Atmakaraka = I-ness / Ego Sense (Bandhanamokshakaraka: Binds AND Liberates); Houses from AK = Current Spiritual Path (10th=Action, 6th=Service, 5th=Scripture, 8th=Meditation, 12th=Moksha-Ready); 12th from AK = Ishta Devata; JH 7.4: Use True Nodes (NOT Mean Nodes)

Atmakaraka Philosophy — The I-ness

A student asks at the end of the verses: he had understood that only mokṣa and spiritual matters are seen from the AK. Why is Parāśara giving fear from animals and gains?

AK is the king of the nativity

• Parāśara calls the AK the king of the horoscope. If your existence is a kingdom, its king is your sense of "I" — your I-ness, the ego sense of Vedānta.
• You are Brahman, but with a particular self-awareness: "a person who looks like this, who does this". That self-awareness is the AK.
• Lagna is the body. The body is one part of the self-awareness, not the whole ego sense.
• The I-ness makes you do everything else. Think "I am a great astrologer" and you go and teach astrology. Think "I need knowledge" and you pursue knowledge. Whatever you pursue or reject comes from "this is I, this is what I want".

"Ātmakāraka is not just mokṣa."

Why mokṣa is seen from the 12th from AK

• Mokṣa is letting the I-ness go. You become part of Brahman only when the limited I-ness disappears. Even to reach a higher loka, the limited ideas of who you are must go.
• The 12th is the house of giving and letting go. So the 12th from AK is seen for mokṣa.
• But the 12th is one house. The 2nd, 5th, 8th, 9th and all other houses from AK show other sides of the same I-ness. The 12th matters when the I-ness is on the verge of being destroyed. Otherwise the I-ness leads to other things — even to a war in which millions die.

AK gives material results too

• Parāśara gives Mahārāja Yoga: AK and Putrakāraka together, or in the 1st and 5th. It is found in the charts of kings, presidents and prime ministers, not only of sādhus who are called "Mahārāj".
• When the I-ness associates with material things, you get material things. When it associates with God, you get God.
• Parāśara says the AK is the one who binds and the one who liberates. The teacher recalls the term as bandhana-mokṣa-kāraka and adds that this may not be the exact word.

"It is your sense of 'this is I' which binds you. You think this is 'I', then you are limited to that idea. If you somehow succeed in letting that notion disappear, then you are everything."

The strong house from AK shows the path

A student asks whether a strong house from AK shows where the person's interest lies. The teacher agrees, as far as upāsanā (D-20) is concerned.

• Spiritual progress is not only sitting in meditation. Progress is the disappearance, or the limiting, of the I-ness. It can come through serving others, meditation, homam, writing Jyotiṣa books. K.N. Rao's guru told him to do astrology when he did not want to; for him astrology is worship. A scientist lost in a problem, who is humbled and not made proud by what he finds, progresses too.
• Everyone moves toward the 12th in the end, but the focus now may be elsewhere.

• If the 12th is not strong, the I-ness is not ready to be dropped. The person is egoistic. Many who run great āśramas act simple but think "I am doing great work". Their 10th, 6th, 7th or 9th from AK is active, not the 12th. Give the I-ness that work. The conditioning is spent through it, and a few lives later the chart shows a strong 12th.
• The 5th-house scholar knows which āhuti goes with which verse, which mudrā, which bījākṣara. The sense "I have the correct knowledge" may itself be the block. It takes him no closer to mokṣa, but he has to pass through this step.
• It is a good idea to worship a deity related to the strong house, so the person can fulfil that karma.

Do not prescribe the 12th-from-AK deity to everyone

• Parāśara never said: take the 12th from AK and give its devatā to everybody for worship.
• What he said: if Ketu is in the 12th from AK with a given planet, mokṣa comes through that devatā. Sun and Ketu there — through Śiva. Moon and Ketu there — through Pārvatī. He is describing someone already close to mokṣa.

"Not everybody is destined for mokṣa in this life."

• The Delhi analogy: someone already in Delhi can be told which street leads to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Someone in Chennai must first be told to take a flight to Delhi. Someone in a village, a train to the nearest city.
• So do not habitually look at the 12th lord from AK and the so-called Iṣṭa Devatā. See which house from AK is strong and advise from that.

The guru gives different teachings to different people

• Ramakrishna Paramahamsa told one mild disciple, who had quietly heard his guru abused: why are you so mild, you should have fought for your guru.
• Another disciple, in a boat, did fight the people who abused Ramakrishna. Him he scolded: you stooped to the level of cheap people and lowered your guru's name.
• The one with inbuilt anger was made calmer. The mild one was made bolder.
• An enlightened guru knows your strengths and weaknesses without the horoscope. Most people have no Sadguru and expect the astrologer to play that part. With more study and practical research, the teacher hopes astrology can guide people well a decade from now.

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Jagannatha Hora 7.4 — True vs Mean Nodes

The question: a student sees a discrepancy between JHora 7.33 and 7.4. Rāhu and Ketu have shifted by a couple of degrees, and in his D-24 they have moved to the previous sign.

Two sets of settings

• 7.4 has the default settings, the same as before, and the other recommended settings, which are the teacher's own.
• With the old settings, 7.33 and 7.4 give identical calculations.
• The teacher leaves the defaults alone (Lahiri ayanāṁśa, Sanjay Rath's cara kārakas, and so on). People are used to their daśā dates and are upset when they move. The recommended settings may keep evolving.
• The node shift comes from mean versus true nodes. The historical default is mean nodes. The recommendation is true nodes.
• The recommended settings also use Jagannatha ayanāṁśa instead of Lahiri. That changes things by arc-seconds, sometimes arc-minutes. It matters only in border cases.
• To use the recommended settings but match 7.33 on the nodes: Preferences → Related to Calculations → Planet Calculation Options → the last combo box → change True Nodes to Mean Nodes.

Why true nodes

1. Mean nodes are an abstraction. They do not exist. Eclipses are calculated with true nodes.
2. Mean nodes were preferred on the logic that the nodes must always be retrograde, and true nodes are not always retrograde. But no classic says Rāhu must move backward at every second. Overall he moves backward; he moves a little forward at times.
3. Practical: in the research on divisional longitudes, where a shift of two degrees can change the sign in a divisional chart — and in another line of research the teacher does not want to name — true nodes proved to be the right ones.

"Mean nodes are just an abstract concept. If you are calculating eclipses, we use true nodes."

• He had used true nodes privately for about two years and switched publicly the previous year, when he began writing the articles.

Rāhu's longitude is still reckoned from the end of the sign

• For cara kārakas Rāhu's longitude is counted from the end of the sign. This rests on the long-term motion of the planet, not on how it last entered the sign.
• Jupiter moves forward overall. When he enters a sign from its end in retrograde motion, his longitude is not counted from the end. In the same way Rāhu moves backward overall, and his brief forward motion does not change the reckoning.

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