Do the Stars Control Our Destiny?

Someone has their astrological chart done, and by that they are able to determine the location of the various planets and the sun and moon and the constellations in relation to their birth. They will learn about the hardships they will face, the major life events they can expect, and the opportunities that lie in front of them. Some people reject the entire concept of astrology, while others treat it as a true relation of their future and take the information they receive from their chart to heart.

What is rarely if ever taken into account is any role for the individual to make choices that may change the destiny laid out in their chart. The unspoken assumption is that the destiny is fixed and already ‘written’ and thus, it will occur that way.

There is, however, a clear distinction between coincidence and actual causality. The astrological chart may, assuming it properly captures actual astrological influences active in an individual’s life, let the individual know what forces are active in his life, and what influences will tend to play upon his future destiny. This is more or less like a “map” which is a two-dimensional representation of a 3-dimensional reality in the world. We may be able to chart a route across a map, but when we actually get on the ground to go somewhere, we find that innumerable things that were not actually clear on the map determine changes in the route or the issues to be faced, or the time it takes to accomplish the route we have chosen. Astrology is more of a potential “map” than an actual causal force in anyone’s life.

Those who choose to accept determinism as the sole force of development in the life will see astrology as the instrument for describing that pre-determined reality. Those who believe in the exercise of free will will tend to reject the importance of astrology and deny its ability to predict their future. Once we acknowledge that there is a truth and a place for both determinism and free will, we will see that while large patterns are laid down through the will of the Divine in the creation, which impact everyone and everything, and thereby show us the correspondences that astrology reveals, there are also all the details that provide an individual the freedom to modify, adjust, change, or outright reject certain influences, forces or choices.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “I just, however, guard against the idea that the signs and planets determine a man’s character or fate. They do not, they only indicate it, because they are the sensational, celestial and astral influences or nervous force in Nature which becomes the instruments of our Karma. That is why the European mystics gave the name of astral planes to the plane of sensational or nervous existence and astral fluid to the magnetic power or current of nervous vital force in a man. It is this same vital force which pours upon us from all parts of the solar system and of this physical universe. But man is mightier than his sensations or vitality or the sensational or vital forces of the universe. Our fate and our temperament have been built by our own wills and our own wills can alter them.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 1 Life Through the Eyes of the Yogin, pp.14-15