Truth or coincidence?

Astrologer Dayanidhi Iyyengar

astrodayanidhi@gmail.com

Call it coincidence, destiny, fate — in one moment, lives can collide and change forever. Yet chance encounters aren't necessarily accidental.

We human being, are uncomfortable with coincidence. We want explanations. Our nature craves a reason. We need to know. We want to know. We are taught in elementary school that for every effect there is a cause. So, for those events that are large enough to warrant our consideration, we search for answers and a relationship to something else. We are looking for a rational cause.

When the cause isn’t obvious, we are anxious and become nervous. It just doesn’t fit into the carefully planned life that we imagine. Some people, when they can’t think of any other reason, call it fate. Maybe they are just lazy, or stupid, or just plain don’t care for a cause. But, for them, fate is an explanation they can understand and rationalize as believable.

The concept of fate is sort of a crutch that people use. It is sort of a “catch-all” explanation that soothes the conscious. It presumes that some sort of orderly plan exists, even if it is beyond our understanding. Fate then can take many forms, among which are gods, demons, or the alignment of planets and stars. Even within those categories are many subforms. For those people who believe in fate, it is infinitely preferable than coincidence.

Humans need to understand and are always seeking answers to their questions. This drive has produced religion, arts, science, occult, and astrology. When we have no rational analysis for the events that take place in our world, we are unsettled and troubled. For those people who believe in a god who sees all and controls all, that explanation causes peace and tranquility to return to their lives.

Astrology, in its traditional form, is a type of divination based on the theory that the positions and movements of celestial bodies (stars, planets, Sun, and Moon) at the time of birth profoundly influence a person's life. Some forms of astrology claim that terrestrial events such as natural disasters are predicted by various celestial arrangements or events. Given the innumerable relationships of celestial items, it would be surprising if one could not find some correlation between earthly events like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, droughts, fires, etc., and an arrangement of planets in relation to the Sun or Moon. Correlation does not prove causality, but it is good enough for most astrologers.

In its psychological form, astrology is a type of New Age therapy used for self-understanding and personality analysis (astrotherapy). In all forms, astrology is a manifestation of magical thinking.

What does our life consist of? Is our existence pre-planned and are we to follow a psychic map in which events and experiences are governed by coincidences therefore creating our destiny?

Some believe our lives are predetermined which poses an interesting question: what would be the point of living if everything was already preset?

Learning anything and working hard in order to achieve would be a waste of time. We may as well sit on the couch and wait for life to happen around us. I wonder what would eventuate if we all did just that? First thing which comes to mind is society falling apart. There would not be anyone getting up and going to work or school in the mornings and we wouldn’t be watching our favourite TV shows as we slouched on our comfy armchair as there wouldn’t be anyone to create the programs we love. So it is quite obvious that, although there may be a life already mapped out for us- and let us assumes it is divinely guided - we are still required to act. But how? How do we know which decisions will coincide with the Master Plan?

Is it a coincidence that you are the way you are? You might say it is the co-incidence of the position of planets and the formation of your psyche which lets a talented astrologer interpret your birth chart and tell you things about yourself which you may not even know yourself. Just as we have a biological DNA which can be interpreted to predict physical traits, we also have a kind of "psychic" DNA which can be interpreted to predict psychological traits. In either case, it is synchronicity which lets us look at one and know the other.

There are many secrets to be revealed in your birth chart, that map of the heavens as they appeared at the time of your birth. It's as if you needed your life map to be stored in the sky, because you came into this world without clothes and couldn't carry it in your pocket! Your horoscope is your map, and Astrology is how you interpret that map. And just as road maps correspond to roads, horoscopes correspond to people. As you can read a map to know the road, you can read a horoscope to know the person. And in both cases, it is synchronicity that ties them together, so you can look at one and know the other.

We will discuss more on this...