Page 10 - NAMAH-Jan-2018

Editorial

Apropos astrology and health

If programmes and advertisements blurted b. ‘life survives after death’; and
out through the idiot box are any indication, c. ‘there is a rough justice in life’ (1).
interest in astrology never seems to wane.
People are not only interested to know what The problems of intuitive knowledge
calamity can befall them in the future but also
what could be the astro-therapies that would Brunton admits that as a body of knowledge
guarantee sound health! astrology is incomplete and imperfect, resulting
in superstitious beliefs, charlatanic practices
An existential vacuum and exploitative fields. However, these
drawbacks do not demean the transmitted
It seems that as the world progresses, the essence of karma and rebirth which necessitate
human being is at a loss to cope both with a contemporary re-appraisal of ancient pearls
personal events and with global insecurities. of wisdom(2). Indeed, without getting lost
At the personal level, there has been a steady in the mass of absurd nuances propagated
disruption of inter-personal harmony, while by the commercial zealots of astrology, one
at the global level there are insecurities at could focus on the true value of karma where
multiple fronts. Puzzled, the contemporary the soul grows through experience and seeks
mindset looks either to modernist science ever-new avenues for further growth. One
or to traditionalist religion for guidance but could also focus on the essence of rebirth
neither suffice. where the soul-essence retains the most
memorable and conscious moments of a
Paul Brunton (1898-1981), a British theosophist lifetime while other useless information gets
known for his explorative forays into Indian dissipated.
spirituality as well as Western esotericism,
explains that astrology is sought after in It would be naive to debunk a whole discipline
this existential vacuum where the religious like astrology merely because it does not conform
world-view is intellectually inadequate and to the standards of ratiocination. Every theory
the scientific world-view is emotionally represents a partial truth that needs to be
inadequate. Astrology fulfils the gap because decoded in some way or the other. The main
every time a prediction clicks there are three problem for astrological knowledge is that as
important implications: it is derived from intuitive insights, it gets
diluted at the level of ordinary cognition.
a. ‘there is a higher power guiding the destinies Intuition belongs to an overhead plane
of mankind’; above our usual thinking mind and when

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