BPHS Ch.34 Yogakarakas: Kendra Lords=Neutral (Benefics Don't Help/Malefics Don't Harm); Trikona Lords=Always Benefic (Lagna=Trikona Primarily); 3/6/11=Struggle/Challenge; 2/8/12=Depends on Company; Sun/Moon 8L Exception=Tapasya; Planets as Inner Qualities: Sun=Soul, Moon=Mind, Jupiter=Conscience/Viveka, Venus=Greatest Tapasvi

BPHS Ch.34 — Yogakarakas: Functional Nature by House Ownership

Ch.33 gave results from the Karakamsa. Ch.34 (Santhanam's numbering) gives results from bhāvādhipatya — the houses a planet owns.

"Based on the ownership of a house, what are the results given by planets based on the houses that they own? I am going to tell you now."

The teacher goes through seven verses fast: the concepts are familiar, but the class had not formally read this section.

Saumya and Krūra Planets

The verses speak of saumya (natural benefic) and krūra (natural malefic) planets.

• Always saumya: Jupiter, Venus
• Always krūra: Mars, Saturn, Rahu, Ketu
• Moon: saumya when waxing (śukla pakṣa), otherwise krūra
• Mercury: saumya with saumya planets, krūra with krūra planets
• "So there are more krūras than saumyas."

Kendra Lords — Neutral

Verse: kendrādhipatayaḥ saumyā na diśanti śubhaṁ phalam; krūrā naiva aśubhaṁ kuryuḥ

• Kendras = houses 1, 4, 7, 10
• A natural benefic owning a kendra does not give auspicious results. Parāśara does not say it gives inauspicious results.
• A natural malefic owning a kendra does not give inauspicious results.
• Different people translate this differently. The teacher's reading: a kendra lord is neutral.

"Owning the kendras, the planet is basically neither benefic nor malefic. It is basically neutral, whether it is Jupiter or whether it is Mars."

Trikona Lords — Always Benefic

Verse: the trikoṇapāḥ (those who rule the trikonas) are śubhadāḥ (givers of good).

• Trikonas = houses 1, 5, 9
• All trikona lords give good results, whoever they are — Mars, Saturn, Jupiter or Venus.
• A student asks whether this holds for Rahu and Ketu. "Yes, Rahu-Ketu also. All planets. He is not qualifying with any kind of qualification."

Why:

• 5th house = pūrva-puṇya. Good deeds of the past come to you as your present abilities.
• 9th house = the dharma you followed in the past and follow now. Dharma protects you.
• Both always protect you, so their lords do not harm you. What they give comes easily.

Lagna: lagnaṁ kendra-trikoṇatvād viśeṣeṇa śubhapradam

• Lagna is both a kendra and a trikona, so it is particularly auspicious.
• Do not count it as a kendra. Count it as a trikona; being a kendra as well makes it even more powerful.

5th and 9th = Viśeṣa-dhana; 7th and 10th = Viśeṣa-sukha

5th and 9th are called viśeṣa-dhana — a special kind of wealth.

• Not general wealth: "You can't go and cash it in a bank."
• Wealth is something you use up to get something in return. It is a currency.
• Goodwill is used the same way: you ask for help on the strength of it and the person does it.
• A person's abilities (5th) and the dharma he does (9th) are currencies of this kind, though they are not linked to the 2nd house.

7th and 10th are called viśeṣa-sukha — a special kind of happiness.

• Among the kendras 4, 7, 10, the 4th is the general, physical sukha.
• Sukha is not the car, the fridge or the TV. Those are symbols of it. Sukha is feeling good — feeling that you know what you are doing.
• The basic meaning of the 4th house is direction. Mother gives comfort, education gives a direction in life; the other meanings derive from this.
• 7th = your interactions with the world. 10th = the work you do. These give a sense of purpose and direction, and that makes you peaceful and comfortable.
• The 7th also has argala on the 4th.

3rd, 6th, 11th Lords — Malefic

Verse: triṣaḍāyādhipāḥ sarve grahāḥ pāpaphalāḥ smṛtāḥ

• tri = 3rd, ṣaḍ = 6th, āya = 11th
• All planets owning these houses are malefic, whether Jupiter, Mars or Saturn.

Why: these are houses of active pursuit. Something is at stake. You do not sit and receive.

• 3rd = initiative, the fire inside, vikrama sthāna. It is the seed of desire: "I want this, I want that."
• 6th = fighting spirit. There is an enemy or an obstacle and you fight it.
• 11th = fulfilling desires. You think of gains and go after them.
• The lord of a house has the agenda of giving that house's results. The 6th lord will make you fight. You may win or lose, depending on the strength of the planet.

"These planets who own these houses, they have agendas which are not necessarily bad for you, but they basically mean that you have to fight, you have to pursue something actively."

• Having an obstacle to overcome means there is a problem. That is why these lords are called inauspicious: they give challenges.
• A student asks about the 8th house here. The teacher defers it: the 8th is the house of tapasya and comes in the next verse.

2nd, 8th, 12th Lords — By Company and By the Other House

Verse: lords of the 12th (vyaya), 2nd (dhana) and 8th (randhra) give results sāhacaryāt — by their company.

• saha = along with, chara = moves. Sāhacarya = company.
• Other texts call the 2nd, 8th and 12th lords neutral. Parāśara does not use that word. He says they turn good or bad depending on whom they are with.

The other house owned (sthānāntara) also decides:

• Virgo lagna: the 2nd lord also owns the 9th.
• Scorpio lagna: Jupiter owns the 2nd and the 5th.
• Scorpio lagna: Mercury owns the 8th and the 11th. One house is malefic, the other neither. Overall Mercury is a malefic.

The 8th lord leans inauspicious: bhāgya-vyayādhipatyena randhreśo na śubhapradaḥ

• The 8th is the 12th from the 9th — the house of loss counted from the house of fortune.
• Of the three, the 8th lord is the one tilted towards inauspicious. Unless the other house is particularly good, the 8th pulls the planet down.
• Parāśara gives no numeric scores (+1, 0, −1). He gives a tendency.

What the 8th house is:

• Hard work, workaholic nature. In a saint's chart, tapascharyā and penance.
• Also forced labour: you lack fortune, so you must keep working hard. Hence 12th from the 9th.
• The 12th from a house is also giving for that house — dāna, renouncing, letting go — as well as losing.
• So the 8th can show adharma, or lack of fortune, or working hard and sacrificing yourself to uphold dharma.

Gemini lagna (a student's question): Saturn owns the 8th and the 9th. As 9th lord he is a benefic, but not that benefic, because he also owns the 8th. As 8th lord he is not that bad, because he also owns the 9th. Then see whom Saturn is with — another trine lord, Venus, or Mars — for the degree of auspiciousness.

A Kāma-Trikona Lord Who Also Owns a Trine

The next verse (tri-mada-āyādhipatve … koṇapatve … satphalāḥ) is corrupt in the printed text. The teacher says so in class: "There is some typo, and I can't figure out exactly what it should be." The printed translation ("will prove specially harmful") makes no sense to him.

His reading: if a planet owns one of the 3rd, 7th, 11th houses and a trine, it gives good results.

• 3, 7, 11 are the kāma trikonas: 3rd = the seed of desire, the initiative; 7th = the desire itself; 11th = the fulfilment.
• They are problematic because a desire means work. "It won't come easily just by saying, 'I want that, I want that.'"
• Trines are the blessings from the past life — what comes easy.
• When one planet controls both agendas, the two fuse:

"Your blessings from the past life will be used up to fulfil your desires."

Extended by the teacher to the 6th house: a planet owning the 6th and a trine (5th or 9th) gives fights, and the same planet carries the blessings. The person will have fights and will win them.

• When a planet owns two houses, one matter benefits from the other. "It is basically like a rich person and a poor person are very good friends, so probably the poor person is going to benefit from the rich person's money." The trines are the rich people in the chart; the 3rd, 7th, 11th are the greedy poor people.

The Stronger Yoga Blocks the Weaker

Verse: balī yogo nirbalasya prabādhakaḥ — the stronger combination obstructs the weaker one.

• A planet may own one good house and one bad house, e.g. the 5th and the 6th.
• Which ownership dominates depends on the yoga it forms. With the 9th lord, the 5th flourishes. With the 11th lord, the 6th flourishes.

Sun and Moon — No 8th-Lord Blemish

Verse: for Sun and Moon the randhreśatva doṣa does not apply.

• For other planets, owning the 8th is neutral to slightly inauspicious. For Sun and Moon it is perfectly fine.
• A student proposes: because the 8th lord is a friend of the lagna lord (Jupiter for Sagittarius lagna)? The teacher rejects it: for Capricorn lagna the Sun is the 8th lord and Saturn is his enemy. "So that's not the logic."
• The answer comes from what the planets are (next section).

The reasoning:

• If the faculty of learning, or intellect, or pleasure owns the house of hard work, that faculty has to struggle. You cannot learn easily. That is a problem.
• Sun is the soul. Moon is the mind, the minister of the soul. They are king and minister trying to become free.
• They are in this body only to do tapasya — to put the body to hard work so that the ṛṇas are cut off.
• So owning the house of tapascharyā suits what they stand for.

"Parashara is saying for Sun and Moon, 8th house ownership is not really malefic. He is not saying it is benefic, but he is saying it is not malefic."

• So it is neutral or slightly benefic.
• Saturn as 8th lord is not good: the spirit of hard work owns the house of hard work. "You have to work hard in order to work hard." Hard work does not come easily.

Ownership is not placement (a student's question): does the same logic make Moon in the 8th fine?

• No. Ownership is the planet's agenda. Placement is where the planet itself has to work.
• Moon in the 8th: the mind is working hard and is uncomfortable. Not auspicious.
• Moon owning the 8th from lagna: the mind makes the body (lagna) work hard, for some desire of the mind. Sun owning the 8th: the body works hard for some purpose of the soul.
• Sun in the 8th: the soul goes through hardship. Not good either.

"You want soul to be comfortable and you want soul to make your body go through hardship."

The class stops here: seven verses done, the next class starts from verse 8.

Planets as Personifications of Inner Qualities

"Don't look at them as some round ball which is orange in color and moving… Those are just physical reflections. The actual planets are personifications of these qualities within you."

Jupiter:

• Gods are personifications of the good qualities within you; demons are personifications of the weaknesses.
• Jupiter is the teacher of the gods: he works for the good qualities to flourish and the bad ones to die. That is what your discrimination does.
• Everybody, even a bad person, has the voice that says "this is right, this is wrong." Depending on how strong Jupiter is, the voice is followed or suppressed.

Venus:

• Venus does not want to kill the demons. He puts them under control — "let them be reasonably good demons, learned demons."
• Pursuing pleasures keeps the bad qualities contented, so the destruction they cause is minimised: you watch a killing in a movie instead of doing one.
• Venus is also the bliss from inside after hours of meditation. That too is happiness.

"He is basically the teacher of demons, which is a more difficult job. Teaching gods is actually easy, but teaching demons is very difficult."

• In the Bhagavad Gītā's "among such-and-such I am so-and-so" passage, the Lord names Śukra, not Jupiter, among the ṛṣis. "Shukracharya is a great rishi. And he is probably the greatest tapasvi."

Rahu:

• A demon who tried to become a god and drank the nectar.
• Going abroad, going to forbidden places. On the 7th house, a forbidden marriage — outside culture, community or caste, where that breaks the norm.
• Cutting-edge technology and research: those too break frontiers.

Rahu and Ketu in spirituality:

• People describe Brahman and samādhi eloquently from books without having experienced them — like lecturing on the roar of the ocean without having gone to the ocean.
• When Rahu and Ketu have a good influence on the houses of spirituality, the person experiences.

"Experiencing God is basically like breaking a barrier."

• You are put in a body, the senses are caught in the world, unfulfilled desires bring you back, new desires form. Breaking that cycle is breaking a barrier.
• That is why Parāśara mentions Ketu for moksha — Ketu's influence on the 12th house.

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