If there’s anything as basic and self evident in the modern western civilization, and as an extension in the rest of the modern world, is the axiomatic assumption that what we believe is true is a result of what we are witnessing. It’s the basis of the whole scientific method, what is called empiricism – data and evidence about the physical world are collected and on their basis the theory of reality is constructed.
But what if it was actually the other way around? What if physical reality is actually the result of our assumptions and beliefs? In the current academic discussions there’s more and more talk about consciousness as the actual basis of everything, and not some sort of emerging property of neural activity in the brain. So if consciousness is the starting point, then what we are constructing in our minds about what we consider as our reality tends to actually manifest as that reality, precisely because that is what we have constructed in our consciousness first.
As for astrology, this is where the actual and specific manifestations of the archetypal energies, or symbols, represented in the astrological maps, transits, etc., come about. The essential dynamic of what’s going on is represented by these symbols, but how they actually manifest is up to each and every individual to construct, consciously or unconsciously. The planets, aspects and all the rest of it do not dictate the actual specific physical manifestations, they only point to general potential direction, and different people experience them in different ways, though all of them are in the realm of what those symbols do represent, which can be quite broad.
If one sees the astrological dynamics that are represented in the birth chart and the consequent developments of the changes in the constellations, as the lessons one needs to learn and the experiences one needs to go through in order to learn those lessons, what can be labeled as the “WHAT”, then the actual physical manifestations of these dynamics and experiences can be labeled as the “HOW”. So the WHAT can be seen as in someway predetermined and fated, while the HOW is subject to the conscious (or unconscious) choices that the individual chooses to manifest.
I’m echoing here a little the teachings of Bashar. When he discusses the meaning and purpose of the human existence on earth, he talks in terms of the lessons in physical reality of earth that ones soul chose to experience in the given lifetime, or incarnation, before birth. These could be the astrological WHATs. Also, he explains that the actual physical reality we experience is not as real as we think and actually is a projection of our consciousness, what coincides with the previous claim here that consciousness is the actual basis of everything. This claim is tied to the HOW of astrology – one needs to go through some experiences and lessons in this life that were laid out at birth by the astrological map / the soul before birth, but the way one goes about to actually experience those in the physical reality of earth and the way its actually physically manifested, are the product of the conscious or unconscious choices and interpretations (what Bashar calls “beliefs”) of each and every one of us.
There are interesting implications from this. One is that our lives are both predetermined and we have a lot of free will. It’s the combination of the predetermined astrological WHATs and our free will of the HOWs. I’m sure there are some more…