--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Ravi Yogi" <raviyogi@...> wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@> > wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Ravi Yogi" <raviyogi@> wrote: > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > > > curtisdeltablues@ wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > That is way too judgmental for me to go with Judy. You > > > > > are not a reference point for what the "right thing" is > > > > > for me. > > > > > > > > Yes, you and I have very different ethical standards. > > > > > > > People who are intellectuals have a lot of problem with ethics, morals > > > unless someone has a clear intellect like Judy. I know well because I > > > was like this not too long ago. 3rd & 9th house are opposite to each > > > other - 3rd for the conscious mind, 9th for values, morals. Hence Barry > > > and the likes who can't distinguish between truth and lies - because in > > > their opinion it's all "opinion", so it's completely OK to lie, deceive > > > and manipulate. > > > It's a delicate balance between the 3rd and 9th and hence I call them > > > the Three Decepteers - masters of intellectual deception, tart is > > > teetering on the edge. > > > > While astrology does not seem to me to have any significant correlation > > with reality your comment about intellectuals having problems with ethics > > is interesting. May be that having that ability to juggle complex concepts > > in a more expanded level of abstraction blurs the distinctions and blurs > > one's ability to observe how the average person is going to react. There > > seems to be strong scientific evidence that many basic ethical stances are > > hard wired into us (Sam Harris wrote a book about this, which > > unfortunately, I have not read). Maybe these gut level impulses can be > > overridden by intellectual mind. > > > > Xeno - Ethical stances have nothing to do with gut level impulses, in fact > they are quite different from each other.
This may be true of intellectually derived ethical stances, but there is a lot of research going on concerning ethics or morality to determine something more primitive about this. Rather ingenious situations are set up to test this, and the results have shown remarkable consistency across cultures. For example, a test situation (hypothetical of course) would be a close family member is on a train track unaware of a train heading for them. The track is split in a Y. There is a switch that can divert the train to the other side of the Y. Except there are five strangers standing on the other track. So do you throw the switch and save your family member, but kill the five strangers, or save the five strangers and let the train kill your family member? The tests are similar to this. But they have revealed a hard-wired pattern in human behaviour, which is consistent all around the world. It seems reasonable that morality codified in various cultures may be partially based on these primitive gut reactions to unusual ethical situations. Now as for astrology, I know many are very interested in this system, but I have never been able to understand how it could work. Statistically it has an incredible number of variables. There is something called degrees of freedom. Some scientists have said that astrology (any type) has too many degrees of freedom, and thus the predictions are basically random. This feature allows one, post hoc, after the fact, to find a matching pattern to fit practically any situation, but ex ante, before the fact, it cannot do so. There are also strong psychological factors that make astrology seem to conform to what people think about themselves and their life. A common test in psychology classes it to give all the students a custom horoscope and then ask them how closely it matches them. The result is usually report four out of five to five out of five, very good to excellent matches with the prediction. Then it is revealed to the students that they all have the same horoscope, and it is just a collection of general statements that apply to everyone. There have been few well controlled scientific tests of astrology but those have gotten no correlation with the future at all, except in one disputed case where there was reported a weak effect for the planet Mars. Further in light of what we know of physics and the solar system, the theory behind astrology seems highly dubious. In the past 500 years human knowledge about the nature of the universe on the outer level has expanded exponentially. There are some 200,000 neuroscientists working today to map out how the brain works, and investigating consciousness. I feel spiritual movements have a lot to offer the world, but they often seem to have an age of witchcraft mentality, a world filled with mysterious forces that for some reason, scientists cannot find. Yet this is the same world that both spiritual seekers and scientists investigate. Everything we see before us, or even inside us, is that same world. They must be the same world, because we are the world. This is it, right now. This is what enlightenment is all about, what has always been the case all the time. But unifying our experience and modern knowledge cannot come about by adhering to age-old concepts that have outlived their usefulness. They were useful in their time, and many spiritual concepts are still fresh, but our knowledge of the world is vastly different than it was when most current surviving spiritual traditions arose, and it is necessary to take all this and find out what works and what does not, and fit the pieces together. > In astrology ethics, morals, judgements are denoted by the 9th house and gut > level impulses by the 8th house. 8th is 12th ( loss) from the 9th house - > meaning gut is alien to ethics. 9th house also denotes father, Guru, dharma > and all authority figures. 9th is ruled by Jupiter also the indicator for > higher intelligence. So ethics, morals are inherited by the society, father > figures, innate tendencies whereas 8th is for gut, intuition. 8th opposes 2nd > house which is for the 5 outer senses, so 8th is our 6th sense or the gut or > the intuition. These things in the above paragraph must seem real to you, but they have no sense at all for me. I know what the system is like, generally, but it is just a picture of the world, not the world itself, it is an intellectual phantasm. Of course it made more sense thousands of years ago. > The intuition let's us focus on the big picture rather than the just rely on > the external stimuli provided by the 5 senses. To say it should be ridden by > intellectual mind doesn't make any sense. Intellect is a very useful tool in > the outside world but pales in comparison to intuition as a tool in the inner > growth. The intellect is useful, and there is intuition also, although I have seen intuition fail just as much as intellectual machinations. Intellect and intuition (which scientists call unconscious or non-verbal processing) can work together. There is nothing mysterious about it. I am intuitive, but not in the sense of those who call themselves intuitives, who practice something like cold reading akin to astrology and fortune tellers. > > May be we can say that ethics are controlled by our innate tendencies carried > over from past lives and the guidance or the moral structures we inherited > from father figures in this life time, that can be overridden by the > intellect, but then we come back to my original statement of needing the > balance between intellect and the ethics, morals. I agree with this, that balance is the key. But just what is a past life? Anything that is past. In Yoga Vasistha, past lives are spoken of as occurring hundreds of times a day, internally and externally. That is, the Self, unbroken unity, when it is seen as divided in any way, that creates a birth or a death, and it happens all the time. If the connexion between things and events is not experienced, then one experiences being as separate particulars, separate events, the unity is lost. Just like looking a separate waves in the ocean, and not noticing that the ocean is there all the time. It is not more complicated than this. > Astrology can be used to look at the blueprint we are born with, our innate > tendencies, conditionings, strengths and weaknesses, the areas where we are > imbalanced and will be tested so we continue our evolution to the supreme. > It's an incredible tool for personality development. I have no interest in > using it for mundane predictions. It is very interesting how the human body develops. The genetic information is basically a set of instructions for growing a human body, but it is not really a blueprint. It is very incomplete, what the genetics encode. There are all sorts of other factors that are involved in the process of growth. It will probably be impossible to map them all. I am glad you want to use your tools for grand things, but one would be wise to question the utility of any tool any time for any purpose, maybe something else will work better, or maybe not. One can use the intellect and intuition to try to sort through these issues. In science there is a lot of effort expended in the attempt to try to not fool ourselves. Scientists manage nonetheless to fool themselves quite often. Spiritual movements tend to be kind of sloppy in this regard, and people fool themselves frequently. The problem with spiritual evolution is that the evolution part is part of the dream, part of maya, the illusion. But alas, unless we wake up, we are stuck in it. I am no less susceptible than anyone else. So after having said all this, do your charts, you have to get them out of your system, so you do not have the desire or need for them any more. So maybe for you, they are the illusory steps you take to get to the top. My steps are different, but that does not make them more real than yours. Have a wonderful day Ravi.
