As presented in the previous article Flying towards the great spatial seas, here are some illuminating thoughts* about astronomy and astrology and the ‘synthetic’ heliocentric perspective, namely the perspective of the Human Group Soul (Sun at the center) attested on the higher mental plane (higher Manas):
“… when our paths converge within the sun, then you will realize the entire grandeur of Cosmos. Conceive the sun as a guarantee of a new science.” (Infinity I § 25, Agni Yoga Collection)
“ASTRONOMY – ASTROLOGY.**
The reasons that compel us to study the Solar System are certainly valid. Human development cannot ignore this adventure, and would otherwise end up in the swamps of the planetary and local events. The modern mentality desperately needs clear, simple, tidy and beautiful solutions.
Many ancient peoples studied the Sun, the planets and the constellations and perhaps acquired a deeper knowledge than what we believe today. Chaldeans, Indians, Chinese, Egyptians, Maya and who knows how many others spent energy in researching the values of Space. From the sum of their studies and hypotheses, many forgotten today, two fields of distinct thought were born: astronomy and astrology, which have survived and are often in conflict.
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It is a well-known fact that astronomy is a study limited to the concrete facts and quantitative parameters of the heavenly bodies. Through the invention of many ingenious and costly apparatuses it admirably explores the forms, and especially remains on the surface and exterior: with great intellectual acumen it analyzes the mechanical laws and calculates the motions, but remains far from reading the underlying meanings, which it fails to grant the existence of. It refuses to investigate in that direction because it rests outside the quantitative realms, that which is solely recognized. For several centuries it has been teaching, not without its own revolutionary changes, that there are lit and luminous objects in space (or emptiness), in great numbers, concerning which it computes and classifies their relative distances, speed, volume, mass, brightness and many other astrophysical factors. Astronomy’s contribution to general knowledge is lofty and its research is high-yielding, and very often innovative.
One could say however, that in spite of their great optical instruments, astronomy describes the Heavens without seeing them. It compiles accurate accounts of those glittering stones which pave the Milky Way without transmitting any of its brightness. It recounts the stars of the firmament – the most beautiful of the gardens – in a catalog or inventory manner. It has a poor sense of Space, of Life and of Beauty, and, what’s more serious and detrimental, it supposes that the celestial lights are moving on the path towards slow but inevitable extinction. It studies the processes of life in Heaven and sees nothing but death and dying.
The astronomer, who is appointed to seek and know the light, moves in the darkness. Humanity, however, thanks to him, has a very large quantity of data, diligently computed and updated, which will be useful and valuable for other initiatives. This does not serve to make the field better however: in fact, it lives closed in the cities without real understanding of Heaven.
The Space of the astronomer is empty and lifeless, inhabited by dying lights. His attention is attracted by the celestial mechanical wonders, by orderliness, by those great fires of uncertain nature, but he seeks only the exterior, of which he studies the causes on the basis of likewise concrete, superficial, and therefore, debatable assumptions. He is a hero of modern science, but frequently he pretends to know the truth, he does not listen to other voices and, finally, he does not become aware of anything.
Astrology, ancient mother of astronomy, has at its disposal what astronomy has to offer and rightly makes use of it, as it is drawn from its historical mental research. The center of its interest is, however, very different: it is of a psychic nature.
The scientific calculations of the astrologer are few and never autonomous, his instruments are very modest and the origin of his research is ancient. He studies, he wants to understand and perhaps always better control that powerful play of energies and forces that circulates in and around the self, the minor center of consciousness and life. Entangled by old formulas, he proceeds slowly; the new methods that he experiments with are the result of other sciences, such as statistics and computer science. For many centuries he has repeated, with slight variations, the same suppositions of the ancient peoples regarding Signs and planets, conjunctions and squares.
The interest for astrology, as lively and popular to this day, has not reached higher or deeper motives than from a thousand years ago. Even the astrologer gazes at Heaven without truly seeing it. He is not as dazzled by quantity, as so happens to the astronomer, but he does not go beyond the relative and personal aspects. He has a working knowledge of the stars and the Zodiac as he has, at his disposal, a considerable wealth of knowledge inherited from the ancients, but his Sky is merely a sheet of paper that is filled with symbols, circles and triangles that he then intends to decipher. In short, he studies a short-span future. When, on the rare occasion, his aim is to study the destiny of a population he is not able to actually separate himself from the minute details.
No one could affirm that he had learnt the laws, or understood the order, of the Solar System simply from astrology.
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Astrology and astronomy are two great lines of thought which have in common various elements, in particular an assumption that for the time being neither wants to abandon: their point of view and observation is from the Earth. For a long time they have recognized that the center of the Solar System is somewhere else, but in practice they cling to the Ptolemaic, Earth-centered conception. This fixation is more evident in astrology: one notes, in fact, that astronomical thought seems to move towards other activities, all the while remaining fixed, necessarily, on the Earth.
In sum, both of these sciences consider Space as empty, inactive, insulating and without life. They do not accept the hypothesis on which this study is based. They believe they can succeed in understanding the laws of life starting from a hypothesis of death.[1]
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The other great domains of human thought, such as the artistic, the philosophical, the religious, have not contributed much to the knowledge of the Solar System for some centuries. Some ancient peoples had reached a ritual religiosity (today considered superstitious), that is, they had the courage to turn their minds to Heaven, but the works left behind to testify their will are few and sparse: some poetic texts, some paintings, scarce monuments of their civilizations, today seen with much admiration and some suspicion. It is clear, however, that in the human heart the secret hope of new missions burns brightly, kept lit by truths already known and now forgotten.
It is true that ordinary humanity, as a whole, does not yet demonstrate the necessary tension to launch forwards and towards that nucleus of fire, that ordered and dynamic complex upon which it also entirely rests. Perhaps it is waiting for the right stimulus, a spark that ignites it: the current era, one of grave crisis, presents a favorable opportunity.
In the vastness of such an enterprise, these pages are a minutia, and yet they seek to help orient the mind towards the Cause of all history. That center is mysterious, yet it shines night and day in Heaven.
HELIOCENTRIC VISION.
An analysis of detail does not lead to the universal, just as a study of effects does not lead to the causes. We need to overcome these limits gradually. The Solar System is the greatest Form, the vastest community, a prelude to other thresholds, greater but for now unknown. The Sun is therefore our first great aim beyond the planetary limits and shines with its cosmic brightness. That is the direction we must take without a doubt. We have to unmoor our thought from the Earth as a system of reference, which means passing from Earth-centered to Sun-centered coordinates.
For some years, special ephemerides have been compiled, making the necessary calculations easy. But it is the act in and of itself that is rich in meaning, consequences and sacrifice: to enter the living Space of the Solar System it is necessary to live it in a conscious way.
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It is an act that implies the renunciation of interest for the minor, habitual and separative self, which has to descend into a subordinate position. Many things in man are earthly, and many men are not yet completely free from the moon. When the center is placed in the Sun, terrestrial and lunar events simply disappear, because they are illusory, peripheral and without real value. The study of the centers of the Solar System assumes such a renunciation: it is possible and prolific only if it is sincere and definitive. This does not mean forgetting the Earth and her beauties, but placing her in the position which rightly belongs to her.
It is presumable that such an act is firstly accomplished by a small minority, which distinguishes itself, leaves behind the flock and makes preparations for new visions for the benefit of all. Very few men are willing to move their mental habitat from the Earth to Solar Space, but in that sphere the number loses its quantitative value. The Luminaries are very few but their power is immense. By analogy, even though “solar” men are few, their contribution to human welfare is not to be underestimated.
Transferring the center from the Earth to the Sun is the equivalent of building the antahkarana, known to the disciple, who more or less consciously is engaged in passing from personal to egoic consciousness. That technical term, from the oriental origin, alludes to a conquest obtained at a price of tenacious, uncompromising and persevering effort. Once it is achieved, that rainbow bridge (as it is often called) enters the upper realm of group consciousness. Passing from terrestrial to solar coordinates means diverting attention from personal questions to more general ones and marks a constructive phase of that crossing point.
An act of simple living geometry, like the one being considered, erases piles of relativity, heaps of cumbersome and faulty (because eccentric) evaluations. Centralizing the observing consciousness in the Sun confers validity and certainty to research.
The outcomes are many. First of all, a remarkable simplification is obtained, since the pointless waste of the relative and transitory is discarded. The Solar System is seen and studied from the one point where errors tend to cancel rather than add to each other. One learns, little by little, from the Center, which is the site of the Mastery, rather than from uncertain peripheral positions. Man gradually recognizes himself as a solar entity, an integral and intelligent part of the universal consciousness. These are sublimations, obtained by renouncing the concreteness that so often strikes the human mind.
Living and working on a sphere that flies and rotates in Space is a true science, which requires a command of many variables and can only be attained through day-to-day living between lights and shadows. Once fixed in the Sun, consciousness is no longer held between oscillating alternations, and calm takes over. Things are then seen and understood for what they are and not for what they appear. The citizen of the Sun gradually merges with light, irradiates it and lives and works omnipresent in the System.
These few words describe a form of Yoga which, passing through the Heavens, leads to Fire.
SIMPLIFICATIONS.
Passing to a heliocentric vision and consciousness implies, as already stated, a sacrifice; however, it does simplify and reduce considerably the burden of the astrological study of the Solar System, without complicating the study of astronomy. The advantages that follow are of an exterior nature, but it is not difficult to discern their higher value:
- – Calculating and interpreting the “domification” is not necessary. The complex and much-debated “houses” of the horoscope have no sense: they do not exist in heliocentric astrology.
- – The moon loses importance: it has no real conditioning power. It is undeniable that the Earth undergoes various lunar effects, but they do not act on the Solar System except in a negligible way.
- – The precession of the equinoxes is a local phenomenon and is not to be considered. Signs and constellations coincide accordingly[2]and it is not necessary to consider the effects of their relative movements. It is possible that this phenomenon is taking place not only on Earth, but on all the planets, naturally according to different parameters for each one. In this sense, if on the one hand that phenomenon turns out to be relative, on the other it presents itself as a general process that is locally variable.
- – Phases of backward motion of planets do not exist.
- – Neither the geographical coordinates of the observance site nor sidereal time need to be calculated.
On the contrary, it is necessary to introduce, as elements of examination, which the astrologer does not take into account, the passages to the aphelion and the perihelion of the various planets, for the variations of angular velocity which they induce. These factors will be taken into account only indirectly. It seems, in fact, premature to go into details when the research is still in a preliminary phase. Instead, the fact that the Luminaries pulsate in their orbits, as they accelerate and slow down their speed, demonstrating the harmonic and pendular nature of their movement, will be taken into consideration.
It should be noted from this regard that this motion has characteristics common to all vibrating bodies. It is not only poetic to state that the planets sing, each with voice and timbre, and it is worth remembering what was said by Pythagoras, Plato and other great ones about the music of the spheres.
THE STATE OF THE ART.
The physical and quantitative parameters of the Solar System are numerous and largely known, but only in an approximate way, since accuracy is impossible in concrete terms. The combination of these factors (mass, volume, diameter, orbital values, speed, inclination on the ecliptic, luminosity and many other astrophysical data) is the result of lengthy research and much patience. They are a beautiful heritage of concrete human knowledge, which is continually enriched with new elements of various kinds.
Since Kepler’s days science has come a long way, but it has not followed his teaching. Kepler, an exemplary scholar who based his studies on premises or hypotheses of harmonics, today refused and neglected, came up with his three laws, which are famous and applied without discussion to this day. He understood that in the Solar System everything is in order and a model of order. No attention was paid to his thinking but it is connected to the thread of this memoir. Without the help of modern instruments, he based his ideas on a synthesis between head and heart, which is always superior to any mechanical or artificial apparatus. He was an admirable example.
Since then, astronomical studies have had no scholar of such value and quality. Instead of perfecting that kind of approach, the wave of prevailing materialism preferred to resort to the ingenious tools prepared by other branches of industrial science, highly refined and capable of surprising performances, but without relation to the life of the Solar System. Scanned with increasing precision by modern instruments and examined merely in an intellectual sense, the Heavens have as it were distanced themselves, to the point where many scientists would say that they do not exist.
The modern achievements of astronomy appear worthy and brilliant, but they are heavy with failure. That science shows that it knows so many things, but it has lost the basic idea, and now, among the celestial abundance, the men wander poor in spirit. Modern astronomers, in general, are like those surgeons who deny the existence of the Soul because they cannot dissect it with a scalpel.
The reality of Heaven cannot be revealed by external means, however ingenious, which by their nature are helpless in discovering that which is not simply superficial.
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The state of research is, as a result, in a phase that is paradoxically progressive yet static. In a formal and concrete sense it is in full progress; on the contrary, it is at a standstill with regard to the real causes of phenomena and events. It is right to praise and exalt the scientific conquests, without forgetting the insufficiency of real progress. It is not unjustified to assert that in ancient times, without mechanical means, significant steps were taken in this direction, yet never repeated.
Much the same can be said about astrological research, which has improved its means of enquiry, but in a superficial way. For example, it seeks enlightenment and confirmation from statistics, which consider only quantities and are powerless to indicate causes. Together with information technology, its contribution is not negligible, but it has nothing profound, and Heaven, which is very high, is depth itself.
These notes, for what they are worth, are the fruit of a simple and modest study, based on a few instructions and with the aid of a pencil. However, a telescope exists in the human heart, which is very effective for studying the Heavens and Space.
Without ignoring or neglecting quantitative aspects, these writings have aimed at qualities, at pure or immaterial parameters. Putting aside facts (without ignoring them) is an innovative method. From one point of view it relieves one of the need for weighty instrumental controls, from the other it requires a dose of courage and a certain skill in using hypotheses.”
