Astro Portrait of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev – I

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, the founder of Isha Foundation is a multi-faceted personality. He is a yogi, a mystic, a motivational speaker and a philanthropist. He is a spiritual master to a large number of people. In his speeches he does not seem to believe in astrology. First  read the following question and  answer  

Questioner: I have studied Vedic astrology and I am wondering, does astrology work? Are we defined by the stars, or by intention and mind, or by the self?

Sadhguru: You  need to understand, India is not just about the Vedas or Vedic culture. Sage Vyasa, the person who compiled the four Vedas – his father was an Aryan and his mother was a Dravidian. In spite of that, in South India, they don’t ascribe to the Vedas.

Dravidian culture never went for astrology by looking at the stars, they made predictions by looking at people. Here, we have what is called Nadi Joshyam. But the Aryan culture came with astrology. Astrology is an interpretation of astronomy. If you try to interpret something, invariably you miss a lot of points. So it is a mis-interpretation because you missed a lot of things.

The reason why the Aryan culture looked at the stars so much is, they were nomadic. They were always travelling. Since there were no roads, they needed to figure out which is north, which is south, which is east, which is west. When the sun was up, they knew. Once the sun set, there was really nothing except fire and stars. So the Aryan culture revolved around fire and  stars. Even today, if people want to get married or do anything auspicious, they go around fire because nomadic cultures lived by fire and stars. Fire gave you light, heat, and protection from wild animals. The stars told you approximately which way to go. Slowly, observing the stars, they figured which way to travel. They kept looking up and their knowledge of the stars increased. Interpretations started, and they developed a certain mastery and knowledge about the stars.

The indigenous people of this land did not look up. They always saw the earth as their mother and paid attention to her. Because they looked at the earth, they developed agriculture, almost before anyone else on the planet could think of it. That means, they had food rowing in one place. They did not have to chase anything. They did not have to go around picking something. They knew how to reap from the earth. Once they knew how to reap from the earth, they stayed in the same place. They started building homes; because they started building homes, they started singing. Because they built homes and they had to count how many bags of grain they had grown, they started arithmetic. Mathematics, music, aesthetics, agriculture, and the spiritual process developed in this culture because they paid attention to the earth. These are two different kinds of cultures, even in today’s world: One is always looking up, not at the stars anymore, but at the one and only God up there. The other one is always looking down. The looking-down cultures live more sensibly because they consider Mother Earth as God, so they walk a little more gently on the planet.

Anyway, the choice is this: either you try to live your life by predictions or you have the capability to make a plan and fulfill the plan. All those minds which are incapable of a plan will look for a prediction. The stars that you see in the sky are far away, so very far away that they have nothing to do with you. Just one star has a big influence upon you – the Sun. And its satellite, the Moon, also has some influence upon you. This planet has an even greater influence upon you. But above all, what is within you has the biggest influence upon you. All those who are incapable of committing themselves to a plan and fulfilling it, want a prediction. The advantage with predictions is, you can keep changing them. But if a plan has to work, you have to pay enormous attention in creating one. Then you have to stick to it.

I only hope all predictions go wrong for you. Then it means your life is happening wonderfully. Otherwise you are going by the script that was written by some fool. In India, for twenty-five rupees, or fifty cents, they will write your life. Let your life not be so bad. It does not matter what the hell happens, let something other than the prediction happen to you. Is that okay? May your predictions and dreams not come true. Because a prediction is just a compromised dream.

Above question and answer has been taken from website

http://Isha.Sadhguru.org/in/en/wisdom/article/does-astrology-work

I am not inclined to write comments on above answer of Sadhguru. Readers may form their own opinion. As many as ninety seven comments were received. Interested readers may follow the link. But with due respect I do state that I do not agree with it.

His biographer Arundhanti Subramanium(More than a Life   SADHGURU P-58) has written about a wandering  astrologer whom his mother had invited to know about her first daughter’s marriage prospect and she had asked Jaggi Vasudev to interact with him. Everything that the  astrologer had predicted proved correct. In an another incident on P-145 it is written that Jaggi Vasudev had once studied palm of her wife and had correctly  told her that she would go through an emotionally unsettling period eleven years later. His biographer has not written about any incident in which he had any bad experience with any astrologer or astrology. Then why Sadhguru gave above reply to a question on astrology is not understood by me. Now let us see his chart.

Jaggi Vasudev was born on 3^rd Sep 1957 at 23.54 hrs in Mysore.(P-30 ibid).  

Spiritual Combinations in the Chart

Sadhguru is basically a spiritual master.A complete chapter “The Man Who Went Up and Never Came Down” has been devoted to his story of enlightenment in the  above book.It had happened on 23rd Sep 1982 on Chamunda Hills of Mysore.He had started for Chamunda Hills at about two thirty afternnon and he had returned to normalancy at about seven thirty in the evening.”He had gone up,a young happy-go-lucky motorcyclist.He returned,a mystic.” His biographer sums up the whole experience.Complete discription has been told to his biographer  by Sadhguru  himself and interested readers may  read the same in the book.We shall also study about  his dasa and transit on the day of enlightenment,but let us first study spiritual combinations in his chart.

1.First,fifth and ninth houses/their lords in a chart belong to Dharam Trikona.Fourth,eighth and twelfth houses/their lords belong to Moksh Trikona.Interaction between these houses/their lords is a spiritual combination. His lagna Lord is in fifth house with eighth lord.Eighth lord also aspects ninth house and lagna.Twelfth Lord Mars is in fourth house with fifth lord MerR.There is nakshatra exchange between 12th lords Mars and lagna lord Venus.9th lord Saturn is being aspected by 12th lords Mars.4th lord Sun is with 5th lord MerR. Ninth house is being aspected by 8th lord Jupiter.Ninth lord aspects lagna,fourth house and fourth lord.  Hence there is interaction between Dharam Trikona and Moksh Trikona.

2.There is connection of 12th house/12th lord Mars with lagna lord Venus.(Nakshatra exchange), Amatyakaraka MerR,Putrakarka Sun, Ketu,Saturn and Jupiter.These cobinations increase Satwik(Righteousness) nature in a person.

3.Fourth house/Fourth lord are under combine influence of seperative planets viz Sun,Mars and Saturn.These combinations connect a person with an Ashram and are also combinations for foreign travel.Affliction to 4th house or fourth lord is a spiritual combination. 

4.Seventh house is afflicted by occupation of Saturn and aspect of Mars.Seventh lord is afflicted by conjuction with Sun and aspect of Saurn.Hence seventh house and seventh lord are under influence of seperative planets. There are only seventeen points in seventh house in SAV.In addtion to being a spiritual combination it also indicates early death of wife.

His wife vijji died on 23-01-1997(P-171 ibid) in Rahu-Mars -Sun Dasa.Sadhguru praises planetary cofiguration of the day in the following words(P-178-179)

“There was an exceedingly rare and archetypically appropriate planetary alignment,a moment in time expressed in heavens a perfect six-pointed star .This pattern comes on the exact day where three outer planets Jupiter,Uranus and Neptune are conjoined together for the first time in almost two hundred years.On 23 January ,this cluster of planets centred on the first degree of aquarius,joined by Sun with the full Moon opposite them all.This pattern may also be seen as a symbolic representation of the long-heralded dawning of The age of Aquarius.It is also the’thaipoosam‘ ,a day that many sages of the past have chosen for their own mahasamadhi.” It is in variance to his views on astrology quoted above in a question answer form.

5.Planets in sarp dreshkon if having PAC with 9th/12th houses or lords can lead to awakening of kundilini.Here Saturn as ninth lord and having aspect of 12th lord is in sarp dreshkon.

6. According to Sh K N Rao PAC connection of 5th and the 9th lords is the upward sublimation of the life force.5th lord MerR  is aspected by 9th lord Saturn in natal chart.Similarly in navamsa chart 5th lord Venus is aspected by 9th lord Saturn.

7.Association of Atamakaraka(AK) and Putrakaraka(PK) is a cobination for spirituality.AK Moon and PK Sun are in mutual aspect in Navamsa Chart and Vimshamsha Chart.

8. Ketu  in 12th house is good for spirituality.Ketu is a planet of salvation and is in 12th house of salvation. It is in bharani nakshatra of Venus.It is said to make one the worshipper of Goddess and the native is said to attain Moksha due to Punyakarma(righteous acts) of past lives.

9. Ninth lord of religion-Saturn, is the strongest planet in the horoscope and is situated in seventh house of meditation. Eighth house of Samadhi is the strongest house in the horoscope. Saturn is a natural varagyakarka.”Another early trait was a level of dispassion which marked even his closest relationships. Jaggi seemed curiously untouched by intense family feeling or fierce attachments of any kind” writes his biographer on page 53 of his biography.” Such combinations in spiritual charts are good for spiritual progress.

10. Jupiter and Saturn related to 5th or 9th house gives salvation in spiritual charts.Saturn is ninth lord and Jupiter aspects it .Hence both are related to the ninth house and are good for salvation.

11. Sun,Moon,Jupiter,Saturn and Ketu have special role to play  in spiritual charts. Interaction of these planets with 5th,9th,12th houses and their  lords is said to raise a person to spiritual heights.I intend to include 8th house of Samadhi and its lord also in the list . .Jupiter is 8th lord in 5th house and aspects 9th house.Saturn as lord of ninth and tenth aspects its own 9th house, Sun,12th lord Mars and 5th lord MerR.Moon in the 8th house is in a religious Rashi( Sagittarius,Pisces,Capricorn and Aquarius signs are religious signs– Shri Naval Singh P106 Journal of Astrology Vol 4 issue2) Saggittarius in Uttarashadha Nakshatra of Sun.Ketu is in 12th house.

12.There is a very interesting and meaningful arrangement of planets in the chart.Aries,Leo and Sagittarius are the Rashis of dharam trikona of Kalpurusha.4th,8th and 12th are the houses of moksha trikona.There are five planets in dharam trikona rashis of kalpurusha in moksha trikona of the chart.Sh Shiv Raj Sharma in his book ” The Mystery  of Rahu in a Hroscope” has given an example of a spiritual person on P-127-128& Chart on P-130. This chart is also of Taurus Ascendant with Sun ,Mer and Ven in Leo and Sat and Moon in Sagittarius.  My observation is that if there are four or more planets in dharam trikona rashis of the kalpurusha and those rashis are in  moksha trikona of the chart or vice cersa it should make a person spiritual.It is logical too.Such type of planetary arrangement is  possible in  Cancer,Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn and Pisces Ascendants only. In chart of Osho(Taurus Ascendant) five planets (viz Mars,Mer,Ven,Moon and Saturn) are there in eighth house in Sagittarius sign. Similarly chart of Swami Chinmayananda(Scorpio Ascendant) contains Jupiter  in fifth house in Pisces Rashi and three planets(Mars, Moon and Ketu) in ninth house in Cancer Rashi.There are many people in the world who care  for difficulties of others and work for the welfare of the poor and the downtrodden. Altruism is undoubtly a spiritual quality and if we indlude such persons also in the list of spiritual persons then we also find  such planetary arrangements in the charts of Angelina Jolie( Cancer Ascendant -Ven in Cancer,Rahu in Scorpio and Jup, Mars and Moon in Pisces)and Alexander Fleming who discovered ‘pencillin’(Cancer Ascendant-Mer and Moon in Cancer and Rahu and Moon in Scorpio). 

It is my personal and original observation which I have so far not read in any other book of astrology. However this observation needs to be seen in a large number of charts before we can convert it into a dependable predictive tool.Process of my observation is still going on and God willing I intend to write a full article on planets in four trikonas(Dharam,Artha,Kama and Moksha) of the Kalpurusha and the chart.

13. Ketu on either side of Moon or in Kendra or Trikona to Moon gives spirituality. (अंतर्ज्ञान की सिद्धि). It ts what  our respected teacher Sh Manoj Pathak told us in class.Here Moon is in eighth house and Ketu is in twelfth house(A Trikona  house from Moon).Moon should not be considered week as it is vargottama and in pushkaramsa.

Study of spiritual potential of a chart is incomplete without study of Vimshamsha Chart.I shall do so in the next part of the article before I discuss dasawise events.

(To be continued)