The Sri Jagannath Center is a traditional school of Vedic astrology that meets informally for the study of Vedic philosophy and Jyotish.

The opening lecture of Vyasa SJC California was taught by Paramguru Pandit Sanjay Rath of Puri Orrisa. Downloadable audio available here.

01 Introduction to the Lineage

So we come to the first Vyasa SJC class of the west coast. This was a dream that one day we would start this class. I knew that if SJC has to take off in the US in a proper way it has to be over here. Normally in the SJCs around the world we name it after a Rishi. So the person who is to normally assure that the classes go on, one of my students, he is given the choice of choosing the name of a Rishi that he likes very much, and Freedom wanted that we started this Vyasa SJC.

The important thing about these classes, number one:

First, I will give a brief synopsis of what we are doing and why we are doing it. And then we will discuss about why and how we should do it before we go into the actual first class.

So, first, the classes are free, right Freedom? We will keep it that way. Good. Let’s be very clear on it. The classes are free. Nobody has to pay anybody anything for coming to these classes. These classes basically are meant to share knowledge. OK? Guru is anybody who is saying something, shishya is anybody who is listening to the knowledge. Some people do not like people walking in a row. Some people are ahead of others, that’s all. Guru is not God. Guru is not a diksha guru. That means he is not somebody who is taking you toward spirituality. He is not a spiritual master. Let’s be very clear on that. He has no right to be a spiritual master. The Jyotish guru has no right to be a spiritual master. I am very, very clear on that. It’s free because if it is not free the teacher will be very restricted in his teaching. That is the reason why it used to be free in the tradition. It was always free. So that I can speak freely. I’m not thinking that I’ve crossed an hour or two hours or three hours. There is no restriction. I’m free to speak my mind. Complete and total freedom because there is no money involved over there in the first place. That is the reason why it was free. If it is not free that freedom will not be there. You lose out on the freedom. A restriction comes up. That is the reason why the teaching in the tradition was always kept free.

Now the reciprocation was in the form of dakshina so that the students were then sure that the teacher never went without food. He always had his basic needs fulfilled. There were some who were richer and some who were poorer, they would give based on their means. But in the modern world that doesn’t happen. So, if we are going to have a course in the future as we have planned, it is natural that some students who will expect to take the course and who will take a degree from the course or things like, Willa is working on that, will probably pay for the course, right? But we will try to keep it as reasonable as possible. But that is a different area from these classes. Just because you are coming for the classes it doesn’t mean you have to take the course. We have to be really clear on that also, it’s purely optional. I am hoping that this group can grow into a very nice friendship circle on Jyotish. It is all about friendship, nobody is anybody’s superior, OK?

Now the tradition. The tradition traces itself back in Orissa to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. It is said that the tradition lineage had some hardships and things have gone down very much in Orissa after all kinds of invasions and wars and all that we had. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu revived it. Now that is the first important statement: that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has revived the tradition. Now when we say that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has revived the tradition the question is who gave him the authority to revive the tradition? Who is he who can revive the tradition? For this the authority we get is from Brihat Parasara Hora Shastra, the chapter on avatars which we will be doing today.

And why did he revive it? How did he revive it? How did he go about it is one issue. Anyway it came down through a disciple of his called Achyuta. And this person’s father, this person

Achyuta, was a shudra by birth and became a brahmin by karma. Isn’t that fascinating? It is clearly mentioned in his book that I was a shudra because my father’s profession was a shudra and I was upgraded to a brahmin because of my karma. So that means that even at the time of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu caste was not hard and fast. It all depended upon what you were working, what you were doing. So we will go into caste today also a little bit because we have to understand gunas.

Guna is very important so today’s discussion is going to be about gunas also. These are the foundation of Jyotish. The tradition then went on. Went on from student, teacher, and the tradition was completely centered around the Konark Temple. Not the Jagannath Temple. The main temple around which our tradition is centered is the Konark Temple, the Sun Temple. Astrologers through ages have been Sun worshippers. Whether it was the great Varahamira or it was the Ra worshippers of Egypt, over centuries they have been the Sun worshippers, all astrologers. And if you see the Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra there also you get to know that if you wish to know the movement of the planets and to know about the future of mankind you have to meditate on the Sun. So undoubtedly they used to worship the Sun God Surya and from there they got the knowledge. So the tradition was revolving around the temple.

Naturally the biggest blow to the tradition came when the Muslim invasion came and they completely bombarded and broke the temple. So naturally they completely devastated the temple. And then they were going towards Puri to break the Puri temple but the astrologers of the king’s court of Puri were far smarter than the Mughal king. They were far too intelligent, must have been my forefathers. He said it is stupid to fight these bums; they are coming with cannons, you can’t fight them. You need brains to fight them; these people don’t have brains, you can be sure of it. So what they did was put lime on top of the temple and when the Muslim invaders came, instead of running with guns and swords toward them, the people welcomed them with flowers, saying come in come in. They were shocked so they said, OK, they are giving up without a fight. So they said we want to break the temple. They said “Why? It is made of lime, it will fall down anyway.” They looked at it and went and poked it and things like that. They said it is made of lime; they are fools to build this thing of lime. What kind of fools are they? They left and went away. The temple stands today. So who was a fool and who was intelligent? So that was the thing, so the tradition sort of went down after that. And then the British came to India and naturally when they see a beautiful piece of art it must be a part of the British Museum. That is their tradition.

So I had the pleasure this time, you know I used to pray that I do not wish to die on this planet without seeing the Sun God. I wanted to see him with my own eyes, to behold him with my own eyes, the statue that must have been worshipped by my gurus, and gurus and the whole tradition. And this time I was so fortunate that on my way while in London we went to the British Museum and very beautifully the entire statue of the Sun God is there in all its glory, well-maintained, put in a glass cage.

Q. “Is it the original one?”

Sanjay: “Yes.”

When I looked at it, there were two conditions I told Sarbani. I will look at it and I will know it will be from there. It will be black stone, shining, so well-polished that some of the best machines today can’t so well polish it. And he will be wearing boots. The Sun God wore boots, that means there was at that point of time a culture in which people wore shoes in that country. And not only that the navagrahas which were worshipped are also there beautifully kept in the British Museum but not in the main room, it’s in the upper room, they have been kept in a separate thing, hidden away. If you can find it then go and see; it is exquisite.

So replicas of that are now kept near Konark and the prayers and the pujas continue in Orissa. What would the astrologers do? Someone took it away. You can’t do anything. You have to make your own little duplicates and continue with that. So the tradition continues. The thing is nobody could steal your knowledge. That is what I am going to say. They broke the temple, they took home the statues, and carted all kinds of collections. Almost you can’t imagine what kind of statues. In one temple in which almost every statue is there in the British Museum. The first day I went there it was like a shock for me. And the second day I went in there and then a thought came to me. Oh, God has been kind. If it was not preserved by the British who knows which Maharaja would have stolen it away, because today the maharajas have become plunderers. So in a way it was kind of the British to keep our things for us.

OK, so the knowledge continues, and what I want to say is that the knowledge cannot be stolen. That was the essence of what I was trying to tell you of. Nobody can steal your knowledge. Nobody. It is up to you to give it to whom you wish to give it. If the person who is taking the knowledge, if his heart is not open for the knowledge, he will not keep the knowledge, even if you wish to give it. So it is very important to come for the learning with an open heart. The mind will get energized by itself if your heart is open to the knowledge. That is why the entire effort of the tradition was to meditate on the heart chakra. The meditation is on the heart chakra not on the mind chakra. The real meditation is always on the heart chakra, because if the heart is not open to something nothing is absorbed. So the question is how to change your heart.

02 Hare Rama Krishna

Now we will start with a small mantra of the tradition. The tradition always starts with a prayer to Vishnu, always with a prayer to Vishnu. Suryanarayan Vishnu. Why Vishnu? We will come to that also into this class. This is the dhyana of the Vishnu Sahasranam. Dhyana means meditation. The dhyana or the meditation of Vishnu Sahasranam which is supposed to bring sattva guna within us. What is sattva guna? We will study that also today. OK, will you repeat this after me.

om çäntäkäraà bhujagaçayanaà padmanäbhaà sureçaà
viçvädhäraà gaganasadåçaà meghavarëaà çubhäìgam |
lakçmékäntaà kamalanayanaà yogibhirdhyänagamyaà
vande viñëuà bhavabhayaharaà sarvalokaikanätham ||

AUM shaantaakaaraM bhujagashayanaM padmanaabhaM sureshaM
vishvaadhaaraM gaganasadR^ishaM meghavarNaM shubhaaN^gam.h .
lakshmiikaantaM kamalanayanaM yogibhirdhyaanagamyaM
vande vishhNuM bhavabhayaharaM sarvalokaikanaatham.h ..

And then three times you have to say Vishnu, Vishnu, Vishnu like this. Firstly on your book, on any book whose knowledge you want. Say Vishnu. On your head where the guru sits. Vishnu. And then on the heart chakra. Vishnu. This is very important. Any book. These three words, Vishnu, Vishnu, Vishnu were the first words taught to me by my mother. My grandfather had been very clear about it that these three words had to be taught to him. Vishnu, Vishnu, Vishnu. There are three because there are bhu, bhuvaha and swaha. The first object is knowledge and then the guru and then the heart where the knowledge must stay. The knowledge must ultimately come to your soul. If it does not come to the soul level the knowledge is not yours. It will go away after sometime. After ten years if you don’t practice you will forget it. Who knows the next birth you will not remember a single word. If you want the knowledge to stay with you birth after birth only one thing can insure that it is never destroyed and that is sattva guna. And sattva guna comes from the name of Vishnu. So that’s the object from where you want the knowledge. That is your guru pitha, that is the head where the guru sits. And then your heart where your atma sits. Vishnu, Vishnu, Vishnu. The knowledge is yours. This is an important part of the tradition.

OK? Now there is a mantra which we all do in the morning as soon as we wake up. Many of you have started practicing it. This mantra is supposed to remove hatred from within you. Hatred is the biggest stumbling block to learning. Hatred or aversion towards anything is the biggest stumbling block. You can never learn anything so long as you have anger and hatred within you. You must let go of this hatred, you must forgive the anger, you must let is pass, so that your mind is not dwelling all the time on other things which are wasting your life. The mantra is a simple shadakshari or six akshara mantra. Six akshara mantras are mantras which remove your own evils. Any six akshara mantra, any six syllable mantra, will remove your own weaknesses, will remove evils within you. They are meant to cleanse the sixth house, which is your own shadripus, your own weaknesses. The mantra is Hare Rama Krishna. Hare Rama Krishna. Now you can understand the meaning of the mantra from the three words. Hare, Rama and Krishna. Why Hare Rama Krishna? What is the meaning of Hare? As the sound Hara refers to Shiva. That means it is auspicious. Hara refers to the Self. That is me. The Self in its highest manifestation is Shiva. We will come to that part one day when we study Atmakaraka, because you are none other than Shiva himself. Shivoham: I am Shiva. So Hara is me or Shiva at its highest manifestation.

Rama is the guru and there are so many forms of the guru. Multiple forms. Do not restrict your mind to think that there is only one teacher. If you do so your learning will be lopsided. No single teacher can claim the position of God. Don’t do that because you will block your own mind. There are multiple teachers you have to learn from. There are hundreds of teachers you have to learn so many things from. When you were kids you learned to go to the toilet because of your mother. She’s your first teacher. Do not disrespect her because you would be disrespecting your teacher. Similarly when as a little baby you take your first spiritual step it is the mother who is going to guide you and it is that mother, the Divine Mother, just as in this physical world you learn to use the toilet because of your mother, so also will you learn to take your first step in the spiritual world through your Divine Mother. That is called Hara.

And then Rama the guru. So guru can come in many ways. Some nice sources to read about the guru is the Avadhuta Gita, the Srimad Bhagavatam where Krishna explains the different types of gurus. When he was talking about the Avadhuta Brahmana. There are 24 kinds of gurus that he talks about. And then we talk of God. God is He who attracts you. That’s all. Akarshana. The word is akarshana or he to whom you are attracted. If you are not attracted to Him or if you are repelled by Him or Her or whatever object or anybody with knowledge then that is not God for you. God is He who is protecting you. If He cannot protect you then he is not God. So God can come in multiple forms. He can be without form. It all depends upon his function. Based upon his function we are trying to define Him. We say God is Shiva. Why? Because He is the strongest. He is the omnipotent, the strongest one. God is Vishnu. Why? Because he is feeding you all the time. And He’s everywhere. He’s in the tree, He’s your God, He’s my God, He’s everybody’s God. Omnipresent. Omnipresence means Vishnu. The word Vishnu means sarvavyapakeshwara. It is not a name it’s a word. It has become a name when you label it on somebody. Any word becomes a name when you label somebody with that name. So the word Vishnu simply means sarvavyapakeswara. He who is everywhere. It simply means that. It simply means God who is everywhere. Similarly Shiva means auspicious. He who is auspicious is strong, so He is omnipotent.

The word Brahma means he who has created everything. He who has created everything knows everything about his creation. Let’s say you make tea. Then you know everything about this tea. You know exactly what has gone inside it and what is there in it. How much of sugar, how much of tea, how much of milk; you know it because you have made it. Similarly, the one who has created you knows everything about you. That is Brahma the all-knowing, omniscient. So Brahma is not a God, it is a name of God, one of the names of God. We differentiate God on the basis of our ignorance, our rajas, otherwise they are different names. You call me Gurudev, somebody calls me Guruji, somebody calls me Sanjay, somebody calls meKamu, somebody calls me so many names. I am one and the same person. Similarly there are so many names for God, and there are many different manifestations of that which we like. Akarshana, that aspect of God which we like. What I am only telling you is to broaden your minds. Do not become narrow-minded. If you are narrow-minded you cannot learn Jyotish. To learn Jyotish you must realize that people will be born throughout this world in various different parts, with various different languages, with various different cultures. If it is a science, if it is a Vedic science, it must be universally applicable. It cannot only apply to one group of people and not apply to another group of people. It cannot be so. If Jyotish is a Vedic science, and we say it is a Vedic science, it has to be universally applicable. Limited applicability is not acceptable. So definitely we have to understand what is attracting whom.

And hence the name Krishna. The name Krishna has come from akarshana the power to attract. And what is attracting you is Krishna because he is attracting you. The way in which God attracts you, you will feel so protected by Him. You will take shelter in Him. That taking shelter, ashraya, taking shelter, is what we define as God. And that definition of God is very personal. It is very different from one human being to another. Even in an organization. In an organization, let’s say, like ISKON, somebody will say “I like Krishna” and another person will say “I like Krishna.” Their definition of Krishna even within the organization will be totally different because they are different human beings. It all depends on what you are expecting from Him. You see that? That’s what they say in Vishnusahasranam. Vishnu has a thousand names. Why? Because for a thousand people Vishnu is in a thousand different names. That is the meaning of it. It is just that what is attracting you. And this is what you need to find out. And how do you find out? By saying Hare Rama Krishna. By saying Hare you get to know about yourself. By saying Rama you get to know and understand your guru. By saying Krishna you get to know what is it that is attracting you. Akarsha. And when you know these three things your purpose in this world is found. You haven’t come into this world to walk around and do something and go away. There must be a purpose for which you came. If there is a purpose you will know the purpose through Hare Rama Krishna. So with Hare you will have self-realization. Through Rama you will have knowledge from the guru. And with Krishna you will know what is it that you came for, what is it that attracts you. So Hare Rama Krishna will always guide you. It removes hatred because from knowledge hatred will always go away. When you have knowledge there is no place for hatred. Hatred and knowledge cannot exist simultaneously. You hate something because you do not know about it. The day you know about it then there is no hatred left.

(To a student) You have spent a long time with Ammachi, right? You see how much love she has got for everybody, how much affection she has got. How much energy is required to even shake hands with people, forget hugging thousands and thousands. Right? So unless somebody has knowledge how can someone expel all hatred from their heart? To love so, this is the greatest attribute of us. Do you see that? So the knowledge has to be at that level, and when knowledge is at such a high level then only can you call on Kali the remover of ignorance, the giver of knowledge. Do you see my point?

So like that we have to understand what attracts us. And we have to go toward what attracts us and then we will get the knowledge from that. So the mantra is Hare Rama Krishna and we are required to recite this mantra in the morning after waking up. By doing that, every morning, day by day, over a period of time, we will evolve and change and we become more calm. We lose hatred for everybody. We find time to do good things for others. The world will become nice to us because we are nice to the world. Or in other words, allowing the world to be nice to us. We don’t allow the world to be nice to us. So Hare Rama Krishna is very important. You must recite it. Whether you need a diksha for this mantra? No, you do not need any diksha for this mantra. This is a prasiddha mantra. Prasiddha mantras are those mantras for which you do not need a diksha. The mantra will fructify at any time, by anybody who speaks it. The other prasiddha mantras are like “Om Namah Shivaya,” “ Om Vishnave Namah.” These are prasiddha; you do not need anybody to give you this mantra; of course if you can get a diksha there’s nothing like it. But it is advised that you start doing it. Wake up and start doing it.

OK, now what else is necessary? Nothing is mandatory. If you do it, it is for your good. Nothing, none of the things I’m telling you are mandatory. If you do it, it is very good for you. Otherwise you will take more time. That is all; it is not that you will not learn. You will take more time to learn because you will not open up the heart. If you do not open up the heart to the knowledge, how will the knowledge come into you? That is why some people are struggling for the knowledge and some people like Mr. Freedom and Mr. Visti, what’s his age now? 23? Something like that. In three years, four years, he is teaching Jyotish to almost half the astrologers in the world. How long has Zoran been with me? Some of the best astrologers in America cannot stand in front of him. Imagine so. What is the magic that happened? Did I do some magic that all that knowledge came into his head? What is it that made these people learn so quickly, in such a short while, two years? How long have you been with me Sarbani for Jyotish? Three years, right? And people want her to lecture and see her knowledge of Jyotish. All I am telling you is open your heart. If you don’t open your heart year after year will pass by and you will be struggling with those small little concepts because it is you who is obstructing the knowledge. The obstruction is not from outside. Am I being understood very clearly? Do not obstruct this learning. Why are you stopping the learning? OK. So say Hare Rama Krishna. Hare Rama Krishna. Thank you.

03 Guna Introduction

OK, so now we can take the next step. The Brihataranyaka Upanishad: that Upanishad is the best Upanishad to understand rebirth and karma. OK? Brihataranyaka Upanishad. Aranyaka means the jungles. When you sit in complete isolation and meditate upon why this rebirth takes place, what is the purpose of the creation, you will understand karma. So we all have our bond because of karmas even that with karmas. We all take birth again because of the karmas that could not be forgiven. That is daridra karma. Daridra karma is karma that is sticking which does not leave your body, even after punishment. The soul is not being forgiven for certain things and because of some of your own desires also.

So we take birth again and again, and again and that is a never ending cycle. Every spiritual guru has said the same thing. I am not saying something new. So the jyotishi’s first thing is to know that the human being or any being, any creature’s birth is because of karma. And it is for us to find out what are the karmas that cause birth. If you cannot find that from a horoscope you do not know Jyotish. The day you are able to clearly tell why, for what karmas, a person has taken birth you know something about Jyotish. So we are setting our first target. Our first target is to learn why a person has taken birth. Then to find out what experiences this soul must have in this birth. So that from those experiences the anubhava shall cause knowledge.

There are different ways of learning. What are the ways to learn? You must find out what are the ways to learn, OK? How do you find out what are the ways to learn? Please read Nyaya Shastra. Nyaya tells us how a person learns, how learning is done. Through experience, through instruction. OK? So there are different ways to learn. So please find out what are the ways that a soul can learn. And unless you know the ways in which a person can learn, how can you make a prediction about what experiences he’s going to have? What is marriage, what is relationship, what is going to school? This is nothing but experience. Anubhava, ways of learning. So, you are having all this because these are different schools that you are going to. When you go to these different schools you are going to learn. The soul is going to learn, from anubhava. And when the soul learns then really he is forgiven his sin.

What is sin? Sin is that which is caused out of ignorance. Sin is that which is caused out of desire. There are two kinds of sins. All sins can be broken up into two groups. One that is caused out of ignorance and one that is caused out of wrong desires. That which is caused out of wrong desires is called rajo guna, as coming from rajo guna, rajas. And that which is caused out of ignorance is from tamas. Sattva guna cannot cause sin. It is a sinless state. OK? So there are three gunas. The three gunas are, guna means attribute. The word guna, it means attribute. So the soul has three attributes and these three attributes are sattva, rajas and tamas. The soul must learn to transcend these three gunas. This transcending the three gunas, is called gunatita. Gunatita means transcending the three gunas. When the soul transcends all the three gunas then will the soul get moksha. Otherwise it does not get moksha. You have to be in the state that is beyond the gunas. Then only has that soul got moksha. So long as there is a guna it will manifest again. It will take birth again. Even sattva guna will cause rebirth. So you have to go beyond the gunas to get moksha. Am I clear? Am I being understood? So there are three gunas or three attributes of the soul. One is sattva, the sinless state. So simply because you do not have any sin left that does not mean you will get moksha. You can tell God, look here is my sin balance. Like my bank balance, my sin balance. Right? No debits left. My thing is over, so I should get moksha. No, simply because you still have sattva guna you will come back. You’ll go to a higher plane of consciousness because of sattva guna but you will come back to this planet when you catch other gunas in that stage. Because so long as you exist you cannot escape karma. Action is something you cannot escape from. You’re trapped in karma. So you are doing karma all the time. You’re constantly doing karma. There is karma happening around you, even when you breathe that is karma. OK? So, you have to transcend it. So study more about these things so that you understand these things more clearly. But today we are here to discuss the three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas. For that we need to understand creation in the first place, in very brief, very brief. There are different concepts of creation. We are studying the creation as seen in the eyes of Parashara.

04 Creation According to Parashara

So when we talk of our vision or our view of karma it is through the gunas and when we talk of the gunas the entire creation is being seen from Narayana. The entire body of God, if there is a body. We do not know; at least I do not know. Who knows who will tell you, but I do not know Him, or in whatever form God is. I do not know. So when we talk of our vision or our view of karma, I’m being very honest with you today, because I do not know. When I know perhaps then maybe I can tell you. I do not know if I’ll have words to tell you.

Whatever Narayana is, one-fourth (or a quarter) of the Narayana is supposed to be the evolver. That which is evolving. What is evolving, changing? That which is changing constantly. Only a quarter of It is changing. The other three quarters of God, in whatever form God exists, is not in the physical world. That three-quarters is of pure amrita, or pure nectar. Amrita is that which cannot die, which cannot be destroyed, which is indestructible. Amrita, he who does not die, that which cannot die. There is nothing called death over there because there was never a beginning. So that is beyond normal human comprehension. Human comprehension must have a beginning and an end. That is the problem with our brains. That means we are mentally very low creatures. It’s a very sad thing. What is taught to us is that we are mentally very high creatures.

OK, when we talk of Narayana, the three-quarters of the 3 gunas, the three-quarters which are pure amrita of which does not manifest is the pure gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas and in these three gunas the Lord differentiates Himself. His own Self, as three parts of His own being. It’s like an atma. Take that this is an atma. Let us say, this flower is an atma. It has got an inner portion and a petal portion and a green portion. So there are three different portions of the same flower. This is Narayana. If this flower I say is Narayana then this one-third of it is sattva which I say is Vishnu, just a name. One third is you, or let us say, Shiva and one-third is Brahma, rajas. So these three are one and the same, there is no differentiation. At that level there is no differentiation. The differentiation has to be done for us for our little minds.

OK, and then the remaining one-fourth we then break into two parts. The remaining one-fourth is evolving and we call that remaining one-fourth Jagannath. Jagannath the Lord of the universe and what is the universe? A universe is a manifestation of that evolution. The universe is a manifestation of that entire evolution hence it is Jagannath. The word is Jagannatha. You go to Banares and ask what is Shiva’s highest name and they will say Jagannath. Shiva is Shiva. Shiva to Shiva Jagannatham. The real name of Shiva is Jagannath. The real name of Vishnu is Jagannath. The real name of Krishna is Jagannath. You see, Jagannath, the Lord of the universe. He is the principle evolver because the entire physical creation is coming from that and when the time cycle changes it will again be destroyed. Again it will be created; again it will be destroyed. So two things are happening: one is the destruction of the physical world and one is the creation of the physical world. So the physical world is like there is a vacuum over here, let us say, and inside this vacuum the whole universe is coming, expanding into it and then like a time clock it is going inside. Again the day comes it comes out; again the night comes and the whole universe is getting destroyed. So there are two parts to it. One part which is only having sattva guna and raja guna. Right? In which there is no physical creation. So, of the remaining one-fourth we have two parts. Of the one-fourth I said was Jagannath there are two parts in it. One part in which there is no physical creation and one part in which there is the complete physical creation. So this whole universe that man knows, or even that portion that men doesn’t know, the whole physical creation is only one-eighth part of the Lord. That means no matter how much of science we develop, no matter how much of knowledge man will have as a man, so long as his intelligence is limited to that of a man he cannot know more than one-eighth of the Lord. The maximum he will know is only one-eighth.

Prakriti and Purusha are all parts of the remaining one-eighth of the physically manifested universe. The physically manifested universe, how has it manifested? When we say there are two aspects to it. One is the uncreated aspect and one is the created aspect. That means the uncreated aspect is a portion and the created aspect is a portion . Let us first come to what is the created aspect. Before we go into how it was created. Right? When I say there is a world, OK, you say there is a world there is a universe, but unless I divide it into parts how can I study it? I can’t study anything unless I divide it into parts. I need to logically study it so how do I do it? This entire manifested world, entire manifested universe, I divide into three parts called Bhu, Bhuvah, and Swarga. Bhu means the earth or the earth plane. Everything that is there on planet earth. Every knowledge you need about planet earth is called bhu. Then there is the entire solar system of which the earth is a part. And this earth is a part of the solar system which is a part of the Milky Way. That knowledge of that system is called the bhuva loka or the bhuvah. And then there are those galaxies which are even beyond the solar system, far, far away. That is called swarga loka. So there are three parts of the physically manifested universe from the human perspective. The most important place is bhu loka where we stay, bhuva loka where we will go after death and swargaloka where we will go when we have higher achievements, depending upon how much freedom we have got. Am I being understood? So there the physically manifested universe is in three lokas, Bhu,Bhuvah, swaha. That is why the one-eighth part of Jagannath is called Vasudeva. And Vasudeva, that is the physically evolved one, is bhu, bhuvah and swaha. Am I being understood? Then there are parts which are not visible to us, which are not accessible to human beings. They are the other lokas. They are said to be maha loka, tapa loka, jana loka and satya loka. There are four parts in the remaining one-third of Jagannath which is not accessible by human beings. These are the other four lokas. They are called the spiritual lokas or the four spiritual planes of existence. So you see the higher beings came from the higher lokas. And they because of their karma came down to the lower lokas. So they say someone has come from Satya Loka he has come from beyond the physical plane of the created universe. Right? Am I being understood now?

So these lokas are very important because they are the seven worlds which are evolving all the time. The one-eighth part of Narayana is evolving, it is changing. So the seven lokas or the seven worlds are in this one-eighth part which is changing all the time. There is a day and there is a night and things are changing all the time. The remaining three-eighths there is no day there is no night. Nothing. There is no change. Because there is no need for change. Change is taking place only in this one-fourth and in this one-fourth there are four spiritual lokas and three material lokas. The four spiritual lokas are having sattva guna and rajas guna. There is no tamas. There is no tamas in the four spiritual lokas. Which are the four spiritual lokas? Maha, jana, tapa and satyam. Four, maha, jana, tapa and satyam.

Now we will do one mantra to remember these seven lokas. This mantra is given in the Mahanarayana Upanishad. It is a part of the Gayatri mantra and this was given to the sannyasis for learning and understanding. A sannyasi is he who intends to transcend all the seven lokas. You see? When we know that the evolution is taking place in the seven lokas to get moksha you have to get out of the seven lokas and then only will you reach a state where there is no more evolution. Do you get my point? Even if you do great tapas and you go to tapa loka you will still come back. You spoke the truth, you never lied throughout your life, you live a perfectly righteous life, you go to satya loka and again come back. There is no escape. To get out of it you have to go beyond these worlds and then you will go into one of those higher planes where there is no more evolution and where there is no more evolution it means your are not coming back. Am I being understood now very clearly? OK.

So the mantra is like this, it is:

Aum bhuh,
Aum bhuvah,
Aum swahah,
Aum mahah,
Aum janah,
Aum tapah,
Aum satyam
Tat savitur vareniyam
Bhargo devasya dhimahi
Dhiyo yonah pracodayat
Aum apo jyoti raso amrtam
Brahma bhur bhuvas suvar om

OK? This is the mantra for transcending the seven lokas. You see the power of the Gayatri mantra. You see the Gayatri mantra which is done by the highest Brahmanas who wish to transcend all the seven lokas, who do not wish to come back in the seven lokas. They ask the strength from Aum. Why Aum? Aum is supposed to be the tarabija. The seed of tara. It is the tarabija. When you learn mantra shastras you will realize the meaning of the word tara. It is far too deep for me to say anything now. Learn the bija of Tara. The word tara is short for taraka. The word taraka means to cross, to transcend, to go beyond. So when you say Aum bhuh, you are going beyond bhuh loka. You are crossing bhuh loka. Aum bhuvah, you go beyond bhuvah loka. Aum swahah, you go beyond swarga loka. Like that. With each Aum you are actually able to cross over one of these. God is helping you to cross with Aum. Aum helps you to cross. Why does Aum help you to cross? How does Aum help us to cross? Aum is composed of three aksharas: ‘A’, ‘U’, ‘M’. Three sounds. These three little sounds ‘A’, ‘U’, ‘M’, when they come together they form Aum. Aum. These three sounds were known or what we say, were heard by the Maharishis when they meditated on Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara Shiva. The three great rishis who got these three sounds are Gautama, who meditated on Brahma and got the akshara ‘A’. Atri, have you heard of Atri? Those who do yoga and ayurveda should know Atri. Atri meditated on ‘U’. He got ‘U’ from Vishnu. And Bharadhvaja, the third rishi got ‘M’ from Maheshwara or Shiva. So Aum has Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in it. Aum helps us to cross over raja guna Brahma, satttva guna Vishnu, and tamo guna Shiva. With the strength of Shiva we come out of tamas. With the blessings of Brahma we give up greed and rise above rajas. And with the blessings of Vishnu we even go beyond sattva. These deities are nothing but forms of the same one God whose helping us to transcend these gunas. The translations you find in normal jyotish books Shiva is tamo guna. This is a very pathetic translation. Shiva is not tamo guna. Shiva is he who helps us to transcend ignorance. Tamo guna is ignorance. Shiva is not ignorance. Shiva is the penultimate guru, is the guru for the gurus. He helps us to go beyond ignorance. That is why Shiva is helping us to transcend tamo guna. He is supposed to be the nila shakti. Because of the nila shakti or the blue lotus he helps us to cross over the tamo guna of ignorance. Without Shiva you will be dwelling in ignorance all the time. You cannot even cross bhu loka, how will you go to other lokas. OK? You will be stuck in this planet, some other creature. You want to take one step out of this creation you need Shiva’s help. Without Shiva it is impossible. Without Him you can never cross over tamo guna.

Same way, without Brahma you can never cross over rajas guna. Your greed will always overcome you. All the time your greed will be the main cause of your problems. And in Kali Yuga even worship of Brahma is prohibited. You cannot worship Brahma directly. And there are reasons you will learn later. So we worship Ganesha instead. And some say we need to worship Surya. So Surya and Ganesha put together gives us Brahma. OK? So you realize the value of Aum? Do you realize that Aum is not one word? It is one sound all right, but it is composed of three tiny bits of sound, A, U, and M. And these tiny bits of sound have rajas, sattva and tamas. And to transcend them there are three deities or three forms of God which are helping us to transcend. So with Aum we are crossing over these three gunas. Aum is helping us to transcend these three gunas, to cross over the three gunas. So long as you are living in the gunas you will come back to this planet. The word guna means attribute, that is all. So we have learnt now the sapta lokas and we have learned about Narayana and the four parts of Narayana.

05 Bhu Loka, Atma

How does physical creation work? What is physical creation? OK, now we come to another part of creation. See, we are coming down; first we talked of God, then we came to the evolver, that which is changing, one-fourth of it is changing. Then we found out that portion, which is the physical part of that which is changing. There is a nonphysical part, a spiritual part, and there is a physical part. Now from the physical part we have now come to the bhu loka, of this world. We have found three worlds. What are the three worlds? One is this earth plane which is our focus, our focal point of earth, then we have the bhuvah loka. All the planets are there and all the stars are there and this thing we call the Milky Way. And then svarga loka which is the whole universe, all the galaxies in the universe. Right? So now we bring our focus down. We are using a microscope each time to increase our focus. We come down even further to the earth plane. All this creation in this world can be divided into two parts: one which we call the material creation, and one which we call the animate beings, the living beings. So there is a living world and there is a non-living world. It’s a very simple differentiation. When you were in school you learned about this. That there is a whole living world and there is a non-living world. And in the living world there is a plant kingdom and there is an animal kingdom. We have learned that, is it not, exactly the same thing as taught in the Bhagavad Gita.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches that in this world there are two creations. One is jadatma; jada, atma. Jada means that which is stuck, which cannot move on its own, cannot procreate on its own. Jadatma, it is stuck, it cannot procreate, it cannot continue. A stone cannot procreate. Have you ever seen baby stones? The only way it can procreate is to break it into pieces. And that is actually not procreation because a new stone has not come, it is just parts of the original stone.

The living beings are called jivatma. Jiva plus atma. The word atma means self, it simply means self. Atma means me, myself. The other meanings we will go into later. So we have jivatmas and we have jadatmas. So we can have horoscopes or we can have a star position, a chart of the skies, based upon the starting moment, the moment of the creation of either a jadatma or a jivatma. Imagine if you were born as a tree, imagine living the life of a tree. The tree is a jivatma, it is a living being. It has feeling, it has senses, just like you and anybody else. It responds to music, it has been established now. So imagine if you were born as a tree or a plant. You cannot move anywhere; you are stuck in that little piece of land that has been allotted to you. And you have to live for God knows how many years, especially seeing the redwoods over here, very karmic thousand year life, and you are stuck in that. You are observing the world come and go, you are seeing man come, fighting with themselves. What karma, you are seeing centuries and centuries of karma.

So firstly, the length of life is something very karmic, which is base upon your karma. When you are born it is already written in your genes when you will die. This is today a scientifically established fact. Yesterday when astrologers were saying that you cannot calculate that, that it depends on what exercises you are doing and what food you are eating, that is all bogus. The gene code already has the date of your death written in it. So let’s be clear about one thing. That means if I can draw a map of the heavens and I have the means to calculate, I can calculate the moment of death, if I can decipher the gene code from the chart.

So this differentiation of jivatmas and jadatmas is called the primary differentiation. And the difference between jivatma and jadatma is that the jadatma, or the non-living world cannot procreate. This is a very, very important differentiation which we will use later when we study atmakaraka, because for the non-living world we cannot have putrakaraka. There can be no sole significator for children so they must have seven charakarakas, whereas for jivatmas, which are procreating, we must have eight charakarakas.

When we study all these incarnations, we look at the world as a circle, and it is stable the way we look at it because in space everything is relative, depending on the viewpoint of the observer. Since for us planet earth is the most important place in the world, so earth is kept stable at the center and everything else moves around it. That is called the geocentric viewpoint and that viewpoint is what is used in Jyotish because you have bhu loka, or the earth as the center, around it is bhuvah loka, and around that much further away is the svarga loka with the galaxies and the stars. And this earth plane is supposed to be dominated by the jivatmas or the living beings. It is a fact, who is the boss of this earth? The living beings are the boss of the earth and among living beings, man is the boss. Who is dominating the planet earth? The living beings are dominating, the non-living are not. The jivatmas. Everything in astrology there is something called symbology, every thing is decided by symbols. So the symbol of the living is Mars, energy. Mars is dominating over this loka called planet earth. That is why Mars is called Bhumiputra, or the child of the earth. The one who dominates over earth is Mars and the rules of this planet Mars will dominate over bhu loka. Whoever shall have the highest physical strength shall rule; whoever shall have the highest fighting force shall be the ruler, that is the law of this loka. And one of the children of Mars is called Mrityu [Death]. These are all symbolic children. A graha is different from a planet. Graha is something far more symbolic, it is symbolic of an energy, of a kind of energy. For example when we say Mars is the symbol of the policeman, it doesn’t mean that Mars has become the policeman. Mars is in the sky, it is a planet in the sky. The energy that it is representing is symbolized by the policeman. It’s all symbolic, that is very important for you to understand. It is all reflection.

So when we have the jivatma and jadatma, naturally jivatma represents anything which is living. And God, what is God? God in one definition is Paramatma, the ultimate. That atma which is beyond the three gunas and is also in the three gunas. That means the soul which can manifest with three gunas and yet stays in an unmanifested state, beyond the gunas. That means that he who is aware of the gunas is free of the gunas but is still staying beyond the gunas. That is called Paramatma. Because of Paramatma must be gunatita, beyond the gunas. If someone is not beyond the gunas, and is affected by the gunas all the time, how can we say he is Paramatma? What is the difference between Paramatma and jivatma? The difference is a jivatma always has three gunas but is never beyond them. The Paramatma also has the three gunas but is beyond them. He is not under the control of the gunas, the gunas do not dominate him, do not determine what the atma must do. He can go beyond the gunas. Then only we say he is Paramatma. Otherwise he is a jiva.

Now, all creatures, be it a human being, be it this plant, be it this animal, they all have to manifest through grahas. The word graha means to eclipse. It is from grahana, to eclipse. The process of birth is what we call the process of eclipse, birth is but an eclipse, shocking but true. You have to be caught hold of by some graha and physically brought down to this planet as punishment. Because this bhu loka is ruled by mars, police. The real significator of this bhu loka is that of jails, exactly the way jails are used. Think of a jail, what are the rules that apply in a jail? Exactly in the same way you will live on this planet earth. This planet earth is a jail, there is no escape from it, like Alcatraz, there is just no escape. Be clear about it. You will come back and back and back to this jail, you have to keep coming back, you are a criminal. Your crime you will commit you will come back to this jail. This is a jail, Mars rules this loka. Who’s the boss of the jail? The police officer. Similarly of bhu loka, whoever has the maximum physical strength, he will be the boss. Why is America the king of all the nations? Whether people accept it or not, America is the boss of all the nations. Why is it bossing around? Because it has the maximum physical strength. Will you ask America to throw away its fighter planes and guns, who is going to listen to that? Why is India dominating like that over the entire subcontinent? Because of its guns and the military. Simple rule, whoever has the guns will have greatness. Alexander is great because he spent 32 years of his life killing and fighting wars. He did not spend 32 years meditating. All the great ones, name the great names in history. What do you read in your history books? Pick up your history books and read all the great names in it. They’ve all been killers and murderers. History does not remember people who have meditated a lot. Why? Because they are not the rules of this loka. This loka, the rules are different. But we are jyotishis; we are supposed to go above. Try to go above and see everything from a birds eye view.

OK, so now the jivatmas and the Paramatma. Are you able to understand the difference? What is the single most important factor differentiating Paramatma from jivatma? The Paramatma is beyond the gunas, gunatita. That is the single most important factor. So the grahas and the process of birth. Let us understand the process of birth. How does birth take place. Grahana is the eclipse. How does an eclipse occur? The sun and the moon come together. Have you seen an eclipse? The sun and the moon come together and Rahu gets control over them. And that is the moment of grahana or eclipse. That is exactly the moment of conception. The conception is an exactly similar process. The atma gets a mana (mind) and this atma and mana are put together in a glue, like things getting stuck, the atma and the mana are stuck together. And that glue is called Rahu. You are so badly stuck that you cannot get unstuck. The atma is told “you are now going to be a dog.” It says “OK, I’m a dog.” So this atma and this mana get stuck in the womb of its mother. Before that the atma did not have a mana so he did not know who he was. He did not have ahamkara, without mana there is no ahamkara, you do not know who you are, because you do not have an identity of your own. What is ahamkara? Ahamkara means identity. In simple English it means identity, the first simple translation. He says OK, and then goes into the womb of the mother and that body he will get is called yoni. Yoni means female sexual organ because he will come out from the female sexual organ. His physical evolution onto this planet will be from the female sexual organ. So the female sexual organ is the door for coming into this planet. The symbol of the female sexual organ is a triangle and that triangle which is facing down, is the door for you to get into this planet. Similarly when you invert the triangle it means the opposite. See the triangle, it is like this, flat on top and has a point downwards. It means coming down to this planet, that is the door to come into this planet. When you turn it up it becomes a symbol of the male, purusha. So the triangle pointing upwards is the door for going out from this planet. The triangle facing down is called Kali, the primary Mother, prakriti. Now look at the evolution. In the evolution I said the spirit being has only two gunas, sattva guna and rajas guna. Sattva guna is shri shakti, Shri or Lakshmi. Raja guna is bhu shakti or Saraswati. The bija is hrim. There are three primary syllables: shrim, hrim and krim to understand. So sattva guna is shrim, raja guna is hrim, and tama guna transcendence is krim. Remember these three sounds: shrim, hrim, krim. Shrim is sattva, hrim is rajas and krim is tamas, the three shaktis.

What is om? A, U, M. A is rajas, U is Vishnu that is sattva, and M is Shiva, that is transcending tamas. Now in the same order put the three shaktis. First will be hrim, Bhudevi who is the spouse of Brahma, Saraswati is the spouse of Brahma. Then shrim then krim. Hare, Rama, Krishna. We were spirit beings, each one of us was a spirit being. We had only two gunas. In the worst case when we were spirit beings we had only two gunas. We were either shrim or hrim, one of the two. But to come into the world we needed tamo guna also. Without tamo guna you cannot manifest physically. For physical manifestation you must have tamas.

So who is the mother who is causing you to take birth on planet earth? Kali. That is why she is the earth goddess; that is why she is the primary goddess of earth. Shrim and hrim you are already having, in whatever plane you were in spirit form. When you come to this planet you must have all the three gunas. So after birth you have shrim, hrim and krim. So earlier you had shrim and hrim and now you have shrim, hrim and krim. What is the extra that you got? You got krim. Because of krim you have been able to take birth in this planet. And your entire protection on this planet earth has been assigned to krim. Without krim there is no protection, this moment you will die. Do you understand the importance of krim or Kali? Do you understand her importance, what she is doing every moment? Every moment she is protecting you. This is that form of the mother who is constantly protecting you because Shiva is strength, so his spouse is the protecting strength.

So, these are the gunas. And Shiva, who is Mahakala, or time and Kali, the protective mother, are helping us transcend and understand tamas, which we must. So the worst experiences we have in this life are those experiences which are related to tamas guna. The good experiences which you will have will be related to sattva guna but that is not something worth learning, that thing you have learned. But you still have to learn something very important. That when you have those good experiences you must not become happy, you have to transcend it. You have to transcend the guna. When you have won a prize it should not have any effect on you, that means you have transcended sattva guna. When you get a large amount of money you should not be delighted and throw a party. If you do so, you are in rajas. It does not make any difference whether you receive money or give money; you have transcended rajas. Similarly power, position, authority, domination over others, status, all the power games that are played in this world, when you transcend that, you have crossed tamas. So our life, the true spiritual learning is transcending sattva, rajas, and tamas. Become gunatita.

06 Avatars

Now we talk of avatars which is the second chapter of Brihat Parasara Hora Shastra. In this chapter we are taught that there are ten avatars. What is the meaning of the word avatar? It is a very common English word now. Incarnation means avatar. Reincarnation applies to a person who is coming back again and again. The same person is reincarnating. So when we say avatar it just means incarnation not a reincarnation. Avatar, there are many avatars. You are an avatar, I am an avatar. We are all avatars. What is the difference between an avatar of God and an avatar of whatever? The definition of an avatar of God must be one that must transcend the gunas. If the avatar cannot transcend the gunas and is going to dwell in the gunas or is going to be overtaken by the gunas, then he is no avatar at all.

Since birth must take place through grahana, through an eclipse mode, there in jyotish we have navagraha or nine modes of eclipse, nine kinds of eclipses, nine different kinds of grasping that will get hold of you and push you to planet earth. The word graha is from grahana, its a very negative word, it’s not a positive word. And the translation as planet is totally wrong. Because the word graha has to do with eclipse and that is how you are born. You are eclipsed and brought to this planet. And as soon as you come to this planet you say “I am Sanjay, I am the guru of SJC.” How foolish you are. Were you Sanjay, guru of SJC, in your last birth? No; will you be so in your next birth? No, definitely not. Then how can you say you are? It is just an eclipse of your mind that makes you believe you are that. So it is this mind that is eclipsing the soul. Who is eclipsing your soul? It is your own mind. Nobody else is doing it. It is your own mind telling you that you are somebody which you are not. So the eclipse is between your own mind and your own soul, no third party. That is grahana.

So the relationship between the Sun and the Moon, symbolizing the soul and the mind is called tithi, and that is the grahana. That is the eclipse which causes you to be born. So these grahas, the navagrahas, the nine kinds of eclipses under which beings take birth. All beings, even the Paramatma. If God is incarnating on planet earth he cannot break this rule. He has to come through a graha, he has to. There are ways to calculate which graha is causing the birth to take place. There is something called janma vighaatika graha. You will learn about it. So that janma vighaatika graha gives us an idea of who grasped you, what was the kind of eclipse that caused your birth. And that will decide whether you will take birth as a man or as a woman. Your sex, man, woman, the sex you are, will all be decided by that one planet. It is more important than your lagna lord, more important than everything. It is called janma vighaatika graha. Janma means birth, vigatika is a time measure, graha, the eclipse that is taking place at that point. Can I use the word planet and you will not misunderstand? OK, I will use the word graha. So the graha will decide what is happening.

These avatars, or the manifestations of God, are said to be the highest incarnations of the grahas. Or in other words, when they take birth, they have to follow the rules of Mars. They have to. Our exercise today will be to find out why these incarnations are supposed to be those of God. What attributes did they have, in what way did they manifest that they were able to show an attribute of God? How did it happen?

07 Matsya

Let us start with Matsya avatar. Matsya avatar is the fish incarnation. Now the story goes like this: there was a king and he had a beautiful aquarium. He had little fish; he found little fish in a pond. The fish had fallen out of the sea, so he put the fish in an aquarium and would feed the fish. See what the fish king would do? He fed the fish. So feeding fishes is a good thing. These stories that are there in the Puranas are also telling us what we should do to overcome negativities attributed to our graha. The fish incarnation is a attributed to the planet Ketu. What does Ketu indicate? Ketu is the last among the grahas. He is of tamas guna. Tamas means destruction, so Ketu is indicating some kind of a terrible destruction, a very sudden deluge, and that is what happened. You see when the king fed the fish the fish became bigger and it became so big it filled the entire aquarium. So they took the fish out and put him in a pond. The king said make a pond. They fed the fish more and the fish became even bigger. The king said, whoa, what kind of a fish is this that we got from the sea? It’s become bigger and bigger. He probably hadn’t seen whales. He should have come to California. Then the fish became so big in the pond he didn’t know what to do. So then the fish told him “Oh king, I have become too big for this pond. It is for your good that you should put me in the sea. So they all carried the fish and they put him in the sea, and then the fish went away in the sea. And then one day there was rain and the rain went on and on and there was no stopping of the rain, and everything started drowning in the rain. The whole world started drowning in the rain.

It is symbolic of our own lives. When terrible rains come in our lives and everything gets destroyed around. Everything starts drowning, our whole world is drowning around us. It is symbolic, the planet Ketu, the graha Ketu, is indicating such a state in our lives where everything around us is getting destroyed.

At that point in time the seven sages came to the king and said “listen, the time has come for the whole world to be destroyed. The blessed lord has already incarnated near you and it is you who have been good in feeding that fish which is an incarnation of the Lord.”

The king said, “how can you say that this fish is an incarnation of the Lord?”

They said “of course, he is, because he is going to transcend this world destruction. When everything will be destroyed he is the one who will save you. So the savior is a symbol of God and he will help you to cross over this terrible destruction. And when the destruction stops he will put you in a safe place. And from there again there shall be creation.”

So the king sat on a boat with the seven rishis and they kept the Vedas with them. And they pushed the boat into the sea without any oars. See the symbol ‘without oars.’ Do not try to steer your own life. When there is destruction all around you know that your own brain is clouded. You have to go off your own thinking; surrender to one of the Rishis. There are seven Rishis; learn to surrender to the Rishis and to the Vedas. There are no oars. When there are no oars you are not going to guide your life. If you try it you will drown. You have to let go of those oars; sit down in the boat quietly. Pray to the Rishis because those Rishis are the ones whose energy will call God. And the Rishis sat down and prayed “ Om namo bhagavate mahamatysaya.” The mantra was “ Om namo bhagavate mahamatsaya.” Bhagavate means an incarnation of God. Maha: great, matsya: fish. Matsyaya means fish. Om namo bhagavate mahamatsaya. There is a remaining mantra given in the Bhagavatam but this is a simple small mantra. And the fish incarnation came. And they threw a string on him and tied the boat. The seas became rough and terrible and whole cities were getting destroyed. The fish incarnation pulled the boat with the seven Rishis and the king in it and the four Vedas through the whole destruction period. Then after some time the rain stopped and they found land and that is where he left them. And that is how the new life started.

It is symbolic of stages of somebody’s life. So the fish incarnation symbolizes Paramatma. Why does it symbolize Paramatma? Because it helped you to cross over, to transcend this destruction. Everything was destroyed, just like Noah’s ark. When you read about Noah’s ark you will understand. There is total destruction around you and you have to let go. That is the eclipse, the grahana coming into your life, so let go. Take shelter in the Rishis seriously and do your mantras properly. And then he will come and guide you out through this terrible storm. So the symbol of God is he who can help you to transcend. That is the Paramatma. Even at the stage of complete destruction they were not shouting, they were not crying, they were not running to save their golden materials. What did they try to save? The Vedas, knowledge. That means that when complete destruction occurs, when you die, only the Vedas will go with you. Only knowledge will come with you. Nothing else will come.

The fish incarnation is symbolic of death in our lives. What will help you to transcend are the seven Rishis who sit as the guides of the seven lokas. And they will help you to transcend the lokas through Vidya, Vedas. And it is the fish incarnation who will pull you through you all this. A tremendous pull it has. It will give you moksha and take you to this little land from where you will not come back again. And give you a new existence where you will not have to be born anymore. That is why Ketu is mokshakaraka. The seven Rishis are the Sapta Rishis up in the sky, you can see them. They are symbolic of the number seven which is ruled by Ketu also. So when you do Vedic numerology from the fish incarnation story, the Matsya avatar story we know that the number seven has to do with Ketu, the graha Ketu. So people who are born on the seventh day of a month, know that Ketu is very strong in your chart. Seven, sixteen, or people who are born on twenty-five, these are the three dates where you know that Ketu must be a strong influence in your chart. So now, we have understood the fish incarnation.

Why does the fish have to do with Ketu? Because he is mokshakaraka because it was the fish who pulled you out. But why is Ketu in the first place associated with the fish? He is headless, that is the attribute. You are not supposed to use your head. Remember I told you that. The king was told throw away the oars, don’t use your head. When you will steer with the strength of your hand? Will you row? Forget it; the sea is so terrible that you will drown and the whole ship will go, with your boat you will go in the water. Forget it, don’t try, also surrender the oars. We will pray and Matsya avatar will come and take us. This head of yours is your worst enemy. Your own mind is your enemy. You want moksha? Your own mind is your enemy. There are no enemies outside. That is the important message. That is why Ketu is headless, it is a tail. You have to let go of the oars. Keep that in mind. Don’t try steering your own ship, it will not work. Just surrender to the Rishis, sit down quietly over there. Do the mantra. Don’t try to understand what the mantra is going to do; you cannot understand it. Do it and you will see the difference. That is the lesson here. The more you try to reason it does not work because it is the reason that is eclipsing the soul. It is the mind that has caused the eclipse, so what excuse is it going to give you? It is like the bully trying to tell you that you must do this so it is good for you. You are a bully so naturally you will do that. The mind is the bully, your own mind is the bully. And the tormented one is your own soul. The real you is tormented by your own mind. That is the entire lesson of the Matsya avatar. That is why Ketu indicates the great escape where you lose your head, where you let go of your mind. That is why they said Ketu is the one who eclipses the mind and causes the soul to come out. That is why when in anyone’s horoscope you find the sun to be terribly afflicted you give a cat’s eye. Cat’s eye is the gemstone for Ketu. Ketu will break everything and take the soul out, save the soul.

The important thing you must understand about Ketu is we are asked to throw away our oars. So who is the oar? The fish. Who is going to steer us? Somebody has to steer and propel us, right? Somebody has to steer and pull the boat. The fish is going to do that. And how does the fish do it? It does it with a tail. Your entire direction, all the propulsion, is coming from the tail of the fish. The entire vibration of the tail is causing the fish to move. The propulsion is with the tail. The submarines follow this propulsion of the fishes. There is a rudder in the back as well as a fan, a turbine which is actually propelling the sub. That intuitive flow with the currents. A huge wave is about to come. How to cut and go. Even before the wave comes you must know about the wave and cut and go. Intuitive flow comes from Ketu. Then you should not wait for the wave to come and see what follows, now what will I do. The moment you apply your mind you are gone. You have to use your intuition. That is Ketu; so Ketu rules intuition. Fishes have great intuition. Observe the fishes, study the fishes and you will understand all about Ketu. That is the important teaching. You must study the fish to understand Ketu. So, if you want that the graha Ketu should be favorable that after you die you will get a direction, someone to steer you through, at least symbolically. Do not kill fish. Do not harm the fish, instead feed the fish. When you are in great danger and Ketu is creating havoc in your life give some food to the fishes and you will come out of its eclipse. That is the important message for us.

(Q) Is there a problem with keeping fish in aquariums?

(S) Our king started with an aquarium. So long as you are feeding them and looking after them, what is the problem? When the fish becomes big you are supposed to release them back into the waters. How many of us are releasing the fish back? We don’t. When the fish become big you are supposed to release them. You are not supposed to wait for them to die or give them to your cat to eat it.

That is the reason why, at least after listening to this story, and when you think more and more, you will start loving the fish, you’ll start respecting the fish. And you’ll see that fishes are a symbol of God. So they are very much part of nature; we can’t destroy fishes. So naturally you can’t eat fishes. So the important thing about this lesson of this avatar it tells you if you really feel for the fishes, somewhere, some energy is being released from you, some connection is being made somewhere by which you will be saved when your time of destruction comes. The deluge is a symbol of complete destruction or death. Death or almost death like situation. When you die or when you are passing through such a stage in your life which is like death then it is your intuition that will save you. It is the Rishis that will protect you and it is the Vedas that will carry you through. The knowledge alone stays with you, nothing else comes with you after death. That is the important message of the Matsya avatar.

08 Varaha Avatar, Birth, Pranapada

The next avatar is the Sri Varaha Avatar. Varaha Avatar is the other extreme. We talked of death now? We talk of birth right now. Varaha means boar, or the boar incarnation. Parasara has used the word sukara, right? The mantra for this avatar is om namo bhagavate sukaraya. Sukara, the breathing sound is called su. When you breathe hard it makes a sound su. And su is auspicious. Why? Because you are breathing. You’re not dead; when you stop breathing you die, so breathing is an auspicious thing. Think very calmly. Breathing is good or bad? Try holding your breath for one hour and you will find out whether it is good or bad. So the breathing is an important facet of your life. And when did you start breathing? As soon as you are born. That means the Varaha Avatar is a very important story for the astrologers. It is defining birth. Just as we were talking of Matsya Avatar as the definition of death and the seven Rishis as the seven lokas and the four Vedas as the basis by which you can transcend these seven lokas. Similarly we shall talk of rebirth because of Varaha Avatar and Rahu. Rahu is the cause of rebirth. Rahu is the god of all desires and we are only born because of desire. If we did not have desires left we would not be born.

(Q) Does that mean that the moment of the first breath is the point that you take on the...

(S) Right. The name that Parasara uses is such a beautiful name, sukara, it is a name of a pig. Sukara means pig. That word, that name, sukara, is he who makes that sound because his breathing is like a grunt and his breathing is very heavy; heavy breath. Sukara means pig. See the breathing is called sukar. The word sukara is ‘su’ ‘kara’ not ‘shukara.’ It is su, sa, dantya. So he is breathing heavily. He is auspicious, he is causing you to breathe. He brings you back to life. You have died and come back to life because of Rahu. So great he is, right? He has caused you to incarnate again and again and again and again. There are endless incarnations. These endless incarnations are because of the breath. An incarnation means when you start breathing. So birth is defined as the first breath. Prathama prana, or the first breath. That is why breath is seen from pranapada. A thing called pranapada where the calculation, a mathematical form called pranapada. We see breathing from there. Have you heard of pranapada? Right down this word: pranapada. Pada means feet. From where you start breathing. Each breath is a foot, is one step, and the number of breaths that you are going to take in this world is fixed. So pranapada is how you breathe. If somebody has pranapada in Aquarius he is a gentleman. He breathes very slowly. He says “good eeevening Sanjaaay.” He is a gentleman. See he breathes slowly; the breath is coming out so slowly. “How are yoouu?” See how slowly the breath came out. See he is a cultured gentleman. So if pranapada is in Aquarius the breath is slow because Saturn is slow.

If pranapada, or the breath, is in Leo the breathing is like that of a lion. You see? The breath is strong, well grounded, there is no fear. Even in front of fear he is cool while everybody else is shaking. The breathing does not falter in front of fear because the Sun does not falter. Have you ever seen the sun go fast or slow? Have you ever in astrology, many people have been learning astrology, have you seen the Sun go very fast or very slow? No, he’s steady in his motion, very steady, perfect yogic breathing is pranapada in Leo. That is what we all want. Yogic breathing means pranapada in Leo. Your breath is perfect, no alteration. No going up, no going down, perfect and steady.

Pranapada in Cancer: very fast breathing, so you will die early. The Moon is a very fast planet so you breathe very fast, so you will die early. Pranapada in Cancer is not good. Like that the pranapada in different signs will tell us what kind of breath you are having. Pranapada is called a lagna, it is called the lagna of breathing. And planets are studied in the horoscope from this lagna to see what is stopping your breath. Those of you who have studied medical astrology will find this very important information. In Ayurveda, this is very important, the breath. The pranapada will decide how you are breathing. Is your breath getting obstructed. When will you die. What is death? When the breath stops.

So now, who means the coming of breath? Ketu means the going of breath. So, the Varaha Avatar. The Varaha Avatar story is different. There was some demon, what is his name? Does anyone remember his name? I’m not really good with demon names. OK, there was a demon who was creating a lot of havoc, running around trying to take over these worlds. So God decided to incarnate. He took the Earth and he threw it into the water. Earth was thrown in water. What is Earth? Earth is the world, so your world, you are in the world, is in water. When is your world in water? Have you ever seen a world in water. You have, you will remember it now. When you were in the stomach of your mother. The demon threw your world in water. Who was the demon who eclipsed you? Your atma was put in a cage and the mana was put on top of it. And the demon Rahu eclipsed it. Demon, see that? Rakshasa. And then he threw that world in the stomach of the mother. So it was in water. The world was in water. And at that point of time all the ghosts started crying “what will happen, protect the world.” So what happened then? Brahma started meditating, the creator started meditating. And from his breath - see the breath, again the breath - a little boar came out from his nose with the breath. And the boar was making grunting sounds, and the boar started becoming big, big, big. Similarly, what happens to the little seed that is planted in the mother’s stomach? It becomes big, big, big at a very fast rate. A tiny little seed has become so big a baby in nine months. See the speed at which it has grown. Like that the little boar which has come out of a little piece of hair from the nose of Brahma became a big boar. And it was making grunting sounds. It was breathing very heavily; it was called sukara. Sukara means breathing heavily. And then he had powerful bristles, his hair was like bristles. A detailed description is given which is a boar description. You can study the description carefully to understand its meaning.

Then the head came out and this came out. It is like creation, it is all about that creation. So at that point of time the boar heard that the world has fallen and he shook his head. And in his teeth he had big tusks, so that means the teeth had come out. And then he jumped into the water and he picked up the world and took it out of the water, and then put the world in the air and held it up. What does that mean? That means from the water in your mother’s stomach you were exposed to this world of air, and you started breathing. The world came out in the air and you started breathing. Your whole world which was your mother’s stomach suddenly has become this whole world around you. That is the process of birth. The entire Varaha Avatar story is the world as seen from the eyes of the created being. What was the soul doing in the stomach of the mother? What important lesson does it tell us? That is, a mother who is carrying a child, or who is pregnant, if she worships the Varaha Avatar with the mantra om namo bhagavate sukaraya, the name used is sukara, not varaha, om namo bhagavate sukaraya. Then her child will breathe. That means the child has to be born and will breathe. It is such an important mantra. It is a mantra by which you as an astrologer, even if you do it for somebody else, can help that mother.

How do we see God in this Varaha Avatar? How do we see God in this? What role did God play? How do we see the hand of God? We see the hand of God only at the moment of birth. The world was falling in water, all those things were happening, was taking place, conception was taking place. At the time the world was about to be destroyed, in the last month, at that time, the Varaha Avatar jumps in and takes the world out of the womb and brings the baby into this. That moment of birth when he takes it out of the water and puts it into the air is a moment worth praising a million times because you have saved more life. See the Varaha Avatar saved life. Yet at that moment of pain, when the whole world is being destroyed, when the world is sinking in the water, and as it is sinking it is fully destroyed by this tremendous suffering. The exact word used has been explained in the Madhusudana Stotra.

Garbhavasam maha dukha swahi mam madhusudana

Garbhavasam means sitting in the womb of the mother. Maha dukha, it is the greatest sorrow that any soul can get because the soul is cramped. Have you seen a baby, how cramped it is in this little room, there is not even room to move around. It is cramped inside that, like a tree or a plant, you’re cramped, you’re stuck. Maha dukha, it is great sorrow.

(Q) Is that why it is called kumbhi patna?

(S) Yes, that is right. It is like kumbha rasi.

You are totally trapped in that, you can’t get out. You don’t know how to get out, you don’t know where to go. No knowledge, nothing, a tiny creature you are. It is a terrible sorrow, a sorrow that is unmatched. Such a sorrow you will never see again in this world. On this planet Earth you will not see more sorrow than you saw in the home of your mother. That is the greatest sorrow that any soul can see. And to take you out from that sorrow and the terrible pain the mother has to go through, and the enormous danger too, all kinds of exposures and infections and death and whatever. The moment of birth is a very dangerous and most difficult moment. They say that the mother will never see more pain than that in her life. It is a most difficult and painful moment. So you see the terrible pain to the mother and the great sorrow to the child are ending at one moment. At one moment they are ending. The whole pain finishes and the sorrow finishes and great joy is there all around. You see the situation, how it has changed. Terrible pain, suddenly it finishes. All the sorrow that the soul has seen, suddenly finishes, and suddenly the baby is born and everybody is celebrating and is smiling and happy. So who took you out from the terrible pain and terrible sorrow and suffering? The Varaha Avatar.

Similarly, when you are under the terrible attack of Rahu and you are cramped and you can’t move around and can’t do anything, you are trapped and put in a jail, like going to jail, people go to jail, trapped. Then by worshipping the Varaha Avatar you will be carried away from that. There will be safe delivery, be sure of it, with the mantra om namo bhagavate sukaraya.

09 Vamana

So we were talking last about Sri Varaha Avatar, right? The important thing that we learned about these two avatars, the two extremes, is they are points which are after death and before birth. In your existence your life is a spectrum of light and these are points after death that is Ketu, and before birth, that is Rahu. So Rahu and Ketu are without bodies. That means you don’t exist. So Rahu and Ketu mean you don’t exist. You are without bodies. That is why these grahas have the power of eclipsing without a body. They eclipse your mind. They cause such destruction in your lives which is like taking birth or seeing death. Major transformations occur, something has to be destroyed for a new birth to occur. So these are transformational changes that happen. So whenever we have nodes making an indicator of a change in our life it means a very terrible change, a very trying part of our lives.

So the first thing we talked about was Matsya Avatar, then we talked about Varaha Avatar. Varaha was Sukaraya, om namo bhagavate sukaraya. The next avatar we will talk about is the Vamana Avatar. Vamana. Vamana Avatar is the manifestation of all the energies of Jupiter. He is called by different names. His name, when he was born and as a kid, was Upendra. So, many people say Upendra. But at that time he was born in a brahmin family. Jupiter, he was very little in height, a small kid. Very young in age but he had mastered all the Vedas and all the scriptures and the entire body of Vedic literature was within him, even by the time he was in his teens. Just like Adi Shankara, you know? Tremendous knowledge. And there was the Shukaracharya. The Shukracharya was the teacher of the demons. And Shukracharya told the king, Bali, his name was Bali, that listen, I’ll tell you some secret mantras. And you do the secret mantras you will become very powerful. You will become so powerful that you will become master of the three worlds. This God and goodness and spirituality and all is madness. This whole world of people, especially this Earth, people have gone mad. They are following Bhagavan, they are trying to be good, they are trying to meditate. Can you imagine what sort of stupid people they have become? They are meditating, taking the name of God. So Shukracharya said if you have to be king, if you have to be boss, you have to teach the importance of materialism. The materialistic philosophy that he who has the money will be the boss, that money is everything in life, that you’ve got to live only for money, that money will rule the world, nobody gets food. The entire concept of money, that is what will be taught. That was Shukracharya’s teaching to Bali.

So shall finish the Shukracharya’s work and get down to some Brihaspati work? So you see Shukracharya was always the material benefits, have the ice cream, come on, why are you listening to the guru? Why are you wasting your time? That is Shukracharya. This is all bogus, concentrate on the ice cream. This master is wasting your time by talking about all these things. Shukracharya, Venus, the power of enjoyment of this world. Enjoy this world, why are you wasting your time listening to this fellow’s talk about religion and the scriptures? This is all bogus. So Shukracharya wanted to make Bali the king of the worlds. And Bali listened to Shukracharya and he did all these yagyas and mantras and things and he became all-powerful. And then when he became all-powerful the demons - what are the demons? The demons are those who believe in the materialistic view of life. That is, your mind is obsessed by the fact that you want to live permanently in this world but you will die one day. And that madness, that obsession about money is the cause of all your demonical behavior. All the goodness goes away from you, within you all the goodness goes away. All the evil qualities come inside you because of this mad pursuit of money.

Somewhere you’ve got to let go, somewhere you’ve got to realize that that is a thin line and you should not cross over that thin line. You must not forget mercy, you must not forget the dana, that is to give. You must not forget daya, that is to have mercy. And the third one, dama, to control yourself. Self-control is very important. The three da’s: daya, dama, and dana. The three da’s. But Shukracharya said forget all this it is bogus, and just follow. And Bali became stronger and stronger. At that point of time Bali decided to do the ultimate yagya, and that yagya, he said, if he finishes that yagya, he will become the master of the three worlds. Which are the three worlds? Bhu, bhuvah, and swarga loka. In all the three worlds he will have the mastery and then Brihaspati could not take it anymore. Brihaspati said “This is the heights of it, dharma will perish today. Today dharma will perish once and for all. O God, wherever you are in the skies, please save us.”

And this little brahmin who was there decided, OK, there is a big yagya going on, let me go over there. So Upendra went to visit the yagya, and like a little brahmin clutching his kamandalu, his water pot, and his malas. He had nothing, his weapon was his mala. He had no more weapons, and the water pot is a blessing. And he throws the water over you with the mantras, all your life changes. That’s what he is, Upendra. And he went over there and he saw the king. There was a queue of brahmins and priests and this and that waiting to take alms from him. The king had said “I am the king. See if I am the king whatever you want, I will give you. So people were asking for gold, for cattle, for wealth of all kinds, and he was giving it away.

At that point of time Upendra came. The little brahmin came. So everybody was asking the king “Who is this little brahmin who has come? Why has he come?”

“What do you want little fellow?

So he said, “Are you sure you will give me whatever I want?”

The king said “Of course I will give you whatever you want.”

Now at that point of time Shukracharya, who was a brahmin, Shukracharya was also a brahmin. He has known jyotish sastra. There are two kinds of jyotishis, one Shukra’s path and one Brihaspati’s path. All the time keep that in mind. There will be two kinds of astrologers, one who will follow the path of Shukra and one who will follow the path of Jupiter, Brihaspati. So Shukracharya immediately could foresee what was going to happen. By his knowledge of astrology, jyotish, he saw what was going to happen and he told the king “Tell that little brahmin you will give him nothing and ask him to get out of here.”

The king said “What’s wrong with you? If I ask him to get out, I am the king of the world, I will become the laughing stock of the world. The little fellow, holding a little thing, what is he going to ask me? What can he ask me that I cannot give him? He cannot ask me for my kingdom because I am the king. There are certain rules to what he can ask.”

So he then did the sankalpa and didn’t listen to Shukracharya. Again Shukracharya tried to tell him something. At that point of time the little brahmin picked up a blade of grass. The blade of grass is very important. Keep this in mind. The blade of grass, the durva grass has the power to stop the trouble from Venus. Whenever you are having a Venus-related problem pick up a blade of grass and say the mantra of Ganesha. If you pick up the blade of grass and say the mantra of Ganesha, Shukra will become blind. And if Sukra becomes blind he cannot do anything. His power is in his eyes. Shukra’s real power is in his eyes, so if he becomes blind he cannot do anything. So he picked up the blade of grass, said the mantra and threw the blade of grass. The blade of grass became a bee and it stung Shukracharya in his left eye, and Shukracharya became blind in the left eye. He was holding his eye crying “Oh my eyes, my eyes.” At that point in time he turned and went away. He had to go because of his eyes.

So then the king went forward and he said “OK give the sankalpa” and he asked the little kid “what do you want, tell me what you want.”

He said “I want three steps. I want land for three steps. Three feet of land, step one, step two, and step three. Whatever land is there that I can measure with three feet I will take.”

Everybody started laughing. What a fool, the king can give you anything you ask and you want three steps of land. King if you want to give it, give it, he doesn’t want anything else.

“I’m not greedy, I don’t want anything else, I don’t want gold, I want three steps of land.”

Why does he want three steps of land? Because three steps of land means when you measure your feet, three steps, that is the length of land that you need to be buried. When you die that is the step that you want to rest in peace. That is all that I need, I don’t need anything else. Because if I am a true brahmin I don’t have any other want and if I don’t have any other want, how can I ask you for anything? Only the king understood at that point of time this is not an ordinary brahmin. This one is completely detached, one who is beyond the three gunas. He is asking only for three steps so he can be laid in peace. So he said, “OK, I still promised to give you whatever you wanted.”

So he did that and the little brahmin was the Vamana Avatar. Vamana, that means that which is beyond the mana. It is beyond your imagination, that which crosses, transcends the limits of the mind. See the king could not imagine. What is mana? Mana is the mind, the entire imagination is based upon your mind. Vamana is that which is going beyond the mind. The king could not have imagined in his wildest dreams that this little brahmin could grow and become so huge. He started towering and with one step he measured the Earth. And everybody said ‘ Om bhu.” And in the next step he measured all the heavens, all the entire bhuva loka and swarga loka in just one step, the second step. In the second step he measured it. So huge he had become. So ‘ Om bhuvah.” And then Raja Bali had not yet conquered heaven, swarga he had not conquered as yet because Indra was still there. He was about to conquer that with this yagya. So he asked “Where should I put my third step? You promised me three feet.” So the king then realized, he was humbled at that point. He said, “Oh my God, I have not even imagined this. Even my wildest imaginations of my mana, the limitations of my mind, you have crossed it, you have transcended the limitations of the mind.” And so he bowed. What is bowing? Being humble. And he placed his third step on the head of the king. And at that moment Raja Bali died. Because as soon as he put his foot over there, actually he would crash because the feet are on him, on the head. Now that became a symbol. It is called bali. And when Bali died, as soon as he died, because Vishnu had put his feet, Vamana is Vishnu, Bhagavan, God Himself, and when he places his feet on your head, it means he has become your guru.

So that became symbolic of guru-sishya parampara. The tradition of guru and sishya in Hinduism. The guru has to place his right foot on the head of the sishya. If he does not do that he is not your diksha guru, keep that in mind. He has to do that and he should know how to do it. And when he does that he is supposed to show the world to you. If he cannot do it, he does not have the knowledge. That is a diksha guru; that is diksha. When you get diksha the feet will be on your head. That is a must, OK? As a part of the diksha this is a must. If you have not done that you have not got diksha. And diksha, or getting a guru, is in three steps. The first step is bhu, that means you are leaving all your attachment. Everything in this material world is finished. The next is the entire bhuvah and swarga. That means you are performing your last rites, so that no son, no father, no brother, no mother, nobody exists anymore. So it is even that you are dead, you are to consider yourself as being dead. That means you are taking sannyasa diksha. Then only you get the final mukta diksha. These are the three steps. Then you have got a diksha guru.

Since Vishnu became the guru of Bali, hence Bali was ready for moksha. So Vishnu then said you are now my sishya. Since you are my sishya and you have both, your ahamkar is gone. Your ego is finished. If your ego is finished you are no longer a demon. Hence you deserve to be a king, please be the king. So Bali went on to become the king of one of the lower worlds. Is it not interesting? It teaches us how we learn from the master. Simply because the master doesn’t have money, the guru doesn’t have things, do not underestimate his ability. What was the king thinking? I am so rich, I am so powerful, whatever you want I will give it to you. Actually what he has you don’t have. He has all the three worlds, you have nothing, right? Because he was able to transcend those three worlds. So the important part of this particular episode of the Vamana Avatar is how to get moksa. You do not get moksha without a guru. You need a guru to get moksha. And the guru comes from Aum because guru is ultimately a god.

Now must we have a guru in the physical form? I don’t know. These are questions that will be answered by the gurus themselves. For example the Sikhs treat the Guru Granth Sahib, that is a book, as a guru. You see the guru is a very peculiar thing. In this Kali Yuga it will be very difficult to find the correct guru, very difficult to find the perfect guru. And also, the perfect guru may not want to give you diksha. Why will he want to give you? So there are so many things involved in this. But in any case, if you do the mantra Om namo bhagavate vamanaya, Vamana Avatar, vamanaya, you will transcend the bondage of the mind in this body. Being in this body you will transcend the control of the mind and the senses. You will not be a slave of your senses, you will get over your senses. By the blessings of the Vamana Avatar, the first step is to get over bhu loka, to get over the senses. The next step is to get over all the desires and karma, and the third step is to go into complete samadhi. So that is the Vamana Avatar and that is the essence of all learning. If your learning does not lead to that of what use is the learning? No matter how much you learn all the learning is useless if it is not going to lead you there.

(Q) You mentioned the two types of gurus Shukacharya and Brihaspati, what are the differences?

(S) The primary difference is that those who follow the Shukacharya’s line are asuric. They never teach spiritual astrology. They say all that is in the Vedas nothing works or if it works they will be giving like that. Go throw alcohol in the water, throw a party and distribute alcohol and people will get drunk, see you have donated alcohol. Last night I got a mail from some person saying he had gone to an astrologer saying I just wanted to clarify this with you. I went to an astrologer and he said that Saturn was in some conjunction with some Moon, so with some Venus. So you need to buy a diamond with a black spot in it. Have you ever heard of such things? The heights of cheating. Diamond with a black spot. Why? Which shastra says this. Why should he buy a flawed diamond when you know it is bad for him. Every astrologer worth his salt knows it. Shukracharya represents those astrologers who are only focusing on material gains. All astrology for them is only for material gains, buying a house, selling a car, buying other things. Only that all the time. They will never even by mistake think that if a person has come to be at an astrologer have a little responsibility to tell the person at least one mantra or something about Ista Devata. Use some of these words so that something comes into the head of the person. You may give a one hour reading. You spend fifty-nine minutes talking all about the personal life of the person but at least one minute say some words, some words of Brihaspati. All I am saying is I know that you have to do the work of Shukra in this world but do not forget to do the work of Brihaspati. Don’t forget to remind the person that he is a spirit being in a material body. That the body is not going to be with him, so why be attached to the body. Don’t forget to remind that. That is the basic job of an astrologer. The Vamana Avatar story tells us about our responsibilities. As astrologers we have to be very responsible. We cannot afford to be irresponsible because if we are very irresponsible the society around us will become totally irresponsible. We would only spread avidya [ignorance] instead of spreading vidya [knowledge], so we need to be very responsible. It also teaches us an important factor that when you think that everything is lost in this world, remember there is always one from where you can take shelter. Shelter will always come at the feet of the guru, protection will always come at his feet, no matter how much you have been steeped in sin because of Shukra.

10 Parasurama

Following this episode of Jupiter’s winning back of the worlds is the story of Parashurama Avatar. Parashurama Avatar is the Venus Avatar. Now, Venus was also a graha. Venus was told that, listen just like Jupiter has the overall control over teaching and the learning process, Jupiter graha, the graha Brihaspati symbolizing all the learning that we do and the ultimate objective of the knowledge, that is to have spiritual learning. If we don’t have spiritual learning we have no meaning, right? That’s what we learn from the Vamana Avatar. So now we come to the Parashurama Avatar. Here the object of the lesson is that we have to understand the meaning of all relationships and the purity of relationships. The purity of relationship is very, very important because it is in the purity of the relationship that no sin is accrued. Impure relationships cause serious sin, so do not have impure relationships. Be very clear in your mind about your relationship with everybody. Here the most important thing was the lesson of Shukra, that is your attachment should always be to one, not many. Attachment must be to one, not many. You cannot have multiple attachments. It is not right.

So the Parashurama Avatar, if you see the life story of Parashurama, you see he learned, his name was Rama, Parashu means ax. He developed the battle ax, he was a great warrior. How did he become a great warrior? There was this great sage in those days called Parashara. He was in the neighborhood, in the neighboring ashram to his father’s. He was the son of Jamadagni. Parashurama was the son of a sage, a great sage called Jamadagni. Jama, agni. Jama means the lord of death, Yama. Agni is fire. So Jamadagni refers to the fire of death, or he who can conquer the fire of death.. Jamadagni was an advisor to the Haihayas. The Haihayas were a cannibal tribe. So cannibalism was quite prevalent in India in those days. So you see Parashurama was born to Jamadagni after Jamadagni listened to Parashara. Parashara told Jamadagni, “What are you doing? We are supposed to be teaching the Vedas, while on the other hand you are going giving advice about all this about mantras and yantras and all to these Haihayas, these cannibals. You are not following dharma at all. So then the Haihaya king saw that Jamadagni had left him. He went and formed an ashram. So the Haihayas got very angry. They retaliated very badly. They came and completely destroyed Jamadagni’s ashram, completely destroyed it, kidnapped his son, called Parashurama, can you imagine? Parashurama was kidnapped and he was taken as captive and kept with the Haihaya king so that his father would come and work for them in the temple. At the same time they attacked his ashram they also attacked Parashara’s ashram and completely burned it down. Parashara was such a brave one. They said the horses were charging, the chariots and horses were charging, and Parashara went and stood in the middle and just put his hand up like that, stop. So they charged up to him but the horses could not cross the sage. So the horses pulled back. So the Haihayas got on to lead the horses to the charge. The whole army is charging; the sage puts his hands up and tells the horse to stop. The horses stopped, so the Haihayas got mad. The king realized OK, this Parashara is somebody, I don’t know who this fellow is but he is somebody, he knows something. So he took his chariot next to him, picked up his sword, and with the flat side of the sword he just attacked him. So then Parashara got very badly injured, his leg was completely broken, and he became unconscious. That is how Parashara became lame. Did you know that Parashara had become lame? Parashara became lame because of that attack. And his complete ashrama was burned down. The ladies over there were raped. And at the same time Parashurama’s father’s ashrama which was next to Parashara’s ashrama, even that was burned down, his mother was kidnapped by the Haihayas and kept with them. And Parashurama was also kidnapped. It was a terrible time.

So at that point of time Parashurama learned the art of weapons. Parashurama realized at that point of time that I got defeated because I did not know how to fight. I must learn these weapons and these horses from these Haihayas. So he learned weapons and horses and he designed the wheel. And he made two wheels and he made a chariot, a two-wheeled chariot, and he put a horse in between. He designed all that. So he was a great designer of vehicles. What does it mean? Venus is a designer of vehicles. Venus is the ruler of vehicles, vahanas. He’s always thinking about beautiful vehicles. So Parashurama designed that vehicle and he also designed modern weapons to fight these Haihayas and formed a very powerful band. And this band he learned from the Haihayas, formed a band, and he attacked the Haihayas, killed his own mother, destroyed the Haihayas and completely rid the whole western part of India from all cannibals.

(Q) Why did he kill his mother?

(S) Because his father told him to kill his mother. His father told him your mother has become totally impure. She’s going and staying with this Haihaya king. So this fellow was so mad he even killed his mother.

(Q) So why didn’t they kill the father, the Haihaya.

(S) Because the father (Jamadagni) was the head priest of the Haihayas. Nobody kills their own head priest. It is foolish.

This is the most important episode of the Parashurama Avatar. Subsequently, of course, for twenty-one generations, twenty-one is associated with Venus, the destruction of Mars, for twenty-one generations, Parashurama destroyed all the kshatriyas, saying that you warriors are the cause of all the destruction and killing of this world. I will kill all of you, after that I’ll surrender. And only those kshatriyas who could worship Ganesha survived. Now see the thing, that means that when you are under attack by a very negative Venus take shelter in Ganesha. Only Ganesha can save you from a very, very negative Venus. Otherwise this Venus can ruin you. Only those kshatriyas who took shelter under Ganesha, and ran for their lives, survived the slaughter of Parashurama. And finally one kshatriya was born called Ram, who stopped Parashurama in his tracks, and told him you have no right to continue this destruction and ended it. So the Parashurama Avatar and the Ram Avatar were concurrent. What does it mean? That means, here are two beings, standing and talking to each other and both are avatars of God. One is Parashurama Avatar and one is Ram Avatar and both of these avatars are talking to each other. A very, very important lesson. That means, both are God, whose side will you take? What is the important lesson we learned? You can’t take sides when it comes to matters of Venus. You just can’t take sides, there are no sides. Because you are the better half of your half, so don’t take sides.

Parashurama killed his mother. Why did Parashurama kill his mother? See, what is the important factor? When a child is born who says the child belongs to so and so father? Who knows other than the mother? So when we talk of lineage, lineage comes from Venus. It is the responsibility of Venus as a graha to continue a lineage. How can you continue a lineage when you don’t know whose the father and whose the son? Do you see the problem? So Venus has a problem. His problem is, and his only condition is, until the children are all born, the mother has to insure that she does not have any contact with anybody else. How else will we know whose child it is? The lineage is based on truth because truth is ultimately to be established. If Venus has been given the responsibility, if let us say that you have been given the responsibility to insure that, let us say, I am Sanjay Rath so I must be the son of Rath; that my father must be connected to insure that there is a lineage. And if it is your responsibility, how will you insure it? By insuring that the woman who is giving birth to the child is mating with that man. That’s how you can insure it otherwise there is no other way to insure it. Is it not? There is no other way to insure it.

Because his own mother had gone over to the Haihayas, leaving his father, he said, what happens to my lineage? Because the lineage is the law. The same story. So Parashurama killed his mother. Venus killed his mother. It’s a terrible thing to know, it just shows the hatred of a son whose mother goes away with somebody else. Many people in this world suffer this problem. You must deal with this problem very carefully. As jyotishis you will find so many charts with this problem. You will have to deal with this problem carefully. OK? You must understand. This is one reaction. I’ll teach you the other part, the reaction of Jupiter and show you why our lineage is very great.

Now Parashara got hit by the sword of the Haihayas. See the reaction of our lineage to a similar situation. Parashara, when he opened his eyes, found himself in a fisherman’s house. And his leg was completely bandaged and the fisher people were looking after him. A lady was looking after him. What was the name of the lady? Satyavati. So she was the fisherman’s daughter; she had nursed him back. And then the way they described it there was a beautiful flower and a beautiful sun shone in the sky and Parashara was not himself. And he, Parashara muni, and Satyavati, had gandharvavivaha. You know what gandharvavivaha is right? They were attracted to each other and had sex. Parashara was not married to her; he did not have a brahmavivaha, he did not go around the sacred fire. Parashara had a gandharva, he was in love. For the first time, only in a moment of weakness, one moment of weakness in his life, and in that one moment of weakness, Veda Vyasa came into the stomach of Satyavati. So if Parashara muni could do that what is wrong with other people being in love? Is there something wrong if a boy and a girl are in love? There is nothing wrong. See what the parampara teaches; Parashara muni himself, Veda Vyasa himself was born like that. And after sometime Parashara muni went away because he had to go for his job. He had to go from all those ashramas to ashramas teaching them jyotish and all those things.

So this lady, Satyavati, gave birth to Veda Vyasa. And then Parashara came back to take his son one day. So his father-in-law asked him “What shall happen to my daughter if you will take your son away? While father and son go around like monks. What will happen to my daughter? I’m worried about my daughter. So then Parashara sat down in deep meditation and then he opened his eyes and said “I bless her; from this moment I release her.” It is important to release a woman so that she becomes free. What is release? Divorce. That means divorce was there in those days and Parashara muni has sanctioned divorce. So if anybody ever asks you that divorce is not there in the scriptures tell them that this is what Sanjay taught. Parashara clearly divorced his wife, remember he went into meditation, opened his eyes and look at the greatness of this man who has come to take his son. He has no house, he has nothing, he walks from one place to another. He said “No problem, I will take my son with me, I will teach my son all the mantras and everything I know,” and he tells his father-in-law, “You have nothing to worry.” I see, because what did he see after all he is losing his wife and he has to give some blessing to his wife for having given him such a nice son, that she shall be the queen of Bharat. “You will be, for giving this son to me,” that means his mantra shakti was so much, that he blessed her to become the queen of India. Now see the two contrasting sages. One, Parashurama, who is considered an avatar, who killed his mother because his father said so, and here Parashara, who releases his wife, frees his wife, and blesses her in front of Veda Vyasa. So then the son understands the relationships. He respects relationships and blesses her “may you be the queen of India.” As destiny would have it, Parashara’s words did not fail. She went on to become the queen of India. That is an astrologer’s word; it does not fail. And that was to his own wife whom he was releasing, that is, there was no anger over there, even then he blessed her. That is what a jyotishi is.

(Q) So there is a scriptural sanction for divorce?

(S) I’ve given you an example of Parashara.

(Q) Then why should we be criticizing others?

(S) Who is criticizing?

(Q) The Indians, the Hindus do.

(S) They do, that is there problem. They should learn jyotish from me. Those who learn jyotish from me will never criticize anybody else. You have to understand that different people have different ways. There are eight types of marriages. Gandharva is one of them. There are so many types of breaking of marriages. Even rakshashavivaya is that. What is that? Kidnapping somebody and getting married to her. But that is not sanctioned by our lineage. They do not like all these things. You see that? So it is not good. You must know what is good and what is not good;

So, we have learned about Parashurama Avatar, the ways of Venus. Why did Parashurama kill his mother? Was it a good thing to do? Parashurama Avatar symbolizes the perfect obedie