Building a Foundation of Learning

When I established this page in 2021, one of my goals was to empower readers with fundamentals of Vedic Astrology so they could begin to use the principles in their lives. Keeping in mind that Jyotisha Vedanga (Sanskrit for the Science of Light, the original form of this practice) began as an attempt to manage reality through the creation of a calendar, I believe that anyone willing to suspend their disbelief for a year can learn enough to receive benefits of relating planetary movement to quality of life. The benefits accrue through a combination of personal experience aligned with concurrent planetary positions of the past applied to present and possible future situations.

To give an example: Most of us have likely experienced a situation at home, school, or work like the following. You have an important deadline to meet with a high quality standard attached to it. This might be an assignment in school, a project or task on the job, or a responsibility at home requiring preparation, planning, and skillful execution. Something happens that interferes with proper preparation and suddenly the deadline is upon us. We do our best but are certain that our efforts are doomed to failure. Yet, for reasons we cannot explain, the outcome exceeds the most outlandish expectations we ever had despite our not doing what all would agree was essential work. Conversely, in a similar situation we prepare to the nth degree and complete the activity on or ahead of time at a level of quality we are confident will earn all of the merit we attached to the project. But, again inexplicably, the results are mediocre or worse, a complete failure.

Situations like this and the subtle energies that underpin them are exactly what metaphysical practices are designed for. Concurrences and coincidences when they repeat predictably even with no physical cause or so-called “hard evidence” have an unmistakeable ring of truth once we let go of our learned skepticism.

I didn’t accept this the first time or even the five hundredth time I heard and witnessed such things, but over time I have come to realize that “Who, What, Where, and When” of any experience concurrent with any repeated pattern in the metaphysical world are likely to be subject to energetic causes that are beyond our capabilities to measure or even to understand. The “Why and How” remain out of reach except as myth, legend, or metaphysical conclusion. Nonetheless, as Aristotle once noted in his essay on Concurrence and Coincidence, “Just because we don’t understand the mechanism operating in such matters doesn’t make them any less real, especially when we directly experience them.”

A fisherman in ancient India didn’t need to know that the tides were the result of gravitational effects involving the Sun and Moon. The “supernatural” story of a form of incomprehensible power inhabiting or acting on the waters and causing them to rise and fall in a predictable patterns was more than sufficient for the boats to launch and return with the tides, making the journey to and from the fishing ground more efficient. Understanding the concurrence of Solar position and Moon placement was sufficient to generate effective time tables regardless of the operating mechanism.

To that end, I am going to use most of my future blog posts to lay out what I hope will be an interesting and informative foundation for anyone interested in learning the basics of Jyotisha Vedanga (Vedic Astrology) to a degree sufficient to understand its usefulness for one’s own life. I will also be happy to provide a basic birth chart for anyone interested in applying the lessons to their own life. The chart will be provided at no charge. Participants will be able to post questions about their chart as it relates to each lesson and I will answer as many as time permits provided that they are related to the lesson and I have your permission to share the question and answer publicly on this blog, my social media pages dedicated to Jyotish, and as examples in future lectures or postings I may create as part of my professional practice. I will conceal all personal informtion as to your name and birth data (full date, time, and place) but will need to be able to put up the chart, the question, and my answer.

Private consultations about individual charts will be provided for a fee upon request. The only thing I am providing for free is a basic Vedic birth chart.

By the time a year of lessons are completed participants should know the basics of reading both North and South Indian Charts, differences between Vedic and Western astrology, how to track the movement of planets against their birth chart, and a variety of techniques for applying the data they collect on their personal charts to their individual lives.

One of the most important roles I have as a professional astrologer is to empower each person to become their own practitioner at a basic level, that is, to understand the tools you came into life with as represented by the signs, the power sources for operating those tools via the planets, and the affects produced by choosing different tools and power sources in relation to the timing of life lessons, opportunities, and challenging situations.

Many of us have said at least once that we wished humans were born with an operating manual. By learning to read the Vedic birth chart over time, you might come to believe, as I have, that such a manual exists written large in the movements of planets, the sun, moon, and eclipse points against the background of fixed stars.

Stay tuned for the first lesson, “Elements of a Vedic Astrology Chart,” coming soon. If you want your free birth chart to use for your own learning experience, email me directly at stephen@jyotishamerica.com. You will receive a response from me within 5 business days.