Skyscript Astrology Forum

Posted: **Wed Apr 03, 2013 8:43 am**

I have often read the sentiment that so-and-so does not like the idea that planets determine our destiny because it is disempowering or takes away our freedom of choice. So instead, so-and-so states things like ?the planets impel but do not compel?, or ?we are in control of our destiny?. These sentiments supposedly are better because they make us feel like we are free?

Should we say the opposite and do so for the sentiment of being free? If we are in control of our destiny and everything we do is a conscious or unconscious choice, then this implies that we are ultimately responsible for what we think and do. Not that this in itself necessarily implies that we will also be held responsible, but it implies that we are responsible for our actions and the fruits of them. Reap as you sow and all that. This is the exact opposite of freedom?

Let us try this thought-pattern: Suppose I believe the planets compel but do not impel because it is comforting and pacifying and I do not need to worry about being responsible. Easy come, easy go. Suppose I retire from being the general manager of the world and stop worrying about things such as which calculated action I should perform next, to gain this or that. Run rabbit run, produce and plan for retirement and work your ass off to try and get ahead of the game along with all the other competitors, and retire with a hefty amount of money or prestige. Suppose I mess up and invest in the wrong thing and the retirement fund disappears, because I made the wrong choice of investment. Suppose I have ulcers by the age of 24 and at least 3 heart attacks by the age of 50, proving how successful I was in my stressed out, calculated plan, to be such-and-such or so-and-so. Suppose I make many mistakes and some of them create guilt, because I believe I was responsible for those choices. Suppose I carry around the mistakes and failures and continuously worry about my calculated plans to be something or gain something: the better life. Like the donkey following the carrot on a stick, and always just out of reach. Suppose I die before I get my fill and large bank account and luxurious items.

Suppose I lose all of my money and spouse and house and friend and luxuries. Suppose it was because I believed I am in control of my own destiny and free to make my own choices, and I simply made the wrong choices and now I know what despair feels like. What if I did not accept responsibility for any of it, and just thought it is impossible to do anything which is not one?s prarabdha karma, and it is also impossible to avoid one?s prarabdha karma.

Suppose I decide to think that I do not make any choices and the planets compel me to do everything I do and I become a witness to the spectacle and do not accept responsibility for any of it, but I merely carry on performing actions (from the outside appearance) as though I am choosing things and that it matters. Easy come, easy go. Birth, a fury of actions, death. Suppose I witness all of it and perform every act with dispassion and detachment and witness the lila without identification to the physical entity, and every act I do, I do with the attitude that it is God doing it through this entity. Some people worship God in the temple but when I eat I feel that I am giving an offering to God? And when I take a shit it is God shitting out God? And when I meet someone on the street it is like God meeting God? And when I go to war it is like God fighting God? Would that also not be freedom, perhaps the only freedom? That is why one could state: I like to believe the planets control everything and I merely watch the show and do not have aversion nor desire any of it and call it maya/lila? - Because it is disempowering and the opposite of freedom to believe we have choices and we act and are responsible for those actions and that we will suffer the fruits of those actions, but if we do not identify then how can we be the ones receiving the fruits of those actions? I believe in freedom, therefore I am not in control of ?my? life? The quotations suggest my life is not mine? The ultimate freedom?

Posted: **Wed Apr 03, 2013 3:47 pm**

hi varuna,

this is a topic for the philosophical section!

isn't 'identification' the root to all of this? do you identify with the little self, or let go of that? that sounds like what you are talking about here.

i think it was buddha or someone like that who mentioned 'wrong identification' is the root to all the pain and suffering.

Posted: **Wed Apr 03, 2013 8:01 pm**

Hi James,

My main purpose was to show how things can be twisted around. There is sort of a standard party line that one is supposed to regurgitate in regards to belonging to the 'impel compel' crowd, to acknowledge their alleged, and allegedly valuable, freedom. It is not much different from the standard party line that people in a democracy are more free - which is merely indoctrinational propaganda from the plutocracy - and the antithesis of freedom, since the average person has no say in what the lobbyists and parliamentary bedbugs do to them via laws. Interpersonal freedom is absurd. Taking a position and debating on this, matters not in the least to me.

Yes, there was various esoterica teachings mixed into that post along with at least one scatological reference.

Posted: **Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:23 am**

In case the title of this thread was made in haste, I will attach a paper addressing this:

http://www.martingansten.com/pdf/ReshapingKarma2011.pdf

"Actions are really performed by the working of the 3 gunas; but a man deluded by the I-sense imagines, 'I am the doer.'

The wise man knows that when objects act on the senses, it is merely the gunas acting on the gunas; thus, he is unattached.

Deluded by the gunas, men grow attached to the gunas' actions; the insightful should not disturb the minds of these foolish men.

Performing all actions for my sake, desireless, absorbed in the Self, indifferent to 'I' and 'mine', let go of your grief, and fight!" (Bhagavad Gita).

"In accordance with the prarabdha [karma] of each, the One whose function it is to ordain makes each to act. What will not happen will never happen, whatever effort one may put forth. And what will happen will not fail to happen, however much one may seek to prevent it. This is certain. The part of wisdom therefore is to stay quiet" (Ramana Maharshi).

On the Obsession with, and Lie called, Freedom in the West and the intoxicating propaganda poison known as Democracy (hidden plutocracy), which gave Socrates a ?choice? between banishment or death by hemlock, and the roots of this myth called freedom and how this delusion and unrecognized basic need from other spheres (e.g. political) affects even astrologers, in their culturally-trained need to be "free" astrologically speaking:

Kent or Dan wrote:?From the first you are told, ?This is mine, this is yours?; ?Don?t touch that, it doesn?t belong to you.? You are taught to keep away from things because of ownership, not because of respect. In the old days we never had locks on our doors. There was no stealing, but if someone was hungry they could go in your house and get food?

You build fences around your yards and pay money for people to measure the ground to tell you if your neighbor?s fence is one inch too close to your house. You give nothing away unless you can get something in return. Everything is economic?

We believed that everything was a gift, and that a good man or woman shared those gifts. Next to bravery, generosity was the most important?

If I lived in a big house and had rooms full of different things, if I had big cars and a library full of books, if I had pulled out all the flowers and medicine plants and made a lawn that looked like a rug, people would come to me and ask me about everything because they would say I am a ?good? Indian [Native American type]. All it would mean is that I am an Indian with lots of possessions, just like a [Westerner - but the East has the same problems]. That would make me good and important in your eyes. Admit it.

Your people did not know about the land being sacred. We did not know about the land being property?

the Indian has always been free. We are free today. We have always been freer than the [Westerner], even when he first came here. When you came to our shore your people wore clothes made out of chains. Our people wore nothing at all. Yet you tried to bring us freedom?

The [kaliyuga civilizations] puts all the power at the top, Nerburn. When someone gets to the top, they have the power to take your freedom. When your people first came to our land they were trying to get away from these people at the top. But they still thought the same, and soon there were new people at the top in the new country. It is just the way you were taught to think. In your churches there is someone at the top; in your schools, too. In your government and in your business. There is always someone at the top and that person has the right to say whether you are good or bad. They own you. No wonder [Westerners] always worry about freedom. You have so damn little of it. If you don?t protect it, someone will take it from you. You have to guard it every second?

Our old people noticed this from the beginning. They said that the [Westerner] lived in a world of cages? Then after you had all these cages you made a government to protect these cages. And that government was all cages. All laws about what you couldn?t do. The only freedom you had was inside your own cage. Then you wondered why you weren?t happy and didn?t feel free. You made all the cages, then you wondered why you didn?t feel free?

We Indians never thought that way. Everyone was free. We didn?t make cages of laws or land. We believed in honor?

We had freedom so we did not seek it?The only time freedom is important is when others are trying to put you in chains. We had no chains so we needed no freedom?

Sitting Bull was a leader. He was a real chief. People followed him because he was great. He never won any election or was appointed by any government official. That?s not how you get to be a leader. ?You?re saying the policemen didn?t have any real authority.? That?s right. They were policemen because the government told them they were, gave them uniforms and a job. It didn?t have anything to do with the old way, where it was an honor you earned?There are leaders and there are rulers. We Indians are used to leaders. When our leaders don?t lead, we walk away from them. When they lead well, we stay with them. [Westerners] never understood this. Your system makes people rulers by law, even if they are not leaders?

How can a calendar tell us how long a person is a leader? That?s crazy. A leader is a leader as long as the people believe in him and as long as he is the best person to lead us. You can only lead as long as the people will follow?That was the Indian way. A person wasn?t a leader because they got votes. They were a leader because the people would follow them. The same with teachers? If the chief made a decision enough people disagreed with, they could make another chief. All they did was move their teepees near to the new man?s, and he was their leader? Good leaders wait to be called and they give up their power when they are no longer needed. Selfish men and fools put themselves first and keep their power until someone throws them out. It is no good to have a way where selfish men and fools fight with each other to be leaders, while the good ones watch?

Neither Wolf Nor Dog by Kent Nerburn

Posted: **Thu Apr 04, 2013 11:31 am**

There is good analogy of the Dog and the leash.
Some on tight leash and some on long leash.

There are three players.
1.Creator.
2.Soul
3.The body(created by the creator by his Maya)

The Aim of the soul is to be eternally free- by merging with god.
Soul takes on the body because of the ledger account payback and gets tied to the leash.
So, if you are on long leash- please the master and get the release.
Turn back and bite him- the natural reaction of an animal and the leash gets tighter and the account continues.

Second is the blame.
You don't get the blame for doing what is your duty.
A soldier's duty is to fight- if during the fight another soldier gets killed then the soldier does not the get blame.
But, if a non fighting civilian is killed by the soldier and the soldier is not American then they are tried in Vienna(otherwise it is called collateral damage

)

That his how I understand it.

The religious sect you join will have their own version of fate and free will.

Posted: **Sat Jul 13, 2013 7:49 am**

This thread was made with some irony and then the explanation was unfinished due to problems with ongoing censorship, but I needed to finish business here. The explanation on one way of viewing this, is given in the 6th comment on the following article:

http://internationsocietyofclassicalast ... astrology/

Skyscript Astrology Forum

The planets control everything, therefore I am free?

The planets control everything, therefore I am free?