Category Archives: saturn

Why is Saturn Related to Brahma?

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“Vahni (Fire), Ambu (Water), Shikhija (Skanda), Vishnu, Vidauja (Indra), Sachi, and Ka (Brahma), O’ Twice Born, from the Sun and the other Grahas in their order are known the Devas.” – Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Chapter 3:18

This quote is from a foundation text of Vedic Astrology, the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, on the allotment of different deities to the Grahas (The Sanskrit word for the planets).  These are not the only associations that the Grahas have to different deities, however.  It should be remembered that all the many deities of Hinduism are considered to act through the agency of the different Grahas for their purposes and responsibilities as custodians of the various forces of nature on Planet Earth.  So while this list is not meant to be the only correlation of Deities to Grahas, it is a very insightful list to consider, shedding much valuable information on the nature of the different energies of the Planets.  In this post, for brevity’s sake, we will just be focusing on Saturn’s correlation to Brahma as it is quite interesting to contemplate.

This relation of Saturn to Brahma is very confusing and hard to understand for most.  If you study Jyotish you are probably already wondering where I am going with this, but lets first make sure we understand a little about Saturn.  He is in many ways the toughest planet to understand… Saturn rules death, lack, loss, negative karma, disease, depression, sorrow, and those things we must do that we are not good at doing.  When well placed in the birth chart, He is the planet that does the hardest jobs that no one else cares to do.  He does it without concern for himself and just for the sake of others. When Saturn is weak one is not able to do the hard things they know they must do for success and therefore usually are not very successful in the world, as most successful people in the world didn’t get that way by avoiding or not wanting to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.  Saturn is the one who does that. Jaimini says that if Saturn is in the 10th from the swamsha (atmakaraka in navamsa) the person will live a life of “accomplished deeds”.  Meaning this person gets things done in the world.

Mythological image of Brahma. Depicted with four heads, each continually reciting one of the four vedas. Even his mythological image seems much more busy at work like Saturn, when compared to Vishnu and Shiva who are both mythologically seen lounging on a coiled serpent, or sitting in blissful samadhi.
Mythological image of Brahma. Depicted with four heads, each continually reciting one of the four vedas. Even his mythological image seems much more busy at work like Saturn, when compared to Vishnu and Shiva who are both mythologically seen lounging on a coiled serpent, or sitting in blissful samadhi.

The word for the absolute God without attributes is Brahman in Hinduism.  The names of the threefold aspect of God as Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva respectively.  This correlates to Christianity and its holy trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, actually.  Brahma is the God of creation, he creates but does not get involved with creation and does not destroy or transform it, those are Vishnu and Shiva’s roles… Everybody knows that, so what is my point?  Well Saturn is not the planet of creativity, so you would think Jupiter or Sun would be related to the creative aspect of God (Brahma).  But they arent… Why is that?

I am not asserting to know exactly why that is, but here are some interesting ideas about why that may be the case:

Brahma is the force that releases just the right finite amount of God’s infinite potential of energy to create a galaxy and cause creation to occur.  Too much or too little of God’s infinite potentiality would cause tremendous imbalances in the grand scheme of the creation… So Brahma is that force which releases just the right amount of energy, but not too much.  In this way we can see that for creation to occur most perfectly from God’s standpoint, there needs to be a Saturnian element of restraint involved for the creation to be harmonious and properly balanced…If new worlds were constantly created before the old ones got destroyed then everything would be off and their would be less purpose to creation.  In a smaller way this is why I think the yogic guidelines Patanjali gave in the Yoga Sutras called one of the Yamas “Brahmacharya”.  In plain english, this is one of the 10 do’s and dont’s of Raja/Kriya Yoga and it is normally translated as “celibacy”.  This is a bad job of translating though.  Brahma means God’s creative energy, and Charya means “going, driving”.  So it simply means “going the way that God goes”.  And God doesn’t waste It’s creative energy in frivolous sexual pursuits.  So Brahmacharya really means to use one’s creative energy wisely and like God would, so as not to waste the spiritual force generated from Yoga practice.  Its true that sexual over-indulgence is the fastest way to waste that force for most people and so this is why it has slowly come to mean that, though it really means much more.  Talking excessively, being on social media unnecessarily, and eating bad foods that take too much energy to digest are just as obvious and popular ways of wasting one’s spiritual force in this modern age as sexual indulgence is.  And in the same way but on a smaller level, when Saturn is strong in a birth chart that individual will usually be much more focused on important works and not be as easily distracted or waste its energy on over-socializing, overeating, or overstimulation in general.  And so from the perspective of God it may be more that creation is not real, it is an illusion, but it is Brahma/Saturn’s job to continue this illusion for the purpose of individuals to grow beyond whatever separates them from God and to eventually unite with God.  So in this sense creation is very much an “Accomplished Deed” and thus related to Saturn.  Also we must remember that we dont incarnate unless there is some Karmic debt (Saturn) that must be worked out.  Even having too much good karma can cause a need to reincarnate and live an awesome life, which happens often for Saints and Yogis.  Even this is still a karmic debt that must be spent before the positive and negative karmic-balancing scale can go back to zero and one can finally become liberated.  Its like a bank account balance, it has to be zero to close out (get liberated), so a positive balance must be spent in an incarnation, and a negative balance must be worked off in an incarnation.  So when we see that Creation is actually just this path we must navigate to get beyond our lack and separation, and to merge back with God, we can see how similar it is to Saturn’s astrological role.

Here is another way to see how creation is related to Saturn, and this is basically paraphrasing what Ernst Wilhelm has written in his book Graha Sutras, so all credit goes to him on this perspective:  In order to have creation, the Absolute God must hide himself and be “veiled” in order to make creation seem real and separate from himself.  The veil is called “maya” in sanskrit and is created by each person’s “Avidya”- the ignorance of their soul nature as pure Spirit.  Saturn is responsible for each person’s ignorance and so this is how we can see his connection to creation from the perspective of having to create illusion/separation/lack from our real Self.  Ernst even goes so far as to say that Saturn rules the flow of life force into the nerves, making us sense things as cold/hot, fast/slow, dark/bright, etc. and not as God essentially.  So in this way Brahma requires and uses Saturn to create the world and the ignorance of our soul nature that so often accompanies our incarnation.

Another interesting factor is that Brahma is the most neglected of the trinity by far, as there are very few temples to Him and He is hardly mentioned compared to Vishnu and Shiva.  Saturn is similarly always the most neglected planet as well!  This is really because Saturn is misunderstood, and gets blamed for being the worst planet, but it is really because He has the most enemies from the standpoint of the lajjitaadi avasthas, and so therefore on average will be the weakest and most afflicted planet.  So then when his dasa or transits occur, we experience those weaknesses and difficulties.  But this is not because Saturn wants to wreck our life, it is because our Saturn is often not strong enough to deal with all the negative karma that we have and so during his periods there are difficulties.

The Astrological Houses: The Tenth House

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Each house in the astrological nativity at birth is said to signify a certain area of life.  The first house, which is also the first sign in the birth chart, the rising sign, represents the body of the thing that was born at that moment. It also represents the path which that body is on in this life.  So a Capricorn ascendant (AKA Capricorn first house) has a body and path in life that is connected to the qualities of the sign of Capricorn.  What does Capricorn relate to in Astrology? Capricorn is the 10th sign, and from the natural 1st sign Aries, Capricorn is the place in space that is directly overhead, directly above us in the sky, the 10th place in the 12 stage journey of the zodiac.  It is the highest point in the sky, and from there the 11th and 12th are descending points in between that highest point and the eastern horizon.

Knowing this, we can now have an idea as to why Capricorn represents what it represents as a sign, or as the 10th house.  The house is the same idea and feel of the sign of the same number, but on a different level of viewpoint we could say.  Capricorn is the sign of a crocodile in the Vedic tradition of Astrology.  It is the sign of lasting accomplishments, doing something that is done so well, that it never needs to be refined or improved upon, it simply stands the test of time as some say.  That is the nature of Capricorn and the crocodile.  You can look at crocodiles in the fossil record from millions of years ago and they are essentially the exact same, and have not evolved or changed to any noticeable degree… This is not the case with many other animals.  This is why Capricorn is the sign of doing something so right the first time that it cannot be done any better and will thus endure through time.  Its ruling planet is Saturn, which according to the Upadesa Sutras, deals with “Accomplished Deeds”.  Saturn is associated with long term things and things that last longer than the rest and so we can see the connection.  You may recall from Greek mythology that Saturn was known as Chronos, the God of time and agriculture.  Chronos is still the root of many words that relate to time, such as “chronology”, “chronic”, “anachronistic” etc….

So the 10th house in the birth chart relates to these similar themes of the 10th sign Capricorn, but in a more specific way that relates to that ascendant which we are viewing it from.  Moreover, each ascendant is naturally geared towards a certain type of karma or action in the world which the 10th house from that ascendant gives us clues to.  And this same logic applies to each of the other astrological houses that are the same in number as the astrological sign that they relate to, and when analyzed all help to add a more nuanced perspective of chart interpretation. (For example: 7th sign libra is about relationships, 7th house is the house of relationships and your partner in your own chart)

With this understanding, we can now see why the 10th house is so important for career, because our career is usually connected with the type of actions or work we do in the world which we hope to cause a lasting change or effect.  For example having Venus in the 10th house from the rising sign at birth can make it more likely that someone will try to have a work or type of action in the world that creates harmony, beauty, entertainment, pleasure, or some type of luxury for others.  These are all Venusian types of work.  How good they are at these types of karmic work will depend on all the more particular factors such as the dignity of Venus, any yogas that are connected to Venus, the lajjitaadi avasthas on Venus, how the strength of those avasthas on Venus weigh out in each of the varga charts that relate to specific areas of life, what dasas (timing systems) are triggering Venus and when, the transiting place of Venus, and many, many more factors.  This is where it gets more complicated, but is still very fun and worthwhile to do.  But from just seeing Venus in the 10th, most jyotishis can know this person may have a career that is more about bringing pleasure to the senses, or harmony to a person, and that alone is a pretty amazing thing to be able to predict… And it will be correct most of the time.  To get the finer details takes time and skill on the part of the jyotishi, but even just to understand the basic connection of Venus to work is worthwhile information for most to have.

One more note about the 10th house:  Not all of us do make a big difference or change in the world, and not all of us are meant to do this as our dharma… Still others are meant to be on this Earth for a very important reason.  If they were not here then the world just would not be the same.  But then others are just meant to be here and enjoy life with more of an internal focus, not so much about external karmas.  That is more of a 4th house factor, the opposite house/sign. The 4th house is related to enlightenment and liberation, and retiring from the world. There is a Jaimini Yoga that relates to the 10th house in certain vargas, and whether one will be “resolute, and important”.  This technique is very useful and very accurate when you look at the charts of people who have made a profound impact on the world, without which Earth would just not be the same.  I cover these issues in readings when requested, but if you are curious about learning the Jaimini technique yourself I would strongly recommend taking the first of 3 audio courses on Jaimini by Ernst Wilhelm.  All three of the classes together total 62 hours of instruction, and it is my sentiment that just the first course could be studied and contemplated and re-studied for years, as that is what I have been doing myself… Its that good.  These courses can be purchased on his website, found Here.

Symbolism of the Aquarius Rasi

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The symbol for the eleventh sign of the zodiac is a man holding an empty pot of water.  Some sources say it is a man holding a pot full of water, or pouring out water from a pot, which all serve to convey most of the meaning of aquarius.  I prefer the symbolism that is given in the foundational text for most Vedic Astrologers, the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, by Sage Parashara.  It gives the aquarius rasi as being simply “a man holding a pot” and does not say that there is water inside the pot.  Parashara does still relate this sign to water though by saying that it “resides in deep water”.  This is an important distinction that is missed by most modern astrologers it seems, and I only came to learn about this subtlety from studying Ernst Wilhelm’s Rasi Sutras audio course, so I must give credit to him for teaching it.  This course can be purchased on his website found here, which I highly recommend for those who are practicing Jyotish professionally, as it has great insights into all the twelve Rasis.  But for now lets just look at the rasi of aquarius in the context of the twelve Rasis.

water potAquarius is an air sign, not a water sign.  It is the only fixed air sign of the zodiac.  It is the eleventh sign, with only one more sign to go before the end of the cycle at Pisces.   Each of the four elements represents an aspect of ourselves.  Fire signs represent our intuition, and our connection to our soul, and the fiery activity we feel we must do in life to fulfill our soul’s purpose; our Dharma.  Earth signs represent the mixture of all elements, and our rational, practical, and even mechanical side.  Air signs represent our own unique intellectual perspective as human beings, as well as our state of desire.  This is because human desires are as impermanent and changing as the afternoon breeze.  How often do we realize a long sought after desire, only to find a new one arising only moments later?  Desires are what keep us bound to this Earth realm and are what keep us separate from realizing our true eternal nature as Infinite Consciousness, or Spirit.  Water signs represent feeling and emotional sensitivity, and inner development such as wisdom and divine love.

Aquarius is the last sign before we get to the sign of enlightenment, Pisces.  So, as Ernst Wilhelm elaborates upon more deeply in his Rasi Sutras course, Aquarius is the sign of the culmination of the pyschological battle.  Aquarius is the stage of becoming psychologically healthy, so that we can then move into the final stage of merging with God.  Paramhansa Yogananda said that what most people think of as the spiritual battle or path, is actually just the psychological battle that each person must fight between their higher and lower sense of self.  He states that once this is resolved then the spritual battle is won very quickly.  And this matches with the twelve rasis of Jyotish as after Aquarius there is only Pisces left and it represents “kaivalya”, the absolute oneness of being.

This is why I find the symbolism of the empty, or mostly empty pitcher of water to be the most appropriate symbol.  As explained previously, the air signs all represent desire, which is what ultimately keeps us bound to the cycle of death and rebirth, and which the whole purpose of Jyotish is to free us from with Self Knowledge.  Water symbolizes spirit, and the wholeness and psychological well being that comes from our innate connection to spirit. (hence why the water signs are the most spiritual signs, the Brahmin caste/mentality.)… So if the symbolic water pitcher was completely full, it would show a completely full being on the inside and out, and the zodiac should rightly end at this stage because one’s development is complete here…. But it does not end here, it ends at the next sign.  Therefore the water pot should rightly be empty.  An empty, or mostly empty water vessel symbolizes the lack of the spiritual wholeness that we all desire whether consciously or not.  So this eleventh sign of Aquarius really shows the stage of REALIZING THE EMPTINESS IN THE WATER PITCHER, AND THE DESIRE TO HAVE IT FILLED.

The only permanent way to have our symbolic water pitcher filled is to become Self Realized and then know and experience that it was never empty to begin with.  This can  be done by merging our ego with something greater than ourselves, which is the job of Venus.  And as you might expect, Venus just happens to be the most auspicious planet for Aquarius lagna, and causes “Raja Yoga” by ruling both an angle and a trine.  Venus ruling a dharma (trine house) and Karma(angle house) indicates that it is innate and natural for Aquarius to move towards merging their consciousness with something greater than itself (Venus).  This shows that a sense of love and acceptance is what is really the best way to deal with the emptiness in our lives.  Whether the Aquarius is able to use Venus in this healthy way is depending upon all the karmas shown in the astrological chart, and can be known by the skilled astrologer.

This also makes sense when we think about the ruling planet of Aquarius, Saturn.  Saturn is the planet that deals with our debts, our sense of lack, our sense of isolation, and the more depressing, empty side of life in general.  The empty water pot is more appropriate as a symbol for Saturn in this way too, as it shows that there is a lack, or an emptiness that needs to be filled.  Thats pretty much the whole purpose of the Aquarius individual, is to find a way to fill that emptiness.

How they deal with the emptiness

This knowledge should now help you understand all the qualities and characteristics of Aquarius natives.  This is why western astrology looks at them as humanitarians, and even why old vedic texts from medieval times paint them in a much more negative light.  These medieval Indian texts describe them as drunkards, or as sexual deviants.  Western Astrology is great and I do not mean to bash it by saying this, but in general it doesn’t have a lot of authoritative texts or rules compared to Vedic Astrology, which is drowning in rules and texts.  They both have their strengths and weaknesses.  The western approach typically looks at the positive spin on a sign the most and downplays the negative sides, which makes sense as this type of method is being used in a culture which doesn’t want to be told stuff that it sees as “negative” or “fatalistic”.  Western’s positive spin on Aquarius is that they are humanitarians and inventive, which is true, sometimes.  This will be the case if the auspicious planets for Aquarius are strong, and the inauspicious ones are weak.  But if it is the other way around, then the Aquarius is likely to be frustrated in feeling love or detaching from the state of emptiness and will likely engage in some type of less healthy activity to try to temporarily fill the emptiness….  This is where the medieval vedic books would happen to be more accurate.  Without a strong Venus, its more likely that alcoholism, sexual perversions, vices, or other activities that society frowns upon will come in to play for the Aquarius native in order to fill that emptiness at any cost.  To be fair to both traditions, they both acknowledge the positive side of Aquarius that can manifest as a mystic, or as a spiritual renunciate as well.  To think that this same sign can create such seemingly extreme polarities of behavior can be hard to grasp…but they are all just extreme attempts to fill the emptiness that is being felt in one’s awareness.  Knowing this we should not judge Aquarius natives for their actions but rather try to see them in the light of understanding that Jyotish provides.

 

Saturn And The Crow

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis post is about a very interesting talk that was given by Joshua Klein on Crows and their intelligence, on the TEDtalks website.  It has particularly fascinating information for Astrologers, as the crow has a symbolic association with the planet Saturn, and this video unintentionally demonstrates that affinity very well.

 

The nine planets in Jyotish are said to produce all the many things in the world and in nature by mixing and blending their influences.  Each planet is a “karaka”, or producer, of a particular concrete thing in someone’s life. For example, Saturn “produces” one’s servants.  So in ancient times, if a King wanted to know how his servants would be, and whether they would work honestly and dilligently, or whether they would be dishonest and lazy, the skilled astrologer would look to the condition of the planet Saturn.  The astrologer would look at other things too, but the producer of that correlating archetype in the physical world is very important.  For learning about the King’s soldiers or ministers, we would look to Mars and Venus, respectively.  There are many other factors the astrologer would look at, but this is perhaps the most important.  Another way to say it is that one has to look at the planetary archetype that matches the physical entity in one’s life and “as above, so below”.  So if there is a difficult Saturn “above” in the heavens at this king’s birth, then there will be difficult servants “below” in this person’s experience of an earthly incarnation. This is a foundational concept in the occult sciences in both the east and western cultures.  It can be a hard thing to comprehend, so if it is difficult to grasp, just imagine it for now.

If you study astrology, then you probably know that crows relate to the planet Saturn and should watch the video first and observe the similarities yourself.  If not, then you can read this list of congruencies and hopefully begin to appreciate this connection.

I will list some of the archetypal synchronizations I noticed below:

  •  To begin with, the speaker, Joshua Klein, has a simple, intelligent, and capable look to him. These are the qualities of a strongly placed saturn.  He wears a black t-shirt without a logo. Saturn is related to the color black, and is mythically said to have a black or dark complexion. He even tells a bit of a “dark” joke about the Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds.  These traditions of Saturn relating to the color black is still evident in the Jewish tradition, where on the holy day, the Sabbath, they traditionally where black.  The Sabbath is Saturday, which is the day of the planet Saturn.  The spelling makes it obvious, but all the days of the week are actually related to the planets.
  •  He says that he began his interest and research in crows when a friend at a cocktail party tells him that they are useless and should be killed. His very saturnian response to it is that they could probably be trained or used in some way that is more helpful for human life.  This is very evident of a strong Saturn, while Joshua’s  friend displays the typical pessimism of a poorly placed Saturn, Joshua says “no”, and decides to think differently about the matter.  Saturn’s astrological role as a planet is to help that person become who they need to be so that they may do what they need to do to help the world the most.  So right away Joshua is looking at what could be viewed as an annoying pest, and seeing how it could potentially be turned into an animal that actually makes life more bearable and enjoyable.
  • At about 3 minutes into the video, he shows an amazing clip of a crow bending a metal wire into a hook to get a worm out of a tube in a science experiment, which the crow had never seen done before, showing great ingenuity and inventiveness.  At 4 minutes in, he states that the brain of a crow is in proportion to the brain of the chimpanzee.  Saturn is found well placed in the charts of Inventors and people who are somehow improving the quality of life for everyone.
  • The clip of the crow at the five minute mark, with its clever trick of letting the car crack the nut for it, demonstrates patience, a key attribute of Saturn. Taking 30 years to go through the zodiac, it is the slowest of the main planets, symbolizing patience and endurance.  A squirrel would never be able to wait that long.  Also, it is said that the difficult karma that Saturn brings out in a chart can tend to afflict one the longest, because of its slow movement through each sign over 2.5 years.  Sounds familiar to the story about the crows hassling the scientists, and remembering them even months and years later!
  • He makes a strong point overall about how crows seem to actually benefit from cleaning up our human societies messes and roadkill, and that when trained can actually help us clean up debris from events or find lost change.  Saturn’s role in the medical aspect of astrology is quite similar, ruling the immune system.  Saturn is the planet that is responsible for removing waste from the body, keeping off disease, and is said to rule our longevity. Here we see evidence that crows are cleaning the city streets in an analogous way.

Overall I think this video is fascinating even without respect to Jyotish, but for those with interest in astrology and mythological symbolism, you can see there is much to be appreciated between the Crow and the planet Saturn.  And by appreciating the symbolic value of our environment and the life around us, we can feel more like we are a part of something greater than our little self.  In this way, mythological symbolism can have therapeutic properties for our minds.

If you notice any other interesting astrological correlations between the behavior of crows and the symbolism of the planet Saturn, please share below in the comments section.

images

Photos: Mythological image of the graha Saturn, said to ride upon a crow or vulture.