BPHS Ch.24 — 10th Lord in Houses 10–12: Harsha+Sarala Yoga = Master of All Work + Truthful (10H), Wealthy Family + Cheerful + Business Indicator (11H), Skillful but Anxious/Unconfident (12H) & Free Will vs Destiny: Natal = Pre-Birth Karma, Current Action = Completely Yours

BPHS Chapter 24 — 10th Lord in the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Houses

10th Lord in 10th House

Results in the verse: sarva-karma-paṭu (excels in every kind of work); sukhī (happy); vikramī (bold); satya-vaktā (truthful speaker); guru-bhakti-rata (devoted to gurus and elders).

• Excels in all work: the 10th house of work is strong, so he does many things in society and does them well. "He is a master of all, as opposed to jack of all." From the 5th house of skills and talent he is the 6th lord in the 6th — Harṣa yoga, an upachaya lord in an upachaya. He keeps accumulating new skills.
• Happy: from the 4th house of sukha he is the 7th lord in the 7th. For any house, the house itself and its 7th both matter — one inherent, one outgoing. The 4th is fortified.
• Bold: from the 3rd house of valour he is the 8th lord in the 8th — Sarala yoga. Straightforward in boldness. He does not think much; he jumps in.
• Truthful speaker: from the 2nd house of speech he is the 9th lord in the 9th — dharma in his speech. From the 9th he is the 2nd lord in the 2nd — he speaks for dharma.
• Devoted to gurus and elders: the 9th shows gurus and elders and how you deal with them. He sits in the 2nd from the 9th with argala on it, sustaining dharma. His dharma is of a high order.

10th Lord in 11th House

Results in the verse: dhana-suta-anvita (wealth and children); harṣavān (cheerful); guṇavān (has good qualities); satya-vaktā (truthful); sadā sukhī (always happy).

• Wealth and family: the house of gains holds the 10th lord. From the 2nd house of wealth and family he is the 9th lord in the 10th. For any house, a koṇa lord in a kendra or a kendra lord in a koṇa makes that house flourish. So the 2nd flourishes: children, wife, brothers — the whole extended family is well, and wealth with it.
• Cheerful: a kendra lord aspects a koṇa. From the 11th he aspects the 5th and so links the 5th (emotional stability) with the 10th (work). He does work that fulfils him emotionally. Cheerful, optimistic.
• Guṇavān: literally "having qualities" — virtues, or skills. Nothing special happens from the 9th, so read it as skills. He has argala on lagna: the planet whose agenda is his work in society shapes his basic personality, so the personality carries qualities that suit the work. He also aspects the 5th, the house of skills and abilities.
• Truthful: from the 2nd house of speech the 9th lord of dharma is in the 10th. His speech is powerful and carries dharma.
• Business: a student notes the 10th–11th link is the business combination. Agreed, though Parāśara does not say it: the last of the artha trikoṇa and the last of the kāma trikoṇa are tied together.
• "Always happy" needs care: from the 4th he is the 7th lord in the 8th — not a good placement. The 4th belongs to the mokṣa trikoṇa and comes at the end of the 3rd: the comfort of "I am done, now I can relax". The 5th belongs to the dharma trikoṇa: emotions that are stable. With the 10th lord in the 11th the man is very active — a businessman or the like — and does not get the 4th-house kind of comfort. He gets the peace of a stable mind, because the 10th lord aspects the 5th and has argala on lagna, the seed of the personality.

"He is a happy person, but he is not enjoying comforts of life like other people may want to."

10th Lord in 12th House

Results in the verse: expenses at the rāja-gṛha (on account of the king); constant fear from enemies; skilful, yet worried.

• Expenses: the 10th is honour and recognition in society; its lord is in the 12th of loss. He has to spend to do what he has to do. "On account of the king" can be taxes or fines paid to the government, money given to the ruler, spending on royal luxuries such as building a palace, or plain expenses on account of one's work. The exact sense of rāja-gṛha can be debated; heavy expenditure because of his work is the bottom line.
• Fear of enemies: from the 6th house of enemies he is the 5th lord in the 7th of interactions. He is always dealing with enemies — talking to them, meeting them. He may or may not be afraid; the dealings are unpleasant, and that is why the verse says fear.
• Skilful but not confident: from the 5th house of skills he is the 6th lord in the 8th — a viparīta rāja yoga with respect to the 5th. He has the skills, and may get new ones unexpectedly, but the 6th of growth of skill is in the 8th of termination. Confidence is lacking.
• A student asks about valour: from the 3rd he is the 8th lord in the 10th. The 10th from the 3rd is putting valour into action. The initiative is there; in carrying it out it fizzles.
• Together: enemies always knocking on the door, and a man short of confidence. So he is afraid of enemies, and worried in spite of his skill.

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Free Will vs Destiny

This came up in the middle of the chart reading in Part 4. The 10th lord in the 8th had just been read as "a rocky career, or a man who works hard" — two outcomes from one combination — and the teacher stopped to say why astrology cannot be narrower than that.

What the horoscope holds

• You cannot say "this combination means exactly this". The chart gives a set of possibilities; which one comes depends on the course of action taken.
• Sometimes the combinations are so bad that there is almost no choice. Even then, a man who thinks straight finds options. Because of fate the mind is attached to a few options and sees only those. He is pushed in a direction and goes with the momentum.
• Free will is stopping, seeing what else is there, and steering away.
• "Free will is 35%, destiny 65%" is nonsense. The two cannot be put on one scale: one is the restriction created by what you did before, the other is what you do now to get out of it.
• "Free will is seen in the horoscope" is also wrong. All actions up to birth fixed the circumstances of this life, and those are coded as the horoscope. What the native has done in the twenty-odd years since modifies the destiny. Destiny is not a single number that is strengthened or weakened; it has many dimensions. Those actions will show in the next life's horoscope. This one has no way to know them.
• New actions are often predictable. The chart may show an actor in the company of beautiful women. Whether he resists or falls is free will, but in those circumstances a fall is likely.

"Your previous actions decide current circumstances, but your current actions are completely in your hand. But unfortunately for many people, even though they are completely in their hand, they may be doing what the circumstances basically suggest them to do without looking at the other options."

• Go with the flow, and the flow decides where you go next. Then life is to a large extent predetermined.

How to act

• A talk by the Śṛṅgeri Śaṅkarācārya is cited: past karma is gataṁ gataḥ — gone. Nothing can be done about it, and in his view it cannot be known accurately either. The teacher's own view: it can be known to some extent, not accurately, because the knowledge is lost or corrupted.
• Past actions are out of your control; current actions are in it. Use the individual will to free yourself instead of getting more entangled. That is the crux of spirituality.
• Right action reduces the debt without creating new debt. But a right action done with "I am doing" still generates karma; the stronger the pride and identification, the stronger the karma.
• Acting with no sense of doership is possible only for a jīvanmukta, who sees his own body as one person among others.
• For everyone else: do what your best judgment and intuition say is right. The moment it is done, say Kṛṣṇārpaṇam — give it to Krishna — and move on to what must be done next.
• Attachment does not end with the act. "I fed him and he did not thank me. I gave a hundred dollars every month for ten years; that man gave ten dollars today and gets the thanks." Brooding over actions and results continues the attachment and strengthens the reaction.
• If you take it back whenever you want to talk about it, you never gave it. Hand someone a phone and take it back each time you need a call — you have not given the phone.
• Put all your intellect into the present action. Not analysing the past and not worrying about the future limits the attachment being created. This does not take the tiger off your back, but it starves the tiger.
• The starting point is to accept that there is an individual ego with a will, and that it is responsible for its actions. "God did not bless me with a good horoscope" as an excuse for wrong action earns another bad chart. What chart you have is not in your control; what you do to correct it is.
• This is why Vivekananda called astrology something for the weak-minded. Many spiritual people have no interest in destiny because nothing can be done about it. They see destiny and free will as one continuum, and studying destiny as looking at the past instead of the present. For one whose goal is to get out, that is a valid view.

Prasna vs natal chart

• The natal chart has the karma up to birth only. It has clearer formulas for how that karma plays out in this life.
• Prasna is less scientific but holds more information: the force of all action up to the moment of the question, including what was done after birth. It still does not say how free will is going to be used now.
• Praśna Mārga, as quoted in the class: if the horoscope shows good planets and good daśās but the prasna shows bad ones, the native has good karma too, but bad karma — perhaps done after birth — is giving its results now.
• "Prasna is God answering you, and he answers on the knowledge up to now."

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