Grahas as Consciousness (Why Not Outer Planets), TP Chart Dasha Boundary Rule & Sun in Hasta Worship

Grahas as Consciousness — Why the Outer Planets Are Not Used

A student had written to him about Pluto.

The material argument (assuming gravitation is what matters):

• Jupiter and Saturn are the size of a basketball. Uranus is smaller than a tennis ball and twice as far as Saturn: distance alone cuts the effect to a quarter, and with the smaller mass it comes to about 1/50 or 1/100 of Saturn's.
• Pluto is a dot, five to ten times as far: 1/1,000 or 1/10,000 of Saturn's.

But it is not a matter of gravitation. We do not know exactly how planets act on us.

• The rishis could merge their consciousness with that of any being in the universe. They understood what each was up to and what the Divine Mother planned for it.
• There are indications they knew of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. They chose not to use them. Follow the rishis and stop at Saturn.

Graha is not "planet".

• Graha = that which holds, grasps, captures.
• Grahas are consciousnesses that can grasp your consciousness. In Mars dasha the consciousness of Mars catches hold of yours and makes you angry.
• Mars does not physically come and hold you. His karana sharira acts on your karana sharira. All planetary influence is at that level.
• Rahu and Ketu do not exist physically. They are the points where the plane of the Earth's orbit and the plane of the Moon's orbit cross — abstract mathematical points with no weight, no gravitation, not visible. They are called chaya grahas because they decide how the shadow is cast. Yet they have a consciousness of their own, with a very significant effect on us.
• The Moon is not a planet and the Sun is a star; both are grahas. What astronomy calls a planet, a dwarf planet or a satellite is immaterial.

On those who use the outer planets. They must then decide where Pluto is exalted, debilitated, what he owns, what Pluto with the Sun gives, what Pluto with Venus gives. They invent all of it.

"If you are creative, you can create things, but it will die after you. If you are a rishi, it can stay long after you, because you don't create — something that is already there, you just understand."

Tithi Pravesha Chart Dasha at the Year Boundary

A student's question. His Tithi Pravesha for 2005–06 was on September 10, 2005. Its Tithi Ashtottari dasha list shows Venus from June 24 to September 2, 2006. But the next Tithi Pravesha is on August 30, 2006, with a different lagna, so Venus has a different agenda there. Which chart speaks for the overlap?

Answer: there is no overlap.

• A Tithi Pravesha chart is valid from its own date until the next Tithi Pravesha. Then it is void — "like a check that has been voided".
• In the 2005 chart, Venus dasha runs from June 24 only until August 30. Read Venus by his agenda in that chart.
• The 2006 chart also shows Venus dasha, June 24 – September 2. Of that, only August 30 – September 2 belongs to it — the tail of the dasha, probably its last antardasha. Read those days by Venus's agenda in the new chart.
• Here it is only a few days and can be ignored. Sometimes half the dasha is left; then the Tithi Pravesha date is where the new agenda begins.
• The earlier antardashas of that first dasha come at the end of the year — just as a person born in Jupiter dasha gets the missed Jupiter antardashas if Jupiter dasha returns at the end of life.

Analogy with the natal chart. Born in June 1969, the Vimshottari list may show the dasha starting in 1960. Nine years of it were over before birth. The software prints the full dasha; you supply where the chart begins and ends.

Sun in Hasta Nakshatra — the Time to Worship the Sun

• When the Sun is in Hasta it is the best time of the year to pray to him.
• It lasts about 13 days. Hasta begins at 10° Virgo, so it starts about ten days after the Virgo ingress. In class he guessed "towards the end of September or beginning of October" and told the students to find the exact dates in the software.
• Do any Surya mantra heavily in these days: the Savitri Gayatri, a simple "Om Suryaya Namah", or a bija mantra.
• Best of all is the Surya Upanishad. It praises Surya as the supreme deity: Rudra is his manifestation, Vishnu is he, Brahma is he. Read during Hasta Aditya it is extremely powerful. Start practising it beforehand.
• Surya is the king of the planets and the naisargika atmakaraka. His blessings are always important.

A Rectification Attempt Left Open — Leo/Virgo Lagna Border

A student brought a chart to rectify the navamsa: born December 2, 1963, 1:30 AM IST, Bombay. Krishna Pratipada. The lagna is at the very end of Leo — it could be Leo or Virgo. Sun 15°33' Scorpio, Moon 27°25' Taurus.

Events given

• Came to the USA in December 1970, aged 7, with his parents.
• A job in computers 1986–1990; a PhD completed in 1994; second job from 1994; a second PhD programme from 2004.
• Not married. First relationship 1985 – August 1988. Second relationship 1994 – June 28, 2005.

Which dasha? None of the conditional dashas apply with either lagna. Plain Vimshottari.

Navamsa lagna: Sagittarius or Capricorn, allowing an error of one navamsa. Rectify the navamsa and the rashi lagna follows.

First relationship — began 1985 in Rahu–Moon or Rahu–Mars (the antardasha changed on September 26, 1985); ended in Jupiter–Jupiter.

With Capricorn navamsa lagna:

• Sun is the 8th lord, in Scorpio — the 11th, the badhaka sthana for a movable lagna. The 8th lord in the badhaka sthana can break a relationship suddenly. Jupiter is with him and gives his results. Jupiter–Jupiter breaking it fits.
• Moon is the 7th lord, in the 9th with Ketu, and 7th from the dasha lord Rahu. Rahu–Moon can give a relationship — so the meeting was probably before September 26, 1985.
• Mars is the 4th and 11th lord in the 5th, and 7th from Jupiter: some chance, not a strong one.
• Lagna lord Saturn in the 8th: not good at keeping relationships. Venus, karaka of marriage and yogakaraka for this lagna, in the 6th — his marana karaka sthana. The 7th lord Moon eclipsed by Ketu. All show someone who does not stay long in a relationship.

With Sagittarius navamsa lagna:

• Sun is the 9th lord in the 12th, his marana karaka sthana. That shows dharma being compromised, not a relationship being broken.
• Jupiter, lord of lagna and 4th, sits with the 9th lord in the 12th. It does not explain the break well.

Capricorn is the possibility so far.

Is a long live-in relationship a marriage? A student argued that marriage is dharma, so the 9th lord could break it. The teacher: for counting upapadas it will count as the first marriage. But the native treated it as a trial, not as dharma. Read it from the 7th house.

Second relationship — the test fails here.

• The first relationship is the 7th house (Cancer). The second is the 8th from it: Aquarius, the 2nd house.
• It ended in Saturn–Saturn. Saturn in Leo is 7th from Aquarius — a maraka place for it (2nd and 7th from any house). But Saturn is the lord of Aquarius, the stronger of its two lords (Rahu is co-lord). He is in the 8th from lagna and unhappy, yet the teacher would not have expected the lord of that relationship to end it.
• It began in Jupiter–Ketu or Jupiter–Venus. Neither has anything to do with the 2nd house.

"So something is fishy."

In the rashi chart, if Virgo rises, Jupiter is in the 7th in his own sign — Jupiter's blessings on relationships.

He stops. He casts a prashna on whether to leave it for the next class: Jupiter within 2° of the prashna lagna — the decision is right. Homework for the student: confirm the birth date (a 1:30 AM birth — is the date the one after midnight?), find the month each relationship began, and something about the two partners. With education and career known, D-24 and D-10 can be used next time.

The Fixed-Plane Ayanamsa Experiment

It came up because the teacher's Vimshottari dates differed from the students' by a few days.

• An ayanamsa is usually treated as only the starting point of the zodiac. But a longitude is a planet's position projected on a plane and measured from that starting point. The plane matters too.
• The plane normally used is that of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. It is not constant; it wobbles with the pull of the planets. A natal chart, a Tithi Pravesha chart and a transit are each projected on a slightly different plane.
• His experiment: project everything on a fixed plane — the plane in which the Sun goes around the Vishnu Nabhi of the Puranas, a revolution of about 24,000 years. The starting point of the zodiac is kept as close to Lahiri as possible.
• The difference is arc-seconds to arc-minutes in longitude and a few days in dashas.
• "So far I am impressed by it, but no conclusion so far." It was to appear in the next software release, which he planned to make open source.