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Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah

The Dharma and Grace of Prediction

In ancient India, various traditions were developed to help us find our dharma--the natural law of our being--by which we minimize undesirable karma and optimize harmonious life experience. Ayurveda is for the dharma of the body; vastu is to help us understand our relationship to the environment; the dharma types are for finding our purpose on this planet; yoga, tantra, and Vedanta help us align with our spiritual dharmas; and jyotisha, or Vedic astrology, helps us make sense of the cosmos and how we relate to it. Honor the five levels of dharma and your life will run more smoothly.

It is my experience that the techniques in this book work; whether they work in the crucible of your experience depends upon, among other things, how well you are living your purpose. Having a bad day? Not living your dharma? Your results will reflect that. As an astrologer, if your stars are misaligned for accurate predictions, then the system you use, no matter how powerful, will produce limited success.

In the minds of our forefathers, science was both objective and subjective, and the scientist was always part of the experiment, influencing its outcome by his or her presence and intention. The more powerful the intention, the greater the influence. When judging a chart, the greater the desire to know, the more likely it is that an answer will be revealed.

Intuition

Scientifically-minded folks tend to sneer at this word as it represents an unquantifiable sixth sense, something hard to fit into a purely scientific paradigm. In the Vedic view, the mind is in fact the sixth sense, collecting information from the other five and synthesizing it into a holistic whole.

The word intuition means “to perceive directly without reasoning,” “to look at, consider” while science comes from the Proto-Indo-European root skei which means to “split apart, dissect.” Thus, science is understanding nature by taking apart its components; intuition is understanding nature by putting them together--synthesizing information to form a holistic conclusion.

Many charts you read will show good points for both teams. Some may be very close calls. This is where intuition born of grace and experience can make the difference--that feeling that comes from having seen thousands of combinations and being open to your own inner knowing. Psychologists who study skill acquisition note that at the highest level, mastery becomes an unconscious part of us, a feeling about the right move at the right time. Ancient traditions refined this basic reality of human skill and performance and expressed it variably as the muse.

The ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Vedic peoples acknowledged the presence of a muse--an ishta devata in Sanskrit--that is the external manifestation of a body of knowledge. The muse is an embodiment of the skill mastery we wish to cultivate, whispering in our ear when we are open to hearing. The muse may also express as a feeling in the stomach--a slight discomfort for a negative outcome, a sense of certainty or ease for a positive one.

Fixed, Mixed, and Take Your Pick

Finding the correct prediction also depends on karma. Everything that is born in space and time has a karmic signature, and in theory, that signature is open to being read using, among others, the techniques in this book. The easiest charts to read are those in which karma is relatively fixed. That means, despite the best efforts of players to the contrary, a certain result is indicated. This happens less often than you might think. Most charts, especially as you begin to study, will show good and bad for both sides. But the more practiced you become, the more you will discern where free will is at play and where games are relatively predestined. These are the games you count on as a sports investor.

In order to judge a natal chart properly, the rule of three is useful to remember:

1. If something happens once, it could be a coincidence

2. If something happens twice, it could be a pattern

3. If something happens three or more times, it is a pattern.

One swallow doth not a summer make. But when several indications point to an outcome, when a team is beleaguered on multiple sides--as indicated by the various techniques in this book--while the other team remains relatively affliction-free, you can venture to predict that game with better confidence.

In this book there are numerous charts that look eerily similar. In some of these the underdog wins, in others the favorite. I will show you how to spot the combinations accounting for subtle differences as well as how to transfer this to other areas of Vedic astrology, such as natal astrology.