psychologically astrology

This is a continued post. I have written about the closing sub periods of the planets, Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars and Rahu in my previous post. This is now about the closure periods/chidra-dasha, i.e. the last sub period of the main periods of Jupiter, Saturn and finally Mercury.

The main-period of Jupiter follows that of Rahu. The Mahadasha of Jupiter lasts for 16yrs, and the last sub-period, chidra dasha belongs to Rahu, this extends for 29 months.

Depending on what Jupiter stands for in your chart, his karakatva, he will have granted you expansion, growth, maturity and wisdom during his 16yr long mahadasha. Maybe you have learnt yourself or taught others. He is a benevolent expansive planet and tends to hope against hope, believes everyone to be good, gives others a second chance, if there is negativity he will ignore it in the belief that it will be good. Jupiter can work for others, help them as he takes a hopeful and wide humanitarian angle. But this sort of idealistic situation does not exist in real life. There are crooks and people often wilfully cheat you.

Rahu is the exact opposite of Jupiter, he is sneaky, calculative, breaks rules, aspires for higher stations. He knows how to spot a crook, because he is one himself. In the closing phase of Jupiter mahadasha, Rahu cuts off your Jupiter persona. He accurately identifies all those things where you have let others take advantage of your benevolent Jupiter phase. Rahu will take stock of what you needed in these 16yrs, not what you gave of yourself. Misplaced hopes, humanitarian thoughts, misdirected charity work will stop. Even knowledge which you may have gained, if not furthering your personal goals and desires will be discarded. Rahu is very thorough about this, he will infuse ambition in all that Jupiter created. And this will be linked to your karma.

So during your Jupiter main-period, however kind and generous you may feel for others do keep track of what you are gaining from the interactions. This does not mean you have to be selfish, Jupiter will not allow you to be selfish. But at least be aware that what you are doing should benefit you too in some way or the other. This will make this last Rahu chidradasha more easy to navigate and you will be able to better consolidate your gains from Jupiter. Rahu will prepare you for your next Saturn persona, thus he will link your gains from Jupiter with a deep understanding of your karmic desires.

And next is the Mahadasha of Saturn which goes on for 19yrs. Saturn will make you work systematically and help you work off your karma. Whichever houses Saturn is linked to, you will work. He is a strict taskmaster and expects dedication, sincerity and honesty.

Here the last closure antardasha belongs to Jupiter and this lasts for 36 months. In this last sub-period, Jupiter will take stock of all the work you have done, or failed in and grant you an optimistic and wise perspective. You will use guidance from your elders, teachers, religion, philosophy and make sense of the back-breaking work that Saturn made you do. Relationships based on duty, responsibility and work will be analysed. If these relationships have failed to nourish your soul and failed to make you wiser they will be discarded. You will choose wisely the duties you will carry on with you into the next phase. You have worked through a significant portion of your karmic baggage and now you will separate yourself from this burden.

Social obligations, duties to the parents and elders, earning prestige /social position, gaining assets and wealth, working within the restrictions of social law, you have really worked hard! Saturn’s is the second longest Mahadasha and a lot happens in 19yrs of life, and you are probably exhausted. Jupiter will now provide his relief, he is the one who kisses and makes it better.

You do not look back with regret, but with kindness. Finally you are kind to your own self and appreciate yourself. Saturn-Jupiter give this blessing to you, of hope.

The Mahadasha of Saturn is finally followed by that of Mercury. His main-period extends for 17yrs. Mercury is all about skills, mental analysis, getting things working, technical knowledge, money, trade, communication, brotherhood, siblings, arguments, discussions, immaturity, risk-taking behaviour, courage, the recklessness of youth etc. He likes to learn, experience and also teach these things. He represents the karmic load (6th house/Virgo) you have taken on in this life and also your choice of thinking and acting (3rd house/Gemini).

Mercury’s mahadasha ends with the sub period of Saturn, this chidradasha lasts for 33 months. Saturn the elder, will systematically and dispassionately cut through Mercury’s adolescent and irresponsible behaviour/acts. Your gains will be reviewed in the lens of social conformity, responsibility, honesty, discipline and if they have helped you reduce your karmic backlog. If not, then he will cut them off, e.g your drinking buddies might vanish, friends who used your connections will vanish, teammates who used your skills without giving you credit will move away. He will also ensure that you conform to social and legal standards and make you risk-averse, you will put safety first now onwards. Saturn will make you pragmatic, realistic and less trusting. The skills you learnt will be utilised for creating a socially acceptable mature persona. Your mental patterns will have to fall in line with your material reality.

This can be a traumatic period as it is a harsh wake-up call and Saturn is anything but gentle. If this period occurs relatively early in life, it can be devastating, but if it occurs after you cross your 30s, it will be easier to navigate through. Saturn is preparing you for the next Ketu’s mahadasha, a complete new cycle. So he will remove anything that remotely resembles ‘spaciness’, ‘vagueness’ and try to ground you firmly so that you can face up to Ketu’s mindless detachment more safely.

So under Mercury’s direction however exciting it may be, remember that Saturn is going to go through all that you do think and behave. So use your intellect and try to control your thoughts and actions so that you gain something permanent from this period.

Analysing the chidra dasha effects helps you make an intelligent transition from one planet’s mahadasha to the next. If you remain aware of how things are going to be accounted for at the end, you can act more wisely during the main-periods. This last sub-period/bhukti/antardasha is a period which also acts as bridge, from one persona to another.

One thing to look into would be, if planets in sequence occupy the same house, their periods will be contiguous, focussing on the same overall themes related to that house. Especially so if it is Rahu or Ketu together with their planets in sequence, their combined periods can seem to be interminable and the house-things that they stand for will remain continuously in the spot-light. If you analyse your chart you will realise that not all houses are in focus, in your life you will deeply experience matters related to very few houses, the rest of your life will be as if on auto-pilot.

e.g. I know a chart where,

• at birth he started with Saturn mahadasha (Saturn was placed in 12th house, so not very interested in physical/environment).
• Followed by Mercury mahadasha, who was the ruler of the 12th house (Mercury and Saturn had exchanged houses, so more 12th house stuff).
• Followed by Ketu mahadasha (Ketu was with Venus as the ascendant and 8th lord, more haziness with deep changes for the personality).
• Followed by Venus mahadasha who couldn’t give his full results because he was with Ketu, it was like a combined 27yrs of Ketu+Venus!
• So this person’s life was dominated by his 12th house and Ketu, the only relief being that the Yogkarak for Libra ascendant, i.e Saturn was controlling everything, so ultimately took him along the spiritual path after a lot of heartache and emotional pain related to his personality /physical environment.

So now, pull out your chart (Vedic system, lots of sites give free online charts), see which mahadasha you are in at present. Which house does this planet sit in? Which aspects of your life are in focus? Then the sub-period/antardasha, which planet is controlling this? Where is he placed? How are his links with the main-period planet? And finally are you navigating through with awareness or allowing these 2 planets to dictate your behaviour?

As always, observe charts and the people around you. Books and other people’s experiences can only be a reference, but what you observe and experience is real knowledge.

(This was the last in the chidra-dasha series. I hope it is of use to the kind soul who had asked this question in the contact page. There are whole books on Vimshottari system. But the easiest way to learn is to observe. Get charts of your family members and try to correlate how events in their lives have played out with the planets. Major events like getting a job, marriage, childbirth, divorce, medical conditions, death etc can be easily tallied from the charts, even by beginners.)