Vedic astrology

I don’t know what western astrologers say by way of philosophic basis for astrology but I would like to tell something about what Vedic astrology has to say in this regard, for without understanding the philosophical basis of astrology, one cannot understand the significance of astrological prediction.
According Vedic astrology astrological and philosophical works the basis of human existence is an intricate network or inter-relation of events and actions on all planes – physical, mental and moral. The law by which the individual progresses towards Moksha or spiritual liberation is the Karma or action in the sense of cause –effect and their intimate relationships. The Karma doctrine in a way is akin to Newton’s third law of motion that action and reaction are equal and opposite; but applied to moral and mental realms of life. Whatsoever we are reaping today, we have sown in the past may be in this life or in the life or lives previous. The man who suffers the effects is the man who generates the effects. if I think ill of others, I generates evil karma and I have to suffer the consequences of this evil karma. Therefore by controlling my thoughts I can regulate my Karma also. Karma is thus antithesis of Fatalism. There is blue print of my future in this birth as a consequence of my action – good, bad and indifferent- done in the past lives and my horoscope just reveals what these consequences would be.
While the horoscope indicates past Karma – the Prarabdha or the operative portion of the Karma being our destiny in this life, the expression of these indications as events would follow certain sequence in accordance with the movements of planets. Thus if as a result of past karma one is to lose one’s child in his 45 th year, in the horoscope of such a person, there would be a certain grouping of planets indicating the event. It is not the view of Vedic sages that the sun, the planets and the stars are just dead matters rushing about under the pull of blind forces.
The sages viewed astrology as a quest for verifiable knowledge. They were not primitive men merely conscious of the lure of the heavenly bodies as some of the modern educated ignoramuses think.
Vedic astrology does not much concern itself with the description of general character even though behavior-patterns and mental abnormalities are pointed out on the basis of soil –lunar relations. It concerns it self more with the delineation of future and predicting events.