As our Soul progresses on it's journey through the twelve zodiac signs, the meaning of the Soul keynotes given by the Tibetan become increasingly esoteric and more difficult for us to understand from the level of intellect, or ego-mind.

Such is the case with Virgo. In order to understand the Soul keynote for Virgo we need to have sufficient experience of meditation, to allow us to at least catch a glimpse of our true essence, beyond the thinking mind.

The spiritual path of Virgo is to learn to apply discrimination to thought itself: to determine which thoughts will bear fruit – by leading to higher wisdom and virtuous action, and which thoughts are at best fruitless, and at worst harmful to themselves and others. This is where meditation for purification becomes important. It is Virgo’s job to become a ‘gardener’ of their own mind, discriminating the weeds of negative thinking from the roots of wisdom.

Virgo is also associated with the Virgin, because it is in Virgo that our meditation has the potential to take a leap beyond the thinking mind, and to recognize the pure, 'virgin', heart-essence that exists beyond thought, and within which all thoughts arise. In the first instance, that recognition may only be a glimpse, but it's an important start because it confirms that we are practising correctly, and that our practice, our efforts will bear fruit, and we will be able to reap the harvest in future. These are all the promises of Virgo.

Virgo and Healing

The word “heal” comes from the Old English word haelan, which literally means, “to make whole.” In essence, there is no separation. Our perceived separation is part of an illusion generated by our social conditioning and our brain. The solution is to cultivate our awareness to the point where we can perceive reality as it really is: a complete, whole, and unified ‘hologram’ of intermingled, intertwined, dancing energy and light.

Virgo is deeply associated with somatic awareness (the felt-sense in the body). All earth signs have a capacity for deep body sensing, bringing your awareness deep into the body and understanding the language of the body, and it is through this somatic awareness that Virgo transmutes thoughts into a real, tangible, love that can be expressed out into the world.

This is especially the case when you have Sun in Virgo because the Sun symbolises how you flow prana (or life force) energy. Thoughts are just one expression of prana. When you are engaged in thinking, your pranic energy is being used to form mental concepts. This drains your energy and is not life giving.

When you shift your awareness from thinking to sensing, you increase the flow of prana through your body. This delivers life-force energy to the physical body and is life-giving. This is how yoga works. Once you master this art, Virgo becomes like a Cosmic lightening conductor, able to ground and flow higher spiritual energies onto the planet.

When energy is consciously redirected from thinking to sensing, we become aware of our wholeness, our connection to all that is, and healing happens.

Virgo and Synthesis

In conventional astrology, Virgo is considered a sign of synthesis because it is the sixth sign of the zodiac, which is associated with the number 6, the number of synthesis and balance. It is a sign of service, communication and practicality, which also requires the ability to take in, analyze, and synthesize information. Virgo has an eye for detail and excels at problem solving, which is why it is viewed as a sign of synthesis. Yet as we mentioned above, all this mental activity, uses life-force energy.

In contrast, Esoteric Astrology is about our inner journey. When we turn our attention inwards, through meditation, we can sense the true nature of our own being, beyond mental concepts. If we remain committed to meditative practice, eventually we will recognize our own true nature, which is beyond concepts and is hinted at in the Soul keynote for Virgo:

In the Tibetan tradition, it is customary when someone dies to say prayers that support the Soul's transition through the bardo (the intermediate state between death and re-birth) and guide them towards a beneficial future rebirth.

One of the prayers goes like this:

In this context the 'Mother void' refers to the root intelligence, the Source of all that is, or God, and the 'Son awareness' refers to our invidualized sense of a separate self. The prayer is asking for blessings that that the individual lose any illusory sense of separateness, and return to the wholeness of all that is.

One of the highest teachings in Tibetan Buddhism is the Heart of The Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, sometimes simply called The Heart Sutra, for short. In this text the Buddha gave a teaching to his disciples, that went something like this:

In this context we might think of ’emptiness’ as the void, or Source of all that is: that vast, formless, state of consciousness before form manifests. We could also think of it as God or the Divine.

The Heart Sutra is giving a deep teaching on how forms come into being from the ‘mind of God’, are part of God, and therefore can never really be separate. This is the essence of the keynote for Virgo: that mother, child, God, and matter, are all one.

Our innate heart essence is our true nature. It permeates all forms and yet transcends form. This is the deeper wisdom of Virgo, and is arrived at through somatic awareness - the awareness that the energy of our being - our innate love-wisdom - permeates our physical body and all forms. Through meditation, yoga, and contemplative practices that remove our attention from thinking, it is possible to come to know our own innate heart essence.

Once we recognise the nature of our innate heart essence then we will know on a deeper level the meaning of the Tibetan's keynote for Virgo:

The above post is an excerpt from "Soul Sign Explorations: deeper expeditions into Soul Astrology from Life's Greatest Adventure"