Planets: the Saturn

Saturn is the last of the visible planets. Before Uranus was discovered at the end of the 18th century, Saturn was considered the incarnation of fate, destiny, and was perceived as an evil planet. However, in the 20th century, after the discovery of the Pluto, and, especially, after the Second World War, the astrologers reconsidered their opinion. In particular, the division of planets into evil and good is no longer practised. The fate is now incarnated by the planets of the fourth level - Uranus, Pluto, Neptune. But Saturn remains the planet of karma, and this needs to be examined attentively.

In fact, all the planets in the natal chart influence the karma, but Saturn makes this karma visible. This is why Saturn is so much disliked by the humankind: the road of service to people and evolution is long and hard, while feeding on the meadow of selfishness covered by the flowers of frivolity is so pleasant and joyful!

Saturn represents the principle, opposite to the expansion principle of Jupiter, that is the principle of individuality, self-introspection and inner work. This is neither beneficial nor harmful. When one introspects, emotions can be very different. The bad thing is, when one tries to ignore the principle of a planet, and replaces the functions of this planet with the functions of another planet instead of working on them. For some time it works, not without some distortions in the inner world and outside, but later on the work on the underdeveloped planetary principle goes on in a violent way that outside looks like grief, tragedy and unfairness. In reality, one just pays for the personal laziness and ignorance, and if one is a highly developed individual, then the person pays for the group karma. The naïve perception of the principle of the Saturn is that it puts some limitations on the person by restricting the activities. But the main function of Saturn is that of introspection, and the planet guides the attention of a person in certain directions and appeals to investigate these corners of the inner world of a person and this way examine the world outside and the ways of an integration of a human in it. All the weigh, the limitations, the coldness and other negative sides, traditionally attributed to Saturn, are only the consequence of the lack of desire to direct one's energy inside and explore there and make some constructive changes there. If we do not listen to karma, ignore its plain and quiet hints, then the hand of destiny becomes steel-like. 

As a rule, inner work is much harder, more difficult, important and responsible than the external work. Moreover, external work can be viewed as a result of the inner work that took place. The hard external work signifies bad inner preparatory work. External obstacles are the result of the missed inner obstacles that were not overcome. The outer enemies are only the result of the inner enemies (lower subconscious programs) that have not been worked upon. If life is correct, all external events go smoothly and safely, the obstacles are overcome and battles are won easily and effortlessly, but the initial inner work and battles demand a lot of effort and pain. A person who is surrounded by disharmonious events, simply ignores the inner work and throws the trash out of his soul for the nearest people to absorb. 

Saturn is an essential, slow planet that has a huge power over a human. Saturn works with subconsciousness and very rarely with consciousness. It does not hurry: it works on inner convictions turning them in reflexes, and this demands time: not days or months but years and decades. A man would scream into the face of destiny: "That's enough, please, stop! I got the lesson!" But Saturn does not follow the consciousness, and the return blow continues for a year, two, or five... Saturn teaches obedience, modesty and humility on the essential level, and these qualities are easily modelled mentally rather than worked upon honestly. Moreover, hardly anyone can have honesty enough to distinguish the mentally modelled and socially formed inner manifestations from the essential ones. Saturn doesn't care for your mental defences and personal self-deceit. It works on a deeper level, taking care of the personality and its development (even though we do not admit its existence).

So, what's the inner work? On the lowest level of personal development, when the psyche is not differentiated, and a person has not distinguished himself from the external reality, the major forms of it are the overcoming of physical pain and psychic pain, related to the death of the near and suffering. This suffering always has the karmic sens. But they are only constructive when they come along with the inner humility which helps untying the karmic knots. Then the human, living through the grief, changes inside and evolves. The tentatives to weaken the pain by getting angry with the world, people and God or by putting the pain on the shoulders of the others lead to tightening of the karmic knot and makes this experience useless. The masters of karma regretfully observe the sufferer unwilling to become wiser, and so they shrug their shoulders saying: "We'll have to repeat." Saturn is patient. It manages time and can wait as long as possible. On the next level of personal development the inner work consists of certain reactions to the pricks of conscience. The person begins to observe himself, to develop attention and character, then learns to distinguish the lower subconscious programs and oppose higher programs to them. Further on, the opportunities of the inner work become possible that are highly superior to any of the external ones, although the last ones stay necessary.

On the first level of mastering of Saturn, one totally ignores the hints of destiny and wants to taste the fruit of freedom without any limitations. The level of inner discipline is equal to zero. It is only possible to make one do something only externally, like a schoolboy, who is only able to study being attached to the desk with a thick chain. A person is not able to make any effort on this level, and all the limitations and losses perceives negatively, either by waiting and hiding in a shell, or by fighting and trying to get the missing things, but one is not able to look inside their psyche and change something in the attitude towards the world. On this level of the mastering of Saturn it is characteristic to replace its functions by those of the Mars, which means that instead of accepting the change and limitations and going introspective one starts acting violently, struggling with the destiny. But Saturn, unlike the Sun is a soft, non-imperative and patient planet. It rarely creates dead-end situations and first tries to direct a person to the true way, and at first, and for a long time, makes one choose freely. Sharp pain, hospital bed, invalidity, deep depressions and irreversible losses are all very firm measures that Saturn adheres to very exceptionally. Its first hints are different: loss of interest to the things that seemed interesting before, light pricks of conscience, weak and often indefinite feeling of self-unsatisfaction in the situations that seemed normal before, loss of energy, sadness, boredom. Saturn means to say that all these things must be obtained on a new level, by going deeper inside, by replacing some subconscious programs, extending the essential consciousness, discovering new sources of energy inside and becoming wiser.

On the second level of mastering of Saturn one starts participating in the forming of one's attitude to the destiny. On this level, which is rarely attained before the age of thirty, one perceives the pains of consciousness not as sad obstacles but as indications of personal imperfection and feels at these moments the necessity of inner work. For this level the feeling of responsibility towards the external world is present, the responsibility for one's life, that needs to be lived and not in vain. The essential part of living is viewed as some external accomplishments. As for the inner world, it is primitive so far, one cannot take the inner work seriously, and the influence of the surrounding reality of the social subconscious mind is still important. Never the less, the opportunities for the inner development appear, and they are perceived as the means of making one's life easier. It is on this level that a person begins to work on the inner discipline, concentration, realizes that in some situations he cannot do without them. One notices that the deepest thoughts come to one's mind when one is in an emotionally quiet state. Yet, at this stage, we cannot create this state on purpose, and, more than that, we cannot truly appreciate it. So, the limitation of possibilities happens when one has to find the deepest thought, hardly heard, and we get upset about the things we don't have. But we realize now that we are deprived of them for a reason.

On the third level of mastering of Saturn one goes through qualitative changes. First of all, one starts having the evolutionary perception, the feeling of destiny and the relation to the group. Further on, we discover that our inner state influences the things that we do. It turns out, that in order to accomplish any purposeful action, we must first get the inner permission. Thus, on this level, the existence of inner ethics can be noticed, the ethics that guides us and tells us what to do even when the social ethics has nothing to say. This ethics is much more exact and detailed than that of the society we live in, but it considers the social ethics as well, even if there is a great difference between the personal ethics and the social one. On this level we learn to hear the polyphony of inner voices and to distinguish personal voices from those socially imposed, and we partially can tell the higher ones from the lower ones. In other words, the structure of the mechanism that is called egoism becomes clear. And now the inner work takes a new turn: this isn't just suppression of the lower instincts, including social and biological needs, but conscious study and a deep-down constructive and harmonious rebuilding of the subconscious mind and personal ethics. Now the person feels clearly that excitement and emotional states detach him from the source of inner wisdom, intuition, and exact information, and one feels in a new way the Saturn limitations and depressive, low energy states, when the quiet inner voices of the subconscious mind and super-mind, wise and full of contents, can be heard better. Only on this level a person stops being bored with himself, and is able to tell egoistic, group, social and higher impulses inside which gives the opportunity to work inside the egregore through the channel of connexion with the collective subconsciousness. On this level obstacles are greeted, delays are perceived as the state of immaturity, and the additional opportunity for inner work. 

On the fourth level of mastering of Saturn one can perceive karma so well that he can understand what inner problem he has to solve in order to solve the exterior problem, and vice versa. Now the main work is going on in the inner world of a person while the events of the exterior life are the signs of success and correctness of this inner work, as well as indications to take further directions. It is the level of a high power of realization. There are practically no random events in one's life. The constructive work is going on endlessly, and more in the inner world than outside. But this smaller exterior part makes the impression of a miracle. One can penetrate your soul so deeply as well as problems and the essence of the situation, that his wisdom and shrewdness seem to the one who can appreciate them overcoming all the possible limits. His influence on people and the world is always insignificant, but this impact is so vibrationally high that it can transform the deepest subconscious structures, and is able to untie the most complicated karmic knots, which you will not notice at once. It is the work of a saint of a high rank, whose work is going on inside his soul. Communicating with this person can lead to a momentary enlightenment, or can change something in the manner of perception of the world, and this change will last for many years, working on you and transforming you. On this level, the problems of a person are different from those of the majority of people. In particular, it is very difficult to build relationships with structures of society. Before, saints lived in monasteries or wandered around, but nowadays they have to go to work every day, which is complicated, on the one hand, but, on the other hand, can bring up a lot of humility, patience, modesty - the main virtues of Saturn.

The situation of Saturn is graphically depicted in the engraving "Melancholia" by Durer. For these situations, it is typical to introspect, be thoughtful, have little energy. On the low level of mastering of Saturn the work is going on by forming reflexes, as well as patience, attention, concentration, which is accompanied by a long and boring work in the exterior world on the general background of gray boredom. In family, the situation of Saturn takes place when a child is punished and is sent to the corner of the room, preferably the northern one, for him to think and realize his bad behaviour. Another example is when mother's wrath has spilled over the "scoundrel", and weakened by the educational effort she made, the woman is asking: "Don't you have pity, at least, towards your mother? Do you have conscience?" Strictly speaking, this is a forbidden strike, and the lowest octave of Saturn turns on, leading to phobias, total mistrust, emotional firmness and reserve in adulthood.

In the situations of Saturn a person has a big responsibility, the sens of inner debt is cultivated, or, in the negative case, the lack of responsibility, mistrust, fear of the external world and people. It is important to search for the inner resources inside when the external sources are empty. So, one is very reluctant to do this, because inner work is harder and less pleasant than the external work. 

The Saturn person is very serious on the exterior, reserved and is very often frankly cold. The thing is, the strong Saturn creates a program of a very intense inner work for which the society pays no money and considers this work as unimportant. So, the person is born with serious plans of inner work. For this, one has to learn how to be patient, disciplined, concentrated, and has to work hard using low energy and high vibrations. The circumstances that one perceives as unfair, and the isolation from the society, especially emotional, teach this person to obtain all these qualities. However, the society demands the efforts in the external life, while the karma demands first of all the inner work. Working on how to put accents in the inner and outer reality, one can achieve good results in wisdom, self-possession and the control of other people. But, anyway, this gives one serenity, reserve and the feeling of being a karmic judge, that one can hide, though, to avoid embarrassing the surrounding people.