A Nexus of Probability [2]
the butterly wheels and dips in the limitless sky
This is part 2 of an examination of the concept of the Nexus of Probability, the potential inherent in each moment to achieve greater awareness and to move to another dimension of consciousness. Difficult times and unfortunate aspects between the planetary factors in the chart are signals that a nexus of significant potential is at hand.
The Consciousness Bug in the Spacetime Continuum
One way of looking at this difficult concept of a nexus of probability is to view it as a sort of multidimensional junction in a spacetime continuum. Imagine that the course of your life is like a broad channel of swiftly flowing water: every so often, the flow of water is constricted by an irrigation weir; the main force being permitted to flow on through a large gate with minimum disruption, while smaller gates to the side enable the diversion of new channels into other streams of varying sizes and purposes.
Individual consciousness is like a drowsy bug sailing down the swift main stream on a leaf. The bug has the choice to flutter a little and force its leaf to enter one of the side channels, or allow it to zoom along the main stream. Normally of course, the bug just lets the leaf sail on an uninterrupted course. In fact, it finds it particularly easy to do so, especially if it has fallen asleep (this sort of bug has a natural tendency to fall asleep, owing to the effort of staying awake!). The bug has all kinds of choices, but usually floats down the main stream, dozing; it has forgotten that its natural ability is to fly! And the longer it stays on the leaf, the wetter and sleepier it gets and the less likely it is to make the leap and fly away.
Astrology, as normally presented, tracks the main stream and some of the bigger side channels. It does not really show the bug how to dry its wings and take to the sky. Nor does it usually claim to be able to show how the bug managed to be floating down that particular stream on that particular leaf on that particular day...
The leaf is an image of the body/mind continuum, floating in the current of the stream; the stream and its channels represent events in space-time which are karmically determined. Both the stream and the leaf are very much products of the conditioned world. The bug is the consciousness that rides on the leaf; each and every weir presents a nexus of probabilities, a series of choices or alternatives of varying intensity and likelihood, while the sky remains the unconditioned field of action of the liberated being. Freedom is to have the ability to recognise that the world consists of more than leaf and stream. This freedom is only available to the bug if it can stay awake and push against the current – and ultimately dare to fly away.
Opportunities to Move
Karmic elements are revealed to us in the horoscope. The timing of significant events is quite clearly presented, but the means of making our escape from the conditioned world of leaf and stream is not. As the sun shines on our little bug, drying its wings so it may propel the leaf into a side channel of lesser probability (and greater difficulty), so our lives constantly present us with opportunities to move out of the main stream. Karma, the inherent moral resonance of our actions, is likely to present itself as increasingly rough and startling patches of water around the weirs; rough enough to wake us up, or eventually, even rough enough to tip us off the leaf and drown us in the stream!
The analogy of the bug breaks down here, because, unlike any bug, we can call on an array of allies, guides and teachings to help us to the point where we feel strong enough to make a jump. The nature of human existence is such that by the time our lives have brought us to the stage where we simply cannot go on sleeping, one of these aids will appear. Then it is up to us to take advantage of it, or not, as the case may be.
A Magnificent Mind
Many people seem to be searching for a formal system of belief that they can slip into and wrap around themselves, like a cloak of invincibility. Some of us adopt the astrological system so wholeheartedly that the faith we put into it energises our belief quite firmly in the direction of the fatalistic interpretation. In other words, we allow the future to become increasingly determined by the act of believing too strongly in one projected potential beyond all others.
Remember, our world, despite appearances, is more like a magnificent mind than a massive machine. Beliefs, no matter how strongly based in empirical experience, tend to solidify into "facts". Yet these beliefs can be wrong. Consider the colour of a swan. For centuries, the swan was synonymous with whiteness and purity. Science declared that all swans were white and that we could confidently expect that all future swans would also be white, based on the accumulated history of our experience. Yet when European explorers discovered Australia, they soon discovered black swans! This is of course not to mention such oddities as egg-laying mammals, marsupial "tigers" and the like. Science was turned upon its head. Authorities in London considered the evidence to have been faked. Yet, the swans were black.
A Shining Butterfly
Still, despite one's best efforts, sometimes the karmic or fated element will prevail, no matter what is desired by the subject. But the concept of probability nexus still applies. It's just that often what is needed in such a nexus to thrust the consciousness to a higher, less conditioned level is the injection of external energy (such as initiation from an enlightened guru, realised master, or spiritual guide).
Now Yoga philosophy states that the entire material world is conditioned by the interaction of the gunas (three modes of the material world). The purusha (spiritual self) is free, but his actions when encased in a body are not. In fact the point of yoga is to drop all karma and become allied through profound meditation and subsequent developments with the free spirit and drop all connection with the conditioned world.
Advaita Vendanta holds that the whole of the material universe is illusory and that it is our minds that are deluded into believing it is real. Our mental structures are conditioned and so governed by fate. Again, self-realisation is the key to the opening of freedom from fate.
Even the apparently insignificant act of making a statement or comment about any undetermined future event may have the effect of calling it into existence. Chaos Theory holds that the slightest alteration in present circumstances may have undreamed of consequences for the future, at both the level of our personal lives and that of the entire world. Do not fall into the trap of actualising any negative tendencies in your character, just because they are shown in the horoscope. Make use of difficult character traits and those unfortunate events in your life that tend to bring them out; make use of them, for they are here to give you the opportunity to grow into a shining butterfly that wheels and dips in the limitless sky.
I think in the matter of pre-determination that it is a natural step from observing the outcomes of astrological aspects to assume that all is fated, pre-existing and immutable. In fact there is a good argument (see PD Ouspensky's Tertium Organum) that all indeed is already existent in a higher dimension and it's just that our three dimensional consciousness is so structured that we cannot normally see it.
The question for most people, however, is not so much whether astrological aspects and their outcomes are predetermined, but how we will respond to these aspects in the light of our own charts. The concept of the nexus of probability allows us to move from the totally conditioned arena to at least some degree of positive action in the development of our conscious being.
Our beliefs, in short are what govern us.
Astrology shows a strong map to the conditioning process. But can this cycle be broken, or rather remoulded? Here the practice of skillful means allied with the infusion of divine or magical energy seems to be the answer, judging by my own experience and indeed by the scriptural authorities, when the ancient imagery is stripped to its basics. Astrology also prescribes gems, herbs and ritualistic remedies to overcome the ill aspects and negative planetary vibrations. Are these part of our fate, or are they means of altering it?
Is the world a mighty machine, or is it more like a magnificent mind?
This is the end of the article.
 Return to the start of the Nexus of Probability
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