One’s outward personality determines to some extent how one approaches deep, spiritual realities. But, there are many levels of consciousness in all of us.
Most of us are very different from how we seem to the world — not because we seek to deceive others, but because those sensitive feelings which are in the depths of our mental seas would not survive at the surface and are too deep to be verbalised.
The sun’s placement in your solar horoscope determines the way in which you seek to impress your authority on the world around you.
Each planet influences this outward manifestation of one’s personality. In fact, one cannot but note that Western astrology is a natural outgrowth of Western society, where man is exceptionally goal-oriented.
Here, the traditional emphasis is on conquering nature rather than harmonising oneself with it.
Prime importance is placed on the individual — not as he relates himself to his inner world or to universal realities, but as to how he relates to his fellowman and can stand in personal dignity before him. Personality has become more and more so.
Interestingly enough, as a result, the sun signs have become farther separated by equinoctial precession from the constellations. It is interesting to note that the growing interest of Western astrologers in constellational astrology coincides with a growing interest in the West, in the ancient philosophies of the East. Man’s relationship to the universe is the special concern of those philosophies.
One reason why Western astrologers are turning increasingly to the constellational system is they are discovering, as their own mental horizons expand, that their system is too limited. But once our own view of life broadens, discrepancies begin to appear and Western astrologers have found these discrepancies bewildering — until they turned for help to constellational astrology. In predicting the future, for example, solar astrology is accurate primarily in determining our future for us, by our own personalities. But people are becoming aware that there are deeper influences at work within us—subconscious impulses, old karmic debts and credits—that never rise so close to the surface as to become identified with our outward personalities. Western astrology is unfamiliar with these influences and yet growingly aware that such influences do exist. It is beginning to feel cramped by a science that, in confining to such a small segment of our galaxy (the solar system) — also succeeds in limiting their understanding. I have sought to explore the familiar sun signs in order to see how they can be related to the broader, more ancient, insights out of which they have grown.
Instead of writing yet another analysis of how people, born under the different signs act and react with the world around them, I have sought to show how their personalities can be used to help them — to help you — to develop a more universal awareness. Though sages have spoken of it by different names, they have recognised it as one: the still ocean of consciousness out of which all the waves of creation have appeared. The highest purpose of astrology is to assist man on this inward journey.
The true goal, then, of astrology is not to fascinate people with endless proofs of their subtle kinship to this universe, but to take them from outward theory to inward practices.
Swami Kriyananda is a living disciple of Paramhamsa Yogananda. He is also the founder of Ananda Sangha with nine communities around the world
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