Karkamsa Saint Analysis: Aurobindo (Saturn AK; Mars 90% on 5th+Jupiter its Lord = Logic+Vedic Scholar+Not Accessible; Ketu in 2nd = Demystify Vedic Texts); Ramana Maharshi (Moon AK; Moon+Jupiter = Famous Teacher of Wisdom; Mars in 5th = Crisp Logic; from Direct Experience); Ramakrishna (Rahu AK; Venus 1° from 5th = Parables to Everyone; Sun in 2nd = Singer)

Method for the Example Charts

The teacher opens the example charts in his software. He reads out birth data only for Aurobindo. For the others he says the charts ship with the software and he is not giving the data.

Ayanamsa

• He switches to his own setting, the Jagannatha ayanamsa. He prefers it for all work, above all for techniques that use divisional longitudes, where the longitude must be accurate. He says it has given him better results than standard Lahiri.

Which divisional chart

• Skills are seen in the Navamsa. They come from Purva Punya, which the Navamsa captures.
• A student asks about D-5. A good thought, but Parashara does not mention it for this. It is seen for power and politics.
• D-27 (Nakshatramsa) is offered as research. It is normally avoided because the lagna may not be accurate, but Karkamsa does not depend on the lagna. Parashara's word for this chart is balabalam, strengths and weaknesses. He gave other ways to judge the strength of planets, so this must mean the strengths and weaknesses of the person. Skills can be argued to fall under that. The teacher says it is a chart not studied much, by tradition or by his own research.

Aspects are measured on a point

• Take the Atmakaraka's longitude in the Navamsa. The same degree in the 5th sign is the 5th cusp; the same degree in the 2nd sign is the 2nd cusp.
• A planet near the cusp is in the house even from the neighbouring sign.
• Aspects on the cusp are graha drishti, graded by Parashara's quantification: 100% on the 7th cusp from the planet, 75% on the 8th, and so on, with the special aspects of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Interpolate between cusps.
• A student asks why rasi drishti is not used. The teacher: he is looking at aspects on a point, not on a whole sign. Rasi drishti applies only to things measured in signs.
• The sign's owner counts as an influence along with occupants and aspects.
• The teacher says his software's next version will print aspects on the 2nd to 12th from each planet, so this arithmetic need not be done by hand.

Sri Aurobindo

Atmakaraka

• Saturn and Mercury are very close in degree. With Lahiri, Mercury is Atmakaraka. With the Jagannatha ayanamsa, Saturn is.
• It hardly matters: the two are in the same sign in the divisional charts of interest.
• The class takes Saturn. Navamsa Saturn is at 1°30' Scorpio. That is Karkamsa.

On the site's chart Mercury leads Saturn by one minute of arc, so the chart names Mercury as Atmakaraka. Both are at 1½° Scorpio in Navamsa, so Karkamsa is the same.

5th from Karkamsa — 1°30' Pisces

• No planet is there. The sign is Pisces, the sign of the rishis. Its owner is Jupiter.
• Jupiter is in Capricorn in Navamsa and has no aspect to speak of on Pisces.
• Mars at 18°45' Leo. His aspect is 100% on 18°45' Aquarius (7th cusp) and 75% on 18°45' Pisces (8th cusp). 1°30' Pisces lies a little less than half way from the first to the second. About 90%. The teacher first reckons 63%, then catches his own arithmetic and corrects it.
• Saturn and Mercury have only half aspects. Ignored.
• So two influences: Mars and Jupiter.
• Mars: Naiyayika. Very crisp logic, and a good judge of logic.
• Jupiter as owner: Sarvavid. A very good writer who knows Veda and Vedanta. With Jupiter alone the verse says he is not eloquent.

"I have read Aurobindo extensively and I thoroughly enjoy reading his writing. And in my view, he is not a writer for laymen."

• The teacher grants that some will disagree. The language is Victorian, archaic, flowery, weighty. A student who has read him says it is very hard. Beautiful to some, and many cannot tell what he is talking about.
• That is a strong Jupiterian influence with no other influence. He was a great scholar with five European languages, rated excellent at his British university. Not a simple communicator.

2nd from Karkamsa — 1°30' Sagittarius

• A student points out that Venus aspects the 2nd. Venus is at 17° Gemini. 1°30' Sagittarius is in the 6th house from him, where the aspect runs from 0% to 100%. About 50%. Mild.
• Ketu at 9° Sagittarius. He is in the 2nd house from Saturn, close to the cusp. Ketu gives the result.
• Ketu can give mathematics and the advanced sciences. He is also the planet of Vedic wisdom, and here he is in Jupiter's sign: knowledge of Veda and Vedanta.
• This is the 2nd, so it is the skill put to use. His most important writings: the book on Savitri, and The Secret of the Veda, where he takes sample verses and shows what Mitra, Varuna and Indra stand for. He did the same with samples from the Upanishads. He took the whole Veda as a symbol and interpreted the symbols.
• Rahu and Ketu show crossing boundaries, deep exploring, abstract thinking. He demystifies.
• His soul sees it as its job: I have this skill and it must be used.

The site's chart has Ketu at 29°42' Scorpio in Navamsa, in the Karkamsa sign and not in Sagittarius. Its node is about one degree earlier in the rasi chart than the teacher's, and that carries it across the navamsa boundary. The class reading rests on Ketu in Sagittarius.

Karkamsa itself

• Mercury is extremely close to Karkamsa in the Navamsa.
• A student objects that Mercury has no aspect on the 2nd. The teacher: this is about the 1st. Apart from the 2nd and the 5th, the 1st matters, because it is the dharma of the 5th, the dharma of the skill.
• Mercury is analytical ability. The dharma of his skill is analysing. The job to be done, shown by Ketu, is demystifying the Veda and the Upanishads.
• Dayananda Saraswati did great work translating the Veda. Aurobindo's is a different level: he analysed, understood and shared an experience.

"This is the most scholarly, most insightful interpretation of Veda and Upanishads ever, or at least in the last few centuries."

• Pisces, Jupiter and Ketu on the 2nd and 5th from Karkamsa explain it.

D-27

The teacher opens it as research and leaves it to the class. What the Navamsa showed makes more sense than D-27.

D-20 — spiritual sadhana

• Karkamsa is at 20° Scorpio. The 5th is 20° Pisces. Mercury is very close to it. Jupiter is the owner. Nobody has a strong aspect.
• Mercury is in the 5th from Karkamsa and is also the dispositor of the 5th lord (Jupiter is in Gemini).
• By the verse of the previous class, Mercury with the 5th from Karkamsa gives a Paramahamsa: one who can associate with anybody and remain pure.
• Aurobindo was never called a Paramahamsa. But he was not ritualistic and set no rule of caste or of prior sadhana. Foreigners, Indians, people of any caste could approach him. What he imparted, he imparted to all.

Ramana Maharshi

The class does not read out the birth data. The chart on this page is the one used in the earlier lessons; it reproduces every placement below.

Atmakaraka: Moon. A student guesses it. Navamsa Moon at 14° Gemini = Karkamsa. The 5th is 14° Libra. The 2nd is 14° Cancer.

Influences

• Mars at 18° Libra: four degrees from the 5th cusp. He is in the 5th house from Karkamsa, a very strong influence.
• Jupiter at 28° Aquarius: on 14° Libra his aspect is between 50% and 75%, about 60%. A student points out that he also aspects Karkamsa itself, which matters more: on 14° Gemini it is between 75% and 100%.
• The Moon, as Atmakaraka, is in Karkamsa, aspected more than 75% by Jupiter. So the Moon and Jupiter combination applies. They are not together, but Moon aspected by Jupiter does it.
• Venus is mentioned in one line, and the recording is unclear about the house. The site's chart has Venus at 4° Cancer, in the 2nd from Karkamsa. The teacher draws no result from it.

Reading

• Moon and Jupiter: an author and a famous communicator. He wrote no book himself, but he communicated a great deal and others wrote it all down. Moon and Jupiter show fame, here fame for wisdom and knowledge of Veda and Vedanta.
• Mars in the 5th: Naiyayika. Crisp logic, at times so crisp that it confuses people. To someone bringing flowers for puja he might say: why are you offering flowers to God? You took them from God. They belong to God. The flowers are God, the idol is God. What is the point? He did not always speak so, but there are such cases. He spoke from the plane where all is Brahman, and he could be very critical.

Against Aurobindo

• The same Jupiter and Mars influences are there. What is missing is Rahu and Ketu.
• Ramana Maharshi did not think his job was to interpret the Vedas and Upanishads. He taught the same knowledge; anybody who realises God will. He did not focus on the texts.
• In Aurobindo's chart Ketu in the 2nd from Karkamsa made him focus on the Vedas and Upanishads and demystify them.
• With the Jupiter and Moon influence Ramana Maharshi was a famous teacher of wise teachings.

Ramakrishna Paramahansa

The class does not read out the birth data, and no chart is cast on this page. The placements are as the teacher reads them from his screen.

Atmakaraka: Rahu. "For Rahu, we count houses backward. That is the way I do it."

Navamsa Rahu at 22° Capricorn. Counted backward, the 5th is 22° Virgo.

5th from Karkamsa — 22° Virgo

• Venus is within a degree of it. A very strong Venus on the 5th cusp.
• Mercury and Jupiter aspect 22° Virgo from the 8th house away: about 68–70% each.
• Mercury, Jupiter and Venus are all planets of knowledge, understanding and communication. Venus is the strongest of the three.
• Like Jupiter, Venus can show one who writes books. He wrote none; his students wrote down his teachings.
• With Venus he communicates with anybody. The teacher points to the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by M.: among the spiritual teachers of the last millennium he had a unique ability to connect with anyone.

How it showed

• He would talk of Brahman and Atman on the plane of Ramana Maharshi. He would also say: go and serve people, God is in people. He would say God is in the idol, worship it; and to another, God is everywhere, why do you need an idol, just meditate. He taught whatever was the right course for the person in front of him.
• On a pilgrimage with a rich patron he saw slum dwellers, stopped the whole party, and made the patron clothe them, oil their hair, bathe and feed them and give them money before he would move. Why go to Vrindavan to see Krishna when Krishna is here and suffering? He knew he could not fix the world. He wanted the rich man to learn Karma Yoga.
• Prostitutes who hesitated at the temple steps he called in. He let one touch his feet.
• Girish, a learned man, a famous dramatist and actor of Calcutta, an alcoholic and a womaniser, left his bottle in the palanquin so as not to defile the cottage. Ramakrishna sent him back for it and made him drink in front of him. Later he had Girish give him "the power of attorney" for all his karma. For a couple of years Girish went on as before, but each time he thought: Ramakrishna is suffering for this. The guilt changed him. Through Girish the actors, actresses, artists and drunkards of Calcutta, who had no other access to a saint, heard of God.
• He picked out a rich man's servant, a child labourer who never learned to read or write, and said he was destined to be a great saint. That was Latu, later Swami Adbhutananda.

"He would use very simple and sometimes very crude parables. Very simple stories he will say, very simple metaphors which may or may not be perfect, but they get the idea across. So he was a master of metaphor, master of parables. So that skill is given by Venus."

2nd from Karkamsa

• Sun is in the 2nd house. Not close to the cusp, but in the house.
• Singing ability. Ramakrishna is known as a good singer and dancer. Whenever a bhajan began he would go round dancing. The Sun's sense of rhythm came out in both.
• Sun in Jupiter's sign also shows knowledge of the Vedas and a sense of dharma.

D-20 — spiritual life

• Rahu at 20° Capricorn. The 5th is 20° Virgo.
• Moon has a close aspect on it. The owner is Mercury.
• Jupiter at 21° Taurus, in the 9th from Karkamsa, has an extremely close aspect on the 5th from Karkamsa and on Karkamsa itself.
• D-20 is spiritual life and the 5th is Purva Punya. Jupiter there: the Purva Punya comes into his sadhana as great wisdom and good judgment.
• The 5th lord Mercury ties Mercury to the 5th from Karkamsa: a Paramahamsa by the previous class's verse. That Mercury is in a Venusian sign, which is conducive to accepting all.
• He not only accepted all, he brought out the best in each. He saw exactly what each person's weakness was and gave the instruction that would overcome it.
• Parashara names Mercury. Jupiter's aspect helps too.