In article B2030B21-18687@206.165.43.27, "Lawson English" wrote:
> TurquoiseB said:
>
> >It was just another quote from my quote machine, but it does
> >bring up an interesting question. Does a person who relies on
> >divination or prediction gain an advantage from such infor-
> >mation or, choosing to believe in it, place him or herself at a
> >disadvantage by ignoring other, possibly more valuable
> >information?
>
> Of course, the use of Jyotish (Vedic astrology) in the Maharishi Ayurveda
> manner is supposed to give one insight into upcoming "problem" periods (and
> presumeably auspicious ones as well) so that one can be prepared to deal
> approrpriately with, or to take advantage of, the situation.
>
> As I understand it, the "divination" isn't meant to be taken as "set in
> stone," but allows one to be forewarned of what MIGHT be.
And as I understand it, it's more like, "This is the result the
present situation is going to lead to if it persists without
change."
However, simply acquiring this knowledge constitutes a
significant change even if one makes no overt effort to change
the circumstances. The circumstances have already changed. In
that sense, a prediction is out of date the instant it is made,
because what it has predicted is a future in the absence of this
foreknowledge, what the future would have been had the prediction
not been made.
And, of course, one now has the opportunity to change the
circumstances further. Barry's Benjamin quote made the
assumption that the person whose future is foretold remains
passive and helpless in the face of this knowledge, but that's
precisely the opposite of the idea behind Jyotish. It's also
unclear what the basis is of Benjamin's notion that people have
"an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times
more exact than anything [the diviner] may say."
In the TM context, this would in fact be the case in the sense
that the entire universe, past, present, and future, is contained
within one's consciousness. The question is whether one has
*access* to it.
On the other hand, in his Gita commentary, MMY notes that Krishna
tells Arjuna, in effect, that because the course of action is in
principle "unfathomable," even the enlightened person cannot have
knowledge of all the effects of his/her actions; the point of
becoming enlightened is so that one can have the *benefits* of
knowledge of the effects of one's actions without having the
knowledge itself.
How this works in the context of Jyotish, I've never been quite
sure! Perhaps Jyotish, in terms of personal predictions, is
really only for the unenlightened.
Originally Posted:
Subject: Re: Apocalypse
Date: 23 Aug 1998 09:28:00 -0400
From: jstein@panix.com (Judy Stein)
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC
Newsgroups: alt.meditation.transcendental
