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Astrology does affect one's life !!
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"Meet my son Hemant Hariyani"
"Good evening sir"
"Good evening Hemant. Pleased to meet you. Tell me more about yourself."
"I work as a Software Engineer with XYZ company" and blah......
"Hemant is also studying Astronomy"
"That is amazing Hemant. I do not know too many people who do that. Great work boy. Can you read my palm and tell me what’s written on it?"
Crash...... A thousand answers rushed to my mind - most of them being unsuitable for being given as an answer or being mentioned here.
"Sorry Sir, I am not into palmistry"
"Ah... I am sorry for being so ignorant. So you read horoscopes?"
Crash...... A thousand answers rushed to my mind - most of them being unsuitable for being given as an answer or being mentioned here.
I am sure that I am not the only astronomer this has heppened to. And it happens a lot of times. Some ask me to read their palms, while others think I am an astrologer. I used to get irritated earlier, but now I beleive I am used to it. In fact I even offer to read a palm if it belongs to a pretty lady. It is fun to see them agree to a lot of things I say.
I have always beleived that astrology cannot have anything to do with my life - and I could not have been farther from truth. I realized that when astrologers changed my life in last three months.
It all started when I proposed to a girl. She told me that her parents are a lot into matching horoscopes and blah. I agreed after brief initial reluctance. I gave her all the data that astrologers need – where, when and why I was born. A few days later I found out that it was a perfect match. Some 35 out of 36 somethings matched. I was happy about the fact that I will not have to get into one of those “why astrology is not what it looks like” arguments. We celebrated the occasion and started discussing about our engagement. I got engaged on 28th of June 2007 and all went smooth.
We were all sitting together when the obvious question came up.
“Chintu (my pet name), we need to finalize on the date of wedding”
“Hmm…. I believe the solar eclipse of 2009 would be ideal”
Silence….
“What happened? Is there a problem with that?”
Silence…. Everyone’s expression reading “Ridiculous”.
“How can you even think about that? You cannot get married on a solar eclipse day. Besides, it is way too long before that happens.”
I realized that 2009 was far away and I decided to get married between 1st of December 2007 and 10th of January 2008 because that is the time I would be relatively free and besides, a lot of people would be able to attend my wedding. My sister would be able to make it too.
“December would be ideal. Second half of the December would be the best.”
“But you cannot get married between 15th of December and 14th of January (Makar Sankranti, Uttarayana)”
“So that we could prepare for flying kites? Why do we need one month for that?"
"Be serious Chintu"
"And besides, it would be nice to combine my honeymoon with my vacation. Moreover, it is not the correct day for winter solstice anymore. I believe that it used to be so some 5000 years back. But taking precession of earth’s rotational axis into account……”
“What??? It is better not to argue on this. You will not understand certain things.”
“Okay, let us see. How about December 8th? My birthday is on December 7th, papa’s birthday on December 9th, bhaiya’s anniversary is on December 13th, That would be ideal wouldn’t it? We can all celebrate together and have a great time every year. And since we are Gujaratis, it is our birth right to think about saving money. There is no better way of doing that. Celebrate one occasion instead of four. 75% savings.”
“That would have been ideal. But 8th December is not a shubh (auspicious) day”
“Who said that?”
“Panditji (astrologer)”
“!#%!#!!”
“WHAT???”
“Ahem… nothing… but do we have to consult the panditji? I mean things could be really simple and convenient. What do you think papa?”
“I agree and I will try to put it across to others. I will try my best but I sincerely believe that it is not gonna work out” … “It did not. They said 2nd December is the only date in December. Is that okay with you?”
“I am sick of this. Fine, 2nd December it is. Can you confirm that?”
“One problem – someone else in their family is getting married on 30th November. 2nd December will not be possible”
“How about next December?”
“Be serious.”
“What are my options?”
“26th of January and 10th of February”
“That’s it??!! Just two days in three months? And besides, none of them is good for me. My semester will start, people will get busy with their schedules after a vacation, most of the people including my sister will not be able to make it and I am definitely not okay with that.”
“I understand but there really is no choice. They have discussed this with panditji a lot of times”
“!#%!#!!”
“WHAT???”
“Ahem… nothing…..give me some time to think about this”
I thought about it a lot. I definitely did not want to spoil the occasion for my convenience. I did not want to sound rude or to push too hard. I finally agreed on 10th of February and everybody is happy about it. But I cannot stop thinking about it. I cannot stop blaming astrologers for all this in my mind. I cannot stop thinking that things would have been a lot better had it been December. Things moved on.
I had been planning to buy a flat. I have been living in a rented flat for a long time and I really like that place. It is a very nice apartment complex - pretty close the city and very close to my office, it is cheaper than other apartments, and my parents like it a lot too. We have always been discussing about how nice it would be if the landlord sold it to us. Then one day my landlord came to my place.
“Hemant, we are thinking about selling this place. If you know someone, who is interested in buying, do let us know”
“That someone is right in front of you sir. I had been looking forward to this and I am sure thay my parents would be really happy to hear that.”
My parents were delighted and were planning to come down to Bangalore to discuss it further and finalize it as soon as possible. The discussion went on for a few days and one day I got this SMS.
“An astrologer has advised my wife against getting involved in any property trades for next one year. We have postponed our decision to sell the flat.”
I can’t even describe my feelings. I would have been perfectly okay if the decision was based on any other thing. But this was just too much. I could not resist myself from getting into endless arguments about why this should not happen.
“Who are they to tell me when to do what? Who are they to take decisions for me?”
I started thinking about arguments against astrology, palmistry and everything related. I also happened to ask these questions to a lot of people who believe in astrology. This is what happened:
“Do we take physical characteristics of planets into account? Even if planets do affect our lives, they have to do it in proportion to something.”
“The origin of universe is also unknown. The day we find that astrology will be proven”
“But we know that universe started from what we know today as The Big Bang”
“But what happened before that?”
“Nobody can answer that question today”
“See…. You do not know that. They day that truth is uncovered astrology will be proven. Besides, many scientists across the world are working towards proving astrology”
I realized that this argument was not going anywhere. But I kept on arguing with different people.
“We all know that we are just lucky to be humans and nature does not care about that fact. How does astrology work for plants, animals and other creatures? If we talk about a timeline of 20 years, it might not even apply to a lot of creatures.”
“I don’t know. Astrology must be taking care of scaling timelines and talking about percentage of lifetime.”
“Fine, acceptable. Can someone give details of how that scaling happens in terms of orbital periods of planets etc?”
“Hmm… I am sure they are related. I do not know the details though. I haven’t heard of anyone analyzing horoscopes of animals.”
“Twins should be really identical and they should lead their lives in a very similar manner. They should also die at approximately the same age. I have enough evidence to prove that this does not happen”
“Stars do not exactly decide your life for you. There are a lot of other things involved.”
“Stars! Did you say stars?? I thought only planets were supposed to make a difference”
“That is what I meant. Getting late now. Gotta go.”
“If lines on your palm also affect your life as much, twins should have identical palms too”
“What??!! Ha ha … good joke”
“How does palmistry apply to cows and other animals? Nature does not care if we are humans.”
“Did you hear that? Man, this guy is out of his mind. You really have nothing better to do.”
“Rahu and Ketu are two shadow planets which cause eclipses. Now that we know exactly how eclipses happen, these two demons still continue to rule our horoscopes. How do they affect us?”
“They are shadows and shadows are very powerful. They bring dark energy to your life.”
“Do you really know what dark energy is about? Anyways forget about that - what we have been taught is darkness is just absence of light. How can it be powerful?”
“Yes, precisely they stop light from reaching you. Light is good for you”
“Thanks”
Some astrologers justify astrology using this argument – “Moon causes tides in oceans. Imagine what all the planets can do to our lives”. I do not even want to discuss this with anyone.
I have realized that astrology is popular mainly because of fear. We do not want to take any chances. We do not want to risk anything in life even if we are perfectly aware of the risk or the lack thereof.
I wonder if astrology issue will ever get resolved – one way or the other. But till then, I have resolved to do good things on astrologically inauspicious occasions. At least I will help proving something – one way or the other.
I never thought I would get affected by astrology. But that hasn't been the case.
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After a long time i read something funny and interesting :)
Congratulations Chintu.,
I certainly agree with the Astrologer, If you get married on eclipse day.. or any special events day to astronomy.. "how can we BAS members attend your marriage functions" ??? ;) and miss the rare events.. ( your marriage or eclipse )
Some of the stuffs that you have said has happened in my life too.. and it might get worst bcoz.. My father is an astrologer !!! so you can imagine what will be my condition during marriage discussion.. :)
Over all.., Very happy for you.. so when are we going for a party chintu.. ?
~Naveen
good sense of humour! really funny & interesting .
Amazing account hemant!! As a matter of fact I have had a couple of classmates ask me to predict their future, when I told them the position of Jupiter currently. I could only muster a rueful smile!! We have to agree that though the interpretations and doomsday predictions are a matter of chance, the accurate mapping of movement of planets and constellations are a matter of mathematical brilliance! Thats somethingw e have to appreciate.
Hemanth,
i have been asked a few times the same question, wheter i knew astrology (instead of astronomy) but here is something which might surprise you. I believe astrology is true but the astrologer has not perfected the skill, there are few very good astrologers and mine is
shyamasundaradasa he can be reached at shyamasundaradasa.com now friends dont jeer at me. I wish to add that i dont depend on it too much except that my man has been right on too many occasions.
Suresh
Very nice post...
And very nice comment by Naveen about BAS members and the eclipse! :-D
Dr. S. Lokanathan had an interesting argument about astrology: He said someday in class...
"I can believe it if you tell me that planets affect my life. But what I cannot stand is that they have a different effect on you and a different effect on me!!!"
(He was rather irritated by some question about science and astrology)
I hate it, atleast from an "emotional" point of view, when they try to make your life "deterministic". Why - even the laws of Physics in their ultimate form aren't deterministic... even an electron isn't! But then, they make our lives deterministic!
Atleast I cannot digest the fact that I'm a deterministic system - a system whose time evolution is determined by the laws of physics that determine the positions of planets!! I can probably accept the fact that planets affect our lives, I can (unlike Dr. Lokanathan) probably even accept that there can be difference amidst people in the effects of planets on their lives... but what I can't stand is my time evolution being some sort of an initial value problem where the positions of planets at my birth determine my life!!!
Let me accept for some time that astrology affects my life or my physical characteristics. What I do not understand is how marriage affects my life????????? Isn't marriage a social custom. What does it have to do with astrology? If planets affect my life, they should be doing it in a very specific manner. Why would they care when I get married? This is why I have emphasised "animal" point.
Hemant,
Let me try to explain first from a scientific point to the unknown. Lets assume both parents of A and B are both diabetics, the answer without any thinking is that the sibling born will have a 99.9% chance . These are genetically determined.
In our lives we would be seeing so many patterns of ups and downs, You would notice at times things would happen perhaps with hardly any effort.Astrology is the study of these patterns and not events (except if the pattern points to an event) in marriage suppose both were to have a bad phase of 7 yrs at the same time this would result in a unpleasant relationship ,so when they mean horoscope match they would see for this and in Sanskrit they see Dina, Gana,Mahendra,Stri Dirgha,Yoni,Rasi,Graha Maitram,Vasya,Raju,Vedha Varna and Nadi and the total if 100% is 36 which I cant really explain here.for simplicity 36 score=100%.
They also have system of houses and lordships which are based on time of birth, hence for different times the planets which occupy the different houses would also have different lordships. This means Sukra could be your friend and enemyplanet (causing discomfort) .If I claim this is so good where is the problem ? just like there are quacks in medicine the so called astrologers are merely attempting to study and trying to please people in teliing them what they want except for a few good ones and to answer the qusteion what is vedic astrology u can visit this link which is 11 parts
http://www.shyamasundaradasa.com/jyotish/what_is_jyotish/what_is_vedic_a...
Just like to diabetics getting married could be leading to a diabetic offspring this approximately (if read by a good astrologer) can tell u whter the marriage will work.
In my case my man Shyamsundara dasa one of his lines in the CD are ‘ You would be fascinated by the unknown and unseen of the outer worlds, I got the CD 6 months before I even bought a scope! I don’t depend on astrology too far except for general guidelines,
Hope u found the mail interesting and pls post it in BAS forum if u think they wont mind because I find us Indians are sensitive to so many issues.
Just like the CPI once was raising a issue on a particular global subject when China the largest communist nation was not saying any thing on the matter !
These days I find that people who are involved in physics and astronomy see astrology more as a statistical tool rather than the traditional concept of astrology being a tool to determine your life fully. I have seen this with my dad also. But the fact is that as people get more and more involved with physics and astronomy,even hardcore believers tend to move away from the traditional stand point.I think this is due to the fact that people tend to realise that astrology ( even though its calculations are correct ) can never be used to deal with statistics. This I feel is because of the fact that nothing in this world is a cyclical event and all events relating to your life are randomly generated ones and predicting these is practically impossible.I also feel that a person`s life can never be determined and if something like that can be done then I dont think there is any point in living since everything is determined beforehand and basically we lose our sense of individuality.