APPLIED VEDIC ASTROLOGY: FOSTERING INSIGHT AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR TRANSFORMING YOUR LIFE
Jyotish means light and it is shining light on people’s hidden patterns and revealing them so that they can take responsibility for changing them through new action and choices and awareness. It should also reveal the play of the puppet stings tugging at our emotions and our psychology so that we realize that the planets are hard at work spinning webs of illusion when there may not really be anything there. It is the craziness and blocks of our thoughts and self-doubt that so often causes so many of our problems.
People think that mantras and vedic ceremonies are magic bullets but that is not totally the case. In fact, when mantras and ceremonies are prescribed, they help by loosening the grip of the illusion of the mind so that we can then take new action without being gripped or feeling victimized. They should create good health, power of speech and action to create new directions in our life so that we are empowered. Sometimes clients would like a magic bullet to lift the problems and sometimes that can happen with grace if you have a Sat Guru and are blessed. More often than not, the client has to actively make major changes in their life to recreate their life. This is no easy task and requires huge willpower, motivation and a strong ability to change. Without spiritual practice, service and the company of spiritual people and support this can be difficult to accomplish. Ideally we have to own the responsibility of our own suffering and do something to change it.
For modern Western clients, I like to recommend donations that are specific for the Karma involved. If we can do service work or donate to charities related to problems in our life, we are re-addressing past karma very directly. Freedom Cole in his book, Science of Light, suggests this model. For example, a person with a Venus/Rahu affliction in their chart may have reproductive issues and karmically this may be connected to abusing women in past lives so donating time or money to battered women’s shelters on a Friday, ruled by Venus, may be a direct way of readdressing past karma.  Jupiter/Rahu afflictions which may cause problems with luck in this life may mean that you were not a good parent to your children in past lives or that you were not respectful of Gurus and donating to support children or teachers and doing volunteer work for agencies like scouting and Big Brother/ Little Sister on a Thursday, ruled by Jupiter, may be a way of addressing that past karma.   One can start seeing all karma in a chart in this way and by being more specific in seeing the karma on a microscopic level, one can suggest a more specific remedy that will be stronger depending on the planet’s sign, aspects and nakshatra.Â
Rather than blame the planet, learn what lessons you did not master in the past and get it right this time. It’s like that wonderful Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day. Get out of your nightmare by being kinder and help others and then you will not suffer. The planets just want us to get it right this time so we do not have to wake up in the same nightmare every morning like Bill Murray.