HOW TO USE AYURVEDIC PRINCIPLES TO EASILY READ BIRTH CHARTS- ASTROLOGY DECODED- IV

In the previous blogs of the Astrology Decoded series, we have understood the logic that how Ayurveda is the mother of astrology, how planets and zodiacs express ayurvedic doshas and the logic behind the Dasha system. In this blog we shall understand that how Ayuvedic principles (apart from those already discussed in the above mentioned blogs) can be used to read one’s birth chart. While the logic that why time, place and date of birth are used to generate birth chart has been explained in the previous blog, generation of birth chart needs some visual understanding of how planets and zodiacs are placed in the universe and for that I strongly recommend the non astrologers to watch these two videos developed by Jon Stevens:-

VIDEO ONE

VIDEO TWO

**** Highlighted portion in red is meant for non-astrologers and astrologers may skip it though I recommend them too to read it.

Above mentioned videos would have explained you that the birth chart of any person or event consists of 12 houses, 12 zodiacs and planets posted in those zodiacs at that point of time.

Now here is the snapshot of the moment of Video 2 which captures planets posted in the zodiacs..

And here is how this moment is explained on a typical north Indian chart..

Now, for ease of understanding, those advanced beings who would have devised this software had divided human body/aspects of human life into 12 parts. Since the environment at the time of event/birth matters the most in defining the conscience of one’s future, they gave maximum importance to the first zodiac (first environment) rising from the east at the time of event and called it the first house. They associated qualities of brain/mind/self to this first house and accordingly associated other qualities to the other houses. Here is how they attributed different traits/body parts to different houses (as we proceed further we shall learn more about these houses that how each one of them represents our soul and the soul of people around us)

APPLYING AYURVEDIC PRINCIPLES TO ASTROLOGICAL CHARTS

So once you are clear that how a human body has been divided as per Astrology, let us go on to understand that how various Ayurvedic principles are the basics of reading Astrology (for the sake of the length of this blog, I shall be confining it only to this topic and not beyond). Before we proceed, please understand that the first seven houses of the chart correspond to the seven Chakras in the human body and the next seven houses (starting from half of seventh till half of 1st) correspond to the opposite aspect of these seven chakras only.

***This post is an extract from the book THE ROOT CAUSE- Ayurveda, Astrology and beyond for a blissful life”. To pick up a copy of the book, please click the link/s mentioned at the end of this post ⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓

MIND/BRAIN-THE ENGINE OF THE BODY (FIRST HOUSE)

That brain (mind) is the engine which drives the entire body is known to everyone. So if one’s mind is high on activity-may be hyperactive (which is called as high Vata in Ayurveda), his/her entire body is also bound to be restless and wouldn’t be able to get enough rest. And therefore, the first house is the most important of all the houses and it is the interaction between mind and the organ corresponding to a specific house which decides the outcome of that specific house e.g. if mind is kapha but that house is vata, the outcome will be somewhat in between

*** This also means that it is not physical mind only that stores the information of how to run the body but the memory lies in different body parts as well. That is why sometimes it is referred that the non-physical mind is present in all parts of the body.

THE LAW OF OPPOSITE (CONNECTION BETWEEN OPPOSITE HOUSES)- ASPECTS OF PLANETS

Opposites attract- this law is applicable here too. Look around and you will find that a vata personality who is relatively hyperactive/chirpy is bound to get along well only with a kapha person (when it comes to a very close relationship/partnership) who is subtle/calm/lazy in approach and vice versa. This is because a vata person closely associated with a vata person would not get along well in a very close relationship as both will exhibit high energy and wouldn’t listen to each other. Exactly this is the law that is used in astrology for houses opposite to each other. This is the reason that 7^th house which is opposite to the Ist house (i.e. of brain or self), conveys that the person would have affinity towards what kind of nature of partner whether in personal/professional/business life.

Since, this affinity is different for different people in life, different houses denote affinity towards different relationships e.g. while a partner is represented by 7th house (as seen above), 2nd house represents what kind of immediate family will the person get in terms of its overall values (obviously its bound to be similar to your own brain and that is why closest to first house), 3rd house represents siblings, 4th the mother, 5th the friends. In the same way, while fourth house represents heart and its matters and also the condition of mother at the time of birth of native, tenth house ( opposite to the fourth house) represents its opposite energy, meaning those matters that would be pleasing to heart and also father. It has to be remembered since opposite houses exchange energies with passage of time (isn’t it that self and spouse start behaving in similar manner after years of living together), this principle is valid for all opposite houses even for 4th and 10th (i.e. of mother and father).

DRISHTI/ASPECT OF HOUSES/PLANETS

Every planet is supposed to have influence on the house opposite to it (7th house from its position). This influence is called as aspect or Drishti.  It is the logic of opposite energy (as discussed above) which explains the seventh aspect of planets too.  It is like traits of self are bound to influence the traits of spouse sooner or later (self is 1st and spouse is 7th house) though initially they get associated to each other because of opposite energy. Similarly characterstics of mother are bound to influence the traits of father (4th and 10th house) and vice versa being very close partners. So in a way when we say that every planet has 7th aspect, it is the aspect of the house because of which the planet residing there, is looking at the house opposite to itself. 

MIND AND HEART (1^ST AND 4^TH HOUSE) CONNECTION (KENDRA LOGIC)

What happens to most of us when our reputation (during a speech/presentation etc) or life is at stake? Our heart starts pounding and why so? It is because when mind perceives a threat, it pushes heart to beat faster so that more blood reaches to the peripherals including brain for thinking faster and to the muscles for fighting effectively or running (flying) away quickly. This is called as flight or fight response. So if someone’s mind is hyperactive he/she is bound to over-perceive situations and make the heart beat faster. On the other hand if someone’s heart is weak it won’t be able to pump enough blood to the mind, making the latter weak and hyperactive (less of blood means more vata and more activity). This is the logic which connects first and fourth house and since opposite houses have equal impact as we read in the section above, all the houses in the centre called as Kendra houses i.e.1,4,7 and 10 are connected to each other. This is the reason that Rahu (vata planet) in the first house makes a person hyperactive however a strength giving planet like mars in fourth house considerably reduces Rahu’s effect since strong heart will push more blood towards mind. This also means that to know the strength of heart or mind, both the houses have to be checked. Likewise goes true on the mind-gut relation in the next section down below.

*** that heart and brain diseases are intricately connected and a strong relation is seen between them is because of this reason.

MIND AND GUT (1^ST AND 5^TH HOUSE) CONNECTION (TRIKONE LOGIC)

While Ayurveda had conveyed thousands of years back, that Jatharagni (the digestive fire of the stomach and small intestine) is of foremost importance in ascertaining the breakdown and assimilation of food in the entire body, modern science has also begin to understand that that Gut health has got a direct connection with the health of the brain (https://chriskresser.com/the-healthy-skeptic-podcast-episode-9/). And this is the reason that first and fifth house are connected, meaning if the 5th house is strong, it imparts strength to first house too. Not only that, 5th house also houses liver and pancreas whose job is regulate insulin and glutamate/gaba release in the blood thereby increasing pitta or decreasing it as and when required and therefore poor liver/pancreas health (meaning 5th house) has direct impact on brain (1st house) leading to stress and also type one diabetes. On the other hand, the ninth house (fate) gets directly impacted by the third house (which is the house of karma/efforts) and is again directly connected to brain. This is the reason that 1^st, 5^th and 9^th houses are considered very important and are called as trikone houses.

RIGHT DOSHA AT RIGHT PLACE (WHY CERTAIN PLANETS ARE BETTER IN KENDRA/TRIKONE AND WHY CERTAIN PLANETS SHOULD BE OUTSIDE IT?)

Ayurveda has clearly defined that for ideal health, each body part should have a specific dosha dominating it. Exactly the same principle gets translated on astrology too. Mind (1^st house) should be relatively higher on kapha as mind should be stable and that is why kapha planets like Jupiter, Venus and Ketu are good here (to understand the ayurvedic doshas associated with different planets click here). Stomach and small intestine (4^th and 5^th house) should be high on pitta because here, food gets digested (6^th house) and digestion needs pitta, and that’s why planets like mars, sun are good here. And large intestine where peristalsis (the movement of intestine that pushes excreta downwards) is highest, should be high on vata because vata represents movement and that’s why vata planets like rahu and saturn are good here and if a kapha planet like jupiter sits here, it will cause indigestion. 

******* That kendra and trikone houses are most important comes from the fact that Astrology is an outcome of the collective conscience of people when we are born. And that is why doshic state meaning conscience of self (house 1), mother (4), father (10), spouse (7), friends and kids (5), fate (9) at the time of one’s birth becomes most important in shaping his/her destiny. This is also the reason that lord of kendra should ideally be in kendra or trikone or vice versa. In Ayurvedic language, a person born with Saturn’s dosha (marked by presence of saturn in kendra/trikone) should have its zodiacs too inside the kendra/trikone as this will help the person to lead life like a typical Vata person (true to one’s constitution). Imagine what if one is a Saturn personality but has Mars zodiac inside kendra/trikone but not Saturn’s. In such a case, his/her Vata will get totally burnt due to Mars zodiac as when Mar’s Dasha will arrive.

Please note that the quality of a house (i.e which dosha is finally dominating there) gets ascertained by many aspects and above mentioned logic is to give you an essence of how Ayurveda governs astrology e.g. one of the most important principle of finding out the strength of a house (Bhav) is BHAV BHAVESH KARAK where:-

Checking BHAV means:-

(a) checking planets sitting in that house and looking at that house,

(b) the zodiac sign of that house because planets express themselves differently in different signs ( click here to know why different planets behave in different zodiacs / degrees and debilitate/exult),

Checking BHAVESH (where ESH means Lord or owner) means checking strength of the planet which owns  the sign (or the lord) of the house being judged because lord/owner of the specific house in question may or may not be sitting in the house being judged e.g first house may have mars zodiac (lets say Scorpio) but mars may be sitting in Capricorn i.e. 3rd house. Thus to judge the first house we should also judge the strength of mars in Capricorn, its degree and other planets aspecting it. This phenomenon is like flow of energy from zodiac to its lord or vice versa even if both are sitting in different houses thus impacting both houses. In this case, its like brain (first house) focusing on aspects of 3rd house which is karma/strength with good and right amount of vigor since mars in Capricorn becomes exulted. And this phenomenon becomes highly pronounced during mahadasha/dasha of the planet since the conditions (meaning zodiac) become active and thus the planet (or its doshas) too. 

Checking KARAKA (significator) means finding out where the planet that should have been sitting here has gone (as read in RIGHT DOSHA AT RIGHT PLACE section above)

Some more principles of Ayurveda to be born in mind while reading a chart are :-

(a)  Hemming effect ( just like a dosha in one part of the body affects the adjacent part too, planets sitting in a house have an affect on the adjacent house). Thus a house hemmed on either side by vata planets is bound to high on vata.

(b) All the twelve houses get affected when Dasha of a particular planet arrives, however, the effect is felt highest in those houses where the signs owned by that planet are sitting  and also in that house where the planet itself is sitting (refer the previous blog to understand how Ayurveda can easily explain Dashas).

(c) Mars becomes strongest during young age– Since peripheral circulation weakens with age so does Mars (don’t we start losing muscles as we age as more blood stays inside the core to keep the vital organs fit) and that’s why a manglick person’s Mangal’s effect lessen after the age of 32 or so depending upon the strength of Mars in birth chart.

(d) Saturn and Rahu become stronger with age– Since vata increases with age, Saturn’s effect also increases with age. Similarly Rahu also increases with age due to effect of bitter foods. All these effects on Mars/Rahu/Saturn with age are irrespective of the dasha/transit of different planets.

(e) Organs governed by various planets- Each organ of the body is also governed by predominance of specific dosha/s in it e.g. skin is governed by VPK in equal quantity. This is because skin doesn’t have to store the information but analyse and relay also simultaneously to and fro the spinal cord/brain. And that is why skin is governed by mercury the planet which has VPK in equal quantity. Same goes with sensory organs governing speech/hearing. So mercury marred by a malefic planet in someone’s chart may indicate that the person concerned may develop skin disease or speech issues etc.

To conclude, if one knows Ayurveda inside out, then learning astrology is extremely simple and much more accurate and scientific.

*** Next blog on AYURVEDA EXPLAINS EXULTED/ DEBILITATED PLANETS -ASTROLOGY DECODED- PART V