The three modes of material nature are very important to understanding Jyotish and making accurate predictions. People can get free from karma by engaging their material energy in the service of Krsna; this is called karma-yoga. Vedic astrology is very different from Western astrology. The planets do not cause anything; time is the actual cause. Also Vedic astrology uses the actual positions of the planets in the sky; it also has a unique system of planetary periods that aids in making accurate predictions.
Transcription
Babaji: [from previous topic] ...it's just that hurting other people is one of the things that diminishes your intelligence faster than anything else.
[speaking about His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada] He would turn it [money] right back into the organization. He wouldn't spend anything on himself, maybe for travel expenses and bare essentials, but everything was invested for glorifying Krsna. And so everyone knows "Hare Krsna" now; I don't think there is a person in the world who hasnt heard of the Hare Krsna movement. But very few people have heard of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, only people who actually become disciples or devotees. Because he didn't use his material opulence to glorify himself, he used it to glorify Krsna.
So that was a perfect example of using money for spiritual purposes. Of course his disciples who weren't on the same level of advancement and they made a bunch of mistakes and misused the money, but that's a different story. His use of the money was impeccable, therefore he was able to create a huge network of devotees and temples and different projects all over the world in a very short time--in just a few years.
So we don't have that same talent in business. I always ask for advice from Uddhava or one of my other disciples who understands business concepts. I don't like to handle the money myself because I am really not very good at it. I am a visionary, I like to dream, to envision how we can engage our material talents, energies, propensities, resources, and time in activities that have good results not only for us, but for people in general. What really motivates me is when I walk down the street, and I see, or I go down to the market or something like that and I see how people are suffering. You know? I see how they are in material consciousness, how they are so sad, or so angry. You know? Or angry, huh?
They are like in a rage inside, you know, and they are just barely covering it up and somehow getting through the day... you know? I am seeing people like this and I want to do something to help them, because I remember how it was to be that way, I used to be like that, similar to that and it was painful and horrible. And there's no way out because in the material world, if you are in material consciousness, you know, that's it. You know? You're either on top of the food chain or you're being exploited; this is really the only choice in the material world, uh? So, both of those are miserable in different ways. Maybe the people at the top are a little bit less miserable, that's about the only advantage they have.
But if those people could take that energy, that accumulated material energy and if they could engage it in Krsna's service, ohh they would just be able ... Like Uddhava, Uddhava is a good example, the way hes engaged his material opulence and skill in spiritual purposes. He's a great example of how you can take material energy and spiritualize it by engaging it in a spiritual purpose. Hmm? So its really too bad he couldn't make it today, and you couldn't make it yesterday. Yeah, I really wanted to get you guys together because he's also very business savvy, and you guys would probably have a lot you could talk about.
I am not very business savvy, I am like "give me money and I will spend it" haha. Give me a million bucks and I'll spend it by tomorrow...haha. I have all kinds of ideas. But we need to have people that have those talents to advise us and to counsel us and show us how to manage things very nicely, so that when we do get an opportunity to present these teachings we can do a very nice job. And get the maximum amount of value out of the resources we have, now were actually getting some resources HAHAHA for a change HAHA. I've been living a very simple life for many years and I don't have a lot of big aspirations for material things. If material things come, then that's nice, we'll use it for Krsna. But my big aspiration is to sit under a tree and chant, so I am not really planning on doing anything else. If we have the opportunity then yeah, we can spend millions of dollars to propogate this teaching all over the world, not that it's really that necessary because the internet is there, and the internet is a fine medium for spreading any kind of information to a global audience.
The three modes of material nature
So OK, there's karma, there's food, there's work, even clothing. Let's take clothing for example. Clothing in the mode of goodness is simple, light-colored, white or pastel or something like that, modest, traditional, like that. In the mode of passion clothing is fashionable, expensive, it is usually provocative or revealing, bright primary colors or very bold designs, patterns and stuff like that is in the mode of passion, oh yeah and lots of bling, bling is in the mode of passion. [bling bling] Clothing in the mode of ignorance is old, dirty, used, thrift store you know and like that, dark and muddy colors, you know like brown, black, what else? It doesn't fit HAHA right, like XXXL clothing you know. It doesn't really fit, its like grungy. Everything in the mode of ignorance is like that, it is degraded, old, icky you know like that. Music! Ahh, here's a good one. Music in the mode of goodness is like holy, sacred, beautiful, peaceful, noble. Music in the mode of passion uses alot of percussion instruments, very rhythmic. Oh yeah in the mode of goodness music is melodic, very melodic. Music in the mode of passion is very rhythmic and harmonic, right? Music in the mode of ignorance is like heavy metal or something like that, very angry, about sex life and drugs and stuff like that.
Student #1: Rap?
Babaji: Rap. Absolutely rap music. Generally speaking, music that only has rhythm and no melody or harmony is in the mode of ignorance. More, has more harmony it is in the mode of passion. If it has more melody it is in the mode of goodness. Like indian music for example. Indian classical music, here's a drone and then there's a solo instrument, and there's no chords, there's no harmony. Because in the olden days people would hear the combination tones of the melody and the drone and that would be enough for harmony. It is because our ears have become very insensitive, and our tunings have become degenerate and are no longer perfectly harmonic, that we don't hear all these subtle aspects of sound vibration. So then we need chords: harmony. But it's just because of our insensitivities, not because they are not there in ordinary, I mean in Vedic music.
I think of things in the mode of goodness as being natural, ordinary, right, and true. That's the way people should be, that's what we should be aiming for. Culture in the mode of goodness, for example, is a culture that cares for people. Where no one is neglected or no one is homeless or nobody is suffering and everyone is cared for properly by people with resources or by the state. That's the culture in the mode of goodness. Culture in the mode of passion means based on competition, envy, whoever can get the most, first, wins. That's a culture based on the mode of passion. A culture based on the mode of ignorance is like animal life. Everybody is just living according to their sensory desires, there's no principles, there's no laws, no right or wrong, everyone is out for themselves. Life has no meaning; that kind of culture. People in the mode of ignorance think there is no meaning to life. Like the existentialists or buddhists or something its just emptiness or voidness and like that. People in the mode of passion think life is about enjoyment and you got to go for it with all the gusto you can. Right? This is the mood of the people in the mode of passion. In the mode of goodness people think "I have my duty to perform, according to the service that I have to do for God, and I am using my best knowledge, my best skill to perform that." They are driven by a sense of duty, by a sense of what's right, rather by their own advantage. And even the great souls in the olden days, if if there was an oppurtunity to sacrifice for the sake of higher duty, they would do it without hesitation, without question; so that's the mode of goodness. Or a person gives their time and energy to some noble cause. Giving itself is in the mode of goodness. So are there any questions on this? What's that? Any questions, guys? Everythings clear? Three modes of nature? Any questions? OK.
Student #1: Do you have a chart of that on your web site?
Babaji: Oh yeah, I have a whole very detailed chart of this in the astrology course. Its called the Laws of Karma. Phew! This is a big piece of work huh?
Student #1: Yeah...
Babaji: Thought I was gonna draw some charts, some astrology charts huh? Well, we'll get to that.
[Babaji typing to chatting, excited esoteric bretheren over the Webcast.]
Babaji: What a beautiful day...its so warm.
california woman: Uh huh, I'm gonna walk over to the park.
Babaji: Yeah. Gonna ...[inaudible]
california woman: For some fresh air. So, how are you doing?
Babaji: I'm doing great...
california woman: Are you enjoying yourself?
Babaji: YEAH. I'm having a blast on the guys online here are just...
california woman: Having a great time?
Babaji: Yeah, they're jammin.
california woman: So I guess that I'm understanding is that basically we start from the very very basic level of understanding of everything to show everyone, and then you kinda go from there.
Babaji: Yeah
california woman: And then you kinda go from there. Cause it was like flippin switches for me, because it wasnt in line with my own personal understanding- The way that it was being explained from that very base line.
Babaji: What was??
california woman: When you were saying that this wasnt God, you know. I was just asking a question.
Babaji: Yeah were starting from zero, and then going up.
california woman: Right.
Babaji: That way, umm, people have, by the time we get to the tough stuff people have the background.
california woman: Right
Babaji: The real problem is the lack of a trancendental ontology. If they have the background, then we can talk about things in a balanced way and they will get it. The problem is...
california woman: But you have to kinda figure that out, [incoherent] , you have to figure out how to do that, where people are at.
Babaji: that's been my challenge.
california woman: Because, you know, for people that have a basic understanding that could be a turn-off, you know...
Babaji: Well because they've heard something different, and they're conditioned to hearing that, they don't .....
california woman: ..or that's what their understanding is but their understanding is somewhere along you're on the way, they might not be able to follow...
Babaji: There are far more people on that basic level then there are on the more advanced level, so when I have a room full of people, my assumption has to remain- we start from scratch.
california woman: Right
Babaji: We don't assume any understanding. From that, uh beginning level, from that beginning level, then you know, we have to climb- its like a pyramid.
california woman: but i feel its helpfull to explain that in some way so that people in their, different levels and different places and levels of teaching and understanding, you know, spiritual path have that, sort of, help them through the process.
Babaji: Yeah well, mmm, the problem is, to understand that particular issue properly, we have to be on the ontological level of discussion, so, you know, we have to approach that. We can't just assume people are ready for that. I've tried like that, and its been very confusing like "what are you talking about". So, haha, I've learned to back way down and start from the beginning, explain the whole background, and then we can talk about issues like that and they'll make sense because we have to create the language. Without that language its, very very difficult.
Babaji: I'm gonna have to preach to these guys. [Baba talking about the side conversation students are having over the Webcast.]
california woman: Ah hahaha, will you set them straight?
Babaji: Oh man, Florian, Florian has the tendency to be a fanatic- I'm gonna have to pound on him haha!
california woman: Well you should take some time to go for a walk out...
Babaji: Yeah, I'm gonna end off about four 'o clock. Yeah yeah theyll still be daylight outside.
california woman: Good cool.
Babaji: Take Leia? [incoherent]
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Babaji: People who hurt others always have negative consequences to that act in the future. That's why we have laws, right? You can't just walk down the street and rob people and kill people and do stuff like that, or destroy property. You wind up in jail; you get punished, because that's hurting others. Similarly, the people in the mode of passion, they're mainly hurting themselves. But their attitude is exploitive: "Let me make a lot of money, real fast." But it almost always involves some kind of illegal activity. So the line between the mode of ignorance and the mode of passion is kinda blurry, but... yeah "rascal intellegence".
Neville calls it rascal intellegence. The people in the mode of passion are very intelligent. they're forming companies, building skyscrapes, starting all these innovative buisnesses, you know, flying all over the planet and going to meetings and stuff, but its all rascal stuff and its all unnecessary products. In the mode of goodness the occupations, that's a good one to look at, the occupations, work. Work in the mode of goodness is being a scholar, a preist, a poet, a spiritual teacher or something like that. Work in the mode of passion is businessman, government. It involves controlling others, exploiting others, making big profits, making big big plans for taking resources out of the ground and refining them into products people don't really need but they're very profitable. And work in the mode of ignorance is like rock star, prostitute, drug dealer, gangsta, that's work in the mode of ignorance. So people are always doing these things in the mode of ignorance that are self-destructive. They're not only destructive to others, they're self-destructive.
Student: [incoherent]...what about a businessman that's doing everything for devotional service..
Babaji: Then it becomes trancendental, see? That's a different thing, that's when... What I am trying to do is to create a background for understanding how astrology works. So I'm concentrating on the three modes of material nature, but devotional service means that we can take almost any of these activities--actually, we can take anything in the mode of goodness or passion, [but] not the mode of ignorance--Krsna doesn't accept that. But the mode of goodness or passion, we can offer those things to Krsna and we can use those for His service.
Like we're getting together a plan to have a similar seminar like this, but in a nicer venue with more multimedia support and general level of coolness. So that's gonna involve quite a bit of activities with technology and engineering, and a lot of development of different media and stuff like that; all that comes under the mode of passion. Creativity in general comes under the mode of passion. Like music and art are expressions of the mode of passion, but when used for Krsna's service they become trancendental.
This is called akarma; akarma means activities that don't generate any karma because it's done for Krsna. So we can take all of the things that we normally do, that we like to do, that give us pleasure and that utilize our talents and our skills and our creativity, and we can do those things for Krsna and that removes the karmic reaction; there's no karma from that. In fact, we don't get karma, we get spiritual results from that [work]. That's how we advance in spiritual life. And if you look at any spiritual process it always involves engaging our material senses, our material energy or our material activities in service of God. Any spiritual process, but some are more potent that others because they engage more of our energy or more of our consciousness, like that.
So that's called karma-yoga. Karma-yoga is when we do, when we take the result of our work, and offer it in some kind of devotional service. Just like you guys helped me come out here to the west coast, and that's a wonderful application of business, the results of business in trancendental service. Because I was able to come out and I was able to meet you all, and we had so many nice talks on spiritual subjects, there was a great wave of spiritual activities that resulted from that [serice]. And you can say "Well it's just money", but money applied in a spiritual way becomes Laksmi. In fact in India they don't call money 'money,' they call it Laksmi. It's not dinero any more, hehe. It's the energy of God, the consort of God.
When wealth and affluence is used in the service of God it becomes spiritual. But it takes great discrimination, it takes great intellegence to know how to use our money in a spiritual way. My spiritual master was an expert at this. He'd been a business man before he became a spiritual master. He had an AyurVedic pharmaceutical company and he formulated different AyurVedic medicines, and was one of the first persons to pre-package and distribute AyurVedic medicines through normal business channels. Previous to that medicines were compounded by the AyurVedic doctor himself and given to the patient; so he was basically the first person in India to utilize mass production, mass distribution methods, and I mean he could have become like a huge millionare, like Merck or something like that, in India because everyone uses AyurVedic medicine. But instead he gave up all that and he became a sannyasi and started teaching spiritual life; but because he had that business background he was able to invest every penny, every dollar that he recieved in donations.
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Woman: It was kinda from all directions, there was one to the north, one to the southeast and they were all...
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Babaji: It's This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . And his name is Neville. Ask him about the nama-hatta. Means marketplace of the Holy Name. And they have a group that's seperate from the temple, and all that, that meets weekly basically.
Student: Like I was saying, there's really not many, there's nothing like this on the east, or in the east that ive noticed, especially around Harrisburg, its really few and far between finding....
Babaji: And its funny because they're tons of Indians in Pennsylvania.
Student: Yeah there absolutely are, and I know a few from school, obviously, and um when I was in the military, and just from a couple different jobs that I've worked, but they, I mean they really were more interested in going to college and just getting their degree and living the Western life.
Babaji: Yeah well...[sigh]
Student: So I will have to come to the west coast every time I wanna learn some of this.
Babaji: Yeah.....
Student: If possible sometime I would like to uhh come visit the temple and come out to Mexico.
Babaji: Oh yeah, come on.
Student: We would like to come if possible.
Babaji: Yup, that's a great idea, especially after we get our place in the woods, that's really when things are gonna pick up. Right now were stuck in the middle of the city and its not really nice, the air is really bad, and it's noisy, the neighbors across the street have like three dogs and they bark day and night.
Student: Yeah...
Babaji: Were just, were just there to you know, like establish the foundation of our preaching, and when we have a little money saved up, were outta there, you know? I'm actually gonna start looking already this spring. Looking for a place. Yeah and I'll probably move up there even before we let go of our house, I'll probably move out to the woods.
Student: You you need us to help you move if possible?
Babaji: Umm, that would be nice hahaha, its so cheap in Mexico to get, you rent a truck and you get some day laborers and you know just put everything in the truck. We'll see what happens; I don't want you to come down to work, I want you to come down to do sadhana.
Student: Right, I would love that.
Babaji: YEAH. that's what its really all about. The moving part, I mean that's really easy; we;re just moving from one house to another. When we move out to the woods we're just gonna be in tents, you know, and very very simple life. As simple as possible.
Student: Absolutely
Babaji: Its gonna be like the rainbow gathering hahaha.
Student: Is that the gathering at Giza where by the thousands..
Babaji: I don't know about Giza but every year they gather in US in a federal park, yeah like a forest, an actual forest.
Student: That's not what I was thinkin, I think actually what I was thinking of uh umm like the pyramids of giza...something like that.
Babaji: I am not sure, I've never heard of that.
Student: Yeah one of the theosophical socities...
Babaji: Yeah yeah yeah...
Student: That's not something I'm into but in 1987 it had hundreds of thousands of people i think, you know, at uhh pyramids of Giza.
Babaji: I don't think they have that many members.
Student: Maybe not a hundred thousad but I have some video footage of like this gathering it was wild everyone was in togas or robes...[incoherent]...if i remember correctly
Babaji: Hahaha, uh-huh
Young rascal's girlfriend: I almost know what you're talking about its like uhhh ive heard something about that..I don't think its rainbow..
Student: Nah I don't think it would be
Lady: The uh, the rainbow family is entirely a different thing
Student: Yeah
Lady: Its a lot less formal
Student: See the theosophical society, and they started with good intentions but then it turned into another, ah dogma.
Babaji: That's always how it goes. I mean even the rainbow gathering, you know, started out as a bunch of peacefull hippies, now its becoming very political and there's a lot of big drug dealers involved, using it as cover, you know it's just become really nasty.
Student: Yeah that's always and also makes it very impersonal, when you get to that point, very impersonal, it seems just you know another individual in a huge crowd then.
Babaji: Yeah
Student: And then becomes very impersonal that's why I really like this setting, being a small setting, its a lot more personal.
Babaji: Well we wanna keep it that way, too; we don't wanna get too big, you know. I would much rather have a medium-sized gathering, where we still have personal contact, and then video it and distribute the video online.
Student: Cause then the quality is there at least. I mean for me if you try a gather like 500 people in a classroom you might get the same amount of people as who was in this room who were actually truly understanding it, and the rest just take what they need from it and "Oh, well I'll live by this but I don't know about going that far."
Babaji: Yeah.
Student: So you think sometime in 2008 it should be, we should be out there?
Babaji: Oh yeah, oh we're gonna be out there within a few months. I mean were uh feeling that its very important for us to make a move this year, and at the same time we're gonna be expanding our preaching so its gonna be interesting; we're going to be expanding in both ways simultaneously.
lady: This is when you're moving to mexico?
Babaji: Well, we're already in Mexico, but we wanna move from Mexico city out into the country.
lady: uh huh
Babaji: ...and we're looking for the location right now we've heard really good things about Palenque so we're going to look in that area.
Student: Um, what kind of visit would umm, would it entail for so I would know my schedule should possibly be around.
Babaji: Well we would prefer that you would come for at least a month.
Student: right
Babaji: And that means you would be staying with us out in the woods, bring your own gear, camping gear, of course we'll have the kitchen set up and all that, but um, basically its gonna be wilderness camping, um, probably you know three or four miles from the nearest road. We wanna be back in far enough so that there's no disturbance at all, people can't even see us were just gonna be, we're gonna disappear.
Student: absolutely.
Babaji: And so, we'll be getting up early, and bathing in the stream or lake where we are, and then chanting and studying the scriptures, that's gonna be about it.
Student: that's perfect.
Babaji: Chanting, studying, swimming, and eating that's our main activities. And then we go back into town, were gonna rent a house in town, and so on the weekends we will go back into town and do all our preaching on the internet, yeah.
So we don't have, excuse me, we don't have to have electricity out there, we can be strictly wilderness camping and the only thing we have to bring out is our food, once we're settled out there. It's easy, you have three or four guys; if we have enough people, if we have three or four guys, to haul our food up in one trip every week, so it should be pretty easy to maintain.
Student: yeah absolutley, but yeah that would be perfect, um I'll keep in contact with you because I would try and like coordinate with you and her if possible to come out together
Babaji: Ok, for now its only gonna be men.
Student: Oh really, ok
Babaji: Yeah
Student: well that's fine
Babaji: Yeah for now we'll see what happens maybe we can set up a seperate area
Student: I don't know what her scedule would be anyway, uhm so yeah I would probably be the one that would be setting it up and me coming out
Babaji: It's gonna be pretty austere.
Student: Yeah?
Babaji: Yeah. I don't know if it's gonna be really appropriate for ladies
Student: that's fine, that's absolutely fine.
Babaji: We do have a few ladies that, that are in our group in Mexico, but I think the way its gonna work out is that they'll take care of the house in town, they'll stay there and then we can just keep things kinda seperate.
Student: Yeah I'll have to keep in touch about that.
Babaji: [frowns at computer] I don't understand. People always try to find an excuse not to be a vegetarian. It's an illness you know, it's an addiction, meat contains adrenaline and other fear poisons and people get hooked on them. You know people like the way they feel after they eat it, and it's just a drug, yuck. The hardest thing though is quitting cigarettes, shew, boy, that's more addictive than heroin.
Student: Yeah I actually smoked when I was younger I smoked for about a good six years, and, I must have been blessed I don't know why but it I just quit because it was boring
Babaji: Its pretty boring
Student: I was doing it because everybody else was doing it
Babaji: Well of course
Student: and at the time I was just like "Why am I spending my money on this? I don't care enough," so I quit and I never felt the urge to go back to it, so it was perfect for me.
Babaji: Cool, yeah that's intellegent.
young rascal's girlfriend: Well that's how they say is the best way to get rid of a bad habit when you become bored with your own bad habit.
Babaji: hahaha
young rascal's girlfriend: They did actually tests in like, I don't wanna say Scotland I hope that's right, heroin addicts
Babaji: yeah
young rascal's girlfriend: yeah like everytime the heroin addicts needed the fix they would give them heroin instead of giving them like methadone or some other alternative they would just give them the heroin, and after a certain amount of time these people just got bored with their own habits because they didn't have to steal to get it, the fun became..
Babaji: Well that's true, a lot of the attraction is the tension of the seperation from the object of your desire, its like once you get it its like "Hey this isnt so great..."
young rascals: right, yeah
Babaji: Like "What's the big deal anyway?"
young rascal's girlfriend: Yet here in america we refuse to use that technique yet we still give away methadone like its candy and then people are dying from that .... [indistinct] methadone when they can't get heroin...
Babaji: Yeah its got a lot of side effects, its nasty stuff.
man: people trying to cure them of their addiction, people bring drugs into the country..
young rascal's girlfriend: And they are giving them something addictive, methadone is just as addictive as heroin, and just as deadly. Methadone is a pharmaceutical versoin of Heroin basically.
Babaji: It doesn't get you high.
young rascal's girlfriend: Its just to, fix the...
[nonsense backgound conversation]
Babaji: Krsna, Krsna. Has that been going all this time?
man: Yeah, it has five hours and fourty-four minutes left..
Babaji: Yeah we'll just edit out the boring parts. OK, is everybody here? Krsna Krsna Hare Hare...waiting for one more person, oh. OK, so we're almost ready to start here. Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya.
So it's such a nice day, I don't want to keep you too much longer. As far as the readings go I want to collect everybody's birth data, and then get together by web conference, and do the reading at your convienience when I'm back in Mexico; then I have lots of time and I can sit with you a couple of hours and look at your chart and answer your questions.
So really what I'd like to cover in the next, I don't know, hour or two, is the difference between Western astrology and Vedic astrology. The differences are very profound. The biggest difference between Western astrology and Vedic astrology is of course, in the understanding of what astrology means. For example, Western astrology more or less assumes that the planets cause things to happen here on earth, and that's a very misleading concept. Obviously, the planets are way up there, moving around in their orbits and [so] what connection do they really have? What cause and effect relationship do they really have with what goes on in peoples lives?
So, that's a misleading concept. We don't subscribe to that concept, that the planets cause anything to happen in our lives. Whats really going on is that time causes things to happen in our life, and time, as we discussed yesterday is cyclical and its fractal. The patterns repeat over and over again at different scales. So when we look at time on different time scales, it appears to be the same pattern. When we look at time in the planetary realm and when we look at time on the human realm we see the same patterns reflected, and that's what astrology is really about. When we see the planets go through a certain motion, a certain pattern of movement, we can recognize that as correlated with particular events on human level.
It's an empirical science. When Mercury goes retrograde, here's an example. When Mercury goes retrograde we notice there are things that Mercury controls that go backwards. Or that have problems, like communication, understanding, agreements, technology, inventions. All these things are controlled by Mercury, not that they are controlled by Mercury, but that they follow the same pattern as Mercury's movements in the sky. So, we see that when Mercury goes retrograde, those particular events seem to happen very reliably. And that's an observation that has been carried out over thousands and thousands of years of human experience. It's not that Mercury is controlling those things, it's that those things are operating on the same time cycles. Everything goes by cycles, look at the seasons, look at the day and the night, look at human life and everything. It all follows certain patterns, and those patterns are similar to the patterns of the movements of the stars and planets, that's all.
So really astrology is a way of knowing what time it is; where are we at in the universal fractal cycles of time. Like Mars, the motions of Mars seem to correlate with the cycles of war. That's why Mars is known as the planet of war. The movements of Jupiter seem to go in time with expansion, progress, optimism, like that. And those of Saturn seem to go in time with limitation, and contraction, and those kind of cycles. So when we see these different cycles in the planetary motions in the sky, [we know] based on our experience only, that these phemonena are going to take place in human society. Not because the planets are controlling those phenomena but because the natural cycles of those phenomena happen to go in the same pattern of time as the planets, that's all.
That way we get out of the way of making unwarranted assumptions that there's some cause and effect relationship. It happens that those demigods that are, that embody those planets, or that inhabit the body of the planets have particular qualities, personal qualities, that match those phenomenon that we are observing here on earth on the human level. And when their lives go through particular changes, we observe those similar changes on the human level, that's all.
Because time is the only thing that's the same everywhere. Time is the only really universal phenomena that ties everything together. So, Western astrology is a whole different thing. And the biggest difference between Jyotish and Western astrology is called the ayanamsa. The ayanamsa is the difference between the directly observed physical location of the planets in the sky and their astrological location. And for Vedic astrology the ayanamsa is zero. In Vedic astrology, the planets are located in the chart in the same exact position that they are in the sky. Makes a lot of sense, right? That way the chart is a map of the sky at the time of the person's birth. But Western astrology uses an ayanamsa of twenty-three forty, twenty-three degrees and forty minutes. That means for every position of a planet in the sky of the time of a person's birth, we add twenty-three degrees and forty minutes to that position.
Man: Why?
Babaji: I knew somebody was gonna ask why! It doesn't make sense, does it? Why would you do that? Well, because when Vedic astrology was being translated into Western languages, actually first it was translated from Sanskrit to Persian, and then from Persian into Latin and Greek, and then from Latin and Greek into more modern romance languages. Lemme just finish explaining this and I'll let you hustle. It was translated by a person named Plini the Younger. He was a scholar, and he read in the original literature in the Persian translation actually, that the vernal equinox, the beginning of spring, is located at zero degrees Aries. OK, and at that time it was.
But there's this phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes that takes place every twenty-six thousand some odd years, that the vernal equinox goes all the way around the zodiac. So, when the translation was made—I guess that was about two thousand five hundred years ago—the vernal equinox really was at zero degrees Aries. But now it's in Pisces, almost in Aquarius. So it's gone all the way through Pisces, from zero degrees Aries, it's gone all the way back, it goes in retrograde motion. So it goes from Aries back through Pisces and now its almost ready to go into Aquarius, the so-called "age of Aquarius" is due to the position of the vernal equinox on the physical zodiac.
But that doesn't mean that the position of Aries changes; Aries is a constellation in the background of the so-called "fixed stars" right. But the Western astrologers said "Now wait a minute, as the vernal equinox moves, so does the whole zodiac." In other words they got it exactly backwards. They said the vernal equinox is moving so the whole zodiac has to move too. No people, it doesn't mean that. But it was too late, the Western astrologers took it that way and so as the vernal equinox has moved all the way from zero Aries back to Pisces and all the way almost to Aquiarius now, they have also gone and changed the position of Aries in the sky so it doesn't match the physical constellations anymore, duh.
This is one of the first things that stuck me about Western astrology when I tried to study it some time ago—because I had studied astronomy as a kid it was my hobby, I had a telescope and the whole thing. And it was like "I can see where Mars is in the sky"—it is Pisces lets say—"I can see it in the sky on my telescope, and then I look in the paper and it says, Mars is in Aries? I just saw it in Pisces last night, what are they talking about." Or the sun: If you plot the position of the sun in the sky, and they say it goes into such and such a sign on this date. But if you look up in the sky it's not there, it's in one sign back. So, what are they talking about? It seemed really crazy to me. Like why are they, who would do this, why would they make it so confusing?
It's just because of the translation error, the translation error that became enshrined as dogma and it's been passed [down] ever since. And so this is why when you read the little horoscope in the paper everyday and it doesn't make any sense. And that's why when you get a Western astrology chart done, the houses and the signs are all like two seperate things and its very confusing. The reason they have to do this is so that they have some way of making some kind of predictions that make any sense at all, or some kind of meaning, that make any sense at all. And it makes astrology unnecessarily complicated, and they've also had to change the meanings of the signs and fudge a whole bunch of stuff you know just to get it to work at all.
So, Vedic astrology has never had that problem. Another thing is that Western astrology tries to be predictive, they try to predict whats going to happen in the future without having really understood what happened in the past. So in other words, Vedic astrology, the predictions you can make with Vedic astrology are based on what happened in the person's life up until now. So you can't make a sensible prediction in Vedic astrology until a person has lived for some years, and you see what are the results of the chart that's cast at the time of birth. You can't make meaningful predictions in Vedic astrology unless you're very very very expert, just by reading the birth chart. It has to be a dialogue with the person and then you see which planetary positions or which planetary aspects are active in their chart and which are dormant in their chart according to their spiritual position. Generally, the more spiritually advanced a person is the less the chart has to do with their actual life. Because the chart just represents the karma that's attached to that body. So if a person's very spiritually advanced, they don't have much to do with the body. And so the body's karma, and all that, doesn't really affect them. The third thing that is really really cool about Vedic astrology is...
So the other thing that's different about Vedic astrology from Western astrology is dasas. The dasas are planetary periods. Planetary periods are times in your life when a particular planet is dominant in your chart. So during that time, it's like whatevers happening with that planet will just run the whole chart. It's like that planet becomes the main force in the whole chart. So there are different dasa systems for different purposes in Vedic astrology. Some of them are good for making material predictions, some that are better for spiritual things, some show what's going to happen with your family, others show about your career, finances, stuff like that. There are many many different dasa systems, I think there are something like twenty-two or twenty-seven different dasa systems. And this is unique to Vedic astrology, it's not in Western astrology at all.
So uh, where does Vedic astrology come from? Well, the first work on Vedic astrology is done by the sage Parasara. Parashara is the father of Vyasdeva, and Vyasdeva of course is the compiler of the Vedas. He took all the wisdom that was extant in human society at that time which came down from divine sources, and he compiled it into the four Vedas, the 108 Upanisads, the 18 Puranas, Mahabharata, Ramayana, the Tantras, and so many other literatures. And these literatures are incredibly volumunous, but before the Vedas were written down Parashara wrote his major work, which is called Brhat Parashara Hora Sastra or BPHS. Brhat Parashara Hora Shastra is the main textbook of Vedic astrology; it's about 6,000 years old. So its the first work of astrology of any kind in the whole world. And Brhat Parashara Hora Sastra is completely independent, it contains everything you need to know to do complete astrology chart and predictions and analysis and the whole thing.
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