Chapter 17

　　第十七章占星与解梦

　　Divination and Dreams

　　Astrology and Astronomy

　　”I believe in astrology but not astrologers.”

　　From the very beginning of time man has been fascinated by the stars and he has always tried to find some links between them and his own destiny. His observation of the stars and their movements gave rise to two very important areas of study, namely, Astronomy and Astrology. Astronomy can be considered a pure science which is concerned with the measurements of distances, the evolution and destruction of stars, their movements, and so on. Of course all these calculations are always made in relation to planet earth and how these interplanetary movements affect mankind on a physical level. Modern astronomy seeks to find answers to the still unanswered questions regarding the origin of man and the final, possible end of his existence as a member of the human race. It is a fascinating area of study and our new knowledge of the universe and the galaxies has put much pressure on many religions to evaluate their age-old postulations regarding the creator and the creation of life.

　　Buddhism does not face any dilemma, simply because the Buddha did not encourage His followers to speculate on things beyond their comprehension. However, He has made many allusions which in the light of our new knowledge gained through science, shows us that the Buddha was very much aware of the true nature of the Universe, that it was never created in one glorious moment, that the earth is merely a tiny, even unimportant speck in all of space, that there is constant creation and destruction, and that everything is in constant motion.

　　Astrology, however, is a completely different area of study altogether. Ever since early man began to think, he was deeply concerned about his relationship with the universe. When human societies became involved in agricultural activities man progressed from hunting as a livelihood and began to notice a link between the movement of the sun through the years and his own activities of planting, harvesting, and similar projects. As he became more sophisticated he was able to predict the movement of the sun and he invented time measurement, piding into years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds.

　　He associated this knowledge with his existence whereby he felt that there was a relationship between his own life cycle and the movement of the planets. That gave rise to the Zodiac--A study of these movements in relation to a human being”s personal life is called a horoscope.

　　The study of astrology involves a great understanding of human nature, an ability to assess planetary movements precisely, together with an insight into the seemingly unexplainable phenomena in the universe. There have been many brilliant astrologers in the past and some exist even today. Unfortunately there are an even larger number of charlatans who give astrology a bad name. They hood-wink people by predicting seemingly true events about their future. They make large sums of money by exploiting the ignorance and fear of the gullible. As a result, for a long time scientists scoffed at astrology and did not depend on it. However their hostile attitude is not really justifiable. The main purpose of reading a horoscope should be to give one an insight into one”s own character, in the same way that an X-ray photograph can show the physical make-up of a man.

　　Statistics have shown that the influence of the sun in the signs of the Zodiac accounts for the birth of unusual people during certain months. Certain crimes have been found to correspond with zodiac signs in which the sun is moving during certain months of the year.

　　Thus an understanding of this relationship will help a man to plot his life more meaningfully in harmony with his innate…

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