PUNISHMENT SEQUENCE NOT RELATED TO ORDER OF ACTIONS PERFORMED BY SOUL

[Following is a conversation between Dr. Nikhil and Shri Swami regarding human actions, the corresponding rewards and punishments and the role of astrology and vastu shastra.

Shri Nikhil: Padanamaskarams Swamiji. You have often reminded us of the statement in the Gita (Gahanaa karmano gatih), which means that the cycle of action-result is extremely complex and difficult to understand. However, in present times there is so much confusion regarding the correlation of one's actions and the suffering or enjoyment of a person in this life and hereafter, that some clarity is badly needed.

Shri Swami: The cycle of actions and fruits is very deep subject (Gahanaa). The reason is that the basic concept of this subject itself is misunderstood. The misunderstood basic concept is that the list of the punishments of a soul is in the hands of God and the punishments are given to the soul according to the order of time-sequence in which the actions were performed by the soul. This means that if you have stolen the money of some good person today and suppose you have tortured some good person yesterday, the punishment for the action of yesterday will be given first and then only the punishment of today’s action follows. This appears to be that the punishments for the sins are given based on anger and vengeance towards the sins. The reformation of the soul through the punishments is not at all in the mind of God in this misunderstood fashion of the punishments. Only time sequence and the anger and vengeance towards the sin as tit for tat appear in this method. This is not at all correct. The reason is that the judge and the jailer are not related to the sinner in any way and hence the punishments are given and implemented respectively without any element of love and kindness towards the sinner. God is not only judge and jailer, but also, the Divine Father of all the souls and hence the Divine Father of the sinners also. The list of the rewards for good deeds and punishments for sins is prepared by the administration staff for which the deity of the justice is the head of the department. Whenever the soul is departed from this gross body, embedded in energetic body, called as Preta sharira, it reaches the first sub-world called as preta loka in which the list is modified by deletions of fruits enjoyed in his world and additions of fruits of actions done in this world. This takes place in a time span of ten days. From here, the soul is directed to go in one of the three ways: 1) Swarga loka to enjoy the fruits of good deeds, 2) Pitru loka to enjoy the fruits of normal actions like performing the ordained duties and 3) Naraka loka to enjoy the punishments of sins. The process of going to preta loka, naraka loka, pitru loka and swarga loka constitute the path of dakshinayana or Krishna gati as said in the Gita. This world in which we live is called as martya loka or karma loka. Martya loka, preta loka, naraka loka and pitru loka are the four sub-divisions of bhu loka. Above the bhu loka lies bhuvar loka or jyothir loka and above this lies suvar loka or swarga loka. These three worlds constitute the area of Krishna gati. The second path of the departed soul, which is constantly involved in the divine service of God to propagate the spiritual knowledge, is uttarayana or shukla gati through which the soul reaches the mediated God or Divine Father. Martya loka is called as karma loka since the soul has full freedom to do good or bad actions as per its will. It is like the period of the examination for a student to give right or wrong answer. Other than this martya loka, the upper worlds are called as bhoga loka in which there is no freedom for the soul in any way except to enjoy the fruits. The body of the soul in martya loka is the materialised gross body (Pancha bhoutika sharira). The body of the soul going to the upper worlds is energetic body, called as preta sharira while going to preta loka, called as yatana sharira while going to hell (naraka loka), pitru sharira while going to pitru loka and bhoga sharira while going to heaven (swarga). The energetic body of the divine servant going to God is called as divya sharira.

When the soul goes to the upper worlds for enjoyment of the fruits, the time sequence of the actions was strictly followed by the administration staff of these worlds. The main aim of these upper worlds is only to reduce the intensities of the interest of the soul in the deeds. By the reduction of such intensity, the selfishness becomes weak. Remember that even good deeds are performed with the motto of selfish aspiration only. This is the reason why the soul returning from the upper worlds, after taking birth in this world is not so selfish for some time and thus, the praise that children are God came up. In course of time, the selfishness in the soul grows by the pollution of this world.

Soul in This World Under Constant Supervision of God

Shri Swami: The soul is subjected to the enjoyment of fruits in this world also. The selection of the fruits for enjoyment does not follow the time sequence in this world. The reason is that God is directly involved in giving the fruits to the soul in this world. God can pick up any fruit at any time and need not follow the time sequence. The soul in this world is under the constant supervision of the God. The theme of God here is to bring the reformation in the soul. The reformation is related to the qualities of the mind and hence it is a psychological treatment. In such treatment, good food and good tonics are given for the resistance of the body, which are the fruits of good deeds. If necessary, as per the requirement of the illness, electric shocks are also given, which are the fruits of sins. The selection of fruits depends on the progress of the patient (soul) and the requirement of the treatment immediately to be given. Till the last minute of death, God will constantly treat the soul. Death is the relieving of the patient from this world-hospital to the upper worlds-specialised clinics for the reduction of the intensities of all diseases so that the patient can come back to this general hospital for further treatment. The upper worlds act like I.C.U chambers in which severe operations are performed. This whole process is called as karma chakra or the cycle of deeds and fruits.

The main point here is that the treatment of the soul by God in this world is the most important aspect. The treatments in the upper worlds are only secondary in reducing these severe intensities avoiding the emergency so that the patient can return to this world for the further treatment. The reduction of intensities in the upper worlds does not relate to the real transformation of the soul since it relates only to the temporary suppression of the intensity of the disease as emergency-treatment. All the treatments in the upper worlds are only mechanical to assist the main treatment done by God in this world. The treatment given here by the God involves very high intellectual calibre in the diagnosis and the changes in the treatment, which are to be done carefully so that real transformation takes place, which is permanent cure of the disease. The treatment by the God here is in the direction of giving real and permanent health and not in giving temporary health as in the upper worlds. The treatment by God involves lot of thinking and concentration regarding the planning of steps and hence this divine treatment is said to be very deep and complex in the Gita. The Gita refers to this divine treatment in this world and not to the mechanical treatment given in the upper world following just the time sequence of the actions. Thus, the karma chakra is explained in elaborate way as desired by you.

Shri Nikhil: Atheism has spread so much that the basic trust in the goodness and kindness of God is being lost rapidly. The vast majority of people cannot accept the fact that suffering in the world and even the suffering in hell, indicate the kindness of God. In fact, most blame God (directly or indirectly) for human suffering, whether they admit it outwardly or not. The reason is that the accurate connections between human action, the direct and indirect results of the actions, and the rewards and punishments have not been understood clearly enough. In this situation, an approximate and general explanation will not satisfy a person. The key fundamental principles underlying the karma chakra must be revealed. Of course all details might be beyond our understanding and there is no point in insisting on knowing them. But a certain minimum amount of detail must be provided.

Shri Swami: God does the divine treatment in this world not for getting fame from the public, which is the lot of His issues only. If a doctor treats his own son or daughter, he will treat the patient with highest concentration in the direction of curing the disease and to give good health to the patient as early as possible. If a doctor treats a patient, who is outside of his family, he may give the colour of show to his treatment on the basis of commercial advertisement. But, here, the doctor is also the father of the patient, who is treating his beloved child. The idea of convincing the family or the public does not arise in the mind of this Divine doctor. The treatment that gives permanent cure as early as possible is the only motto of this doctor. There is always the factor of truth in his treatment at anyplace and at any time. Truth is always harsh. This doctor does not mind the impression of others in the course of his treatment, which follows the truth in diagnosis and in every step of the treatment. The brothers and sisters may feel that their father is harsh in not allowing the patient-child to eat a special sweet prepared in the house on the festival day. The reason is that the father is also a doctor, who confines his duties only as a doctor and not as a father. The reason is that the specific child is a patient. If the child is not a patient, this doctor will confine his duties as the father only and encourages a normal child to eat the sweet. In the case of the patient- child, the duties of the doctor overcome the duties of the father. In the case of a normal child, the duties of the father are not interfered by the unnecessary duties of the doctor. This Divine doctor will not bother at all even if the patient-child blames him along with its brothers and sisters for not allowing it to eat the special sweet. All the children blame the doctor for torturing the patient-child with frequent injections of medicines. Lack of happiness and constant exposure to severe suffering given by the doctor-father may be blamed by all the children including the patient-child. The doctor-father will not care even a pin of such blame since his main goal is only to relieve the child from the illness and to give good health to it (reformation). In this blame, atheism is also included, which is not at all cared by God. A child may say that it has no father and that it is an orphan. We find such blame from some furious and emotional children while fighting with their parents! By such comments, are the parents leaving their children? The parents will take more care about such totally foolish children. Jesus said that the worry of the shepherd will be on the lost goat only. He also stated that the sinner-patients only required the Divine Father-doctor. These atheists are the psychological patients with their mental illness or madness in the climax state. God concentrates more on their treatment. Incidentally, these atheists also play the role of the examiners trying to reduce your faith on God. Such use is not expected by God but since it is unavoidable, it is also used to test the faith of the devotees. These atheists exist in the state of highest psychological disorder and hence are treated in a special hell having the shock treatment-equipments working at very high voltage. They pose as if they are the real scientists. Science never negates anything. It keeps silent about the unimaginable issue indicating its lack of explanation till the day on which it can explain that issue. This is the real spirit of science. These atheists do not keep silent like the true scientists, but, simply negate the issue, today itself, shouting with emotion that it is false and non-existent. The concepts of yesterday were not understood on that day and hence the scientist keeps silent at least for that day and always tries to explain it. Several concepts of nature were thus explained. But, the concept of creator of the nature is unimaginable forever. You can touch the roof of the house by tomorrow through constant practice of high jump. But, you can never touch the sky through such practice on any day. But, these atheists concluded yesterday itself that the sky was non-existent and false. Their intension is that if they do not understand anything, it must be false and non-existent. So hasty! So emotional! And so egoistic! They can criticise the cheating exploiters, who produce little ash by trick from the hands since they can do the trick. This is good as far as criticising the cheats. But they cannot criticise Shri Baba producing gunny bags of ash from a small inverted vessel by moving the hand. They can criticize ninety-nine percent false Babas exploiting the public and we should specially appreciate them for such good work. But, they should not extend their magic trick to the one percent genuine miracle also. This extension is due to their mad ego. A scientist observing this one percent genuine case will accept it as genuine and says that he is silent on it because of lack of explanation from his brain at that time. He will also not say that he will explain it certainly after some days. He will only say “I cannot explain this now”. The atheist will not say that he will explain it at least in future. He knows that people will ask him to specify the time limit for the explanation. Fearing this, the atheist will simply discard the genuine miracle then and there itself as false and non-existent. We must respect millions of scientists existing in the world with whom Divine Scriptures also exactly agree stating that silence is only the best explanation of the unimaginable God. We need not care for these few dozens of extreme atheists. All the details of karma chakra are revealed now and further details in this line do not exist.

Shri Nikhil: If students are to perform well in class, they should be explained the evaluation criteria and methodology in some detail at least, if not completely. If the students are under the wrong impression that the teacher is unfair and gives good or bad grades to different students arbitrarily, then that misunderstanding must be corrected. The actual methodology of evaluation must be explained, so that the student knows exactly where he or she is lacking, and where he or she should take effort. For such students, it is not enough to simply say that the professor is absolutely fair and is evaluating all the aspects of students' performance and that there is no need to know the evaluation methodology. It will only lead to further mistrust and misunderstanding.

Shri Swami: The simile given by you is very good as far as the misunderstanding of the students regarding the professor is concerned in absence of the explanation of methodology of evaluation. This simile gives the concept of misunderstanding in a very clear way. But, if I add the other dropped half part of this simile, the misunderstanding vanishes immediately. The other half is that the professor is not only a simple teacher employed by the university, but also, is the father of all the students. Then, what is the resulting concept? The Gita says that God is father of all the souls (Aham bija pradah pitaa) in such case, can you expect any trace of unjust partiality from a father to his children? You must simply believe that He can never be partial to any child without reason. You must simply believe that the father is always an infinite ocean of kindness and love only towards any one of his children. Unless one argues like an atheist that the father does not exist at all, in case the atheist believes in the existence of God-Father, even the atheist will say that the father will have infinite love to any child without any partiality and unnecessary harshness.

Love, Kindness & Real Reformation of Soul - Foundation Pillars of Divine Administration

Shri Nikhil: Based on some of the divine discourses on this topic, delivered by You over the past year or two, I have tried to summarize and organize some key concepts in this context below. I don't know if I have left out any important concepts. I request you to kindly correct any flaws in it and kindly provide a clearer picture. I strongly feel that a clearer and more comprehensive picture is necessary.

In my understanding, the results of our action depend on a number of factors. Some of the factors governing the results are: when the action was done, in what situation it was done, what was the doer's mental state (including intention) while doing it, where it was done, with what tools it was done and how skillfully it was done, etc. All these factors are quite logical and there is no issue if the fruit (results) is delivered to the person based on these factors.

The results of actions are of two types: direct and indirect.

• The direct results of our actions are received by us, either immediately or after some time based on physical factors. For instance, if I plant a seed today in my garden, the direct and immediate result is that the seed absorbs moisture from the soil. The direct, but delayed results are its germination within a few days and the growth of the tree and yielding of fruit over a period of years.

• Over and above the direct results, there are indirect results. These are related to the intention. By observing the actions, its direct results and the intention behind the action, the soul is continuously learning. Learning means the formation of conclusions in the mind. When the same conclusion is reached after similar actions, the conclusion gets reinforced. These reinforced conclusions are called as gunas or samskaras, which remain with the soul even after death. Based on the value (goodness/ badness) of these samskaras, punishment or rewards are given after death in hell or heaven respectively. Only the indirect results of a few intense actions may be delivered within the present lifetime; most are enjoyed only after death in the upper worlds. The purpose of giving these indirect results is maintaining the soul and society as a whole, on the path of justice. Actions done with good intentions leave good samkaras in the mind and lead to rewards in heaven. The reverse is true in case of actions done with bad intentions.

This system is very logical and valuable since it rewards good souls and serves to control deviant souls (sinners), ultimately maintaining dharma in society. While this system cannot completely transform a sinner, it can control a sinner to some extent. Complete transformation of the soul, is possible only through spiritual knowledge, as explained superbly by You. Nevertheless, this system of karma chakra is essential to maintain dharma.

Shri Swami: God is unimaginable and also omniscient. He does not require any witness as the judge in the court requires. Therefore the judgement in giving punishment is never based on error. More over the judge is an outsider and has no love and kindness towards the sinner and hence the judgement is simply delivered and the jailer subsequently implements it, who is also an outsider. Here the judge-jailer-father is God and therefore the punishment is not simply mechanical as per the constitution. The punishment is oriented in the fashion of bringing reformation in the soul. Once the punishment is delivered, it continues till its stipulated period exhausts. The punishment cannot be interrupted. Of course, there is some reduction in the period of imprisonment depending upon the change in the behaviour of the criminal. The implementation of such modifications should purely depend upon the change in the behaviour of the criminal. But today such implementations are controlled by the politicians and hence are not perfect. They are not bothered about the real reformation of the sinner. There is no follow-up in the case of the sinner after his release from the jail. All these defects do not exist in the case of God, who really aspires for the transformation of His sinner-child. Therefore, you may find lack of kindness and mechanical implementations of sections of the constitutions in giving the judgement and in implementation of it. In the case of God, the implementation of the given judgements is done as per the will of God, which depends upon the direction of real reformation of the soul. Therefore in the divine administration love, kindness and real reformation of the soul alone are the foundation pillars. The administration of the present legal departments may be harsh and unkind without any element of love since there is no personal relationship between the victim and the background administration. Sometimes, harshness is inevitable as you can see the same between a teacher and his student and even a father and his son. Such reformation oriented punishments cannot be misunderstood by anybody. The circumstances are certainly given due weight and any error is impossible because God is omniscient. All such doubts are impossible like hot radiations in the snow. All such doubts are possible in the case of the judges in courts, whose judgements are often contradicted by the judges of higher courts. There is no such need in the case of God because everything is absolutely perfect and is totally based on their real reformation of the soul and immense love and kindness of God.

Shri Nikhil: You have so beautifully explained how the karma chakra is indeed a highly logical, fair and beneficial system. But there is a doubt here about the exact role of astrology (elective astrology or muhurta) and vastu shastra in the context of action and result. The complication arises when, according to astrology, the same action done at different times will lead to different results based on tithi, nakshatra, lagna etc. Why should God care whether the good action is done on Monday or Tuesday or Thursday or on this nakshatra or that? If the same action is performed on one day or the other, keeping all the other factors constant (such as intention, skill, tools, situation etc.), why should there be any difference in the result?

One can similarly argue about vastu shastra. Why should the placements of rooms in certain directions and the dimensions of the rooms matter so much? Does God really care about these things? Why should a person doing good actions be denied of his deserved good results? Just because the rooms in his house have certain (wrong) dimensions and directional placements? Similarly, a person doing bad actions should not be allowed to escape from the bad results, just because the rooms in his house are of the right dimensions and placements as per vastu shastra.

As it is, the results of our actions depend on a number of factors. Many people are already confused as to why they are suffering in this life when they think that they have not done anything wrong. They already feel that the suffering that they are facing is quite arbitrary and unfair. If these additional factors (astrological and vastu) are admitted as well, it reduces the importance of self-effort and good intention. This is leading to undesirable consequences in present society. It is either leading to inaction and fatalism (leaving everything to fate) or to the manipulative use of astrology and vastu shastra to achieve good fruits, in spite of not doing any good actions.

If the whole purpose of the karma chakra is the transformation of the soul, then the person's action and intention should be given maximum importance. Then the soul will be easily able to understand that good actions are to be done and bad actions are to be avoided. The other factors should not be given too much importance, since they bring unpredictability in the result. They will confuse the soul and prevent him from following the path of dharma.

Shri Swami: Astrology consisting of certain precautions to be taken in vastu, muhurta and remedies advised on studying the horoscopes etc., need not be separated from the spiritual knowledge. There are two levels in the spiritual path:

1) The initial level in which God or His unimaginable powers called as planets (actually the presiding deities of the planets) have to be prayed and worshiped for the sake of worldly problems. This is a business level, which is one and the same in the spiritual knowledge as well as astrology.

2) The second higher level of spiritual knowledge is to worship and serve the God leaving this lower level of business. Here, the astrology vanishes because it is only in the lower spiritual level dealing with God or planets with unimaginable power.

The first lower level of spiritual knowledge was not different from astrology in the ancient days. Later on, astrology with the names of planets and spiritual traditions with the names of forms of God are separated because the astrologers and priests liked to separate their business fields while exploiting innocent public for their earnings. The initial level is always with defects, which are unavoidable since the beginners are with several defects, the main defect being high selfishness (sarvarambhahi- Gita).

The presiding deities of the planets are controlled by various forms of God in turn indicating the God Himself. Thus, the astrology-ladder leads ultimately to God only. The vastu and muhurta are only the partial components of the astrology and cannot totally control any result. If a sinner is not to get good results of vastu and muhurta, he will meet a wrong astrologer only and enjoys his bad fruits. A person, who has to enjoy good fruits only meets a good astrologer and gets good advises to enjoy his good fruits. Even if the bad/good person meets good/bad astrologer, their brains will lose faith in the astrologers. The destiny or fate works here, which is nothing but the inevitable implementation of the results of the actions ordained by God at that time. All this procedure is only the implementation part of the fruits by the officials in the direction of the will of God. God is the ultimate authority and the planets are simply the executing officials of His will in the direction of reformation of the soul. Therefore, a sinner cannot escape the results of his sins simply by getting good advices in vastu and muhurta. If God’s will is that the sinner should be punished at a specific time, bad astrologer will come in his contact and will lead to the bad result through wrong vastu and wrong muhurta, which are thought to be good by the bad astrologer. If God’s will is that even a sinner should be given some gap in the enjoyment of the bad fruits, a good astrologer will help him in that direction. An astrologer is also a human being and can err sometimes giving opposite predictions. In view of all these factors, finally everything happens according to God’s will only. The astrology is only the subject of the mechanical implementation of the fruits as per the will of God in His psychological treatment of His issues. Sages have written both good and bad vastu and muhurta. The destiny, which is the will of God, finally sees that good comes to good people and bad comes to bad people. But, in the course of the treatment, even a good person may have to be given the bad fruit and vice-versa as per the will in the treatment by God. Every person has both good and bad fruits and there is no absolute good and absolute bad person. Hence, you cannot say that one person is absolutely good or bad. This is a very complicated cycle differing from one case to the other as per the procedure of the treatment done by God, which is also highly specific to each case. Generalisation of all the cases is impossible since the analysis of even a single case brings lot of head-ache when you consider all the supporting and cancelling curves in the path of implementation.

The scientific procedure of the results by the unimaginable powers of God, called as the presiding deities of the planets, is expressed as astrology by the sages Parashara and Jaimini with the grace of God only. No doubt, the good vastu and good muhurta are expressed in astrology. But, before you catch that good muhurta and good vastu, so many forces play in between and there is a long way between the cup and lip. Before you sip the coffee by your lip from the cup, anything may happen including the final destruction of the world (Maha pralaya)! I give an example for this. My father was a great astrologer. My father sympathised a poor priest and suggested him to put a small hut at least in his site on one muhurtam (auspicious time), which, according to him can possibly come after sixty years only. The priest did not follow the advice of My father and sold the same muhurtam for just hundred rupees to four farmers, who raised huts in the same time in their fields far from their petty village, called Vamanapalem. The priest presided over the function of foundation of the huts of the farmers and could not use it for himself. Those four huts developed tremendously and became a big village with in very short time and slowly became a small city called Jayapuram! Therefore, the play of destiny is very powerful and the person will close his eyes and walk in the way till he crossed over the lump of gold placed by Goddess Lakshmi to favour him. In spite of all these, the unimaginable relationship between good or bad and a particular time or specific dimensions of the rooms in the house is unimaginable. I know several people, who criticize astrology externally and follow it secretly saying that their wives insisted on it! I hate such hypocrisy. We cannot deny such major lot of humanity believing in astrology, especially when there is a fair opportunity to correlate the astrology with the spiritual knowledge. When there is a way for compromise, clash is unnecessary and it is our duty to show the spiritual path to this major lot, which quotes countless instances of correct predictions throughout the world.

Astrology is well believed science throughout the world. You yourself wrote a message about the prediction of Nostradamus on My delivery of this spiritual knowledge. A genius scientist from the part of a country surrounded by three seas will come in future to correlate all the religions in this world by which the borders between religions disappear. Is it not exactly true in My case? These predictions should not be taken as mere outcomes of astrology, but also, should be taken as the foretelling of future by the blessing of God. Astrologers worship God to a great extent for achieving the accuracy in the predictions. Lord Dattatreya is supposed to be worshiped in this aspect. Hence, the spiritual knowledge is inherently blended with the astrology and correlation in the concepts can be easily achieved by the sharp analysis. Jesus criticized astrologers in His time since they were trying to reduce the importance of God and spiritual knowledge and were trying to establish that everything proceeds by the control of planets, which are other than God. Jesus criticized such misinterpreted astrology projected by the atheistic astrologers. We will also throw away such atheistic form of astrology.

In essence, God is the final authority in the case of any unimaginable aspect. You will attain everything, good or bad by the will of God only, which is the destiny of your so called destiny. However, this does not bind you to the concept of fate because this world is karma loka giving you full freedom to develop or destroy yourself. The freedom runs in parallel with the psychological treatment done by God without interfering each other. The parallel line of freedom shows the results of the treatment done by God. If there is a real change due to the treatment, it gets reflected in the parallel line of freedom in which you act freely without the influence of any other factor. The treatment and the test of the signs of the betterment run as parallel lines as components of the divine program of the psychological cure of the soul by God.

God does not care for the astrology because it is only His way of arrangement of the duties to be performed in His divine administration. His will only gets implemented finally even if you carefully study the constitution of His administration. Kauravas fixed the Amavasya as the muhurtam for the war in which the victory is certain, as per the advice of Sahadeva, the opponent, who follows the principle of giving correct advice in astrology whoever may ask for it. Lord Krishna fixed the muhurtam one day before Amavasya on which the defeat is certain. Lord Krishna started doing the Amavasya-ritual one day before. The Sun and Moon were confused and appeared before the Lord stating that tomorrow is only Amavasya. The Lord asked them the day by which Amavasya can be recognised. Both told that when Sun and Moon come together, it is recognised as Amavasya-day. The Lord told that since both are together, that day itself must be Amavasya! Finally, the will of God prevailed over everything and even the presiding deities of Sun and Moon planets could not stand wise before the Lord. Hence, astrology cannot do anything against the will of God.

My father used to force Me to give predictions in astrology and concentrate on the subject. He thought that I had no interest in the subject and hence is not studying it deeply. I wrote a commentary in Sanskrit on Jaimini sutras in astrology in one week and presented it to My father. My father studied it and was astonished to see the ideas in the commentary and stated that the points invented by him in the span of 50 years of study were totally presented in the commentary. My father told that in spite of such deep knowledge, what is the reason that I do not take interest in astrology! I told “I am interested in the spiritual knowledge and both philosophy and astrology can be called as Jyoutisha Shastram, which means that it is the subject of light (Jyoti). The nine lights are the planets and the light supplying radiation to these nine lights is called as the ultimate light as per the Veda (param jyotih...). Hence, I also concentrate on Jyoutisha Shastram. The difference between you and Me is only that I am interested in the ultimate light and you are interested in the nine output lights”. Since then, My father never forced Me in this point.

Astrology is considered to be one of the six shastras believed by our ancient people from a long time, which was used to decide the time of performance of a sacrifice. However, we need not give any weight to the subject if it contradicts the sharp logical analysis in case it contradicts the real spiritual path. If you filter out the astrology of the recent selfish and commercial astrologers, I find no opposition by astrology to the spiritual path. In view of the lot of majority following it sincerely quoting several instances of true predictions, in the light of existence of unimaginable events called miracles indicating the unimaginable God, in the light of possible co-relationship with the divine administration of unimaginable God and in the view of smooth merge of these believers with the subject of spiritual knowledge, I find no need to throw away the astrology as the enemy. When the ideals are exactly same, two political parties merge together and there is nothing wrong in such union. All the contradictions between the two subjects are superficial only and find unity on sharp logical analysis. Astrology was called as Jyoutisha shastram (subject of light) since it was part of philosophy, which is also the subject of light. The light in both the subjects was the ultimate light or absolute God only. The astrology was also thus, related to the subject of ultimate light only and in due course of time, it was separated as the subject of nine output lights. Even these nine output lights are only the executing officials of the administration of the ultimate light, astrology is not contradicting philosophy even today.

Shri Nikhil: Your explanations are truly unparalleled. Your positioning of astrology as part of philosophy and as part of God’s compassionate efforts to reform souls is extraordinary. There is no doubt that God’s dealing with each soul is clearly for the soul’s reformation and ultimate benefit. God is indeed an infinite ocean of compassion. There is no doubt that I must introspect deeply on various incidents in my life and use this knowledge to clear the misunderstandings of the past.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★