Hortensia de los Santos

Labeling & Choice — An Advaita Lens on Destiny

This study begins with a simple tension: people label each other — by star, caste, nation, tribe — and then live as if the label were fate. Advaita Vedānta offers another reading: tendencies are real, but the self is not a prisoner. What we do with a pattern matters more than the pattern itself.

Anchor example. A Chinese-zodiac reading says: “Rat is prone to stomach illness and may die from it.” Taken as destiny, that’s a sentence. Taken as information, it’s guidance: eat carefully, protect digestion, and the “destiny” is defused. Karma as momentum, not an iron cage.

From Horoscope Label to Lived Choice

“You are a Rat, prone to stomach trouble; this is how you’ll die.”

Response: adopt a strict, intelligent diet; track triggers; strengthen the gut. The forecast becomes a map, not a wall.

Everyday truth (vyavahārika)

Habits and discipline change outcomes. Risk ≠ inevitability.

Ultimate truth (pāramārthika)

The Atman is never bound by horoscope or body. The label never reached the Self.

Forecasts ≈ weather: storms can be real, umbrellas still work.

The Thesis

Labels simplify reality. They soothe our fear of uncertainty by pretending the future is fixed. Advaita keeps the paradox intact: the world shows patterns (karma), and yet freedom operates within them (purushakāra, deliberate effort). This study follows that thread from horoscopes to national and religious labels.

What labels do

Compress a person into a trait.
Swap responsibility for fatalism.
Create in-groups/out-groups.

How to meet them

Treat labels as signals, not sentences.
Act where you have leverage (diet, practice, study, service).
Remember the Self is larger than any map.

Introduction

This inquiry began with an earlier study on those born in the Year of the Snake. In that work, the Snake was described as a figure of strategy, calculation, even manipulation. The label fit historical moments such as the French Revolution, and it shaped the way I looked at the sign. Yet the study also stirred personal ripples within my own family.

I do not withdraw what was written. The symbols and stories of the zodiac still carry patterns that many recognize. But this time the question is different: what happens when labels — whether “snake,” “rat,” “untouchable,” or “foreigner” — begin to harden into destiny? Can we see them as signals rather than sentences? Can we learn how labels wound, and how they might be turned toward dignity instead?

This page widens the lens. From zodiac predictions to caste, race, religion, and nation, the thread is the same: names are given, and people live as though the names were fate. Here we ask how far that power truly reaches — and how it can be unmade.

Where This Study Goes Next

Doctrine → Practice: from destiny talk to everyday labeling (horoscopes, castes, national “character”).
Case Studies: astrology labels; national stereotypes; religious labels (chosen/damned); modern psych labels (MBTI, Enneagram) as secular zodiacs.
Harms & Uses: when labels help (navigation, community) vs when they wound (prejudice, fatalism).
Method of Freedom: practical ways to turn labels into guidance (like the diet example) without giving them power.

Labeling as a Weapon in Human History

A label shrinks a person to a single word. Once reduced, they’re easy to sort, fear, and use. The labeler’s ego swells; the labeled are pushed outside the circle of care. Power likes it that way.

The Basic Mechanism

Reduce complex lives to one trait (race, religion, caste, class, nation).
Divide into us vs them and claim superiority.
Justify harm as “order,” “purity,” “security,” or “God’s will.”

The Ego Function

To call another “less” is to feel oneself “more.”
Leaders inflate the collective ego: “chosen nation,” “pure race,” “true believers.”
Ego + fear = permission for cruelty.

Historical Uses (pattern, not an exhaustive list)

Slavery

People labeled “primitive,” “property,” “fit for labor.” The word erased the person and paved the economy.

Colonialism

Whole nations named “backward” or “child races.” Theft dressed up as “civilizing.”

Religious Persecution

“Infidel,” “heretic,” “witch.” Violence reframed as virtue and purification.

Racial Ideologies

“Aryan” vs “Untermensch,” eugenics charts, blood laws. Pseudo-science to sanctify genocide.

Caste & Class

“Untouchable,” “serf,” “peasant.” Labels engineered to freeze inequality in place.

Gender & Sexuality

“Hysterical,” “deviant,” “unnatural.” Control the body by controlling the name.

Modern Echoes

“Illegals,” “terrorists,” “vermin,” “cockroaches” — dehumanizing shorthand before policy or war.
Algorithmic labels: credit scores, risk tiers, “undesirable” demographics — math as a new oracle.
Soft labels: personality codes and pop-psych boxes used to hire, fire, or gatekeep.

Takeaway. Labels aren’t neutral. They simplify uncertainty and hand advantage to the namer. When a label turns a neighbor into a category, harm becomes “reasonable.”

Counter-Practice (Advaita-aligned)

Name the use: ask who benefits from this label and what it authorizes.
Refuse reduction: treat labels as signals, not sentences; look for the person behind the word.
Act where you have leverage: change policy, language, and daily habits that reward reduction.
Remember the Self: the Atman isn’t captured by any category; neither is your neighbor.

Sources & Notes

Biblical and Qur’anic injunctions against idolatry and division, later used to justify or resist labeling.
Historical accounts: Nazi propaganda posters; colonial travelogues describing “savages.”
Modern echoes: UN reports on hate-speech labeling (e.g., Rwanda “cockroach” rhetoric).
Scholarly works: Hannah Arendt on totalitarianism; Frantz Fanon on colonial labels; Simone de Beauvoir on gender as “Other.”

The Psychology of Labels

Labels work not just because leaders decree them, but because the human mind craves shortcuts. To sort the world quickly, we compress people into categories. That efficiency comes at a cost.

Cognitive Shortcuts

Our brains bundle complexity into schemas — stereotypes that save time.
Once a category is formed, evidence that contradicts it is ignored.
Fear and stress amplify this impulse: the stranger is reduced to “enemy.”

In-Group / Out-Group

Belonging feels safer when boundaries are sharp.
“We” are seen as varied and human; “they” are flattened and uniform.
The label feeds ego: we are more, they are less.

From Stigma to Dignity: Gandhi’s Move

In India, those at the bottom of the caste ladder bore the crushing label “untouchable.” A word that turned millions into a polluted class. Gandhi refused the term. Instead, he called them Harijan — “children of God.”

The shift did not erase centuries of injustice, but it cracked the logic of the label. What had been a word of shame became, at least in part, a word of dignity.

“You cannot call them untouchable. They are God’s people.” — Gandhi

This was not just semantics. It was psychological judo: taking the power of the label and flipping its energy. The stigma lost some of its sting. A label meant to divide became a call to recognize common humanity.

Takeaway. Labeling is baked into the mind. But labels can be twisted: what is used to wound can be reclaimed to heal. Gandhi’s act shows that words can be tools of freedom, not just cages.

Beyond Labels

Labels help us navigate the marketplace of the world. They also keep us trapped in it. The work of healing is not perfecting labels, but seeing through them.

The Root Problem

Separateness feels real. Ego seeks to be “more than” someone else.
Labels are tools of the ego. They sort, rank, and justify.
Reforms help, but new labels grow back unless the root is touched.

Advaita’s Pointing

Atman is not divided; the Self in me is the Self in you.
Names belong to vyavahāra (the practical world), not to ultimate truth.
Seeing clearly (viveka) loosens the spell of names and roles.

Practice: From Name to Knowing

Pause the Reflex — Notice the instant naming (“they are X”). Breathe before believing it.
Look for the Person — Ask: what detail here refuses the label? Let complexity back in.
Act Where You Stand — Choose one behavior that withdraws fuel from labeling (language, policy, habit).
Remember the Self — Hold the quiet truth: the one who is seen and the one who is seeing are not-two.

“When the name falls away, the neighbor returns.”

Conclusion. We can fight harmful labels, even flip them toward dignity. But the lasting cure is recognition: the Self is not a category. Let names serve where they must — then let them go.

Interlude — Mary Magdalene Hears the Mother Creator

In this novel fragment, Mary Magdalene becomes the witness and vessel of a revelation from the Mother Creator. The scene counters the inherited label “Father” with a female divine, and questions the primacy of “the Word” itself.

She gathered herself — not thinking, but feeling; one with stone and trees, breath moving with the dusk. The world hushed, or something more wondrous opened. The sky parted. Stars leaned close. She was Sophia, and she was all that watched.

A voice shook her: “Hear me, daughter. Keep this in your heart, and tell multitudes.”

“Before the Word was the Will. Will, moved by Energy, gave shape to vibration. Space opened; where waves slowed, matter coalesced. From that, worlds and life appeared.

At first creatures spoke without words — posture, scent, movement. Language came later. It served, then it hid: masking feeling, teaching the lie, compelling the many. Remember: power sits not in the speaker but in the listener. Freedom begins when the heart refuses to give the word its crown.”

What this scene does

Relabels the Divine: from “Father” to Mother Creator, showing how names steer theology and social order.
Recasts Mary Magdalene: not the labeled “fallen woman,” but a first witness and teacher.
Dethrones “the Word”: places Will and Energy before language, undercutting the authority of labels.

Why it belongs in this study

Shows how a single name (“Father,” “Chosen,” “Infidel”) can organize centuries of power.
Makes the core thesis tangible: labels are tools; belief gives them force.
Bridges to practice: if belief empowers words, then awareness can withdraw that power.

Commentary. The passage argues that words create social facts only when we submit to them. In a labeling world — race, caste, nation, creed — the act of not granting the label its crown is a spiritual and political move at once. In Advaita terms: tendencies are real, but the Self is not their prisoner.

You can read the novel A Forgotten Love Story

Labeling as a Weapon in Human History

A label shrinks a person to a single word. Once reduced, they’re easy to sort, fear, and use. The labeler’s ego swells; the labeled are pushed outside the circle of care.

The Basic Mechanism

Reduce complex lives to one trait (race, religion, caste, class, nation).
Divide into us vs them and claim superiority.
Justify harm as “order,” “purity,” “security,” or “God’s will.”

The Ego Function

To call another “less” is to feel oneself “more.”
Leaders inflate the collective ego: “chosen nation,” “pure race,” “true believers.”
Ego plus fear gives permission for cruelty.

Historical Uses (pattern, not exhaustive)

Slavery: people labeled “primitive,” “property,” “fit for labor.”
Colonialism: nations named “backward” or “child races,” theft dressed as “civilizing.”
Religious persecution: “infidel,” “heretic,” “witch” — violence framed as purification.
Racial ideologies: “Aryan” vs “Untermensch,” eugenics charts, blood laws.
Caste and class: “untouchable,” “serf,” “peasant” — inequality frozen by names.
Gender and sexuality: “hysterical,” “deviant,” “unnatural.”

Modern Echoes

“Illegals,” “terrorists,” “vermin,” “cockroaches” — dehumanizing shorthand before policy or war.
Algorithmic labels: credit scores, risk tiers, “undesirable” demographics.
Soft labels: personality codes and pop-psych boxes used to hire, fire, or gatekeep.

Takeaway. Labels aren’t neutral. They simplify uncertainty and hand advantage to the namer. When a label turns a neighbor into a category, harm becomes “reasonable.”

Counter-Practice (Advaita-aligned)

Name the use: ask who benefits from this label and what it authorizes.
Refuse reduction: treat labels as signals, not sentences; look for the person behind the word.
Act where you have leverage: change policy, language, and daily habits that reward reduction.
Remember the Self: the Atman isn’t captured by any category; neither is your neighbor.

“Before the Word was the Will. And Will was powered by Energy.”

“Power sits not in the speaker but in the listener.”

“Freedom begins when the heart refuses to give the word its crown.”

Conclusion

Labels follow us through history: zodiac signs, castes, races, classes, nations, genders, psych codes. They promise order but often deliver chains. To be named “snake” or “rat” can be playful in one setting, crushing in another. To be called “untouchable,” “enemy,” or “alien” can mark whole lives for exclusion.

Advaita Vedānta points to a deeper freedom. Patterns exist; karma has weight. But the Self is not captured by any label. A Rat may choose health, an “untouchable” may claim dignity, a so-called “enemy” may live as friend. What is said need not decide what is lived.

The task is double: resist harmful labels in the practical world, and remember in the quiet center that no word ever reached the Self. In that recognition, the power of the word fades, and the neighbor returns. What began as a study on the Snake becomes, in the end, a study on freedom.