Vedic Astrology

If you are an Indian, one of the things that you would notice is the number of times people talk about astrology (science of casting/analyzing horoscopes). We indians call upon the services of astrologers frequently to help us make our decisions, whether it is about taking up a job or a buying a house or getting married.

Now the interesting tenet about astrology is that a person's life can be foretold accurately if we could cast the person's horoscope accurately. Now if you have the date, time and place of birth are known, the horoscope can be cast immediately with any number of freely available software programs.

Having said that, we have an interesting situation. The basic astrological principle says that a person's fate is pre-determined the moment he is born - meaning whether he will become rich, whether he will have children, whether he will have a good education/professions are all pre-determined. Subsequently we also try to use the same principles to help determine our course of action (whether to quit/continue studying, whether to get married to this girl or not). Which, if you think a little deeply, is funny.

Imagine you had an exam next week. And the lecturer tells you that the results of the exam are pre-dertermined and won't change regardless of how you perform in the exam. Now what you and I do? Would we study more if the lecturer told us you & I would pass no matter what? Would we study more if the lecturer told us you & I would fail no matter what? I think I would quit preparing and do something else if I was sure that the exam results had already been prepared.

With unfailing regularity, most of us Indians, consult with astrologers fairly regularly. An example is the event in the movie "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" where the matching of horoscope was seen as a pre-requisite before deciding on the spouse for a girl. A friend of mine was told by astrologers, whom she consulted, that her married life would not be happy. Much to my consternation she took this news badly and went on a fast (eating spree).

When we do strongly believe in astrology and hence in fate, why do we use it as a mechanism to help us with our decisions (We make decisions in our lives because we believe that we can influence our destiny.)? The belief in astrology and a belief that our destiny is in our hands are mutually exclusive.

Now this is a conundrum which has kept me thinking for quite a while. More on my take on this subject later...

Additional reading: http://Calmisc.blogspot.in/2012/05/astrological-indications.html