The Apple Tree Apples

In Zen there is a metaphor which relates to the nature of life, to destiny and which tells us quite simply  that we go with our environment and the world. This isn’t just hinted at in Zen but in Christianity too. The proverb about the good tree producing good fruit relates to this point. In Zen, and I’m quoting Alan Watts here, the saying goes that “As the apple tree apples, the world peoples.”

Philosophically the core belief system which the world has brought me up with has made me uptight. The political system and our education system and basically society and our fundamental core of beliefs which are unspoken yet rigorously dictate our way of life is not of this Zen philosophy.

Human life, is organic, and this will become clearer as Neptune enters Pisces and leaves the artificial and intellectual sign of Aquarius. Aquarius is inorganic, but Pisces being water is a direct connection with emotional reality.

The Zen lesson that we need so badly to take is that there is a destiny. And it’s interesting that our apprehension or even anticipation about this destiny is in fact part of the destiny itself. The purest Zen is to realise that even if I didn’t anticipate things in life that they’d turn out just the same, but that my anticipation within life, the planning and the forethought is actually a part of my destiny.

If I am to spend years of my life worrying unnecessarily about the events of this life, how terrible. But, according to Zen, my nature as a worrying type is natural anyway. The fact that I have my 8th ruler rising in high strength makes me regard life in terms of death, and in Virgo Mars has a tendency towards analysis, but this is the natural destiny of this body and soul which I call “I”. If I were not to go through life feeling it as if it were one perpetual near death experience, I would not be living it according to my nature.

Many times in this life I have tried to “better myself”, and perhaps successfully, but perhaps not. The fact that I come back down to Earth with a great thud and feel like failure and feel terrible Saturnine depression tells me that whatever spiritual remedies or life path that I have been on has been unsuccessful. What would Zen say to this? Another biblical parable is about the 7 fat cows and the 7 thin ones which appeared in the Pharaohs’ dream. Zen would say that all things in the Universe and in life are perfectly balanced.  Well, my misery in life must be balanced out by some better feelings, and I imagine to myself that they are in the future.

What is the resolution? I do not wish just to feel better. Because the truth always wells up like blood seeping through the floorboards to remind you that you are just fooling yourself. There is a deep philosophical question. The question is whether “I” am able to create the life that I wish for, to steer my ship and to create my past as if it were as easy as determining the direction I wished to go in. But life has proved counter-productive and self-assertion has not worked out well for me. I have tried and not got what I wanted. So then I am a product of the world the way the apple is a product of the tree.

Uranus is the planet which symbolises purest ZEN. It is the conversion of energy. It is associated with astrology for a good reason, namely the stars send down energy and light to us and we must convert it into life on Earth.  Therefore what we are talking about is the need to channel and convert energy. When life becomes tough, when we are unable to cope with things and make mistakes, this is because we are unable to interpret what the divine power (God), though the stars is telling us to do.

Individually, we must act, and when we fail to do so  the consequences are depression, anger tension. These are consequences of not acting correctly too. One method of gaining knowledge on how to act, is through deep meditation and prayer.

God is always saying what we must do, through the stars. Feeling tension, feeling emotion, that’s the beginning of understanding the message that is being beamed down to us. The trick is to convert that message from the ether, and to translate it into words and actions. It is only possible to really do this if you still your mind and heart completely, which is always the toughest thing to do, when you are full of emotions and desires.