By OSHO "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh"
Astrology is perhaps the most ancient subject and also in a way the most ignored. It is the most ancient because astrology has been in existence as far back as we have been able to investigate the history of mankind. Astrological inscriptions have been found on bone remnants from the Sumerian civilization which existed twenty-five thousand years before Jesus. Bone remnants have been discovered with astrological inscriptions and with an outline of the moon's orbit in the sky.
But in India this science is even older. In the Rigveda reference is made to a certain constellation of the stars which could only have occurred ninety-five thousand years ago. Because of this, Lokmanya Tilak concluded that the Vedas must certainly be even more ancient: the constellation of the stars as the Vedas describe it could only have occurred at a certain moment ninety-five thousand years ago; so that particular vedic reference must be at least ninety-five thousand years old.
That particular vedic reference could not have been added at a later period. Other, younger generations would not have been able to work out a constellation that existed many years before. But now we have scientific methods which we can use to discover where the stars were at a particular moment in the distant past.
The deepest laws of astrology were first discovered in India. In fact it was only because of astrology that mathematics was born. To make astrological calculations, first mathematics was needed.
The digits used in arithmetic were invented in India -- the numbers one to ten, which exist in all the world's languages, are basically Indian in origin. And throughout the world the decimal system has been accepted: the decimal system was born in India, and it slowly spread throughout the entire world. When you say "nine" in English, it is simply a modification of the Sanskrit word nav. When you say "eight" in English, it is simply a modification of the Sanskrit word aht. The numerals one to nine, prevalent in all the world's languages, came into existence only because of the influence of Indian astrology.
The first knowledge about the existence of astrology reached the Sumerian civilization from India.
Six thousand years before Jesus, the Sumerians were the first to open the doors of astrology to the Western world. The Sumerians laid the foundation for the scientific study of the constellation. They constructed a gigantic tower, seven hundred feet tall, and from that tower Sumerian priests used to observe the sky twenty-four hours a day. Sumerian metaphysicians soon learned that whatever happens to mankind is somehow ultimately connected with the stars -- they are the source.
Six thousand years before Jesus, it was the view in Sumeria that whenever illness occurs, whenever epidemics are born, the stars are somehow connected. These days there is a scientific basis for this view. And those who understand the science of astrology today say it was the Sumerians who began the history of mankind.
In 1920, a Russian scientist, Chijevsky, investigated this matter deeply and discovered that every eleven years enormous explosions take place on the sun. Every eleven years a nuclear explosion occurs on the sun. Chijevsky discovered that whenever such nuclear explosions occur on the sun, wars and revolutions begin on Earth. According to him, during the past seven hundred years, whenever such phenomena have occurred on the sun, there have been disasters on Earth.
Chijevsky's analysis was undeniable and, because it went against the Marxist viewpoint, in 1920 Stalin had him arrested and thrown into prison. Only after Stalin's death could Chijevsky be released. For Stalin, Chijevsky's conclusions must have seemed very strange. According to Marxist and communist thinking, whatever revolutions occur on the Earth are fundamentally caused by economic differences between men. But Chijevsky declared that the cause of revolutions is the explosions happening on the sun.
How can explosions on the sun possibly be related to the existence of poverty or wealth in the lives of men?
If Chijevsky's thesis is correct, then Marx's entire system disintegrates into dust. Then you cannot explain revolutions any longer in reference to economics and class struggle; then only astrology can explain revolution.
Chijevsky could not be proved wrong. His calculation covering seven hundred years was so scientific, the connection he established between explosions on the sun and phenomena on the Earth was so close, that to prove him wrong was difficult. But to send him to Siberia was a simple matter.
After Stalin's death Khrushchev released Chijevsky from Siberia. Nearly fifty valuable years of this man's life were lost in Siberia. After his release he only lived another four to six months, but in those few months he gathered together even more evidence for his thesis. He also linked the spread of epidemics on the Earth to solar influence.
The sun is not a static ball of fire as we ordinarily think, but rather an infinitely alive and dynamic, fiery organism. The sun changes its mood every moment. And when the sun changes its mood even a little, life on Earth is affected. Nothing happens on the Earth without something happening on the sun. When there is a solar eclipse, the birds in the forest stop singing twenty-four hours before. During the entire time of the eclipse the whole Earth becomes silent. The birds stop their singing and all of the animals in the forest become oppressed and frightened, full of apprehension. The monkeys abandon their trees and come down below. They form themselves into groups, apparently as a means of protection. And it is a surprising thing that these monkeys, who are always gossiping and making a hue and cry, become so quiet at the time of the eclipse that even meditators cannot compare with them.
Chijevsky explained this entire matter, but such thinking first originated in Sumeria. Afterwards, a Swiss physician named Paracelsus discovered more information. He made an unparalleled discovery -- and this discovery will transform all of medical science, if not today then tomorrow. Up until now this discovery could not be considered valid because astrology is such an ignored subject -- the most ancient, the most ignored, and the most respected at the same time.
Last year in France, it was calculated that forty-seven percent of the population believes that astrology is a science.
In America, five thousand leading astrologers are currently at work night and day.
They have so many clients that they can never finish their work properly -- Americans pay millions of dollars yearly to astrologers. It is estimated that throughout the world, seventy-eight percent of people believe in astrology. The seventy-eight percent who believe in astrology belong to the general public. Thinkers and intellectuals are on red alert at the very mention of astrology.
C. G. Jung said that university doors have been closed to astrology for three hundred years, but that in the coming thirty years these doors will again open and astrology will enter the university. It will happen because claims that astrology has made, which have up to now been unproved, can now be proved.
Paracelsus gave birth to one discovery -- that man becomes ill only when the harmonious relationship between himself and the constellation of stars at his birth somehow breaks down. For this, a little explanation is necessary. Many years before Paracelsus, some six hundred years BC, Pythagoras gave birth to the very valuable principle of planetary harmony. When Pythagoras proclaimed this principle in Greece he had just returned from a journey to Egypt and India. At the time when he came, India was intensely absorbed in the ideas of Buddha and Mahavir. After his return to Greece, he included in his reports a specific reference to Buddhist and Jaina monks. He gave the Jaina monks the name Jainosophists, and also reported that they walk about naked.
Pythagoras believed that every star, every planet and every satellite gives out a unique vibration through its movement as it travels in space.
Every movement of the stars gives out a vibration, and every star has its own individual movement. All the vibrations of the stars together make a musical harmony which he called the harmony of the universe.
When you are born, the melody that is created by the tuning of the stars at that time is inscribed on your mind in its freshest, most unsophisticated, and most sensitive state -- that of birth. Throughout your life this will cause good health or ill health. When you live in tune with the original musical harmony that existed at the time of your birth, then you are healthy. And whenever your tuning with this fundamental musical harmony breaks down, you become ill.
In this connection Paracelsus has done very significant work. He would not prescribe medicine to any patient until he had seen his kundali, his astrological birth chart. And it is a surprising thing that after having examined a patient's birth chart, Paracelsus would cure patients who had confused other physicians -- patients who could not be cured by any other physician. He used to say: "Until I know the position of the stars at the time of this man's birth, it is not possible to know the notes of his inner harmony. And unless I know the arrangement of his inner harmony, how can I make this man healthy?"
But what is meant by health? This we must try to understand. Ordinarily, if we ask a physician what the definition of health is, he will only say that health is the absence of sickness. But this is a negative definition. It is unfortunate that we must define health in terms of illness. Health is a positive thing, a positive state; illness is negative. Health is our nature; illness is an attack on nature. So it is very strange that we must define health in terms of illness. To define the host in terms of the guest is very strange.
Health coexists with us; illness comes occasionally.
Health accompanies us at birth; illness is a superficial phenomenon. But if we ask a physician to define health, he can only say that health is present when illness is absent.
Paracelsus used to say that this interpretation is wrong -- the concept of health needs to be positively defined. But how can we reach a positive definition, an interpretation of the concept of health that will be creative?
Paracelsus used to say: "Until the state of your inner harmony is known, you can at best only be released from your illness -- because your inner harmony is the source of your health. But when you are released from one illness you will immediately get another, because nothing has been done about your inner harmony. Your inner harmony has to be supported."
Five hundred years have passed since Paracelsus, and his discoveries disappeared into oblivion. But now, during the past twenty years, astrology has re-emerged. During this time a new science has been born. I will describe this new science a bit, and then you will be able to understand the ancient science of astrology more easily.
In 1950 a new science was born called cosmic chemistry.
The originator of this science is Georgi Giardi, one of the most significant men of the century. After endless experiments in the laboratory, this man proved scientifically that the whole universe is an organic unity -- that the whole universe is one body. If my finger is hurt, then my whole body is affected. The body means that no limb is separate, all are joined together. If my eye is in pain, then my big toe also experiences that pain. If my foot is hurt, the message reaches the heart. If my mind is ill, my entire body will be disturbed. If my whole body is destroyed, then it will be difficult for my mind to find anywhere to be. The body is an organic unity: touch a single part and the whole body vibrates; all parts are affected.
Cosmic chemistry says that the entire cosmos is a body.
Nothing in it stands alone, all things are joined together. So no matter how distant a star may be from us, when it changes, our heartbeats also change. And no matter how far away the sun may be, when it becomes very disturbed our blood circulation is also disturbed. Every eleven years an atomic storm occurs on the sun. The last time such a great atomic storm and fiery explosions were going on, a Japanese doctor named Tamatto made an amazing discovery.
This doctor had been doing work on women's blood for twenty years. There is one property unique to female blood which is absent in the blood of males. At the time of menstruation the blood of women becomes thin, but men's blood always remains the same. Women's blood at the time of menstruation grows thin; at the time of pregnancy also their blood grows thin. According to Tamatto, this is the one basic difference between the blood of men and women. But when atomic energy storms were occurring on the sun with great intensity, the blood of men also grew thin. This was a very novel phenomenon. Before this it had never been recorded that men's blood was affected by disturbances on the sun. And if blood can be so affected, then anything can be affected.
There is an American thinker, Frank Brown, who has been working on the safety and facility aspects of space travelers. For half his life, he has made it his task to ensure that the men who travel into space will face no difficulty. The most serious problem is how they will be affected as they leave the Earth. No one knows how much atomic radiation they may encounter or how it may affect them.
For two thousand years after Aristotle, in the West it was thought that space is empty, that nothing is there: two hundred miles away from Earth the atmosphere ceases and there is empty space. But the investigations of space travelers have proved this notion to be wrong. Space is not empty, it is very full. It is neither empty nor dead -- it is extremely alive.
The truth is that the two-hundred mile wide layer of the Earth's atmosphere prevents many harmful influences from reaching us. But in space all kinds of strange currents are flowing, the effects of which man may not be able to withstand.
You will be surprised to learn this, and you will laugh, but before he would let a man be sent into space, Frank Brown sent a potato into space. It was Brown's contention that there is very little essential difference between a man and a potato. If the potato rots, then man cannot survive; if the potato survives, then man may also survive. The potato is a very hardy organism, and man is very sensitive. If even a potato cannot survive in space, then there is no hope of survival for man. If a potato returns alive, and if it sprouts after being sown in the ground, then man can be sent into space. However, there would still be concern about man's ability to survive.
From his experiment Brown proved one more thing -- that a potato seed lying in the ground, or any seed lying in the ground, grows only in relation to the sun. The sun alone arouses it and encourages it to emerge. The sun alone summons the embryo plant and induces its growth.
Brown also did research in another field. This other subject has even now not been given a suitable name, but at present it is called planetary heredity. There is another word in English, horoscope, which comes from the Greek horoscopos. The meaning of the word horoscopos is: I observe the emerging planets.
At the moment a child is born, many stars are emerging all around the Earth's horizon.
Just as the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, so stars rise and set in space twenty-four hours a day. If a child is being born at six o'clock in the morning, at that time the sun too is rising. At that time some stars are also rising, and other stars are setting. Some constellations are ascending, some constellations are on the decline. This child is being born into a certain arrangement of stars in space.
Up until now we have doubted -- and even now many people not deeply familiar with the subject still doubt -- that the moon and stars can have anything to do with man. Wherever the stars may be, what difference will it make to some child being born in a village? And then too, on the same date, under the same constellation, not just one child but thousands of children are born.... Among these one may become the president of some country, but the remainder will not. Among these one may die after one hundred years, and another after two days. Among these one will be a genius and one will be an idiot. So from a superficial viewpoint, one might ask how a child can be related to a horoscope just by being born under a certain constellation and planetary pattern.
The logic of such a question seems clear and direct: Why would the stars be concerned with the birth of a single child? And then also, not just one child is born; under the very same stars many are born who are not all alike. From such logic it seems that the birth of a human being has no connection with the stars.
But from the investigations of Brown, Picardi, Tamatto and others, we can draw a great conclusion. All these scientists say that while we cannot yet claim that a child as an individual is influenced by the stars still we can now say for certain that life as a whole is affected. Whether a child is influenced as an individual we cannot now say or know, but life as a whole is. And if life as a whole is, then as we investigate the facts of the matter more deeply, we will discover that the individual too, is affected by the stars.
One thing
more must be considered. It has been thought that astrology is a science which, because it originated in an earlier time, could not develop. But in my view the situation is just the opposite. Astrology was an infinitely developed science in some extremely advanced civilization, but that civilization has been lost and only incomplete fragments of its astrology have remained in our hands.
Astrology is not a new science which needs to be developed, but a science which was at one time very advanced.
Then the civilization which developed it was lost. Civilizations come and go every day; the fundamentals, the basic sayings and the basic principles of those things which have been developed by them, become lost. Today, science is approaching the point where it will accept the thesis that life as a whole is affected by the movements of the stars.
At the time of birth, the condition of a child's mind is exactly like a very sensitive photo plate. Two or three things need to be thought about if we want to understand how life is affected. And only if life is affected can there be the possibility of astrology -- not otherwise.
We should try to understand the phenomenon of twins. Two types of twins exist: One is identical twins -- those who are born from one egg; the other type is of those who, although they are twins, are born from separate eggs -- in the mother's womb two eggs become fertilized, and two children are born. The first type is more rare -- two children from one egg. They are very significant subjects to study because they are born at the same time. Out of necessity we call the children born from separate eggs twins, but the moment of their birth is not exactly the same.
It must be understood that birth is an ambiguous phenomenon. The first aspect of birth is conception -- the actual birth takes place on the day when the fetus is conceived in the mother's womb. This is the actual birth. What you call birth is really birth number two -- when the child comes out of the mother's womb.
If we were to carry out a complete astrological investigation -- as the Hindus alone have done, and done very thoroughly -- then our actual concern would not begin when the child is born. Our actual concern begins when the child starts its journey in the mother's womb, when the conception takes place -- because that is the actual birth. So Hindus have also come to feel that if a particular type of child is to be born, it will be born if intercourse and pregnancy occur under an arrangement of planets and constellation most suitable for that type. Now I will explain to you a little of the background of this, because much work has been done in this area and many things have become clear.
Ordinarily, when a child was born at six o'clock in the morning, we thought that the constellation which existed at that time influences the child. But those who know astrology deeply say that the stars do not cast their influence over a child just because it is born at six o'clock in the morning. No, rather, the child chooses to be born under those stars which will influence him as he wishes to be influenced. This is a radically different thing.
When the child is taking birth
, it chooses the planets and stars, and the moment at which it will take birth.
And if we go still more deeply, then the child also chooses the time of its conception.
Every soul chooses its own time of conception -- when it will accept a womb, at which moment. The moment of conception is not insignificant. It is significant in that it is a question of how the entire universe exists at that moment, and to what sort of possibilities the universe opens the door at that moment.
When two children are conceived together from one egg, then the moment of their conception is the same and the moment of their birth is the same. It is interesting that the lives of the two children who have taken birth from one egg are so alike, that it is difficult to say that the moment of birth has no influence. The IQ of twins born from one egg is just about equal. And those who know, say that the fractional difference which arises is because of our faulty measuring devices. Even today we have not been able to develop adequate criteria by which we can quantitatively measure intelligence.
If twins born from the same egg are brought up far apart from each other, their IQs still do not differ. Even if one child is raised in India and another in China, and neither is aware of the existence of the other, this will still be true. Cases have occurred where such twins have been raised far apart from each other until they have attained maturity, but their IQs did not differ. It is surprising that the IQ can be associated with the child's potential at birth.
When the twin who lives in China suffers from a cold, at that time its twin in India also suffers from a cold. Generally, twins born from one egg die in the same year. At the most, three years elapse between their deaths, and at the least, three days -- but never more than three years. If one twin has died, then we can assume that after three days or within three years the other will die. Their attitudes, their behavior, their feelings are parallel, and it seems that the two live in almost exactly the same way. Their similarity is seen in many other things also -- each acts like a copy of the other.
Everyone's skin is individual. If my hand is damaged and new skin needs to be grafted, then your skin cannot be grafted onto my hand; it will be necessary to use a piece of my own skin. On the entire Earth, there will be no one whose skin can be grafted onto my hand. My body will give signs of rejection; it will not accept another's skin. However, the skin of twins born out of one egg can be transplanted. This is the only exception. If the skin of one is grafted onto the skin of the other, the other's body will not reject it. Why is that? What is the cause? We cannot say that it is because they have the same parents, because even though two brothers may have the same parents, their skins are not interchangeable. The only exception is found in those children who were conceived at the same moment. Even between them no other common factor exists.
Their brothers also came from the same mother and father, but their skins cannot be interchanged -- the skin of one brother cannot be grafted onto another brother's body. Only the moment of their births differ; the mother and father are the same, everything else is the same. They differ greatly in only one thing, and that is the moment of their conception.
Is the moment of birth so influential that the life span is of about the same length, that their IQs are almost equal, that their bodily behavior is the same, that when the two fall ill it is from the same illness, and that when the two become well again, it is from the same medicine? Can the moment of birth be so influential?
Astrology has been saying that the moment of birth is even more important than this.
Up until now science has not agreed with astrology, but it is now beginning to do so. In coming to this increasing agreement, some new experiments have been helpful.
For example, when we launched man-made satellites into space, we discovered that a wide range of radioactive rays from space, and the constellations are continuously bombarding the Earth. Nothing on the Earth is unaffected by this phenomenon. We know that the ocean is influenced by the moon, but we have not taken into consideration the fact that the same proportion of water and salt that occurs in the ocean also occurs in the human body -- the same proportion. Seventy percent of the human body consists of water, and the proportion of salt contained in that water is the same as is contained in the Arabian Sea. If the water in the ocean is affected by the moon, then how could the water inside the human body remain unaffected?
Now in this connection, two or three facts emerging from recent investigations must be kept in mind. For example, as the day of the full moon approaches, the amount of insanity in the world increases, whereas on the last day of the darker fourteen days, the least number of people go insane. As the moon grows brighter the level of insanity also begins to increase. On the day of the full moon, the greatest number of people enter madhouses; and on the last day of the moon's waning period, the greatest number of people are discharged from madhouses. Statistics are now available....
In English there is the word lunatic; in Hindi we have the word chaandmara. Chaand refers to the moon, just as lunar does in English. Chaandmara is a very ancient term, and the word lunatic also is some three thousand years old. Some three thousand years ago, people realized that the moon affects the insane. But if it affects the insane, then how can it avoid affecting the sane?
In the final analysis, the construction of the brain and the internal composition of the body are the same for all.
Yes, it may be that the moon affects the insane to a greater extent, and the sane to a lesser extent, but this is simply a quantitative difference. It is impossible that the sane remain completely unaffected by the moon. If that was true, then nobody would go mad -- because everyone who goes mad was once sane. The moon must first affect those who are sane.
Professor Brown made an interesting study. He was a man completely without faith in astrology. He was a skeptic, and in his earlier writings he had very much ridiculed astrology. Yet despite his skepticism he began some investigation. He gathered together the birth charts of many famous generals, doctors, and other professionals. But then he found himself in great difficulty because he discovered that members of particular professions were born under a specific planet, under the same constellation. For instance, among all famous generals the influence of Mars upon their lives is very strong, whereas in the lives of academics the influence of Mars is completely absent.
The study which Brown carried out on some fifty thousand men who were army officers reveals that the influence of Mars is very strong in the lives of these men. Generally, when such personalities take birth, the planet Mars is ascending. The moment of their birth is the moment that Mars begins to rise. Exactly opposite to this, no matter how many pacifists were studied, they were never born at the time when the planet Mars was ascending. If it happened only occasionally, you could think it a coincidence, but there cannot be thousands of cases of coincidence. Mathematicians are born under a specific constellation; poets are never born under this same constellation. In an occasional case there may be a coincidence, but when it happens so often it cannot be a coincidence.
Mathematicians are born under a specific constellation; poets are never born under this same constellation. In an occasional case there may be a coincidence, but when it happens so often it cannot be a coincidence.
In fact, there is a great difference in behavior among people of different professions and occupations -- for example, between poets, mathematicians, warmongers, generals and pacifists. On the one hand, there may be a man like Bertrand Russell who says that there should be peace in the world, and on the other hand, a man like Nietzsche who says that the day war ceases the world will cease to be meaningful. Is it only an intellectual dispute between them, or also a dispute of the stars? Is there only an intellectual dispute between them, or does the moment of their births also separate them?
The more research is done, the more it is being realized that the special talents of a person are revealed by the time of his birth.
Those who know about astrology even superficially would say that this happens because he is born under a specific constellation. But I want to say to you that man chooses the constellation under which he is to be born. He will be born under the appropriate constellation according to what he wants to be -- whatever his innate possibilities, whatever the shape of his last life taken in its entirety, whatever his motivating consciousness. Every child, every new life, insists on a specific moment for birth. It wants to be born at a specific moment; it wants to be conceived at a specific moment -- both are interdependent.
As I have told you, the water of the ocean
is subject to certain influences. But all life is created out of water; without water, no life is possible. In ancient Greece, philosophers used to say that only from water is life born, that water is life. Ancient Indian, Chinese and other mythologies also say this. Today scientists who believe in evolution also say that life was born in the water, that perhaps the first life on the planet lived in the water as algae. This was the first form of life, and then out of this, man eventually evolved.
Water is the most mysterious element of all. Whatever influences reach man from the stars, from the universe, from outer space, reach him through the medium of water. Only after affecting the water in a man's body, can any radiation gain access to him. Much work is being done with water, and many mysteries concerning water are coming to man's attention.
The biggest mystery about water which has come to the attention of scientists in the last ten years, is that water possesses a lot of sensitivity. Whatever influences are active, from whatever direction in life, they first move through the medium of water. The water in us is the first thing to be affected. Once the water in us is influenced, then it is very difficult for us to avoid being influenced.
You will be surprised to learn that when the child floats in the mother's womb, he floats just as if he were in the ocean. The water in which the child floats in the mother's womb possesses the same proportion of salt as is present in the ocean. Influences from the mother's body do not reach the child directly; there is no direct connection between the mother and the child growing in her womb. The medium is water; whatever influences reach the child from the mother, do so through the medium of water -- there is no direct relationship. Then throughout our lives the water in our bodies behaves just like the water in the sea.
Fish in the ocean have been much studied. There are fish which come onto the seashore and lay their eggs at low tide when the ocean is receding. Riding with the waves the fish come onto the sand, lay their eggs, and return with the ocean waves. At a fixed time the tide returns, and by then the eggs will have hatched, and the spawn will have come out. Then the incoming tide will take the spawn back out to sea.
Scientists who studied these fish were very surprised, because the fish always come to lay their eggs at low tide.
Scientists are very puzzled as to how these fish know when it is going to be low tide. If there were even the slightest mistake in timing, the eggs would be washed away. But in hundreds of thousands of years they have never made a mistake. If they had made a mistake they would have disappeared as a species. But they have never made a mistake. What equipment do these fish possess by which they can know about the tides? What sense organ do they possess that tells them when the tide will ebb? A hundred thousand fish will be gathered together at one time over the entire seashore.... These fish must possess some kind of signaling system, some kind of transmitter. A hundred thousand fish will come from thousands of miles away to lay their eggs on the ocean beach -- and all at the same time.
Those who have studied the phenomenon say that there can be no source of information other than the moon. The moon is the source of the fish's intuition, nothing else -- the fish know intuitively when the tide is ebbing and when it is rising. The impact of the moon is the only way they have of knowing the tides.
There was another possibility. It has been conjectured that these fish might somehow be influenced by the waves of the ocean. So scientists put them in a place where there are no ocean waves: in water, in an unlit room. But the results turned out to be really surprising. The fish were enveloped in darkness, the moon was not in view -- there was no light visible at all -- but when the moon reached the exact point at which the fish in the ocean would go and lay their eggs on the shore, at exactly the same moment the fish in the laboratory laid their eggs. What does this fact show...? That it is not a question of the ocean waves.
Someone may suggest that the race only begins when the fish receive signals from each other, but this hypothesis does not hold water. Scientists have witnessed the fish when they were isolated from each other. They have tried to disturb the brains of these fish in every way. They have placed the fish in darkness for twenty-four hours, so that the fish do not know when it is morning and when it is night. They have observed these fish after placing them under a bright light for twenty-four hours so that the fish would not know when it is day. They have observed them after setting up an artificial moon, and daily either decreasing or increasing its brilliance -- but these fish could not be fooled. When the real moon came to the right point, only at that moment the fish laid their eggs; wherever they were, they would lay their eggs at that moment.
Every year hundreds of thousands of birds fly thousands and thousands of miles.
Winter is on its way and soon snow will fall, so the birds begin to migrate from the areas where snow will fall. They will fly to a place thousands of miles away to reach this winter home. So these birds migrate exactly one month before the coming of the snow. At the time they are migrating the snow has not yet begun to fall, but exactly a month later it will fall. How do these birds calculate the date on which snow will fall? Our weathermen, who have the most elaborate observatories, cannot come up with such exact information.
I have heard that some weathermen first ask astrologers sitting on the roadside: "What do you think -- will it rain today or not?"
The arrangements which man has made seem childish. Birds know a month and a half, even two months before the first snow falls. After thousands of experiments it has been observed that the day on which birds migrate is fixed for every type of bird. And every year the date changes, because there is no fixed date for snow to fall. But it is certain that every bird will migrate one month before the snow falls. If snow is to fall ten days later than in the previous year, they will migrate ten days later than they did in that year. If the snow falls ten days earlier, they will have migrated ten days earlier. If the date of the first snowfall is uncertain, then how are these birds informed?
In Japan there is a bird which will evacuate a town twenty-four hours before an earthquake occurs. It is just an ordinary town bird -- there are many of them in every town -- but twenty-four hours before an earthquake these birds will evacuate the town. At present, scientists are unable to accurately predict whether an earthquake is coming even two hours beforehand; two hours before they are still uncertain, they are still unsure. There is only a probability, a possibility, that an earthquake may happen. But in Japan people know twenty-four hours in advance that an earthquake is coming. When this bird flies away, the people of the town know that now there is only twenty-four hours' time. The bird has left -- not a single one of this species remains in the town. How does this bird come to know?
