Jyotish #2

It is necessary to know a few things about the sun. First of all, from the scientific point of view, the entire solar family was born from the sun — Mars, Jupiter, the moon, the earth. They are all limbs of the sun. Then life arose on earth — from plants to man. Man is a limb of the earth; the earth is a limb of the sun. Understand it this way: there is a mother, she has a daughter, and she has a daughter. In all three bodies the same blood flows; the same kind of cells, the same kind of tissues form their bodies.
And scientists use a word: empathy. Things born of the same source carry within them an inner sympathetic resonance. The earth is born of the sun, our bodies are formed from earth. A little distance away, the sun is our great father. Whatever happens on the sun vibrates in every pore of our being. It must. Because each pore of ours is also made from the sun. The sun appears so far away, yet it is not so far. In every particle of our blood and every piece of our bone dwell the atoms of the sun. We are fragments of the sun. So if we are affected by the sun, there is no surprise — there is empathy, a sympathetic resonance.
It is necessary to understand this empathy a little — only then can we enter one dimension of astrology.
Yesterday I spoke to you about twins. If two children born from one egg are locked in two rooms — and such experiments have been carried out many times in the last fifty years — identical twins are placed in two rooms; then a bell is rung simultaneously in both rooms and both are told to write down the first thought that arises, or to draw the first image that appears in the mind.
And it is astonishing that if twenty drawings are obtained from the two children, then ninety percent of the drawings are alike. The very first thought-stream arising in the mind, the very first word forming, or the very first image formed — almost the same thought, the same word is formed within the other twin as well.
Scientists call this empathy. There is such similarity between them that they resonate to each other. As if within both there are hidden pathways, some communication.
Between the sun and the earth there is just such communication, just such dialogue, moment to moment. And between the earth and man too there is this kind of dialogue, moment to moment. So between the sun, the earth, and man there is an ongoing dialogue, a continuous dialogue. But this dialogue is very secret, very inner, very subtle. If we understand a few things about it, it will begin to make sense.
In America there is a research center: the Tree Ring Research Center. If you cut a tree you will see many rings, many circles in its trunk. The beauty you see on fine furniture is because of those very circles. For fifty years this center has been working on the rings that form in trees. Professor Douglass is now its director; he has spent most of his life on these rings, these cycles that form in trees. Many facts have come to hand. The first is commonly known: the age of a tree can be known by counting its rings. Each year one ring is formed. The tree sheds one bark, its skin; and one ring is formed. The age of the tree is decided by how many rings there are. If it is fifty years old, if it has seen fifty autumns, then fifty rings will be formed in its trunk. And the surprising thing is that these rings also report the weather!
If a year was very hot and wet, the ring formed is wide. If the year was very cold and dry, the ring formed is narrow. By cutting wood thousands of years old, one can find out what the weather was like when a particular ring was formed. Was there a lot of rain or not? Was there drought or not? If Buddha said that in a certain year there was much rain, then the bodhi tree under which he sat will also report whether there was rain or not. Buddha might err, but that tree, the bodhi tree, does not err. Its ring will be bigger or smaller.
Pursuing these circles, Douglass reached a place he had not imagined. He discovered that every eleventh year the ring becomes as big as it never becomes otherwise. And that eleventh year is the very year when maximum activity occurs on the sun. There is a rhythm, a periodicity in the sun — every eleven years the sun becomes very active. Its radioactivity becomes very intense. The trees of the whole earth form a thicker ring in that year. Not here and there, not in one forest — on the whole earth, all trees, in that year, make thick rings to protect themselves from that radioactivity. That intense burst of solar energy makes them grow thicker skin that year — every eleventh year.
From this, a new word and a new perspective arose among scientists. Weather differs from place to place. Here it is cold, somewhere hot, somewhere rainy, somewhere frosty — the weathers differ. Therefore until now one never spoke of a single climate of the earth. But now Douglass has begun to use the term climate of the earth. There are indeed small local differences, but across the whole earth too a special climate moves because of the sun — which we do not catch, but trees do. Every eleventh year trees form a thick ring; then the rings become smaller; after five years they start increasing again; and in the eleventh year they become fully large.
If trees are so sensitive and register with such order any event occurring on the sun, then would there not be a layer in the human chitta as well? Would there not be some subtle form of sensitivity in the human body too? Would man also not form some rings and circles in his personality?
It is not yet clear. Scientists do not yet have clarity about what happens within man. But it seems impossible that when even trees sense what occurs on the sun, man would not, in some way, sense it.
Astrology is the search for this very fact: that whatever happens anywhere in existence also happens within the human chitta. We shall speak later about how man too carries within him news like the trees — only, unfolding it is not as easy as cutting a tree is. We cannot cut man open so conveniently. Cutting man open is a subtler matter. And man has chitta, therefore his body does not record those events — chitta records them. Trees do not have chitta, so their body records those events.
One more thing to keep in mind. As I said, every eleven years intense radioactivity and fierce electrical storms run on the sun — a rhythm. Exactly such another great rhythm has begun to be noticed — a ninety-year cycle on the sun. And this is even more astounding. What I am saying are all scientific facts. Astrologers do not speak of these. I say it so that on this basis it may be easier for you to understand astrology in a scientific way. A ninety-year cycle has been observed. And its story of discovery is quite wondrous.
Four thousand years ago, the Pharaoh in Egypt told his scientists that a complete record should be kept of the rise and fall of water in the Nile. The Nile is the only river whose biography extends back four thousand years. No other river has such a biography. Its life-story is complete: when its waters rose by an inch, there is a full record — four thousand years, from the Pharaohs till today.
Pharaoh means the sun in the Egyptian tongue. The Pharaoh, the emperor of Egypt, took his name based on the sun. And in Egypt there was the understanding that a continuous dialogue flows between the sun and the river. So the Pharaoh, a devotee of the sun, said that a complete record of the Nile be kept. We do not yet know enough about the sun, but one day we will — then this record will be of use. Thus there is a four-thousand-year story of the Nile. When did its water rise by an inch, when did it fall by an inch; when did it flood, when not; when did it run swift and when sluggish — a long history, inch by inch.
An Egyptian scholar, Tasman, wrote the entire tale of the Nile. And now those facts about the sun have become known which were not known in the Pharaoh’s time, for which he had asked to wait. Whatever has occurred in the Nile during these four thousand years is related to the sun. And a ninety-year rhythm is evident. Every ninety years an unprecedented event occurs on the sun — an event one could call death, or one could call birth.
Understand it thus: within ninety years, for forty-five years the sun becomes youthful; for forty-five years it becomes old. The flows of energy within it rise for forty-five years toward youth, toward climax; the sun grows more youthful. Then after forty-five years it begins to decline, its age seems to sink, and in ninety years the sun becomes completely old. When in the ninetieth year the sun grows old, the whole earth fills with earthquakes. Earthquakes are related to this ninety-year cycle. After that the sun begins to grow young again. It is a tremendous event; for the change on the sun is so great that the earth is shaken — naturally. But if such a colossal body as the earth trembles with quakes, then would nothing happen within so small a body as man? When such a mighty sphere trembles at solar changes, would a tiny human frame remain untouched? Astrologers have only been asking this. They say it is impossible. Whether you know it or not, man’s body cannot remain unaffected.
During the forty-five years when the sun grows young, children born then will have an astonishingly robust health. And during the forty-five years when the sun is aging, children born then never quite attain good health. When the sun itself is on the decline, then those who have to grow young are like boats to be rowed eastward while the wind blows west. Then one must row hard; oars must be worked; sails do not serve. You cannot just unfurl the sail and go, for the current must be swum against. When the sun is aging — the very life-breath of the solar family — then whoever has to grow must swim upstream, against the wind. The struggle is heavy. When the sun is growing young, the whole solar family is filled with force, moving upward. Whoever is born then is like one seated in a sailing boat; the winds blow eastward; he need not row or toil — the boat will move by itself. Unfurl the sail; the winds will carry the craft.
On this matter even scientists have begun to suspect that when the sun goes to its peak, there are fewer diseases on earth; and when the sun is on its decline, there are the most diseases. For forty-five years the earth has more disease; for forty-five years, less.
The Nile too, across four thousand years, has waxed and waned every ninety years in just this way. When the sun is young, the Nile has the most water; for forty-five years its water keeps increasing. And when the sun begins to set, to age, the Nile’s water falls; it grows slack and old.
Man is not something separate and isolated in this vast cosmos. It is all of a piece.
Till now the finest clocks we have made do not keep time as precisely as the earth keeps time. The earth completes one turn upon its axis in twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes. Upon that we have built our count of twenty-four hours, and fashioned our clocks. The earth is a substantial thing. It completes its turn upon its axis exactly in twenty-three hours fifty-six minutes. Until recently it was never thought that the earth ever errs by even a second — only because we did not have precise means to check; we had ordinary means.
But when the sun’s ninety-year circle completes, the earth’s clock sways. In that moment the earth cannot complete its precise turn. When the sun is in uproar every eleven years, even then the earth wobbles; its clock falters. Whenever in its daily journey the earth comes under new influences — whenever some new cosmic influence, some great star draws nearer — and nearer means, in this vastness, that even at tremendous distances things are very near — a slight change in distance occurs. Our language is not very capable: when we say comes a little nearer, we imagine someone like a person walking closer. No, the distances are colossal. A slight variation occurs in those distances — one we might not detect at all — yet the earth’s axis wobbles.
It takes immense force to shake the earth — even by an inch. Only when mighty forces pass near the earth does it tremble. But when those forces pass near the earth, they pass near us too. And it cannot be that when the earth trembles, the trees rooted upon it do not tremble. Nor can it be that when the earth is shaken, the man living and walking upon it does not tremble. All trembles.
But the tremors are so subtle that until now we had no instruments to test whether the earth trembles. Now we do. If there is a tremor in the thousandth part of a second, we catch it. But we still have no instruments to catch man’s tremors — that matter is subtler still. Man is so subtle — and must be; otherwise living would become impossible. If for twenty-four hours you were aware of all the influences around you, you could not live. You can live only when you are not aware of the surrounding influences.
There is another law: neither do we, by our own strength, detect the very small influences, nor the very great ones. There is a band within which influences are detectable to us.
For example, consider fever. Ninety-eight degrees is one limit; one hundred and ten degrees is another. We live within a span of twelve degrees. If we drop to ninety, we are finished; if we rise beyond one hundred and ten, we are finished. But do you think the world’s heat is confined to twelve degrees only? Man lives within twelve degrees. Step outside either limit and he is lost. There is a balance: between ninety-eight and one hundred and ten he must maintain himself.
Exactly such a balance is everywhere. I speak to you; you listen. If I speak very softly, a point may come when I speak and you cannot hear. It will occur to you that if one speaks too softly, it cannot be heard; but it will not occur to you that if one speaks too loudly, you might not hear. You will think: if he speaks loudly, it will be heard for sure.
No. Scientists say even our hearing has a degree band. Below it we do not hear; above it we do not hear. Terrific sounds pass around us, but we do not hear. A star breaks in the sky, a new planet forms or disintegrates — thunderous roars pass on all sides. If we were to hear them, we would go deaf instantly. But we are safe, for our ears hear only within a boundary. We do not hear what is too subtle; we do not hear what is too immense. There is a band — we hear only that much.
The same limit holds for seeing. All the senses are within a band — neither above it nor below. That is why your dog smells more than you — its band for scent is wider than yours. What you cannot smell, the dog smells. What you cannot hear, your horse hears. Its hearing band is wider than yours. A lion comes from a mile and a half away and the horse startles — from that distance it catches the scent. You sense nothing. If you were to catch all the scents moving around you, you would go deranged. Man is enclosed in a capsule; he has boundaries.
You switch on a radio and a voice begins to be heard. Do you think the voice begins only when you switch it on?
The voices flow all the time, whether you switch on a radio or not. When switched on, the radio catches them; otherwise they flow still, but you do not hear. You do not hear.
Who knows how many sounds are passing around us. A terrible tumult. We do not hear it — but we are affected by it. Remember, we do not hear it, but we are affected by it. It touches every hair of our body; it touches each heartbeat; it makes each nerve tremble. Its work is being done. The molecules of a fragrance you cannot smell still do their work around you. If they bear an illness, they give it to you. Your knowledge is not necessary for something’s existence.
Astrology says that around us are fields of energies, energy fields, and they are influencing us continuously. As I said yesterday, the moment a child is born, we may describe birth scientifically as exposure — just as a film is exposed in a camera. You press the shutter slightly, the window opens for an instant and closes. Whatever comes before the camera in that instant is imprinted upon the film. The film is exposed. Now nothing more will be imprinted upon it — it is imprinted. And now the film will carry that form within itself forever.
The very day the first conception occurs in the mother’s womb, the first exposure happens. The day the child comes out of the mother’s womb, is born, the second exposure happens. Both exposures are imprinted upon that sensitive chitta like a film. In that instant the child imprints the whole universe within. And his sympathies are formed.
Astrology says only this much: if a child is born at night — and you will be surprised to know that from seventy to even ninety percent of children are born at night. This is surprising. Ordinarily one would think fifty percent; there are twenty-four hours — even if there were no laws at all, children should be born half in day, half in night. A slight error of two or four percent. But up to ninety percent are born at night; scarcely ten percent in the day. This cannot be without cause; there are deep reasons behind it.
Understand: a child is born at night. Then his exposure, the first event of his descent into this world, is joined with darkness, not with light. I say this only as an example, for the matter is much vaster. Only as an example. The first event upon his chitta is darkness. The sun is absent. The sun’s energy is absent. Around him the world is asleep. Plants have folded their leaves. Birds, with wings tucked, eyes closed, are hidden in their nests. Sleep pervades the earth. In each particle of air there is sleep. All is sleeping; nothing is awake. This is the first impact upon the child.
If we ask Buddha and Mahavira, they will say that most children are born at night because most souls are asleep. They cannot choose the day to be born. To choose the day is difficult. There are a thousand reasons — one important one is this: people are mostly asleep, in stupor, in sloth, in negligence. To be born with the rising sun would be the birth of energy; to be born under the cover of the sun’s setting darkness would be the birth of sleep.
If a child is born at night, the exposure will be of one kind; as if we opened the film in darkness or in light, the exposures will differ. The matter of exposure needs to be understood a little deeper, for it relates to the depths of astrology.
Those scientists who research exposure say that the event of exposure is a great event, not a small one — because it will follow you your whole life. A chick is born. As soon as it is born it runs after the hen. We say it runs after its mother. Scientists say no — exposure! We say it runs after its mother. Scientists say no. We too once thought so — but it is not so. After hundreds of experiments, the matter has been established.
Scientists did hundreds of experiments. The chick is being born, the egg breaks, the chick emerges — they removed the hen and placed in her stead a rubber balloon. The first thing the chick saw was a rubber balloon, not the mother. You will be astonished to know that the chick was exposed. Thereafter it could love only the rubber balloon as mother. It could not love its own mother. If the balloon moved here and there in the air, it would run after it. If its mother ran about, it would not care. Towards the rubber balloon it became astonishingly sensitive. When tired it would rest near the balloon; it would try to love the balloon; it would try to peck at the balloon — but not at the mother.
Much work on this was done by a scientist named Lorenz. He says that the first-moment exposure is very important. It becomes related to the mother not because she is the mother, but because of the first exposure. Not because she is mother, therefore he runs after her; but because she was the first available, therefore he runs after her.
Further work has continued. Children who are not raised near their mother can never in life love a woman — exposure does not happen. If a child is not raised near his mother, the image of woman that ought to form in his mind never forms. And if in the West homosexuality is increasing, one of the basic reasons is that. Heterosexual love, love for the opposite sex, is decreasing; and love for the same sex is increasing — a perversion. But it will be so; for love for the other sex — man for woman and woman for man — comes with many conditions. First, exposure is essential. A child is born — what is exposed upon his mind?
Now this needs much reflection. Women in the world will not be happy until their exposure happens with the father. Their exposure now happens with the mother. The first impact upon the mind of the girl should be the father’s. Only then will she be able to love a man with her whole heart. If man seems to triumph over woman, its chief reason is that both boys and girls are raised by the mother. So the boy’s exposure towards woman is perfectly right, but the girl’s exposure is not right. Until the girl receives the father’s exposure, women will never be able to stand equal to men — not through politics, nor jobs, nor economic independence. In psychological terms a lack remains. The entire culture so far has not been able to fill it.
If so small a balloon, or a hen, or a mother, can so strongly influence exposure that the person’s chitta is shaped by it forever — then astrology says the whole universe, the whole of it, in that moment of exposure, in that moment when the chitta opens, enters within; and lifelong sympathies and antipathies are formed. The stars encircling the earth at that instant — stars encircling meaning the radioactivity of those stars influencing the earth at that moment —
Now scientists accept that each planet’s radioactivity differs. For instance, Venus — the radioactive elements coming towards us from it differ from those of the moon; Jupiter’s differ from the sun’s. Because each planet has a different atmosphere of gases and elements. Different influences come towards the earth. And when a child is being born, the stars encircling the horizon around the earth — planets, satellites, the great stars of the distant sky — all of them, in that moment of exposure, enter deep into the child’s chitta. Then his weaknesses, his strengths, his capacities, are influenced for ever.
After Hiroshima, when the atom bomb fell, this became evident — before that it was not known. Before Hiroshima it was thought only that if an atom bomb fell, hundreds of thousands would die; it was not known that generations yet to come would be affected. Those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, died — that was a moment’s event; finished. But the trees that survived in Hiroshima, the animals, the birds, the fish, the humans who survived — they were affected forever.
Scientists say it will take ten generations to grasp the full consequences. Everything about them was affected by radioactivity. The eggs in the bodies of the surviving women were affected. When one of those eggs tomorrow becomes a child, it will not be like an ordinary child — because a particular radioactivity has entered that egg. He may be lame, crippled, blind; he may have four eyes, eight hands; anything could be. We cannot yet say what he will be. His brain may be diseased, or he may be a genius — such as never was. We do not yet know. Only this much is certain: he will not be the ordinary man he otherwise would have been.
Yet the atom is a very small power. For us it is huge. One atom bomb killed one hundred and twenty thousand people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it is a very small power. The power upon the sun cannot be measured against this — as if billions of atom bombs are exploding together. Such is the sun’s radioactivity. And it is extraordinary: the sun has been pouring warmth upon the earth for four billion years, and existed even before; and still scientists say that for at least another four thousand years there is no chance of cooling. Every day so much heat. And the sun is a hundred million miles from the earth. The event in Hiroshima cannot affect beyond ten miles. The sun is a hundred million miles away, has been giving us all our warmth for four billion years — yet is not emptied. But this sun is nothing; there are super-suns — all those stars in the sky. And from each star its own personal and private activity flows toward us.
A great scientist, studying energies spread through space, Gauquelin, says that of the energies we are experiencing we do not fully know even one percent. Since we have launched artificial satellites beyond the earth, they have given us so much news that we have neither words to understand it nor science enough. And we had never imagined that so many energies could be flowing all around.
On this matter one more thing to keep in mind. In this world — as I said yesterday — people think astrology is a science in the making. I told you, the situation is the reverse.
If you have seen the Taj Mahal, across the Yamuna you will see some walls raised. The story goes that Shah Jahan built the Taj for Mumtaz and on the other bank he was building, for himself, a black stone palace — like the marble Taj — for his own tomb. But it was never completed. Such a tale was always current. But recent historical research shows that those walls across are not the beginnings of some palace to be built; they are the remains of a very large palace which had fallen — a ruin. Raised walls and ruins can look alike. A new house’s walls are rising; they are unfinished. A thousand years later it will be hard to decide whether these are rising walls of a new house or the remnants of a built house that fell.
For the last three, four, five hundred years it was thought that the palace across was being built by Shah Jahan and remained incomplete. Recent digging reveals it was complete. Not only that — it also appears that Shah Jahan never built the Taj himself. It too is a very old Hindu palace converted — slightly altered. Many astonishing things. We get used to tales; then we cannot even think otherwise. No one else has made a tomb like the Taj in the world. Tombs are not built like this. Around the Taj there are placements for soldiers to stand, for guns and cannons. Tombs need no guns and cannons to defend them. It is an old palace converted into a tomb. That across is also an old palace which fell; ruins remain.
Astrology too is like a ruin. It was a great palace, a complete science, which collapsed. It is not a new thing rising; it is not a new house being built. But from the surviving walls you cannot tell how great a palace once stood there. Often truths are found — and lost.
A Greek named Aristarchus discovered two or three centuries before Jesus that the sun is the center, not the earth. His heliocentric formula — the sun at the center — was discovered three hundred years before Jesus. But a hundred years after Jesus, Ptolemy reversed it and made the earth central again. Then it took two thousand years for Kepler and Copernicus to rediscover that the sun is central, not the earth. For two thousand years Aristarchus’s truth lay buried. When Copernicus said it again, Aristarchus’s books were found. People said — what a surprise.
The West says that Columbus discovered America. A famous joke circulates. Oscar Wilde was in America. He believed America had been discovered much earlier. It is true: America was discovered many times and lost again and again; the links broke. Someone asked Oscar Wilde, we have heard you say America was discovered earlier too. Do you not accept that Columbus was the first? And if Columbus was not first, why was America lost again and again?
Oscar Wilde joked: Columbus rediscovered America. It was discovered so many times, but each time hushed up. Each time suppressed, because it would create an uproar — hushed up.
The Mahabharata mentions America. One of Arjuna’s wives is a Mexican girl. The temples in Mexico are Hindu temples; even the image of Ganesh is carved upon them.
Many times truths are found and lost. Many times a truth comes into our hands — and is lost. Astrology is among the greatest of such truths; it had come fully into awareness — and was lost. To bring it again into awareness is very difficult. That is why I am speaking to you from many directions. To speak directly about astrology would mean perhaps I am referring to the roadside astrologer. The one to whom you give four annas and get your future told — perhaps I am speaking of him, in his favor.
No. In the name of astrology ninety-nine out of a hundred is fraud. And that hundredth man — leaving aside the ninety-nine — is very hard to understand. He can never be so dogmatic as to say it will be exactly so. Because he knows astrology is a very great phenomenon — so great that one can step there only very hesitantly. When I speak of astrology my purpose is to show you that whole science from many sides — the vision of that palace — so that you can enter within with deep assurance. When I speak of astrology, I am not speaking of astrologers. It is not such a small matter. But man’s curiosity lies in just that — to find out whether his daughter will be married this year or not.
On this matter let me also tell you that astrology has three parts.
One we may call Essential — in which not a grain of difference occurs. That is the most difficult to know. Outside it is a periphery: Non-essential — in which all changes are possible. But we are eager to know only that. Between them there is a periphery — Semi-essential — in knowing which changes can occur; without knowing, changes never occur. Make three parts: Essential — the very deep, the inevitable, where no difference can be. Having known it, there remains no way but to cooperate with it. Religions invented astrology for the discovery of this Essential fact; they went that way. After that comes the second part: Semi-essential. If you know, you can change; if you do not, you cannot. If ignorance remains, what is to be will be. If there is knowing, there are alternatives, options; change can happen. And third, the uppermost surface — Non-essential — where nothing is necessary; all is coincidental.
But what we understand by astrology is only the Non-essential. A man asks, will I get a job or not? The influence of the moon and stars has no deep relation to whether you get a job. A man asks, will I marry or not? Even without marriage society can exist. A man asks, will I be poor or rich? A society can be communist; then there will be no poor or rich. These are Non-essential questions that we ask. A man asks that at eighty I was walking on the road and slipped on an orange peel — did my stars have a hand in this? No planetary chart can determine that on such and such day your foot will slip on such and such peel on Marine Drive. This is sheer foolishness.
But our curiosity is just this: if today I go out on the road, will my foot slip on a peel or not. This is Non-essential. It depends on a thousand causes, but there is no necessity to it. It has no relation to Being, to Atman. It is the surface of events. Astrology has nothing to do with it. And because astrologers have kept engaged in such talk, the palace of astrology fell. It fell because these things are stupid. No intelligent person will agree that the day I was born it was written that on such and such day on Marine Drive I will step on a peel and slip. Neither my slipping has any purpose from the moon and stars nor that peel has any purpose. Being related to such matters astrology got a bad name. And our curiosity is just that — to know such things. It has no relation.
There are some Semi-essential matters — birth and death, for instance. If you know fully about these, differences can occur; if you do not, they will not. Our medical knowledge will increase — we will lengthen man’s lifespan; we are doing so. If our research into atom bombs goes on increasing, we will kill millions in one stroke; we have. This is the Semi-essential world — where certain things may be, or may not be. If you know, it is good; options can be chosen. Beyond this lies the world of the Essential, the inevitable. There no change occurs. But our curiosity remains, at most, in the Non-essential; sometimes, perhaps, it goes up to the Semi-essential. The Essential, the inevitable, the unavoidable — where no difference ever is — our grasp does not reach its center, nor does our desire go there.
Mahavira is passing by a village. His disciple Goshalak is with him — later he became an opponent. They pass by a sapling. Goshalak says to Mahavira: Listen, here is a plant. What do you think — will it reach flowering or not? Will it bear flowers or not? Will it survive or not? Has it a future or not?
Mahavira stands beside the plant with eyes closed. Goshalak says: Speak. What will happen by closing your eyes? Do not evade.
He does not even know why Mahavira has closed his eyes. He is searching for the Essential — to enter the Being of this plant, into its Atman, is necessary. Without that, one cannot say what will be.
Opening his eyes, Mahavira says: This plant will reach flowering. Goshalak pulls it up in front of him and throws it away — and bursts into laughter. What stronger, more irrefutable proof does one need? There is nothing more for Mahavira to say. He has thrown the plant away. He laughs; Mahavira smiles. Both go on their way.
Seven days later they return by the same path. As soon as they reach their ashram, there is a fierce rain. For seven days it pours; they cannot go out. When they return, they come to the very place where Mahavira had stood with closed eyes seven days earlier — and see the plant standing. Heavy rain had softened the earth; its roots again gripped the wet soil; it stood up.
Mahavira again stood by it with closed eyes. Goshalak was disturbed. That plant we had thrown away — it has stood up again. Mahavira opened his eyes. Goshalak said: I am astonished. We pulled this plant out and threw it — and it has stood again. Mahavira said: It will reach flowering. That is why I stood here with eyes closed — to see its inner potentiality, its inner possibility. What is its inner state? Even if you throw it aside from outside, will it still be able to plant its feet and stand? Is there a suicidal instinct in it? Is it eager to die? Otherwise it will take your support and die. Is it eager to live? If eager to live — I knew you would pull it out and throw it.
Goshalak said: What do you say?
Mahavira said: When I was seeing this plant, you were standing nearby — and you too were visible. I knew you would pull it out and throw it. So it was necessary to know exactly how much inner capacity the plant had to stand. How much self-force it had. Was it eager to die, to die at any excuse — then it could take your excuse as well. Otherwise the plant you threw could again take root.
Goshalak did not dare to pull it out a second time; he was afraid. Last time Goshalak went away laughing; this time Mahavira went on laughing. On the way Goshalak asked: Why do you laugh? Mahavira said: I was thinking, let me see how much capacity you have. Will you pull it out and throw it again or not? Goshalak asked: You should know whether I will pull it out or not. Mahavira said: That is Non-essential. You may pull it out, you may not — it depends on you. The essential was that the plant yet wanted to live; its whole life-force wanted to live. That was essential. Whether you pull it out or not is non-essential — it depends on you. But you proved weaker than the plant; you were defeated.
This plant was one reason among others for Goshalak’s anger with Mahavira — for leaving him.
The astrology I speak of relates to the Essential, the foundational. Your curiosity reaches at most to the Semi-essential. You want to find out how many days I will live. Will I die or not? You do not reach as far as: having lived, what will I do; if I live, what will I do; you do not reach as far as: when I die, what will I do in dying. Your curiosity reaches to events, not to souls. When I am living, that is but an event; what I do by living, what I am by living — that is my Atman. When I die, that will be an event. But in the moment of dying, what I will be, what I will do — that will be my Atman. All of us will die. In the matter of dying, the event will be the same for all; but our inner state at the moment of death will be different. Someone can die smiling.
Someone asks Mulla Nasruddin when he is near death: What do you think, Mulla — where do people come from when they are born; where do they go when they die? Mulla said: As far as experience goes, I have seen people born crying and going crying. They do not come from a good place, nor do they go to a good place. Seeing them, one gathers they come not from a good place, nor go to a good place. When they come, they seem crying; when they go, they seem crying.
But a man like Nasruddin can die laughing. Death is an event; dying laughing is Atman. Have you ever asked an astrologer, will I die laughing or crying? You will not have asked. On the whole earth not one man has asked an astrologer: will I die laughing or crying? This is worth asking — but it belongs to Essential astrology.
You ask: When will I die — as if dying is very valuable in itself. How long will I live — as if living is enough. For what will I live, why will I live, what will I do by living, what will I become by living — no one goes to ask. Therefore the palace fell — the palace whose foundation is placed upon the Non-essential, the unnecessary, cannot stand. Foundational stones are needed.
The astrology I speak of is deeper than what you have thought astrology to be — different, with another dimension. I am speaking of this: something in your life is essential; and that essential is in rhythm with the life of the cosmos — not separate. The whole cosmos is a participant. You are not alone in it.
When Buddha attained enlightenment, he folded his hands and placed his head upon the earth. The story is that the gods descended from the heavens to bow to Buddha, for he had attained the supreme knowing. Seeing Buddha with hands joined and head on the earth, they were amazed. They asked: Whom are you bowing to? We have come from heaven to bow to you — we know of no one to whom Buddha would bow. Buddhahood is the ultimate.
Buddha opened his eyes and said: Whatever has occurred has not occurred to me alone — the whole universe is in it. So I place my head in gratitude to all.
This is bound up with Essential astrology. The whole universe.
Therefore Buddha told his bhikkhus: Whenever any inner bliss comes to you, immediately be grateful to the whole universe. For you are not alone. If the sun did not rise, if the moon did not rise, if even a speck of any event were elsewhere, then what has happened to you would not have happened. Granted it has happened to you, but everyone’s hand is in it. The whole universe is together in it.
The name of this cosmic interrelatedness is astrology.
Thus Buddha will not say it happened to me. He will only say: the universe has known it through me. This event of enlightenment, this arising of light, the universe has known by my pretext. I am only a pretext — a crossroad where all the pathways of the universe have met.
Have you ever noticed that a crossroad is a great thing — yet in itself it is nothing. Remove the four roads which meet and the crossroad vanishes. We are all crisscross points where the infinite forces of the universe come and cut a point — there an individual is formed.
So the essential astrology means only this much: we are not separate. We are one with that one Brahman, with that one cosmos. And each event is a participant.
Therefore Buddha has said: I bow to the Buddhas who were before me, and I bow to the Buddhas who will be after me.
Someone asked: That you bow to those who were before you is understandable — perhaps some known or unknown debt is owed to them; perhaps the knowing of those who knew before aided you. But those who have not yet been — what do they have to do with you? What help have they given you?
Buddha said: Those who were have helped me, and those who are not yet have helped me as well. For where I stand, past and future have become one. There, what has gone meets what is yet to come. There, what has gone meets that which is about to be. There, sunrise and sunset stand upon a single point. So I bow to those who will be; their debt is upon me too. For if they were not to be in the future, I could not be today.
This is hard to understand. This is Essential astrology. If something from yesterday’s chain be removed, I cannot be — for I am tied in a chain. This is understandable. If my father were not in the world, I could not be — a link gone. If my father’s father were not, I could not be — for the link would dissolve. But if in my future some link were not to be, I could not be — that is hard to understand. What has that to do — I am already here.
Buddha says: If what is to be in the future were not, I could not be. For I am the link between the past and the future. Wherever any change occurs, I cannot remain as I am. Yesterday made me — and tomorrow also makes me. This is astrology — not only the past, but the coming day; not only what has gone, but what is arriving; not only the suns that rose upon the earth, but those that will rise — they too are participants. They too are shaping this present moment. For this present moment could not be if the moment of the future were not standing ahead of it. It is sustained by that.
All of us have our feet on the shoulders of the past. All of us have our hands on the shoulders of the future. Below, it is visible to us — if the one standing beneath me were not there, I would fall. But those arms extended into the future, those hands gripping shoulders there — if those were not, I would fall too.
When someone finds himself joined in such an inner unity between past and future, then he understands astrology. Then astrology becomes religion, astrology becomes spirituality. Otherwise, tied to the Non-essential, the unnecessary, astrology becomes a roadside show; it has no value. Even the finest science, fallen to earth, becomes worth dust. Everything depends on how we use it. Therefore from many doors I am pushing you toward one side — that it may be felt that everything is joined, that this world is one family, one organic body — like a single body.
When I breathe, the whole body is affected. When the sun breathes, the earth is affected. And there are far super-suns; when they do something, the earth is affected. And when the earth is affected, we are affected. Everything — even the tiniest hair — quivers, joined to the mighty suns. If this comes into your awareness, you can enter essential astrology — and be saved from the uselessnesses of inessential astrology.
We have tied the most petty matters to astrology — exceedingly petty, of no value. Because of tying such things, a great difficulty arises. For example, we have tied to it whether a man will be born poor or rich. No — a non-necessary matter. If you do not know, it will remain tied to astrology; if you know, it will come into your hands.
Let me tell you a sweet story so it becomes clear. Life is such a balance, such a harmony. Muhammad had a disciple, Ali. And Ali asked Muhammad: There is a great dispute always — is man free in his action, or dependent? Is he bound or free? Can I do what I want to do, or can I not?