OM Hrim Srim Grha cakra varttinesnaicaraya Klim Aim Souh swaha

Listen to Shani mantra

http://sanskrit.gde.to/

If in addition to mantra you wish to follow Shri Parashara's remedial instruction for giving a cow, buffalo, or goat in charity, this is quite easy to do!

www.heifer.org provides life-giving animals and veterinary training to impoverished families throughout our world. It's easy and fun to select a charitable gift from their online catalog of buffaloes, cows, goats and more.

(Even if you're having an easy dasha, these beloved animals make wonderful celebratory gifts!)

• Transforming Ignorance into Wisdom

• Separation, Survival, and Boundaries

• Spiritual benefit of Shani periods

• Death vs. Separation

• Exhaustion from Overwork -- Isolation

• Shani periods Compared to Ketu periods

• Graha in 12th-from Shani: loss and dissolution of agreement

Transforming Ignorance into Wisdom

Shani the Lord of Karma has one job to do: convert ignorance into wisdom. During Shani periods, the native confronts many karmic challenges which are the result of a history of muddled or incomplete thinking. One did not have enough information at the time of the earlier error, and one must slowly (Shani) and diligently (Shani) then work (over the period of 19 years) to correct the earlier ignorance.

• While correcting, one must refrain from blaming others and accept in full neutrality that the problems by which one is best are historic, they are karmic, and because Shani is busily converting ignorance to wisdom these problems are actually a fabulous blessing.

• Mistakes which are corrected and transformed into knowledge are Shani's great, great gifts.

• Once this work is completed the cycle of suffering in regard to the matter will be ended and one will have the freedom in subsequent incarnations to pursue other wisdom (and to address other karma!)

During Shani periods it is very smart indeed to admit that one lacks the skills to resolve the situation and to pay for professional advice. Paying for credentialed advice is one of the best "converter" methods.

• There will be several pragmatic, worldly, materially intelligent strategies available for you to slowly alleviate the chronic problems which Shani induces.

• None of the strategies are magical or ideal. (Surya rules the ideal and Shani the Real is a bitter enemy of Surya!)

• All of the strategies involve slow progress, small rewards, and sustained effort.

• However, there are probably several ways to reduce your debt and improve family life as a result, which could be examined and a "lesser of two evils" route from bondage can be chosen.

It's Shani after all, the Lord of Multiple Iterations. But Shani will stop generating the repetitions when the native has accepted one's own ignorance (past mistakes) AND put some karmic effort into consciously accepting a new approach to those old problems. The effort comes usually from study and careful discussion with people who know the law (human law) relevant to the situation.

Exhaustion from Overwork

• Shani periods always follow Guru periods in the Vimshottari Dasha.

•  ypically Shani indicates the time of heavy responsibilities, sustained regulation and deprivation of any luxuries previously afforded by the lifestyle, caused by introducing children into the house. e

•  Often the parents, particularly the mother, will be living two lives, chronically overworked, and feeling a scarcity of both Time (Shani) and material resources.

• If Shani occupies the 6th, 8th, or 12th angle from the mahadasha-pati (particularly the 6th) the native can expect to feel a certain enslavement to duties, lack of help from partners (6th-from = partner fails to fulfill contract) and being in generally stripped down to material basics in a state of material or psychological austerity.

• If Shani is well-disposed e.g. swakshetra or uchcha, and lord of good houses, the native will possess adequate moral character to sustain through this period of exhaustion. However if Shani is weak either vis-a-vis the mahadasha-pati or by lordship, the Shani period can feel crippling.

Separation, Survival, and Boundaries

Psychologically and physically, the dashas and bhuktis/antardashas of Shani are marked by the experience of Separation.

• When Shani is well placed specific projects may indeed be advanced. Marriage, acquisition and furnishing of a home, gradual step-wise job promotions, religious initiation, and all carefully planned traditional activities may be successfully accomplished under Shani's influence.

• However in the larger context of Shani's period which may endure for as long as 19 years (the full Vimshottari mahadasha of Shani) or as briefly as 10 months (Surya/Shani) the theme of separation and closure is guaranteed to be played out.

• Shani rules the struggle for safety and survival. Shani induces deprivation, alienation, isolation, and privacy. When Shani features prominently in the rashi kundali one of the first impressions a Jyotishi will form of that native is that he requires a large measure of privacy to complete his important work. A prominent radix Shani will impress a lifelong pattern of isolation and coldness in human relations.

• During Shani's Vimshottari periods, while many useful acquisitions and expansions may occur in the native's life due to Shani's favorable house lordships, there will always be in addition and perhaps predominantly, The need for separation and closure in the native's most essential relationships.

• Psychologically the native feels obliged to establish firm boundaries between his own psycho-physical world and the ever-invasive needs of others. Spiritual, mental, emotional and often physical separation from others is felt as if it were - and indeed it is - a matter of basic survival.

• Shani engages the native in a competition for scarce resources. Either he has some essential value which others are trying to take from him, or others have the value which he lacks and he feels impelled to obtain.

• Much of this struggle arises directly from the reptile brain; stimulating ancient impulses to hide and hoard; lowering trust and raising Anxiety about survival. The native feels needy, as do those around him.

• here is a subtle or not-so-subtle psychological climate of competition for scarce resources which exposes (perhaps long suppressed) fears of starvation and abandonment.

 Isolation

The Shani isolation experience need not be physical to be acute. Emotional starvation and social disapproval will not kill the native but he may feel the cold wind of death just as fearfully as if he had been literally abandoned by his tribe and left to starve in the wilderness.

• The need for stronger boundaries within the most intimate and psychologically essential relationships at home and at work, need not be a victim experience.

• If Shani or Shani's lord is strong, the native may recognize a need to control and protect his own resources - emotional, physical, political - long before an actual attack.
  

Shani gives increased responsibility. If the native is by character wise and farsighted, he will realize at the outset of any Shani period that

Overall Shani periods create a sense of lesser well-being. There is less trust and sharing; more fear and hoarding. However, Shani increases wisdom and strengthens the moral character. His periods demand privacy, isolation, stronger boundaries, and self-reliance in place of social approval.

Spiritual benefit of fear and abandonment (!)

During Shani periods the native is typically forced to dig deeper within his body and mind in search of life-sustaining power. No one else can help him.

• Ideally, the native gets so "stressed out" while trying to super-humanly protect and sustain himself that he turns to the Divine in frustration and despair.

• In this happy event, the native discovers his eternal life force in the power of the Divine. His reptile brain's relentless "fight or flight" signal is quelled, and Shani's job is done!

• The ancient karma of Abandonment and starvation -- which everyone has experienced in past lives -- rises up from its long-suppressed subconscious container during Shani periods. Shani periods therefore feel unusually fearful and self-protective, focused on survival basics of food, clothing, and shelter; and skillfully defending one's own supply of life-sustaining energy Against predatory others.

• "Staying alive" whether physically, mentally, or emotionally (and sometimes spiritually) will seems to require isolation, self-reliance, and attention to basics. Ideally in this isolated state the native will, in desperation, seek the Divine.

Death vs. social/emotional separation

Shani is a karaka for separation -- but Shani periods only give physical death when Shani is also radix L-2 or radix L-7.

• More often, Shani requires a metaphorical death expressed through separation in core relationships. The separations may be physical but the effect is often more devastating if the the native experiences a psychological "freeze out" while the partner/boss/child/ -- or other essential person -- remains nearby .

• his kind of tribal freeze-out, or Abandonment by non-recognition, commonly occurs when Shani occupies a dushthamsha angle from the mahadasha pati. The effect of being cut off from essential nourishing resources is felt Acutely whether one lives in a posh Manhattan condo or deep in the steamy jungle.

• Worst case of see-it-but-can't-get-it, is probably when Shani occupies 3rd-from-Budha, or 6th-from-Shukra, or 12th-from-Surya.

• Shani is a survival voice which interprets ego development as a dangerous distraction from the work at hand. Shani destroys Surya-supported individual identity through destroying the supportive human relationships that flatter the ego. (Remember Surya-Shani are enemies).

• So, Shani is not nice to the ego - but Shani usually does not need to destroy the physical body in order to oppress the ego.

Compared to Ketu periods:

Ketu Mahadasha and the bhukti periods of Ketu can give quite similar results to the description of Shani above. Isolation, self-concern, fear, survival pressure etc. are also attributes of Ketu.

• However Shani periods produce a pulsing physical survival signal from the reptile brain. Shani periods focus attention on acquiring and defending one's hoard. Whether the need is material (food, clothing, shelter, money) or psychic (creativity, space, free time, privacy) the native feels a powerful obligation to feed that need.

• By contrast, Ketu is detached, disconnected, and apathetic. Ketu feels no survival drive. Ketu tends to accept fate, wandering aimlessly, hopeless and often deranged.

• Shani periods are practical, materialistic, and self-concerned. Although Shani periods can be very difficult physically and emotionally, Shani periods are rarely permanently crippling. Shani strengthens the moral judgment and create a more solid foundation for better times in the future.

• Ketu has no sense of separate self, so being cut off from other selves is rather a non-starter for Ketu. Ketu doesn't care about food, clothing, and shelter. Ketu is out of touch with the physical body. Ketu does not hear the reptile brain signal except very faintly, and usually only then if Ketu is associated with Shani.

• Shani periods keep the native focused on defending his fortress. Ketu periods typically involve wandering. Ketu periods may create a pattern of physical, emotional, or mental wandering - the energetic level at which the wandering occurs will be defined by Ketu's house, His lord, and any drishti coming to Ketu from other graha. But in general the physical wandering component as in "pilgrimage" is fairly strong, esp. if Ketu is angular.

• By contrast to Shani, and Ketu knows nothing about boundaries. Ketu is open and "trusting" -- but not trusting in the sense of expecting a specific, predictable result from a defined relationship. With Shani, relationships may be highly negative as in predatory and recognition-denying, but Shani is clear and firm on this cause-and-effect relationship. Shani is a clear if negative thinker.

Ketu is "trusting" in the sense of having no expectations either positive or negative. Any outcome is acceptable to Ketu. Unlike Shani who is specifically building toward a secure future, Ketu has no stake in the future. Ketu does not recognize Time and has no interest nor capacity to invest in the future. Nor does Ketu care about the past, nor learn from the past nor have any attachment to history or tradition (which Shani highly values).

• Ketu's highly permeable "always open" willingness to share the food, body, and other resources with any who enquire may create either a tamasic or a sattvic effect. As always the final results of Ketu depend absolutely upon the graha who controls Ketu's rashi, along with graha who send drishti, natural house lord, etc.

• Ketu exemplifies what modern psychology calls "attachment deficit disorder". Ketu natives may appear to form relationships but they act like pre-verbal infants, attaching themselves to virtually any caretaker. Results of these no-expectation relationships range from serendipitous to unsavory. If Ketu is yuti Moon, this wandering and psycho-emotional permeability is a lifelong condition, much exacerbated during Ketu bhukti.

• As a manifestation of Shri Ganesha, Ketu can provide superior spiritual results. Complete detachment from material welfare including core ambivalence toward fleshly survival can produce a great Saint.

• At lower levels of consciousness, Ketu is associated with a lack of appropriate personal boundarieswhich generates a victim state: moral breakdown; utter loss of social dignity; profligacy and disrepute.

• However at the higher levels of consciousness the Ketu native consciously chooses to abandon the energy-consuming practice of managing social boundaries, and concentrate instead on absorbing the omnipresence of the Divine.

In sum, certain effects of Shani and Ketu will appear similar. Isolation, social disconnection, frustration and alienation in human relationships, scarce resources, and a feeling of circumstances beyond one's control, are common factors. Also, both Shani period and Ketu period can produce excellent spiritual results.

However, the key difference is that Shani is urgently concerned with survival whereas Ketu is apathetic. As a result, Shani periods are characterized by hard work, planning, and stern self-reliance; whereas Ketu periods feature ambivalence, wandering and unexpected social relationships.

Shani has only one goal: . If Shani period is difficult enough, the native may have a long-awaited "breakthrough" into spiritual liberation. Shani can be the most spiritually beneficial graha of all.

Shani-Ketu periods:

Shani-Ketu by karaka power also generates profound psychological detachment with an underlying (often subconscious) expectation of abandonment. This underlying expectation is very karmic because it brings forth a self-fulfilling prophecy of surrender, abandonment, and identity annihilation which reflects trauma from past lives.

Final Bhukti: Shani/Guru

• Sen. John McCain was in the "closure" period of Shani-Guru-Kuja, with only five months left until the final day of Shani's 19-year mahadasha, when he lost the 04-Nov-2008 U.S. presidential election to his competitor, Sen. Barack Obama.

• McCain's Guru is a reasonably helpful graha = L-4 patriotism = L-7 advisers. But neechcha Kuja is the highly inauspicious L-3/L-8. Combined with the exhaustion any person would feel at the end of Shani mahadasha, it was no wonder that McCain's concession speech sounded to many as if he was expressing not sadness - but Relief!

Shani periods are conservative and fearful. The sub-periods of those four ‘12th-from’ graha will produce an experience of dissolution and loss.

• This is absolutely a good thing spiritually as by dissolving some attachments you are preparing to have a calm and austere experience of death.

• However on the material plane where the human survival brain is programmed to accumulate and acquire material items (wealth, food, works of art, sticks and feathers to make our nests...) any type of forced, sustained material loss pattern is deeply frustrating to the brain.

• Our present highly materialistic culture which positively celebrates the size of the accumulated heap (the modern equivalent to the buried hoards of the Vikings) makes it even harder to endure the loss of stature, dignity, and purported security that are represented by the Heap (house, car, stock portfolio, college savings account, etc.)

So even though we know from a higher spiritual point of view that dissolving attachments to people and things is a very positive step along the path to enlightenment, material and social losses are very frustrating and anxiety-generating at the lower levels of reality -- where most of us do live!

file update: 03-Sep-2010

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