Solar Eclipse July 22 2009 (India): Sun at Mrityubhaga + Both 8th Lords in Maraka Sthanas = Political Upheaval; Rahu-Ketu on Sun-Moon = Bad for Dharma, 1000× for Meditation; 3-Eclipse Sequence (Mahabharata/Dwarka) & Kali Yuga: No Apocalypse

Example chart

Occasion: Indian TV channels were calling the coming eclipse a doomsday. The teacher casts the chart in class, before the event.

• The chart is cast for the start of the eclipse at New Delhi, which the teacher prefers to the moment of maximum eclipse.
• The eclipse falls towards the end of Amāvāsyā, so Sun and Moon are extremely close.

Eclipse Chart Factors

Lagna: Cancer 4°. The Moon has just risen and the Sun is about to rise; sunrise happens during the eclipse. "That is the tricky point for India especially."

The cluster in lagna: Moon 4° Cancer, Sun 5.5° Cancer, Ketu 6° Cancer — all within a 2° range, with the lagna degree beside them. Lagna, Sun, Moon and Ketu are also in the same navāṁśa (Leo).

Māraka indications:

• The Sun is 2nd lord, a māraka, in lagna, afflicted by Ketu.
• The Sun is in mṛtyubhāga, his death-inflicting degree. For the Sun in Cancer it is the 6th degree; the Sun is 0.14° from it, "pretty much in the middle of the mṛtyubhāga".
• The Sun is with 3rd lord Mercury. The 2nd and 3rd lords together are not good, and here they afflict lagna and lagna lord Moon.
• Saturn, 7th and 8th lord and a māraka, is in the 2nd house, a māraka sthāna.
• Rahu, the other 8th lord, is in the 7th house, the other māraka sthāna.
• So both 8th lords are in māraka sthānas.

The one blessing: 9th lord Jupiter is in the 8th house of longevity. "It's not terrible… Jupiter's blessings are there."

Prediction

• "Some big loss of life" within the next couple of months of the eclipse.
• The Sun is the planet of politics. The elections were over barely two months earlier, so no turmoil is expected right away. But with the Sun this badly afflicted, political turmoil or the murder of a ruler — the assassination of a big political leader — is strongly indicated. Some bad political event is very likely after this eclipse.
• It is a bad eclipse for India and portends evil events. Calling it doomsday is unjustified: the charts of the two lunar eclipses are not that bad, only the solar eclipse chart is, and even it has redeeming factors.
• No reliable means exists to say exactly what will happen. "Something will happen in India. That is my feeling."

"I am pretty convinced that this is a bad eclipse for India."

The other side — good for spiritual matters:

• Sun, 12th lord Mercury and lagna lord Moon are together in lagna with Ketu. Ketu is mokṣa kāraka, Mercury is lord of the 12th, the mokṣa sthāna, and the Sun shows dharma.
• The eclipse can bring big events for a spiritual renaissance, in the world and especially in India.
• The Bhagavad Gita was taught very close to a solar eclipse day. This eclipse is conducive to spiritual progress.

The Three-Eclipse Sequence

Pattern: lunar eclipse → total solar eclipse → lunar eclipse. This is what made people edgy.

• The sequence is significant. It is not very common and not very rare; it has happened several times and will again.
• Mahabharata war: Vyasa describes a lunar eclipse, then a solar eclipse, then another lunar eclipse at the time the war started.
• Dwarka: about 36 years later Vyasa describes the same sequence, and Dwarka went under the Arabian Sea. Most of the Yadu vaṁśa, Krishna's lineage, was destroyed.
• In the last 100 years the sequence came several times. A few of those times there was a world war; not every time was there a problem.
• The probability of something bad is higher than at other times — not 1, not 0.8 or 0.7. Things that normally have a one-in-a-million chance may have a one-in-a-hundred chance. That is not grounds for a prediction.
• A student asks whether the sequence or the planets cause it. Answer: not only the sequence. Look at each eclipse — where the planets are at the exact eclipse time, which lagna rises, whether any planet is being eclipsed and how closely.

No Apocalypse

• Some also hold that the world ends in 2012.
• Dharma walks on four legs, three, two, one. There are ups and downs in dharma. Kali Yuga is the phase where it is lowest.
• Like antardaśās within a mahādaśā, there are ups and downs within the same period. We may be entering, or about to enter, a phase of Kali Yuga where dharma rises a little. The ṛṣis may say Kali has come too fast and put on some brakes.

"In the belief of rishis, in the Veda Dharma, there is nothing called apocalypse."

"Apocalypse, doomsday, world ending — those things are silly. Those things will not happen for another 428,000 years."

Eclipse, Duality and Meditation

Sun and Moon as the two eyes

The teacher repeats a note he wrote on the eclipses for the electronic edition of The Astrological Magazine.

• Personify the whole creation as one being, the Parama Puruṣa that the Puruṣa Sūkta and Nārāyaṇa Sūkta extol. The Sun and the Moon are his two eyes.
• In the microcosm, the Sun and the Moon are the individual soul and the individual mind.
• They are the eyes because it is through the individual soul and mind that consciousness — infinite, but limited to one entity — looks at the duality of the world.
• If these two are shut for a while, blocked completely, there is no individuality. You realise your true self. That is samādhi.

"Your soul and your mind are the eyes through which you see the world."

Rahu–Ketu on Sun–Moon: two opposite readings

• As long as you are in duality you see different things, and duality expects certain things of you. Doing what nature expects of you is your dharma. For that, Sun and Moon are needed.
• For merging in non-duality it is the reverse. Rahu and Ketu, and a mokṣa kāraka afflicting Sun and Moon, are not bad for sādhana; they can give mokṣa.
• Ramakrishna Paramahamsa: an example from an earlier class on daśās. When he experienced nirvikalpa samādhi — the individual mind and self gone, only Ātman, Brahman — the daśā praveśa chakra of that daśā had Sun and Moon on one axis ("I believe in Aquarius axis or something") with Rahu and Ketu on the same axis. Rahu and Ketu were eclipsing Sun and Moon in the daśā praveśa chart.

"From the point of view of merging in non-duality, leaving your individual dual self, Sun and Moon are problems and Rahu and Ketu are the solutions."

What to do at eclipse time

• Temples are closed during an eclipse and no pūjā is done. For dharmic activity this is not a good time. A ritual done as a daily observance, as your dharma, should be stopped.
• Temples are not for mokṣa. They do the collective dharma of society, so their activities are naturally blocked.
• Anything done for mokṣa is favoured: meditation, or a homam or any ritual done with spiritual progress as the only goal. Some śāstras say it is 1000 times more powerful than at a regular time.
• This eclipse especially: it is the middle eclipse of a three-eclipse sequence, as at the time the Bhagavad Gita was given.
• His advice: do not worry about what it portends. Use it. Meditate at that time.