Osho - Astrology: Superstition, Blind Faith or a Door to the Essential?

Astrology is perhaps the most ancient subject, and also in a waythe most ignored. It is the most ancient because astrology has been inexistence as far back as we have been able to investigate the history ofmankind. Astrological inscriptions have been found on bone remnants from theSumerian civilization that existed twenty-five thousand years before Jesus. Thebone remnants have astrological inscriptions and an outline of the moons orbitin the sky.

But in India this science is even older. In the Rigveda,reference is made to a certain constellation of stars which could only haveoccurred ninety-five thousand years ago. Because of this, Lokmanya Tilakconcluded that the Vedas must certainly be even more ancient: theconstellation of the stars as the Vedas describe it could only have occurred ata certain moment ninety-five thousand years ago, so that particular vedicreference must be at least ninety-five thousand years old.

The vedic reference could not have been added at a later period.Other, later generations would not have been able to work out a constellationthat had existed many years before. But now we have scientific methods whichcan be used to discover where the stars were at a particular moment in thedistant past.

The deepest laws of astrology were first discovered in India. Infact it was only because of astrology that mathematics was born: mathematicswas needed to make astrological calculations. The digits used in arithmeticwere invented in India; the numbers one to ten, which exist in all the worldslanguages, are basically Indian in origin. This decimal system has been adoptedthroughout the world; it was born in India and slowly spread through the entireworld. When you say nine in English, it is simply a modification of theSanskrit word nav. When you say eight in English, it is simply amodification of the Sanskrit word aht. And the numerals one to nine,prevalent in all the worlds languages, came into existence only because of theinfluence of Indian astrology.

Knowledge of the existence of astrology reached the Sumeriancivilization from India, six thousand years before Jesus. The Sumerians werethe first to open the doors of astrology to the Western world; they laid thefoundations for the scientific study of the constellations. They constructed agigantic tower, seven hundred feet high, and from that tower Sumerian priestsobserved the sky twenty-four hours a day.

Sumerian metaphysicians soon learned that whatever happens tomankind is somehow ultimately connected with the stars they are the source.Six thousand years before Jesus, the Sumerians thought that whenever illnessoccurs, whenever epidemics are born, it is somehow connected with the stars.Today there is a scientific basis for this, and those who understand thescience of astrology say it was the Sumerians who began the history of mankind.

In 1920, a Russian scientist, Chijevsky, investigated this matterdeeply and discovered that every eleven years enormous explosions, nuclearexplosions, take place on the sun. He discovered that whenever such nuclearexplosions occur on the sun, wars and revolutions begin on Earth. According toChijevsky, during the past seven hundred years, whenever such phenomena haveoccurred on the sun, there have been disasters on Earth.

Chijevskys analysis was undeniable but, because it went againstthe Marxist viewpoint, Stalin had him arrested in 1920 and thrown into prison.He was released only after Stalins death. Chijevskys conclusions must haveseemed very strange to Stalin. According to Marxist and communist thinking,whatever revolutions occur on the Earth are fundamentally caused by theeconomic differences between men. But Chijevsky declared that revolutions arecaused by the explosions happening on the sun.

How can explosions on the sun possibly be related to theexistence of poverty or wealth in the lives of men? If Chijevskys thesis iscorrect, then Marxs entire system disintegrates into dust. Then you cannotexplain revolutions in reference to economics and class struggle any longer;then only astrology can explain revolution.

Chijevsky could not be proved wrong. His calculations coveringseven hundred years were so scientific, the connection he established betweenexplosions on the sun and phenomena on the Earth was so close, that it wasdifficult to prove him wrong. But it was a simple matter to send him toSiberia.

After Stalins death, Khrushchev released Chijevsky. Nearly fiftyvaluable years of this mans life had been lost in Siberia. After his releasehe only lived another four to six months, but in those few months he gathered togethereven more evidence for his thesis. He also linked solar influence to the spreadof epidemics on Earth.

The sun is not a static ball of fire as we ordinarily think, butrather an infinitely alive and dynamic, fiery, organism. The sun changes its moodevery moment. And when the sun changes its mood even a little, life on Earth isaffected. Nothing happens on the sun without something happening on the Earth.When there is a solar eclipse, twenty-four hours earlier the birds in theforest stop singing. For the entire time of the eclipse the birds stop theirsinging and the whole of the Earth is silent. All the animals in the forest arefull of apprehension, they become oppressed and frightened. The monkeys abandontheir trees and come down below; they form themselves into groups, apparentlyas a means of protection. And it is a surprising thing that these monkeys, whoare always gossiping and making such a hue and cry, become so quiet at the timeof the eclipse that even meditators cannot compare with them.

Although Chijevsky explained this entire matter, such thinkingfirst originated in Sumer. Later, a Swiss physician named Paracelsus discoveredmore information. He made an unparalleled discovery, which will transform allof medical science, if not today then tomorrow. Paracelsus gave birth to thediscovery that man becomes ill only when the harmonious relationship betweenhimself and the constellation of stars at his birth somehow breaks down. Thisneeds a little explanation.