The world is full of discrimination: race, religion, gender, and political views separate people from each other.

Even though those are the dark side of discrimination, establishing healthy boundaries and melting them are part of the human path. There are times when we need to differentiate ourselves from others in order to recognize who we are and build specific qualities of our personality, and times when we need to soften or evaporate our boundaries to identify less with our personality and history.

The normal and healthy boundaries we all need in order to develop our unique human qualities can transform into racism and intolerance when the ego wants power over others. An insecure personality wants to humiliate others in order not to reveal its own weakness and pretended personality.

Some readers might recognize intolerance and acceptance as the Virgo and Pisces dialectic; opposite but complementary signs of the zodiac. Virgo is the master of separation and discrimination while Pisces is the sign of collectivism and of vanishing boundaries.

Is not that Virgo is “bad” because separates and Pisces is “good” because unites. They both need each other and are complementary.

A real and authentic personality usually isn't afraid to lose his nature when comes in touch with different people. Strong, genuine and real qualities can't be lost. On the other side, a personality based on a fake egotistic self-image is going to vigorously cling to the illusions of the ego. Sensing that there's nothing real behind it, it depends on the fake illusion and defends the constructed self-image of the ego, becoming intolerant.

Pisces' traits aren't connected with a strong personality. In fact, Pisces (and Neptune) conveys a melting non-boundaries quality, which is connected to letting go of our ego in spiritual accomplishments, or, on the other side of the spectrum, losing ourselves in a mental disease or through drugs.

Spiritually speaking, we can let go of our ego when we have a real self. The fake self-image is not real and will never be abandoned by the ego. The ego will cling onto it.

In astrology the opposites are also complementary. Virgo establishes boundaries by a detailed discrimination between things and people, and by building structures. Then the opposite sign, Pisces, softens those structures by fusing together what was separated by Virgo.

Racism, religious integralism, and political fanaticism come from unresolved issues about our identity and boundaries. When we struggle to defend our identity through aggressively separating from others or even attacking them, our true identity is not there. A substantial personality built by human qualities and cemented by awareness doesn't feel threatened by differences. For them diversity becomes enrichment.

Astrologically, the roots of discrimination are more complex than the Virgo-Pisces axis. They involve the Sun for his connection to the personality and the ego, the Moon as a compassionate and caring planet, Venus because love can travel across differences, Saturn for his potentially intolerant and inflexible qualities, and Mars and Pluto for their conflicting nature.

Also, implicated are the 1st house as the external appearance, the 6th house because of the connection about roles and hierarchies, the 7th house as the house of the “other”, the 3rd and 9th houses as communication and mutual understanding. Further more, the 11th and 12th houses are connected to friends and the mystical “oneness with all” experience.

Square or opposition aspects between those planets and houses stiffen the separating ego. If we don't become aware of the roots of our intolerance as a defence of our ego, we are going to become intolerant by blaming and accusing others.

Many astrological elements of a person concur to set intolerance or tolerance. As usual, we need a detailed analysis of the chart to portrait the person and their qualities, and an accurate valuation of every single planet, house, sign and aspect.

I'm glad 12andus' users come from more than 70 countries with different social statuses, skin colors, religions and life histories.

If we open the view a bit more we can perceive that after all we all live under the same sky (and are connected to the same planets and constellations). While everybody is unique and different, nobody is actually "other".