Remedial Measures — Gems, Mantras, Pujas & Sura/Asura Planet Groups

Invoking a Deity — Āvāhana, and Which Sign Fits Which Deity

The day before the class there was a Sahasra Jyotirlinga puja in the Boston area: a thousand lamps laid out as a Shiva linga, a deity invoked in each lamp, volunteers lighting them one by one.

What "āvāhayāmi" means

• In a vratam you touch the idol with the tip of the right ring finger and say āvāhayāmi. Until then the idol has no life force. You are passing part of the spark within you into it for the length of the puja.
• The services offered afterwards (washing the feet, offering food) are offered to the God within you, because that is where the God in the idol came from.
• When you light a lamp in such a puja, say āvāhayāmi yourself, and know which deity you are invoking.

"When you invoke a particular god, you are invoking the god within you, that particular god within you, into that particular lamp or particular idol."

The right person for the right deity

All the gods are within everyone, but the strengths and weaknesses of the horoscope make some deities more fitting for a person than others. Anybody can light the lamp; if the right person lights it, it is powerful.

• A student answered Capricorn for mountains. PVNR: Capricorn is Makara, the crocodile — it shows ponds and cruel animals, not mountains. Mountains are fixed, so the sign must be a fixed sign, and the classics give Aquarius.
• A strong sign or that lagna makes the person fit; so does a matching yoga in the chart.
• When a rishi conducts such a ritual, the right people come forward for the right lamps on their own.
• These sign–place links matter most in prasna. For hidden wealth, Pisces can mean a beach or a hospital; Aquarius can mean a hill.

Remedial Measures — Sattvic and Rajasic

Prayer for the accident period

• See which planet owns the 6th or 8th house in the natal chart, not the annual chart, and pray to that deity.
• This native's 6th lord is Venus: pray to Lakshmi, to Lalita, to the Mother. Either there will be no accident or it will be smaller.

Take off the 6th lord's gem

If this native had come in January 2004, just before that Sun daśā, wearing a new diamond, he should be told to take it off at once and pray to Lakshmi. Diamond is Venus's gem and Venus is his 6th lord. It is always bad for him, and worse in the month whose daśā activates the 6th house in D-16.

Praying to a planet and wearing its gem are different things.

• Pujas and mantras are a sattvic remedy. Praying to the 6th lord or the 8th lord is perfectly fine: you pray so that their maleficence is reduced.
• Gems are a rajasic remedy, wherever on the body they are worn.

"It's like to pay off a loan, you are taking another bigger loan from another bank and paying it off. You will have to pay for it some other time, maybe in this life or in the next life."

• With a rajasic measure, a mistake is punished.
• It is a very bad idea to wear the gem of the 6th lord or the 8th lord of the Rasi chart. The 6th lord's gem is the worse of the two — never wear it.
• A student asked: what if the 8th lord is also the 5th lord? Still a bad idea. A planet owning two houses gives both results together. It makes sense only for a reason such as wanting children while the Narayana daśā of the 5th house runs, and only if a good astrologer prescribes it.
• This holds for every gem, not only diamond. Emerald is bad for Aries lagna.
• A woman with Pisces lagna was given a diamond ring at her engagement, a ruby necklace from her fiancé, and began wearing a diamond necklace as well — the gems of her 8th and 6th lords. The engagement broke soon after. PVNR told her first of all to get rid of them.
• People often wear gems as jewellery without thinking of them as a remedy. They act all the same.

Mantras — sattvic, rajasic, tamasic

A student asked whether mantras can go on all the time. They can. But mantras are of three kinds.

• Sattvic: reading, say, the Vishnu Sahasranama with no desire, for the happiness of it. Whichever planet or house the deity goes with, only good comes of it.
• Rajasic: the same prayer done for something — a happy marriage, children, the next promotion. No clearly negative result. If the procedure is not right, you do not get the result, but nothing comes back at you.
• Tamasic: vashikarana mantras, black-magic mantras, tantras. The mantra and the deity must be right for your chart and the procedure flawless. Otherwise you suffer the bad results.

What reading the names does

• Reading the words without understanding them shows discipline, and God is pleased with that, but the full benefit does not come. Understand each name and feel its meaning.
• Each name praises a virtue. Praising it strengthens that virtue in you.
• Some think God is pleased by praise the way a person is, and gives results in return. That is a narrow view.

"The real meaning of praising God is you are praising the God within you. By pondering over good things, you will increase the good within you."

• To rise above rajasic worship is hard. We always want things and do not see that we have everything. Most people ask for something every time they go to a temple. That is fine — but make the effort to rise above it.
• Do not think sattvic puja brings "the best results". There is no such thing. It is a painful path, and the only one that leads to moksha.

Gems — Metal, Finger, Hand, and When to Prescribe

PVNR does not wear gems himself. On several points here he reports what elders say and has no view of his own.

Navagraha ring; must the stone touch the skin?

• Navagraha ring: some hold that the nine gems cancel each other, so a bad planet's gem among them does no harm. Some elders say not to wear such a ring — wear only the gems that suit you.
• Touch: one view is that the stone must touch the body. Another is that an opening under the stone is enough, so that light passing through it reaches the skin and bath water touching the stone touches you. A closed gold backing blocks it.
• How a gem makes a planet favourable — through light or through touch — is not understood. "I can only speculate."

Metal

The planets fall into two groups (Part 12). For Jupiter's group gold is best. For Venus's group silver is better than gold. People say platinum, but the shastra speaks of silver and gold. Within each group there are deviations:

• The same metals apply when planets are invoked in a vratam. The ideal procedure is an idol of each graha in its own metal: āvāhayāmi, sthāpayāmi, pūjayāmi. The coin put down today stands for that idol. If you have a choice, pick a coin of the right metal.
• Is Rahu's ring good to wear? No more and no less than Jupiter's. It depends on the chart. For one person Jupiter is terrible and Rahu or Ketu the best; for another the reverse.

Finger — by purushartha, not by palmistry

The thumb is the self, ahankara. The other four fingers are the four purusharthas.

• Mudras in puja follow this. Thumb to little finger: the aim lies in the kama trikona. Thumb to index finger: moksha and nothing less. Thumb to ring finger: dharma alone — acceptable, and the standard pose in Buddhist meditation.
• Thumb to middle finger alone is inauspicious and prohibited. Never ask for money alone. Join the ring and middle fingers to the thumb: ask for artha in a dharmic way.
• A ring strengthens a planet. Ask which purushartha you want from that planet and wear it on that finger.
• Never wear a gem on the index finger. Rings are rajasic. Moksha comes only through sattva; a ring there takes you away from it. The one exception is the ring of darbha grass worn on that finger for a homa or yajna — a sattvic ring, not a gem.
• Jupiter in the 10th, worn for success in career: the middle finger.
• The confusion comes from palmistry, which gives the mount under the index finger to Jupiter, under the middle finger to Saturn, under the ring finger to Sun, under the little finger to Mercury, and so calls each whole finger by that planet. People are then told that Jupiter's gem on "Saturn's finger" is bad, or that a ruby must go on "Sun's finger".
• The purushartha is the principle. If Sun is the 10th lord and his ring is worn on the dharma finger, Sun takes you toward dharma. He will not give success in career.

Hand

• Sanjay Rath's teaching: the right hand increases the planet's strength, the left hand suppresses it. PVNR has no view on this.
• Other elders: right and left are not increase and decrease. They are the solar and the lunar way, the Jupiterian and the Venusian half, the two nadis. Choose by the Hora the planet occupies.
• Treating male as plus and female as minus is what gives "increase and decrease" — a narrow way of seeing a duality of nature.
• For yellow sapphire the right hand is best in general.

When to prescribe

"The best thing is always just do pujas, just do mantras, and whatever you have to suffer, suffer it. The karma is over. You don't have to relive it in another life."

Some people are in desperate need. If a gem must be given:

• Not by antardaśā. It is over in a year or two, and nobody buys a gold ring for that. Serious trouble lies with the mahadaśā lord or with the chart itself.
• By the chart. Gemini lagna with the 10th lord Jupiter in Leo, the 3rd — marana karaka sthana for Jupiter. The career is unstable whatever daśā runs, even that of a planet with Raj Yoga. The chart is the root; the daśās are branches. Prescribe yellow sapphire on the right hand, middle finger.
• By the daśā. Same lagna, Jupiter in the 10th in Pisces — a good career, useful to society, Pisces being a sattvic sign. But he runs the daśā of the 8th lord of D-10 and has had four years of trouble. Jupiter is already strong, and his ring will add little. Wear the ring of the planet giving the trouble, or simply pray to that planet.
• A Raj Yoga — combine the gems. PVNR's own chart: Virgo lagna, 10th lord Mercury and 9th lord Venus closely conjoined in the Rasi, and exchanging the 9th and 10th houses in a Virgo-rising D-10 — a Dharma-Karmadhipati Yoga. Emerald and diamond set together in one ring are very auspicious for him, on the dharma or the artha finger according to the purpose, above all in Mercury daśā.
• Prescribe by the chart, take off by the daśā. Pisces lagna wanting a happy married life: emerald, for Mercury the 4th and 7th lord. But the 7th is also a maraka sthana. When Mercury's daśā comes together with a Shoola daśā that can give death, tell the person to take the ring off for that time.

Which God to Pray To (Health)

The deity is decided from the natal chart, not the annual chart. Two prayers are joined.

1. To lessen the trouble — the deity of the planet giving it. He is in Rahu daśā and Rahu is in the 8th house of D-6. Pray to Durga: the Durga Saptashati, or any prayer or mantra of Durga. This lessens the trouble. It does not cure.
2. To cure — the deity of the greatest benefactor for health. A student proposed Sun, as 9th lord. PVNR: in the natal chart it is Jupiter, the lagna lord in the 9th house.
   • The 9th is the house of the Guru, so the deity is a great Guru.
   • Jupiter is in Sun's sign, and Sun shows Shiva.
   • Jupiter in Sun's sign in the 9th is clearly Dakshinamurti.

"There are many combinations where you can't be clear. There are several gods that are possible. But in this particular Rasi chart, for Jupiter, it is clearly Dakshinamurti."

Advice to the native: any mantra or shloka of Dakshinamurti, coupled with prayer to Mother Durga.

Sura and Asura Groups of Planets

The natural division of the planets, raised when a student asked about metals:

• Jupiter's group has an affinity for gold.
• Venus's group does not like gold. For them silver is best.
• This is the general rule. Single planets depart from it: copper for Mars, iron for Saturn, panchaloha for Ketu (Part 10).