Planetary Deities and Mantras

[Guest guest]

Om Amrtesvaryai Namah!!!

 

Namaste dear sisters and brothers of this Amma list...

 

i had written this posting for a Jyotish list, the one with

KN Rao on it)...they were discussing planetary deities

and their mantras....one person recommended Svoboda's

Greatness of Saturn (which i think is a classic!)

we too were discussing mantras a little ago....

in regards to the Gayatri Mantra....and others....and i thought

since it is SO much about Amma and Her work, that i should include it

here to for my darling sisters and brothers.....

 

i too would recommend Robert Svoboda's work, not

only the Greatness of Saturn (which is

ASTOUNDINGLY wonderful!!!!), but his Aghori

books, too...they are simply wonderful....too,

his collaborations with Hart de Fouw have

produced some valuable additions to the western

library of Jyotish....as well, as you must know

David Frawley's Astrology of the Seers deals very

well with the spiritual aspects of the

Grahas...and he has their mantras too...but not

the huge long ones...

 

My understanding of the Grahas is that like us,

they are "jivas"...which take birth as the Sun

and the moon and the other Grahas...infinitely

more advanced than we, they are like Mother's

special servants/children (whichever you prefer)

in Her cosmic kitchen....they are the sub-cooks,

and the dish-washers, as well as the waiters, and

buss-boys....who bring you just the right karmas

at just the right time...no dessert at the entree

time....So they are like us, subject to birth and

rebirth.....just as the Devas are subject to this

round, once their good karmas wear out....as we

remember, the various Deva names are really more

a job description than a particular person....as

the children advance, they get to fill these

various managerial positions to help the Mother

in Her vast plans....so they are like our elder

brothers and sisters in a way....always bringing

to us just what we need to learn to grow to be

adorable, that we may merge in that Sacred Om....

 

as i have posted earlier on Goravani Jyotish

we must be extremely careful in using these

mantras correctly, as given to us by

our Guru...and if we do not have them given by a

Guru, with the proper pronunciation, and the

appropriate sadhana to go with it...i will most

emphatically state that we are not only wasting

our time, but may actually be making things

WORSE....AS those Grahas can be VERY particular

about the rituals, and the mantras and so

on....especially if we are propitiating them for

worldly reasons...like to get a job, or more

money, or to offset the well-earned karmas which

are about to come due...

 

now i ask you....will it make a difference if you

approach these Grahas with the right attitude, of

humility, as compared to the situation where you

have just started doing some sadhana that you

picked up from a book somewhere..your own

idea...no teacher.. ...do you think this sadhana

is going to be blessed by the Navgrahas????i

suspect not....they are teaching us to go to the

source really...They themselves are only

magnifying the Divine Mother...and referring

entirely to Her...

 

Unless of course you are trying to develop a

loving Bhakti relationship with whatever Graha is

in question...in which case i would ask why you

are worshipping the servant, who at most can give

you a crust of bread, whereas if you would

worship the Supreme...the "master"....then all

things would be added unto you, as needed, even

with out asking!!!

 

How do i know this...my own life's ongoing

experience...the more reliance i place in my

Beloved Deity, (Amma), the more She takes care of

this worthless child...i don't know why She loves

me and helps me, but i am most certainly

THANKFUL...i know that nothing can ever repay

this great debt of Love which i owe to Amma,

except by sharing it with

everyone....everywhere....including on this

Jyotish List....

 

She often answers unvoiced prayers, and even just

thoughts, which were not even prayers....for

example i was thinking of emailing a friend who

grows tulips, to see about getting some to

plant....well, i was over in the kitchen making

a little breakfast....and i went back after this

to the computer to check the mail which might

have come in just in the last few minutes......

 

There was a letter from my Tulip friend giving me

just EXACTLY the information i had been intending

on writing to ask for.....this happens more and

more, the more the Bhakti for one's Beloved

Deity, and Sat Guru develops....and i am only in

kindergarten/day care still!!

 

and in a way, Guru is considered to be even

higher than God Himself...as in the Hindu

tradition....when we call with longing hearts to

our Beloved Deity, usually that Beloved Deity

sends us a little part of themselves in the form

of a SatGuru....and that Sat Guru, is the agent

of the Divine...in a way the Guru is the Boat to

carry us across this vast ocean of delusions....

So in this tradition, if Guru is pleased with you

then it doesn't matter if the whole world, and

even God are mad at you....

 

but if Guru is DISPLEASED with you...watch

out!!!even if all the creation and the humans and

even God are pleased with you....Guru comes

first, because it is Guru Who brings us to

God...So if we can't even listen to our Guru, how

can we expect Her to bring us home with Her....we

are too rebellious, and our cups are overful with

our recently learned knowledge...there is no room

left to discover the new....to See actually that

a Great Soul has come to relieve our pains and

miseries....we climb on the bus, but we keep the

luggage in our hands...instead of putting it down

now....

 

Amma Herself, promotes most strenuously the

practises of Jyotish, being from Kerala, they

practise the southern school there, with the

accompanying Southern Chart, which strangely

enough has all the constellations and the planets

going in the opposite directions....it was

suggested that this might have been from when

India was below the equator...but it is certainly

confusing now...here in North America....(nb. i

use the southern chart myself, because of it's

ease...)

 

Amma has had several (many now!) Brahmasthanam

Temples built for the peoples all over

India...and more are being built every

day....these temples are intended to be used to

offset the Planetary negative influences...they

do the NavGraha Pujas there and also Pujas to Siva

and Kali, and Ganesha...and one can always

write to them and have them do a puja for

one....or contact the MA Center at San

Ramon....these pujas are empowered by a very

Great Soul....so in my mind they are special.

they are not your ordinary pujas....

 

Whenever Moon is transitting thru Krittika,

they will have a grand Puja for Kali Ma...

Krittika as we know is Amma's birth star...

 

 

Amma says that of the millions of People who have

come to Her many many have been suffering from

the unfavourable transits, and Dasas when they

come to see Her....mainly from Saturn, Rahu, and

Mars...so regular pujas are done in the proper

way, with all the right rituals, and word

perfect...by Amma's Brahmacharis and

Brahmacharinis (Amma initiates women into the

Pujari circles too!!)

 

So just like us Jyotishis, Amma is warning of

negative influences from these transits, and

such...and thus the centres have been built to

help offset some of this negative karma which

comes due with the transits and dasas....

 

Amma also encourages all Her children Including

westerners to Learn Puja...and every tour, She

performs a Devi (or Atma) Puja...with all of us

helping out...with thousands of lamps and water

and such...and She has said that after this Devi

Puja that we do together, we are empowered to

make Puja ourselves, for the Love of Our Beloved

Deity...with "perceivable results"...

 

this is very relevant to the Astrologers, unlike

what many of you might be thinking....if we learn

to do a simple Devi Puja...or Shiva Puja, or

Krsna Puja...then we are already establishing a

loving connection with our beloved Deity, and if

we continue this long enough, we will be given

unmistakeable signs that the Deity has heard our

plaintive calling....answers will be forthcoming,

 

sudden blissful tears at the thought of the

Deity...a love of the Deity, which just grows and

grows until it is a loving fire raging in the

heart of the child...if we live in this way, i

submit, to my sister and brother Jyotishis, that

not only will we feel better about ourselves, but

that we will MOST definitely establish the most

sweet relationship possible in this world...the

relationship between the Soul and its Eternal

Beloved, in whichever form we may envision that

Beloved... this loving heart-melting relationship

with our Beloved Deity, Who then will be a living

Presence in One's life, that one feels

often....as soon as one tunes in at all...this

all becomes the focus of one's life, and

Love....and if we have this relationship with our

Beloved Deity, do you not think that She will

protect us from the malefic influences of those

Grahas, Her servants...thus we will be much more

use to the people who come to us for help....

 

To me the secret is to dissolve in Divine Love,

just as my Amma told me...to learn to follow the

Path of Divine Love....and in this path, followed

to the end, Jnana will come uninvited...then the

charts will be seen as the starting off

inspiration for the reading of the actual person

right there in front of us...and we

will be using our Loving intuition as given by

Mother, as much as any techniques to untangle the

knots of our querent's karmas....

 

of course my most common advice is to develop a

loving relationship with one's Beloved Deity...my

sovereign remedy for all ills, for all malefic

planets, for sudden windfall riches, for losses

of loved ones.....all of these will be seen

differently in the light of that Loving

Relationship with the Beloved Deity....

 

May that Divine Mother Who is Immanent in the

entire Creation, and Who occasionally takes a

body, to model the proper life to us children, as

well as remove the evil tendencies from vast

numbers of people's mind, May That Divine Mother

Bless us always.....

 

Whenever there is a decline in Dharma, She, like

Sri Krsna, has promised to come again and again

to help rebalance things...to destroy the demons,

and raise up the children....

 

Why should we ask favours of the servants, the

Grahas, when we can go directly to the

Master...the Divine Mother...or Sri Krsna....We

as Jyotishis would be VERY well advised to have

an

ISHTA DEVATA....so that the Grahas will not be

able to grasp us, as we try to do an impartial

reading for some poor fellow, whose life is in a

mess...if we don't have a very strong connection

with our Ishtadevata, we can just forget about a

useful reading...the Grahas who have "seized" the

questioner will seize us too...and make us give

the answer which the Graha wants us to give.....

 

So the Best policy as far as i have learned is

not to worry so much about the planetary deities,

and their correct mantras, but rather go to their

Mistress...the Divine Mother....or whatever

Beloved Deity, which appeals to the

Jyotishi....the Beloved Deity will protect the

Jyotishi from the seizure by the Grahas...and

will help to give a balanced reading....we have

only to deeply connect with this Beloved

Deity....and then i suspect we won't need so many

sophisticated techniques, because in our

connection with the Beloved Deity, our intuitions

will be awakened even further, and we may be able

to read ever so much from relatively simple

techniques...it's not how many mantras and

techniques of analysis which we have mastered or

not, which is important...what IS important is

just how much LOVE we have developed...Love for

God, and Love for our sisters and brothers...in

this love we will see far more than in the dry

facts and figures as presented by the

charts....the chart then would be more like a

skeleton which we flesh out with our loving

consideration....or as a number of reminders to

the reader...and even in a simple reading one

could delve deeply into the spiritual

ramifications of these line-ups.....

 

but then dear sisters and brothers, we often

seem oh so committed to all these mantras, and

yantras, and kavaches....the only kavach which we

REALLY need is our Beloved Deity...for me, it is

Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi...having taken

refuge at Her lotus feet, and committing myself

into Her Loving hands, i rely upon Her for all in

my life...

 

She is the source of the intuitions which i may

have into a person's chart...and She will protect

me from the unsavory elements in a person's

chart...and from my own too...except those

lessons that i actually NEED to grow....

 

to me GuruBhakti is far more important than

learning all the mantras in the world, all the

planetary deities in this world are but Her

servants....so let us rather repair to our Divine

Mother, forsaking all these digressions and

temptations of the mind....the desire for

knowledge...if we surrender utterly unto the

Divine Mother, She alone will provide us with all

the knowledge, compassion and Divine Love, with

which we may effectively read, and offer remedies

to our friends and colleagues who have sought our

help.....

 

i know that this might sound extremely radical to

those western readers who have been raised in the

American individualism at all costs...but that

individualistic view has led to the present world

troubles...it is perhaps time for a different

approach...time for a humble, spiritual,

Love-based, Earth Loving, conservationist

attitude to dawn on this Bhumi Mata...this Mother

Earth....and to CEASE contributing to the very

troubles we are trying to avoid....with our

egoism and vanity...wanting to be "right" all the

time...

 

As Amma said...if your cup is full already with

knowledge, how can the Divine pour any more

in...you are already full...Thus She recommends

the approach of humility...of realising that

after all we are only very small creatures, who

live and die at the whims of the Divine....so it

may do us a lot of good to remember this....

 

As we all know, rain will not gather on the

mountaintops...but rather runs quickly down to

the valley bottoms and collects most lovingly in

the lowest parts of the valleys....in the same

way, Amma suggests that the Divine Grace does not

remain on the proud mountainous egotistical type,

but rather, will run quickly down the steep

slopes to collect lovingly around the humblest of

the humble...the servant of the servants....

 

So let us abandon this useless intellectual

cavilling, and discussing about deities and which

may be the "right" approach....and

mantras and yantras, which are all after all,

only tools for the RIGHT people....we may not be

qualified for those tools as we are not automatically qualified merely

by being born...but rather we have to EARN

the qualifications......but we ARE qualified

to approach our Divine Mother, as a longing

two-year old child would approach Her

Mother...and the Mother cannot stay away from

such a child...no matter what age his body

is...if we call and call with a longing

heart.....and take just one little step towards

Her, She will joyfully run thousands of steps to

us, even forgetting Her Kosmic Kitchen duties for

awhile, to pick us up lovingly onto Her Lap....

 

this is my prescription for the most successful

life, both as a Jyotishi, and as an ordinary

person....

 

Saranam Saranam Saranam Amma

 

In Her Divine Love,

and in Her Service,

this littlest child

of Hers,

bows again and again

saluting

most profoundly

all his elder

sisters and brothers

on this list

Who are Verily

the Divine Mother's

Darling Children

and

Embodiments

of the Sacred Om,

All!!!

 

Salutations

Salutations

Salutations

be to

 

That Devi Who is

immanent in the

heart of all beings as Santi

and Who as the Sakti,

is the primal

energy, the

supreme power

which animates

this shava,

Her Son,

and Her entire

creation.

 

Siva without Sakti

is Shava alone....

 

as a candle to its flame

doth a visibility owe,

so does Our Mother,

Mahamaya cloak Her

Adi Para Sakti in

the glamourous

folds of Nature...

and Yet

does She peep out,

winking and smiling at us

from the oddest places!!

 

candle flames,

children's laughing

eyes,

a dear dog friend's

unaffected humility..

the wind caresses

one's cheek, just as

one said: "i love

you Mother...."

and one can feel Her answer

in the wind, and the laughing

dancing trees,

in the joyous cackling

of the Canada Geese,

busy about their

spring business..

the sweet reedy,

wet calling of

the ducks contentedly

chatting.

 

a pair of

Bald Eagles,

Garudas,

who come to

the Sacred Pujas,

by the Sacred Ganga,

and only leave

when Puja

is over...

punctuating

the last mantras

with their eery

whistling, very

strange speech

directly above and behind me..

O Eagles,

you are indeed

welcome

to these Pujas!!!

 

if it is Sanskrit

you like,

enjoy!!!

O Celestial beings

Who come to enjoy

the divine Vibrations

of the Sacred Puja

to the World Mother,

Sri Jagannamata,

may you all be pleased

and bless us all!!

O Mother

do Thou Please

bless all Your children

with Pure Love

of Thee

in all thy Forms...

 

as ever,

Your Own Self,

 

visvanathan

 

Om Amrtesvaryai Namah!!

 

Om Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi Ki Jai!