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How It All Began

Karma & Free Will

The Nature Of Your Vedic Interpretation

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How It All Began

     Constellation-based Vedic Astrology arose out of India's Vedas (books of universal knowledge) over  5000 years ago, when sophisticated societies first blossomed in the Mediterranean and nearby East.

    Ancient India's Seers gradually formulated Hinduism's vast studies of cosmic consciousness - from medicine to mathematics, yoga to meditation, astronomy to astrology.

     Unlike others, India's indigenous culture survived through the millennia, enabling an unbroken flow of esoteric information to be passed down through hundred of generations of astrologers. 

    Vedic Astrology, resting upon Hinduism's spiritual authority, astronomy and mathematics, is famous for its uncanny predictive accuracy.  Note especially the astronomy, giving Vedic astrology the capability to bring the heavens down to earth.   Your Vedic chart truly mirrors the celestial pattern.

    Because illuminates ones karmic path, Vedic Astrology is known as the Science of Light and the Eye Of The Vedas.

    

 

     Vedic Astrology's predictive quality has resulted in Indians calling their astrologers travelers in time.

     

    Observatories such as the one shown on the right at ancient Jaipur, were climbed untold times over the millennia by ancient astrologers to better enable newly incarnated souls to dance with the stars in lives moving always toward fulfillment and joy.

 

     ...the subtle and causal gravities of the Nine Grahas (planets) influence the way in which we experience the results of our karmas by seizing and controlling our subtle and causal bodies. By analogy, although thought has minimal 'reality' in the physical universe, it is the cause of most physical actions that most humans perform.
                                                                                     
-Light On Life by Hart DeFouw

 

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Karma & Free Will
A Contemporary View

     Vedic Astrology is as new in America as it is ancient in its homeland of India.  Its predictive basis of influences from past lives, what we commonly call "karma," is likely the only familiar term and aspect of this Eastern metaphysical discipline.


     Yet, even karma is confusing or unclear to many.  Karma is generally and inaccurately understood as an application of the Christian "what comes around, goes around" concept that discourages negative or harmful behavior and rewards good deeds.  This view, in focusing only on the karmas that can be changed during the life, neatly dodges the broader concept of past life karmas.  Notably, Eastern karma’s expression of fate flies in the face of our Western culture’s free will - our democracy’s promise of unrestricted choice and opportunities.  We value our free will and don’t like to think that we are blocked in any way from self expression.


    
On the other hand, if you want a fast race horse, breed two winners.  Basketball players come from tall families.  Artistic talent in the family background is a near certainty for musicians and painters.  While we treasure our absolute freedom, we also take great pride in recognizing  traits and abilities in our children.

 

     How can we not find this contradictory?  Dr. Spock's 1950's theory of environment overweighing genetics was accepted, with little scientific evidence, because it fit our cultural model.  This decade, science is slowly convincing itself and the public that heredity dominates, with free will and environment only articulating DNA given potentials. The logic of science fiction's Mr. Spock is taking the upper hand in the old nature versus nurture debate.

     Does this mean that karma describes science's DNA, what we call heredity?  Does this also mean Vedic Astrology somehow reads the person’s karmic DNA using only celestial observation when the person is born?   Deductive reasoning indicates yes.  How can this be?  How does it work?


    
Vedic scholars talk about enlightened beings, called seers, who 5,000 years ago divined India’s sacred knowledge, which evolved into the many branches of Hindu metaphysics that seek to explain the universe -- from medicine to mathematics, yoga to mythology, astronomy to astrology. 


Ancient Indian observatory at Jaipur

     Astrology, they explain, unravels and translates the celestial map indicating the past life karmas playing out in this life.

 

     

Your square Vedic chart is a map of past life karmas (actions) experienced in this life.

The Dasa system is the predictive technique for which Vedic Astrology is famous.  Dasas, routinely called planetary periods or planetary cycles, are intervals during which the person’s life corresponds to the energies of individual planets in sequence.

Dasas, then, are like a second birth chart.  Their sequence dictates planetary activations - when the various planetary karmas will play out in the twelve houses.  For example, during a Jupiter Dasa, the person may gain wealth and have children, and Mars Dasa is a time for adventures and sports. The birth chart can be compared to a dwelling, with the planetary Dasas indicating when lights in each room are turned on.  Driving down a street of cookie cutter houses at night, they look different.  The various lighted rooms individualize the Vedic houses illuminated by the Dasas.

The Vedic chart shows lifelong karmas.

The attendant Dasas (cycles) activate these karmas.

Vedic Astrology, then, can be under-stood as planetary DNA.

 


     Vedic Astrology thereby rests on a spiritual authority.  If you ask these scholars point blank,
Explain in terms of objective reality, verifiable scientific truth, they discuss large scale empirical testing of charts comparing planetary placements with displayed traits.  But if you really press them for a scientific theory, Vedic Astrologers retreat into an, I don’t know.

     That is the way with all metaphysics, and especially the occult sciences, for these are the hidden studies that seek to explain that which cannot be otherwise known.

 

     Before we get into a box on this point and dismiss Vedic Astrology as just another spiritual fad, ask someone who has had a Vedic Astrology consultation about its eerie accuracy and surprising depth of information.  Like other spiritual disciplines, Vedic Astrology depends upon awareness and acceptance -- belief, both by the practitioner and the client.  Vedic Astrologers explain that only some souls are sufficiently liberated from karmic worldly attachments to embrace that which is not within the world.


      Is the issue really this simple?  No.  Karma, as the very basis of Eastern philosophy, is highly complex and variable and thereby also so alien to Western concepts that objective grasp is like hugging a cloud, or holding an ice cube as it melts under examination.  Free will is similarly multifaceted, for we create our own reality, manifest, invent self-fulfilling proficiencies and apply the powers of faith, prayer and meditation, plus many other well-founded psychological and spiritual concepts. 

  

     These waters are clouded beyond the scope of this essay to clarify.  Learned people in both the East and West have long wrestled with the unresolved cultural gap between fate and free will.  Perhaps an agreeable view is found in astrology author Dr. Gouri Kappor’s statement that, Fate and free will are two blades of a scissor, and we still do not know which blade operates in cutting the paper.  The individual always retains the freedom to observe or not fate’s lighted path.  Yet, scissors cut best with both blades.

 

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The Nature Of Your Vedic Interpretation

 

The Celestial Wheel of Karma
     Reincarnation is integral to Hinduism. Vedic Astrology's predictive quality arises from it's perception of the cosmic connection. At your birth, the celestial map symbolized your past life karmas to be played-out in this incarnation. As above, so below.

     The square Vedic chart mirrors your wheel of karma, and like a chess board, the simple visual conceals great complexities. Your chart contains all your past life karmas, both lifelong and cyclical. Indians thus call their astrologers Travelers in time.
    

      Lunar-primary Vedic Astrology can best be compared to Western Sun-sign astrology as a different lens.  Similarities disguise the uniqueness of the Vedic view - the cosmic connection between karmic influences and growth toward liberation from the celestial wheel of karma.

 

The Interpretation
     The Vedic Astrologer applies complex Vedic rules and numerous techniques to unveil the bits of karma that form into a life picture.  A Vedic interpretation is thereby similar to a fine oil portrait; many layers of color bring out the depth and richness of the individual.  The Astrologer analyst first delves into the pattern of your lifelong karmic influences. He then examines the ebbs and flows of your planetary cycles to discern your development, strengths, challenges and resulting growth opportunities. God is indeed in the details.

               The Moon

     Because karma means action, expressing free will creates new karmas, and these impact past-life karmas. Your consultation discussion reveals this complex interplay of energies and suggests paths ahead for attuning yourself to the universe, to dance with the stars.  

 

     Yet, the mix of free will and fated karmic influences will never be completely understood.  Perhaps an agreeable view can be found in India's Dr. Gouri Kapoor's statement that, Fate and free will are two blades of a scissor, and we still do not know which blade operates in cutting the paper.  The individual always retains the freedom to observe or not fate's lighted path and its forkings.  Yet scissors cut best with both blades.

    

      The amazing predictive quality of Vedic Astrology shows specific planetary influences that create periods of opportunity and challenge.  Typical examples of client interest are: a favorable relationship interval, a career shift, a season for pilgrimage and a health sensitivity cropping up.  Yet, it is the evolving Dharma (life purpose) breathing through the chart that is the astrologer's goal and the client's true treasure.

 

Remedies

     Vedic Astrology includes a wide range of remedies given by its Seers for uplifting karmically afflicted areas.  Remedies thereby support free will expression and consciousness.  Vedic quality gemstones, lifestyle tech- niques relating to Ayurveda and planetary mantras are primary curatives in Indian life and can be easily applied here in the West.  ( Vedic Astrology associates to Ayurveda, the ancient medicine of the Hindus.)  Your  interpretation includes these remedies that can tilt the balance in the contest between unalterable fate and irrepressible free will.

A Pearl for the Moon with a Spinel for the Sun

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Links

Astrological Gem Company

   This is Jay Boyle's renowned thirty year Vedic quality gemstone company in Fairfield, Iowa.

   Jay personally travels the globe for the finest natural gemstones.  His fully staffed office provides both sales and jewelry settings services.  Current gem inventory choices are shown on the web site. 

 

mayanhealinghands.com 

   Patricia Flores offers authentic Mayan Healings in Sedona and visits cities throughout the United States.  Patricia's spiritually guided healing releases blocks and brings God's grace into your heart. 


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Copyright 1999-2004 Doug Riemer