Sunday, May 30, 2010

Mars and the Now

Mars is the planet of desire and movement. It is constantly stimulating the "Now" and filling it with a vivid sharpness that keeps re-awakening one's consciousness. The most common misuse of the Mars energy is to project one's desires so far into the future that it makes one's actions in the "Now" seem meaningless. This causes discontent, unrest, and a constant state of frustration. The Mars of the "Now" is based on spontaneity. Mars adds movement to what otherwise might seem a reality of no progress. It should not keep projecting the individual beyond whatever he is doing in the present, but rather, it should stimulate his present with the vitality he needs in order to experience it. If a person keeps projecting his hopes and desires long into the future or would like to re-enact that which has already been through then he is constantly losing vitality. He experiences an energy drain and may think it is coming from other people, when it is his own inability to act in his "Now".

Mars is the planet of motivation. It is the mover of ideas in to action. If one carefully observes the stimulation of Mars something very interesting reveals itself. Motivation to act comes quickly, perhaps many times in a single moment. But it also passes just as quickly. Thus, if a person spends his life analyzing his motivations he tends to lose so many of them that, in essence, he loses motivation to do anything at all. The need to do comes quickly. In order to experience the "Now" one must follow one's needs and then, by letting them pass, new ones will arise in their place. In some ways, similar to the function Mercury, the activity of Mars keeps one's vibration that leaves no room for depression, regret, or remorse.

Sometimes, Mars is primitive in it urges and does need some control through the wisdom of Saturn and the reason of Mercury, but never to the point where one inhibits, represses, and sublimates the powerful motivating energy that is stimulating him in th "Now." On it's raw level Mars does not question or analyze - it acts. And, it is through acting that man achieves a state of being. Every moment he is becoming. The joy of Mars is never in the reaching of one's ultimate goals, for when an individual reaches them, he may have long since forgotten the reason why he wanted them. Instead, the joy of Mars is to be found in one's constant state of becoming. This is the true source of motivation. Whatever one may ultimately achieve is far less important than his union with act of becoming, which is the stimulating, moving, vibrant quality of his "Now" experience.

Martin Schulman (Karmic Astrology, The Karma of the Now, pp.83-85)

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Purpose - Flow - Reality : Sun - Moon - Ascendant

Astrologically I refer to the spiritual purpose and manifest reality as the Sun - Ascendant (or Earth) respectively, from an individual-personal perspective... the dash connecting polarities of Sun and Earth is Lunar.

Where purpose is made manifest into a reality this dash or catalyst is a necessary vessel which must remain pure for the will of God to be made manifest. I call this Lunar subjective phenomenon that is instinctive, imaginative and intuitive, the art of flow. Flowing with the downstream movement of the inner and outer life, which truly are one and inseparable. Openness and receptivity to the stream of living as it is happening, here and now, immediate and eternal.

The Moon reflects various human needs, emotions, yearnings and desires which manifest as the experiences and values that make up our overall existence, experience and karmic condition as human beings on this Earth. The way of it is simply "letting go... to just go with the flow", allow the self to be empty and innocent, open to learning whatever the here-now experience is here to show us.

Manifest Reality is the *what-where-how-when* aspect of the individual-personal life path, mission and purpose that originates from Spirit, the Higher Source, Creator of all Creation, individual and universal. It is the form that gives visible, tangible and projected meaning to what it embodies in essence.

Spiritual Purpose transcends the particular mission and experience it has in the manifest world of form, the Earth. It is both Consciousness and Energy, Spirit and Nature... pervading all earthly life, it exists within and without all that we experience as this reality and the world around us.

The key as lunar/human beings is to be aligned within the flow of spirit and then follow through effectively or efficiently in the world of matter... this could be likened to the equalizer, volume and tone controls of a stereo being at just the right balance, taking into account the interests of the individual (spirit) and the sound of the music (matter), thus regulating or harmonizing the inner-outer flow and establishing right interconnection.

All that is required is awareness and attention, in the inner world of mind and the outer world of manifestation. Clear seeing is true being.

JDZ

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Vedic Astrological Charts

To cast a birth chart, i.e. the horoscope, the software application takes the four inputs - date of birth, time of birth, time zone and coordinates of the place of birth. Based on that, the application converts all the parameters to the local time of the place by first converting time based on time zone to UTC and then to the local time based on the longitude of the place. Once this is done, the calculations done to compute the position of planets, ascendant sign and sun rise, moon rise are pretty straightforward and can be found in any good astronomy text book.

The calculations are done for planets from Sun to Saturn along with Lunar Nodes - Rahu and Ketu. We give outer planets a skip - there are no Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in a Vedic horoscope. This is because these outer planets were discovered fairly recently and sages in ancient India did not know about them. Western astrologers were quick to adapt these planets in their readings, but rarely would you find any jyotishi refering to them. More so, these planets do not have any sign ownerships, nor do they appear in vimshottari dasha calculations.

Western astrology stops at this step of calculation. The display is called tropical position of planets that assumes the Zero of degree calculation is first point of Aries, i.e. position on 21st of March. For followers of Western Astrology, this may seem a bit odd, because planets change signs between the two systems. If you are a Libran according to the western system, you may find Sun situated in Virgo in a Vedic Astrology birth chart.

Ancient Indian astronomers discovered long back that these two points i.e. the Zero degree of measurement and the first point of Aries do not always coincide because our Earth is wobbling on its axis. They applied a correction to the degree calculated in the last step and called this Ayanamasha correction. It is difficult to make out the exact value of Ayanamsha correction just from observation of signs in the sky. For this, the great sages devised an ingenious method. They observed life of people around them, cast their birth charts and adjusted the degree of Ayanamsha correction.

In this site, I have used Lahiri's Chitrapaksha Ayanamsha, the value of which is 23° in 1938 and increases by 50.5 secs per year after that. We can find shlokas in various places that support this Ayanamsha and this ayanamsha alone has withstood the test of times.

Article @ www.planetarypositions.com

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Cosmic Trip

Astrologically Uranus (God of The Sky) "turns us on", Neptune (God of The Oceans and Heavens) "tunes us in" and Pluto (God of the Underworld and Death) assists every dark soul in dropping out, in the breakdown of old outworn ideals and toxic perspectives. The three outermost planets (Gods) together embody and effect a trans-personal psychic transformation and inner-outer revolution, the inevitability of change, impermanence and ending of all material-social-mental fixation.

Most specifically, dropping out of the Saturnine Reality view, of both psychologically and socially imposed limitations, the prison of social obligation, the fear and conformity.Saturn (Father Time) is the great tester, the taskmaster, and the root of ego, interdependent with the outer environment... the test happens via Chiron, the rainbow bridge to the outer planets, by first dropping out of egoic mental patterns and fixed views of reality, then effortlessly turning on and tuning in to all of the universal vibration embodied in Uranus and Neptune, the Cosmic Yang and Yin respectively.

JDZ