EYE ON ASTROLOGY: SATURN AND VICTIMIZATION AND DEFEATISM
I find that people who are on a spiritual path are given new choices to make and are placed in Schools of Karma. Some karma can come back sometimes with a hard edge that seems beyond our control but if you are aware, you can see stuff coming and see how it is being set up to teach you new choices to make in your life. More often than not, the planets are creating an emotional and psychological fog that tug at us but do not manifest physically impact us unless we miss all the clues and make bad decisions and act wrongly. It all starts in our head. It is often like a huge fog or mist like our cover photo.
Clients come to me wanting to know when their suffering will end and when job openings will come or when relationship suffering will end. In some cases, there seem to be forces beyond our control that are like huge head winds that prevent us from moving forward. Usually, Saturn is somewhere at work there but Rahu and Ketu can be strongly behind those situations. We all encounter periods like this but if we do Vedic remedies, chant mantras, pray to the Divine and surrender, often we can get the clarity to move through the difficult situations. Sometimes it is very difficult and it takes a lot of will power and determination to move through the situations. I had one like that last summer with my car but I got through it but it too enormous energy. The key is to take steps and act and move forward to change your life and not wait for the tail winds to come. In some charts, they can be years so you have to choose earlier to make those difficult changes and decisions in your life.
Still, if we can get enough awareness from meditation, we can see that we do play some part in our suffering–sometimes with defeatism, a bad attitude, negative thinking, and victimization. If we can see our mind at work, we can rise up through it and catch the negative thought processes and dismiss them before they spout. If you catch your negative beliefs as they come and tell them to go because they are not useful then they do not have to spout. Usually, Saturn is hard at work here so you have to tell Saturn to go, that it is time to move forward. Invoking Hauman, listening to Hanuman Chaliesa on Tuesdays can aid in giving you the courage to move forward.
Sometimes there can even be luck behind our negative thinking as is the case with malefics that are functional benefics like Saturn for Taurus and Libra rising. I once had a client who entered a Saturn period connected to the 9th and 10th house and she was out of work and believed that it was hopeless and that no one would hire her and she was not worthy of a job and she sat at home depressed. But because of the 9th and 10th house connections for Taurus rising, someone knocked on her door and offered a great job and she started an exciting career with a great company. Sometimes we have to get out of our own way and not buy into defeatism, victimization and the poor me syndrome. When the headwinds are blowing, it takes more energy.
I find that certain periods and planets may continually give us false signs. Saturn and Rahu and Ketu are best at doing this but the Upagrahas like Gulika and Mandi can also create false paranoia about things that are not real. I had a client who had Saturn transiting over their natal Gulika and they encountered extreme paranoia, and they were sure they were going to get tossed out in the streets during a difficult time but it was just extreme fear. Eckhard Tolle in Power of Now reminds us that 99% of the fears that manifest in our mind are illusion sand never manifests. We need to have the awareness from spiritual practice to step back and witness then and say, there goes Saturn again creating useless fears.
I recently had a man that was so convinced that his wife was having an affair that he accused her and battered her and broke up his marriage but the reality was that it was all in his head. He had Ketu/Rahu in Aries on the 1/7 axis spinning tales. Ketu in the first can create altered psychological conditions which can trick the mind into believing things that are not real. Ketu afflicted Aries can create an ego investment in wanting to be right and hence no matter what the truth, there was an inability to let go of what he thought and he became even more invested in proving and obsessing that he was correct.
Jyotish means, “light” and the practice of Jyotish is shining a light on what is hidden. Revealing the puppeteer play of strings tugging at our emotions and psychology makes us realize that the planets are hard at work spinning their webs of illusion. In reality, there may not be anything there but a game of “smoke and mirrors.” When we recognize these “shadow” patterns, we have the opportunity to take responsibility and create positive shifts in our lives by taking directed action when we use this newfound awareness. We are placed in Schools of Karma to make new choices and we do have free will to not repeat the same mistakes again and suffer.
People think that mantras and Vedic ceremonies are magic bullets for solving our problems but that is not totally the case. Mantras and ceremonies are prescribed to loosen the grip of mind illusions so that we can then take new action without being manipulated, controlled or feeling victimized. Mantras and ceremonies should create good health, power of speech, and action to construct new directions in our life so that we are empowered. Sometimes clients would like a magic bullet to lift the problems and sometimes that can happen with grace if you have a Sat Guru and are blessed. More often than not, the client has to actively make major changes in their life to recreate their life.
This is no easy task and requires huge willpower, motivation, and a strong ability to change. The ascendant lord and its placement have to be strong and Mars has to be strong to have the willpower and awareness to make changes in our life. Without spiritual practice, service, the company of spiritual people, and support this can be difficult to accomplish. Ideally, we have to own the responsibility for our own suffering and do something to change it.
If you enjoy our writings and essays pick up our books. The full version of the Transit Guide is now available for PDF download. All 316 pages on major events for 2019-20 are now available including all new articles and essays not included in last year’s edition, a 2019 Vedic Holiday Guide, a complete guide to Rahu/Ketu Saturn connections by sign, and more.
FINDING YOUR BLIND SPOTS USING ASTROLOGY (2nd edition revised) by Barry Rosen
