Jyotish Vidya and Tantra Sadhana — Why the Two Are Complements, Not Rivals

The speaker opens by saying that jyotish and tantra are complements of each other. Yet today, on YouTube and Facebook alike, even good sadhaks who walk the right path keep blaming one another: people of tantra call astrologers frauds, and astrologers call tantriks frauds. The reality, he says, is that the two complete each other. He explains how: through jyotish vidya, from the janma kundli, we analyse the situation that has arisen because of karmas done in the past — what crisis has come, and what further harm is going to follow. After that analysis, when one moves to the shanti karma for it, there are two paths — one proceeds either by vedic vidhi or by tantrokta vidhi. If jyotish reveals doshas in the kundli because of which a bhoot-Preta affliction has attached to the body, or sufferings of that kind have arisen, then where does one go for the remedy? One can do the astrological remedies, but as one goes further, tantra becomes necessary. So how, he asks, can anyone say that jyotish is complete without tantra? On the tantra side too, he says, one cannot claim that "we are siddha-ing such powers through which we will know everything, and we have no need of jyotish". Every thing has its own maryada, its own limitation, and neither of the two can go beyond it — you are not always Mahakal, you are not Mahadev, that you will know everything. But through both vidyas we can certainly know this much. Neither is to be discarded, neither is lacking, and there is no competition between them; people have manufactured one today, and that is the people's fault.

As his first illustration of how the two vidyas complete each other, the speaker takes the ninth house of a janma kundli. The planet in the ninth house, he says, is our bhagyesh, the karaka of fortune. If that planet is a friend according to the lagna kundli, and by balabal — by degree — it also has strength and is able to give its fruit properly, then jyotish says one must never do daan according to that planet. He repeats it as a principal rule: the bhagyesh is never donated. Now, he says, suppose someone who knows tantra vidya does not analyse this and does not look at the kundli, and on the basis of whatever he saw through tantra prescribes the daan of certain things by which your trouble was to be uprooted or reduced. What will you do? You will simply go and do exactly what he said. It may well be that by his vidhi the crisis in your life lessens — but once you have donated the bhagyesh, in the time to come fortune will not stand by you. Where does fortune stand by you? Your work will be 90% done and at 10% fortune's support will be missing; what was about to come to you will go to someone else. He points to how people fall behind in a competition by two or three marks, how a job or a tender is lost at the very last step — that is where fortune is decisive. So the bhagyesh should always be kept strong. How then, he asks, can one say jyotish and tantra are separate things, or that jyotish is a cheat's vidya and tantra is a cheat's vidya? If your thinking is like that, he says, it is because you yourself are a cheat and that tendency is in you, so you accuse each other. Excess of either is bad. Therefore one should go forward coordinating the two: the janma kundli must be analysed through jyotish, and only after that will the daan-punya and whatever kriya-karma we get done or do through tantra bear fruit completely.

The speaker moves to a second point: people of tantra tendency wear various rings and gems on their hands. There too, he says, there is a maryada. Ratna vigyan is a discipline in itself, with its own separate lineage and branch and its own separate knowledge. Leaving out the thumb, gems of different kinds are worn on the four fingers, and they are worn according to the lagna kundli. Some jyotish scholars, he notes, also have them worn according to the chandra kundli. And there is the common fashion: if there is mental unrest, get a pearl set in silver — the pearl gets given to anybody. Tantriks and those who know the tantra field do the same thing, since they are not going to look at the kundli; they simply say, right, there is mental trouble, this kind of obstacle is coming, wear a pearl. Fine, you wear it, he says. But suppose your lagna kundli does not permit it at all. You may get mental peace for a few days, and after that your life will begin to fall apart; you can even get death-like suffering if the Moon is Marakesh according to your kundli. So, he says, never underestimate this.

Along with this, the speaker says, different kinds of gems are not worn together. Yet people put on a great many gems, and their followers do the same, and they say gems have no particular effect; some say they have no effect at all. If a gem gives even 1% effect, he answers, it makes a great deal of things work and spoils a great deal. "It has no effect" is only your own experience. Ratna is a vigyan, a whole shastra has been made of it, and the rishis and maharishis have written on it — so you cannot ignore it, and you cannot say it gives no benefit or no harm. It gives both; what you need to know is how to put it to use.

As an example, the speaker takes a Cancer-lagna kundli, for those who know some jyotish. In Cancer lagna the Moon is the principal planet, regarded as its deity. Whom is the Moon friends with? With Bhagavan Surya and Bhagavan Brihaspati. And who are the Marakesh there? Whoever falls in the eighth house is marakesh; the lord of the second is also marakesh; the lord of the sixth is marakesh. Now suppose that in this Cancer-lagna kundli we wear the gem of Shani Dev — the neelam — and along with it, since it is Cancer lagna and the Moon is good, we also wear a moti. Remember one thing always, he says: if you wear neelam and moti together, it will create a vish yoga in your life. Shani and the Moon together make vish yoga. And then on the two remaining fingers people put on some other gems too, decorating the whole hand nicely — after which the life starts to fall apart. So never underestimate this, he repeats: do not take gems, stones and colours lightly, they have great effect on life. Not everything is pakhand — but excess of anything is pakhand, excess of anything is bad. One is not to become superstitious, but where there are things in keeping with vigyan, they should be accepted and held to within their limit, as much as is to be done.

It is not, the speaker says, that one must go about choosing colours according to the day — but do go about it, and in the right way: take up what is favourable to you. Jyotish says that the planets which are your Marakesh should be given in daan, and puja-path should be done to pacify them; and the planets which are friends for you according to the lagna — their gems should be worn and their colours should be worn. Here, he says, tantra-minded people who do not have this knowledge get you to donate the very things that were to be worn. Donate what is to be worn and wear what is to be donated, and it will begin to give the reverse effect: for some time it may give benefit, later it gives the opposite result. Then people are troubled, and the blame goes to the gems — this stone did a bad job, this stone did the wrong work. There are many more such things, he adds; that is the story on this side.

Having covered the tantra side, the speaker turns to the astrologers, who he says greatly underestimate tantriks and those who know the tantra vidyas. They say nothing happens through it — whatever there is, is from the nine planets. His reply: your vidya too is from the nine planets, and the vidya of those who have gone into tantra is also from the nine planets. Nothing at all runs without the nine grahas, and nothing runs without the 27 NakshatraOne of the 27 lunar constellations used to time rituals — certain occult procedures, such as acquiring a cremation Handi, must be performed within a specific Nakshatra's window.s. They were made precisely so that they give the fruit of our karmas and keep balance in it. When we do wrong karma, we get punishment accordingly, and then life is balanced again; if we do good karma, our goodness grows and our punya increases, and then whatever birth we have — this one or the next — we get a better fruit and move forward. It depends on us.

In tantra karma there is the Shatkarma, the speaker says, and people underestimate the shatkarma. Jyotish-minded people say no such thing happens. Someone who is gripped by Abhichara they call mentally ill. Someone who has some obstruction on him — a Preta badha, a Bhoot Badha — whose mind has become unbalanced by it, they say is doing drama, nothing of the sort happens. They will put a gem on him in the usual way, tell him to do japa — "fine, get 8000 japa done" — say it is happening because of RahuThe shadow graha of the ascending node, associated with occult affliction and sudden reversal., Rahu's dasha is on so you are confused, a state of confusion has arisen. That's it, job finished. But it is a very big thing, he says: abhichar is a very big thing in itself. The vidya of very good astrologers lies there useless; they cannot move a straw. If they have handled one or two small cases of that kind they say, yes, it got cured by jyotish vidya, we had such-and-such done and everything became fine — there is nothing that cannot be cured by jyotish vidya, we told him to do this path of Shankar ji and he was cured. Such people are everywhere, he says, and whole lives pass doing paths without anything moving. There, he says, one has to follow tantra vidya, take the tantra vidyas along, and take the help of people who hold knowledge of vidyas of that kind. Society needs them too. When all these things were made in our Sanatan dharma, each of them met some need — that is why it exists. Jyotish is important in itself, tantra is important in itself, and only when we go forward in adhyatma coordinating the two do we get the right fruit.

The speaker says that belittling one another brings no good fruit. If you are an astrologer, do not look down on those who know tantra vidya; and if you are of tantra tendency, a tantrik who has knowledge of his vidyas and has received something by Bhagavati's grace, do not underestimate astrologers or tell them that they are wrong. Both vidyas hold their own importance in their own place, and they were made for lok-kalyan, the welfare of the world; they are complements. He hopes his listeners will respect people of both tendencies properly. As for the wrong person who spreads pakhand, he says, you will understand it yourself. The one who at every turn talks jyotish, who has you change your colour daily — that is not observed to such a degree today, and there is a limit, one should have that much knowledge; you cannot become superstitious. Likewise the tantra-minded person who at every turn talks of Abhichara — "yes, this has been done on you, get this done, get that done" — or the one who keeps going: Rahu's MahadashaIn jyotish, the long governing period of a single planet within a life, during which that planet's results predominate. is on, get Rahu's japa done; now do Ketu's; Mangal's mahadasha is running, so do this daan, do that. What result are you getting from it, he asks, and how much peace is it bringing you? If your pocket allows, you can do that much; if it does not, there is a simpler way, which he turns to next.

If your pocket does not allow all that, the speaker says, then it is a simple matter: the best is according to jyotish, or according to your own birth NakshatraOne of the 27 lunar constellations used to time rituals — certain occult procedures, such as acquiring a cremation Handi, must be performed within a specific Nakshatra's window. — the results that come best, in his own experience, are according to the janma nakshatra. According to whatever your birth nakshatra is, you should do the sadhana of your ishta; this is the easiest remedy, and nothing else. But do it for a long time, he adds — it has to be held on to. After that, go into someone's company: if a qualified Guru is found, or a qualified sadhak is found, and through him you are initiated by some vidhi-vidhan and then do the sadhana, good fruit will be obtained.

Through jyotish, the speaker says, it can be known why a person who has been doing sadhana for a long time is not receiving its fruit. Those who know tantra will look — if they really have the knowledge — and there will be two possibilities. Either they say yes, there is a tantra effect on you, and then they tell you how to remove it. Or, if they are genuine experts, they look and say no, there is no effect of tantra here; it may be that a graha Dosha is on you, so get your janma kundli analysed once. And there, he says, you may find out that Shani Sade Sati is running according to your lagna — which leads him to the next point.

When the kundli shows that Shani Sade Sati is running, the speaker says, people simply assume that sade sati is on, so it will always do harm. But it may be that in your janma kundli Shani is sitting forming two vipreet rajyogas, that the sade sati is running and that in the sade sati itself he is about to make you wealthy — and you do not know it, because a ponga pandit has already run in and frightened you that your sade sati is on and your condition is about to collapse, and out of fear you keep pouring out money. So one has to keep informed, and go to such qualified sadhaks and qualified astrologers as will not frighten you but help you carry this the right way. Sade sati is not bad for everyone; those who have done wrong karma should be afraid in any case, but ordinarily it is capable of giving a great deal. If a sadhana is not bearing fruit and a dhaiya or sade sati is running, he explains, it will be stopped: the fruit keeps accumulating in one place, and when that dam can no longer hold the pressure, then Bhagavan Shani Dev — the graha Shani, Shanaishchar — when he comes to give, gives a great deal. By Shani's grace you will then receive much; but until then you have to stay at it and not let go, and you must have that much patience in you. This, the speaker says, can be seen through jyotish, and it cannot be done through tantra. So the two are complements of each other and neither is to be underestimated. He closes by urging listeners to know both vidyas respectfully, to sit in the company of qualified people so their knowledge grows, and, rather than thinking anyone small or low, to move toward their own spiritual progress through these vidyas.