Why The Stars Influence You

For this morning's talk is why the stars influence you. Now, in actuality, when we speak about the influence of the stars in the Holy Qabalah, we usually mean it's something other than most, shall we say, astrologers think in terms of the stars, except for those who are familiar with esoteric astrology. You see, the Qabalah is in itself has this extraordinary element in it it contains every aspect of occultism and metaphysics and this is quite a large statement isn't it nevertheless scholars know that it is true it's easy to check from the various works of the various scholars in their researches in occultism and those of you who receive your lessons at home certainly know by now that each one of the tarot keys have special attributions related to either a sign of the zodiac or one of the planets and indeed a true understanding of astrology is known to be dependent on a knowledge of tarot and qabalah which type of knowledge incidentally was known to the ancients those who did the original shall we say empirical work in learning how to apply the knowledge of the heavens to the forces as they relate to our particular planet nor did they just learn it through an empirical study because we know that always even back in the apparent dawn of time we know that there were those present with humanity who helped the then dawning evolution of man to understand exactly what the relationship was and therefore be able to utilize this map in order to learn how to understand themselves. You see unfortunately and especially in our modern time most astrologers have learned to use astrology merely for prognosticative values and this is a terrible mistake because esoteric astrology really is what you might call the ancient psychology and this ancient psychology has been broadened as time has gone on applied to the various pictorial representations of the different types of consciousness the different powers of awareness so that not only do we have what we call a map of the heavens when a person is born but those who know apply this very map to the different pictorial representations Presentations, like for instance, take Tarot key number one, which we call the magician, Mercury, the power of attention.

Well, in astrology, when anybody has been born, Mercury is somewhere in the chart. And that Mercury, which we see in the heavens, can be said to be an outer indication of a relationship that has to do with our intellect. That is the mind, the mind of the evolving individual, not the higher mind as such, because there are other planets that are involved with this particular part of being.

So that the joining together of the ideas that are involved in the apparent forces in the heavens, along with the symbolic pictorial representation that has been given, has through the years developed the most extraordinary knowledge of true psychology. And of course it's always been interesting to those of us who have been trained in this particular part of occultism. It is amusing to watch how modern psychology, as well as modern science in its other fields, gradually comes to accept what we have been teaching down through the millennia, rather than just through a few hundred years. For example, did you know that now astronomers are being very much influenced by a branch of science which has come to be known as astrophysics? And astrophysics really means applying the knowledge of physics to the stars and discovering incidentally that certain positions of the planets and their degrees of relationship to each other as they shine or shall we say bounce off the surface of the earth makes a certain kind of conditions weather for instance has definitely been shown to be influenced by certain degrees of relationship between the planets as they apply to earth.

And they have now discovered that there have been other cycles of depression. And they're very careful to point out, we haven't mentioned it to you before, that of course this is a science. This has nothing to do with the superstition that's called astrology.

And going on to declare this not once but many times, they proceed to say exactly what astrology has said sometimes even using the same terminology and we smile and they're very happy that at least another little drop is being added to the little lake of knowledge for humanity here at the moment and then again in psychology psychology they are discovering also that people born at certain times of the year seem to be subject to some things more than other elements whether it be things that have to do with the health or that have to do with the mental emotional outlook and of course they don't call this astrology either they give that another beautiful new term a combination of their lovely scientific words. And so it goes. Well, so let's just smile and try to gain an understanding of just why the stars do influence us, just what the principle is behind it, and what it means.

Really, what it means is very important for us to know. First of all, we must recognize that we are not something separate from the stars. This is the first thing we have to consider. We look up into the heavens, and what do we see?

Myriads of points of light twinkling.

His handiwork indeed.

Nevertheless, if a consciousness is looking in this direction, from some of those points of light, you know, we're also going to be seen as a point of light twinkling in the heavens, and somebody or many somebodies may be yearning in our direction and wondering what's happening there or what is the meaning of it. So we need to keep in mind that we too are a part of the heavens. How else could it be?

Now considering the heavens, that which we call the stars, considering the fact that we too live in the immediate or very close vicinity of one of the stars, what we need to keep in mind again is that consciousness in itself is responsible for us being aware of these points of light and if you remember how often we have been taught through so many schools of thought that consciousness in a sense is light and of course the Western occult school of thought often uses the term light in extension. When we consider that every mystic who has had a true illuminating experience has experienced this flood of light, been inundated with light, we should realize then that the ability to be conscious of light in itself must mean something, even though we are considering it from an apparent physical point of view. Well, Well, in esoteric astrology, which is really the essence of Qabalah and Tarot when we consider the cosmology of evolution, we come to recognize this, that inasmuch as all things are made out of light, and you know science is finally agreeing with us there too in the last 25 to 50 years, and it used to be that we were laughed at but as you know it's been found that we consist of little points of light let's call it that which we call atoms and what are atoms little points of light what is the sun made up out of atoms or particles which are part of atoms everything in the universe is made up out of particles which in essence you can call particles of light.

Therefore even physically speaking, whatever we look like to each other, we too are made up out of light. And experiencing a higher level of consciousness is really an extension of this ability to see or experience light into some of the more subtle levels of the light. For example, in studying our planet, now that we have all these amazing little machines whirling around in orbit taking measurements, it has been discovered that the Earth has an atmosphere that extends extends hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, even thousands of miles into space. And rather than being separated bands, they are attenuated changes of particles, charged particles, which in essence we can call light. Think of this for a moment. X-rays. What is an X-ray? It's a type of vibration of light, isn't it? Now suppose your eyes were able to register only the x-ray type of vibration. Just imagine what kind of a world you would see. If we looked at each other, what we would be seeing are the skeletal portions of each other. We would be unable to see the fleshy or muscular parts of each other at all. And if we didn't have a sense of touch we wouldn't know that we had a covering over the bones that forms a certain rounded sometimes too rounded sometimes not rounded enough covering over the bony structure and suppose the senses at the tip of our fingers weren't also geared vibrationally to be aware of that light and vibration made up out of atoms which we call our flesh. Just imagine, we would not be able to touch that which we have. Our touch, if it were geared to the, shall we say, x-ray type of vision, could only touch the bone. So if we wanted to write poetry about each other, it would have to be about the lovely variations in the shapes of the bone, rather than the variations in the color of the eyes or the contour of the cheek or lip, wouldn't it?

And we'd have an entirely different concept of what the world looks like, and what we look like, what everything is like, because of this range of vision. Now the thing an occultist must come to understand is that what we see, whether it's a star or a planet or whether we look upon each other is in essence related to the same principle we have a certain limited range of what we see in the light waves what we hear in the sound waves which are just a variation of the light waves everything is a variation of the light waves in essence what we touch is related to the same thing therefore being able to see the stars to see each other. This is a specialized kind of seeing. And as you've often heard me say before, Qabalah says that in a sense we are the microscopes of God. God sees in this specialized way through our eyes, through our senses, because this is the kind of experience that God has in evolving more and more centers for his self expansion of consciousness for the individualized beings now this takes place where it takes place in the heavens and in as much as we are a specialized way for God to experience the universe that is while we are in a body we want to try to realize that when When we read in some literature that, for instance, the phenomenal universe is an illusion, we want to be careful of just how we interpret that.

Illusion, it is in one way. In another way, there's nothing illusionary about it.

Because after all, whatever is real is there, even though we are experiencing just a partial picture of it. And the partial picture is pretty much like taking a microscope and locking out the rest of the view in order to see a specialized view. It's like locking away the larger view to see the shape of a snowflake. Now this we bring in when we talk about the influence of the stars because we want to try to see just what we mean by influence of the forces that flow from the heavens back and force. We want to realize that we are, in a sense, condensations of the cosmic substance.

And as condensations, we are analogous to a radio tuned to receive certain frequencies, which does not mean that other frequencies cease to exist. But our experience of ourselves and of our world and of each other is in terms of these specialized frequencies, which we can call vibrations or rates of whirling motion is another way of putting it now when we're born the moment we enter into our independent life out of the womb of the mother the moment we take that first breath you might say that in the esoteric sense a picture has been taken by our consciousness consciousness of ourselves with our relation to the universe. Therefore, whatever time of day we are born, whatever time of year we are born, everything is in continuous motion.

And therefore, that motion or that relationship, say, is to where the earth is in relation to Mercury, where the earth is in relation to the sun, where the earth is in relation to Venus. All of this is a very specialized motion. And then where we are on the face of the earth, somebody who might be born the same second you are born in a bed next to you a chart will be drawn up and say it will be exact but it isn't really exact because the flow of the forces has that variation of how many feet between the two beds where the babies were born I mean every little motion has has meaning when you consider how many miles a second the planet whirls around the sun.

How many miles a second the sun with its planets whirls around the nebula, around another center.

How many miles a second the planet rotates on its own axis. Every second gives a new relationship to the forces as they stream from the entire universe. Therefore the relationship we have, the kind of tune-in we have to the universal flow of life of forces. Now if we will try to remember that when we look at a star we're only seeing an outer aspect, that is a limited view of something more vast, something that has a spiritual reality behind it, we will stop thinking about the stars or the planets as anything so specifically physical but see them as our way of experiencing a spiritual reality. If we will start looking upon the entire universe as being, shall we say, the vehicle of God, We will recognize then that we too are a part of this vehicle in our outer form and our inner essence is a part of the inner essence of God. In other words, if we want to train ourselves more fully to experience what we call cosmic consciousness, what we need to do is start throwing our consciousness outwards and around and reminding ourselves that wherever our consciousness can go there we have a contact we are not limited to what we call the earth stool our little planet Earth beautiful as it is the moment you see a star you have made contact with another part of life unconscious as yet nevertheless this is what you have done and what you do consistently often you see the light of a star actually you've made contact with something that happened 10 million years ago because by the time you see the light of that star it took 10 million years for that light to come to you so you are continuously experiencing a vibration that comes from the a very remote path in terms of the far-flung stars in space as well as experiencing that which is the more immediate future although you don't realize this because of feeling yourself to be in the present now in the present moment you see you are still never stationary as we try to point out because everything is in continuous motion. And because everything is in continuous motion, you are in a continuous change of relationship with the universe, with the sun, with the planet, therefore with people, with life, with yourself. And to understand these relationships helps us to become something more than man, indeed, perhaps even something more than what we usually think of as angels so let's analyze the relationships here for a moment and see what is implied we mentioned this picture that our consciousness takes when we take the first breath at the time we incarnate when we're born now actually you see this picture forms in us a whole group of relationships which is a basic framework for ourselves for the rest of the incarnation and anyone who knows how to read it and knows what level to read it on will know some tremendous things about you so I hope you're very careful about who you show your chart to because many people will take a chart they'll look at certain aspects and because of their lack of perception or intuition they may decide that because they see an aspect that you're man crazy or woman crazy, where it might not mean that at all, or that you are either dishonest or have a tendency to dishonesty, and it might not mean that exactly at all. So you want to be careful about showing your charts to people because of the way they could very easily misinterpret you due to the fact that they're not familiar enough with what we call the esoteric astrology.

Now in esoteric astrology we know this, that this particular framework or this picture, yes, it indicates the type. Definitely from that point on everything that happens in the universe, the angles of light as they strike you from the universe will affect you in a very special way, so that if you have a certain aspect which we say and relate that we can say is in relation to Venus, which is the affectional nature. At times when the Earth travels around the Sun and the other planets are in certain positions in relation to the Earth, your affectional nature could be stirred either, shall we say negatively or positively, by the influx of these forces, pretty much like you have your radio tuned a little off beat to a station. You know how you'll get the static that's pretty much the same principle regarding aspects but here's the point though nobody can do anything about the aspects as they relate to you from the heaven you definitely can do something about your reaction to those aspects as we mentioned to last Thursday night's class when we were talking about karma and this is an important point to bring up here here. What we mentioned was this, that the more a human being lives on the mass mind level, you know, average, homo sapiens, reacting to material values, seeing physical life in a special way, without the idealisms, without the various aspirations, without the self-transmutation, the more a human being lives in this mass mind type of energy where he can be pushed around by the propaganda of almost anybody depending on his type the more accurately can you prognosticate what is going to occur to that person in accordance with the aspect I mean you can be practically 99 and 9 tenths percent sure that somebody is going to marry or divorce that they're going to lose a job or get a job etc but the more highly evolved you become the more you become a true center of individuality through which the one life can shine and express the higher modes of thinking and feeling the less can any astrologer prognosticate for you and why is this it's very simple merely because it is the reactions we have to the forces that gives for prognosticating and if somebody doesn't know how you're going to react then that somebody doesn't know what the result is going to be it's that simple but if something occurs to you for instance that is frustrating if instead of reacting in the average manner you lift your mind in your consciousness to God to the higher self using any one of the tarot keys or sefiroth on the tree of life to help you hang on to center yourself in that a higher level of consciousness and trust if you learn to just automatically switch yourself to faith in that guidance rather than having a negative occurrence that very frustration can bring you the greatest good fortune of your life and more in spiritual terms but definitely also in material terms because you're not being a member of the you might say fold like the sheep who can be pushed and herded in whatever direction the Shepherd want you're becoming a shepherd yourself you're becoming someone who controls controls the forces of your environment, who controls, incidentally, the stars.

And indeed, this is your destiny, to control the stars. Because after all, what are the stars, in essence? They are outer indications of a consciousness that's in motion. And what are you? You are a consciousness learning how to control the vibrational areas the vibrations that come in to your life whether it be in terms of friendships, relationships, work aspiration, prayer love, hate all of these things are forms of control that you have over the vibrations that move through you. It's like being in an ocean. In an ocean we have currents, you know, that are, that pour or they run like a river underneath the ocean. And when we learn to reach for the higher guidance, to refuse to be victims, to refuse to be prisoners of the stars, as you might say, to refuse to be compelled when we learn to do that we become like one who learns to float with the current of the river in the ocean instead of being hit by it in its cross current and whirled by it and so on and the way we do this incidentally more effectively is to quite regularly meditate on the influence of the vibrational levels of life as they affect us when we look out at the heavens at night when we even look in the daytime for instance let's give you some examples when you go out of an evening and you look up at the stars as I hope you do often very often it helps to gain control of these vibrations when you deliberately and consciously relate yourself to these stars, when you say to yourself in essence, the fact that I can be conscious of something out there shows me my relationship with the vastnesses of space and with the starry heavens, shows me that I am not an outsider I am not a prisoner on some little planet but I am whirling through the heavens with these my brothers and my sisters and feel a love try to send love flowing out to the various stars to the heavens thinking of them as being condensations of god's consciousness as you are glowing with love glowing with life and when you look at the sun be careful you wear sunglasses if you try it in the daytime but particularly the sunrise and sunset of course when uh some of you may be cranky in the morning so take sunset and if you're cranky at night take sunrise you know some of us are early morning rises and some of us uh don't wake up until the sun starts to go down But we should learn to watch for that sunrise or sunset, and as we watch it, to say to ourselves, I am a ray of this sun. I am a conscious expression of the powers of this sun. I am a child of this sun.

And I am very important to the spiritual Sun that's behind this outer form. You start saying these things to yourself. This is a meditation, you know. I mean this is what you call meditation in action. You start saying things like this to yourselves. You start relating yourselves more fully to the Sun the moon do this with the moon also and you will find that whenever you have problems it will be easier for you to take your consciousness away from that concentration on the problem for a few moments in order to be nourished by the love of God through the heavens from the starry firmament because this is what it amounts to you reach upward with your consciousness take your consciousness and imaginatively spread it out in every direction when you look at the stars and know that you are opening yourselves up to the fire of life to the love of god because isn't it the love of god truly that can give us this extraordinary experience of being able to look up and see this magic, this wonder. Just imagine, suppose this earth were cloaked with clouds all the time and they opened up only once every hundred years.

Suddenly it was clear and once every hundred years would burst in the starry firmament.

Can you imagine the marvel and the wonder that would fill your mind and heart?

If it happened only once every hundred years.

Well, can you imagine it that way by trying to bring that magic and wonder to your heart every time you look up at the heavens?

That magic and wonder of knowing that the rays from those stars, the particles, the elements that you do not see, both subtle and elements that can be seen by the instruments of the scientists that all these things have been pouring and permeating they pour through you and every thought and emotion you have reaches out and pours through them there's an interflowing relationship which is what causes the influence but you influence them as much as they influence you because of our being an inter circulating unity in the one life which is God after all the Lord of the universe and practicing this attitude helped to bring us away from the negative response to certain aspects no matter what the chart was like when we were born we are not supposed to be subject to the adversities once we learn to conquer them