Summary
Prasannan explains Jyotish as a sidereal science that reads the relationship between celestial patterns and human life. The discussion explores birth charts, the first breath, karma, reincarnation, planetary cycles, eclipses, and the spiritual meaning of astrological influences.
Questions This Interview Explores
- What is Jyotish, and how does it differ from Western astrology?
- How does a birth chart reflect a person's life and spiritual path?
- Why is the first breath considered the moment of birth in astrology?
- Do we choose our parents and life circumstances before birth?
- How can planetary positions and eclipses influence human experience?
Key takeaways
- Jyotish reads celestial patterns as reflections of life rather than causes of events.
- It uses the sidereal zodiac and 27 nakshatras to connect astrology with the actual stars.
- The first independent breath marks the beginning of an individual's birth chart.
- Past actions shape the conditions into which a soul is born.
- Suffering and loss can sometimes become catalysts for spiritual awakening.
- Planetary cycles and transits reveal changing phases of life.
- Eclipse energy can become either constructive or destructive depending on how it is directed.
Transcript
Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people and discussions about spiritual topics. I’ve been doing this for—this will be the 10th anniversary in the fall—and there are nearly 500 of these. If this is new to you and you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com and look under the Past Interviews menu, where you’ll see all the previous ones categorized and organized in various ways.
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My guest today is an old friend of Irene’s and mine named Prasannan. We first met Prasannan about 20 years ago at an Amma event in Chicago, I believe, and have seen him many times over the years since then. We’ve stayed in touch with him even in between those events all this time, for reasons that we’re about to explain in this interview, which will be about the Vedic science or discipline of Jyotish, which is the Sanskrit word for astrology.
Prasannan had a fascination with astronomy from an early age. In fact, there’s a picture of him when he was in his bedroom, with all these astronomy posters on the wall. He built his own telescope and spent his teenage years studying the stars and planets. He was the president of the astronomy and photography clubs in high school. He always understood that what we see is only a tiny portion of the totality, and obviously that has meaning in various other realms besides astronomy.
In 1987, he attended a retreat that resulted in a spiritual awakening, leading him to conclude that he had always been on a spiritual path. As a result, he adopted a celibate brahmacharya lifestyle. Can you say a word or two about that spiritual awakening before we move on?
Prasannan: Yes, it was an intensive retreat for four days. Basically, it was a silent retreat with controlled communication, with some back-and-forth communication. The purpose was really to get out of the mind.
It worked. The person who designed the technique wasn’t around, but it was being offered.
Rick: So you got out of the mind. What did you actually experience?
Prasannan: Absolute unity with everything. I’m looking around and seeing only myself, and the universe is smiling at me from all directions.
Absolute unity with everything. I’m looking around and seeing only myself, and the universe is smiling at me from all directions.
Rick: Nice. Sounds good. Okay, so that caused you to shift gears a bit in your life.
Prasannan: Yes, definitely. A big change.
Rick: All right, so then you went on to study the teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Ramana Maharshi, and Swami Sivananda. Then you heard about Mata Amritanandamayi, and you met her during her 1990 North American tour.
Prasannan: She came to Vancouver that year.
Rick: Yeah, that was pretty early in the game. She had only been touring for about three years at that point.
Prasannan: Right.
Rick: Yeah, okay. At that time, you held a senior management position in corporate finance. Sounds exciting.
Prasannan: I don’t know about that.
Rick: Okay, I’m reading from your bio, obviously, but I’m changing the pronouns a little bit as we go. You had a natural motivation toward engaging in selfless service, seva—and that’s what the word seva means: helping others out of compassion, without a conscious thought of receiving personal benefit.
You moved to Amma’s ashram, Amritapuri, in India in 1992. On arriving, you were placed in charge of the computer room, developed a new accounting system, and trained the brahmacharis, the monks, in its use.
At the same time, a Jyotish software program was acquired, which you became responsible for. At Amma’s direction, you began the practice of Jyotish, which continues to this day. It’s basically your full-time profession, isn’t it?
Prasannan: Yes, that’s what I do.
Rick: Good. You traveled around the world with Amma, which is where we first met you, providing Jyotish interpretations during her programs. At other times, you conducted sessions in India, raising funds for Amma’s charities.
After 19 years in India, you returned to Canada, established your independent Jyotish practice, and, after more than two decades of brahmacharya, you married Maya, the love of your life. I’ve met Maya; she’s a lovely person.
You have consulted with more people than you can count, answering questions about all areas of life—material, familial, health and well-being, as well as spiritual. Maharishi used to talk about the development of something called Jyotish Mati Pragya, which you would get after doing enough Jyotish readings. Can you define what that means, and have you developed any of that?
Prasannan: Yes. Jyotir Vidya is, you could say, the deity of Jyotish, or the deity of light. Jyotish means light, and Jyotish is not just astrology; it’s also astronomy, meteorology, numerology—anything that we use to apprehend the nature of the universe.
Jyotir Vidya is, you could say, a subtle being that apparently whispers in your ear and tells you things when you’re tuned in. I know this works because there have been times when someone has come back to me years later and said, “You told me this and this and this would happen exactly like that, and it did exactly happen like that.” I’m thinking, “I don’t remember saying that, so who said that?”
There are definitely times—I mean, for the most part, it’s very much looking at, delineating, and reading what’s there, in a sense, picking out what is relevant. But sometimes, yes, there’s this other element that supersedes.
Jyotish and the language of the stars
Rick: Okay, good. So we’ve given people an indication that Jyotish is Eastern or Vedic astrology. Everybody has heard the word astrology; maybe not everyone listening has heard the idea of Eastern astrology or Jyotish. What’s the difference between Jyotish and Western astrology?
Prasannan: Actually, Western astrology originally comes from the East. It all starts in the East. There is no separate Western astrology that you can date back far enough. If you go back far enough in Western astrology, it merges with Eastern astrology.
There was a point, about 1,500 years ago, when they diverged from the view of the cosmos as being centered around the stars. If you think about it, astrology should have something to do with the stars, but actually the astrology practiced in the West really has more to do with the seasons than with the stars.
In other words, Aries in Western astrology is referred to as the beginning of spring. Western Aries starts on March 21, but the actual stars—the constellations that astronomers are keeping track of—are slowly moving over time. So the Sun doesn’t even reach Aries these days until around April 14.
The Sidereal Zodiac Behind Jyotish Sun Signs
As a result, 80 percent of the population has a different Sun sign in their Jyotish chart than in their Western chart, because we’re looking at the actual stars, the sidereal zodiac.
That’s one big difference: it’s based on the actual stars. It also has many other differences. In other words, there’s a division of the sky not just into the 12 signs of the zodiac, which Western astrology borrowed from Hindu astrology, but also into the 27 nakshatras. Nakshatra means star, and everyone is born under a certain star. Basically, you’re born under the star where the Moon was at the time you were born. So there are finer divisions in this system that make it quite different.
Rick: To my mind, all of this begs the question. We need to get into the mechanics a little bit, because many people will feel, “So what? Where the stars are, where the planets are—how could any of that possibly influence an individual’s life? What sort of influence is that? How is it propagated? And is there any proof for it in terms of anything that’s measurable?”
Prasannan: Well, actually, we don’t think of the planets as causing or directing anything. It’s not as if Jupiter is literally making something happen. But everything is interconnected because the whole universe is like a hologram. When you look at one part of the system, it reflects another part, so there is reflection everywhere.
At the moment of birth, there is a reflection of what the incoming soul is bringing in. It’s reflected in the position of the planets and stars according to their positions at the time of birth. So there’s this idea of synchronicity—as without, so within. It’s not that one is causing the other; they’re just reflecting each other.
It’s sort of like a template or a configuration that’s going to have significance. If you can read that configuration, you know, in a way, how an individual’s life is going to go. But it’s not as if that configuration is causing it.
Rick: It’s sort of like a template or a configuration that’s going to have significance. If you can read that configuration, you know, in a way, how an individual’s life is going to go. But it’s not as if that configuration is causing it.
Prasannan: Right. It’s a bit like a roadmap.
Rick: Yeah, okay. Incidentally, I should add here that I don’t have a real good—well, to put it mildly, I don’t have a good mind for astrology or Jyotish. It never sticks when I hear something about it. But Irene is actually very good at it, and she has been largely responsible for developing most of the questions that I’ll be asking today. She’s sitting right here and might add a few more questions as we go along.
Here’s one she wrote out: The birth chart is significant in Jyotish, as I understand it, and consists of the positions of the planets on the date, time, and location when a person is born. Explain how the birth chart forms the basis for everything that gets interpreted for each person throughout their lives. Also, what defines the moment of birth—the first breath? I was born by Caesarean section, and I don’t know if that has any significance, but it was when I first breathed. Why is the moment of birth so important?
Prasannan: At the moment of birth, there is a configuration of the stars, the planets, and the heavens, along with the angle at which the horizon intersects all of that. So there’s a pattern. It’s basically an astronomical pattern that can be calculated. It’s a totally scientific thing.
As far as the moment of birth, it’s always been considered to be the first breath. Sometimes, in hospitals, they write down something different. They might write down the cutting of the cord, or when the head first emerges, but it’s the first breath that counts, because breath is associated with life.
Before birth, the child is breathing through its mother, through the umbilical cord. Then there’s that expression, “He breathed his last.” If the end of life is the last breath, that means the beginning of life must be the first breath. It’s simply about breath—independent breath. There’s a physical vehicle, and the breath is in when it’s alive and the breath is out when it’s not. That’s why the breath is so important.
It’s simply about breath—independent breath.
Rick: Sometimes when you’re doing somebody’s chart and it doesn’t seem to make sense, like you’re seeing one thing in the chart but another thing in a person’s life, do you expect that the birth time might have been recorded improperly and then you have to somehow figure out what the actual birth time probably was?
Prasannan: Even if a person’s birth time is recorded accurately, I normally check to see if it’s correct. So I’ll ask them a few things, like, “Did your father’s father die before you were born?” That would perhaps be the case if your time is what you say it is, but if it’s two minutes earlier, it could be something different.
So we can pretty quickly find out what is going on by checking a few events. When people don’t know their time of birth, we can calculate it. They can make an exhaustive list of life events, and we can use that to find the starting point. So when the time of birth is correct, everything does fit in life.
Rick: Okay, good. So on your website you say, “We are born at a particular space-time in the universe. When the soul takes birth, it descends through the heavens and the atmosphere before reaching the Earth.” When I read that, it kind of made it sound like souls are going around satellites or something and they come in through the atmosphere. So what are you actually saying there about the soul’s location before birth?
Prasannan: Okay, well, forgive me if that’s perhaps a bit of poetic license. Actually, what it is is that souls exist in the astral plane. The astral plane is another plane. There’s the physical plane, there’s the astral plane, which is also superimposed on the physical plane, and there’s also the causal plane, which is beyond that.
They exist in the astral plane, which means they exist right where we are, except they’re out of phase with physical reality, so they’re not visible to our senses. Actually, they don’t really descend from anywhere. It’s poetic.
Rick: Okay, good.
Prasannan: They’re really around, just floating around. But now, you see, when a soul is kind of coming in, this is very important, because actually we say we don’t have any control over when we’re born. It’s true from the point of view of the incoming soul; that is true. But then there’s also this notion of conscious conception, right?
In India, you find that people will visit temples and pray and do all their rituals and pious actions in order to bring in a spiritual soul. It’s said that in that instance, the soul that’s destined to be born may be hanging around the parents even long before conception because they’ve already identified, “Oh, this is where I’m going to go,” right?
So there’s this notion that souls do have a choice. A higher soul is always looking for a higher birth, right? If you want to have a good birth, you’re going to come into the body of a yogini—someone who’s spiritually alive. Whereas souls that are brought in through ordinary terms, just through normal human interaction, aren’t going to have as much freedom, you see.
So sometimes the soul may be picked out well before even the conception, and sometimes it’s just a last-minute sort of luck of the draw.
Rick: My sister and her husband, in particular, had vivid experiences of when both of their children kind of came in, as it were. It was a really clear experience. So the understanding here, just to reiterate, is that, well, for one thing, in some cases at least, we choose our parents—which many people say, “Well, you have no choice over your parents,” but actually perhaps you do.
Prasannan: By your actions in the previous life, you set up a vibration which draws you into the conditions that are suitable.
Rick: Yeah, and I’ve talked to some people on this show who say that sometimes we intentionally choose very difficult circumstances because they’re going to teach us certain karmic lessons. We might be born to an alcoholic parent or in poverty, or some such thing, because those hard knocks are actually going to work off some karma for us. Do you concur with that?
Prasannan: Yeah, I agree with that. I think that old expression, “Sorrow brings you closer to God,” is absolutely true. In fact, we find that even when people have an awakening experience, it’s often through some tragedy or loss that those are triggered.
Rick: Just to get back into the mechanics a little bit, does Jyotish jibe with the modern understanding of the solar system, or is it based on a more archaic, Ptolemaic view? Go ahead and answer that bit.
Prasannan: Well, actually, I think Jyotish is based on an exact understanding of the solar system, so it’s completely scientific and has been since day one.
Some people argue that Jyotish is incomplete because it doesn’t include the outer planets—Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. The reason the Rishis didn’t mention them is because they weren’t visible to the naked eye. People couldn’t see them without a telescope, and there were no telescopes in those days, so they weren’t mentioned.
But it does say in the scriptures that new planets will be discovered in the future and that they should be studied and incorporated. So it’s not as if Jyotish is incomplete. It is actually completely complete, and in fact I would say it’s always an evolving science.
Rick: That’s good to know. Yeah, that’s a good attitude—that it’s evolving, that it doesn’t consider itself fixed in stone.
Prasannan: Well, some people consider it fixed in stone, but I certainly don’t.
Rick: Do you take the outer planets into consideration in your work?
Prasannan: When we talked about the mechanics, one thing that Jyotish has, which Western astrology doesn’t have, is the understanding that there are cycles in life—when each planet is active, when you come under the influence of a certain planet. These are long cycles, and the total of the entire 120-year cycle means that all nine planets take part as we go through this cycle.
Now, of course, the outer planets—Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto—don’t have a cycle, so we don’t have somebody who might be in their Saturn period or their Mercury period, but they’re not going to be in their Pluto period.
At the same time, the other way that their impact happens is through transits. There’s the cycles, and there’s a transit. Transit just means, “Where are the planets currently?”
I’m quite sure that the impact of the transits of the outer planets is significant. I can speak from my own personal experience. When Pluto transited exactly—exactly square to my Moon, to the degree—that’s when my mother passed. Of course, the Moon represents the mother, and Pluto is in the fourth house from the mother. My mother passed at that time.
Neptune was transiting my ascendant exactly, to the degree, the first time I met Amma, and Neptune is about spirituality. So, yes, the transits of the outer planets are worth looking at.
Rick: We know now that there are probably trillions of potentially inhabitable planets in the universe. Do you think that Jyotish, whatever it might be called in these other places, is a universal science, and that each solar system, if there are intelligent beings there, would have its own Jyotish that was modified according to the planetary arrangement in that solar system?
Prasannan: Of course. Their Rishis would have investigated, probed, and discovered what those vibrations are and given the science of how that could be delineated.
Even here, what happens if we go to Mars? They’re talking about going to Mars. What if they go to Mars and colonize it, and then a child is born on Mars? The astrology would be different, right? Because you wouldn’t have Mars in the chart; you’d have Earth in the chart, right?
Rick: That’s interesting.
Prasannan: Think about that. We would wonder where on Mars exactly its ascendant was and all that.
Rick: Whenever there’s an eclipse in the world, particularly in the U.S.—I guess it was last summer or the summer before—there was a total solar eclipse and it was a big excitement. Everybody migrated to the place and stayed out in campers so they could watch it.
In Jyotish, as I understand it, the Vedic system, eclipses are considered to be kind of inauspicious, and you don’t want to go out and watch one. What would be the impact of actually being born during one, solar or lunar?
Prasannan: Well, basically, you must understand that eclipses are times when there’s a lot of energy, a lot of power, a lot of Shakti.
Rick: Why?
Prasannan: Because it’s an alignment, right? Rahu and Ketu, the eclipsing bodies, are lined up with the Sun and the Moon. Whenever planets line up, they become powerful by being joined. So this is a union. It’s like a yoga, a union of energies, so they’re magnified. It’s like magnified energy.
Rick: That’s even true gravitationally. We can have higher tides when things are lined up.
Prasannan: Of course. The Asian tsunami that affected the ashram in December 2004 occurred on the full Moon at sunrise. I mean, the earthquake that caused it occurred at the full Moon at sunrise, where the Sun and the Moon were basically pulling like a tug-of-war across the plates of the Earth. That plate in Sumatra collapsed and caused the tsunami, which killed thousands of people.
So it’s even geologically sound, that reasoning. There’s this power. The question is how it is directed.
If someone’s born in an eclipse of the Sun, there’s this tremendous power. If they adopt a spiritual life, they can be a real light to the world. They would be shining; they would be an example to society.
On the other hand, if they’re not focused on spiritual life, especially as they’re growing up, they can become very destructive. In other words, that power can go either way, positive or negative. So they either become a beacon of light to the world, or they become like a darkness. They can go either way.
In an eclipse of the Moon, if someone is spiritually bent, then people born in a lunar eclipse would be sweet and pious and a blessing to the world. Their love for divinity would make them great bhaktis, because there’s this power there, this magnified power of the eclipse.
If they’re not on a spiritual path, then they become aloof, withdrawn, kind of lazy and drowsy, so they’re a little out of touch with reality. In fact, the current president was born during a lunar eclipse.
Rick: Can you think of any other famous examples of people who were born during eclipses?
Prasannan: Well, the Prophet Muhammad is said to have been born during a solar eclipse, and whatever one might think, he’s definitely a powerful person. He influenced millions of people and still does.
Planetary deities and the intelligence of creation
Rick: So we touched a little bit on the fact that the planets don’t deliver karma to us; they’re more like a reflection or a pattern of things. You do mention that each planet has a deity. Let’s define what a deity is and who or what these deities associated with the planets are. Just to throw in a few more questions, are they embodied in the planets as our souls are in our bodies? Go ahead with that.
Prasannan: Okay, so the planetary deities—the deities associated with each planet—are celestial beings, in a sense, in terms of their impact in the cosmos. More close to home, you could call them powerful psychic forces that represent different elements of the different devas.
There’s a deity for compassion, a deity for different things, a deity for strength, for courage. There are all these different forms, just aspects of divinity, right? Like the Hindu pantheon, right?
Some of them are associated particularly with a planet. Mars is associated with Lord Subramanya. He’s like the god of—you know, like an Arjuna kind of figure, right? The warrior, right? The Sun is Shiva.
Rick: Shiva or Surya?
Prasannan: Well, Shiva ultimately. Surya is an aspect of Shiva. Surya is the Sanskrit word for the sun.
Rick: Right, all right. Let’s probe into that a little bit more. So we see all these pictures of Subramanyam, Shiva, and all the Vedic deities, and you’re implying here, obviously, that they have some reality. They’re not just fictional characters or folklore kind of things. They represent some deep principle, as it were, or impulse of intelligence.
Prasannan: Yeah, impulses.
Rick: Yeah, that have some kind of a function, a governing function of some sort in creation. Is that fair to say?
Prasannan: Yeah, right.
Rick: Would that function be universal, or just exclusive to our solar system, or what?
Prasannan: I think the qualities are universal, but how they’re embodied would be unique to our solar system. In other words, the moon embodies certain qualities, some compassion and empathy. Mars embodies certain qualities. Mercury is for communication, so it embodies certain qualities of mental agility and facility.
So when we see those planets in the chart, we’re looking to see in what state they are. If a person has a well-placed moon, they’re going to have a calm disposition, be relaxed, compassionate, content, and self-content. If the moon is under negative influences in the chart, the person will be more restless, agitated, et cetera.
So it’s by the position of the planets—whether they’re well-placed, well-aspected, in good houses, et cetera—that shows how those energies also play out in the person. Now, nothing should be seen as cast in cement. Everyone can, through their own effort and through their own spiritual practice, go beyond whatever is shown in the horoscope. We shouldn’t think that we’re just tied to, “That’s it, buddy.”
Like when you’re playing poker, you’re dealt a hand. You don’t have any control over the hand you’re dealt, but how skillfully do you play that card? That’s also how skillfully you use what you do have. That’s a big part of this.
Everyone can, through their own effort and through their own spiritual practice, go beyond whatever is shown in the horoscope.
Rick: Yeah, the guy that John Hinckley shot when he was trying to shoot President Reagan used that very metaphor about the hand he’d been dealt, and he was doing his best to deal with it. In fact, people often use that metaphor.
So as we talk along here, try to keep in mind people who might have a hard time accepting, believing, or understanding this. Let’s kind of flesh it out for them as we go along. I mean, there may be many people listening who are very spiritual people, meditating or whatever they do, who might still think, “Well, these planets are just hunks of rock circling around the sun, and we’re anthropomorphizing them by attributing all these personal qualities and influences to them.” What more can you say to help clarify that for people who might be thinking along those lines?
Planets as Reflections of Past-Life Tendencies
Prasannan: Again, just to reiterate, the planets aren’t actually doing anything. They are just a reflection of what’s in us. So we have these patterns in us because of our background, because of our previous-life tendencies, our vasanas. The conditions that we created in a previous life are reflected in our current life, and so the planets also reflect something about that.
It’s a reflection; it’s not cause and effect. It’s synchronicity. It’s like a synchronicity, a holographic universe, where one part reflects the other. When you look at one part, you see the other part. So it’s not like Mars is doing anything.
On the other hand, there’s a very—there’s a giant clockwork in the universe, which is like these energies have their time when they come to the surface, and then they act and compel people to act in a certain way or a certain direction. If you understand what that energy is, then you can channel it in a very productive way.
Rick: One thing that helps me understand this, and perhaps will help others too, is just that the universe is not random or accidental, or really even inert. The whole thing is just sort of a play of intelligence, and if we look closely at anything, we can see that intelligence at play. It’s all-pervading and just orchestrating everything.
So things are not capricious, random, or accidental. What you’re saying is that this orderliness or intelligence has actually taken a form that we can observe and understand in the arrangement of the planets, just as it has in many other things—the functioning of an atom or of a cell or of anything. We can see that intelligence. This is just one more way of seeing its handiwork.
Prasannan: It’s said that the Creator leaves secrets to the creation all over the place. It’s up to us to discover them. They’re also in the palm of the hand. A good palmist can just look at the palm and see what’s going on for the person, and even the thumb itself can be enough.
Numerology plays a role there too, as does omenology. In India, there are a lot of astrologers who will do a reading based simply on watching what’s going on around them as they talk to the person. If a crow comes from the southwest corner, that will mean something, or if a gecko chirps in the northeast corner, it means something else.
Nature is always speaking. It’s just a question of whether we have the ears to hear it.
Nature is always speaking. It’s just a question of whether we have the ears to hear it.
Rick: Yeah, I remember one of the Carlos Castaneda books. Carlos and Don Juan were talking, and the coffee pot started to whistle. Don Juan said, “Oh, the coffee pot agrees.” He saw that it was significant that it started whistling at that moment.
All right, let’s talk about karma for a while. You talk a lot on your website about karma, and obviously the topic of karma is very germane to this whole discussion. So let’s define what karma is first, and then we’ll unpack it from there.
Prasannan: Karma is basically, in a broad sense, action. It’s often translated as action. So when people hear the word karma, they think, “Oh, something bad.” Actually, it simply means action. It could be good action; it could be bad action.
It’s also, by extension, the fruit of action. As the Bible says, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” So if you perform sweet, loving, kind actions—acts of kindness—then you get good karma. You get what’s called punya, which is meritorious karma. If you do unkind actions, then you get what’s called papa. Papa means negative karma. Papam, it’s actually called.
It’s also, by extension, the fruit of action. As the Bible says, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” So if you perform sweet, loving, kind actions—acts of kindness—then you get good karma. You get what’s called punya, which is meritorious karma. If you do unkind actions, then you get what’s called papa. Papa means negative karma. Papam, it’s actually called.
So karma means action and also the fruit of the action at the same time. We’ve done many actions, some of them good and some of them not so good, and then by the balance we see where we’re going.
Rick: That again gets us back to the whole intelligence of the universe thing, because it couldn’t just be like billiard balls. You roll a billiard ball, it hits the other billiard balls, and the influence of that doesn’t necessarily come back to your hand or something.
Prasannan: Not always immediately.
Rick: Yeah, but with karma we’re talking about things we might have done ten lifetimes ago that could still come back to us or whatever.
Prasannan: Sure. In fact, it’s not just what we’ve done, because there’s personal karma for sure, but there’s also familial karma, right? Even the Bible says the sins of the father go to the next seven generations.
Rick: Yeah, I think the Native Americans said that too.
Prasannan: So this is the idea that if your ancestors have done something unkind, that karma is also being carried by the souls that are in that line, and they also have to work it out.
So you’re not working out just personal karma. If someone is suffering, they shouldn’t think, “Oh my God, I must have been a really horrible person in my last life, so why would I be suffering?” Well, it could be working out some family karma.
Just understand that you’re working out what you’ve been given to work out because you’re able to work it out.
Rick: In a way that doesn’t seem fair. Why should I work out my Uncle George’s thing? But on the other hand, it does seem fair because it’s like we’re all kind of climbing the mountain together, and we’re all roped together. We’re helping each other. If one person is struggling a bit, the others help them along.
Prasannan: All rise or all fall together, you know, in the end, in some respect.
Rick: But again, to my mind, when we talk about karma, it brings back to my awareness the notion that it’s an intelligent universe, an all-pervading intelligence. Because otherwise, how could it possibly be calculated? It’s beyond human intellect, certainly, to calculate all the ramifications of every little action and have them all come back properly.
Prasannan: It’s an incredibly complex and deep thing. People say that astrology isn’t 100 percent accurate. I would say astrology is 100 percent accurate, but the human mind can only contain so much.
So astrologers are not going to see 100 percent accuracy because they’re simply not able to access the majority of it. But in the end, only the Creator will actually know what’s going on, right? In the end.
Rick: Do you think there are Lords of Karma, or, since we talked about deities earlier, are there subtle beings whose job it is to administer karma? Or is it more something that’s intrinsically built into the mechanics of creation, so that everything is calculated and comes back to what it’s meant to?
Prasannan: Everything gets balanced by the laws of nature, essentially. So, yeah, we think of it like cause and effect, but really, again, it’s just a synchronicity. Everything is synchronized.
So the deities are there. Anybody can access any of the deities. Amma says that too, right? All the deities are within us.
Rick: Right, they’re not just off on some planet or something.
Prasannan: Yeah, they’re actually in their principles, their laws of nature. We can invoke them, we can use them, and we can be conscious of them.
So the whole point of astrology, I think, is not to see—because it’s not really—I would say astrology is not so much understanding who you are, because actually who you are is the divine, blissful Self, beyond all of these things.
So astrology is actually defining something about who you think you are—the version of illusion that we are living under, right—and getting us out of that trap, basically, getting us out of that illusion.
It’s a vehicle for getting out, like a road map. If you get your road map out and use that road map to drive, say, to Boston, then you’ll get there pretty quickly because you’ve got a clear path, right? Once you get to Boston, you throw away the map; you don’t need it.
So Jyotish is also a map, but it’s not the ultimate, because the ultimate is to go beyond. Once you’ve reached the destination, the ultimate destination, there’s no need for it.
So Jyotish is also a map, but it’s not the ultimate, because the ultimate is to go beyond. Once you’ve reached the destination, the ultimate destination, there’s no need for it.
Rick: Yeah, and yet even people like Amma consult Jyotishis sometimes for different things. Why would she if there’s no need for a Jivanmukti?
Prasannan: Well, she consults them because she’s asking about her children who aren’t at the ultimate. She’s asking about one of her followers.
Rick: So Jyotishis would have no usefulness for a liberated being? It would just be for their…
Prasannan: I mean, the karma still acts. Amma still has a physical body; it goes through physical things. Even in her chart, when certain cycles come on, there was that one year when she was wearing the neck brace the whole year. That was clearly 1999, I think it was. There was something in her chart that indicated, “Yeah, that would be the time. That would be more challenging.”
So even the physical—anybody—there’s still the physical karma that applies to the physical body. She may be completely unaffected by it, beyond it, but still the physical body has to experience the karma of the physical world.
Rick: And so an awakened being might also find it useful, for instance, for Jyotish to say, “Well, this would be a good day to leave for a journey,” or that kind of thing, maybe.
Prasannan: Well, exactly. In fact, Amma often would say, “No, we can’t leave now. It’s not the right time,” if she was going on a tour. Then she’d say, “Okay, now we can go,” a couple of hours later. It was very specific.
If you’re tuned in, then you would naturally and spontaneously act in accordance with harmony—the harmony of nature.
Rick: So would she say those things because some Jyotish told her so, or just because her intuition knew it?
Prasannan: She would say those things because of her own intuition telling her. Later on, I checked the chart and thought, “Yeah, that would make sense.”
Rick: It seems to me that some karma is heavy-duty, very compelling. It’s coming at you like a Mack truck, while other karma is looser and lighter. Would you concur with that?
Prasannan: Yeah. Karma has, I would say, degrees. It comes down to the fact that when we look at the chart, we’re looking to see certain indications and certain factors. Any particular condition may be seen through a variety of different factors, right?
For example, if all the factors for a particular condition are simultaneously negative, then we’d say that’s pretty heavy karma. Let’s say there’s a case of someone who couldn’t have children for whatever reason. The fifth house is the house of children, so we might find that the fifth house has malefic planets in it. We might also find that the fifth ruler is under malefic influence. Then we might find that Jupiter, the general indicator of children, is also under malefic influence.
If all the factors are negative, you would call that a confluence of influences, right? It still might not be impossible to have children, but it would be extremely difficult, and it might only happen through some kind of miracle.
On the other hand, most people don’t have that kind of severity, right? There’s usually a mix of positive and negative influences. Then it becomes a matter of understanding when the best time is. There are still going to be opportunities, right? A lot of it has to do with understanding when the right time is to do something for the best result.
Rick: Can there be things like this: Let’s say you had some karma coming that was going to cause you to have a serious car accident and get injured, but then you engage in spiritual practice or do other things that diminish the momentum of the karma, and instead you stub your toe—
Prasannan: Or you have a fender bender.
Rick: Instead of a total fender bender or something small.
Prasannan: That’s true, that’s true. When you do positive actions, acts of kindness, and build up karmic merit, that acts as a sort of larger protective shield around the person, right? The karma and the intensity of the karma may still result in an accident, but it won’t be as severe.
Rick: Still, I suppose there are some types of karma that are just inevitable. Christ was crucified, Ramana Maharshi got cancer, things like that.
Prasannan: Right. Somehow, the weight of the karma may be more than human effort can lift, or it could just be part of the divine plan. It could be necessary for the divine plan, for the, as they say, greater good.
Irene: And also, that buildup of positive karma could be from a past life.
Rick: She’s saying the buildup of positive karma could be from a past life.
Prasannan: It’s shown on the chart as purva punya.
Rick: As a matter of fact, in terms of past lives, some people are born in very auspicious circumstances, with comfortable homes, great educational opportunities, good health, and all the rest. Other people are born with serious health problems and poverty. Yada yada—we all know the story. So I guess we would attribute all that to karma.
Prasannan: Well, if you didn’t believe in reincarnation, you’d have to think the universe is a pretty cruel place, because how would that be fair? But if you understand the law of cause and effect, then you understand that the souls are working out karma. They’re working out the actions of their ancestors and their own actions in the past.
Rick: It’s interesting how things are kind of lined up in a chain. If you don’t believe in reincarnation, then all kinds of conclusions come out of that.
Prasannan: It becomes impossible.
Rick: It might even be hard to believe that there is any sort of God, however you define it. Of course, there are a lot of Christians who believe in God but don’t believe in reincarnation. Somehow, they work that out.
Prasannan: Well, the Bible used to have all kinds of references to reincarnation, but the early Church removed them.
Rick: The Council of Nicaea and all that. Okay, before we move on from this aspect of it—we can keep going, and you’ll bring more things in—on your website, you talk about how karma includes acts of commission and omission. In other words, things we could have done but didn’t do.
Prasannan: Most people understand that if they do something—let’s say they do something bad—they would understand that there’s a karmic consequence to that. Or if they do something good, there’s karmic goodness that comes out of that.
But there are also times when there’s something we could do but don’t do. In other words, let’s say we know something but don’t act on it. We know something should be done but don’t act on it. By not acting, we could also be incurring karma.
Rick: Like if we have an opportunity to save somebody from drowning or from injury, or something like that, and we choose not to.
Prasannan: Right. If someone’s an able-bodied swimmer—not someone who is also going to drown—it doesn’t make a lot of sense to jump in. If someone’s drowning in the pool, you throw them a life ring and pull them to the side, right? If you jump in, they could take you down too.
You also want to be anchored. To help someone, you have to be anchored on the shore yourself somehow.
Rick: Yeah, that’s a good metaphor for being anchored in the Self, or in pure awareness, in order to really be of the greatest help to others.
So how do we balance acceptance with initiative? You say that if external events in our lives are ruled by past karma, this requires an attitude of acceptance. But then we don’t want to be fatalistic or passive or something. There’s that whole Shakespeare thing:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.
How do we balance that?
Prasannan: Well, I think it’s really the dialogue of fate versus free will that comes up. People have debated whether or not things are fated, or whether we have free will. My conclusion is that both exist. We have fate and we have free will, and they exist in proportion.
Fixed Karma and the Scope of Free Will
In fact, Yogananda’s guru’s guru is reported to have said that when we’re born, 75 percent of our karma is fixed, and 25 percent is where we have room to grow, where we have free will.
That does make sense. A lot of things in our life are fixed, like the conditions we’re born under. But that 25 percent is where we can evolve. I believe also that the more the soul evolves, the bigger that 25 percent can become. In other words, you can increase the 25 percent.
On the other hand, if someone doesn’t lead a life according to spiritual principles, they may even lose that 25 percent. It may become less, and they may become even more fated. In fact, there are people who seem to be totally fated because they don’t have any understanding of spirituality.
It’s like we’re starting with a certain mix of fate and free will, and through our own conscious effort, we can expand the free-will part.
Rick: There’s the “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do” thing. But on the other hand, to whatever extent you do know what you’re doing, you have to exercise that knowledge to the best of your ability. That sort of moves you in the direction of greater and greater freedom.
Prasannan: Right, yeah.
Rick: To take a practical example, let’s say a person—we all know how many people are getting addicted to opioids these days—at this point says, “Hey, I think I’ll try some opioids.” Probably, before they’re addicted, they have a lot more choice in the matter than they do a year later, when they’ve gotten really strung out. It’s going to be a lot easier to choose not to do it than it will be if they’ve already been doing it for a year.
Prasannan: Right, of course. Yeah.
Just a little example, I guess. One thing that’s interesting to me on the free-will issue is that the more we move toward God, enlightenment, or whatever, it seems to me that the more the will of God is actually directing our life. “Thy will be done.”
Rick: Just a little example, I guess. One thing that’s interesting to me on the free-will issue is that the more we move toward God, enlightenment, or whatever, it seems to me that the more the will of God is actually directing our life. “Thy will be done.”
In a way, that might seem like less freedom, because God is taking over the reins, or the divine intelligence is calling the shots more and more. But actually, when the divine intelligence is calling the shots, that’s kind of the way we’d like our life to go, usually.
There’s this funny kind of contradiction: We’re actually becoming freer, but we’re also ceding our individual willpower at the same time.
Prasannan: I mean, that’s an interesting way of looking at it—that the divine will is actually what’s there when the ego gets out of the way.
Rick: Yeah, kind of what I’m saying.
Prasannan: The ego is kind of the problem, but the ego doesn’t really want to get out of the way in a lot of cases. That’s the battle, the age-old battle: this illusion of the separate “me” that wants to have it my way, and then the divine, which is saying, “Hey, you know, do what you like.”
But what do they say? “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”
Rick: Yeah, there’s some kind of Rumi or Hafiz thing where he talks about—I forget. You know that thing I’m alluding to, where he says, “I think I still have a million moves, but God’s basically already got me.”
Prasannan: Checkmated me.
The thing is, at that stage, the bliss of the experience so far outweighs any thought of what might have been had I not gone this way that it becomes a moot point.
By external circumstances, a person might think, “Oh, well, that person doesn’t have a lot of choice because they’re just in this other place.” But from the point of view of that other place, they’re in bliss, so who cares?
Rick: It’s interesting to ponder, though, because there are a number of quite articulate voices arguing that we don’t have free will—people like Sam Harris and many others. Many people I interact with through BatGap say that, so I’m glad we’re talking about it.
Prasannan: It’s a continuum; it’s not black and white. Nothing is black and white. It’s a continuum. In some places there is no free will, and in some places there is. It’s just a matter of understanding the difference. That’s like the Serenity Prayer.
Rick: Oh yeah, exactly: “The wisdom to know the difference.” To know the difference, yeah.
Let’s say two people are born at the exact same date, time, and place. Let’s say somebody else was born in the same hospital I was born in, in the next room at the same time.
Prasannan: The same moment, yeah.
Rick: Yet their lives go in quite different directions. They don’t seem to coincide very much; they don’t perfectly match up. Would this be due to genetics and free will, or what else might be a factor?
Prasannan: Okay, so there are lots of cases of twins where they’re born virtually at the same moment and yet they have very different lives. But there are also different principles for interpreting twins’ horoscopes, where you can tell them apart.
In terms of individuals born at the same time, in the same place, under largely the same conditions—basically having identical charts, as it were—the first principle of Jyotish is to consider the background: the family, the place, the time, and the conditions that person is born into.
There was a famous story about one of the kings of England. The king’s son was born, and he was going to be the future king of England. Just outside the castle walls, an ordinary commoner was born at the same moment. They both married on the same day. The commoner got his biggest break in his career on the day that the king was crowned. Their children were born on the same day, their wives had the same name, and they died within one day of each other. So there was an interesting potential for the pattern to be quite specific.
Rick: Yeah, interesting. Is it a true story, as far as you know?
Prasannan: I haven’t researched it myself.
Rick: It’s very interesting. It would be cool to do some studies on Jyotish. I mean, it would be easy enough to find out when and where.
Prasannan: When you said before, about whether it is scientifically provable, I want to go back to that point. I’ve actually had this idea for more than 20 years: to scientifically prove Jyotish. In fact, I wrote a couple of articles for the Journal of Astrology in India.
What I did was find charts that had a particular thing in common. I would extract a group of 180 charts, and the thing those charts had in common was that they had all lost their father at a young age, before they were adults. Or I would have another group of 180 charts where they had all experienced the death of a sibling.
I studied those charts in massive detail to see if there were patterns appearing that weren’t present in the general population, and sure enough, lots of things came out of that. Those studies need to be done with bigger numbers and bigger control groups, but basically I’m sure it’s scientifically provable that you could look at a chart and say, “If those factors are considered, then the probability of that particular occurrence in the person’s life is going to be much higher than the norm.”
Rick: You could also do a study where you get data from hospitals about when people were born at pretty much the same time, and then get in touch with those people to see how their lives have been going.
Prasannan: Yeah, they wanted to do a study of that at AIMS.
Rick: AIMS is Amla Hospital in Cochin.
Prasannan: They sent me some data. They actually wanted to look at the charts of people who had some kind of condition. From a practical point of view, they had all these charts of people who had amputations or something, and they wanted to see whether there was something in common in their charts.
The trouble is that in Kerala, most people don’t have accurate birth times at all. They would give their details, but they wouldn’t know their birth time. Or they would mention their birth star, but when you looked up the day they said they were born, it wasn’t even that star. So even their birthday is often not right. We had lots of trouble trying to get actual data to work with.
Rick: I should think Indian parents would keep track of that, because Jyotish is so significant in that culture.
Prasannan: Well, yes and no. They’re just as likely to pick up a Western astrology book at the bookstore, because they have the notion that everything Western is better, and they haven’t embraced their own tradition that much. Some do, certainly the Brahmins do, but not everybody.
Rick: I see. Anyway, there are possibilities for research there. As I understand it, there’s something called upayas in Jyotish, which are remedial measures. These include pujas and wearing certain gems. Why don’t you talk about that a little bit?
Prasannan: Performing a ceremony like a yagya or a puja is just a way of invoking energy. So let’s say we see something in the chart where there’s a negative influence. If there’s a specific ritual performed, it could help alleviate the effects of that condition. But it very much depends on the intention and the consciousness of the person performing it, the pujari.
They have to be clear themselves in order to be able to get that energy to flow. So yes, there can be great benefit from these pujas and yagyas if they’re done with proper intention by people who are in the right space for it.
As far as gemstones are concerned, the scriptures very specifically state that the planetary energies are most strongly reflected in certain pure substances on Earth. For the Sun, it’s the ruby; for Jupiter, it’s the yellow sapphire; and for Saturn, it’s the blue sapphire. By wearing the stone of that planet, you actually increase the quality or energy of that planet for that person.
But of course, not everyone should wear a blue sapphire. For some people, Saturn has a very positive role, and for others, it’s quite the opposite. So you have to understand, for each person, which stones they should strengthen and which ones they should avoid. That’s also part of what we look at.
If you wear the right stone, it really does dramatically change things. I’ll give you an example. There was this guy with Leo rising, so he was ruled by the Sun, and his Sun was debilitated in Libra. Libra is the worst possible place for the Sun.
This guy came to consult with me every year for years in Germany. He and his wife run a private school, and every year he came to consult. Every year I told him he should wear a ruby.
After many years, one day he went to the bookstore, bought a ruby, and put it on. He came back to me two days later and said, “You know, from the second I put that stone on, I felt different. I still feel different.” So yes, the right stone in the right place can actually make a huge difference.
Rick: Have you seen examples of famous people, like Elizabeth Taylor or somebody who has a great big diamond, who aren’t meant to wear a diamond? Can you see how it’s negatively impacting them?
Prasannan: Well, actually, Princess Di was given a huge blue sapphire, which is apparently deadly for her, and obviously it wasn’t a good thing. Also, apparently—this is something I heard—somebody gave Muktananda a huge blue sapphire, and he died shortly afterward. It wasn’t good in his chart either.
So yes, I think wearing the wrong stone could actually be seriously damaging.
Rick: So is it that the stone serves as a kind of receiver, as it were? Like a radio receiver, except for radio waves?
Prasannan: A magnifier of certain influences or energies, which are—
Rick: It magnifies certain energies. Okay, and those energies, like radio waves, are kind of everywhere anyway, but it picks up on them and magnifies and focuses them.
Prasannan: Yeah, absolutely. The pure stones are a powerful, condensed force.
Rick: I’m laughing because I keep having in mind certain people who watch this show who are skeptical about everything. I’m wondering if they’re probably gnashing their teeth right now. But all I would say is, keep an open mind.
Prasannan: I’m just speaking from my experience. I used to do all the shopping for jewelry for Amma, right? I spent many years—I was in Jaipur three or four times a year—testing out stones, and I got to be very sensitive to the vibration of the stone.
In fact, blindfolded, I could separate the blue sapphires from the yellow sapphires just by putting them on my hand. Then I could separate the heated stones from the unheated ones, because they all have a different vibration. So if you’re tuned in, these things are pretty accessible.
Rick: The average person listening to this show is a spiritual aspirant, and I want to talk about the significance of Jyotish for spiritual aspirants. But the average person listening to this show also has practical things in their lives—marriage, buying a house, career issues, and things like that. So let’s talk about both the practical and spiritual implications or applications of Jyotish.
Jyotish and the Timing of Major Decisions
Prasannan: Yeah, it’s true. Jyotish actually excels at timing. That’s probably its greatest strength. A person wants to know, “Is this the right time for me to sell my house, or should I wait?” Or, “Is this the right time for me to change jobs, or should I wait?” “Is this the right time to commence something, or should I wait?” “Is this the right thing? Is it the right direction? Is it the right time?” These are the kinds of things that come out of the chart.
People use this in order to get clarity. They’re already thinking about something, but they’re not sure, or they’re facing a decision: “I could go here, I could go there—which is the better option?” They think, “I don’t know. I need another outside opinion.” This is a way of invoking that.
Spiritually, too, people want to know what they can do to advance spiritually and what the best practice for them is. That’s also a common question. But most people ask about mundane things first. They ask about their family and their job.
I always joke that when Indian families come to consult, all they want to know is, “When will the daughter be married?” and “When will the son get a good job?” It sounds like they’re really concerned about their children, but honestly, in Indian culture, the daughter is a burden until she’s married; then she’s in another family. The son is going to take care of the parents when they’re old, so they want him to have a good job.
It depends. The questions have very much to do with the background of the person asking, too.
Rick: I know that in our case, you told us a couple of things that panned out—at least a couple, among many others—but at least one was regarding the purchase of our house. How did that go, Irene?
Prasannan: I’ll give you another example. You sat with me one time. The first time we had a reading was in 2001. I just looked it up in my database, and I don’t know if it was the first or the second reading, but you talked to me about this little idea you had about starting a little program called BatGap.
Rick: I didn’t get that idea until about 2009, I must say.
Prasannan: Okay, but you did consult with me about it at the time, and you were wondering when would be a good time to launch it.
Rick: You actually took note—
Prasannan: No, wait a minute, Prasannan. I remember you asked me about BatCap. Maybe I said a spiritual interview show or something, but the name Buddha at the Gas Pump didn’t come up until 2009.
Yeah, we did discuss it.
Rick: Yeah, I mean, I guess you mentioned that I would be doing a different career-related thing than I had been doing at the time, and it would have a spiritual orientation to it.
Irene: And we kept wondering, “Well, how is this going to happen?”
Prasannan: And who would have thought—500 interviews later?
Rick: Yeah, we probably thought, “Hmm, I’ve already done the spiritual thing for a living,” teaching meditation. That didn’t pay the bills.
So people probably come to you thinking of getting married to one another, and you look at both charts to see how compatible they’d be.
Prasannan: That’s a lot of compatibility questions. A lot of people have questions about whether or not the charts line up, and it’s not like everyone’s charts line up beautifully. But the point is, it’s good to understand how they line up. In other words, where are the strengths or the weaknesses? If you know there are weaknesses, you can understand that, work around it, and accommodate, right? Whereas if you just go in blind, then you’re going to be surprised by, “Well, how come this person doesn’t think the way I do?”
Rick: Do you actually sometimes say to people who really want to get married to each other, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea?”
Prasannan: Yeah, that’s happened.
Rick: Then how do they take that?
Prasannan: There was this guy in the ashram who wanted to marry somebody, and I told him it was the worst possible combination: “Just don’t do it. Don’t do it.” He went ahead and got married, had a daughter, and then, in the end, of course, they got divorced. Now she’s trying to get him for every penny he’s got and using the daughter to manipulate him.
Anyway, yeah, it’s a very unhappy situation. It would have been better if he’d listened in the first place. He admitted afterward that he should have listened to me.
Rick: Have you ever been wrong about things like that that you’ve told people, and it turns out later you realize you were wrong? Then you look back at the chart and think, “Oh, I see how I got that wrong. I missed this or that.”
Prasannan: I think nobody is going to have to go by what is basically the higher probability, but there’s always divine grace. Someone could have some divine grace happen that wasn’t foreseeable. Or, the other way, someone might look like they’re completely safe, and yet some accident happens that I missed, maybe because I wasn’t looking for it or wasn’t expecting to see it. It’s like a thousand-page book; you still have to open it up at a page and read.
Rick: What about the people—you know, a lot of people who listen to the show are really keen on the idea of enlightenment, awakening, realization, or however they conceive of it? Obviously, the other things are important to them too, but that’s really their burning interest in life. How is Jyotish significant or useful for them?
Prasannan: Well, Jyotish can show when the best periods are for intensifying spiritual practice and also which kinds of spiritual practice would be most fruitful at different times. It can show the kind of spiritual practice that’s good for the person. Maybe some people are more suited for a path of knowledge, a path of devotion, a path of seva, a path of yoga, or whatever. These are indicated in the chart, and they may also change as the cycles change.
There could be a time when the person is supposed to focus more on seva, and then another time when they’re supposed to be more inward, reflective, and contemplative, not as much externally engaged. So it’s about the timing of that. Most people who are on the spiritual path already have some kind of sense of what that is, but it’s nice to have it independently confirmed, even in the chart.
Rick: Do you think Jyotish could help people choose a particular guru or teacher? Can you do an individual’s chart and then do the chart of some teacher that he or she wants to go and be with?
Prasannan: I’m often asked that question: “How is that teacher for me?” or “How is that guru for me?” or “Do I have positive or negative karma with that particular individual?” So, yeah, it comes up as a question for sure. I think the chart will also show whether or not the person is meant to be focused more on an external, physical relationship with the guru. Some people’s relationship with divinity isn’t really through the physical form at all. They could be just inspired by a picture of Ramana. It’s individual.
Rick: So, in addition to the kinds of consultations we’ve been talking about—marriage, spiritual advice, and employment things—it seems like, as I understand it, there are other kinds of things you can do. For instance, there’s a thing called astrolocation that would actually help you determine where a good place for you to live would be.
Prasannan: Yeah. The principle there is that the planets exert maximum force when they are doing one of four things: either rising, setting, straight up, or straight down. So, if we can then look at where on Earth those planets are doing that for the individual, we can see where they’re going to be particularly strong, where things are going to go easily, and other places where they might have more trouble.
Astrolocation and Choosing Favorable Places
Astrolocation is really looking at where geographically it is not just good for me to live or locate myself, but also knowing where good places are to travel for vacation or which places to avoid. I can’t count the number of times I’ve talked to someone and said, “If you go to this country, you’ll have your money stolen or you’ll get food poisoning because you’ve got Rahu going right through there.” On the other hand, you’ll do really well in this other place because you’ve got a Jupiter line, or something very good for the person, going right through that place. People, again—
Rick: There are countries where that’s more likely to happen.
Prasannan: It’s true enough, and obviously it has to be practical too. If you have a good line going through the middle of Mongolia, you’re probably not going to move to Mongolia anyway because it would be impractical.
Most people have some degree of freedom as to where they could live. Even in the United States, we’ve got three different time zones, plus Hawaii. So, if people aren’t good on the East Coast, they may be good on the West Coast, or vice versa. They can figure that out, find that out from the chart pretty easily.
Rick: I think we have four time zones. We have Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern in the U.S., and probably Canada.
Prasannan: Plus Hawaii.
Dasha cycles and the unfolding of time
Rick: Okay, so let’s talk about dasha periods a little bit. Tell us what they are, and I might have a second question after you tell us what they are.
Prasannan: So, the dasha—the way the dasha scheme arises—gets back to the notion that we’re born under a certain star, right? You’re born under a certain star, and that star has a ruling planet. Whichever ruling planet that star has, that planet rules your birth. It rules the time that you’re born.
Because each of these cycles is fixed—the dasha of Mars is always seven years, the dasha of Rahu is always eighteen years, and then follows sixteen years of Jupiter—this is a fixed thing that totals 120 years, right? So it’s a 120-year cycle, and everyone is somewhere at the starting point. It depends on your star, where you’re born, and what star you’re born under.
For example, if someone’s born under a Mars star, then they’ll have Mars right at birth, but they won’t have all seven years of Mars because, when they’re born, the Moon was partway through that star. So we’re born partway through that seven-year period, right? They’ll have the remaining portion. After that, they’ll have Rahu for eighteen years, Jupiter for sixteen years, and so on. It’s like a wheel at the moment you’re born, and then you just follow along the wheel after that.
So the dashas are those cycles. People come into different cycles, and different cycles have different properties and qualities. Of course, the planets don’t mean exactly the same thing for every person because it depends on where they’re placed in the chart.
Typically, Rahu can be a time of more Rahu, which is the North Node, right? One of the eclipse points. In Western astrology, they call it the ascending node; it’s sometimes called the dragon’s head. So, under Rahu, for example, a person might have a spiritual experience or awakening. But because it came under Rahu, it’s very likely to have some kind of twist to it, or the mind is going to creep back in more easily, or it’s not going to be complete necessarily.
The kind of experiences one has in different cycles is also determined by what planet is operating and how durable that experience will be, right? These cycles are always unfolding. Let’s say one is in a cycle—let’s say one’s in a Jupiter cycle, which is a sixteen-year cycle. Just to know you’re in Jupiter for sixteen years doesn’t tell you a lot because that’s a long period of time.
But then, within each cycle, there are subcycles. Within Jupiter, there’s Jupiter-Jupiter, then Jupiter-Saturn, Jupiter-Mercury, and Jupiter with every other planet. Then, within Jupiter-Saturn, there’s Jupiter-Saturn-Saturn, Jupiter-Saturn-Mercury, and so on. It gets down to the fifth level.
Basically, at the fifth level, practically day by day, something is changing. If you want to get down to the specifics, you can really nail it down. That’s how we can find out whether the time of birth is accurate, because if the time is accurate, things fit right down to the subtle level; otherwise, they don’t.
Rick: Yeah, it’s kind of a big deal when you change mahadashas. Since I married Irene, I think I’ve had a couple of such changes, and it can be quite turbulent as you make these changes. Sure enough, it sometimes has been for me. No, she didn’t cause it. I probably caused it myself.
Prasannan: No. In fact, it is a big deal changing major cycles. Even if you’re changing into a good cycle, there’s an energy shift. Something is shifting; the person’s orientation is shifting.
In fact, one of the things we look at when we look at relationship compatibility, such as for marriage, is that one of the red flags, let’s say, is that in a couple’s future life together, there shouldn’t be major cycle changes at the same time, such as within the same year. That’s considered going through turbulence at the same time.
If one is going through turbulence and the other one is steady, they can support each other through their turbulent times. If they’re both going through turbulence at the same time, it’s considered a negative.
Rick: If they are matched up in that way, then every time there’s a mahadasha change, it’s going to happen for both of them simultaneously, right?
Prasannan: Only if they’re in the same dasha. So, if they’re both changing from Saturn to Mercury at the same time, then they’ll always have the cycle change at the same time. But if one is going into Saturn at the same time the other one is going into Venus, then that will coincide, but Saturn and Venus are different lengths, so they won’t coincide the next time.
Rick: Irene and I were talking the other day, and she said that she heard that if you die—let’s say you’re halfway through your Mars mahadasha—then when you’re reborn, you’re actually going to be at the same point, halfway through where you had died. No?
Prasannan: No. There’s no scientific evidence to suggest that, or even in the charts where we have the reincarnated person’s chart, there aren’t obvious signs that that person’s reincarnation is the one before. But that dasha thing doesn’t quite work out. So there must be some intervening time in the loka where something is playing out.
🎵 Reading charts for people, countries, and events
Rick: Here’s a question from a listener. Kranti from Freehold, New Jersey, asks: A lottery winner is often decided by a complex algorithm run by a supercomputer. Actually, it’s usually decided by those little balls that come down, but maybe he means the generation of lottery numbers. If it is true that the winner got it because of his karma, it makes me wonder just how complex the karma machinery could be, just by looking at how many things had to be set in place to make this event happen. Or does it not work that way?
Prasannan: It’s true; it’s very complex. I have been asked before to pick the lottery numbers, and I don’t do that. If I could do that, I probably wouldn’t even need to do anything. I actually think it’s a misuse of the science, in fact, even if it is possible to do. It gets back to the whole question of where Jyotish comes from.
Rick: Using Jyotish to pick the lottery, his question is about the way the lottery works, the mathematics behind choosing lottery numbers, or many other complex mathematical things: Is there similar mathematics, or similarly complex, vastly more complex mathematics, behind the karma of the lottery?
Prasannan: Yeah, or somebody who’s going to win the lottery—that will be in their chart. They’ll have that influence in their chart to win the lottery. But I guess it comes back to the idea that anything can be seen. The question is, will it be seen? Will the divine allow it to be seen?
That gets back to this because even in astrology, you’re playing with forces that are quite subtle and quite powerful. What one astrologer sees, another astrologer might not see. I can give you an example of this. This is a true story from Kerala.
There was a couple who went to an astrologer to get their charts matched for marriage. The astrologer looked at the chart and was absolutely horrified. He said, “No, don’t do it. Don’t get married.” They went away, and then they went to his guru. This astrologer’s guru gave them his blessing to get married.
Two weeks later, the astrologer was walking down the street and saw a funeral procession. Upon inquiring, he found out there were two coffins, and it was this couple. So he went to his guru and said, “I saw death in the chart, and that’s why I told them not to get married. But you told them to get married, so what gives?”
The guru said, “They were destined to die anyway. At least let them have two weeks of wedded bliss.”
At least let them have two weeks of wedded bliss.
So it’s like, what can be seen and what will be seen?
Rick: That’s interesting.
Prasannan: Yeah.
Rick: So, to my understanding, not only do individuals have Jyotish charts that could be analyzed, but countries do, and perhaps a lot of other things—companies, maybe.
Prasannan: Companies have charts, yeah.
Rick: I mean, maybe even towns or families or various configurations of individuals, right?
Prasannan: Yes, that’s right. That’s called mundane astrology.
Rick: Why do they call it mundane?
Prasannan: Well, it has to do with the world.
Rick: So the USA then has a Jyotish chart, and apparently we’re in a dasha, in a Rahu cycle, right?
Prasannan: Rahu cycle, yes.
Rick: So how is it that a country has a chart? What is it determined by? When the Declaration of Independence was signed or something?
Prasannan: Yes, on the Fourth of July, in the evening. I used to have a slightly different time, but after 9/11 I corrected it. Based on the event of 9/11, I corrected it to 6:25 p.m., and that fits perfectly. In fact, on October 19, 1929, they would have entered their Saturn mahadasha. Saturn brings truth and reality. The stock market crashed within two days, and the Great Depression ensued.
Rick: So that’s interesting.
Prasannan: It fits that chart.
Rick: So you’ve looked back at historical events.
Prasannan: Yeah, and worked out the exact birth time of the US.
Rick: Yeah. So now what do you see coming? I mean, things are a little crazy right now. Does that sort of jibe with the Rahu phase we’re in, and what else do you predict?
Prasannan: Yeah. When Rahu is in the eighth house, if a person has Rahu in the eighth house in their birth chart, then during the time of Rahu they may act sort of irrationally and unpredictably. So when it’s in a country’s chart, the whole country may be in that sort of unpredictable, irrational state.
Currently, the sub-period is Jupiter, and Jupiter is a highly beneficial force in the US chart because the US chart has Sagittarius rising. Jupiter is the ruler of the chart, so it’s highly benign, and Jupiter is always expansive.
In fact, the Jupiter main period was running in the 1920s—the Roaring Twenties. It was this expansive Jupiter. But now it’s Rahu-Jupiter, and Rahu-Jupiter finishes in November of 2020. Then Rahu-Saturn starts, just in time for the next election.
Now, it’s not the same as Saturn-Saturn, which was in 1929, but it’s definitely significant. So I’m expecting a downturn in the economy, somewhat at least on par with 2008, happening in the second half of 2020. Maybe not exactly in November, because I think if something big is coming, there probably will already have been signs of it beforehand, probably by the summer.
Right now, it’s Rahu-Jupiter, for the most part, which would be an expansive force. I had predicted in my annual forecast that there would be a small downturn in October 2018 because it was Rahu-Jupiter-Saturn at the third level. Saturn always brings a correction, but the worst of that was basically over by Christmas.
So now, since Christmas, for the most part, it will be a positive year. I’m predicting a good year for 2019 overall for the markets, even though the world seems to be in a bit of turmoil. The US economy is still going to look good, at least.
What happens is, when Jupiter is running, people have a kind of euphoria. They feel optimistic even if all signs say they shouldn’t. It’s about mass consciousness. When that euphoria turns to pessimism, as it will when Saturn comes in November, the wind goes out of the sails and the market corrects.
So if you have stocks, sell them before June 2020. That would be my advice.
Rick: Do you actually do any stock trading yourself based upon this stuff?
Prasannan: Absolutely, yeah.
Rick: Hey, you could pick up a sideline as a stock advisor.
Prasannan: Well, I do. My clients call me just for that: financial advice, where they should put their money, what currency they should put it in. My background is finance.
Rick: That’s true. I find it rather discouraging that things are going to get worse or people are going to get pessimistic in November 2020, because I was kind of hoping someone would get elected who would make us more optimistic.
Prasannan: Yeah, well, the karma of the country is that some correction has to happen.
Rick: Hasn’t it been happening?
Prasannan: More correction.
Rick: Well, I mean, on this theme, you successfully predicted the elections of Obama and Trump very early on in their campaigns.
Prasannan: From the chart.
Rick: From their charts, and maybe the country’s chart as well. So what else can you predict? Do you have any prognostications about the next presidential election?
Prasannan: Well, I will publish that next year. It’s a little too early for that. But I don’t think we’re going to have a second term for Mr. Trump.
Rick: Okay, that’s good, in my opinion.
✨ Awakening, teachers, and spiritual maturity
I’ve gone through all the questions that I had written down here, and so I want to give listeners who are sending in questions the opportunity to send in any others if they have them, or Irene the opportunity to ask any more, or you the opportunity to say anything you want to say that we may not have brought up that you consider important.
Prasannan: Well, we talked a little bit about awakening, and I think a lot of your listeners are interested in that. We touched briefly on how awakening may occur under different planetary influences. Of course, it’s well understood, I think, that there are different intensities of awakening.
Someone may have an awakening experience and have heightened awareness, or they may even start seeing everything as one. But then the mind might creep back in, and so they believe they’re at a certain place, right? Yet there are still remnants of the mind, remnants of the ego, that are at play. It’s a tricky thing in that whole realm.
I don’t claim anything, but people make certain claims about their state of awakening or realization, and I think a lot of it is a bit of a mind trap. It can be a bit of a mind trap. So I think the more clarity we can have, the more real we can be about it, the better.
If someone is really beyond, if someone is really in total wakefulness and all the vasanas have been burned at the root—which is full, total awakening—then those people won’t need to promote themselves, because everyone will be coming to them. They’d be like Buddha or Jesus. But somewhere in between, the rest of the world finds its place.
Rick: Yeah, well, it’s an interesting point. There are all kinds of people who start teaching and sometimes gain big followings.
Prasannan: They may still have ego.
Rick: Oh, yeah. Well, that’s what I’m getting to. There have been all sorts of train wrecks where people have gotten very far off in their behavior. I’ve had to take down a number of interviews with people who really started going off the rails. So I guess…
Prasannan: I think one of the things is that if people have an awakening experience but don’t integrate it properly through sadhana, then it can just become another power trip.
If people have an awakening experience but don’t integrate it properly through sadhana, then it can just become another power trip.
Rick: Yeah, and if they don’t realize that there is still integration to achieve.
Prasannan: Right. They think they’ve arrived.
Rick: They think they’re finished. It’s beneath them to do sadhana: “Hey, we’re already enlightened. Why should we need sadhana?” That kind of stuff. It causes problems.
Prasannan: I think it causes a lot of problems.
Rick: Yeah. So again, how would Jyotish help to circumvent this kind of problem?
Prasannan: Well, I guess it gives you a reality check.
Rick: So you can look at somebody’s chart and say, “Well, you may not be as enlightened as you think you are, buddy.”
Prasannan: Well, I was thinking more in terms of people who are attached to particular teachers. If we looked at their interaction with that teacher’s chart, we might say, “What’s really going on? Are you putting your eggs in the wrong basket? Maybe the person you’re idolizing or putting up on a pedestal isn’t all there.”
Rick: Yeah, and so you would determine that by the juxtaposition of their chart and their teacher’s chart?
Prasannan: Yeah, presumably the teacher’s chart would be available. Not all of them are. Some people keep their birth date very secret.
Rick: But if it were available, would you be able to determine with some degree of accuracy whether a teacher had really solidly arrived or was yet to?
Prasannan: Absolutely. Whether they’re putting on a show—it’s clear on the chart.
Rick: I mean, my philosophy with BatGap is just that everybody’s a work in progress. Pretty much everybody.
Prasannan: We all are.
Rick: Yeah. I don’t know if there is anybody who is completely finished. That’s what we used to say: “Interviews with awakening people.” But we changed it to “awakening people” because it seemed that the process never ends.
Prasannan: The continuum, yeah. It’s not black and white.
Rick: So Irene sent over a question. Maybe we’ve just covered this, but in case we haven’t: Would such a person as you describe—fully enlightened or in a very high state—have that very clearly reflected in their chart?
Prasannan: I would say their chart would show the promise of that, and then how they exhibit themselves to the world would be the proof of it.
Because at a certain point, the chart really stops acting. Yes, there is still karma at the physical level, as we said at the beginning—there is still karma at the physical level—but the person is completely beyond the effect of that in terms of where they’re at, in terms of their consciousness.
So there is no one left. There is no ego left in that case. There is just clarity, just being and happening. I think when you meet people like that, it’s…
Rick: You don’t need a Jyotishi to know someone’s in that state. That’s a line from Dylan, in case you don’t know: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
He didn’t react. I thought maybe I hadn’t heard the line.
Okay, so is there anything else, Irene or Prasannan, or anybody? Is there anything else you want to cover? Speak now or forever hold your peace.
Irene Archer: Oh, yeah. Let’s cover his services.
Rick: Anything else you want to say? Let’s cover your… We talked a little bit about your services, but let’s go through them again just so people have an idea what the options are and whether…
Prasannan: Well, most people consult by phone or Skype the first time, and that’s just because there’s too much to explain in written form. They would have a reading. Most people do what we call a one-hour full-life reading, but it’s not always like that because people write and say, “Should I have an annual reading because it’s near my birthday?” It can be whatever.
So the one hour can be a combination of current issues as well as life patterns. Basically, the focus is wherever that person is most interested in understanding what’s going on. A lot of people just have questions about what’s going on, or they want to ask about their family members or their children.
So, fine, you can ask about anybody. It’s not fixed, like it’s got to be about just this chart. It can be about the people around you. So that’s the reading.
Sometimes it arises that people might have a question. They don’t really need a reading, but they’re just facing a decision, like, “Gee, now I’ve got this choice. I’m going to take one of these two jobs. Which is better?” Well, they don’t necessarily need a reading for that. They could just look at it from the point of view of a single question by email.
Or muhurta: someone might want to know, “Okay, we’ve decided to get married. We’re going to get married sometime between, say, April and June. Find us the best date and time for that location for it to happen.” That’s what a muhurta is.
Or, “I’ve met someone. I want to know how compatible we are.” Relationship compatibility comes in there. So those are the kinds of ways it goes, but most people just start out with a conversation and then take it from there.
Rick: Do you ever get bored with this, or is it endlessly fascinating for you?
Prasannan: I never get bored with this. It’s really just the most amazing thing. It’s much better than corporate finance.
Rick: I feel that way about this. I mean, sometimes people say, “Listen, there have been so many hundreds of interviews. It’s really getting boring,” but not for me.
Prasannan: It is really endlessly fascinating, and everyone is different. Everyone is unique in some way. So the principles we talk about are the same. The principle of Saturn, the principle of the planets, is the same, but how they manifest is unique in some way for every person, in a different way.
That’s the beauty of it. It’s really a picture of what’s going on.
Rick: I remember Nancy Reagan consulted some astrologer. She got a lot of flak for that. It was like a big brouhaha.
Prasannan: Well, it’s powerful. I mean, Vedic astrology is the most powerful prognostication technique around on the planet, I think. Definitely, there’s ample proof of it. People say, “Where’s the proof?” Well, just look at the track record of people who do predict accurately. This can’t all be just coincidence, right?
I used to think it was just coincidence because I grew up in a very scientific, rational, logical Western mindset. When I first heard about astrology, I thought, “That’s ridiculous.” But then, when I went to India and Amma told me to study it, it was like, “Wow, it is scientific. This is great.” It’s all based on rules.
I’m used to rules. Astronomy is all about rules, accounting is all about rules, and now we’ve got all these rules of astrology. It’s great. Bring it on. I’m always mathematically minded, and it is very mathematical.
So it’s funny that it seems so different from finance, but actually, the guy I studied with in Delhi, for whom I wrote those journal articles, K. N. Rao, was the auditor general for India before he retired. So he’s a finance guy, and then, on the weekends, he runs the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the biggest Jyotish school in the world.
Computers, expertise, and the limits of interpretation
Rick: So you use a computer program to help you calculate the chart. Could there be, in your dreams or vision, a computer program that could go way beyond just the simple calculation of the chart and help you figure out all kinds of stuff that you now have to use your own mind to figure out?
Prasannan: It’s a good question. When computer programs started out, we just put basic calculations in. Then, as the programs got more advanced, they became more and more refined and brought in more and more things, so there are more calculations you can see.
I think one of the great strengths of computers, something that would have been impossible before computers, is the whole idea of birth-time rectification. You know how, when you’re in a particular cycle, and you’re in a cycle and a sub-cycle and a sub-sub-cycle, all the way down to the nth degree, those change if your birth time changes? They all change instantly, right?
Modern programs allow you to see what the cycle, sub-cycle, sub-sub-cycle, and so on would be for every single minute, for every single second, just by zooming in and out of a particular window. Then you can narrow it down and find out what the person’s birth time is. You would never do those calculations if you had to do them by hand. It would never be possible.
So it’s been a real blessing. The computer is a real blessing. You still need to apply your intelligence, but the facility for doing the calculations is there in the computer.
As far as interpreting it, the program I use has canned interpretations, which I don’t ever give people because they’re way too general and don’t really apply. They’re like little pieces of a puzzle, but not the big picture, right?
If you look at anyone’s chart, there are going to be combinations for poverty and combinations for kingship. Well, are they going to be a pauper or a king? You have to look at everything in synchronicity. You can’t just look at one thing and say, “Oh, that’s in your chart.” Well, maybe there are things that cancel it, right?
So you have to look at the big picture. I don’t know if there’s software—there’s certainly no software yet—that can see the big picture. Maybe it’s something that’s beyond a computer program, maybe not. When AI comes, maybe some AI program will come along that can do better than modern Jyotishis at predicting.
Rick: It’s true, and it might actually be self-improving as it learns.
Prasannan: It learns, yeah.
Rick: Do you use that software that’s written by the guy in Fairfield?
Prasannan: Prashara’s Light, yeah.
Rick: We walk by his house sometimes.
Prasannan: Say hi to him for me. I’m wondering what I should upgrade to. I think there’s a new version. I’m still using version 7.
But you know the reason I’m using that software? I’ll tell you quite honestly. I had this software that came to the ashram in 1992 in Kerala from a local company in Ernakulam that made very basic calculation software.
Then I was touring with Amma in Chicago, and I think it was at a Chicago program, when Michael Bender came by. He knew me; he’d heard of me. He gave me five—remember floppy disks? He gave me five floppy disks with Prashara’s Light on them.
I loaded them, and I’ve used it ever since. Every single chart I’ve ever created since then, for more than 24 years, is in one ZIP file, one database, and they all work on that. He’s upgraded the software, of course, many times since then, but the basic charts are all saved from that time onward.
So when people consult, I can always pick up their chart from where we left off.
Rick: I hope you have them backed up as well.
Prasannan: Oh, very well.
Rick: Irene sent over another question. She says accuracy is so important and can greatly vary with different Jyotish consultants. Should people not be wary of that?
Prasannan: I think when you go to an astrologer, you’re going to be getting a reading based on their background and experience, how much they’ve seen, how much they’ve understood, who their teacher was, and so on. So it varies, right?
A lot of what you said applies to the scriptures, like the scripture of Parashara. Even the scripture was initially meant to be passed down only by word of mouth, from guru to disciple. The Sanskrit language was actually codified because the rishis could see that, in the future, there would be a loss of knowledge.
So they wrote things down. Before that, there was nothing written down in India. They wrote things down, so we have it written down in Sanskrit, but even then, they didn’t want it to be abused. They wrote it down incompletely, so you would still need a guru to bring out the meaning.
Sanskrit is a very subtle language. They wrote it with gaps so that you couldn’t just take it and abuse the knowledge, right? It was always meant to be passed on in a sort of secret way.
Even now in India, there are families who have their little secrets, where they pass them on from generation to generation—these little tricks and techniques that aren’t part of the general mainstream pool of knowledge in Jyotish. They seem to work. These things seem to work in that context.
So, yes, accuracy depends on the background. It’s a vast science. Nobody has a hundred-percent picture of it. I’ve been doing it for 27 years now, and I don’t claim to have a hundred-percent accurate view of it, but I’ve seen a lot of charts.
Rick: Are there certain things that you don’t feel comfortable telling people, like when they’re going to get enlightened or when they’re going to die or something like that?
Prasannan: Those are the two. Enlightenment is not an answerable question because, when you’re enlightened, there’s no one left to ask, “Will I be enlightened?” The person asking isn’t even around to enjoy their own enlightenment, so what’s the point? Who actually wants to know?
And death is just too difficult a topic for people to get their heads around—that there could be a moment when you know that’s supposed to happen.
I think it does slip out sometimes. I was doing a reading for somebody whose mother was terminally ill. The doctors gave her six weeks to live, and this was in July. I said, “No, she’s going to live until sometime in March of the following year,” based on the chart.
It just came out, and she actually died exactly on the day that I had said. The woman came back later and said she was so grateful because all this healing happened. They had time to really heal old things in the family, and everyone came to see her.
But normally it’s not a good topic—death and enlightenment.
Rick: I think I have heard you say things like, “Well, you’re going to have a long life. You’ll live into your 90s,” or whatever, but you wouldn’t say to somebody, “You’re going to die next Thursday.”
Prasannan: I wouldn’t get that, no, definitely not. But the thing is, even if someone were going to die next Thursday, I probably wouldn’t see it because I wouldn’t be looking for it.
Rick: Really?
Prasannan: Yeah. It’s not like they jump out if they’re supposed to, and if they’re not, then they don’t.
Rick: Well, but wait a minute. I mean, if something that momentous is going to come up in a week or two, and you’re doing a reading, wouldn’t any momentous thing in a person’s life—anything really major—somehow become
Prasannan: Well, there are always these maraka periods. There are always these maraka periods that come from time to time. So a maraka period means a period where there’s potential for death, but for that to actually be the one—the time when the person actually does die—all these other factors have to also be there.
So if you suspected something, you might go and look for all the other factors. But, I mean, if you talk to a young person, you’re not going to be suspecting, “Oh, I should look for all these factors.” I mean, it wouldn’t be on your mind.
Unless you had some suspicion. I mean, if someone is terminally ill, then you’d be looking for the factors, but there’d be evidence that it could happen soon. If there’s no evidence that it could happen soon, then you wouldn’t be looking for those combinations either. I mean, you would just—nobody can see everything at once.
Rick: Sure. There’s some guy here in town who predicts that Trump is going to die of a heart attack. He said it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Do you consider it irresponsible to make predictions like that?
Prasannan: I don’t think that’s a good way to use the science. I think that’s wrong.
Rick: Yeah. It almost sounds like somebody who says a thing like that sort of has a political agenda. That brings up an interesting point, too. Do you find yourself completely objective, or do you ever feel you’re getting swayed a little bit by your own proclivities or opinions about things?
Prasannan: Well, if I had my own opinions, 99 percent of all astrologers did not pick Trump to win the last election. I was unbiased, looking at the chart, saying, “Well, he can’t lose.” I mean, as much as I may not want to say that, I couldn’t not say that because that’s what the chart said.
The country’s in a Rahu period. Rahu makes you act irrationally; it makes you go away from the status quo. Well, if you compare the two candidates, he’s clearly away from the status quo.
Then Clinton’s chart—she was in a period, on the day of the election, she was in the worst possible phase. I mean, she was in exactly the same kind of negative phase that Tony Blair was in on the day of the Brexit vote. He couldn’t win either. If he had consulted, he wouldn’t have had the Brexit vote that day, because he just couldn’t win that day.
So she couldn’t win, and then the country’s going to reject the status quo. Then Trump’s chart was showing he was about to enter his Jupiter period, which is like giving someone kingship. So, okay, well, there were so many indications. I mean, how did anybody even think that she could win by honestly looking at the chart? But I think people were swayed by their own personal bias and therefore didn’t predict it.
Rick: Yeah, that’s a good answer. It’s an interesting answer. So you just have to, like a doctor or like any other professional, put aside your personal biases.
Prasannan: Tell it like it is, as gently as possible.
Rick: Yeah. Well, it’s fascinating. How much do you use Jyotish to look at your own life and your wife’s life? Do you kind of check things quite frequently, or whatever?
Prasannan: I don’t obsess about my chart. I know what cycle is going on, but I don’t check my chart every time I go out to make sure it’s okay. No, I don’t do that. I know it’s okay somehow. I’m living the chart; I don’t really need it in that sense.
If something major is happening, then I would, of course, pay attention to what’s going on in my chart. But even the fact that we live here now on the West Coast—I mean, we were actually looking at houses in Niagara Falls. We actually made a couple of offers on houses in Niagara Falls, and it just never came through. Then somehow, the universe wanted us to be on the West Coast, so here we are, and we’re glad.
But, I mean, if I had been serious about my chart, I might have perhaps avoided a couple of years of searching in the wrong place for us. I don’t know. But maybe it’s just something I had to go through.
Rick: Well, you’re getting better weather there than you would be in Niagara Falls at the moment.
Prasannan: Before this house came along, we were waiting for the right house.
Rick: Great. Well, thank you, Prasannan. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. It’s a bit of a stretch for me to engage somebody in a conversation about Jyotish.
Prasannan: It’s all good. It’s all one anyway.
Rick: It often sounds like baseball to me, you know, like such-and-such is on first and so-and-so is on second.
Prasannan: Someone’s on fourth. Whatever that means.
Rick: Anyway, I’ve enjoyed it, and I’ve learned something. I hope that my audience has, too, and you’ll probably get a lot of people getting in touch with you.
Prasannan: It’s been a pleasure.
Rick: Just to wrap it up, I’ll be linking to Prasannan’s website from his page on www.batgap.com, and this is an ongoing series. As you know, if you’d like to be notified of future ones, you can subscribe on YouTube. You could also subscribe to our little email newsletter that we send out whenever a new one is posted. You can do both.
If you listen to the podcast, it would be great if you were to leave a review on Apple iTunes, preferably a five-star review if you feel motivated to do so. That kind of helps the popularity of it on iTunes.
Next week, I’ll be speaking with a fellow named Mark Gober about a topic that’s very dear to me, that inspires me and interests me a lot: whether consciousness is fundamental to the universe or merely a product of the brain. He’s written a book all about that, which I’ve already read because I couldn’t wait to read it. I think that’s going to be a lively conversation, and there are many other interesting ones coming up.
There’s an upcoming interviews page on www.batgap.com, and if you want to see what’s scheduled, just look there. We update that all the time. So thanks for listening or watching, and thank you again, Prasannan.
Prasannan: Namaste.
Rick: Namaste. It’s been good talking with you. We’ll see you all next week.
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