LCM’s Soul Astrologer Ruth Hadikin explains the higher spiritual purpose of Aquarius…
“Water of Life am I, poured forth for thirsty humanity”
In the northern hemisphere, Aquarius season can be the coldest time of the year. Winter can be pretty mild up to this point, yet once we reach Aquarius season we can experience some of the harshest weather. Indeed Aquarius is often thought of as one of the ‘coldest’ signs, and people born under this sign are said to be cool and somewhat aloof. The Sun is said to be in ‘detriment’ in Aquarius, meaning it is least able to express it’s warmth, radiance and vitalizing qualities. Which makes sense if you think about this time of year in the northern hemisphere – the Sun is farthest from the earth and even on a clear, sunny, day, it can be freezing cold.
We can learn a lot about the energy of the signs by thinking about nature. Aquarius is the fixed air sign, a concept which, in itself, seems like an anomaly. How can air be fixed? The only time air in nature seems to be ‘fixed’ is when it is so cold that our breath ‘freezes’, and that is largely due to the particles of moisture in the breath rather than the air itself. But air does change speed… we know that when the Sun’s warmth heats air, the molecules move faster and become lighter, and when there is a lack of heat molecules slow down and the air becomes still.
This gives us a clue to both the personality challenges and the deeper meaning of this enigmatic sign. The fixed energy of Aquarius can sometimes lead our Aquarian friends to being stuck, especially in terms of stubbornly attaching to one’s ideals (or mental concepts), yet at the same time Aquarius will still have the urge to circulate energy, especially in terms of social networking.
In Soul Astrology we make a distinction between the personality expression of a sign and it’s higher Soul expression. At the personality level Aquarius can be notoriously stubborn, clinging to ideals (and opinions) as though life itself depended upon it which, from the ego’s perspective, it does! Simply put, ego is the mind thinking about itself. So from an Aquarian perspective, ego is where the mind has become identified with beliefs and ideals, and the individual has embodied them as fundamental to their identity.
After walking the path of discipleship in Capricorn, on our Soul’s journey we are now led to Aquarius, where we may now begin to understand the nature of oneness and how ‘streams’ of energy – in particular the streams of Love and Life – flow forth from ‘the one’.
Esoterically Aquarius is the sign of higher group consciousness, and the Soul Journey for Aquarius is to go beyond the level of thought, to experience the higher consciousness that lies beyond, from where the oneness of humanity may be known. One way to do this is through meditation, in other words, the practice of observing the mind itself.
One of the forefathers of modern yoga, Patanjali, noticed that when simply observed, and left as it is, the mind eventually settles itself into silence. The ‘wind’ drops, thoughts gradually slow down and cease, and all becomes still. Then awareness dawns. A pure awareness, untinged by any trace of thought.
“Yoga is the mind settling into silence”
– Patanjali
In some spiritual traditions, this pure awareness is called the clear light mind. It is very different from what we normally think of as mind. Normally we think of our thoughts as our mind, but the mind of clear light is what our mind is like underneath, without thought. It is the greater mind within which our thoughts appear. In this greater mind of clear light, there is clear knowing. Clear knowing is awareness of reality as it is. This knowing arises from pure perception, rather than thinking.
The personality keynote for Aquarius is “I Know“. The ultimate goal for Aquarius is the mind of clear knowing, yet ‘ideas of knowing’ can become the ego’s biggest pitfall along the way. Once our ego thinks we ‘know’ something, we stop looking and learning. We can become an ‘expert’ based on thoughts alone. As long as we are comparing one thought to another, making judgements, choosing between the merits of one philosophy over another, we are still in the vibration of thought. We will never know the pure mind of clear light from there. One of the most important questions Aquarius can ask of himself is, “How do I know what I Know?”
“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
– Shunryu Suzuki
At the personality level Aquarius can become trapped in the role of the ‘expert’, where attachment to opinions and mental concepts keep him from experiencing his own higher consciousness. This can keep our Aquarian friend locked in an ego-created ivory tower of aloofness and mentally constructed superiority, where he thinks himself above others because he ‘knows’ something.
Spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti once said:
“The weighing of opinions only prevents the perception of truth”
According to Soul Astrology Krishnamurti was an Aquarian Soul (meaning he had Aquarius Rising) and his words indicate that he understood the true path of Aquarius. He knew that thinking, and attachment to mental concepts, could actually block one’s ability to recognize and perceive the clear light mind. He also recognized the danger of becoming locked in to a mental position of superiority, through false mental concepts, in which we isolate ourselves and are no longer engaged with Life:
“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies. That is why you must sing and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
The path of Aquarius is a challenging one: on the one hand it seems we can be disconnected from life itself, cool and aloof – yet with patience and careful observation that can be seen to be an illusion created by the egoic mind. Once we recognize the mind of clear light, we begin to really live from a new level of conscious awareness, within which there is no separation between the head and the heart. There is no separation between one individual and the group consciousness of humanity. There is no separation between you and the whole body of humanity of which you are an integral part.
This is when the Aquarian Soul (like Krishnamurti) is able to really understand how to circulate Life’s energy, by flowing the ‘dual waters of love and life’, and embodying the Soul keynote for Aquarius:
“Water of Life am I, poured forth for thirsty humanity”.