Predictions as a Science -4-

Influence of celestial objects, time and space

We now need to understand another unknown factor that has its role in shaping of the individual’s development and growth. Indian society has always thought and planned everything in a very holistic way keeping in tune with the universe at large because of the expanded spiritual vision of the sages who were at the helm of affairs. We know that the nature is not ‘for man’ but we are a part of the nature. We survive on this planet not because of ‘me’ but because the nature has made life possible on this planet by providing the most congenial environment starting from the air, water and the right temperature. We live on this planet but we are not independent of our sun and moon or other planets and stars. We are in a web of life. Everything in this galaxy is influencing each other. Nothing can remain independent of the other. The living influences the non-living and vice versa. Scientists say that even the earth has life. Thus we cannot say that my mind and body can work totally independently. Our mind is the subtlest of the creation and has the maximum freedom as compared to all other things of this universe. Mind is the only stuff of this universe that has some freedom not to be bound by the laws that bind the universe. The freedom element that has crept into the human system during evolution has to make man recognize this great gift of nature and not tamper it. We are just realizing this over the past fifty years as to what havoc we have created in nature by thinking independent of nature and we are almost in a situation wherein we can completely destroy life on earth through global warming, depletion of ozone layer and creating a big imbalance in the eco system etc. This was simply because we forgot that we belong to the web and used the nature’s gift of ‘freedom’ as license to be self centered. Thus let us remember and realize that everything in this creation can influence each other. Mind being the most sensitive stuff of this universe it can be influenced to the maximum extent by the forces in nature. If you are sensitive and have the time to observe you can see that your mood varies with the rise and fall of the moon. It can influence your psychology. It is well known that psychological problems get aggravated on new moon and full moon days and hence the word ‘lunatic’ was coined.

Prediction as a science

The influence of the celestial beings on our life events and behaviour are predictable and this developed in India as a science called astrology. Careful observations of the effect of all these celestial objects such as sun, moon, planets and stars on major and minor events of life became the topic of this science. They could go on to realize that the influence was due to our relationship with these stars in time and space. Thus it developed into a highly systematized science that could predict things based on the time of birth of the individual soul. Thus an astrologer can mathematically predict the life events both the past and the future. Astrology can also predict the nature and tendencies of behaviour of an individual soul. This ancient knowledge is available as palm leaf writings and is being used by astrologers today. A very interesting research is being done at this university by one of our PhD students. Dr Ramesh is a veterinary scientist and one of his major jobs is to vaccinate live stock and maintain the breed healthy until it goes to the slaughter house for human consumption. He is a very good astrologer too. He selected sheep and goat from his stock that was to be vaccinated for the first time. He divided them randomly into two groups A and B. A group received vaccination at a favorable time of the day as per the predictions from astrology and the B group at an unfavorable time. The results showed that the A group had higher antibody titers in their blood that persisted for a long time as compared to the B group which had lower quantity of antibody that dropped faster over the weeks of follow up. These results were statistically highly significant. This fascinating observation gives us scientific evidence for the influence of nature on animal systems. if the immune system of the animals can be influenced to this extent by the position of the animal in this universe at any given moment of time ,please think as to how much our mind and behaviour can be influenced by these external forces which we tend ignore completely and tend to tamper the mother nature.

What is the basis of the science of predictions (astrology)?

A society which developed its calendar based on the position of stars, planets and the galaxies (Indian calendar is the most accurate calendar even today), a society that could easily predict the rain fall of a particular place and the intensity of sun at a particular spot at a particular time based on the position of earth in relation to planets and stars, could calculate and categorize people based on their relationship with stars and planets. This is the beauty of astrology or numerology. The method adapted is first to create a mathematical matrix (called Kundali) of your position in relation with the planetary positions based on the date and time of your birth and go on with further calculations. Once we took our mother’s kundali to a very simple astrologer. He did not even show any interest in talking to us or enquiring anything about us. He just sat down , looked at the kundali , took a piece of paper and drew his own matrix and did some mathematical calculations and within three minutes started saying many things about our mother’s life as to when she got married, how many children she has had, how many are surviving etc. What fascinated us the most was he continued and said ‘your mother has had a fracture of the bone in her right thigh region between such and such a date and this repeated on two occasions between two dates’. In fact we were highly impressed at how these calculations were accurate when we verified the dates on her X rays after we returned home. How could he do it? These calendars and astrological calculations are fascinating and hence has become a big business today in India.

The Indian society used these predictions systematically before venturing into any major events of life such as marriage or taking up a major business etc. This science would give accurate predictions whether the marriage would be successful and helpful for the society at large and for the individuals based on the characteristics revealed from the calculations. The calculations would even give the right time to get married or start a business. If you remember the life of Buddha the astrologers predicted at the time of birth that he will become a great monk. His father took all precautions not to expose him to the outside world and bring him up in a royal atmosphere. But the nature of Buddha was so strong that he went on to become one of the greatest monks who served many more people than what he could have done as a king. Astrology therefore is specialized mathematics. Just as one can learn music with training, one can also learn this speculative science.

We have many talented astrologers even today. I took a friend of mine who came to Bengaluru from Germany to an old lady who was not educated and was a very simple, least sophisticated woman who was very loving and caring. She took my friend’s hand and the first thing she said without any doubt was that he does not belong to the country he is coming from. He strongly denied and said that it was not true. But she looked at the hand once again and insisted that she was correct. Then he confessed that he belonged to Romania and had shifted to Germany only recently. Even I did not know about it till that day. Those days in early eighties not many of us knew that people could migrate from Romania, a communistic country to Germany, a free country and I cannot imagine that that this old lady who only knows a few streets around her house can think of Romania or Germany. She could not have guessed it by looking at the person’s facial features because even me, as an Indian, having traveled so many times cannot make out which country in Europe one belongs to by looking at their features., And this lady could derive it so clearly by her intuitive knowledge of the science of palmistry! I simply wondered at her ability.

- to be continued...

To read the other parts of the same article please click on:

Part 1: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/06/predictions-as-science.html

Part 2: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/06/predictions-as-science-2.html

Part 3: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/07/predictions-as-science-3.html

Part 4: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/07/predictions-as-science-4.html

Part 5: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/10/predictions-as-science-5.html

Q&A: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/07/questions-about-predictions-as-science.html

Happy birthday!

Dear all,

Please join us wishing a very happy 61st birthday to our beloved guru, Sri NV Raghuramji.

With love...

Message from Raghuramji:

Subject: DHANYAVADAH OR THANKS

Date: July 23, 2009

I would like to express my sincere thanks and loves to hundreds of greetings i received who i can not reply individually but please take it as my personal thanks to one and all from all over the world.

It is all your good wishes prayers and sincere support that we could accomplish whatever we could do.

Your love is my health and energy!!

love,

raghuram

Predictions as a Science -3-

Social structure for healthy nurture:

Let us for the time being leave the extraordinary talents aside and understand the common person who may not manifest any special talents in his life. Every person has some interest of his own right from childhood which the parents may also encourage. As the child grows he sees some great people who are highly successful in that field and he also reads about the life of people who attempted and became a failure. On one side he is inspired by the people who are successful but develops enormous fear of failure looking at the bigger number of people who failed. Many a times the influence of people who failed cast such great fear in parents they tend to become overcautious. That is why most people’s advices are very defensive. They say follow the middle path and do not venture into adventures.
The wonderful hereditary occupation based caste system took care of this. It gave a wonderful opportunity for the child to flower out its talents without these fears of failure. The system was so carefully organized that it could help every one to grow in the right direction with pride. In this system, society was divided into four types (castes) Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. The Brahmanas to carry out the intellectual functions as a teacher in all walks (both worldly and spiritual knowledge) and his duty was to protect the human value systems of the society as a guide to all other sections of the society. Hence he had to live a life of austerity with regular spiritual and yoga practices so that he could remain in tune with higher laws of nature and guide the society in the right direction. The Kshatriyas were the kings with enormous administrative skills and had to nurture physical valor, intelligence for strategic planning and the pride of protecting the entire community including the Brahmins. Trade and business was the occupation of the Vaishya community. Shudras were craftsmen (Blacksmith, goldsmith, architect, house keeping etc) and constituted the larger section of the society who had the responsibility to implement every thing through hard work and labor. When the system was designed this way there was no choice for the child born in one family to think of any new occupation that would create fear. This facilitated the person to get the necessary training right from his childhood .Over generations the skills of the family would snowball to move towards excellence. Thus, when a soul with a particular talent chose to enter the womb of the mother and took birth in that family the opportunities to express the talent were so congenial that the journey of the soul would become very easy. It facilitated a natural and systematic evolution and the child could easily find the opportunity to carry on further research in the same field of activity which his father was doing. Thus a doctor’s child could easily become a better doctor with some new innovations, a king’s son had the opportunity to be a better king and so on and so forth. Thus there was a vertical and horizontal matrix created so that there was social harmony. Every village therefore had all these four castes catering the needs of all types of people through clearly defined duties for each family group. This arrangement gave a very deep alignment in every individual and left no adolescent in a state of insecurity as it is happening today. In India today after the materialism and the foreign rule took over we have lost this system completely to the extent that we blame the caste system for the entire decline that India went through over the past two centuries. There was a systematic intellectual planning and brain washing by the British to erase this strongly protected system of the Indian society. The brain washing was done by introducing the concept of ‘high and low’ in this caste system. They used it as a strategy to win over the Indian minds and succeeded to rule India. This has become so much ingrained into the Indian system today that an adolescent feels ashamed to continue his father’s occupation and wants to venture into something different, more challenging, and more adventurous and ends up with the fear of failure. He loses his wonderful opportunity that was provided naturally through the family tradition. Modern management researchers from UK and Harvard are trying to study this caste system that had protected the Indian society over centuries.
This caste system was evolved taking into consideration the basic tendencies and preferences of a person which is called ‘gunas’. Let us now understand this concept of ‘triguna’ the three gunas that is necessary for balance and harmony in the society.

The law of triguna

It is very interesting to see how our ancient people of wisdom understood the creation as a whole in Sankhya philosophy. This is the concept of tri gunas which is translated roughly as three basic qualities. Using this concept of ‘guna’ we can divide the entire creation under three types. Creation includes not only the objects but animals human beings food and even the activity. Every thing in this creation, sentient and insentient, can be classified under three categories (gunas) namely Satva, Rajas and Tamas. We can understand this in this way that every plant has three components they are roots in the soil, the stem or trunk of the plant or the tree in between and the flowers fruits and foliage in the sky. The roots are tamas, the trunk is the rajas and the flowers and foliage is the satva. Accordingly since the roots are always in the darkness the darkness is called tamas, since the trunk is protecting the plant and constantly working in distributing the sap and organizing every thing of the plant in the place these kind of activities are also called as rajas, and finally the flowers and foliage are soft and colorful and having nice fragrance etc these qualities are called as satva. The roots are always in the soil and feed on the slush and dirt and the roots are tamas therefore the food which is petrified and causes dullness is all categorized into tamas. Tamas is also dullness and gravity. Dull and slow animals are called as tamas and aggressive type of animals are called rajas and the food they take are also called as rajas and those animals who are soft and gentle these animals are called as satva. Similarly the people in the society can be divided very systematically based on their deep inner nature or the gunas into satva rajas and tamas. These gunas are not arbitrary divisions in case of human beings but they are based on very deep inner psychology of a person and left to themselves what their predominant behavior.
Every individual is a combination of these three gunas in different proportions. Every individual like every plant has all the three gunas. In human beings they are in some proportion with one of the gunas predominating. Like his feet are tamas which carry the weight of the body all the time and goes through rough terrain, his stomach heart and the middle portion of the body is rajas which is constantly distributing the energy through out the body and is constantly working without any rest or respite and the head which is responsible for thinking and scheming and planning is satva. In the same way what happens in side of the body the human being also decides based on the gunas what he has to do outside. At different times he manifests one guna or the other depending on the requirement. Thus guna governs most of what we do. Let me explain this. When anyone is tired and needs sleep he resorts to his tamas guna so that he can enjoy his sleep. The same person when he has to think or plan for any activity he takes to satva whose very nature is analyzing and thinking. One may think of just simple travel he has to make or a big activity like planning an industry. Both involve thinking. Both involve satva. Similarly one uses rajas when he needs to get exited or irritated or perform intense activity. A harmonious blend of these gunas is a state of perfect balance and health. None of us are perfect in this mastery and blend of the gunas and we all have some predominance of one or two of these gunas. When this is used in the right way with mastery then the life goes on with health and happiness. For example if a person is predominately satvic then he would spend his time happily in doing satvic activities that involves thinking and soft emotions. He may be a scientist or a teacher. This kind of work would give him fulfillment according to his guna.
In Sanskrit language a ‘man’ is called PURUSHA which is Puri + isha. Puri means a city or a country and ‘isha’ means ‘the master’. Thus the body is the city in which we live as a master. Just like the body is a living organ the city is also a living system. Just like these three gunas are used by the person to carry on all activities of the body all activities of the social system also goes on with harmonious blending of these three gunas. Only when all these gunas are used efficiently and harmoniously the city can be healthy. In order to carry on these activities we require people who are having those qualities and will enjoy doing those activities. Thus we have people who are predominantly satvic and those who are predominantly rajasic and those who are predominantly tamasic in nature and they manage these activities according to their gunas and the society will grow harmoniously. The satva predominant families who were the teachers and spiritual masters were classified as Brahmins ; Vaishyas who looked after trade and business were also predominantly satvic persons with an additional component of rajas that was necessary for travel and hard work of carrying the goods etc. Kshatriyas’ duties were to protect righteousness and be physically and mentally very strong and hence were predominantly rajasic people. Shudras who were a combination of tamas and rajas were assigned the job of carrying on the routine duties in the society.
We saw the play of gunas in the society and human beings. Every thing else in nature sentient or insentient, are also made of these gunas. The sages said that all these gunas are necessary for the creation to continue. What is necessary is a wonderful harmony in these gunas. The beautiful blend of these gunas is ensured by the laws that govern the entire creation. This is the programmed functioning of the creative or cosmic intelligence (Ishwara or God) which we see in the universe starting from inanimate things that follow the laws of physics and also the living systems that follow biological (Darwinian) laws. But as we evolved as human species nature bestowed us with higher faculties of the mind that has introduced the wonderful component of freedom and mastery over these laws. By wrong usage of this freedom we have successfully messed up the programmed functioning of these gunas. We have succeeded in posing a big problem to even the creator! As long as a human being accepts and functions according to his or her nature then there will be no problem. But trying to tamper this balance by misusing the mastery over these basic qualities or gunas it can create a major imbalance within leading to diseases or in the whole society creating social and environmental problems. When one tries to imitate others and takes up jobs or activities that does not suit his/her nature then problems arise.
Until recently (150 years back) in India we had a well planned society and the caste system was functional. The education, occupation, and their contribution to the society were well defined and beautifully set based on their gunas. That way the society also had at any point of time people working the jobs which was harmonious to their nature and which is also required in the society. there were always competent rulers doing the rajasic work of ruling and competent intellectuals to carry n the satvic work of advising thinking and inventing and businessmen doing the rajasic work of distributing the material wealth and those who are tamas predominance who could happily do the labor work. With such an arrangement the society was very harmonious. This harmony was helpful for the future evolution of an individual during the next birth too. For example a person in a Brahmin community will have deep rooted impressions which are in harmony with Brahmin practices and when such a person dies the soul does not have to struggle for searching a suitable family to be born. The soul will be able to choose very easily another Brahmin family. This understanding of the gunas that control the whole of the universe and our human system was so good that people started evolving a method of predicting how, where and when a child will be born and what will be the tendencies of the person even from the time of its birth and developed into a big science. The soul would not be confused to choose parents and come back to take birth. I wonder we pay a great importance to select a dog or a horse and look at its father and mother for several generations but when we choose a boy or girl we do not look into what are their immediate parents. According to ancient Indian system the soul will look at the parents before choosing the birth.

- to be continued...

To read the other parts of the same article please click on:

Part 1: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/06/predictions-as-science.html

Part 2: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/06/predictions-as-science-2.html

Part 3: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/07/predictions-as-science-3.html

Part 4: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/07/predictions-as-science-4.html

Part 5: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/10/predictions-as-science-5.html

Q&A: http://nvraghuram.blogspot.com/2009/07/questions-about-predictions-as-science.html

Questions about "Predictions as a Science" from readers

Question:
I have often heard people quote that your bad deeds in the current life will make you manifest a body of a different species. Is there any basis to this or a mere corruption of ideas?
Answer:
the body what we get is the body what we contemplate. our mind created the body that suits the mind or suits the manifestation of the force we create by the thought process called sankalpa. Normally speaking once we are human being the impressions of human being on our mind is so strong that any other vasana or the impressions on our mind by the world out side is not so strong as to change the very instrument called human body though which we want to work our may to these vasanas. therefore it is not generally possible to come with different form in the next life. But exceptions are possible because some one has contemplated so strong on some thing else that it has affected the next birth. The famous example is that Jada Bharata though highly sattvic in his final days was living with a deer which has become very dear to him and therefore was so much engrossed in it that he was born as deer in his next life. It is purely how intensely you have contemplated and became one with that determines.

Question:

Is it necessary to bring in the concept of vasana to explain the differences in people or their achievements as in the case of Tagore, for example in this article? Why can't we say that Tagore was not interested in English education but was fascinated by Indian culture. Just like someone is turned off by Indian culture but fascinated by USA culture? I am ok with influence of environment, nurture etc. Is it really self effort or some need in a person trying to express itself whether in English culture or Indian culture? We could explain on the basis of Gunas and Swabhava/Swadharma as in Gita.

Answer:

*our actions has the influence of three ingredients. one is the vasana that we carry, the other is the environment and the third is education. the vasana was so strong that he is drawn to the music and art and poetry of Indian life style that the other two did not have lasting or no impact on him. whereas i think other people do not have such a great vasana from previous life that they can be easily drawn by the influence of the environment and upbringing. Especially Tagores parents wanted him to be influenced by the British ways that they sent him to England for his education. But that did not only not change him but he is convinced about the great wealth of Indian thinking. Gunas and Swabhava is more much more deeper aspects of individual like your vasana may be for art and music. but it manifests according to your guna. some people can bing out their talents in rajasic way or aggressively. So in our personality deep inside is the guna over that is samskara and then the particular form like art music or painting etc. some thimes scriptures refer all these together as samskara *

Question:

Where is the 'free choice' in the selection of family or environment after death? A money minded person wants to be born in a rich family. A knowledge seeking person in a suitable environment so on. Does the person selects his family just before death (as some scriptures say that the dying person's next life briefly flashes in his mind and once he makes that choice he will give up the present body etc.) or it happens due to UDANA carrying the mental impressions? In that case UDANA (which is normally considered as JADA) has to be Universal consciousness itself to guide the subtle body or we have to assume some other consciousness guiding vasanas.

Answer:

*Udana is the expression of the fundamental prana which in turn is atman or self or simply saying I! That is choice of this I. This is supposed to be free but this I uses the vasanas as a reason for choosing. since one has the free choice there may be several wombs ready to receive him this I chooses one which suits his requirements. All the time even after the birth the I has choice I can change its tendencies but he uses the influence of environment or education. That is the reason this life is called as Life of Karma where one can bring about change in understanding of life.*

Question:

If a person comes with certain vasanas to play them out where do the residue vasanas stay? Who tracks the vasanas associated with current life with Vasanas that are yet to play out which we have forgotten. Are they in Universal memory. What is the link between current memory with Universal memory.

Answer.:
*vasanas are there with one self. some find expression and some not because the person did not find an opportunity to manifest. like some people you see appear not have any greed or miserliness for all these years when they do not have much riches. but once they have riches suddenly these qualities surface as if they were never present earlier. This is where the philosophy says they are not newly found but they only found their opportunity to surface into manifestation like after rains suddenly the seeds hidden in the ground sprout!!*

Question:

It seems that rebirth theory raises lot of interesting questions and to answer them we have to make new assumptions which we have to take them on faith either as experience from saints or scriptures.

Alternatively, we could take help from 2nd law of thermo dynamics saying that nothing gets created or destroyed but only changes it forms. But, the total energy is constant. That way way the physical body goes back to 5 elements after death. Mind gets transformed into new mind after death so on.

Answer:

*that is true that energy can never be created and nor can be destroyed but the freewill of an individual found in this life is the one which can change it. Udana or samskara are the minor details explaining about the possible process. If we dont have the freewill then it reduces to only matter and nothing else! That is teh view of charvakas also saying there is nothing other than matter and follow the laws of matter.*