Effectiveness - The Astrologer's Excellence Part 2 of 2
By Ashutosh Agnihotri
To make a statement about your inclinations in studying astrology doesn't mean you have to get into a brawl because you have to defend it. Astrology does not need defending. It has survived thousands of years, through numerous persecutions by many cultures. Yet its practice continues to flourish and gets even more enriched today. What might need defending is your unjustified attachment to a personal belief system. This happens when we feel our values threatened. So when people who do not know any better come along and throw you rational arguments that go beyond you, rendering you feeling hopeless in rebuttal, a certain amount of your belief is shattered. If your psychological or emotional attachment to astrology is belief-based, then you must know that belief systems can be fragile in the face of convincing, intellectual arguments; especially to the new. Thus the importance of supporting your experiential reservoir with objective arguments; even if they're just arguments that would put others into a state of greater enquiry and openness. It's a great defense.
A very powerful way of gaining better trust with astrology is to offer your knowledge to be shared with everyone needing it. You can start this by developing a personal database of "cases" that you wish to study from. Sit down, and write down a list of friends whose lives offer interesting "reading". The things about them, their experiences, their behaviors, just about everything interesting you already know of them, write them down. Then meet with them, and seek permission to study their life events as a student of astrology, and promise total confidentiality. Show your responsible thinking from the start, and they'll love you for it. Two things happen: they would have found a friend who has a genuine interest in helping to answer their astrological questions as that friend continues with his diligent studies, and you would have found a living friend capable of giving live feedback on what astrological correlations may exist, if at all, that may reveal the greater portions of astrology to justify your deeper study or not.
One of the most frequent arguments that new students face in studying astrology is the scientific argument. The majority of people have numerous thoughts and beliefs that are irrational and unscientific; even unmoralistic. But with astrology, many people take it to superlative extents. An advantage for argument here is when you will notice that the very people who make the most noise against astrology are the people who have never studied the subject, but are against it because it conflicts with their personal or religious belief system that typically disallows their belief in astrology. A strong focus for the aspiring student to take on in the beginning is this: don't worry too much about how much of astrology is science or art. Rather, focus on developing a scientific attitude in your study of the subject before you make your personal conclusion of its science or art. To take on fundamentalists would mean that you would have to function at their level to rationalize astrology within their context of perception. You cannot, most times, because religious fundamentalism and divination are incongruent.
Even in astrology, too many students are shoved into a tunnel of absolutism by their astrology teachers when they're told it's definitely scientific or wholly divine or only for the spiritual. Get scientific. Study it as a good scholar would study any subject, and eventually make your personal conclusions by adding to the pool of perspectives. All this, for each student to formulate his own conclusions. If he does not contribute to the enlightenment of subsequent scientists and scholars, then he would have contributed to his own understanding. And that alone, can be a significant step for a spiritually hungry mankind.