Can Astronomy provide Astrology with the Difference?

Astrology is a science that existed long before astronomers began to name and mark down the relative positions of a multitude of stars and galaxies they had observed, which remain completely meaningless to the vast majority of people.

For some, however, the universe is not that meaningless. Sensing an interrelation between the constellations and our solar system, astrologers are convinced that the laws and forces that govern the phenomenal world have an influence on our subjective world and on our development of consciousness throughout the ages of time. Yet they never question the notion that the presumed and ever changing influence of the Zodiac, with the Sun being at its center, would entirely depend upon the Moon, which is supposed to cause the precession of the equinoxes.

If Vedic and Western astrology have been classified as pseudo-scientific nonsense, then perhaps only because both fail to recognize that it is our Sun and the entire solar system that move through the constellations of the Zodiac, regardless of whether or not the Earth and its Moon exist. Based on the vedic notion of the Yugas, it is believed that the position of any solar system, as it moves toward and away from the Vishnunabhi or Grand Centre, causes consciousness to manifest in conditions according to the prevailing Yuga or Age in that particular system.

One does not have to be an astrologer or even an astronomer to understand that in the universe distance has a direct influence on the interaction of celestial bodies, as well as on the various cycles they exhibit. Nor does one have to be a psychic to sense the implications of what has already been realized by a few people more than fifty years ago, as the following excerpt from Djawahl Kuhl and Alice Bailey's work suggests:

"The statement is frequently made that astrology is an exact science but that is far from correct in spite of the many mathematical computations. Astrology is based, curiously enough, upon illusion for, as well you know, the zodiac is naught but the imaginary path of the sun through the heavens, and this as it appears from the standpoint of our totally insignificant planet. The sun is not, as stated, in any sign of the zodiac. It simply appears to be so as it passes between our little sphere, the Earth, and the constellations at any particular time or season. In ancient days it was believed that the earth was the center of the solar system and that around it revolved the sun and all the other planets. This was the exoteric knowledge and position, though not the esoteric understanding. Later, when further discoveries brought more light to the human mind, our planet was decentralized and the truth was more clearly seen, though much remains as yet to be discovered and may even be of as revolutionary a nature. From certain astrological angles, a similar process of decentralization must take place and the solar system must no longer be regarded as a point around which the zodiac revolves or through which the sun passes in its great cycle of approximately 25,000 years. Astrologers with insight may deny that this is the commonly accepted attitude. Yet - for purposes of clarity and in connection with the general public - the inference is permitted and accepted by the ignorant. Upon this theory anent the zodiac rests very largely what we call the Great Illusion, and I would have you bear this in mind as you study with me the newer approaches of this greatest and oldest of all the sciences. Astrology is a science which must be restored to its original beauty and truth before the world can gain a truer perspective and a more just and accurate appreciation of the divine Plan, as it is expressed at this time through the Wisdom of the Ages."

(http://www.netnews.org/bk/astrology/astr1002.html)

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"There do exist inquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him."

G. I. Gurdjieff