We spend virtually all of our waking hours and lives engaged with the outer world. But did you know there is a larger, more interesting, more powerful INNER world? While not the same as science suggests, it is nonetheless telling that science describes its own version of an inner world of powerful micro-sized particles, energy packets, gravity, nuclear forces and electromagnetism.
We live more in our own personal inner world than we generally take note of: our thoughts, our reactions, our emotions, our imagination and nightdreams. We carry on conversation in our “head!” But even this is not the true inner world. This mental and emotional world is the equivalent to the universe of atoms, molecules and forces described by scientists. The inner world described by the yogis is the subtle realms from which come these two other inner worlds and out of which appears the physical world that we accept as so “real.”
The human body is a microcosm of the the macrocosm of the grand universe. As we are encircled by galaxies, stars and planets so our astral body has an inner cosmology and astrology that, left to itself, will guide our lives on a track programed by us by our past actions. The outer astrology, so often misunderstood and misused, has a deeper significance, one that is understood by those of great wisdom. With the guidance of Swami Sri Yukteswar, a “stellar astrologer,” Yogananda wrote in Chapter 16 (“Outwitting the Stars”) of his famous life story (“Autobiography of a Yogi”):
The starry inscription at one’s birth, I came to understand, is not that man is a puppet of his past. Its message is rather a prod to pride; the very heavens seek to arouse man’s determination to be free from every limitation. God created each man as a soul, dowered with individuality, hence essential to the universal structure, whether in the temporary role of pillar or parasite. His freedom is final and immediate, if he so wills; it depends not on outer but inner victories.
Together let us explore the fascinating, powerful and vitally important inner world.