Tribhagi Vimshottari Deep Philosophy — Nakshatra as Pranavayu & 3 Gunas

Nakshatra Sutras Continued

Krittika and Rohini were read in the last class. Today the teacher reads the mantras of the next two nakshatras before the class starts.

• Mrigashirsha and Mrigashira are the same word. Mrigashirsha is the form found in the scriptures; people say Mrigashira today. Shira and Shirsha both mean head.
• The mantra is addressed to the deity as ruler of that nakshatra.

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Tribhagi Vimshottari Dasha — Deep Philosophy

The question that opened it

A student had a chart where normal Vimshottari made a marriage look likely in a period, but Tribhagi Vimshottari did not seem to say the same. Which one to follow?

• The same problem comes with any five or six dashas: one shows marriage, another divorce, another a new girlfriend.
• No dasha answers an objective questionnaire ("he is getting married", "he is getting a child").
• "Each Dasha is basically dividing life into various phases and looking at those phases from a different perspective."
• The only correct solution: understand what exactly each dasha shows.

What each dasha shows

• Both Vimshottari and Tribhagi Vimshottari are based on Moon. Both are progressions of the mind.
• Normal Vimshottari: nine dashas. From Swati, the Moon goes Rahu (Swati) → Jupiter (Vishakha) → Saturn (Anuradha)… a 120° arc.
• Tribhagi: from Swati all the way round to Chitra. All 27 stars, and the same 120 years divided among the whole zodiac.

Nakshatra = a station of Pranavayu

• Whatever moves us is the life force. That vayu is Pranavayu.
• Moon is the mind. Nakshatras are stations of vayu, stations of prana.
• As Moon is progressed through the nakshatras, the mind takes the energy of that station of Pranavayu.
• The parallel: Sun becomes one of the twelve Adityas according to the sign he is in. Moon becomes one of the stations of Pranavayu according to the nakshatra he is in.
• There are 27 or 28 kinds of life force that can set the mind in motion.

"Ardra, Swati and Shatabhisha, all the three are Rahu nakshatras as per normal Vimshottari, but they are all totally different. The nature of the life force governed by these three nakshatras is totally different."

The same holds for the three Jupiter nakshatras — Punarvasu, Vishakha, Purvabhadra.

Ardra and Punarvasu compared

• Ardra (Rudra): the life force moving the mind is fiery. A lot of fire and energy. The mind can be very unstable or very dynamic, depending on other factors.
• Punarvasu (Aditi): Aditi is a wife of Kashyapa Prajapati and the mother of all the gods. The devatas are the good qualities within you; Aditi is the principle from which all of them are born. Being a mother, she shows comfort, patience, love, compassion.
  • When Punarvasu moves the mind, the mind is relaxed, calm, compassionate. Not one good quality but all of them flourish.
• A student called Punarvasu "opposite to Ardra". The teacher corrects it: different, not opposite. Rudra is also a god. Aditi is mother of all kinds of gods — fiery, energetic, relaxed — including your righteous fieriness.
• No nakshatra is simply good or bad. "Every nakshatra shows a certain kind of life force and there is a positive side and a negative side to it." The context decides.

Mind is not inert

• Earlier statement: mind is that through which you experience the world, Lagna is that through which you act.
• Refined now: the mind also contemplates and synthesizes every action. It controls how you experience, how you want to change the world, all actions and reactions.
• If the mind is totally still there is no breath, no movement, no speech, no thought. "If mind is dead, you are basically God."
• "Lagna is a dumb servant which basically acts, but it is Moon who contemplates all the actions that you are going to engage in."

Why Tribhagi shows the nakshatra better

• Normal Vimshottari also covers all 360°, in a way: for a Swati native the Rahu dasha is the dasha of Swati, Shatabhisha and Ardra together; the Jupiter dasha is Vishakha, Purvabhadra and Punarvasu together.
• But three nakshatras are clubbed into one dasha. The focus falls on the planet: "the progressed Moon is under Rahu's influence now, after 18 years under Jupiter's."
• "Even though it is a nakshatra dasha, the focus is not on nakshatra." In Tribhagi each nakshatra's influence on the mind is delineated separately.
• Why these planets rule these nakshatras for these many years: the teacher says he does not have the full answer. Take it for now that all nakshatra dashas show the experience of the mind.

"In the normal Vimshottari, grahas are more important, nakshatras are secondary. Here, grahas are secondary and nakshatras are primary. So pay more attention to the nakshatras."

Combining the two

• Normal Vimshottari gives what the person experiences. Tribhagi gives the latent state of mind under those experiences — agitated or calm.
• One man experiences prosperity and is still restless. Another has many obstacles to overcome and still feels an inner calm and assurance.
• "They are not alternatives to each other. They are basically different perspectives to look at the same thing."
• With Tribhagi you can get into the mind of the person, because you see what is moving it.

The three gunas and the trine nakshatras

• A student suggested that tripling the nakshatras brings more elements in. The teacher adds what "they say": the three nakshatras in trine (the three of one planet) stand for the three gunas — one sattvic, one rajasic, one tamasic.
• If the mind were above the gunas you would not exist as a separate being — a jivanmukta. While you exist, the life force moving the mind takes the nature of sattva, rajas or tamas.
• Normal Vimshottari shows all three influences together. Tribhagi shows the one that is strongest at that time.
• Asked which nakshatra of each trine is which guna, the teacher does not remember whether there is a clear pattern and promises to brush up for the next class.

No "double impact"

• A student asked whether "Moon dasha, Shravana" means the Moon acts twice.
• No. The software prints both the nakshatra and its Vimshottari lord because the relation is one-to-one: Hasta always shows Moon, Chitra Mars, Swati Rahu. It is a single impact.
• Reading the list for a child born minutes earlier: Moon in Pushyami, ruled by Saturn — the mind is under Saturn, "but more importantly under the influence of Pushyami". From 2010 the life force of Ashlesha, governed by Mercury, moves the mind.

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How to Use Tribhagi Vimshottari Dasha

Look at the nakshatra, not the planet

• "Sun is in the 7th house, so in Sun dasha I got married" — the way it was shown in the last class — is a very simplistic use of Tribhagi.
• The teacher's own case: he is running the Rahu Tribhagi dasha of Ardra. His mind is under the influence of Ardra.

"So look at Ardra. Look at what is in Ardra. Which sahamas, which planets, which points are in Ardra? That is more important than looking at where Rahu is in my chart."

Add the transit

• See who is in that nakshatra right now.
• "Whichever planets are in Ardra right now or whichever planets are aspecting Ardra right now by nakshatra drishti or rasi drishti, they will naturally have an influence on my mental state, because my progressed Moon is in Ardra right now."
• So: who influences the nakshatra in the natal chart, and who influences it in the current transit.

Where the teacher has used it

• Any dasha is technically applicable to all charts.
• In the annual Tithi Pravesha charts of people he has not used it much — he is happy with Tithi Ashtottari, and does not apply even normal Vimshottari much there.
• Where he found it very useful: mundane charts — the lunar new year chart (Chaitra Shukla Pratipada) and the Kartika Shukla Pratipada chart, cast for the day after Deepavali and used for the financial markets.
• His stock-market method, taught at a gurukulam that year: Tribhagi Vimshottari on the Kartika Shukla Pratipada chart, compressed to the year, with transits.
• It fits every compressed chart: the progression starts from the Moon's star, covers all 27 stars and returns to the same place by the end of the year.

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Reconciling Conflicting Factors — Fundamental Principle

Question asked: a variation of the first question. If Lagna and Moon show different things, how do you reconcile them?

• Do not treat Lagna and Moon as alternatives, any more than Vimshottari and Tribhagi. You do not toss a coin and pick one.
• Two people in the room are different persons. Strip all the layers and both are the same Paramatma; in manifestation they are different. Lagna and Moon are different in the same way.
• Before asking how to reconcile, ask: are these two really showing the same thing? Is there anything to reconcile?

"99% of the time when people ask you, how do you reconcile these two factors? It's not a question of reconciliation. It is a question of understanding the exact meaning of this versus exact meaning of that."

• Moon's nakshatra and sign and Lagna's nakshatra and sign each have their own importance.
• "He has Lagna in Aries, so he is a very dynamic person" — not very helpful by itself. Moon also has a role.
• It is good to go back to the basics now and then. After learning so much we forget who Lagna is and who Moon is.

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