QA173 QUESTION: I wanted to ask a couple of questions in relation to astrology. There has been a station in the planet Venus recently, and it is reflecting attitudes in my own life and in the lives of people I know. I know it’s not causing them, but it’s reflecting things that are going on. Can you talk a little bit about Venus?

ANSWER: The influence of Venus is, in itself, a tremendously benign and loving one. It is the power of uniting, of vibrant mutuality. If Venus is afflicted, then, of course, relationship must be afflicted. This does not only apply to the traditional sense in which Venus is generally understood – namely, the element or the forces between man and woman – but it also applies to the human being within himself or herself.

You all know from this Pathwork, that he or she who is not united within the personality cannot properly unite outside the personality. And the whole world is in disunion because of the inner disunion of humanity.

Venus symbolizes union, and to the extent that human beings perceive the unitive principles within, their outer unions – whether in personal love relationship or in all relationships and then extending into groups and countries and nationalities and continents – must be commensurately influenced.

For what takes place on the larger scale is but a reflection of what takes place on the smallest, more intimate levels. And what takes place on the intimate level between a man and a woman is but a reflection of what takes place within the specific human beings. You can absolutely measure a person’s inner state of union or disunion within himself by his capacity to relate with other people. This unionizing principle is Venus.

QUESTION: The other question is, you used the word an “afflicted” Venus. Would these afflictions be our misconceptions?

ANSWER: Of course, all afflictions are, always.

QUESTION: And then they don’t have to stay?

ANSWER: Absolutely not! That is, of course, what you cannot emphasize strongly enough in your daily thinking and meditating and contemplating of yourself, of life, of the world – that no negative condition is a thing in itself. It is always a distortion of something intrinsically beautiful, good, pleasurable, benign. The moment this is understood and this understanding is cultivated, you will not need to fear anything in yourself.

No discovery need frighten you, because you know whatever you discover it is but a distortion of something beautiful in you, and it can be refound; it can be reestablished. The distortion is an illusory veil through which you have to tear, and then it melts down. That is really the true nature of all unhappiness.

Therefore, my friends, if I may add this here, if you can think of your own unhappiness, of your own pain, of your suffering, of your faults that make you feel bad about yourself – any miscondition in your life, in yourself – if you can think about it in these terms – that this is a veil, and underneath this veil already exists another reality.

If you can think about it in this way, you will approach this work with yourself in an entirely different spirit. Even meeting the painful and the ugly will be a joyful experience, because it has such temporary validity. Please, try this, my friends, no matter what the condition is – try to see that underneath exists another condition.

It is not that you have to create it out of nothing. It is not that you have to become something that you are not already. In that sense you will experience your suffering, your pain, your uglinesses, whatever it is, as a veil underneath which something else is already there.

If you can approach meditation in this way, it will make so much difference for you. It sets the approach, it sets your whole comprehension, it brings it into a reality focus.

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