What is the Horoscope and How do we Change Karma

Vedic Astrology Horoscopes look very different from the western natal chart.

The birth chart is a collection of your past habits, tendencies, actions, thoughts and momentum in a particular direction through life.  This can be called karmic, because habits, tendencies, thoughts and actions are what create a person’s karma.  Just like any habit, circumstances can be changed by thinking differently, acting differently, challenging and changing one’s belief’s systems, and putting energy and momentum in the direction you would prefer to go. This is sometimes easy, and sometimes hard.  It depends on how much time and attention you have already invested into the path which you are currently traveling.  It also depends on how attached you are to certain thoughts, beliefs, actions, etc.

This is one reason why regular meditation and prayer can be so helpful, as it directs your attention to a consciousness beyond the small confined human circumstances and gives space and openness to be receptive to unplanned good fortune and to other ways of seeing the world. Vedic astrology has a number of remedial measures that help to assist this process, such as gemstones, mantra, service, behavioral changes, etc, but truly, an effective expansive regular meditation practice is invaluable while transcending the indications of the chart.

Your Habits are your Planets

The Vedic Astrological Horoscope Reveals Your Habitual States of Consciosunes - This is why everyone's experiences are so varied and diverse.

We are creatures of habit. Our choices are habitual.  Our thoughts arise and fall by habit. The people we choose to socialize with is based on habit. The foods we eat, the moods we feel, the health we have, is all, 97% of the time, based on habit.  These can all be attributed to a planetary influence within our horoscope. As long as we are habitually identified with the patterns in our horoscope, we will experience the results of that horoscope.

All of these habits, create our life experience, and they reveal the expansiveness (or smallness) of our conscious awareness.  How is that so? Well, our consciousness awareness is either free to make choices based on the reality of the moment, or it is confined to repeat conditioned behaviors, we have either been taught, or we allowed to persist by not exploring other options.  All of these choices, and thoughts are past on from life to life. If you were to die now, you would bring every habit you currently have with you, wherever you go next.  Your next birth chart would reflect the current state of your consciousness.

The more freedom you have in the moment, the larger your conscious awareness, and the better you understand and work with your planetary energies.  The less freedom you have, to choose something other than a habitual reaction, the smaller your conscious awareness, and the more you are ruled by the fated promise of the planets in your horoscope.

Often times, what we expect from other people or situations, does not arise from anything more than our habitual thoughts about those people and situations.  (All based on what our chart says about those areas of our life.)

I’m sure most of you have heard this idea before, and have tried to change your life experience by changing your thoughts about your self, others and situations, and have been frustrated to find that it didn’t work very well.  Then you lost sight of the truth, that your experience is a clear reflection of how identified you are with a particular way of being, and you fell back into your habitual consciousness, and experienced the same things again.

The problem was not the application of the principle, that your expectations color your experiences, it was that you didn’t understand how much

Vedic Astrology Recommended Reading

Vedic Astrology, (aka Jyotish), is learned through guidance from a competent astrologer, self study, practice, and the reading of books. Books are usually the first step most people take on the path to understanding this Science of Light. There are a number of good books available on the subject. I’d like to recommend one that got me started on this path, and that I still refer to frequently after 8 years of study and practice.

#1) Beneath A Vedic Sky, is my most utilized reference book. It holds a wealth of basic information, and also clearly outlines what planets mean when they are in conjunction, in specific houses, and specific signs. It’s description of astrological combinations are very useful.  If you had a copy of your Jyotish horoscope, you could understand what the chart means for you.

There are a number of more advanced, traditional works, that I refer to now, but Beneath a Vedic Sky was the book that laid the ground work for me to understand and utilized the works of the ancient astrological sages from India.

Vedic Astrology Transits

The following excerpt on Transits is from the upcoming book by Richard Fish and Ryan Kurczak, soon to be published by CSA Press.

“A transit refers to the passage of a planet through the zodiac at a particular point
in time. The constantly changing planetary positions (transits) are used in
reference to the birth chart or horoscope, which depicts a diagram of planetary
positions frozen in time and space. A transit chart can be created with reference
to the birth chart in order to observe the relationship between the two charts. The
transit chart will indicate those planets and areas of the birth chart which are
being activated by the transit chart.

When using transits it usually the current positions of planets that are being used
in order to understand the influences affecting ones life. In order to do this you
will need an Ephemeris (a publication giving the daily position of the planets). It is
not usually necessary to draw a separate transit chart. The transits of the
relevant planets can simply be noted or recorded in pencil around the outside of
the birth chart.

As an example let us suppose that the current position of Jupiter is found to
coincide with the rising degree of your Ascendant. The likelihood is that you will
be feeling more optimistic than usual. Agreeable circumstances are more likely to
be encountered and so on. Throughout the 12 month period that Jupiter takes to
transit your Ascendant sign you will tend to experience the influence of the planet
on your general outlook on life. Matters associated with the house position of
Jupiter and the houses that it rules in your birth chart will make some sort of
impact on your life.

Of course, we should consider the positions of all the planetary transits – not just
one in isolation. Perhaps at the same time that Jupiter is in your 1st house
transiting Saturn is passing through your 10th house, indicating that this is also a
time when you find yourself having to pay greater attention to your career –
perhaps there are added responsibilities in the work-place. In this way we can
build up a picture of your current situation and circumstances.

Transits, just like dashas, will never contradict the basic indications of the birth
chart. They only serve to help us understand when the potentials indicated in the
natal chart are likely to manifest. Dashas and transits are tools for determine the
correct timing of horoscopic factors.”

Copyright Richard Fish and Ryan Kurczak 2011