Reading of the unconscious

One thing which is very fundamental has to be remembered, and that is: whenever we are doing anything — astrology, future suggestion, horoscope-readings, palmistry, i ching, tarot — anything that is concerned with the future, it is basically a reading of the unconscious of the person. It has nothing much to do with the future. It has more to do with the past, but because the future is created by the past it is relevant to the future too.

Because people live like mechanical things, the prediction is possible. If you know the past of the person, unless the person is a buddha, you will be able to predict his future because he is going to repeat it. If he has been an angry person in the past he is carrying the tendency to be angry: that tendency will have effects in the future.

Ordinarily, an unconscious being goes on repeating his past again and again: it is a wheel-like phenomenon. He repeats it — he cannot do anything else: he cannot bring any new thing into his life, he cannot have a breakthrough. That’s why all these sciences work. If people are more aware, more alert, they won’t work.

You cannot read the horoscope of a buddha or read his hand because he is so free of the past and he is so empty in the present that there is nothing to read! […]

All these sciences about the future are basically concerned with the past, and because people live through the past and the past goes on being repeated in the future, your yesterdays go on becoming your tomorrows. And all your yesterdays are contained in your unconscious.

Osho, The Further Shore, Ch 5

Related discourses on Osho News

• Osho’s discourse, Hidden Mysteries, Ch 5 (in 6 parts) where Osho explains that ultimately astrology is a profound science, though misunderstood by most people
• Osho on Astrology

Quote published in The Book: An Introduction to the Teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Index Osho A-Z