Fundamental Principles Working in the Birth Chart of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati

Fundamental Yogas of Astrology

The three most fundamental yogas of classical Indian natal astrology are those concerning the neighbors and direct influences upon three points: the Ascendant, Sun and Moon. When a classical astrologer picks up a horoscope, the first thing he or she should do is evaluate these three fundamental groups of yogas. In so doing, he or she figures out the baseline and foundation on which to construct the rest of the interpretation of finer details in the horoscope.

Let’s see this principle in action, in the horoscope of the great astrologer and sadhu, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati.

His birth data is February 6, 1874 at 15:30 in Puri, Orissa, India. We calculate the chart in classical Indian style, which uses whole-signs for houses, and the tropical zodiac (as defined in classical Sanskrit texts and as most likely was employed by Bhaktisiddhanta himself), using European glyphs out of personal preference…

Confining ourselves to the three key points defined above, What do we observe here?

Ascendant:

• Nothing joins it or flanks it on either side.
• It’s dispositor is the Moon, which means anything affecting the Moon is doubly significant (since the Moon is already significant on its own).

Moon:

• Jupiter joins it. That sets a scope for reading the horoscope towards Jupiter-themes: honesty, learning, philosophy, religion, morality, law.
  • The junction is in the 4^th house. Jupiter in the 4^th indicates heartfelt morality and inner happiness.
  • Jupiter in Libra. This shows a modern, forward-thinking, non-conformist approach to morality, religion, philosophy, etc.
• Ketu in the 2^nd. Classically speaking, we’re not supposed to care about Ketu or Rahu in these positions, but it is hard to ignore the spiritual, mystical indication of Ketu in the 2^nd from the Moon while Jupiter joins the Moon.
• Many Trines. Many planets are trine to the Moon, in its 5^th house (showing intelligence) and the 8^th house from the ascendant (showing mysticism and research). Venus is particularly aligned with the Moon’s degree, causing it’s 5^th house aspect to be at its peak. Venus is the Moon’s own lord and the lord of the Moon’s 8^th – showing great inner emotional contentment and peace, as well as a great capacity for research into unknown / mystical topics.

Sun:

Mars in the 2^nd position from the Sun: Ambitious, independent, and sharp.

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati was extremely ambitious: he “took on the world” and formed a whole new religious/spiritual movement with a global focus, preaching even to the British during the British occupation, and sending missionaries to Great Brittan.

He was extremely independent: he divorced himself from the popular Hindu understandings of culture and religion, accepted a guru in a non-conventional way, ascribed his lineage in a non-traditional way, gave himself sanyassa, and never married, and was completely aloof from public opinion.

He was extremely sharp – his words were like arrows, and his intellect was like a razor.

This places Mars in the 9^th house. Passion for religion (a Mars in the 9^th house indication) becomes more fundamental and sure in the chart because Mars in the 9^th house is also in the 2^nd position from the Sun.

Mars in Pisces adds to the above that the character of the passion for religion is philosophical and learned.

Saturn, Venus and Mercury join the Sun, in Aquarius. This shows the ability to use language poetically when expressing esoteric logics.

Summary

In this chart we find a very big emphasis has to be placed on the Moon. Why? (a) It is the Moon, which always deserves emphases (b) It disposits the Ascendant, which has no other significant influences (except an aspect from Mars in the 9^th house), and (c) because it (joined Jupiter) is alone amongst the Kendras (4 central houses: 1, 4, 7, and 10).

We also have to very significantly emphasize our interpretation of Mars, a single planet that affects all three important points.

• It aspects the ascendant (with 47 out of 60 virupas)
• It perfectly aspects the Moon (60/60)
• It is in the 2^nd position from the Sun.

So we are inclined to use the symbol of “the Moon joined Jupiter in 4^th house Libra” as the baseline for the chart, the foundation upon which the interpretation of this horoscope should be constructed. And the first condition we blend this with should be “Mars in the 9th house Pisces.”

Doing that without knowing who Bhaktisiddhanta was, we would quite easily come to these accurate interpretations

• Religion and philosophy was the main focus of his life (viz Jupiter),
• He was detached from external sources of happiness (viz Jupiter),
• He was passionate, ambitious, and independent (viz Mars),
• And he was quite learned (viz Moon/Jupiter/Sun).

This serves as example of how to build the basic understanding of the person by looking for the most important conditions affecting the Sun, Moon and Ascendant. Only after this basic understanding is formed can one surely proceed into finer details.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur on 29 March 1918 two days after taking sannyasa. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

Astrology and Chaos Theory

What is Chaos?

What is “Chaos Theory” anyway? It’s not the idea that things have no order, it’s the idea that some things are beyond the ability to understand and predict.

A simple example of Chaos Theory is the first shot in a game of billiards. There is no way to predict what balls will go in what holes, or if any of them will go in at all. Even if you hit the cue ball at the same velocity and angle, and strike the rack of balls in the same place – every time the outcome will be extremely different.

It’s because the amount of variables involved are so great. Tiny, tiny differences in how the balls are positioned in relation to one another have enormous, unpredictable effects on where the balls will go when they are hit.

“Unpredictable” doesn’t mean it follows no order. It simply means that the complexity of the order is beyond the grasp of our comprehension. It is predictable, but we are not sophisticated enough to figure it out.

The Chaos of Astrology

Lets say the cue ball is like the rising sign and the planets in various signs and houses are like the balls racked up for the first shot in a game of billiards. …I think you already get my point. The slightest change or mis-measurement of any one of the parts could potentially have an enormous and wild effect on the outcome. The famous analogy in this regard is from Henri Poincaré: “A difference in how a butterfly flaps its wings could cause a hurricane in a distant land in a few weeks.”

Predictability Zones

Within a chaotic / unpredictable field, there are zones that are simpler for some reason, and therefore come within the grasp of our comprehension and therefore we can predict their effects. A computer simulation of a metal ball handing from a string above three magnets arranged in a triangle was able to map out which magnet would finally hold the ball, if the ball was dropped from specific places on a grid. But within each predictable grid unit, if you zoom in, is a sub-grid, and some of those grids produce different results. And if you zoom in on those, again there are some areas that produce abnormal results. This continues in a fractal manner, ad infinitum.

This means that there are some cases where a prediction is reasonably easy or feasible to make, but other cases where the complexity makes it impossible and likely for the prediction to be wildly in error.

What We Should Learn

In many cases, we will be able to make an accurate prediction – within reasonable granularity. But there are some cases where it is simply beyond human capacity to understand the complexity of the factors involved. It is very difficult to know if you are in a “chaotic zone” or an “orderly zone” when reading a horoscope. We should never state our predictions as if they are divine foreknowledge, we should state our hypothesis. We should approach every horoscope with humility.

A Statement on Pricing

A Statement on Pricing

Many of you have been with me for several years now, and have watched me experiment with pricing my astrological services – sometimes to great extremes. Over the last few years I have tried everything from normal, to low, to donation pricing. After all this experimentation I’ve reached a conclusion. I’d like to take a few moments to explain it to you.

There is the noble idea that “Knowledge should be given freely.” But this necessitates another noble principle, “Those who give knowledge should never be charged for anything.” These two interdependent noble ideas actually worked in many ancient and classical cultures, especially in India’s history; but in today’s culture of global capitalism, it’s a pipe-dream.

If I couldn’t give it for free, I tried giving it cheaply. But the result was exhausting. I had to overwork to keep up with my expenses (I support a family with three children, living in Japan). I felt that the quality of my work declined somewhat, which I dislike, and I lost the precious time an astrologer requires to continuously study and contemplate.

I tried another angle: donations. I thought that this may allow people with less economic facility to get knowledge, while people with more economic facility could be more generous and make up the difference. It did work somewhat, but “making up the difference” still amounted to working at very inexpensive rates, and thus the same exhaustion, overwork and loss of quality. People in general cannot be blamed for not understanding the hours of study that must go into every hour of giving a reading, so it’s not really feasible to ask them to donate as much or as often as I need.

And so, to my decision: Fixed prices that I know to be fair to myself and my clients.

To determine exactly what that is I did a survey of seven astrologers with similar credentials and situations as I and found their average fee for a birth chart reading was $300, for a transit or progression was $265, and for a compatibility reading was $280. I used these figures as the guidepost for establishing my fee structure.

From here on, I don’t intend to experiment anymore with pricing. My fees will not change except as fluctuating currency values necessitate from time to time. Here are the readings I will offer.

Thank you,

Vic DiCara

Election Astrology

If you know me at all, you know that normally I really don’t care much about modern politics and don’t normally do this sort of astrology, but I got an inspiration to take a look at the whole thing from a different perspective.

My idea is: There are liberal planets and there are conservative planets, just like there are liberal / democratic and conservative / republican candidates. So lets see which side is stronger right now among the planets and predict that the same candidate will win.

I think this is a reasonable idea because usually you don’t get to run in a presidential election all the way till the end if you don’t have a horoscope that has huge chances of winning  So the theory is that both candidates should have plenty of indications for being capable to win the election – therefore let’s divert our attention from their personal birth charts, and look instead at the sky overhead during the election.

So even though I’m late to the “political party” and don’t normally have much passion for the subject – I feel inspired to explore this new idea. And the results on the news are still very split down the middle, so I think it’s still legit to write an article making a prediction about the winner.

Political Affiliations of the Planets

The Sun is the king, so he is “conservative” – kings want to keep order and maintain power. Mars is enforcement: military, police and so on. Naturally he stays close by the side of the king and is also a conservative. Jupiter is religion, religion has some sense that it shouldn’t be obsessed with worldly power struggles  yet tends not to be able to help itself in siding with conservatives: probably seeking the protection and patronage of the king. So Jupiter too, though not extreme about it, is also a “red state” planet.

Saturn is the anti-king. He is the masses, the people, the proletariat. So although he is stubborn and inflexible, his political affiliation is “liberal” – he wants the people to have power and not be under the whip of hierarchy. Venus is the artist and lover, she is also liberal. Artists always support liberalism  seeking freedom of expression and creativity, and as a feeling that flexibility to many ways of seeing things is a clear path to world peace. Mercury is intellectual. Like Jupiter he is not the most extreme member of his party, but nonetheless he gives his loyalty to the liberal party. Intellectuals, although also needing support from the government, are primarily concerned with freedom of thought and speech.

The Moon, Rahu and Ketu are “third parties.” Or, they are states like Ohio and Florida, they could go either way in different circumstances.

All of that is summarized in Phaladeepika, I’ve just fleshed out a relevant explanation. I didn’t make it up. To sum it up:

Conservatives: Sun, Mars, Jupiter

Liberals: Saturn, Venus, Mercury

So lets see who has more power right now, the liberal or the conservative planets.

The Sky Over the Election

Here is what the planets look like right now in the tropical zodiac. Naturally we divorce the chart of any particular location on earth (therefore there is no ascendant and no houses to consider, except from the Moon):

Zodiac Positions During the Election

Let’s look at it in a classical, square format, considering the Moon to be the “ascendant”:

In a classical square format, with the Moon as the Ascendant.

The biggest component of strength (according to the shadbala technique, which considers more than a dozen factors) is dignity. But it is a mistake to just look at the dignity of the sign alone. We have to consider the dignity of the degree, and the subsigns that affect that degree of the zodiac. Explaining exactly how you do this is way beyond the scope of this article, though. But here are the numbers:

Dignity of the important planets, considering seven zodiac subdivisions

On this basis the edge goes to Obama, the liberal – primarily because Venus is very strong and Jupiter is very weak.

I don’t have all the time in the world for this, but if I did I would be more careful to choose the specific seven zodiac subdivisions that directly affect planetary potency.

Speaking of potency here is the shadbala for the relevant planets:

shadbala

I would prefer to do a customization of shadbala for a non-natal application such as this – but for the sake of writing an interesting article, I’m just setting the Moon as identical to the Ascendant and calculating the potency on that basis.

I’ve also noted that Jupiter is on a fatal degree in the drekkan (3rd zodiac subdivision).

Prediction

It’s in favor of Obama.

I am not well read on either candidate, but it seems to me that Romney’s main schtick is his Christian values. Seeing Jupiter on a fatal d3 degree, in lousy dignity and powerful in bala – I think religion is what will make the important votes sway away from Romney. In his favor, the Sun has pretty good dignity, but very low bala to do anything with it. Mars is pretty middling in both areas today.

The liberals [Obama] have a very strong and very dignified Venus in their favor. And neither Saturn nor Mercury is particularly weak.

Therefore the output of my political astrological formula is: Obama wins.

Let’s see if he actually pulls it off, it still looks very close on the news. If he pulls it off, it’ll be a sign to me that I should investigate this method a bit more and try it in a few other circumstances and see if it is reliable more than once. If he doesn’t win, it was still a fun article to write, and hopefully you learned something about the affiliations of the planets, and how to look at dignity and potency. If he loses and I am still attached to this theory, I could do the things I noted wanting to do differently but not having time for, regarding dignity and potency, and see if that would change the prediction.

Now, back to Walter Cronkite…

Thanks,

Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com