Digbala (Directional Strength) Complete Summary, 5th House = Mantra + Bhakti + Scholarship + Occult, & A5 Position Table for Houses 7–12

Digbala

The topic comes up from the student's Mars in the 10th. PVNR runs the class through the list.

"The fiery planets Sun and Mars get a directional strength in the 10th house of karma. They are the planets of action. They have fire. So if they are associated with the 10th house, that is good for karma. The person has some fire which is conducive to the work."

• The student's Mars in the 10th has good digbala.
• The recording is garbled where the class answers for Moon, Venus and Saturn; the houses in the table are the standard ones. PVNR gives a reason only for Sun and Mars.

5th House — Mantra, Bhakti, Scholarship and Fame

What the class uses the 5th house for, across the verses and the muhūrta that follows:

• Children — the 5th lord shows what kind of children you have.
• Fame, recognition, following — A5 is the kīrti pada, the tangible fame.
• Scholarship and abilities — recognition for education; dakṣatā.
• Emotions, emotional stability.
• Mantra — in an Upanayana muhūrta the 5th is the main kārya sthāna.
• Bhakti, devotion.

Combined with the 8th and the 12th:

A5 Placement Summary

Rule used in class: an ārūḍha cannot fall in its own house or in the 7th from it; when it would, take the 10th from there.

A5 is not worked out in class for the 5th lord in the 10th or the 12th.

An Upanayana Muhūrta — Rejected and Replaced

After the verses a student brings a muhūrta he has fixed for an Upanayana in Pennsylvania. The native's Moon is in Maghā (Leo). He is past boyhood ("never too late") and has had health problems. The family's window is 15 March to 15 April 2009.

Daylight Saving Time and the Time Zone

• The muhūrta is 22 March 2009, 8:32 AM. Daylight saving time now starts in the second week of March, so the zone is 4 hours west of GMT, not 5.
• A student asks whether it matters that the government moves the date about. PVNR: what matters is the moment on the linear scale of time. 8:32 with a 4-hour zone and 7:32 with a 5-hour zone are the same moment, 12:32 GMT. Read 8:32 with a 5-hour zone and you are using 13:32 GMT.

"So obviously, lagna and all planets will be 1 hour ahead. So it is very important that you should know what the time zone is."

• Software automates this, but it assumes people set their clocks by the rule in force. Someone born on the day the change kicks in, timed by a clock nobody changed, will be read wrongly.
• For births some decades back it is worse. For a period daylight saving time was optional. Whoever gives the time has to say how the clock was set, and usually cannot.

"So when we see old times, it is not a bad idea to sometimes take 1 hour this way or that way and then see."

• Arizona and Hawaii never change. In Indiana the boundary is a complicated curve; the software needs the longitude to the second to place a town on the right side of it.

The First Muhūrta — Aries Lagna

22 March 2009, 8:32 AM. Aries lagna 8°45'. Kṛṣṇa Ekādaśī, Moon in Śravaṇa in Capricorn.

In its favour:

• Tārā bala. Count the nakṣatra lords in Viṁśottarī order from the birth star's lord: Ketu (janma), Venus (sampat), Sun (vipat), Moon (kṣema), Mars (pratyak) and so on. Śravaṇa is Moon's star, so it is kṣema tārā: well-being.
• The quick rule for the nine tārās:

"Good, janma tara, good, bad, good, bad, good, bad, good, good."

• The student's own worry is chandra bala: Moon is 6th from the natal Moon. PVNR: not a big deal. The 6th is a decent transit; the 3rd and 6th are all right. The 8th from the natal Moon is terrible and must be avoided.
• Moon is with Rāhu, but Jupiter (23°) is closer to Moon (19°) than Rāhu (12°) is. Moon is with Jupiter more than with Rāhu. And they are the 4th lord of sukha and the 9th lord of guidance. Not desirable, but acceptable.
• Jupiter is debilitated, but he is debilitated all year. Nothing can be done.

Against it:

• Lagna lord Mars is in the 11th, the bādhaka sthāna, with the 6th lord Mercury. The redeeming point: the 11th is the house of fulfilment and both aspect the 5th house of mantra.
• The 5th is the main kārya sthāna of an Upanayana, and Savitā is the Sun. The 5th lord Sun is in the 12th, his maraṇa kāraka sthāna. The only redeeming point is that the 12th is the house of surrender, upāsanā and mokṣa.
• Saturn, the bādhaka lord, is in the 5th. Saturn is strong in upachayas, the 3rd, 6th and 11th, not in the 5th. Mandi and Gulika are in the 5th as well.

"This is a Muhurta for mantra. So mantra should be pure. The house of mantra should be clean. The whole evil gang is in the 5th house of mantra. And in addition, the lord of that house is in marana karaka sthana. So my feeling is, based on this, it is unlikely that he will get anywhere with that mantra."

• Moon is in mṛtyu bhāga. Sun and Moon matter most in any muhūrta. Moon is also waning, close to new Moon, with Rāhu, in the sign of a bitter enemy.
• Both luminaries are weak. PVNR rejects the muhūrta.
• Moon stays in mṛtyu bhāga for hours either side, so shifting the time does not help. The day has to change.

Searching the Window

Tithi, tārā and lagna have to click together. Good tithis keep falling on bad tārās.

• After good-bad-good-bad comes "a good, good at the end, mitra, parama mitra". So keep moving forward. Śukla Daśamī and Ekādaśī are two good tithis in a row.
• An afternoon muhūrta is not bad at all. Doing it in Kṛṣṇa pakṣa is worse than doing it in the afternoon. Night is usually avoided.

The Chosen Muhūrta — Taurus Lagna

4 April 2009, 10:10 AM.

Lagna — Taurus:

• Lagnas owned by Jupiter and Venus are preferred; they are benefic lagnas.
• A fixed lagna gives stability.

"If you start a mantra in a mobile lagna, Aries lagna especially, you will do with lot of energy, but then the energy will fade away. Fixed lagnas, especially Taurus, you will be like a bull basically, you will just keep doing."

Moon — Āśleṣā in Cancer, with Ketu:

• Āśleṣā is the Sarpa nakṣatra and is held inauspicious. A traditional priest may refuse it. PVNR: the snake is also Kuṇḍalinī śakti. For beginning spiritual sādhana it is a very good star, more so for a Maghā native.

"It is not just an evil star. It is actually the star of Kundalini. It is the star of mystical experiences."

• His own experience: Moon in Pūrvabhādrapadā in Aquarius. He began his Lakṣmī sādhana on a Friday picked at random; it was Āśleṣā. Almost all the later milestones of his spiritual life fell in Āśleṣā.
• Ketu is in the same sign as Moon, and Jupiter aspects Moon by graha dṛṣṭi (the 7th aspect from Capricorn). Jupiter safeguards.
• From the natal Moon in Leo, Moon is the 12th lord transiting the 12th with Ketu, the kāraka of the 12th. The 2nd, 12th, 6th and 8th are not normally wanted, but this is a 12th-house task: upāsanā, mokṣa. A 12th lord in the 12th is like Vimala yoga in transit.
• Tārā: parama mitra. Tithi: Śukla Daśamī, past Aṣṭamī, so Moon is about two-thirds full. Chandra bala is good. Nobody is in mṛtyu bhāga.
• For Moon the nakṣatra transit matters more than the house transit. The star should be good in itself and a good tārā from the birth star.

Jupiter's debility must be cancelled:

• Jupiter is the kāraka of Vedic things and this is a Veda mantra. His debility is unacceptable, and unavoidable. So the lagna must be one that gives him nīca-bhaṅga.
• Mars and Saturn are in mutual quadrants but not in a quadrant from Moon, so the lagna has to supply it. From Taurus, Mars is in the 10th and Saturn in the 4th. Jupiter gets nīca-bhaṅga.
• Jupiter is the 8th and 11th lord from Taurus, a functional malefic in debility; that is acceptable. "Jupiter is Jupiter": he aspects lagna and Chandra lagna, both by graha dṛṣṭi.

The 5th house and the rāja yoga in the 11th:

• 5th lord Mercury is debilitated in Pisces but aspects the 5th.
• Lagna lord Venus (8°), 4th lord Sun (20°) and 5th lord Mercury (25°) are together in Pisces in the 11th. A rāja yoga involving the 5th lord and the Sun, kāraka of the Sāvitra mantra.
• Mercury has nīca-bhaṅga: his dispositor Jupiter is in a quadrant from Moon. Jupiter gets his cancellation from Mars and Saturn and passes one on to Mercury.
• Venus is exalted, retrograde, and in debility in Navāṁśa. Exalted in rāśi and debilitated in Navāṁśa is uccha-bhaṅga; retrograde on top of that makes two negatives that roughly cancel. His dispositor too is in a quadrant from Moon.
• The rāja yoga is in the house of fulfilment of desire.

Aspects on lagna (all graha dṛṣṭi):

• Mars, the 7th lord, a quadrant lord and a neutral here: determination, some fierceness, intensity in sādhana. Not bad.
• Saturn, yogakāraka, 9th and 10th lord: very good. It makes him patient, like a tapasvī.

What śuddhi means:

"Shuddhi means cleanliness. It is not emptiness. People always interpret shuddhi as emptiness. They make sure that those houses are unoccupied and they are happy."

• The lords count. Here the 9th and 10th lord is in a quadrant aspecting lagna. The 9th has Rāhu but also Jupiter with nīca-bhaṅga. The 5th is aspected by its lord, who has nīca-bhaṅga. Lagna has no Mandi, Gulika or malefic in it. Whatever śuddhi is required is there.

The weakness:

• Jupiter and Rāhu together in the 9th, the dharma sthāna: Guru-Chāṇḍāla yoga, with Rāhu in his maraṇa kāraka sthāna. Jupiter's presence saves it, but he is debilitated.
• Remedy: before the muhūrta have Āditya Hṛdayam (or another Sun mantra, not the Gāyatrī) and a Śiva mantra chanted.

The divisional charts:

• For a muhūrta the full ṣoḍaśavarga scheme is not used; that is for natal work. Health is read from the rāśi itself, not from D-6: here the lagna lord is in the 11th in a good yoga with the 5th lord, so no big health problem is shown.
• Check rāśi, Navāṁśa, Dreṣkāṇa and Triṁśāṁśa. Dreṣkāṇa shows how things play out in the long run. Triṁśāṁśa shows any big problem that may come up.
• Navāṁśa — Leo lagna (a student picks it; 10:10 AM gives it; lagna in Mṛgaśira). Jupiter, 5th and 8th lord, the mantra lord, in lagna. 12th lord Moon in the 5th. Saturn and Ketu in the 3rd; Sun, the lagna lord, in the 6th: malefics well placed. Venus in the 2nd, a good house for him. Mars with Rāhu in the 9th; Mars is yogakāraka and 9th lord in his own house, and Rāhu is the 7th lord. Mercury in the 7th is not good; live with it.
• Ātmakāraka Jupiter is in Navāṁśa lagna. In a birth chart that is someone of royal birth, born with a golden spoon. In a chart of spiritual initiation it is a golden spoon as far as sādhana goes. The student says the native's father is himself a serious sādhaka; if the family can keep this muhūrta, that confirms it.
• Dreṣkāṇa: Jupiter in the 9th aspecting lagna; the 11th holds Sun, Moon, Mercury and Ketu. The 11th dominates, as it does in the rāśi. Things play out well with this mantra.
• Triṁśāṁśa: look at the 6th and 8th. Saturn and Mars are in the 8th. But in the rāśi neither is a troublemaker: Mars is a kendra lord and Saturn the yogakāraka.

"The troublemaking planets in the Trimsamsa and the troublemaking planets in the Rasi — if there is a confluence, if there is a commonality, then you are in trouble, which is not the case here."

• Mercury and Jupiter, two benefics, are in the Triṁśāṁśa lagna.

"If you want to pick a perfect Muhurta, it will never come. You will have to do your upanayanam when you are like 1000 years old."

• For a job muhūrta the same method applies with the focus on the 10th. Here the focus is the 5th, 8th and 12th.

The Father, and the Moment of the Mantra

• A student raises the father's role. Traditionally the father's star is also seen for an Upanayana. With his chart one can see what Pisces, where the rāja yoga forms, is for him. Still the main consideration is the son; this is for the son's spiritual progress.
• A marriage is two people walking together. Here one person hands something over and his main role ends.
• If the father is a sādhaka with some siddhi in the mantra, part of it passes to the son whether he intends it or not.

"Siddhi is basically some level of attainment, accomplishment with that mantra. You understand the mantra, you understand what it can do, what experience it can give, you have experienced it."

• A person has siddhi in only a handful of mantras; they are his staple spiritual food. Giving some away removes part of his foundation. If the śiṣya can take a great deal at one go, the father's health or state of mind can be affected. So it is worth looking at the father's chart.
• Without the native's birth data only his nakṣatra was used. With it one would also check his Aṣṭakavarga and what Pisces and the planets of the yoga are in his natal rāśi, Navāṁśa and Viṁśāṁśa.
• The muhūrta is for the mantra upadeśa. Hearing the mantra in the ear is the key and must happen at this time, in this Navāṁśa lagna.

"Gayatri mantra upadesa should happen at this time. You may do 5 minutes of ritual before or 5 hours of ritual, I don't care. All that is secondary."

• Most priests begin earlier and at the muhūrta put the jaggery and cumin paste on the head instead. That does not transfer the mantra. Tell the priest plainly.
• If the native's chart shows spiritual potential, take this much care. If the ceremony is a formality, it does not matter.

When to perform an Upanayana at all (student's question):

• See transits to A5, the mantra pada: who aspects it, Jupiter for one.
• Conventions: the 7th or the 9th year; odd years in some parts of India, even years in others. Uttarāyaṇa (the day of the gods) over Dakṣiṇāyana, Śukla pakṣa over Kṛṣṇa, closer to Pūrṇimā. No single factor is absolute.

"A lot of people, they do all these things, but when it comes to the actual muhurta, which planet is in the 5th house, which planet is in the 9th house, they don't look at that. They just go by thumb rules, but that is the real key."