51 - Astrological Cycles and Awakening

A couple of simple observations on Astrology and Awakening taken from my experiences in India.  Astrology is very important in India.  Every event is scheduled around auspicious times based on astrology.  The fundamentally important principle is one the Light of Being dispelling the darkness of ignorance.  Our solar system orbits the star Sirius. As we become close in our orbit we are in the Satya Yuga or age of truth.  Everyone is enlightened effortlessly.  When we are in the Kali Yuga we are in the age of darkness and far from our star Sirius.  At the end of the Mayan Calendar around December of 2012 we transitioned from being as far away as you could be into going toward our star.  It doesn't take much light to be able to see again.  A match will light a dark room.  Now we see how bad it has been but also notice that lots of us are attracted to meditation and yoga suddenly.  We discuss this and more in light of this phenomena.

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Transcript

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Hello, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness. How are you doing this week? I trust well. This week I'd like to talk about astrology and awakening. Maybe just a couple simple thoughts on the subject. I remember the second time I went to India in 2005, I was at my guru's ashram in Andhra Pradesh, India. And there were this time, probably 500 Westerners gathered around him. We would meet every Wednesday out on the lawn in the evenings, among other things. But every Wednesday we would meet out on the lawn and it would be like a scene out of the movie, but it was the real thing. He would be sitting on a big white chair up on a platform. Let's call it a pedestal if you want. And it would be getting darker and darker and there would be a bright light on him and there would be a monk all dressed in white. He would be in white. Everything was white. And that monk would have a fan and just slowly be moving it back and forth, moving the moths or bugs away from him. And it really was surreal. What was more surreal was this amazing universal energy that would flow through Bhagavan. And it was like he was so clear that the universe would flow through him and we would all internally light up. It was so intense that it was almost like you were on drugs and you were seeing things and becoming clairvoyant and all sorts of things were going on just because you were in the presence of such light. Remember the word for darkness or ignorance is gu. And the word for light is ru, guru. Well, Bhagavan was a real guru. He, his light would melt our ignorance or darkness and there was no philosophizing about it. There was no debate. It just happened. All the scales would melt away. Anything that was covering you would just melt away while you were in his presence. But when you left, of course, they would all reform and you'd be back to your old self. However, you would have had that experience of seeing things more clearly when you were in his presence and that was worth something. So we felt that he had the key to awakening and that's why we were there. And by the way, he had about 200 monks in his ashram and every single one of them was deeply radiantly awake. So it wasn't like there's this one guy that was awake, Bhagavan, and everybody else, his monks were kind of serving him and, you know, just hoping to get along and do the best they could. They were powerful, especially the top monks. You know, maybe some of the newer ones at the bottom weren't quite as awake as the ones that had been around a long time, but they were all pretty awake and the top ones were just amazing. So that made believers out of them. Plus they had a hundred percent confidence. Yes, we will help you awaken. And there was no doubt in them. You could feel it and you just thought, okay. So we were there, all 500 of us from all over the world, just eager to know, how do you awaken? What do we do? What do we do now? What do we do? You know, and he said something among many other things, but since we're talking about astrology today, he said one thing that just shocked me. He said, you know, a lot of awakening is really about where we are in the universe. It's cyclical. What, what do you mean? He said, we are in the darkest of all times. This was 2005. We're so dark out there, dark spiritually, dark emotionally, just dark everywhere, dark mentally, just dark. And you know, it did look kind of dark. What he was talking about is as far as cycles, our solar system revolves around a star far away called the star Sirius, Sirius. And if you ever want to see it in the night sky, it's kind of nice to know where we are and where we're headed because our entire solar system is rotating. It's orbiting around this star Sirius. If you ever want to see it, you know, the constellation, Orion has got the belt, Orion's I think it's three stars in his belt. They're all on a straight line. If you find those three stars and just follow them down, the brightest star is the star Sirius. You just follow it down, you know, in the night sky, maybe that's a few inches, couple inches. It's fairly close, not too close, but it's not too far away. You just follow it. And it's almost in a straight line. It's down a tiny bit, very bright star. It is the brightest star from the perspective of the earth in the universe. I mean, when you look at the night sky, it's the brightest star and it's twice as bright as the second brightest star. So it's bright. I know planets are bright, but this star is very bright. So that's the star Sirius. If you have any trouble finding it, you can always put a stargazing app on your phone. I think there's one called Stargazer Light, among others. It should be a free app. It takes our solar system 50,000 years to take a lap around that star. 25,000 years out, 25,000 years back. Well, guess where we were in 2005. We were about as far away from that star as you can get. You know, the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. That was actually as far away as you could get. And then we started heading back towards the star Sirius right at 2012. That was the end of the age of darkness. Everybody said, it's the end of the world. It's the end of the Mayan calendar. No, it was the end of the age of darkness, which is the end of being as far away from that star as you possibly could be. The Hindu calendar is based around orbiting the star Sirius as well, just like the Mayan calendar. When you're close to that star, you're in the age of truth. There's so much light coming into the world because you're close to the light. That's the age of truth. Truth Satya Yuga age, the Kali Yuga, the dark age is where we are. That's when you're as far away as you can be. Well, fortunately, the Satya Yuga is four times longer than the Kali Yuga because we're just so far away. It's dark. You know, when I'm at the beach, I like to get up very early, say 530 and walk on the beach. And on some mornings it's so dark because that's well, but the sunrise in the summer, that might be around seven, seven 30. Um, so it's so dark then if there's not a moon and maybe the stars are covered with clouds, you can't even see your feet. And if there's no moon many times, you can't see your feet as you walk. You just have to trust and walk. You can hear the ocean. So, you know, it's over there and you just keep walking. Um, very dark, but about a half hour before sunrise, just a ray of sun is curving around the earth and it's just enough to suddenly you can see it doesn't take much. You know, there's that story of a civilization lost in the dark and they come up with all sorts of philosophies and emotions and everything based on the dark fantasies and thought forms and everything until one guy invents fire and it's like equivalent of lighting a match. And it's just enough to light up the world and they see everything they've been thinking has been pretty much a fantasy. They've just been in their heads, making up stuff. That's what we do, right? You look around today. So in 2005, we were so far away. It was dark. The end of the Mayan calendar. That's right. When we went around the curve and started heading back to the star series, doesn't take much light to light up the world. Now, Bhagavan always said, once a little light starts coming in, you're going to be able to see and you have no idea how bad it's been. You'll nobody will be able to hide anything. Stuff will come out in the light. There'll be all sorts of turmoil and chaos and crazy thinking. And well, I'm looking around today and it's pretty much like that. And most spiritual teachers in India have all predicted this. All sorts of, uh, earth, uh, problems like hurricanes and turmoil and people problems and emotional problems, uh, all right about now. And sure enough, we can see them. We can experience them. Bhagavan also said something kind of interesting. He said, you know, you need to have this chaos. You need to have a complete breakdown to release all of the energy that's been holding all this negativity in place. All of the structures where people have profited from negativity, all that's got to fall apart, just collapse. It's a mess, but when it does fall apart, all that energy that's released, that's been tied up and all that mess, uh, darkness that's released. And now it can reform into healthy, uh, growth and light and a healthy society. And I think that maybe is what's going on now too. So in India, they center their whole society around light rue and the melting of darkness. Guru. Um, the darkness is our ignorance and they don't say the world is an illusion. Necessary necessarily. They say that because we have ignorance, it's a delusion. It exists, but our perception of things is diluted. We're seeing everything. Like we've got a kaleidoscope on our eyes. It's all going funny. We don't know what we're doing. We're seeing backwards. That's a delusion. As we get closer to the light, these scales come off of our eyes and we can see clearly again. Sounds like a Bible scripture. When Paul said all the scales melted off of his eyes and he could see clearly again. Well, that's kind of what's happening to us. The scales are melting off of our eyes. So everywhere in India, it's about light. A lot of the festivals are about awakening. Maybe every single festival is somehow about awakening or gratitude, gratitude for the harvest or awakening. There's one where they shoot off millions of firecrackers because they, all those firecrackers, when they explode, release light. And that's like all of our crust exploding and the light of our being shining through. Every full moon, they go around the holy mountain in the city where I go, Theravannamalai. They go around the holy mountain of Arunachala under the moonlight. And Arunachala is said to be Shiva emitting so much light and enlightenment. And once a year, they have a festival called Deepam and they take tons of clarified butter ghee. And over a period of around nine days, they put it on the top of that mountain and they light it every night and it explodes all night long burning. It never stops for those nine days. It's just burning. And that symbolizes the light exploding out of the top of our head, our chakra light. So it's all about light. They feel it. And you know, when I'm in the presence of Bhagavan, I feel it too. The funny thing is he was my guru. Now he's my friend and he kind of cut me loose, said, you go out on your own, just like we all have to do. And now when I rest in my own light, I clarify in my light. I let the darkness melt off of myself. You probably experienced that too. It's quite profound because they say in the Satya Yuga, you don't have to do anything to be awake. There's so much light. Everybody is, it's just our natural state. And they say these things can shift very quickly, just like lighting a candle in a dark room. It's not much light, but one candle, one match, and you can see everything. There's a story that a man bought a farm from a farmer. He bought his land and they agreed on a price and it was a good price. Everybody was happy. And the man was tending to the land, the man that bought it, his new land, and he was digging and taking care of the land and his shovel struck something and he pulled it up and it was a giant chest of gold worth a fortune, way more than what that land cost, way more, a fortune. So he, being in the Satya Yuga, he takes the gold, gives it back to the farmer, said, Hey, I just bought the land. I didn't buy this gold. It's yours. Take it. The man goes, Oh no, you bought the land. That's your gold. You know, if it's your land, you found it. It's your gold. Enjoy it. Man said, No, no, it's your gold. I bought the land. They both were so full of good. They didn't know how to resolve it. They just wanted to do well by each other. They loved each other. They didn't know each other, but everybody loves everybody else. So much clarity, so much giving, just overflowing of gratitude. There is no lack and they didn't see any lack. So how would they resolve that? Well, they went to the judge and the judge said, Well, okay, let me think of what to do with this gold. Which of you two should have the gold? It's going to take me a while and I've got some other matters. So come meet me after some time, and he specified some time. Well, during that time, as we rotated around the star Sirius, we went into the dark age. And by the time they got back to that judge, they were at each other's throats. That's my gold. No, that's my gold. It's mine. It's mine. Things can change fast. Even though it's a 50,000 year orbit, especially if you look at it in reverse, we're now in the Kali Yuga, not the Satya Yuga. And as I said, just a little bit of light will illuminate everything. And that's where we are now. Just a little bit of light, but we can see everything. Awareness is curative. When you can see things start to heal, they look horrible. We're repulsed. We can't believe it, but it sure does bring our emotions up to heal. We can see inside of ourselves. Haven't you been seeing inside of yourself more and more lately? And as we go into this light, as we round the corner, aren't more and more people meditating? Isn't everybody doing mindfulness these days and yoga really? They are look around compared to remember 10 years ago, nobody was, or some were, but not many. And then 20 years ago, Oh my God, they'd almost lock you up. I remember hearing that people on a radio show would call in and they were asking, there was some interview and they were asking a yoga teacher who was being interviewed about yoga. And people would call in and say, they were going to the devil and all this kind of stuff, going to hell for this word yoga and practice. And that wasn't, that was like 15 years ago. So I don't know about this astrology, but there may be, there's something about light. There's something beyond all of us and we are affected by our environment. I used to have my chart done a lot in the nineties, just cause I had friends that were astrologers. And for some reason they just wanted to do my chart and I don't really care much about that stuff, but they would do it. And lo and behold, you know, it was pretty much right on target. Now, how does that work? And Vedic astrology, I've had one of those, uh, charts done and, Oh my goodness, it's been years. Cause again, that's just not my thing, but it's good to be aware and look around and know what's going on. And I think we are in a cycle and fortunately we have rounded the corner and just like sunrise, every minute we rounded the corner, every extra minute there's more light and we can see more and more. As long as we're talking about light in India, I'll tell you a couple more fun things. Uh, when you go to India and I'd highly recommend it, maybe I'll do a podcast on India just to tell you about some of my experiences. But when you go to a temple, one of the things they have, one of the, um, let's call them idols or statues. I don't know. They're holy, uh, things. I don't know the word in English for them, but one of them has nine figures on top and each one represents one of the planets. And when you go into that temple, you walk around this idol, um, nine times and that neutralizes any negative effects of any of these planets. If you're out a kilter with any of these planets, depending on where we are in our orbit, uh, it neutralizes it. They believe that these planetary poles or influences really can influence us. And, you know, it's all energy. So maybe it does, it makes sense. I don't understand it completely, but it does make sense. Another thing just that comes to mind and that it did surprise me. One of the times I was in India, maybe it was my third or fourth time. I was still relatively new to going to India and suddenly people come out. I was at the ashram, Bhagavan's ashram, and people are saying, get inside and stay inside, pull all the curtains, lie down, come out after two or three hours. Why? Well, there's an eclipse. I never heard of that. Why you go inside? Why? It's an eclipse. I think you're supposed to do car like I did with cardboard, put a pinhole and look at it on the ground or get special glasses. Maybe and look at it. I'm not sure how the glasses work, but the pinhole I did, uh, no, they said, go in. It's in auspicious energy. It's bad energy. If you're outside during an eclipse, you don't want that all over you. It'll affect you. Well, what's behind that is they have their, um, story, let's call it. And the God Rahu, the God, the God of darkness overcame the God of light temporarily. And he ate the sun. He ate the sun. And that's why we have eclipses because the God Rahu overcomes the sun for just a little while here and there. And when the God Rahu is out, he's radiating darkness all over everybody. And he is one bad God. That's a darkness is ignorance. That's what it stands for in India. You don't want ignorance. You don't want to be all clouded up and messed up. Uh, you want your health to be good. You want your intellect to be good. So you stay inside and stay away from the God Rahu. Um, that's India everywhere. It centers around some kind of energy thing, at least in South India. That's what I'm familiar with. Anyway, I just wanted to talk to you about the Mayan calendar and the Hindu calendar and where we are. And I feel good about getting out of the age of the Kali Yuga. How about you? I hope so. So mainly I'd say let's do what we can do in our life. We do our meditations, we stay present and all the other things that we're doing to become clear. Awareness is curative and awareness is the light. Our being is the light that dispels darkness. So as we meditate and we watch our thoughts wind down and we experience our emotions as they flop around and spin around and discharge, they melt in the light of our awareness as we're aware of them. Awareness is curative. Okay. I hope you have a good week and I look forward to talking to you again next week. Take care. Bye.