Last Updated on August 13, 2024 by Tejaswini

Every position, every house, every planet in the horoscope is auspicious for spiritual progress. But the strategies adopted by these forces can be through positive or negative reinforcement (from the mind’s or material perspective). The benefic forces in your chart will use the ‘carrot strategy’ and the malefic forces will use the ‘stick strategy’ to get you moving on the spiritual path.

And the basic requirement for a spiritual chart, is that the ascendant sign/lord and the Moon must be strong. ie the physical body / sthool sharir and the mind /Manas must be able to endure a systematic and complete failure of the material life. If the chart is not strong enough to endure these disappointments can lead to physical/ mental/ emotional  damage eg illness, addictions etc which will cause even more harm.

The naturally gentle planets /saumya graha, are Moon (with high paksha bala), Jupiter and Venus. For spiritual development it is ideal if they are ‘spoilt’ in some way or the other.

The Moon must deny security in some way. eg He may give you a source of security and then jerk it away. Eg he might give you a good residence and then as a shock therapy take it away from you. He must make you feel that this material world as a whole is a source of insecurity and your ‘needs’ actually increase this insecurity. And he should ensure that this trigger event happens when a spiritual opportunity is simultaneously available. This will ensure that you firmly turn away from the material and embrace the permanent security that the Self represents.

Jupiter must initially make you feel hopeful, offer help, support etc and then once you reach a level he should pull the rug from under you. He will make you feel that every source of help, every concept you life your life by is hopeless, hollow, a sham. Thus he will drive you to find the Eternal within yourself and not in, ‘masters’, temples or books/ Shastra or external deities. He will show you that every concept you held dear to your heart was actually garbage. As you discard these layers of concepts, you then remain with the real foundation, ie the Self.

Venus will give you wonderful one to one relationships, beauty, value, validation, marriage, money etc. And then when the time is right he will make you realise the worthlessness of all these things he signifies. He will show you that these relationships are not as equitable, valuable or inherently beautiful as you thought them to be. He will ensure that you get tired of trying to find your balance in these external relationships. He will invalidate your feelings for everything he stands for. Your relationship with everything external to you will be destroyed by him. Eventually your personal mediative practices also stop. All this so that you can realise your perfect love, your relationship with your own Self.

Mercury is a neutral graha influenced by the company he keeps in the chart. He governs the intelligence, ie your way of processing the information you receive. Intelligence, by itself is neutral, but the lenses of perception change how we use this processed information. He will work as per the birth Moon and the other chart specific influences to unveil the Self.

The naturally cruel planets /kroor graha are Sun, Mars, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu.

Sun helps you remain on fire. He gives you that initial brief glimpse of the limited self/ jivatma (this happens during the initiation/diksha that your Guru gives you) and this glimpse drives you to search for the unlimited Paramatma. All this under the direction of the Sun. He burns the dross away from you and turns you into the gold of the Self. The Sun is clarity, purpose and the direction. In your Dhyan, the central black dot that you focus on, with practice, turns into the blazing shining internal Sun.

Mars grants the courage to keep walking the spiritual path regardless of everything. He allows you to ignore the pain, the dissatisfaction the adversities and keep going forwards. He helps you keep your focus on this final conquest. He grants you the boldness to explore this unfamiliar and sometimes scary terrain. He also grants you the weapons you need, ie yogic postures, mantra etc which allow you to pinpoint and control the pranic movements in your body.

Then Saturn helps you endure through every adversity in this path. The spiritual path is necessarily harsh. You have to control your senses organs and your organs of action. Also you cannot let your mind engage in desires or fantasies or any other thought apart from the Self.  This restriction, constriction and deprivation requires strict personal discipline. Saturn will ‘spoil’ the horoscope, ie you have to be made hopeless about the charms of the material world in order to achieve the Eternal.

Rahu will show you that the promises of the material world are hollow and cause more pain. After a few rounds of ‘overreach and crash’ you learn, the hard way, that the material world has no stability. It cannot be counted upon, cannot be trusted, cannot be expected to give happiness. Once this lesson in learnt you start searching for your Self, as this is the only one you can really trust to be with you always.

Ketu is the real mokshkarak. He will show you that his smoke actually hides within it the light of the Eternal, the Jyoti of the Ish. He is the flag/ dhwaj of Moksh. He will bring in detachment of the highest order which will lead you to your Self.

And then Rahu and Ketu, the polarities combine and bring to you the final Brahmavakya, ‘Ayam Atma Brahma’. There is no place for attachment nor detachment, you are everything and yet beyond everything. This realization opens up at the sandhi allowing your consciousness to simultaneously expand and become subtle. As this middle path, the Sushumna, becomes accessible to you, the Kundalini rises through it to merge with the Paramatma.

There are the 2 luminous graha, Sun and Moon, the 2 Chhaya graha Rahu and Ketu and the remaining 5 are tara graha. In spiritually oriented charts Sun, Moon, Rahu and Ketu will always show some distinct strength. And for the Tara graha, Mercury and Venus, the inner planets affect the mind faster than the outer planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. So to progress towards the Self, Mercury and Venus must not have a major role in life, ie ideally should be combust, debilitated, with dispersive planets like Ketu etc. This will ensure that your mind remains more stable and remains unaffected by the issues around as you work as per your Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

I have written several posts for determining spiritual inclination in the horoscope. (Index page)