Astrology Of Spirituality - Why some people renounce the world and become monks Part II

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Continuation of the previous Blog part

The three planets of separation
Sun, Saturn and Rahu are three planets that represent separation; in as much as they tend to separate the person from the traits represented by that house. Which ever planet or house they influence, a person becomes devoid of the results of those houses.

The lord of the twelfth house also acts as a separating planet and should be given the same weightage as three planets mentioned above.

Dharm, Arth, Kaam and Moksh

The terms Dharm, Arth, Kaam and Moksh translate as righteous duty, production of wealth, enjoyment of life and freedom from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The first house in a chart is the house of Dharm, followed by Arth, Kaam and Moksh in the second third and the fourth houses. This cycle repeats thrice. The ascendant, fifth and the ninth houses become the Dharma houses. The second, sixth and tenth houses become the houses of Arth. The third, seventh and eleventh houses become the houses of Kaam, and fourth, eighth and twelfth houses that of Moksh. Which ever category has the maximum number of planets becomes the over riding concern of the person. Thus if someone has more planets in the Moksh houses, the chances are that s/he will be interested in Hinduism or Buddhism. A preponderance of planets in the Dharma houses will make a person religion minded.

The three Lagna or ascendants
 


We all know that Ascendant is the most important house in Hindu astrology, but equal importance is attached to Chandra (Moon) and Surya (Sun) Lagna as well. Accuracy of prediction demands that results be seen from all the three ascendants and then combined to come to a definite prediction.

Yoga for renunciation

If the Lagna, the second, the fourth and the seventh houses are heavily influenced by any two or more of Sun, Saturn, Rahu and the twelfth lord, a person loses interest in the world and becomes a renunciant. It is important that this happens in at least two out of the three ascendants.

The chart given here is of Swami Ram Krishna Paramhansa who is one of the greatest saints of modern times. Let us apply the rules for renunciation mentioned above to this chart. Venus becomes the dispositor (lord of the sign occupied by Saturn) for exalted Saturn in the ninth house, as also for Ketu in the 4th house. This Venus is placed in exaltation in the second house of family disrupting family life. 

Rahu - a planet of separation - aspects both Venus and the second house from the tenth house. In addition to this Rahu aspects the fourth house of home, and hearth. It must be noted here that Rahu is the dispositor of exalted Mars placed in the 12th house. Saturn placed in the 10th house from Mars also influences it negatively.Rahu thus separates Swami Ji from The domestic life for good.

The seventh house gets the 8th house aspect of Mars while 8th lord Mercury also aspects it. The seventh house thus also becomes afflicted.

Sun, and Moon are placed in the ascendant so all three Lagnas are one and the same. The conditions for renunciation or Sanyas are thus fulfilled from all Lagnas.

If we look at the distribution of planets in the horoscope we see that five planets are placed in Dharma houses, and two in the Moksha houses. The overwhelming majority of planets thus favor renunciation.

There are three exalted planets in the chart and Jupiter is very close to exaltation. The energy of these planets made him a spiritual giant of his time, and he is still revered all over India.

Rajiv Sethi


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Astrology Of Spirituality - Why some people renounce the world and become monks?

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Life is an unending attraction for an overwhelmingly great majority of people. We are all fascinated by the daily soap opera that is dished out to us by our Karmic script. Those of us who have good parents, good relationships and a rewarding career are happy. Dearth of love, caring, money, shelter and food make us sad. We remain completely enmeshed in this bipolar world until our last day on this earth. Then we depart. 

Happiness and sadness comes to us in varying measured based on the Karmic script we wrote for ourselves in our past lives. There are those who might object to this and say, there is no proof of past lives. To those I would humbly like to submit that this article is not meant for them. 

That past life exists is an awareness, and not a conclusion arrived at through conjecture and argument. There is no proof for it. This awareness may come to them in this life or it may not. If it does, the solution to the riddle of life will be one step closer. If not there is always another life.

An extremely tiny minority of people are radically different from most of us. For them the drama of life and its vagaries have no meaning. They watch it but are not attached to it. This tiny group renounces the attraction of home, domestic life, money, luxuries and power. Some may choose to live in the society but remain completely aloof; others may leave their homes and head for secluded place. The sole aim of these people is to connect to the universal spirit and become one with it. Once that goal is achieved one becomes blissful, desire less and any action that s/he performs is not binding. The generation of Karma stops and the endless merry go round of birth and death also comes to a complete stop. 

In India such people are known as Rishis and they have existed in every age throughout the history of time. The opulence of our culture is mainly the gift of these extraordinary men and we owe them a lasting debt of gratitude.

In this article we shall take a look at the astrological reasons for renunciation of society and complete devotion to the universal spirit. We shall start by looking at the jurisdiction of some houses over some specific areas of human life.

The second house in a horoscope represents family, domestic happiness and wealth. 

The fourth house rules over home and hearth, happiness, real estate, mother, masses and society. 

The seventh house represents conjugal happiness through sex. 

The twelfth house represents the specific enjoyment of the pleasure of the bed.

In addition to this, the ninth house rules over spirituality and its lord along with Jupiter and Sun has a big role to play in propelling a person towards renunciation.

 

If Jupiter influences all the rest of the eight planets through aspect or association, he gives a strong inclination towards spirituality. A retrograde Jupiter will aspect the fifth, seventh and ninth houses from the previous house as well.

Rajiv Sethi

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Written: June 17, 2011. New Delhi India

What is Prana and how does it work Part III

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Prana is the prime force that brings all body functions into being, and is mainly responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of physical bodies. 

Apana is the power of excretion. It scavenges the body of all waste matter and expels it through various outlets. Without Apana the body organs entrusted with the task of producing, sweat, urine, stools will not work.

Vyana is the power of circulation and is responsible for circulation of body fluids. It keeps the heart beating and sending blood through its circuitous route throughout the body.

Samana is the assimilative or digestive force and is responsible for digestion of food and extracting all nutrients from it. It powers the stomach and intestinal system.

Finally Udan is the power that makes the cells differentiate and grow in to specific organs like eyes, hair, nails, skin etc. The regeneration of cells is the prime function of Udan Vayu.

These five Prana are essentially one though they act in distributed ways. The primary seat of Prana is the nervous system and the cerebrospinal system. This is where it resides like the software in a RAM chip, when body needs to move its limbs to do something, it springs to life  by instructing the cells to perform the required action. 

Of the five life giving currents mentioned above the Prana and Apana are intimately connected to consciousness. Apana starts from the point between the eyebrows and flows to Coccyx (Mooladhar Chakra). Along the way it is distributed to the sensory and motor nerves. This Pranic current is restless and keeps the mind centered on the body and sensory experiences. It is devoted to the inputs coming from the five senses and does not allow the consciousness to rise above the material world.

Prana is its exact opposite. It rises from the coccyx and flows towards the point between the eyebrows. It is calm by nature and withdraws the consciousness  inwards, away from the three dimensional world. During the meditative state, it allows the soul to be united with the universal spirit.

Apana as mentioned is a downward flowing current and unites the consciousness to the sensory pleasures. The cells, muscles and organs of senses use up this current like electrical appliances consume electricity. This process of consumption is however not without its drawbacks. It generates waste. Over a period of time the channels become clogged and the organs become exhausted due to overuse.

Prana repairs the damage caused but in the process creates its own waste. This is carried by the blood stream to the lungs where oxygen converts it to carbon dioxide. This process of waste removal is called breath.

The opposite pulls of Apana and Prana create inhalation and exhalation and breathing occurs. As long as Prana keeps pulling  the breath into the lungs, a body remains alive. When the time of death approaches, Apan becomes more powerful than Prana and the body is no longer able to pull the breath into lungs. At this point the death occurs and Apan pulls the astral body out of the physical body. The physical body slowly disintegrates on earth while the astral body flies to an astral world which is in keeping with its karma performed on earth. People with a lot of good Karma go to higher astral worlds where they are conscious of their astral bodies and are able to enjoy their stopover in these worlds. People with inferior Karma go to the astral worlds where they remain in a stupor until the time has come for them to return to earth.

Concluded. 

Rajiv Sethi

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What is Prana and how does it work Part II

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The modern science is finally comprehending what Hindu philosophy has always known! The universal Prana is therefore Para Prakriti or Pure nature which is derived from infinite spirit and which permeates and sustains the world.

On earth, Prana becomes the sustaining life force of all living organisms.
Our body is a marvel of mechanics. Our circulatory and respiratory system are basically mechanical processes. Our limbs that provide locomotion and ability to perform work also are mechanical in nature.

Our body is a chemical factory as well. Our digestive tract, liver and glandular system are all chemistry based. Be that as it may, there is an intangible factor which allow these processes to start and then continue. If this is withdrawn, the mechanical and chemical processes cease. This intangible force is Prana and its cessation is more commonly known as death. Prana is life. It’s absence is death.

The analogy of a cell phone perfectly describes this process. A brand new instrument with fully charged battery and a sim card will not function unless there is some credit left in the sim card. The cell phone is completely dependent upon this invisible entity which governs the radio transmission that connects the phone to the service providing network. The phone works during the duration of the credit. When credit is over the phone dies. Our body behaves in a similar fashion. Prana is the credit based on our actions performed during previous incarnations, and our body is the handset.

So Prana is needed for a living organism to sustain and grow. This Vital energy actually utilizes the mechanical and chemical processes to keep an organism alive. The individual cells have distributed intelligence and Prana organizes and coordinates this intelligence for building and repair of the body. This is an important concept and must not be lost sight of. Each cell and the organ made from cells have individual intelligence and memories. Prana uses this intelligence to sustain and govern individual body organs.

To the modern medical science which traditionally believes only brain to be the seat of human intelligence, this was pure bunkum, and worthy of derision. Then came heart transplants and the statements of the heart recipients that they could tap into the emotional memories of the donor. It will be interesting to see how the scientist sees this one out.Most likely they will call it some psychological problem.

Prana is intelligent force but it has no consciousness of its own. In that respect it resembles a computer process control software. Soul on the other hand is the spark of divine intelligence which provides the consciousness to an organism and gives it situational awareness. Prana obeys soul and is lodged between the soul and matter. Through it’s help soul makes the matter do its bidding.

At the time of conception, the soul-causal body-astral body system gets encased in a fertilized egg. Soul directs the Prana to subdivide the single cell repeatedly until the body of an infant with all limbs and internal organs is formed. Without the guidance of the soul the process of subdivision will not proceed smoothly. This is very important and essential as our body and our looks are completely dependent upon our Astral Karmic past.

Body gets it’s nourishment through food and drink, which is digested through the force of Prana. Prana enters the body through Medulla and gets stored in the cerebrum and in the spinal centers called Chakra. 

Prana exists in five different forms. As Prana itself and as Apan, Vyana, Saman and Udan. This is how these function.

To be continued. . .


Rajiv Sethi

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What is Prana and how does it work.

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In its broadest sense, Prana means the force or energy. According to Vedic or Hindu philosophy, all creation is energy or force because force is nothing but expression of energy. In this sense, energy pervades the universe. The space around us that appears to be empty is in reality a seething cauldron of energy. Before we go further I want to quote some modern western scientific literature on this subject

 “When physicists began to study the quantum theory of fields, they discovered that a vacuum was not all what it had long appeared to be – just

empty space devoid of substance and activity. …… What might appear to be empty space is a seething ferment of virtual particles. A vacuum is not inert and featureless, but alive and throbbing with energy. A real particle like an electron must always be viewed against this background.
“Empty space does not appear a very promising subject for study, yet it hold the key to a fuller understanding of the forces of nature.” Writes Paul Davies Ph.D. in Superforce (New York-Simon and Schuster, 1984.).

Fritjof Capra writes in The Tao of Physics (Boston-Shambhala, Third Edition 1991) “The field theories of modern Physics force us to abandon the

classic distinction between Material particles and the void,” Einstein’s field theory of gravity and quantum field theory both show that particles can‘t

be separated from space surrounding them. On the one hand they determine the structure of that space, whilst on the other hand they can not be regarded as isolated entities, but have to be seen as condensation of a continuous field which is present throughout the space….

“The field exists always and everywhere. It can never be removed. It is the carrier of all material phenomena….. Being and fading of particles are merely forms of motion of the field.”

“The distinction between matter and empty space finally had to be abandoned when it became evident that virtual particles can come into being spontaneously out of the void, and vanish again into the void…. According to field theory, events of that kind happen all the time. The vacuum is far

from empty. On the contrary it contains an innumerable number of particles which come into being and vanish without end…. The physical vacuum…..contains the potentiality for all forms of the particulate world.  These forms, in turn are not independent physical entities but merely

transient manifestations of the underlying void…. The discovery of the dynamic quality of the vacuum is seen by many physicists as one of the most important findings of the modern physics.”
It is a mouthful but in short it means that space is not empty but is composed of energy. It is not an empty room where an electric bulb is shining. It is a room which exists because of that light. 

This is beautifully summed by this gem of a Sanskrit Shlok. The unmanifested universe is full, the manifested universe is also full. After taking out full from the full what remains is also full.

Rajiv SethiBouquets and brickbats at rajiv@indian-vedicastrology.com, planetstories@gmail.com
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What is a Mantra and how does it work? Part -II

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Continuation of the previous Blog. . .

This is true of all Mantras. This is the reason why the early Indophiles and Indologists who translated the Vedas to English found the verses to be unsophisticated. Their real meaning however can only be understood by a person who has reached a certain level of self realization and has attained freedom from the slavery of the five senses.

The Yogis who have achieved self realization have existed in India through the ages. Such exalted personages live amongst us even now. They shall gladly explain any Mantra or Stotra to an inquiring mind. The only condition is that one approach them with humility, respect and a genuine need for enlightenment. The early Europeans who were translating the texts did not have any of these qualities, so by simple law of attraction they attracted only those who themselves had little or no knowledge of the essence of the scriptures.

As science progresses, it is realizing that matter and energy are interchangeable and this exchange is a continuous process. This is what Hindu philosophy taught thousands of year ago. It explained in detail how starting from Om - the basic vibration of the universe – energy condenses and gets converted to the material world. The modern string theory is nothing but the Vedic theory of creation by another name.

The theory of Causal, astral and physical bodies and the concepts of Gyanaindriya, Karmendriya and Tanmatra explain the basic principles of creation, while the concepts of Kosha explain its development. The Yug system explains the rise and fall of human consciousness with the passage of time. The theory of everything has been available all along, only the modern scientist has been searching for it in the wrong places.

Mantras are powerful tools to achieve good as well as bad results. Tantra deals with Mantras extensively and categorizes these as Vashikaran (captivating), Mohan (attracting), Uchchatan (rendering powerless) Stambhan (creating obstacles) and  Maaran (inflicting death).

The Mantra and Stotra are excellent remedial measures for badly placed planets in a birth chart. They require no expenditure on gemstones or rituals, and work extremely well. One’s own energy and devotion is all that is needed. Mantras have been effectively used in India for thousands of years. If chanted with diligence and faith they can transform one’s life.

Concluded.

Rajiv Sethi

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What is a Mantra and how does it work? Part -I

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What is a Mantra?

A Mantra is usually one or two lines of Sanskrit verse, and its purpose is to harness the energy produced by its chanting to achieve a very specific purpose. There are thousands of Mantras and each Mantra produces a very unique energy signature. A plain translation of a Mantra usually seems overly simplistic, and reads like a simple prayer. For example take this very potent Mantra known as Maha Mritunjaya Mantra.

ॐ त्रयंबकं यजामहे सुगन्धिं पुष्टिवर्धनं उर्वारूक मिव बन्धनान मृत्योर मुक्ष्यीय मामृतात्

OM TRA-YAMBAKAM YAJA-MA-HEY  SUGANDHIM PUSHTI-VARDHA-NAM URVA-ROOK MIV BANDH-NAAN MRIT-YOR MUKSHIYA MA-MRITAAT.

A simple English translation of this Mantra is given below

We worship Shiva – The Three-Eyed Lord who is fragrant, nourishing and  growth of all beings. Just as a fully ripened cucumber is liberated by falling down on its own from the creeper, so also may he liberate us from death and give us immortality. 

On its face it is a very simple prayer and there seems to be no reason to believe that it packs the tremendous amount of energy attributed to it. The fact however remains that such is surely the case and miraculous results have been experienced by the continuous chanting of this Mantra. What is more, with the addition of some Sanskrit prefixes and suffixes, it becomes a very potent remedy for the complete cure of numerous, so called incurable diseases.

The readers will find this to be true with every Mantra. The reason why a Mantra works does not lie in its meaning which is unimportant; it lies in the vibrations that it generates. This ability to produce extremely powerful vibrations which are capable of erasing the Karmic script written on the Soul-Causal body-Astral body combination is what sets a Mantra apart from an ordinary prayer. A simple prayer works only when it comes from the innermost being of a human being, which is a rare event. A Mantra works just by its proper pronunciation. Needless to say, complete focus on the Mantra and its objective helps.

In this age of computers and software the explanation of how a Mantra works becomes rather easy to grasp. Let us take the case of a high level computer language like C++. Any one who has seen the software code knows that to the untrained eye it appears as meaningless gibberish. Yet when read by a microprocessor it appears in front of our eyes as a prose, a picture, a cartoon, a melody or a printed document.

In the above example, between the process of writing the code and the final viewing on the screen lies the microprocessor which makes sense out of seemingly nonsensical code. In the case of humans our ability to chant correctly acts like an input device while the universal intelligence acts as the processor of this vibration, and generates the desired results. The Rishis who initially gave us these Mantras were highly evolved humans and could pick up the Sanskrit characters that would produced a specific vibration that would achieve a specific resultd when chanted.

Mispronunciation of the Mantra stops the effects from materializing, just as in the case of a software code, a small alteration of a period or a semicolon makes a software to hang.

To be continued…

Rajiv Sethi

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Suryastakam

Shri Shiv Proktam Suryashtkam is an ode to Surya Dev. It is beautiful verse comprising of eight Sanskrit Shlokas in praise of the father of the universe. Listening to it daily improves one's life in every which way. It increases self confidence, promotes spirituality and improves one's health. Sun is the significator of soul, father, eyes and stomach and his Stuti removes all problems connected to this list.

This video appearing below is sung by Shobha Mugdal. She has a powerful voice that does complete justice to the energy of the verses. That she is a masterful classical singer is already well known. I would therefore stop right here and let you enjoy the video.