SJVC Bangalore 1st Meeting on 28th March.

March 30, 2002

om guruave namah

Dear Sanjay Guru,

Pranams from all your Bangalore students.

The following people were able to make it to the 1st SJVC Bangalore meeting.

1. Jyoti

2. Rama Priya

3. Krishna Padmasola

4. Pavan Kumar

5. Hari

Venue : Uma Maheswari Temple KR Road Bangalore.

We did come out with a host of questions. We all await Sanjay guru and other

guru's to show us the light. All the questions and confusions we came across

have are in this colour.

The temple had a hall on the 1st floor. We duly went to the person concerned and

asked for permission. We spent sometime getting to know each others. I had

already met Rama Priya and Jyoti prior to this meeting so this helped to some

extent to locate each other.

We spent some time meditating after which we went over what we were going to

discuss. The agenda for the 1st SJVC Bangalore meeting was to discuss the

concept of Ista Devata and try to identify our respective ista devata's on our

horoscopes.

We started with the discussion about atmakaraka. Rama priya had a query as to

why it;s called chara atmakaraka. For this we discussed the word chara as in

movable or not fixed. Thus the atmakaraka in each horoscope would depend on the

number of degrees gained by a particular planet from Sun to Rahu. The exception

being the degrees gained by Rahu (for determination of his chara karaka) would

be in the reverse.

We then discussed about the concept of Atmakaraka. Atmakaraka (AK) is the one

planet who is a soul of the horoscope. More like a king who guides the native

through all the happiness, strife and tribulations for the native.

The sign AK is placed in navamsa is called the Karakamsa. We discussed why we

need to see the navamsa only and not Rasi or any other varga. We came to the

conclusion that since the determination of Ista is the issue, we need to see

navamsa as it denotes Dharma.

Next was the discussion about the procedure for determining the Ista. We talked

of focusing on the 12th sign from karakamsa. Another question that came up was

why do we need to see 12th from karakamsa. We came up with the answer that 12th

house denotes what dharma we have inherited. 12th house shows with what balance

we came into this world. The 12th from Karakamsa is the fulcrum to determine

the ista. For this we came up with 3 cases that could exist in a horoscope.

1st case

12th from karakamsa is a sign that is empty.

In the case where the 12th from karakamsa has no planets, we take into

consideration Rasi Dristi from planets on this 12th from karakamsa. If there

are no planets giving rasi dristi, then we take the lord of the 12th

house (from karakamsa) to indicate the ista. When we were discussing the lord

of the house, we ran into the issue of co-lords for Sc and Aq.

For determining the co-lords we talked of finding if which lord is with more

planets. If the number of planets associated with both the co-lords, we talked

of checking if any co-lord gets rasi dristi from either Jupiter or

mercury or it's own lord. If this results in a tie, then we chose the stronger

co-lord by the way of thier placement in Dual, fixed and movable signs. The

strength too is in the same order. There was still some confusion with this, so

we request Sanjay guru to clarify this.

IInd case.

12th from Karamasa has one planet.

If the 12th from karakamsa has one planet, then that planet denotes the Ista.

IIIrd Case

12th from karakamsa has more than 1 planet.

In this case the planet which has gained more degrees is the stronger of the

others. If ketu is present then the degrees gained by ketu is counted in

reverse. Krishna had a doubt with this as he recollected that for determining

strength's the count is always zodiacal, i.e. in case of ketu it is not

reverse.This is yet another question we seek clarification for.

More questions.

1. If there are more than one planet in the 12th from karakamsa and among them

one qualifies as the strongest due to the highest degrees attained. Now in such

a situation, what if the other planet is exalted? Don't we have to consider this

planet as strong? how do we solve this confusion?

2. If in the case of many planets in the 12th from karakamasa, the one planet

having more number of degrees if he is combust, retro don't we have to consider

these? Rama priya also came up with the question of avastha's this planet may be

in.

3. What if AK is also the Bhadhaka. This question came from Jyoti.

4. The ohter question was why rasi dristi of Jupiter and mercury is important. I

mentioned about Dhi Shakti but i feel we need to know more.

Below is our attempt to determine the ista for our horoscopes, starting from Pavan Kumar.

Pavan Kumar.

AK = Jupiter.

Karakamsa = Saggitarius

12th from karakamsa is Sc which has Rahu in it.

Rahu denotes Durga as the ista.

Rahu for Pavan in Sc though alone is subjected to Rasi dristi's of Mercury, Moon and Mars.

The question we have is if the rule of one planet in 12th from karakamasa is

present, do we identify the ista as per this planet and stop here or do we have

to take into the Rasi Dristi of other planets too? if yes, then the ista would

be more than one. We talked of the issue that if there is a planet in the 12th

from karakamsa other rules don't apply. But we do need some guidance/help here.

Jyoti

AK = Jupiter (retro)

Jupiter in jyoti;s chart is the 2nd and 11th lord. Jupiter also stands for

guru's, elders and preceptors too.

Karakamsa is Capricorn which has Jupiter (ak) in it. AK is retrograde. We all

talked of retrograde planet indicating a deep desire for re-birth and it also

makes the native to put in more effort to achieve this significations. The

question we came across is, for jyoti jupiter is the 2nd and 11th lord and as

discussed earlier, jupiter also stands for guru's, elders. Now extra effort

jyoti will have to make and the deep desire is in the regard of guru's, elders

or is it in the area of 2nd and 11th lord? Please help

12th from karakamsa is Saggitarius, which has Mars and Ketu. Mars attains

9deg04' and ketu attains 28deg31' Counting reverse ketu get;s to be stronger.

This would denote Ganesh as the Ista. Moon, Rahu and Saturn give rasi drishti

to the 12th from karakamsa.

Rama Priya

AK=Moon

Karakamsa is Aquarius

12th from karakamsa (Capricorn) has no planet in it. It's lord is satrun, and

thus the Ista would be Narayana. The rasi dristi is given by Jupiter and Sun on

the 12th from karakamsa.

Narahari

AK = Venus (Retro)

Karakamsa is Gemini.

12th from karakamsa is taurus which has 3 planets. Mars, Moon and Ketu. Mars

get;s 15deg14', moon gets 3deg28' and ketu get;s 5deg37. Counting ketu in the

reverse makes ketu the strongest. Thus my ista would be Ganesh. But jyoti

pointed out that moon though having less degrees is exalted. This again is the

confusion we have. Do we go with ketu or take into consideration moon because

of his exaltation?

Krishna

AK=Rahu

Karakamsa is Aries

12th from Aries has Sun. Which denotes Shiva.Thus the ista is Shiva

This entire discussion took 2 hours. We all felt this is the best way to learn.

Next meeting venue was not decided on, but the day all felt could be on a

weekend. The other venue's we had in mind is ISKCON or vidyapeet. We hope to

decide next week. never-the-less all of us are looking forward for the next

meeting.

We may have asked a lot of silly questions but we are eager to know the answers,

learn more and continue the discussions.

Thanks for the time in reading this. Sanjay guru, do you have any particular

topic you want us to discuss or do we take up a blind chart?

Please do advice

your humble sishya

Hari.

PS :- Jyoti, Rama, Krishna and Pavan... Please let know if i missed anything. Thanks

March 30, 2002

Om Guruve Namah

Dear Hari,

It is so wonderful that you could meet and discuss jyotish in person. I have

never even met another jyotishi in person but am so excited for Sanjayji's New

York visit anticipated in August. [ If anyone reading is in the New York area

please contact me or perhaps a conference chat on messenger for the

students not living near to another student ]

I hope you don't mind if I offer my comments and questions before Guruji can

respond to your questions as this is a topic I would like to understand more

also I remember a few things from his lesson on the Atmakaraka from the

Varahamihira group and also Sanjay-ji book, "Vedic Remedies in Astrology".

Hari wrote:

> Next was the discussion about the procedure for determining the Ista. We

talked of >focusing on the 12th sign from karakamsa. Another question that came

up was why do >we need to see 12th from karakamsa. We came up with the answer

that 12th house >denotes what dharma we have inherited. 12th house shows with

what balance we came >into this world.

KAREN:I wanted to add that the 12th house is also the house of moksha,

liberation from the cycle of rebirth and it is the Ishta Devata's goal who

guides us to emancipation.

HARI:

>1st case

>12th from karakamsa is a sign that is empty. In the case where the 12th from

>karakamsa has no planets, we take into consideration Rasi Dristi from planets

on this >12th from karakamsa. If there are no planets giving rasi

dristi, then we take the lord >of the 12th house (from karakamsa) to indicate

the ista.

KAREN:It is my understanding that Sanjay-ji taught that if the 12th from the

karakamsa is empty then ultimately it is the lord of the sign that indicates

the Ishta. The other planets aspecting by rasi drishti will lead the native to

the Ishta in a winding path but in the end one worships the Deity given by the

lord of the 12th from the karakamsa.

>12th from karakamsa has more than 1 planet.In this case the planet which has

gained >more degrees is the stronger of the others. If Ketu is present then the

degrees gained by >Ketu is counted in reverse. Krishna had a doubt with this as

he recollected that for >determining strength's the count is always zodiacal,

i.e. in case of Ketu it is not >reverse.This is yet another question we seek

clarification for.

KAREN:It is my understanding that Ketu degrees are not counted in reverse in

this case but I can't offer why. I await Guruji's answer

>More questions.1. If there are more than one planet in the 12th from karakamsa

and >among them one qualifies as the strongest due to the highest degrees

attained. Now in >such a situation, what if the other planet is exalted? Don't

we have to consider this planet >as strong? how do we solve this confusion?

KAREN:In "Vedic Remedies", Sanjay'ji writes that one is to consider exaltation

and own house status before more advanced degrees if there is more than one

planet in 12th from karakamsa.

Pavan Kumar.

AK = Jupiter.

Karakamsa = Saggitarius12th from karakamsa is Sc which has Rahu in it.

Rahu denotes Durga as the ista.

Rahu for Pavan in Sc though alone is subjected to Rasi dristi's of Mercury, Moon

and Mars.The question we have is if the rule of one planet in 12th from

karakamasa is present, do we identify the ista as per this planet and stop here

or do we have to take into the Rasi Dristi of other planets too? if yes, then

the ista would be more than one. We talked of the issue that if there is a

planet in the 12th from karakamsa other rules don't apply. But we do need some

guidance/help here

KAREN: It is my understanding ,(again from reading VR) that the while the 12th

from karakamsha gives the ishta, that planet in the rasi can give its form i.e.

roopa , I think is the Sanskrit word. For example, Mercury may give Vishnu in

Navamsa, but if Mercury is conjoined with Sun it will give Vishnu's form as

Sri Ram and if with the Moon will give Vishnu's form as Sri Krishna, but

aspects by rasi drishti are not considered in this.

Jyoti

AK = Jupiter (retro)

Jupiter in jyoti;s chart is the 2nd and 11th lord. Jupiter also stands for

guru's, elders and preceptors too.

Karakamsa is Capricorn which has Jupiter (ak) in it. AK is retrograde. We all

talked of retrograde planet indicating a deep desire for re-birth and it also

makes the native to put in more effort to achieve this significations. The

question we came across is, for jyoti jupiter is the 2nd and 11th lord and as

discussed earlier, jupiter also stands for guru's, elders. Now extra effort

jyoti will have to make and the deep desire is in the regard of guru's, elders

or is it in the area of 2nd and 11th lord? Please help

12th from karakamsa is Saggitarius, which has Mars and Ketu. Mars attains

9deg04' and ketu attains 28deg31' Counting reverse ketu get;s to be stronger.

This would denote Ganesh as the Ista. Moon, Rahu and Saturn give rasi drishti

to the 12th from karakamsa.

KAREN: Ketu is exalted in Sagittarius so I believe that should be considered first anyway.

Narahari

AK = Venus (Retro)

Karakamsa is Gemini.

12th from karakamsa is taurus which has 3 planets. Mars, Moon and Ketu. Mars

get;s 15deg14', moon gets 3deg28' and ketu get;s 5deg37. Counting ketu in the

reverse makes ketu the strongest. Thus my ista would be Ganesh. But jyoti

pointed out that moon though having less degrees is exalted. This again is the

confusion we have. Do we go with ketu or take into consideration moon because

of his exaltation?

KAREN: I take the whole sign as being exalted and would take the Moon as the

Ishta. But look forward to clarification. Hari, again I hope you didn't mind me

jumping in. I just love this topic and wanted to follow along. I hope my

comments were helpful and correct. If not, I hope to be corrected.

Best Wishes,

Karen

March 30, 2002

Dear Karen,

For the given chart would Shri lakshmi/Mahalakshmi be the Ista Devata?

Or would it be Durga as Sukra is in Mesha?

With regards,

Jagmeet

Rasi

+--------------+

| \ / \ / |

| \ / Ket \ / |

| \ / \ / |

| x Asc x Mnd |

| / \ / \ |

| / HL \ 1 / Glk \ |

| / \ / \ |

| Moo x Ven |

| \ / \ / |

| \ GL / \ AL / |

| \ / \ / |

| \ / Jup \ / |

| \ / \ / |

| x Mar x Mer |

| / \ / \ |

| / \ Rah / \ |

| / \ / \ |

| / \ / Sun \ |

| / \ / Sat \ |

+--------------+

Navamsa

+--------------+

| \ / \ Ket Glk / |

| \ Jup / \ Mer / |

| \ / \ / |

|GL Mnd x Asc x AL |

| / \ / \ |

| / \ 6 / \ |

| / \ / \ |

| Moo x Mar |

| \ / \ / |

|HL x x |

| / \ / \ |

| / Sun \ / Ven \ |

| / Sat Rah \ / \ |

+--------------+

March 30, 2002

om gurave namah------------------------Dear Hari

You see the advantage of the meeting. Even basic questions which are of profound

importance are thrown up. People are often afraid to ask questions which seem

stupid, for fear of rebuke etc, but then the advantage of the class together is

that everyone benefits.

Comments are given below in blue color.With best wishesSanjay RathWeb:

http://sanjayrath.tripod.comServices:

http://sanjayrath.tripod.com/zservices.htmJyotish Digest:

http://jyotishdigest.com/SJVC: http://www.sjvc.org/

- Katti Narahari

sjvc

Cc: npk14 ; jothi ; Satyanarayana Reddy ; Krishna Padmasola ;

ramapriya_d ; rs_madhu ; anmohiey (AT) sancharnet (DOT) in ;

vyshakh2002 ; Ramapriya D ; Vishwa Krishnamurthy ; Ganesh Vijayan

Saturday, March 30, 2002 7:37 PM

[sjvc] SJVC Bangalore 1st Meeting on 28th March.

om guruave namah

Dear Sanjay Guru,

Pranams from all your Bangalore students.

The following people were able to make it to the 1st SJVC Bangalore meeting.

1. Jyoti

2. Rama Priya

3. Krishna Padmasola

4. Pavan Kumar

5. Hari

Venue : Uma Maheswari Temple KR Road Bangalore.

We did come out with a host of questions. We all await Sanjay guru and other

guru's to show us the light. All the questions and confusions we came across

have are in this colour.

The temple had a hall on the 1st floor. We duly went to the person concerned and

asked for permission. We spent sometime getting to know each others. I had

already met Rama Priya and Jyoti prior to this meeting so this helped to some

extent to locate each other.

Rath: My question is why was there a hall in the first floor and not ground or

basement? Which planet has guided you into this new communication? Nxt class

discuss this and get back with an answer.

We spent some time meditating after which we went over what we were going to

discuss. The agenda for the 1st SJVC Bangalore meeting was to discuss the

concept of Ista Devata and try to identify our respective ista devata's on our

horoscopes.

We started with the discussion about atmakaraka. Rama priya had a query as to

why it;s called chara atmakaraka. For this we discussed the word chara as in

movable or not fixed. Thus the atmakaraka in each horoscope would depend on the

number of degrees gained by a particular planet from Sun to Rahu. The exception

being the degrees gained by Rahu (for determination of his chara karaka) would

be in the reverse.

Rath: There are three types of Karaka - Chara, Sthira and Naisargika. There are

7 Sthira, 8 Chara and 9 Naisargika Karaka. There is another reason (in addition

to what you have stated) for the word Chara. Chara means 'changable' whereas

Sthira means 'fixed' Naisargika is natural and that "which has already been

decided". Thus, Chara Karaka indicates the individual soul and this is chara as

in the next birth, this planet may not be the Chara Atmakaraka. Some other

planet can be the chara atmakaraka depending on what lessons God has in store

for you.

We then discussed about the concept of Atmakaraka. Atmakaraka (AK) is the one

planet who is a soul of the horoscope. More like a king who guides the native

through all the happiness, strife and tribulations for the native.

The sign AK is placed in navamsa is called the Karakamsa. We discussed why we

need to see the navamsa only and not Rasi or any other varga. We came to the

conclusion that since the determination of Ista is the issue, we need to see

navamsa as it denotes Dharma.

Rath: No, Atmakaraka is seen in all divisional charts. However, its primary

importance is in the Navamsa as it is Dharma that we carry to our next life or

Dharma which we got from our last life. Nothing else comes with us when we

depart for the heavens and take another birth. It is due to the importance of

Dharma that the AK's real picture emerges in the Navamsa. In other charts like

the Vimsamsa and Shastyamsa, it has a very limited role. In the Rasi chart it

plays a crucial role as I have explained in various lectures/lessons. For

example if AK is associated with the 11th house or lord, the native is

interested in the occult knowledge and astrology.

Next was the discussion about the procedure for determining the Ista. We talked

of focusing on the 12th sign from karakamsa. Another question that came up was

why do we need to see 12th from karakamsa. We came up with the answer that 12th

house denotes what dharma we have inherited. 12th house shows with what balance

we came into this world. The 12th from Karakamsa is the fulcrum to determine

the ista. For this we came up with 3 cases that could exist in a horoscope.

Rath: The four kendra from the Karakamsa are Dharma (1), Artha (10), Kaama (7)

and Moksha (4). Thus the 12th house is the moksha sthana as this is also the

ninth (dharma) from the 4th house. Postures - 1st house (Standing), 10th house

(walking or crawling), 7th house (sitting) and 4th house (sleeping). Thus, one

who is aspiring for Moksha has to meditate on Bhagavan sleeping on Shesha Naaga

or his Ista devata in a sleeping posture. Now, the self includes the Body, Mind

and Soul seen from the Lagna, Arudha Lagna and Atmakaraka respectively. If we

talk of Moksha, then the 12th from Lagna means the time of death or end of

worldly sojorn and NOT moksha. 12th from Moon or AL will indicate the end of

the consciousness of the self and the person loses his independant identity

before taking another body. This service isdone by Shiva the kind hearted Lord.

Then comes the Atma. The 12th from this is Moksha and this is given by Bhagavan.

The Ista devata has to be seen from the 12th from Karakamsa and not any other

place. I hope things are clear.

1st case

OTHER POINTS HAVE BEEN CLARIFIED BY KAREN. IN CASE OF FURTHER DOUBT DISCUSS AND GET BACK.