Benny and The Jets — Meets Vedic and the Puritans
an essay by Mike Zizis — May 28, 2020
“The unity of history’-involving the assumption that there is only one river of civilization, our own, and that all others are either tributary to it or else lost in the desert sands- may be traced to three roots: the egocentric illusion, the illusion of the ‘unchanging East’, and the illusion of progress as a movement that proceeds in a straight line.”
Arnold Joseph Toynbee
…
As an astrologer I am often asked about Vedic or sidereal astrology versus tropical or Western Astrology. Many western astrologers do practice Vedic astrology. Proportionally less native Indian astrologers adopt western astrological techniques.
The vedic traditional astrologer might say you are in 18 years of badness — Ketu — there is nothing you can do to change it — relax. Acceptance and persistence are mainly Yin in nature.
A large portion of western culture can be defined as Yang — a will to order and being proactive. That includes themes like “no fate {or destiny} but the one we make”, to quote Terminator movie number 7,643.
Culture is a dynamic thing and alive. There is cross fertilization increasing now and more in the future. So I am saying that the West has in the past taught the East how to live and the East is taught the West how to die. Of course new ideas and discoveries come from everywhere. Theocratic cultures are the most resistant to innovation.
This dynamic phase of internet fueled cross fertilization still takes time. A person can change quickly and a culture changes slowly. An astrology based on living gods will resist nonsecular change more robustly. Tropical astrology defines Jupiter {Zeus} and Saturn {Kronos} as gods that were. There is no one around to my knowledge who now worships these Greek gods. And the Greeks were not a pious people.
Also cultures that have large agrarian structures and immense land mass to grow crops tend to resist rapid change; Egypt, China, India, Russia, and portions of the United States. Countries with low land mass and little natural resources respond quickly to innovation; Greece, Phoenicia, England, and Japan among others come to mind.
The democratization of ideas can’t be permanently stopped, only delayed by natural disasters and plague. War and catastrophes often accelerate technology and cultural innovation. Our tiny mammal ancestors crawled out from rocks and burrows because the dominant ‘culture’ of dinosaurs was destroyed.
