The search of metaphysical root causes
I am often asked questions on different metaphysical, philosophical subjects linked to astrology…
The themes often are fascinating :
- Are we predetermined ?
- Does fate exist ?
- If it does, can we avoid it ?
- How much free will do we have ?
- In what ways do planets act upon us at the physical or quantum level ?
- How does astrology “work” ?
- Why did God “gave” us astrology and let us understand it ?
- Is God dead ? (see the article on the myth of Sisyphus)
All of these themes truly are endless and source of abundant intellectual thoughts, besides they have been treated by some books, some authors, some astrologers…
Every time I am asked such a question, I think about the Buddhist parable of the “poisoned arrow” that I can only partially quote:
It’s just as if a man were badly wounded by a poisoned arrow, his friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon.
And the man would say:
“I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker. I won’t have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me… Until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short… Until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored… Until I know his home village, town, or city… Until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow… Until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark… Until I know whether with which arrowhead I was wounded… […]”
This man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him.
The first thing to do is to remove the arrow…
Finding and removing the arrow
We are all like this man. There’s legitimacy in our questions, but the fundamental goal isnot to get answers to them.
Because we get lost in guesswork, and most of our questions are unsolvable for human minds given our evolution, at least we cannot get the proof to our intimate convictions with certainty on one subject or another, we stay in doubt (but is that bad?).
Even worse, these questions often take us away from what should imperatively be at the center of our lives, our personal development, our evolution, our Individuation, our “Ikigaï”.
When we study a planetary transit (see how to go through a difficult transit), and even more when we feel this transit the daily of its existence, what is the point of these metaphysical questions for the individual smeared in problems ?
Lots of consulters come for a first consultation during phases of crisis, sometimes acute crisis (even Depression)…
The first thing to do is to relieve the crisis as a priority (“remove the arrow”), the person needs to understand and, most importantly, to profoundly incorporate his personal evolution inherent processes.
It all depends on the person’s evolution stage, but at first, questions that are too metaphysical don’t help at all, on the contrary they often bring more confusion than solutions to the psychological process of studying the natal chart…
It is highly important not to fall in the faults of materialist science which always tries to understand the “How?” while completely losing sight of the “Why?”, the meaning, the profound fundamental signification… at the risk of falling into a statistical astrology, quantitative, far from the notions of the being’s qualities.
It is only at the level of this quest for meaning, of the “Why?”, that the notion of God appears, and might be useful in personal development and the depressive process, and again, only if the individual feels that need (there’s nothing to “force”).
As the humanistic astrologer Dane Rudhyar says :
If after studying his chart with exactitude, someone realizes the sequence of his life’s events, that used to appear as chaotic, meaningless and aimless, if they get a signification, if one sees a direction, a goal, if one becomes conscious that one was deprived of orientation, meaning, judgment, then the efficiency of astrology is “existentially proven” in this particular case.
It is that concrete experience of reality that is fundamental, more than every metaphysical conjecture (see the benefit of the present moment within karma).
It is that path of introspection that needs to be favored within existence, over any speculation.
Even the quest for meaning and the quest for God should be lived pragmatically.
In short, I’m not saying that I won’t talk about some of these fascinating metaphysical themes in some of my articles, but let’s not lose sight of a certain pragmatism of the efficiency of astrology…