Graha Avastha & Behaviour
Understanding the placement of Grahas in a Jataka Chakra is an extremely difficult aspect and it needs years of practice to understand this. There is no short cut to this and those who look for the short cuts will be certainly disappointed. This is the reason why it takes years of practice to understanding the working of various planets in a horoscope. Hence, many said that Jyotish is like a Ocean and it takes many life times to understand this let alone few years! All the successful astrologers were successful because of their connection to the divine consciousness which provided them the intuition to see the things in certain way.
To understand the working of Grahas, one should have a good working knowledge of psychology and human evolution. One should reflect upon the root impulses which prod one to think and act in certain manner. It is said the Grahas are equivalent to People while the signs are equivalent to places. That's why Understanding Grahas is equivalent to understanding people's mind and actions. Given below some cues that can guide the mind to think in a certain way!
1. Role: A person assumes various roles in life which is also affected by the age profile of the person. When the a boy is young, he assumes the role of a son, a brother, a friend, a student etc. Similarly an adult assumes the role of a father, an employee, a husband, a guide, a friend, a brother, a teacher and also a student. The role defines certain expectations which the person tries to fulfill. So, the behavior of the same person changes depending on where the person is. Can you expect the same when your father is at home vs. he is in the office? Are the thoughts, action and behavior the same when he is at home vs. the office? They can't be the same and I am sure you all will agree!
2. Inherent nature: Can the role alter the inherent nature of the person? For instance someone is aggressive vs. someone else is compassionate? Would you expect the same behavior from both these persons when they are at work? The compassionate person perhaps is better suited for a teaching job while the aggressive person is best suited for a marketing or a lawyer job. The inherent tendencies can alter the behavior of the person although the expectations from him in a particular role is the same. An introvert vs. extrovert person will have very different behavior given the same environment, say office or home or a play ground; say with the family or with the boss. So, one can't ignore the inherent nature!
3. Mental maturity: I have hinted about this before; the mental maturity brings many changes in the ways of thinking in the same person. You don't behave the same when you are an infant, child, adolescent, adult, middle aged or an old person. Say the inherent nature is the same (i.e., the most fundamental nature) does not undergo much change, but a adolescent person will be more energetic than a child or a middle aged person. If a person is asked to do certain thing, say play cricket for the office, will his performance be the same if he played as a adolescent vs. a middle aged person? I am sure you will all agree that, there will be differences in the ability and willingness to pay the match.
4. Alertness: Say a person, middle aged, a compassionate family man takes his family out on a picnic vs. he is going to relax at home. Would his activities, mental energy level be the same? Keeping everything i.e., role, inherent nature, mental maturity etc. unchanged, we can still find differences in the mental and physical activities depending on the level of mental alertness. If the person is sleepy, or seeping or dreaming or eating or engaged in some entertaining activities, his activities will be very different.
5. State: What happens a person is caught up in some conflicts will he behave the same as when he is comfortably watching Television at home? Will it be the same when the person is enjoying in a friends place? Keeping all the other factors viz., role, inherent nature, mental maturity and alertness unchanged, there will still be differences in his behavior depending on the physical state he is in. For instance in the office, you will expect an enterprising sr. executive (middle-aged man) who is highly attentive to be getting his work done efficiently. Isn't it? But what happens that the office is bombed or the employee is taken hostage by terrorists? Will you expect the same behavior?
Now you see that the behavior of a person depends on the combination of all the above mentioned factors. Similarly to correctly judge the mood and behavior of a Graha one needs to understand in what condition the Graha is placed. The above mentioned states of are equivalent to:
1- Role: Bhava ownership and placement. Functional nature.
2- Inherent nature: Naisargika nature. Natural significations.
3- Mental maturity: Baladi avastha
4- Alertness: Sayanadi avastha
5- State: Deeptadi avastha
One should make effort to understanding the results of a Graha based on each of these avasthas considering them in isolation. Then one should sum up all the influences to decipher the composite effect.
You must be thinking about, is it really required to do this analysis for all Grahas in a horoscope? How long will it take? Well! the answer is, when you practice more and more, you will start seeing a pattern after which you don't have to think much, but intuitively know the results. This is similar to when you start learning cooking, you need to measure the proportion of salt, turmeric, masalas etc. But with practice, you start making right estimates with the pinch of finger or spoon. With practice, one learns how to make right estimation regarding each of these individual factors. Thats when the knowledge moves from the level of "ability to think" to "ability to judge"!
Om Tat Sat!
