Astrostudents-Group Discussions: [astrostudents] Upayagers or Astrologers ?

Monday, June 01, 2009

[astrostudents] Upayagers or Astrologers ?

Dear Members,

The discussion going on at the moment is very interesting to follow. The importance of Tewa Darusthi is being emphasized, which is always very good, since Lal Kitab is an Ascendant-based kind of astrology. I have been able to notice bad examples of Lal Kitab astrologers giving out Upayas to people without doing any kind of Tewa Darusthi. This means these ignorant astrologers cannot possibly be sure if the chart is correctly calculated or not.

As a matter of fact this is not the first time a problem like this have been seen in India. Around the 7th century AD the great astronomer/astrologer Varaha Mihira wrote that a miscalculation of an astrologer is as sinful as the murder of a Brahmin. Actually, I think this proves that there was astrologers who was indiscriminately using wrong chart even at the time of Varaha Mihira. Otherwise he would never have given such a strong statement.

My personal opinion is that any astrologer who is using an Ascendant-based kind of astrology without verifying whether or not the Ascendant is correct is nothing but a big charlatan. However, this goes on every day and it surely gives a bad name to Lal Kitab, when the charlatans belong to this category of astrologers. Anyway, there is not so much we can do about this problem, except to do our very best when we, who are supposed to be the good guys, do the horoscopes ourselves. But are we really doing our best, or are some of us perhaps getting a little lazy? This is actually a very important question. Since - after all - no astrologer, however big or famous, is any better than the last horoscope he did.

There is a certain critizism about Lal Kitab astrologers that I have often among the other kinds of Hindu astrologers and even among some few western astrologers as well. They say, when you consult a Lal Kitab astrologer, he will ask you a number of highly relevant questions about your life, which clearly confirms the correctness of your chart, and he would even pin-point at certain events going on in certain years of the past. He may even say thing about the present situations, being precisely correct. But when it comes to the future, he either can or will not give any predictions at all, but rather gives a large number of Upayas (remedies) to guard agains any bad elements in the near future, normally without even telling what malefic event the remedy is supposed to guard against.

No doubt a lot of relevant things are being said during an Lal Kitab consultation. I mean say, if Saturn is malefic in the 6th in the Varshphal we would caution against buying new leather shoes in that year. This is in my opinion a good and sound piece of astrological advice. And we have a lot of relevant information like that to share with our clients. But given the knowledge about the past and present that we present to the client, isn't it only natural that he/she also expect something like that to be said about the future? And not only Upayas, however relevant they may be.

I think there is some element of truth is this critizism against Lal Kitab astrologers. If I am right then we need to ask ourselves some questions: Are we becoming so arrogant against astrology that we no longer care about giving predictions about the future? Did Pt. Roop Chand Joshi ever say anything against giving predictions about the future? (Except of course that predictions should be given with due caution and all the necessary ethical consideration, etc. etc.). Are we somehow forgetting what it means to be astrologers? Are we developing into Upayagers rather then Astrologers?

Best regards,
Finn Wandahl