Retrograde, Schmetrograde • 27 May 2008

I propose the following: believe beliefs that are useful and uplifting, that keep you transforming and creating and happy.  

Drop the rest of the beliefs. Minimal belief systems are most elegant.

From Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 16, “Outwitting the Stars”

Astrology is the study of man's [sic] response to planetary stimuli. The stars have no conscious benevolence or animosity; they merely send forth positive and negative radiations. Of themselves, these do not help or harm humanity….

The message boldly blazoned across the heavens at the moment of birth is not meant to emphasize fate—the result of past good and evil—but to arouse man's [sic…& seq.] will to escape from his universal thralldom. What he has done, he can undo. None other than himself was the instigator of the causes of whatever effects are now prevalent in his life. He can overcome any limitation, because he created it by his own actions in the first place, and because he has spiritual resources which are not subject to planetary pressure.

Superstitious awe of astrology makes one an automaton, slavishly dependent on mechanical guidance. The wise man defeats his planets—which is to say, his past—by transferring his allegiance from the creation to the Creator. The more he realizes his unity with Spirit, the less he can be dominated by matter. The soul is ever-free; it is deathless because birthless. It cannot be regimented by stars.

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