By Kshitij Sharma, August 31, 2005
Your birth chart is the story of your life. Each house in this birth chart describes a portion of this story. It tells about your own self, family, spouse, work/vocation, children and most importantly – artha, dharma, kama, and moksha.Houses in a horoscopes are areas of influence. To take examples from a typical Indian movie – these are like plot and sub-plots with planets acting like good guys and planets acting like bad guys. Good guys make thing happen, bad guys bring despair.
Though very very easily said than done, the entire trick in astrology is:
- Understanding the plot well,
- Finding out which planets play a part in this plot,
- Deciding who is a good guy and who is a bad guy,
- Finding out how strongly these planets influence the plot and
- Most importantly, when each of the characters would come into play – i.e. exert their influence. This is nothing but predicting the future.
Benefic planets (e.g. Venus, Jupiter) are good guys by default. Similarly planets like Saturn, Rahu are always inclined to do bad. Some planets like Moon, Mercury are gullible. Mars and Sun make for heros with an angry young man attitude. The lord of a house is the hero of the plot. It would always do good, even if it is a bad guy for the rest of the story. Somewhat like a villain who does good comedy, but is evil nonetheless. Planets which are friendly to the lord are naturally on its side. Planets which are lord of 6th, 8th or 12th house from the house in question are no good.
The strength of these characters matters. Our hero, who we expect to do good, may be in distress. It may be surrounded by, overpowered by evil. It may not deliver when its chance comes. In other situation, a bad guy reformed by angels like Jupiter may do much less harm than if it were acting alone.
Sometimes, these planets team up and create yogas. Their combined energy is at times so powerful that it pretty much takes the plot away from the rest of the players. The individual, with such combination, is said to be under influence of such a yoga. Good planets give power – raj yoga, wealth – dhana yoga, name/fame – mahapurusha yoga. Bad guys can also gang up and hijack the plot causing daridra yoga, daruna yoga (combinations for poverty) etc.
Where is differs from a movie is that we, as individuals, are not captive audiences. We can take part in this play and influence it. That we are masters of our own destiny is not empty talk. If we feel that there is a problem, we can act to rectify it, or control it. We may not be able to change the plot altogether, but we can definitely give a direction to it.
I could have gone on and on and on, but I have run out of smilies and metaphors 🙂 I will leave you at this point with your thoughts and hope you will get back to me if you can think of something else to add here. Till then, take very good care of yourself.
By Kshitij Sharma, August 31, 2005
I was talking to an American friend of mine and the topic of conversation was why Indians spend so much more time in office compared to their other colleagues. He said that it is because Indians do not have anything else to do in life. They do not have other interests. All they think about and care about is work.While he was not entirely wrong :-), I corrected him and told him about my interest – astrology and how I have a small site, a
chart generation applet, how people like to
match charts before marriage etc.
His remark was kinda weird, even tilting towards derogatory – “Oh, so you are into fortune telling…” Now anyone who has watched informercials on some of the American TV channels must remember the lady from Psychic Hotline, with a strong Jamaican accent and her way of fortune telling with Tarot cards. Lady, if you are reading this blog, please do not get offended, but that is not the image most of the astrologers in India, even students like me, would like to be associated with.
For astrologers, astrology with its prescribed formulae is nothing less than science, very intricately linked with the other precise science – astronomy. For me, astrology is definitely science, but come to think of it, it is much more than that. It is like an art. It is art the same way designing a building is an art, while building construction is a science, like designing the next Apple computer is an art while the underlying electronics and software is science, the same way a computer language is science but good code, that reads like Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry is an art…
Although very easily said then done, the art of deciphering a birth chart is all that is to astrology. And with the wisdom of great sages like Varahamihira, Vyasa, Parashara behind us, it is definitely better than fortune telling
Back in 2001, I wrote a small program for myself to generate charts. I then showed it to some friends and they suggested that I should design a user interface and publish it on the web. So basically the chart maker program is purely a result of a hobby. Why should I charge money for something that I am interested in…Apart from that, I don’t think what I am doing amounts to a great service for which I should be charging money. Continue reading
VEDIC ASTROLOGY