Introduction to Jyotish Online Course

Session 1 Part 2a

Master Teacher David Bruce Hughes

Babaji: OK, now we're going to start on the second session of today's class on ethics of Jyotishis. A Jyotishi is a person who practices Jyotish or Vedic astrology. And as a Jyotishi you have certain ethical principles that you must observe. Why is this? Because really, Jyotish gives us a special kind of vision that ordinary people don't have access to. We can see things, for example we can see the hidden motivations of a person, through Jyotish. If we know their birth data and can do their chart, we can basically know them better than their own family, better than their own mother. So, we have a responsibility to use this knowledge wisely. If we use it for our own advantage, this is not ethical. Astrological knowledge can be used to take advantage of a person because we know their weaknesses. But this is not ethical, and if you do it what will happen is that Krsna will take away your spiritual knowledge. So, the consequences of misusing this knowledge are that one loses his spiritual advancement. Therefore we have to be very careful with Jyotish to apply it only for spiritual purposes, not for selfish material purposes.

Now, people will come and they will ask you all kinds of questions: "How can I get money?" "How can I marry a nice girl?" or "How can I defeat my enemy?" or something like that. They're going to ask all kinds of things. But really, the application of Jyotish is for spiritual advancement. We should always lead the person back to the subject of how they can make advancement in spiritual life. When we're giving readings, for example, they're going to ask this and that. And we should answer those questions honestly, and to our best ability. But we should also indicate the relationship of those answers to the fundamental subject, "How can I make advancement in spiritual life?" That's the ethics of a Jyotishi.

Now, as far as sharing this knowledge: Once you have it, people are going to want to know how did you do that: "How did you make such an accurate prediction?" or "How did you know that?" Jyotish knowledge may only be given to someone who is honest, who believes in God, who is following a bona-fide spiritual path, and who knows the difference between right and wrong. You can't give it to an irresponsible person, or the results are going to be very dangerous both for him and for you. So, you have to be careful that you give this Jyotish knowledge only to people who are engaged in spiritual life. This is very very important. In fact it is so important that Parasara mentions it right in the beginning of his book. He says,"This knowledge may not be given to those who are dishonest, who are not God fearing," in other words atheists and people like that, "and who do not have proper respect for their teacher." These are the principles of Brahminical life. The teachings of the Vedas are given to the brahmanas and are passed down to the students who observe the same principles. If someone does not observe these principles, the principles of spiritual life, they don't deserve to recieve this knowledge. And if you try to give them this knowledge, then there will be a very severe reaction.

The example is, if you look around on the web at the different clubs and organizations and schools of Jyotish, you will find that pretty much all of them are in trouble. They're having problems, and they are fighting amongst themselves. Because, why? Theyre not following these principles. First of all they're using Jyotish as a business. They are trying to make money by giving astrological readings. This should not be your main reason for giving a reading. If you're thinking, "I'm going to give this reading and then somebody's going to give me some money," you're doing it for the wrong reasons and this will also lead to a negative reaction. It's karma, OK, you're misusing something that was intended for spiritual purposes and you're making it into a business, a profit-making business. This is not a brahminical way of life. This is a merchant way of life. We're not meant to be merchants, we're meant to be wise men. So how do the wise men work? They give their knowledge away for free, and if someone wants to make a donation or a contribution that's nice, but we don't insist on it. And we certainly don't make an agreement in advance, "Well I'll give you this reading if you give me so much money." That's not spiritual life; that's business. So we're not business men, we're supposed to be students of spiritual life and that means we observe the ways and principles of the brahmanas.

So, the brahminical principles are we offer to share our knowledge freely with anyone as long as they are qualified. And we give help to people who are sincere, but entangled in material life. And we don't ask for any pay, or we don't make any business deals based on that. We offer them help freely. The idea is, someone can come and take knowledge, and then they give a few dollars and then they go away. But what kind of relationship is that? We would much rather that someone can come, and we can share our knowledge with them freely, and then they feel "Oh, I have a real friend." That relationship is much more valuable than any amount of money.

So our principle is that we want to build relationships based on the exchange of trancendental knowledge and pastimes. We don't want to simply distribute information like the book seller on the corner. He's selling books and magazines for so much money, but what is the value of that? You give the money and go away. There's no relationship there. But we want to have a relationship, so that by our association people will be influenced to take up spiritual life and really help themselves. So to build these relationships, we exchange our knowledge with them freely. That's the principle of brahminical life, and when the brahmanas flourish, then the whole society becomes spiritualized and its very wonderful. So that's the principle on which our whole society is based. And especially when we're giving Jyotish readings and information, we have to follow those spiritual principles or we can lose our spiritual life. So be very careful.

Another point is, when we're giving a reading, sometimes we will come across a very negative indication. OK, so we have to be very careful how we present this to people. Because an astrologer is often looked on as a real authority, especially by someone who has some spiritual knowledge and therefore what we tell them they are going to take it very seriously. So we should be careful, especially when giving negative readings. For example, when we do readings of longevity, how long is a person going to live and so forth, we have to be very cautious how we give this advice. Remember, the first point we made, was that the spirit soul is senior to the influences of the planets. So by our decision we can influence how these readings turn out. By our actions we can change our karma. The karma that we are born with is not the karma that we have when we are going to die. Why? Because our whole life we are performing activities, and those activities will change our karma. So according to the type of activities we perform, we can change our karma in different ways. That is more important, more powerful than the karmic influences of the material world. So the will of the soul is supreme in this body. We're like kings of the body. And, even though we may be born with a very small kingdom, by proper activities we can cultivate it and make it very nice.

So when we give readings, especially negative readings, first of all a single negative reading is seldom true. It's only when we have three or four indications of the same reading that we should give it at all, first of all. Second of all, always give an antidote. In other words, here's three or four readings in a chart suggest that a person will have poor health, for example. And before we give that reading we should think three or four times, is this really, is there nothing else in the chart that might counteract it? Is there no other way that we could present this to the person? Or, do we know a way for example that they might counteract this reading? If they change their diet, if they get proper excercise, if they adopt certain prayers like Visnusahasranama. Visnusahasranama, I have personal experience, will counteract any health problem. So, when we give a negative reading we should also give an antedote, a way that they can change their life to avoid the consequences of that karma. That means that we have to know spiritual life. A Jyotishi should always be a brahmana first, and an astrologer second. This is very important, otherwise we can't give the advice that people need to avoid the problems in their chart.

And finally, people will come to us, and they'll ask us "How can I get rich?" or "How can I get a better job?" Basically, "How can I improve my material situation?" So we should always advise them that "Yes, there are ways to improve your material situation, but they have to be based on right livelihood, on right actions, on ethics, on spiritual values. Otherwise, they will simply entangle us more and more in material life." I would say out of the questions I recieve as an astrologer, more than half are about money. And in this world money has become a very powerful force. But we should not get caught in the same trap that other people are in. We're astrologers; we're supposed to have knowledge. And knowledge means that we know that material things are only temporary and you cannot take them with you when you leave this life. Therefore when we give readings to people, we should always temper them, whether they are positive or negative. Like when a person has a lot of raja yogas and you can see that they are going to get material benefits in this life. When they have arista bhanga and you can see that they are released from most of the negative readings in their chart. You have to give those with a grain of salt. Just like when you give a negative reading, you have to give the antedote to the negative situation. When you give a positive reading, you also have to temper it with the knowledge that material gain is only temporary, spiritual gain is eternal. So, we should apply these favorable circumstances in our chart to making real spiritual progress. And then we're really making the right use of the advantages we have in this life.

OK, so now I'm going to ask for questions on the different ethical principles of an astrologer. By the way, Guadalupe is here, show her the camera, move the camera and show Guadalupe.

Uddhava: Guadalupe.

Babaji: Matajii. It's very good to have you with us, Im glad you could come. No questions?

Uddhava: Hare Krsna Matajii.

Babaji: Omar says Hare Krsna.

Uddhava: (laughs)

Babaji: We met Omar and Guadalupe at the same meeting.

Uddhava: "Should we answer questions about money at all when they come from poorly developed people?"

Babaji: Well, yeah. We have to, because poorly spiritually undeveloped people, most of their questions are going to be about money and other material things. The trick is, and here is what really separates the expert astrologer from the person who is playing around with it. When someone asks a question like that, we use the question to lead them back to a spiritual understanding. Theres no question that is forbidden, there is no subject. For example, my spiritual master Srila Prabhupad, even though he was a celibate swami and had no interest in family life, if someone asked him a question about family life or, you know, how to raise children or how to deal with different situations in the family, he never tried to avoid the question. He would always answer the question to the best of his ability. But then he would also lead back to spiritual advancement, spiritual life, and how to make the best out of this bad bargain of material existence. So let's say somebody asks, "How can I get a better job?" Well, we look at their chart and we can see that they are not very fortunate. They have some bad karma maybe from a previous life, and that's manifesting as problems with their job. So basically, we should try and engage them in pious activities. Chanting the Name of God, giving charity to qualified people, spiritually advanced people to help with the mission of spreading God-consciousness. Or even maybe voluneering their time for spiritual purposes or something like that, or feeding people, or digging wells in the desert. Or something valuable that they can invest their time and resources in that can give them some pious results in the mode of goodness. That's the trick. Why is a person spiritually unqualified, or why are they having financial difficulties? It means they have performed activities in the mode of ignorance and passion in the past, and so now they're getting karma, that means their financial benefits are withheld or something like that. So how do we help them? We engage them in activities that will give them good karma, right? Pious activities, charitable activities, maybe helping with opening hospitals in poor countries or something. If they can't understand spiritual life, maybe they can do some charity or something like that and that will help them. Is there another question?

Uddhava: Wouldnt it be better to give them a better perspective right from the start? When you first show them how to gratify their senses they will not be prone to spiritual life I could imagine.

Babaji: Some people are not ready for spiritual life. If they're not ready then what can you do? You can engage them in the highest thing that they can concieve. You know, what else can you do? If you try to engage them at too high a level then they wont be able to accept it. And then they might reject your advice all together.

Uddhava: Would it be proper to ask about marriage if my fiancee and I have moksa karaka?

Babaji: Sure why not? Two liberated souls getting married now thats cool.

Uddhava: (laughs)

Babaji: Thats the best kind of marriage. If you really have to get married.

Uddhava: (laughs)

Babaji: Im married to my lion what can I tell you?

Uddhava: Is it true that Vedic astrology focuses on how to engage material things for spiritual life?

Babaji: Yes, the whole Vedic philosophy is like that. The whole Vedic philosophy is that. Here we find ourselves stuck in this material world, now how do we make the best out of that situation? Srila Prabhupada used to say "We have to make the best out of a bad bargain." You know, if you buy ten cases of fruit for your restaurant and half of it is going bad, then maybe you make jam. Yeah, or make a drink out of it or something out of it, because you have to use it right away. It's a bad bargain, you got cheated; but OK, make the best deal like that you can. OK? So let's go on to the next section.