. Things that are born from one source, just as the Earth is born from the Sun and our bodies are built from the Earth — the Sun is our great father only a little distance away. Whatever happens on the Sun vibrates in every pore of our body. Because every pore of ours is also made from the Sun. The Sun appears so far away, but it is not that far. In every particle of our blood and every piece of our bone dwells the very atoms of the Sun. We are pieces of the Sun. And if we are influenced by the Sun, there is nothing surprising in it — it is empathy, the feeling of oneness.
The Experiment of Empathy
It is also necessary to understand empathy a little, so that one can enter one dimension of astrology. Experiments can be done, and many experiments of this kind have been done in the last fifty years. Twin children born from one egg were locked in two rooms. Then a bell was rung in both rooms at the same time and both children were told to draw the first thought that occurred to them on paper. Or if the first picture came into their minds, to draw it on paper. It is a matter of great astonishment that if twenty pictures were taken from both children, ninety percent of the pictures of the two children were alike! The first thought that is born in their minds, the first word that forms, or the first picture that forms, a thought almost exactly like it is also formed and created within the twin child.
"Scientists call this — Empathy, the feeling of oneness. Between these two there is a similarity that they resonate from one source. Within these two, through unknown paths, there is as if some connection, some dialogue, some communication."
Between the Sun and the Earth too there is such a communication, such a bridge of dialogue. Such a relation. Every moment, the Sun, the Earth and man — between these three there is a continuous dialogue, a continuous conversation. But that dialogue, that conversation is very hidden, very inner and very subtle. If we understand a few things about it, it will come to mind.
Tree Rings and the Solar Cycle
In America there is a research centre — the Tree Ring Research Centre. In trees, when you cut a tree you will see many rings in the trunk of the tree. The beauty that appears on furniture is because of those very rings. For fifty years this research centre has been working entirely on the rings that form in trees, the circles that form. Prof. Douglas is now its director, who has spent most of his life on the rings that form in trees. Many facts have come to hand. The first fact is known commonly to everyone — that the age of a tree can be known through the rings formed in it. Because every year one ring is formed in the tree... how old a tree is, how many rings have formed within it, is decided from this. If it is fifty years old, it has seen fifty autumns, so fifty rings have formed in its trunk. And the astonishing thing is that the rings formed on these trunks also give news of the weather.
If the weather has been very hot and wet, the ring formed is wide. If the weather has been very cold and dry, the ring formed is very narrow. By cutting wood that is thousands of years old one can find out what the weather was like in that year when this ring was formed. Whether there was much rain or not. Whether there was drought or not. If Buddha said that this year there was much rain, then the very bodhi tree under which he sat will also give the news whether there was rain or not. Buddha could make a mistake; that tree, the bodhi tree, does not make a mistake. Its ring will be big or small.
Searching among these rings, Douglas reached a place he had not even imagined. He felt that every eleventh year the ring becomes as big as it never does again. And that eleventh year is the same one when there is maximum activity on the Sun. Every eleventh year there is a rhythm in the Sun. Every eleven years the Sun becomes very active. Radioactivity on it becomes very intense. In that year all the trees of the whole Earth make thick rings. Not in one place, not in one forest — on the whole Earth all the trees make a thick ring to protect themselves from radioactivity. Because of that intense event of energy that occurs on the Sun, they have to form a thick skin to protect themselves, every eleven years.
From this a new word and a new idea began among scientists. Weather is different everywhere. Somewhere there is cold, somewhere heat, somewhere rain, somewhere frost. Weather is different everywhere. So until now the weather of the Earth as a whole — 'the climate of the Earth' — no such word was ever used. But now Douglas began to use this word. These small differences exist, of course, but over the whole Earth a special weather also runs because of the Sun, which we cannot catch, but trees catch it. Every eleventh year trees make a thick ring, then the rings keep becoming smaller. Then after five years they begin to grow large. Then at the eleventh year they become fully large.
If trees are so sensitive and mark any event happening on the Sun so systematically, then will there not be some layer in the mind of man? Will there not be some subtle form of sensitivity in the body of man? Does man also form some ring and circle in his personality? Until now it has not become clear. Scientists are not yet clear about any matter of what happens in man. But it seems impossible that when trees also sense the events occurring on the Sun, man would not sense them in some way. Astrology is the search for exactly this — that whatever happens anywhere in the world also happens in the mind of man.
The Ninety-Year Solar Cycle and the History of the Nile
We will discuss later whether man also carries within himself the same news as trees. But the way of opening him is not so easy as the way of opening a tree is easy. We can find out by cutting a tree with as much ease as we cannot find out by cutting a man. Cutting man is a subtle matter, and because man has a mind, man's body does not record those events — the mind records them. Trees have no mind, so the body itself records those events.
Another thing worth keeping in mind in this connection — as I said, in eleven years intense radioactivity, intense electric storms run on the Sun. Exactly like this, another great rhythm has also begun to be discovered. And that is of ninety years on the Sun. And it is even more astonishing.
"And whatever I am saying are all scientific facts. Astrologers do not say anything in this regard. But I am saying this so that on their basis it may become easier for you to understand astrology scientifically."
An emperor of Egypt, four thousand years ago, told his scientists that whenever the water of the Nile falls or rises, its complete record should be kept. The Nile alone is such a river that it has a biography of four thousand years — its complete life story. And no other river has any biography. Whenever its water rose even an inch, its complete record exists — from the time of the Pharaohs four thousand years ago up to today. Pharaoh means — the Sun, in the Egyptian language. In Egypt there was this belief that between the Sun and the river there is a continuous dialogue. And the Pharaoh, who was a devotee of the Sun, said that the complete record of the Nile should be kept.
A scholar of Egypt wrote the complete story of the Nile, and now those things about the Sun have become known which were not known in the time of the Pharaohs. Whatever has happened in the Nile in these four thousand years is related to the Sun. And a rhythm of ninety years is found — every ninety years an unprecedented event occurs on the Sun. That event is exactly like what we call death — or can call birth. Consider it this way: the Sun stays young for forty-five years of its ninety and grows old for forty-five years. As the Sun goes on becoming young, and after forty-five years it begins to decline. In ninety years the Sun becomes completely old.
When the Sun becomes old in ninety years, then the whole Earth fills with earthquakes. Earthquakes are connected with the ninety-year cycle. After that the Sun begins to become young again. When a colossal body like the Earth fills with earthquakes, can nothing happen in a small body like man? Astrologers have only asked this. They say, this is impossible. Whether you know it or not, the body of man also cannot remain untouched.
When the Sun is young for forty-five years, the children born at that time will have extraordinarily good health. And when the Sun is old for forty-five years, the health of the children born at that time can never be good. When the Sun itself is on the decline, the condition of the children born then is exactly like a boat that has to be taken east while the wind blows west.
The Motion of the Earth and Cosmic Influence
Man is not something isolated in this vast world. This all has a combined sum. However fine the clocks we have made until now, none of them tells time as accurately as the Earth tells it. The Earth completes one rotation on its axis in twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes. On that basis we have prepared the reckoning of twenty-four hours. But when the ninety-year cycle of the Sun is completed, the clock of the Earth suddenly staggers. In that moment the Earth cannot complete its rotation exactly. In the eleven years when there is ebb on the Sun — whenever the Earth comes under new influences in its journey, at that time its inner clock staggers.
Whenever any new influence, any new 'cosmic influence', any great star comes near, that is when this happens. And near means — in this great sky things are very close even when very far. The distances are very great. If in those distances even a little difference occurs, which we will never even come to know, still the axis of the Earth staggers. To move the Earth a great force is needed. Even to move it an inch! So when great forces pass near the Earth, only then can it move. And it cannot be that when the Earth vibrates, the trees fixed on it do not vibrate. And it also cannot be that when the Earth vibrates, the man who lives and walks upon it does not vibrate — everything vibrates. But the vibrations are so subtle that until now we had no instruments to test them. Even now we have no instruments to catch the vibrations of man. That matter is even more subtle.
Man is so subtle, and it is necessary for him to be so, otherwise living would become difficult. If for twenty-four hours you kept receiving the impressions of all the influences around you, you could not live. Another rule is that we come to know neither very small influences by our own power nor very large influences by our own power. There is a range in which we become aware of influence. Consider that 98 degrees is one limit and 110 degrees is another limit. We live in a range of 12 degrees. Terrible sounds are passing around us, but we cannot hear them. A star breaks in the sky, some new planet is created or scattered — sounds of terrible thunder pass all around us. If we could hear them we would immediately become deaf. But we are safe because our ears hear only within a limit.
The Moment of Birth and Exposure
In the world there are who knows how many sounds passing all around us. We do not hear that whole clamour, but we are certainly influenced by it. It touches every hair of ours. It touches every beat of our heart. It makes every nerve of ours tremble. It is certainly doing its work. The atoms of that fragrance you cannot smell are certainly doing their work all around you.
Astrology says that all around us there are fields of energies, 'energy fields', and they are influencing us all the time. As soon as a child is born, he opens to the influences of the world. In scientific language we may call birth an 'exposure'. Just as we expose a film in a camera, you press the shutter a little, the window of the camera opens for a moment and closes. Whatever comes before the camera in that moment is imprinted on the film.
On the day that conception first happens in the mother's womb, the first exposure occurs. On the day the child comes out of the mother's womb, takes birth, on that day the second exposure occurs. And both these exposures are imprinted like film on the sensitive mind. In that moment the child imprints the whole world within himself, and his empathy (feeling of oneness) is created.
"Astrology only says this much — that from seventy to ninety percent of children are born at night. If we ask Buddha and Mahavira they will say that more children are born at night because more souls are asleep."
When a child is being born at night, the exposure is going to be of one kind. If he is born in light, the exposure will be different. Those who research exposure say that the event of exposure is very great. Scientists have made hundreds of experiments. When the chick of a hen is taking birth, the egg is hatching, the chick is coming out, they removed the hen and in her place put a rubber balloon. The first thing the child saw was the rubber balloon, not the mother. You will be astonished to know that that became the exposure. After that it could love the rubber balloon as if it were its mother.
In this connection a scientist named Lorenz (Konrad Lorenz) has done much work, and he says that the 'first movement of exposure' is very important. If a small balloon can become so effective for a chick that its mind is created by it forever, then astrology says that whatever is present all around enters within at that first moment of exposure, at the moment the mind opens. And the sympathy and antipathy of a lifetime are created. In that moment the nakshatras that surround the Earth on all sides all signal the mind in infinite meanings.
The Effect of Hiroshima and the Great Sun
Now, as was found out after the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima — those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that was a matter of a moment. But the trees that survived, the animals that survived, the birds and men that survived were affected forever. Now scientists say that in ten generations we will get a full idea of what results occurred. Because everything of theirs was affected by radioactivity.
If the radio energy of the atom can do this — which is a very small force — then we cannot calculate in comparison the force that is upon the Sun — as if billions of atom bombs were exploding together. That much radioactivity is upon the Sun. The effect of the event that happened in Hiroshima did not fall beyond ten miles. The Sun is ten crore miles away, and for four billion years it has been giving us all our warmth. But this Sun is nothing. There are greater suns than this. All these stars that are in the sky are great suns.
A very great scientist, who is studying the energies spreading in space — Michel Gauquelin. He says that of all the energies that come into our experience, we do not fully know even one percent. Ever since we have launched artificial satellites, they have given us so much news that we have neither words to understand that news nor science.
Astrology: A Lost Great Science
Astrology is not a new science developing and growing. The situation is the reverse. If you have seen the Taj Mahal, then on the other side of the Yamuna you would have seen some walls standing. The story is that Shahjahan built the white Taj Mahal for Mumtaz, and for himself he was building a palace of sangmarmar (black stone) across the Yamuna. For the last three hundred years it was believed that that palace remained incomplete. But the research done now reveals that those are not the walls of a palace being built, but the ruins of a fallen palace. And it has also been found that Shahjahan never built the Taj Mahal. It too is a very old Hindu palace which he only converted. No one in the world has built a tomb like the Taj Mahal.
Astrology is also like ruins. There was a very great palace, a complete science, which collapsed. There is nothing new. But from the walls that remain nothing reveals how great a palace stood in its place. A Greek named Aristarchus, two hundred years before Jesus, had discovered this truth — the 'heliocentric' principle, that the Sun is at the centre. But a hundred years after Jesus, Ptolemy reversed this principle and made the Earth the centre again. And then two thousand years were needed for Kepler and Copernicus to rediscover that the Sun is at the centre.
Columbus discovered America, so people of the West say. Someone asked Oscar Wilde that if Columbus did not make the first discovery, then why was America lost again and again? Then Oscar Wilde said in jest that Columbus has indeed rediscovered, "Rediscovered America! It was discovered so many times, but every time hushed-up." The Mahabharata mentions America. One of Arjuna's wives is a girl of Mexico. The ancient temples in Mexico are Hindu temples on which even idols of Ganesh are carved. Truths are discovered many times and are lost. Astrology is one of those greatest truths which had come fully into awareness and has been lost.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred astrology is fraud. And that hundredth man, leaving aside the ninety-nine, is very difficult to understand. Because he can never be so dogmatic as to say that it will happen, certainly. Because he knows that astrology is a very great event. A man asks, "Will I get a job or not?" The moon and stars have no deep relation to your getting or not getting a job. A man asks that I was passing along the road and stepped on an orange peel and fell — did my moon and stars have any hand in this? Astrology has nothing to do with this. And because astrologers remain engaged in this kind of talk, the house of astrology fell.
The Distinction Between the Essential and the Non-Essential
Mahavira is passing through a village. And a disciple of Mahavira, Makkhali Gosala, is with him. Both pass near a plant. Gosala says to Mahavira, "This plant is planted — what do you think, will it reach the flower?" Mahavira closes his eyes and stands near that very plant. Mahavira opens his eyes and says that this plant will reach the flower. Gosala uproots the plant right in front of him and flings it away, laughing merrily.
After seven days they are returning on the same road. There had been heavy rain. When they return, Mahavira stopped exactly at that place. He saw that the plant was standing! There was heavy rain, its roots caught hold of the wet earth again, and the plant stood up. Mahavira said, "It will reach the flower. And that is why I saw it with my eyes closed. What is its inner potentiality, its inner possibility. Even if you fling it out, it can stand firm on its feet. It is eager to live. I knew you would uproot it and fling it away."
Gosala said, "You should have known whether I would uproot it and fling it away or not." Then Mahavira said, "That is non-essential. You may uproot it and fling it away, or not. The essential thing was that the plant wanted to live."
The astrology I am talking about is related to the essential, to the fundamental. Your curiosity reaches at the most to the semi-essential. You want to find out how many days you will live. But what will I be in the moment of death, what will I do? A man like Mulla Nasiruddin dies laughing. Death is an event, but dying laughing is the soul.
Karma and Freedom: The Story of Muhammad and Ali
Let me tell you a very sweet story. Muhammad has a disciple, Ali. Ali asks Muhammad that there is a great dispute from always — whether man is free in his deeds or dependent — bound or free? If everything is certain, then all teachings are useless — all prophets, all tirthankaras are in vain.
Muhammad said, "Ali, stand up lifting one leg." Poor Ali lifted his left leg and stood. Muhammad said, "Now lift the right one too." Ali said, "What are you saying!" Then Muhammad said, "Now, if you wished, earlier you could have lifted the right one too. Now you cannot. A man is always free to lift one leg. But as soon as he lifts one leg, the other leg is immediately bound."
That which is the non-essential part of our life, in it we are completely free to lift the leg, but take care — in it the lifted legs also become bindings in the essential part. Man has limits. Within the limits there is freedom. Freedom is not outside the limits.
Mulla Nasiruddin is passing under a mosque and a man fell from the top of the mosque. He fell on Mulla's shoulder. Mulla's back broke. In the hospital Mulla's disciples said, "Mulla, what is the explanation of this accident?" Mulla said, "This clearly shows that there is no relation between karma and its fruit. A man falls, and someone's back breaks! Therefore from today the discussion of the principle of karma-phala is closed."
There is a third position. That which is entirely essential, entirely innermost, is entirely certain. The closer we come to our centre, the closer we come to certainty. The more we go toward our circumference, the more we go toward chance. For example, a man stands to steal. Stealing is not a destiny. Freedom is fully present. Yes, after doing it, one leg will be lifted, the other leg will be caught. Between yes and no the mind of man oscillates. If he does not, he will come toward the centre. If he says yes, he will go to the periphery.
Astrology: The Dissolution of Ego
If astrology is right, then I am not; it is a flow of forces, and in that flow I am a small wave. If at that very moment I had seen that I am not — the big wave is, the big ocean is — then there would be no sorrow. Yes, even that so-called happiness that we keep taking, that "I won, I earned," could not exist then either. Astrology becomes the gate of joy if we see it this way — that it melts our identity, scatters our ego.
"The very meaning of astrology is that you are not; the world is. You are not; the universe is. It is the influence of vast forces; you are nothing."
Now scientists say that there must be life on at least fifty thousand planets. In such a vast world that there is life only on the lone Earth does not seem possible. There is infinite expanse. In that vast wheel we too, somewhere on some axle, are somewhere as if 'not existing'.
I have heard that a man boarded an airplane. And to reach quickly he began to walk fast inside the airplane. The passengers caught him and said, what are you doing? On the ground he knew that if you walk fast you reach soon. On the airplane too he was walking fast, without the thought that his walking is now incongruous. The airplane is already moving. By walking he can only tire himself; he will not reach sooner.
I call that man religious who is at rest within the vast motion of this world. Who knows that the vast is moving, there is no hurry. Nothing will happen from my hurry. If I remain one with the rhythm of this vast, that is enough, that is joyful. If this thought comes, astrology can prove to be the gate of spirituality for you.