Amidst karmic suffering can astrology offer relief?

Answer Podcast

When there is suffering and failure Is there a role for astrology to offer relief? Yes And it is not that astrology Offers relief It is the The practices that we do That can offer relief See astrology is basically like a weather forecast If I am going on a drive I would like to know what kind of weather I want to experience If I know that, that is helpful But if it is a stormy weather The weather forecast alone doesn’t help me To be protected from the storm It is what I do So basically There is a Whole complex Set of interconnectedness By which Our karmic reactions Are orchestrated through certain agents And those agents Are the personal Predominating deities of certain celestial bodies So by Knowing the position of certain celestial bodies What kind of actions are going to What kind of things are going to happen in our life They can be roughly predicted So Astrology itself is subtle And Complex System of analyzing those causes Now It is like I said that Weather forecast tells us at this time this weather will be there But ultimately we have to decide What to do in that situation So astrology will give us to some extent Some understanding of what we are going to face In our life And Astrologers May sometimes tell us This is what you should do This is what you can do as a remedial measure for this This is what you can do as a remedial measure for that And sometimes we may get Thrilled by doing what astrologers are telling The major issue However is that Astrology is also A multidimensional practice It is not inherently spiritual So So It is basically like when I have a disease I take a medicine The medicine Can help me deal with the disease So like that astrology can tell us in future you are going to get this problem And then You can take this as a preventive measure Or as a measure to counter or minimize it The Problem in today’s world is that Because astrology is also a matter of relativity And there are many people who are very much Immotivated and want to get caught into it So to know who is really good astrologer That is Very difficult And we may just See the nature of the human mind Is that It doesn’t want to take responsibility Sometimes We may just Abdicate our sense of responsibility To astrologers So as far as you told me do this I will do it As far as you told me don’t do this I will not do it Now ultimately It is for us We are agents we have to act So We should always be thinking of Responsible Rational scriptural based decision making And Astrology can be another Aid which we might use in taking Some decisions It can be helpful But It can be harmful also Harmful Sometimes Some people just want to do certain things There is one devotee Who has written a book How to mess your life with astrology So what happens is Somebody wants to do a particular thing And then They want to do a particular thing They are in a marriage And they want to end that marriage And they go to astrologer and say Just tolerate these things and get out No no They go to 15 astrologers Still they tell the astrologer No no this marriage is not going to work And then they break it And then they break it So basically what happens sometimes Astrology becomes a tool for rationalizing What we want to do And then Our mind can just make us go for a complete ride We all have to face Certain level of problems in life And yes In major decisions If you want to consult astrologer that’s good But if we think that astrology is some Trick by which I can avoid all Problematic situations It’s not going to work So again It can be As I said if we use astrology as an aid For responsible decision making Then it can be helpful But if we abdicate our responsibility For decision making And just use astrology to just do whatever Our mind is telling us to do Or do whatever the astrologer is telling us to do Then ultimately the astrologer is not going to get The karmic reactions for what we are doing Because we were going to get it So Srila Prabhupada in principle Did talk about astrology In the texts And there are astrologers who There is a horoscope of Parikshit Maharaj Is made And he described how he was such a glorious person But if we look at The scriptures themselves It is not that Every single decision It’s not that They are just concerning astrologers It’s not that you know Arjuna has astrologer on his chariot Should I shoot this arrow? It’s not like that So astrology Yes it should be used That they decided to fight at Kurukshetra Kurukshetra was an auspicious place for fighting They decided which day to fight on There is astrology that is used for that It’s said that even Ravana Used astrology to decide when he should kidnap Sita Astrology can be used for Such purposes also So Jatayu what he did was He fought and fought and fought Astrologer had told him that If you are able to Kidnap Sita in this time The kidnapping will be successful If you are not able to kidnap her in this time Then it will be unsuccessful So Jatayu fought and fought and fought And he was not able to take Sita Out of that area till the time Jatayu was alive So he was delayed So in the period of something He kidnapped her And then later on A sage tells Ram that Because she was abducted in that period So you will be able to find her So the point is that There are demons also who can control astrology They are doing demoniac activities by that Astrology is very much a part of the Vedic literature Prabhupada in his practical conduct of Activities He did not over depend on astrology So for major decisions in life It might be helpful But it should always be an aid To responsibility Not a substitute.