In Search of Hope: Psychology of Astrological Counseling - 1

Famous roman poet Horace once said 
A heart well prepared for adversity in bad times hopes, and in good times fears for a change in fortune

In silence of our hearts we all realize the essence of these words sometimes in our lives. Only change is constant is what we have been taught  and a mature being indeed witness and realize it going through the journey of his life .Though the definition of good and bad times is highly relative term, on personal levels we all have our terminologies. Often in times of turmoil mind looks for some magic hand to offer help, some miracle to show the way, which paves a way for our search, search for a hope onto which we can rely and give oxygen to our aspirations and visions. These are the times when one might go for an astrological counseling, as on large, astrology has an image which will somehow provide hard coded view of future along with some magical remedies which will avert the ‘bad’ events, what an astrologer can sense looking at the chart.


 The compelling force to take counseling actually have many faces and it indeed can be a learning experience for the astrologer himself if desire to explore the human psyche and relate patterns visible in chart to actual behavior of an individual is present. Let’s explore the psychology of this whole affair, without getting judgmental .Lets have a look at variety of mind-sets ,beliefs with which one approach this Divine knowledge ,what perceptions one holds and strongly interrelated is the quality of guidance received in turn.

The foremost kind of people who consult can be clubbed in the term Believers. They have holistic view of life and Law of Karma is deeply infused in such beings .Their upbringing plays an important part and often they pick family tradition along their ways. For them predestination is so obvious and their comfort ability with concepts of reincarnation and someone Supreme ruling us seems so well settled. This kind of class though have maximum variation, still generally they see horoscope in quite revered manner. These are the ones exploited to the fullest by greedy and fraudulent astrologers as they won’t hesitate in giving huge amounts towards various fancy objects or lengthy rituals which they are not even aware of, in the name of remedies. Grace with which they bear suffering is though exemplary, as its inbuilt belief in such people that its origin must be in their own Karma, hence to tolerate it happily is their destiny. Astrological counseling for them means searching for end of troubles and they are the ones who will wear any gemstone, do any ritual to ward off ‘evil’ effect of ‘malefic’ planets in their charts. They do hold potential to use this knowledge in its most splendid form but for them use of astrology gets limited to find out appropriate remedies and generally Jyotish is reduced to a mere tool for predicting bad and good events along with list of remedies which is all they want to carry in the end.

Another set of people can be said to be simply Curious. They do not have any real desire to know where and hows of astrology, and they somehow land up to the astrologer. They ask questions in doubts , as their notion of astrology is of some mysterious phenomena ,and whether it works or not, they do not want to get into the business of it. They are like randomly moving clouds and its actually the bang of some amazingly accurate prediction which will capture their attention. These kind of people just go glancing ,and experience of the whole of counseling is rarely rewarding in any sense, for either of the side, till they confront something stunning which wakes them up and become turning point in their belief systems.

Then comes another class, which pose a serious challenge to the practitioners of this branch. Collectively it would be appropriate to call them Rationalists. Though its very rare that they themselves opt for counseling, most of the times origin of inspiration comes from outside ,or else it could be plain desire to tear apart the belief in this ‘superstitious’ and ‘irrational’ belief system. They take great pride in raising questions about validity of astrology itself; they want proofs as for these people anything seems rational only when validated in laboratories.

Inside every broad category we see different sub classes, here too we see intellectuals with closed mind set, which refuse to give non-judgmental thought about Jyotish, Its origin and use. These people reject all claims on the face on the basis of being unscientific, without any apparent desire to look into the research done by many individuals who actually hail from strong scientific background themselves. To these people the scope of any guidance goes waste in its potential form only .For the ones who do show willingness to explore, astrological counseling might open up the door to the journey in an entirely fresh area, which holds the capacity to give answers to some of the most twisted questions about their life .It is good to have scientific mindset, but coupled with openness to the domains not explored yet .It is interesting to read what Issac Newton, whose ‘scientific mind’ do not need any mention, has said once,

 I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

These all classes are not at all decisive and obviously there can be much more variation and sub division within a particular kind of belief system. In subsequent part we will explore more on mind-sets with diving deep in psychological frames of Magic seekers, Spiritual aspirants and Map-finders. We will see with what mind set Jyotish, The Divine guidance system can attain its full glory, illuminating our ways, providing the guidance in its most comprehensive form.
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