Hudson Valley Astrologer

“We are all gods and creators, because the energy of God is within us and all life is creation.”

Swami Vivekananda

Modernity has ushered in an age of everything “NEW”, self-helpisms for example, that we thought might have peaked during the New Age Movement. But no, the “miracles” keep on coming.

Long before the groundbreaking work at the Esalen center in California, which I only recently learned was founded on Gurdjiefian precepts and practices, an amplification of those practices perhaps, or later Werner Ehard’s Seminar Training (“est training”), a fusion of Zen Buddhism, self-help, and experiential psychology, there was Pythagoras, who taught personal growth, self-discipline, and inner harmony. Apparently, the saying “there is nothing new under the Sun”, can be taken literally. Interestingly, the Erhard Seminar Training, and A Course in Miracles, channeled by a psychologist from Columbia named Helen Schucman, appeared at about the same time. (c. 1970 +/- ) just as Neptune ingressed into Sagittarius. Pluto was straddling Virgo and Libra, and Uranus was traversing Libra into Scorpio. There was, at the time, a growing philosophical underpinning that strived to be something more than solipsistic, and instead something universal, significant, and transformative. Then, as now, the outer planets were changing signs.

Fast forward to the Tony Robbins Seminars, where like his predecessors, we find him steeped in the Human Potential Movement, but not nearly as esoteric, his work is rooted more in motivational speaking than anything else, integrating mindset concepts appropriated from NLP and behavioral psychology into making things happen. It’s fair to say that Robbins takes a more result oriented approach that is more mainstream and commercially successful, essentially teaching “success strategies.” without a care by the way as to where natal Saturn might reside in the chart.

What comes to mind, when I think about what I might need a break from, is the Everything Seminar approach to life, or The Cult of Perpetual Self-Optimization, that is, in one way or another just a rebranded version of something that came before, (Nothing New Under the Sun).

Two of the latest efforts to recover ancient practices and spin them as something new, is 1.) James Nestor’s book Breath, “The New Science of a Lost Art,” and 2.) a simpler repackaging of self-help, presented more in the convenience of a combo meal special, The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.

However, life is hard, which reminds me of the famous story told of how the Buddha came to the realization that the path to Enlightenment is to take the Middle Way, and to stay away from extremes. This realization came to him because he over heard a music teacher explaining to his student that “If you tighten the string too much, it will snap. If you leave it too loose, it will not play.”

Naturally you might think by this powerful anecdote that I have decided to follow the way of the Buddha. Well, no! That dog won’t hunt either, hahaha! pun intended.

There is so much more I wanted to say, but we had a pluming issue today, I was mysteriously locked out of all my apps (user error), oh and there’s a family member in hospice, so my post is both late and raw (unedited).

Stepping back from the relentless drive for external achievement, taking a break and instead cultivating an inward aspiration toward the Divine Consciousness, which transcends the ego’s demands for constant improvement isn’t quite the “personal development” du jour of the day. But there is an existential need for all of us to embrace the principles of CALM, PEACE, and EQUANIMITY in our lives, through balance, integration, and rejecting extremes. Seekers also need to view life not as a race for perfection but as a progressive unfolding of inner truth, where transformation arises naturally through surrender and alignment with higher consciousness.

Shifting the focus from external goals to the realization of an inner harmony I think is a worthy direction, and probably the only true way that a seeker might find grace and calm from the exhausting cycles of so called self-optimization.

For now, I’m taking a break on “hoping for a miracle.”

HVA

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