Jyotishavidya Practice

Jyotisha is the science of calendars [samaya]

The task of the Jyotishavidyana is to cite the Grand Calendar as accurately as possible.

Jyotiṣika are not poets, parents, preachers, priests, professors, popes, patricians, presbyters, propagandists, or psychologists.

Jyotiṣika are calendar-readers.

The art part

• Way of Knowing [γνῶσις]

... requires wisdom and knowledge of human nature, along with contemplative awareness which allows a gentle function of psychic intuition.

The Jyotiṣika must be psychically grounded in some type of regular spiritual practice in order to guarantee the flow of intuition.

Most Jyotiṣika enjoy regular communication with intelligent and beneficent spiritual guides.

The practioner is a storage container of the heritage hoard of esoteric knowledge. One may not be gifted to speak on all topics (pandita) nor to serve as a conventional authority figure in a scientific field (expert, professeur).

Yes, it is possible to know the sequence of future events via an extremely close and skillful study of the samayavidya.

However, the way of knowing requires the ego-membrane to almost disappear, so that the vidya (view) itself gains permission to articulate.

Posing as a conventional"expert" with lots of ego-inflated authority energy is quite impossible!

Practitioner ego

Can be problematic in the lands of Bharat, where some flamboyant Jyotiṣika try to achieve fame by making giant, sweeping predictions that nearly always go wrong.

• Grandiosity is inappropriate and embarrassing in a field where humility is the absolute prerequisite for having any knowledge at all

Rather, the humble Jyotishavidyana is like a human crystal-set, picking up radio signals from the universe. The transmissions do come in, but sometimes they're fuzzy. Sometimes they're remarkably clear. Sometimes they're contradictory, or mixed.

My responsibility = to keep tuning my crystals, getting better and better reception over time. I am certainly a better astrologer now than when I was 20, 30, 40 or 50. The best astrologers should probably be over 60, committed meditators, or both.

The science part

is not conventional modern // bench science //

• Jyotishavidya is very far from modern positivism.

• Rather, Jyotisha is Scientia in the sense of structured knowledge.

An ancient tradition, passed along from guru to student over the millennia, Jyotisha traces its lineage to the Rishis - illumined seers who spoke within the Vedic cultures. The rules of Jyotisha are well-tested. They still work, even having been somewhat damaged through passage of the Kali Yuga. And that is why we continue to practice Jyotisha today.

Note on cultural value of the Anglosphere // science //

Many westerners familiar with वैदिक (vaidik) cultures prefer to avoid a pedestrian controversy about the English word // science // via the practice of labeling Jyotisha knowledge as a Vidya .

Vidya = a body of knowledge which can be "seen" (vid, video, evidence) either through books or by a teacher. This better label Vidya will be quite workable when the Sanskrit word Vidya -- like other Sanskrit terms Karma, dharma, Yoga,etc. -- makes its way into English.

However, for now, when saying "science" one must specify the more classical meaning of that English word.

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updated: 15 April 2024

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all that is true, all that is noble,

all that is just and pure,

all that is loveable and gracious,

whatever is excellent and admirable -

fill all your thoughts with these things."

~~ Paul of Tarsus, Epistle to the Philippians 4:8