Questioner: I have studied Vedic astrology and I am wondering, are we defined by the stars, or by intention and mind, or by the self?
Sadhguru: How did you come from Down Under? Did you come riding a star, a kangaroo or did you take a plane?
Questioner: I took a plane.
Sadhguru: That’s good. Don’t ride the stars, okay? Even a kangaroo is more reliable. So, Vedic astrology… You need to understand, India is not just about the Vedas or Vedic culture. In fact, in this part of the country [South India], they don’t ascribe to the Vedas. The person who compiled the four Vedas, a sage named Vyasa – his father was an Aryan and his mother was a Dravidian – turned out very dark and stocky. In spite of that, in this part of the country, people don’t like the Vedas because of the Aryan invasion that started eight thousand years ago and lasted for over two to three thousand years.
So even though it was a few thousand years ago, we have not forgotten – you know the Indian memory is long. We still see them as invaders – they came and conquered us, they beat us down, they sent us out of our lands. It has not been forgotten because this is not a culture which lives by the written word.
It is a culture which lives by the spoken word. So from generation to generation, they made sure the next generation hears about the stories. Only now we have shifted from the spoken word to the written word. Probably by the next generation, nobody will know that we were invaded by Aryans eight thousand years ago, unless they pick up ancient history and read it, which they may not because these days, people are not capable of reading more than forty characters. They cannot read ancient history. It has too many words.
Dravidian culture never went for astrology by looking at the stars; they made predictions by looking at people. Here we have what is called Nadi Joshyam. But the Aryan culture came with astrology. Astrology is an interpretation of astronomy. If you try to interpret something, invariably you miss a lot of points. So it is a mis-interpretation. Because you missed a lot of things.
The reason why the Aryan culture looked at the stars so much is, they were nomadic. They were always travelling. Since there were no roads, they needed to figure out which is north, which is south, which is east, which is west. When the sun was up, they knew. Once the sun set, there was really nothing except fire and stars. So the Aryan culture revolved around fire and the stars. Even today, if people in India want to get married or do anything auspicious, they go around fire. Because nomadic cultures lived by fire and stars. Fire gave you light, heat, and protection from wild animals. The stars told you approximately which way to go. Slowly, observing the stars, they figured which way to travel. They kept looking up and their knowledge of the stars increased. Interpretations started, and they developed a certain mastery and knowledge about the stars.
The indigenous people of this land did not look up. They always saw the earth as their mother and paid attention to her. Because they looked at the earth, they developed agriculture. Before anybody on the planet could think of agriculture, this part of the world already had agriculture. That means, they had food growing in one place. They did not have to chase anything. They did not have to go around picking something. They knew how to reap from the earth. Once they knew how to reap from the earth, they stayed in the same place. They were not travelling. Because they were not travelling, they started building homes; because they started building homes, they started singing; because they built homes and they had to count how many bags of corn, how many bags of rice they had grown, they started arithmetic. Mathematics, music, aesthetics, agriculture, and the spiritual process developed in this culture because they paid attention to the earth.
These are two different kinds of cultures, even in today’s world: One is always looking up, not at the stars anymore, but at the one and only God up there. The other one is look down. The looking-down cultures live more sensibly because they consider the Mother Earth as God, so they walk a little more gently on the planet.
Anyway, the choice is this: Either you try to live your life by predictions, or you have the capability to make a plan and fulfill the plan. All those minds which are incapable of a plan will look for a prediction. The stars that you see in the sky are far away, so very far away that they have nothing to do with you. Just one star has a big influence upon you – the Sun. And its satellite, the Moon, also has some influence upon you. This planet [Earth] has an even greater influence upon you. But above all, what is within you has the biggest influence upon you. All those who are incapable of committing themselves to a plan and fulfilling it, want a prediction. The advantage with predictions is, you can keep changing them. But if a plan has to work, you have to pay enormous attention in creating one; then you have to stick to it. Prediction means, you can keep shifting.
For all the scattered brains, prediction always comes in very handy because they can shift. You must read the daily star sign prediction in the newspaper. I read all the twelve [laughter], because they are shuffling it. What was mine yesterday will be yours tomorrow. They know there are a bunch of idiots who will buy a newspaper just for this purpose. The whole deal is quite smart. And people just need that. If three lines in the newspaper say, “Today, you are going to meet somebody nice,” whoever you meet, you will think, “Oh, maybe this is the nice person; maybe that is the nice person.” Yes, they are. You have been missing it, and invariably you will end up with a not so nice person. When you live by prediction, if it works, you will be bewildered. If it does not work, you will be depressed. Whichever way, you will suffer. If we make a prediction by looking at a human being, it is not really a prediction. It is a calculation. It is not absolute, but arithmetically, it will be correct. And if you are just one more number on the planet, it will be absolutely correct. If you are more than a number, then we cannot predict what will happen.
I only hope all predictions go wrong for you. That means your life is happening wonderfully. Otherwise you are going by the script that was written by some fool. In India, for twenty-five rupees, or fifty cents, they will write your life. Let your life not be so bad. It does not matter what the hell happens. Let something other than the prediction happen to you. Is that okay? May your predictions and dreams not come true. [Laughter] Because a prediction is just a compromised dream.
– Excerpted from a talk by Sadhguru
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