The Beliefs of Ancient Astrologers, Part Five: Liberation and Enlightenment

Transcript:

0:00
Hi everyone, this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology and today we are going into part five of my series on the beliefs of ancient astrologers. In today's episode, we're going to take a look at the topic of liberation and enlightenment. So if you haven't watched the other episodes, I recommend starting at the beginning and watching them sequentially because every episode is building on concepts that were covered in previous episodes. Where did all of this come from? Over the years, I have had a lot of students and family members and friends say what do astrologers believe? What do you have to believe to do astrology or not? They might also say is astrology a religion? Or is astrology today practised in the same way that it was 1000s of years ago in terms of its philosophical or religious underpinnings? I've gotten so many questions about this. And several years ago, in preparation for a talk that I was giving. At a conference, I was doing a whole bunch of research on this very topic, I was looking at the most likely beliefs of ancient astrologers. We don't know because it's unclear exactly what group of thinkers or what school or what thinker astrology came from, there's a lot of speculation. But what we do know is what groups were sort of in vogue, what groups were dominant within the discourse of the day. So we know that astrology comes about probably the last 500 years BCE horoscopic astrology that is the kind of astrology that we talked about on this show. And we know what kinds of thinkers were having a major influence, we know what kinds of religious and spiritual groups were most likely associated with a lot of the cosmology that astrologers were utilising in both the east and the west. So this series also came from the desire on my part, to know more about how ancient astrology fit in the beliefs of ancient astrologers fits in with my practices in bhakti yoga, that was a personal reason for doing it. And since then, I've found that this series is really helpful when it comes to giving students of astrology some some kind of a broad overview of what ancient astrologers likely believed so that you can square up and go well, are these beliefs my beliefs or not and regardless of whether you follow along with this series, and nod your head or shake your head, my hope is that it helps people clarify for themselves, what your own beliefs are as an astrologer, and how that's going to influence your practice. Because, in some ways, there's nothing worse than practising something as powerful as astrology and not really knowing why you're doing it, what it's for, why we're using it, where it comes from, it can only help us to know. So that's been the mission behind this series. I hope you guys have been enjoying it. Today, we're going to talk about liberation and enlightenment.

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So let's start over in the East where it's very obvious, we have the Vedas, flowing down from the Vedas of the philosophical commentaries or summaries of the Vedas called the Upanishads. And then we have something like Vedanta sutra, and eventually we have the things like the Gita, and the Puranas. From the Upanishads downward, we have an emphasis of a variety of techniques or approaches necessary for removing oneself entirely from the wheel of fortune, from the wheel of karma or rebirth. I'm just using different words to talk about the same thing. So that's very common, you see that in the Upanishads and there's a lot of diversity in terms of the techniques or approaches and some variation about what that release entails or how its depicted. Some of this is right beyond the ability of the mind to circumscribe but some of these releases bare very basically, are considered to be either personal or impersonal or some would say dual or non dual. And everyone immediately wants to say, Oh, well, I'm on the non dual side, but it was it was very surprising to me as I started getting into yoga to discover the nuances of what the sort of dual or non dual approaches mean within the context of yogic philosophy. So anyway, for example, in one of the Upanishads, there is a statement that says, Whoever knows thus I am Brahman becomes this all, even the gods cannot prevent his becoming thus for he becomes their self. So people will take this is from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Whoever knows that I am Brahman becomes this all even the gods cannot prevent his becoming this for he becomes their self.

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This verse has been long cited by what are called Advaita practitioners in India as evidence that live separation of the soul removes personal identity or the idea that there is a separate soul is eliminated with this conception of liberation or enlightenment that the soul merges into an at oneness with God almost like the idea of an individual soul is an illusion that a drop of water has temporarily springs up in the spray from the ocean and only to crash back down into the total undifferentiated oneness of the ocean or something like that. That's you'll see that analogy us sometimes and this is the way to non dual there the there is no ultimate eternal individual identity there is only God and the illusion of, of individual identity is eliminated in enlightenment where the soul merges with God. So you, and I'm speaking very broadly, there's nuances, there's many different types of a way to schools and so forth. It's a big tree with lots of branches, right? But now, on the other hand, the way to practitioners are, and this is there's a whole lot of different schools that could kind of fall into this category, very broadly speaking, will suggest that the soul remains individual eternally. And that liberation occurs through the souls development of a spiritual body and entrance into an eternal spiritual world, in which the soul like in bhakti, we would say that the soul is forever unique and eternally individual. And that it's in enlightenment, much like the way that the her Medicis depicted this. Enlightenment isn't a loss of individual identity, it is an entrance into a spiritual world where there is a kind of ecstasy happening between all souls and God. Like, almost kind of a funny image that I sometimes use is it actually comes from the hermeticism is almost like you're, you're entering into heaven where there is a an incredibly, you know, beautiful, infinite choir that singing the most amazing songs and maybe they're rock songs like whatever you like, you know, they're there. And when you enter this form of enlightenment, your spirit soul finds its perfect pitch. It's perfect participation in that harmonisation, where there is a sense of that oneness with all souls and with God, while there is also an individual part that one is playing within, you could say the larger body of divinity, in in bhakti, we call this a chintu beta beta Tato, which means inconceivable and simultaneous oneness and difference. So you have schools that are going to say there is no individual soul in enlightenment, it merges with the one and you're gonna have others that say, No, the soul is in a totally unique being. Same substance of God, like a spark is to the fire, the spark is the fire and it's also not the fire at the same time, or the sun that's coming in on my arm right now. The sun that lands on my arm is not the ball of the sun in the sky, but it it has the same nature. So souls are considered like emanations or aspects of the one but they have distinction and there's a way in which they exist apart from while connected to at the same time. So you have versions of spiritual enlightenment that work like that, where the soul essentially retains its individual identity in a kind of dance or lovers union with with God and all souls in a spiritual realm. Okay, so in that, that happens to be the the approach that was really attractive to me. And so, at any rate, I just want people to understand that there's not just one picture of enlightenment or what enlightenment looks like in the ancient world, but there's agreement that release from the cycle of rebirth in the material energy for for the soul is desirable. Okay, so now you have groups like Buddhists, and this might come in again, maybe like the axial age six to fourth century BCE, some time around then. And Buddhists, you have a lot of debate about this, I have friends who are Buddhist, different schools of Buddhism. So there's still there's a lot a lot of variety, but some schools of Buddhism are going to go in the direction of talking about consciousness itself being the issue because as long as there's consciousness, there's consciousness of something other. So the duality between consciousness and an object of consciousness or something like that is the issue. So you because consciousness is always consciousness of something other you want to eliminate consciousness itself and sometimes that means that the idea that there's any kind of underlying essence like a soul or like God, you have this idea of mutual co rising or mutual interdependence that everything co co rises in one moment and there's nothing underlying it.

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There's no essence beneath, so that you know God or the soul might not even fit into that paradigm. But again, there's some debate about that. So I'm just leaving that open ended and Buddhists who are out there, feel free to explain some of the other points of view in the chat box. I'd love to hear from you guys. But I'm just I'm broadly representing how some Buddhist schools will go in a totally different direction from the idea of God or soul at all. But it's also important to note that Buddhists were not the progenitors of horoscopic astrology, though, Buddhists could very easily practice horoscopic astrology, you know if they wanted to. Taoists and stoics. We compared Taoist and stoics and the most recent episode that we did, they also both discuss something like enlightenment, but it involves being identified with merging with or flowing along with time or the forces of nature, or the divine reason or logos or the Tao. Within nature there's not really a personal form of reincarnation, or a personal God or afterlife necessarily between a soul and God. It's a little different in that regard. And again, I'm just painting with some really broad strokes here. I'm sure there are people out there who you know, are more have more studied than I am on these subjects. So I'm just representing some broad distinctions between these schools, but still disentanglement from ignorance and from the trappings of base desires, and this idea of illusion is common to both stoicism and Taoism. Plato in the phaedrus presents a detailed account of the souls liberation he describes matter as a contamination into which some souls have fallen through an undefined primal accident or sort of misadventure. The destiny of the souls which have fallen is to struggle to retain the state of godhood, in which the soul dwells pure and uncontaminated. This is done for Plato in large part to the path of seeking higher truth and wisdom which exists in the eternal forms. That's the kind of the philosopher's path to know and understand these higher forms. Remember, that the planets become in some ways emblematic of that world of higher forms. They also have the power to preside over the changes and fluctuations in the realm of mere opinion in the realm of shadows. So astrology is closely connected through study of the higher forms, to disconnecting ourselves from struggles in illusion in the shadow world. That's a very basic way that platonic thinking, you know, has correspondence with astrology, the orphic and remember, Plato talks, like very explicitly about astrology in his cosmological treatise the timaeus time as the orphic and other potential group of early astrologers describe a personal afterlife life process that the soul would undergo when it died, which could lead to liberation from material bondage of pass through successfully. The pythagoreans also envisioned purification of the soul through study of higher forms, numbers, astronomy, math, that could lead to the cycle of rebirth, that greens are one of the strongest candidates for a school that might have had some, if not coming from the Bulgarians that would have had a strong influence on maybe the earliest receivers or transmitters of horoscopic astrology they certainly influenced Plato in the platonic school. The Egyptian Book of the Dead has a chapter entitled The chapter of not dying a second time and also discusses the process of reincarnation, liberation is said to happen by means of the soul using a ladder to climb to heaven after death, rather than being reborn. So you have some precedent in Egypt, where we know that it's likely that a lot of astrology came from we know that there was a cross pollination of ideas between Egypt and India at times. And so it's interesting to see how some of these ideas are present in both the east and the west. Now, these are just a few of the major philosophical and spiritual traditions that clearly embrace a process of liberation, enlightenment and enlightenment, that would have been very well known or or widely spread at the time of the dawning of horoscopic astrology. So what's my takeaway? ancient astrologers in both the east and the west, most likely, we don't know but most likely believed that it was desirable or actually the goal of life, to be released from ignorance, delusions or material life itself, perhaps in an afterlife of some kind of form of enlightenment or liberation of some kind, with variations, most likely, there would have been an idea of an eternal immortal soul, a some form of divinity, and with an attempt to aspire for divine knowledge or connection with that source, and with release from the World of Illusion, which by the way,

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does not necessary does not mean There were not schools that people who thought that that form of liberation or enlightenment couldn't be realised within this world. There's a concept for example, in India called the Jeeva Mukta Jeevan Mukta, which is basically someone who is liberated even still while in the material energy. And the material energy itself in a number of different traditions in India is understood as a divine energy. Some people will say that the material energy is a mere illusion, it's not even real. Bhakti we say that it's real, but it's a servant of God, it's Maya means mercy Maya as a servant of God, so that souls are allowed to choose to live in existence in denial of or ignorance of their divine nature and their divine source. And they can travel all over and do all sorts of things and that every journey and every choices, there's there's responses being given from the universe all the time, to help souls on their path on their journey home. In that sense, the material world is, you know, a place that's that's facilitating souls to have the experiences that they want to have with their freewill, even if that means being in temporary ignorance of who they are and what is real. So it's not like, you know, in a sense, it's like God makes this world for, for us to explore, there's no content, it wouldn't be. We're not condemned if God makes the world for us to explore and try these things out. But at the same time, we learn what suffering is, and what constitutes choices for love and happiness while we're here by virtue of trial and error.

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So, at any rate, there are so many different techniques of ecstasy that exist in the ancient world as well meaning how does one achieve release from moksha or liberation, how does one achieve release from the wheel of reincarnation, and that we're going to talk about that in an episode down the line a little bit. One other thing that is has been has been really important for me, and I'm going to try I don't want to get up on a big soapbox about it. But for me, this was a gut check. Because what I mean, if you it's the same thing with the I Ching. The I Ching is really the oldest of the Chinese classics. So it's a it's like their Bible. And the I Ching is, as the I Ching is studied as a scripture, depicting the combinations of yin and yang unfolding in creation in different stages, and almost like archetypal sequences. It's only much later in the history of the teachings use that it becomes used as a prognosticating tool as a form of divination. And you have to ask if someone's studying the I Ching, for the sake of learning to understand, let's just call it the Tao and how to be in touch with the Tao, if that's the primary motivation and why would one do that? Because one wants to be free from from ignorance and illusion. Then, in what spirit would someone have been using the I Ching if they respected it in that way? Similarly, if someone understood astrology, to be a part of the examined life, to be a part of a life that was aimed at release from reincarnation or it was aimed at the release from suffering, illusion and ignorance, then what would the purpose of using astrology as a prognosticative tool as a form of divination have been? We have evidence in the earliest texts from all of the authors, I think, I mean, there's some texts there's not as explicit statements. But Firmicus Maternus, Ptolemy Valens, Manilius... astrology is used to develop an understanding of the soul confidence in the soul. Because when we're identified with the turnings of the wheel of fortune and invested in them with great anxiety, we're in illusion and we're in ignorance. What does astrology do? Astrology helps us to foresee the twists and turns of fortune, specifically, so that we are prepared for them and can remain centred in our original and authentic spiritual identity and in touch with eternity.

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In this sense, it's like we're caught in a funhouse, with twisted mirrors all over that aren't giving us the real truth and astrology is a study in the predictions of astrology is there to help fortify the soul as it goes through this funhouse of the material world where everything goes up and goes down, you get full and you get emptied. And the more that one is identified with those fluctuations, the more maddening and painful it is. That's across the board, explicitly in text. Regardless of the particular philosophical schools or religious schools that astrology might have come from. That is what we see the earliest astrologers telling us. For me, I've had to wonder whether or not astrology without that underlying spiritual practice, however, one tries to live a spiritual life, whatever practices or methods one adopts, that if we aren't using astrology to free us from anxiety, from ignorance, from attachments that are ultimately not healthy for us, from the fears and desires that are not healthy for us that if astrology is not being used in that way, I have to question whether or not we're actually doing astrology anymore. And I feel quite strongly about that I'm sure that some people will, you know, would disagree and not like that or feel that it was too narrow. But the more that I've studied the history of astrology, the more that I realised that astrology that is used purely for the sake of sort of narcissistic, navel gazing, self help culture, sort of obsessed with the future, what's going to happen? Or a me me me kind of approach or one that is always, you know, getting off on stereotypes, quick humour, tonnes of likes, whatever. I really wonder is that, is that really astrology? Is that really what it's meant for? I can't police anyone or tell someone how to be an astrologer. But I wonder when the astrological community seems to be sometimes not i'm not saying anyone in particular, just just in and I'm not talking even necessarily about practitioners, just the people who consume astrology, you know, what do I see in pop astrology? And, and I see, astrology is almost like, a trendy hip thing to bring into the bar with you to talk about. And yeah, I'm not I'm not trying to get up on a high horse. But I really wonder how well can astrology work? If it is not being used alongside of a spiritual lifestyle. It's like yoga in that regard. For me, as a yoga studio owner of 10 years, I saw many people using Asana, and even meditation, basically just to pimp their ride, like you guys remember that show. Just as a way of being fit and relaxed. And while I'm not against the goal of being relaxed, there's a lot of stress in the world. And even that goal, to me is a noble one with yoga, like, I'm not condemning that some people are just using yoga for relaxation. That's not really what Yoga is not really the goal of yoga. And similarly, if astrology isn't being used alongside of a spiritual lifestyle, with a spiritual intention to see the one in the many, to recall our eternal nature, to see Heaven, in the grains of sand that constitute the events of our everyday life, then I don't know that we're doing astrology. So I always tell that to my students, just to consider that I can't, you know, like I said, I'm not out to police anyone. And you know, I consider myself very open minded person. Even when I have my disagreements with people, I'm a live and let live type of person generally speaking, but this one gets me because the more that I've studied the the metaphysical ground floor of the ancient world that astrology came from. I'm just not sure if we're, if we, in the modern West are doing enough to make sure that this continues to be a sacred spiritual part of our lives. I don't have the purity standard for what exactly that means or looks like. So all I can do is just sort of ring the bell and try to educate people and hope that people will use astrology in the right way. Not as something to double down on your self interest or our vanity or our anxieties and attachments, but as something to point us home. So at any rate, that's a little segue soapbox. I hope it wasn't too blunt. So Anyway, we will be going forward and next episode we're going to be talking about cyclical time. That's a really interesting one kind of a mind bending topic coming up perfect for Mercury in Pisces right now. Alright, anyway, I hope you guys are having a great day and we'll talk to you again soon. Take it easy, everyone. Bye.