WHY DO EXALTED PLANETS SOMETIMES NOT DELIVER THEIR PROMISES?

WHEN EXALTED PLANETS DO NOT BRING RESULTS:

When I meet people, they often  want to tell me about their charts, and  proclaim, “I have an exalted Mars or exalted Venus.”   Often times it is very positive but there are so many qualifying factors and  a little knowledge is always dangerous.  There are many modifications that happen that can impact the power of the planets to perform and these should be understood.  As always, a professional astrologer should be consulted to dissect what is happening.

What most people fail to look at is forget to analyze the dispositor of an exalted planet and these dispositors can be:

1. Where the lord of the sign is placed.
2. What the nakshatras is doing and where its lord is placed.
3. What is happening in the Navamsha or D-9 chart. Exalted planet would be spoiled in 3^rd, 6^th, 8^th or 12^th house in the D-9 or if debilitated in the D-9 chart.

If the lord of the exalted sign is not well-placed, it can spoil the fruits of the exalted planet. So if you are a woman and have an exalted Sun in the 7^th,  you may marry a wealthy man of high stature but if Mars, the ruler of Aries is in Cancer in the 12^th house, the your husband may be sick and die early.  Hence an exalted planet can be ruined by other influences. The dispositor will show whether the full fruition will come.

So to have the full fruits of an exalted planet,

1. the planet should not be afflicted or debilitated in the D-9 or D-60 chart.
2. the despositor of planet should not be afflicted or debilitated so if the Sun is exalted and Mars is debilitated in Cancer or debilitated in the D-9 or aspected by Saturn than the purity of the exaltation is ruined.
3. Exalted planets should be well-placed from the Arudha lagna (the perception lagna)  to bring complete manifested values of the planet. That would mean you want benefics in kendras and trines from the Arudha lagna and not malefics.

Note this is why we have to take a microscopic orientation toward reading charts. They are like reading strands of DNA with unique karma to manifest.  Side note:

Take for example a Capricorn chart with Saturn exalted in Libra.  You might thing that the person might have a great job and status but if Venus were debilitated in the 12^th house or debilitated in the D-9 chart and if Venus were in Virgo or if  were afflicted by Ketu or Mars, the person  might be a cleaning person and have to work very hard and might lose that job in a sub-period of Venus.

I have a colleague who is Virgo rising and Mercury is exalted in Virgo but it is retrograde and it is debilitated in D-9 and Marana Karaka Stanana in the 7^th house in D-9. He is running a Mercury period and it is filled with health problem, mental worries, inability to focus and a sense of low self-esteem for not having any status in the world and inability to be in relationship.

Thus, exalted planets will often have some blemish in the chart, in D-9 or D-60 or by nakshshtra or malefic aspect and may not deliver the promised results.   Vedic astrology is like reading strands of DNA.  You do not want to over-generalize.

EXALTED PLANETS IN THE 6^TH, 8^TH OR 12^TH HOUSES:

Still it is better to have an exalted planet  in a trik house if they are  benefic but there will still be problems.

Exalted planets in 6^th can give excellent service environment in day to day life but still one may suffer from disease signifies by the planets

Exalted in the 8^th may give inheritance and sudden wealth from many forms but it may give chronic illness and if malefic then sudden accidents

Exalted in 12^th may take one foreign lands and happiness in isolation via private religious practices, knowledge of space and astrology at same time it may give eccentric behaviors difficult to handle for others

EXALTED MALEFICS  

You do not want exalted planets to be malefics as it makes them more powerful to cause harm—particularly if they are also functional malefics.  I have a friend with an exalted Mars for Sagittarius rising and it owns the 5^th and 12^th in the 2^nd and Mars give him a particularly fowl mouth and the malefic aspect on the 8^th house created serious illness problems for his private parts with the aspect to the 8th house.

EXALTED PLANETS IN MARANA KARAKA STHANA HOUSES:

In our article on Marana Karaka Sthana, we discussed how certain house bring down the status of a planet and make it dysfunction.  Moon in the 8^th house is stuck in the quicksand and cannot express its emotions.  Jupiter in the 3^rd may be too involved in business or sexual play and veer of ifs path of pursuing wisdom etc.

Exalted planets that end up MKS (Karana Karaka Sthana) may lose their energy to deliver.   For example a woman with exalted Jupiter in the 3^rd house may have trouble finding a husband or having children by the affliction caused by the 3^rd house placement. (Of course other factors have to be considered.)  If the moon, the owner of Cancer is poorly placed or afflicted it would further hamper the situation as the dispositor of Cancer is weak.

WHAT HAPPENS IF A PLANET IS EXALTED AND RETROGRADE?

Exalted/Retrograde planets will bring outer success but create inner debility. I have an exalted/retrograde Saturn which gives me great technical abilities, deep spirituality and patience but it also creates excessive fear about the simplest things like driving (Saturn owns my 4^th) or sexual experience (it owns the 3^rd)  for Scorpio rising.

Often a retrograde exalted  planet will take away the success it has given at some point and lead to renouncing outer achievements. My colleague who is Virgo rising with exalted Mercury, retrograde in the first, was very successful in the business world for many years but in his Mercury period he is struggling with being a somebody and having any status.  He has almost forgotten all the great things he has done. The Yoga from Virgo exalted in the 1^st is spoiled.

Special thanks to  and Zoran Radosavljevic and Sanjay Rath  for their insights on this material.