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Astrology: Destiny, Possibility, or Irrelevancy? · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  There are those who treat astrology as a science, those
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  who believe that our fate is determined by the stars, and
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  also those who believe that astrology is a pseudoscience
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  with no real basis in anything that can meaningfully either
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  control our destiny or even signify events in our lives.
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  How can we understand what role, if any, astrology has in
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  providing guidance and direction in our lives?
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  If we accept the idea that astrology rules our fate, then
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  we are tacitly accepting the sense of determinism and doing
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  away with any role for free will in the development of our lives.
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  This position clearly runs contrary to our innate sense of
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  free will, which, even if not absolutely correct, nevertheless
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  expresses a deeply held intuitive understanding in our
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  human awareness. At the same time, if we
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  recognize that we live in one coherent universal existence and
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  all the parts are elements of the whole subject to the
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  vibrational patterns that occur in the whole, and therefore
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  there is and must be an influence.
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  Philosophers and certain scientists have noticed patterns
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  that occur in the macro universe and in the micro universe.
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  Fractals also repeat the pattern to ever smaller values and
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  fractals are represented throughout the plant and animal
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  Kingdom. Clearly the sense of as above,
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  so below has some real and serious meaning in the world.
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  This does not mean that we can correctly interpret every
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  perceived correspondence, but in the main large patterns are able
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  to express and signify for us the influence of forces that
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  work at the universal level and impact individual lives.
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  We then come to the question of free will and the ability to
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  change the pattern at the individual level, despite the
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  universal influence that may be active.
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  Sri Aurobindo discusses this point at some length.
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  Sri Aurobindo notes quote many astrological predictions come
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  true, quite a mass of them if one takes all together.
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  But it does not follow that the stars rule our destiny.
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  The stars merely record a destiny that has been already
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  formed. They are a hieroglyph, not a
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  force. Or if their action constitutes a
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  force, it is a transmitting energy, not an originating
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  power. Someone is there who has
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  determined or something is there which is fate.
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  Let us say the stars are only indicators.
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  The astrologers themselves say that there are two forces, Daiva
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  and Purusakhara, fate and individual energy, and the
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  individual energy can modify and even frustrate fate.
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  Moreover, the stars often indicate several fate
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  possibilities, for example that one may die in mid age, but that
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  if that determination can be overcome, one can live to a
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  predictable old age. Finally, cases are seen in which
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  the predictions of the horoscope fulfill themselves with great
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  accuracy up to a certain age, then apply no more.
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  This often happens when the subject turns away from the
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  ordinary to the spiritual life. If the turn is very radical, the
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  cessation of predictability may be immediate.
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  Otherwise, certain results may still last on for a time, but
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  there is no longer the same inevitability.
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  This would seem to show that there is or can be a higher
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  power or higher plane, or higher source of spiritual destiny,
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  which can, if its hour has come, override the lower power, lower
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  plane, or lower source of vital and material fate, of which the
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  stars are indicators. I say vital because character
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  can also be indicated from the horoscope much more completely
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  and satisfactorily than the events of the life.
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  The Indian explanation of fate is karma.
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  We ourselves see our own fate through our actions, but the
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  fate created by us binds us for what we have sown, we must reap
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  in this life or another. Still we are creating our fate
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  for the future, even while undergoing old fate from the
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  past in the present. That gives a meaning to our will
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  and action and does not, as European critics wrongly
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  believe, constitute A rigid and sterilizing fatalism.
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  But again, our will and action can often annul or modify even
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  the past karma. It is only strong effects called
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  utkata karma that are non modifiable.
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  Here, too, the achievement of the spiritual consciousness and
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  life is supposed to annul or give the power to annul karma.
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  For we enter into union with the will, divine, cosmic, or
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  transcendent, which can annul what it had sanctioned for
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  certain conditions, new create what it had created.
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  The narrow fixed lines disappear.
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  There is a more plastic freedom and wideness.
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  Neither Karma nor astrology, therefore points to a rigid and
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  forever immutable fate. End Quote Reference Sri
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  Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter
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  One, Life Through the Eyes of the Yogin, pages 13 to 14.