What is Vedic Astrology - is it science or is it fiction?

Vedic Astrology is a mechanism through which an individual can try to comprehend herself. Its a mirror, but not really a mirror as the mirror only shows the present as is. A mirror cannot reveal the face when you were a baby nor can it show your face when your going to be old. A mirror can show only your present face. Vedic astrology is a science which can show you, your past, your present and your future. Knowing the future does not mean the events predicted are mandatory. There is always a free will component with which one can alter one's course. Now that being said it depends on the karmic degree of that event, if its too strong, it may require a tremendous inner personality change to alter it, whereas if its a weak event, it can be offset with correct application of certain knowledge. Sometimes certain lessons are best not to be avoided, as its intended to make you transform faster.

Discussions on which events have a free will component and which are strongly karmic is a separate discussion topic which I will take up in some future blogging.

How to use Vedic astrology? Now that is the million dollar question. Do I hunt for so called astrologers, pundits who claim so much information and pay them heavily so that they can answer my questions? Can they really answer my questions?

Let me explain this with a simple example.  Everyone and anyone can understand Newton's law of physics, or the laws of thermodynamics, and try to apply it to their experiments. Everyone can bi-heart Newton's law of physics and the laws of thermodynamics and try to apply it to their experiments. How can one really know if the said person has "Truly" understood the functioning of Newton's law of physics or the laws of thermodynamics or even the circumstances that led Newton in discovering them so that they can for sure apply it to their experiments successfully?

Laws of Vedic Astrology have been compiled with time. With a lot of R&D a lot of postulates have been written. Any basic Astrology book is going to cover the laws. Everyone can read it, Everyone can bi-heart it and claim to be an astrologer, but very few can actually use it appropriately and come up with the correct answers. To make matters complex let me tell you a fact. Only YOU can answer your OWN questions. Yes, YOU are your best astrologer. YOU know your life, YOU know yourself, YOU are the best judge of your own horoscope. Why? Because studying a natal chart requires intuition and self knowledge. Only YOU can have the best knowledge of yourself. So I would strongly encourage an individual to start reading the fundamentals of Vedic astrology and apply it to their own native charts to answer whatever questions they have in their mind. Of course its a time consuming process but let me assure you, its absolutely worth it. There is no need to consult any external astrologer and pay them hundreds of dollars for analyzing your own chart. Saying this, sometimes others can work for you intuitively. So you will have to identify such a person who has the capacity to analyze for you. Its almost like a master - disciple relationship if that happens.

Life in this realm, we are bound by the forces of nature that surround us. Our time of birth (sometimes birth time corrections are necessary due to unplanned c-sections) is an entry point into this state machine of existence. We record the planetary positions of the 7 planets closest to the Earth, along with the 2 shadow planets Rahu and Ketu. We also record the current constellation that the moon is in. That would be the birth star.  A day comprising of 24hrs is divided into 2hr periods called the lagnam. Lagna  is a sanskrit word literally meaning "Physical body". Why is it 2hrs. Simple. 24/12 = 2. There are 12 constellations that cover 360 degrees of space, hence each constellation occupying 30 degrees.
Lagnam is the 1st house in the natal chart, and it represents the native's physical body, its attributes and the physical personality. Its no surprise its the 1st house as we are but the body. So it has to be the first.
Next the Rashi happens to be where the MOON is placed at the time of birth. So these two houses, Lagna and Rashi are pivotal in establishing a native's chart. All planetary positions are marked in reference to these two. Sometimes MOON can be placed in the Lagna, which means the Rashi and Lagna overlap. It makes the life of the Astrologer easier as studying the chart is only half the effort.
Ofcourse Moon in lagna has its own pros and cons, yet again everything has its own pro's and cons.

The incarnating soul comes up with certain minimal life experience for the present birth. That selection depends on its own progression. Its like a school syllabus wherein we choose all electives, but of course some mandatory courses do come in your way. So we select our own life syllabus, and the family environment that is best suited to study the chosen syllabus. Once again these are too general. Some souls are bound by ancestry, some to other individual souls as parents, but the fundamental fact is we select our parents and our childhood. We really do not select our siblings, but the experience obtained from siblings are part of the minimal life experience one has chosen, for example one could be a sibling of the american president, or one could just be a sibling of a physically/mentally challenged.

Anyhow the time of birth is chosen based on the previous requirement, and hence the native's birth chart is actually self created. Since we don't have a conscious memory of life between human births and even past births, we need the native chart to understand from our present consciousness about our own past. So this is a way a soul actually leaves a record of itself, an encrypted database if you may think, presented as a gift at the time of your birth, for you to decipher yourself. Your native chart is your key to your subconscious and your life experience unto that point of your birth, plus key lessons that you have chosen for yourself in the present birth.

Rahu Ketu's vicious circle?

Lets consider the mathematical coordinate system to determine the position of a given object at a particular instance of time. It is simply represented as a function of (x,y,z,t).

X,Y and Z represent the three physical planes that are  limited by our physical body, as a function of time.

At any given time T, one can accurately state that an object is at a location represented by (X,Y, Z). (excluding quantum mechanics)


Now similar to this example, a native's physical, mental and emotional nature can be ascertained by Vedic astrology. Its a technique to look into the past, look at the present and try to see into the future.

We use the nine planets, we use the 12 constellations. Not that they have a direct influence on the native, but as a means of looking into one's existence.

Lets consider the game of Chess. We use pawns along with a bunch of other coins, wherein we define that the queen can move in a particular way, the horse can move in some other way, the king being the most powerful ruler, hops but one step at a time. So these are just rules made to form the game of chess. Nobody questions, why should the King is so weak? Or why do pawns cross each other paths?

Same is the case with Vedic astrology, we form certain attributes to the nine planets, and the 12 constellations, of course they are not random assignments like Venus = wealth and jupiter = brains. They have evolved with some R&D.

Anyhow coming back to the main topic of this blog, Rahu/Ketu Analysis.

Lets look at the mythological story,  a demon asura, who is forbidden of immortality, disguises himself as an apsara, joins the line of the holy devas, and tricks the universal system into drinking a portion of the "eternal nectar".  Now the devas angered by this heretic act, convince lord Vishu into beheading him, so that the head and the body don't ever come together, but eternally circle the universe in an anti clockwise direction.  The demon's head and body are in a constant force to somehow unite but are set apart exactly 180 degrees, rotating in the same direction. Hmm..a very interesting story.

Lets go back to science, opposite magnetic poles attract, same poles repel. Unlike charges attract, like charges repel (electricity). A potential difference of high and low causes current to flow. So seems like opposites do attract, what is absent is what we are after. This is true at the atom level unto all the way to desire. We want what we don't have. So its pretty no brainer that the severed head is after the body and the severed body is after its head, in an eternal quest. Unfortunately they would never meet as they are placed that way.

So the first hypothesis is, Rahu attracts Ketu, and ketu attracts Rahu. The one without the other does not exist. Ketu is the representation of body without the head, and Rahu the representation of head without the body. So Rahu has brains but no material, Ketu has material but no brains. This intern means Rahu is constantly working on getting more material, ketu is working on getting more knowledge/wisdom.

This is exactly why in Vedic astrology, we say Rahu attracts wealth which in turn buys material, so a well placed Rahu will attract immense wealth (Rajinikanth) and a well placed Ketu would make a buddha out of you. But Ketu gives negative experience for one to learn, lessons that are tough, make you mentally tougher end of the day. Some even say Ketu in house -12 could be one's last birth on this material planet. The soul would evolve to a level that does not need any more human birth for this ascension.

Our human body, we all are already Rahu and Ketu but not yet severed. Why do I make this point?
Think about it, we all live in our heads, our body is neglected in comparison to our head. We think with our heads, intact 4 out of the 5 sensory organs are located on the head. Our body is just for our hands and legs. So how much one is separated from one's mind and body is actually represented by the position of Rahu/Ketu in the native's chart at the time of her birth.

Questions on time of birth, why one is born with the said jyothisha attributes, and past life crystallizations that are carried forward to the present birth will be covered in the next blog.

 First of all Rahu/Ketu are not physical planets, so they are scientifically the north and south pole of the moon. The universe should have a limit for us to study, we cannot study the infinite, so what we do is to make finite portions of the infinite and study part of it, its like mathematical integration. We take parts at a time, build a postulate, integrate it with the next part and so on. We are also bound by time, although once again time is infinite, we are but exposed to a finite portion of it, which is our lifetime. This small timeslice that we experience, on this finite portion of the infinite universe, we seek conscious and material evolvement. It is said the source of imperfection is Rahu/Ketu. If Rahu/Ketu are not in a native's chart it means that native is actually not in human form.

So coming back to Jyothisa, positions of gochara Rahu/Ketu and Rahu/Ketu positions at time of native's birth indicate current mental/material evolvement of the native and the initial mental/material evolvement of the native respectively. With awareness a bad positioning of Rahu/Ketu can be overcome. By taking some corrective measures and moving within oneself, negative lessons of Rahu/Ketu can be weathered like we weather a hurricane. No position is good or bad, its all but lessons chosen by us.

More in the next blog.