Dr. Raj Balkaran 0:05
Welcome back to the Indian wisdom podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Raj Botha, and more importantly, you, you are looking for inspired, accessible insight that you can apply to everyday life. And perhaps a tailor to might be told. There have been a great many questions and requests for content pertaining to the upcoming solar eclipse. Now, in the timeless time of podcast lat, this might be upcoming for you, or this might be in your rearview mirror. Specifically, what is being referred to is the great total solar eclipse that is occurring on Monday, April the eighth 2024. What is significant about this eclipse is its path of totality, by sects of little country called America, also known as the United States of America, which might be the summer misnomer, so we'll just call it America for now. There's much much much to be said about this and the symbology. Perhaps we should begin about with the significance of eclipses in general. In ancient Indic wisdom traditions, there is a branch of auxilary Vedic sciences, if you will, the Veda hongos the limbs of the Veda, the the branches of knowledge, which render useful and accessible Vedic thoughts of Vedic revelation, Vedic insight. Now, among the six we have, for example, via Khurana right grammar, or neroca etymology we have meter porosity, ritual and Jyotisha. The ancient practice of sky casing, stargazing, casting your gaze up to the heavens and making sense of the motions, which meets the eye. This is an ocean of knowledge to the show is understood as the Eye of nephila. Joe the name for Vedic Astrology, astronomy comes from the Sanskrit word for light. And this was a beautiful pattern there. And not only is this the sacred science of light, the light of the celestial spheres, but it also sheds great light is understood to confer deep insight upon those who pay careful attention to the heavenly spheres, and who are equipped with knowledge on interpretation of the only Knology thereof. Right, this is all thought of as very sophisticated terminology. Now one of the fundamental distinctions between Western astrology and indica astrology is the cast of characters in terms of planets or grass uses Sanskrit we have the five visible natural planets a tadagra has, those would be well we have the five and then we have the two luminaries Sun and Moon. So in order of the days of the week we have Sunday that's a Sunday. Moon day Monday. Tuesday is Mars. Wednesday is Mercury's day. Thursday's Jupiter's day. Friday is Venus's day and Saturn Day Saturn stay. Right? Look at the five natural planets, two luminaries Sun and Moon and the cast of characters amounts to nine there are two additional that has planets but could happily mean Caesar grasper. What are they grabbing, grabbing your consciousness your awareness? The understanding is that while under the sway of the gra has ever asked yourself what possessed me to do that? Well, perhaps possession is the right is the right metaphor or the right lens through which to view certain human activities because, according to the wisdom traditions the planets possesses to exhaust our RMS. The two remaining possessors or grads are a hope and Ketu do Today's tale will be surrounding the creation of Rahu and Ketu. These are actually intense points in space where the orbit of the moon around the earth intersects the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. There are two such points in space. They're called nodes. In Western parlance, there's a north node. And there's a south node. The north node is Rahho the head of a demon without a body and the south node is Ketu the body of a demon without a head and there are personifications are laden with symbology in terms of what they confer right, so very much is about the head Me, me, me, me, me, look at me cannot digest, disembodied, s Raha is the play forever. Ah, it seems in many ways, a two is headless. It will just, it will just follow whatever is compelling in the moment, perhaps it's much more complex than this, of course, of course, but just to give you a framework for understanding, so Rahu and Ketu these very specific points in space are exactly responsible for eclipses. Okay, when the luminary is Sun and Moon conjoined these points in space, either on a new or a full moon, and eclipse occurs. If this conjunction occurs under the auspices of a full moon of a lunar eclipse, have you noticed, eclipses only occur when the moon is full. And if this conjunction incurs, ie of the luminaries and the nodes at a new moon, then we have a solar eclipse. So this solar eclipses, of course are occurring during a new moon. eclipse season happens typically once a year, while the around the time of the year when the sun is conjoined the nodes and they will more often than not come in pairs, right because that conjunction will last for the fortnight between new and full moon. So what the ancient skywatchers did during the eclipses was not only watch the Eclipse, but they will pay careful attention not just to the heaven, but to the earth to the path of the eclipse, it is understood that the influence of the clips pertains primarily to that which lies in its path. Now, this may well be fascinating. One may take this as spirituality or symbology. Nevertheless, in terms of the real world, the practical world, the physical, gross world, the materialistic world in which we inhabit, which we can do with our five senses, it is beyond fascinating that the clips, bisects America well North America, teeny bit into Mexico and jazz around the border, the Northeast the border, the northeast portion of America, which borders into Canada. And what's utterly fascinating is that there was another such solar eclipse whose path touched America alone in 2017. Under the the auspices of the first couple of months of the reign of a particular President fascinating still, is that this President himself was literally born during an eclipse. Now, this may be happenstance, this, may you chalk it up to whatever you'd like to chalk it up to. Right. But if you don't find this fascinating, you don't have a pulse. And, of course, this is endlessly fascinating, right? And this particular president might be described as a walking eclipse. The energy of the eclipse according to Indic wisdom traditions is wonky tumultuous, the energy of Rahu is the energy of the shapeshifter, the energy of the rebel without a cause. If Rahu is leveraged with another energy then it's a rebel with a cause but it just I just want to push back I just want to break free I just want to everything you say I want to count urges to counter a
exhaustingly. So there's clearly a purpose to debate an exchange of ideas. Energy of raw just wants to counter for the sake of counter it lives for disruption and division. It isn't a new context, oh, we live in such divisive times, that the quote unquote demons are literally the children of dt literally means division, children of the gods, their step siblings or children of Additi, non division or unification there are those among us irrespective of class or creed, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, age, vocation, occupation, predilection. Now, those among us who are here to notice, and there are those among us who are here to divide us. And if you did not realize this, then you would it be wise to notice this? There are those among us who are here to divide us under the guise of uniting us. It says cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Of course, nonsense needs to be called out. Of course, toxic systems of power and prejudices need to be called out? Indeed, indeed, indeed. But at the end of the day, do we want blood? Would we want peace? Yes. And so eclipses are tumultuous times. They are a quarantine generalistic traditions, not favorable times for the genesis for the beginning of significant ventures, marriages, opening businesses this in this in this in this and that. Now, it doesn't mean much to lock oneself up. For the day of eclipses, the days leading up to it, you know, perhaps it might be well advised to not plan any delicate or serious conversations around those days. All right? Anecdote has it, that sometimes that's what needs to come up during that time. And so these conversations
arise, they erupt, right? So part of the energy of Roho is explosive ness and expansion, things just arise. People who are, for example, unknown, and all of a sudden, they're famous, you know, that typically is the energy of ro things that arise
all of a sudden and often dissipate all of a sudden, okay? This is the energy now, the nodes represent shadow. And there's a very rich avenue of thought, a very rich avenue of processing along the lines of nodal symbology. And the Western discourse on Shadow, the psychological notion of shadow and all that lies in your shadow, what lies in your blind spots, right. So on the one hand, the nodes Eclipse or dark in the luminaries, the sources of light, the sun and the moon. On the other hand, shadow becomes illuminated. People see more clearly once eclipses past. You know, there's a beautiful expression in English that was created because of the energy of row. You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. It's impossible. It's just not possible. But that fooling that occlusion, that obfuscation. This is the energy of the notes antithetical to the luminaries, but for the wise one for the alchemist, for the wielder of wisdom. Shadow is not merely antithetical. It is complimentary shadow and light. That was one understood without the other shadows, the greatest of gurus, if only you know to be a student, long ago, the demons and the Gods work together to pure to procure the elixir of immortality. From the cosmic oceans, they need to churn the cosmic ocean source of all things. Okay, mountain mirror was used as a turning pole around which was wrapped Vasuki king of serpents, who volunteered his body to be used as a turning rope. Vishnu himself, great preserver, incarnated as a great tortoise swam to the bottom of the seas so that the mountaineer can be placed upon his back. This literally occurred on the back of Vishnu. The gods lined up on one side of the celestial ocean, the demons on the other side, they made a pact. They agreed to work together in order to procure the elixir of immortality. And they be gone. So the churning begun, arduous at first, I call things worthwhile, yes. Soon after they began churning a substance emerged in the celestial ocean and shot straight up into the air. Wow, that was not so much. The demons and gods were delighted thinking well use the elixir, but their delight sir and soon turned, or once they realize that the substance was poisoned. What a great irony in search of the elixir of immortality. Why is it emerges to imperil them all. Who can become immortal ones dead. Now the great god Shiva. We've mentioned him a number of times, Lord of Yogi's Lord of yoga Lord of beasts. Pashupati, is our full Alchemist, if you will. Capable of subjugating his animal impulses and becoming one with the one you know, through thunderous effort. Shiva has the ability to see, to remote view through means of his third eye, sort of like a wireless psychic zoom without all the tech Yeah. So he's zoomed in, so to speak, and saw what was happening at the scene, and immediately transported himself there, because he knew that if the poise nor to descend, the demons of the gods would be destroyed, and they both had a role to play in this creation. So he positioned himself in the blink of an eye, beneath the descending poison, and open wide his mouth to allow the poison to enter it, and all of our gas, which gives us all the poison, but he sacrificed himself to save creation, or what do you spew the poison upon all present? And will they be destroyed? Which is it? Is it a or is it be? Well, if you have yet to learn this, wisdom often requires you to adopt a third path that is non binary, not quite a or b. So Shiva nine there swallow the poison. No, did he spit it out? He lodged it in his throat and neutralize it by his yogic power. Through this great feat, his throat turned blue and from that day henceforth, one of his great epithets was Nila Kunda, the blue throated Lord, they all praised Shiva BLUETHROAT for his brilliant and and fierce, our civility to neutralize the poisons of life. Now, tell me something when you encounter toxicity, do you swallow it? If so, you're poisoning yourself and saving up for a tumor one day. Use spew it out. You poison those with whom you come into contact. Either or it's one or the other. Typically, less you have the wisdom and strength to avert internalizing the toxicity of others and also equally avert externalizing the toxicity of others or even the toxicity of self. This is a profound state. S. After Shiva was praised the training continued for eons, the churning went on and various riches emerge. Think about something very difficult in your life that you endeavor to accomplish or you haven't accomplished I want to build a business I want to transform my body, I want to you know, earn a degree arduous at first, through persistent consistent effort. Various fruits emerge. No, of course, so variously riches emerge in the cosmic notions among them for example, injures five headed elephant, right arrivata Kamadhenu the cow have plenty of wish fulfilling tree various nymphs. precious precious gems, formulas, mantras, riches galore, even Lakshmi, whose tail will tell her day even the goddess of abundance, the goddess of sustenance, the goddess of prosperity of light, the goddess of wellness and well being of relationships. You even she emerged from the celestial churning, and her first act was to choose a loving mate. And she chose Vishnu or is is a tale of another day. And beyond the emergence of Vishnu at long last a great sage Dhanvantari, the father of Ayurveda, the science of life, inching indica holistic medicine, okay, emerged, holding cradling any fulgent vessel. Instantly, the demons and gods knew what was inside the elixir of life long last pour cured. Now the gods knew they needed the help of the demons to turn the celestial ocean. But they never intended to share it. And in all fairness, neither did the demons. They both were using the other for the sake of the task at hand. It's a really powerful insight here, in terms of any of you who are interested in shadow discourse shadow work that the leveraging of the shadow is required. Yes, there's all there's so many, many narrative vignettes from indexing myth and world mythology or even modern sci fi fantasy, the brilliant encounter of Luke Skywalker and Vader, what's Vader? Big old shadow, he faces a shadow eventually, first time he gets his head chopped off. Second time he becomes a Jedi Knight. It is the shadow and the encounter with shadow, which completes the hero's quest which confers upon the seeker the status they seek.
Now suddenly many examples, there is a brilliant, brilliant narrative exposition of this principle. In Lord of the Rings with the wizard Gandalf, actually, now it was pretty. Now he's pretty with it, it's pretty wise, it's got, you know, all kinds of powers and spells and knowledge on his side, and he dreads the mines of Moria He treads this ancient shadow, the demon of shadow, and like the Balrog is terrified. Probably many more of you will have watched the movies and read the book. But you know, as soon as the Balrog emerges when they're all beneath the mountain, this is emblematic of the unconscious. He He's terrified. And he's like, Brian, you know, your weapons won't work here. When the wizard says run, you know, your, you know, you're in trouble. So they're all running, escaping this this great, terrifying shadow entity. And they get to the bridge of Casa Doom, the bridge that leads them out into the the mundane world, quote, unquote, real world. And, you know, this, this entity is about to cross the bridge and enter the real world. Now, this is metaphoric of what happens when dark forces from the subconscious, forcefully invade and pervade the conscious mind. And This typically results in some sort of madness, if you will, or possession. And Gandalf being, you know, this guardian, among other roles that he plays. He's like, Okay, I don't really care about me, but I have to set a boundary we cannot allow the Balrog to desecrate the world. So he sets a boundary. Brilliant boundary. He remembers, wait. I'm more than my terrified self. Right. There are great forces which I can plug into. Right? I myself am Grace for others, but I myself should ask for grace. Who remembers Wait, wait. You know, why am I terrified? What does he say? He says, I'm a servant of the secret fire. We are other The Amazon or the dark fail a lot of value, blaming or doing go back to the shadow, very famous YouTube probably, YOU SHALL NOT PASS and he, he stops the Balrog in his tracks he, he earns his status, he gains courage. And the Bower pulls him in. And he's lost a shadow and he battles the Bower. He encounters the shadow, he battles the shadow. And it is through that encounter whereby Gandalf the Grey becomes Gandalf the White, it is a purificatory process, the demons and gods much must, must work together. Right. But the demons perhaps out of prudence, had no had no inclination to actually share the spoils of the turning. And, sorry, the gods that have prudence and the demons out of probably desire for domination and destruction, and had no notion of sharing the poison either. Sorry, elixir of life and so they make a mad dash and guess who gets there first? Well, you guessed it, the demons get there first. And they usurp the elixir of life and the gods are gasp, horrified, having endured so, such great toil. The elixir of life is in the hands of the demons now for Vishnu you know it's his job to preserve you know, Brahma creates Shiva destroyed as well. Yeah, they're important but teeny teeny frames of creation are the time that it Gration endures. Shara Brahma doles out advice here and Shiva intervenes here and there such as you know, neutralizing the poison, but it falls on Vishnu to do the must to preserve creation.
So how does he deal with the demons? Well, if anyone has known the demonic brother in human form or otherwise, one knows there is no reasoning with such people.
Bartering sometimes, but not often. The only viable strategy for dealing with such people, such entities is trickery. You fight fire with fire. Right? So he disguises himself in feminine form, Dawn in the garb of a great lovely nymph. malkani. Now, obviously, this narrative comes in particular cultural context. And there's certain gender implications here and I invite you to take this more archetypally in whatever you fancy, you don't fancy you feel the fetus which engenders as you like. But in this context, it is understood that these male demons would find this entity attractive. There's also understood that she's not real she's a projection of Vishnu is Maya, is illusory power. Mohini comes from the word Maha infatuation. The deep wisdom here is that the demons, this impulse, the word demon is really problematic, because we don't want to demonize the demons. I know silly that sounds. But this, this is an aspect of self, which takes us away from the eternal. This is an aspect of self, which towards the pursuit of immortality, it's necessary to push against this aspect of self or our pursuit of immortality. But if we let this aspect of self drive will go off the cliff, we will not you know, in so many tales, a demon or two are seeking immortality and in exactly all of them. They're denied such right. So this impulse is the capacity to obsess to be infatuated. It has no option. So it's not a question of whether it's infatuated. The question is, what is it? Is it currently infatuated by what are you obsessing over now? So, what Vishnu does is he gives them something else to obsess about, and be infatuated by so they lose their interest in the elixir of life. This is the also the aspect of self that is pursuing instant gratification, sometimes at the expense of a long term goal. We've all been there Yeah. Okay. To this day Mohini evades them for She's nothing more than a projection of Vishnu, smoke and mirrors as it were deployed to distract them. Okay, the disaster now averted, that God secure the vessel of Ambrosian carried off to the celestial abode to have a just a, in an enormous party a celebration. you're seated in a circle, passing the pot, no pun intended. Some Deva to Deva from day to day at each intern imbibing a drop of the celestial Ambrosia, and thereby in tannic immortality on under bliss everlasting. All of the demons were fooled by Vishnu as rooms the greatest trickster among them, Sorbonne who saw through the ropes, we can say a rock, okay. saw through the rules because he's a master of disguise. This is what this energy confers in natives. And in the field, or in Indic Western traditions in the field of karma. it confers people places things which elude which deceive. Ultimately, it's actually a time where the world or individuals or families see what was hidden sometime between the Eclipse cycle between the lunar and solar eclipse what was hidden about self or other becomes visible. Or if your intent and delusion you'll be more diluted than ever before.
Is that all sound like anything happening in America these days? Now we'll return to the path of Eclipse in a moment. Let's continue to tell the tale of the celestials assembled, imbibing the ambrosia attaining immortality, and the demon disguise as a God who sneaks into the assembly among them to join the festivities seated in the sacred circle Rocco salivated as he awaited his taste of ambrosial bliss. Eventually, it was always turn to receive the vessel and nearly received the vessel and ambrosia and he raised it above his head, and tipped it ever so deliberately, such that a single shimmering drop of precious ambrosia descended towards his eager outstretched tongue. Raha was seated between the sun and the moon, the sun god and the moon god, each of which have the power to illuminate to shed light wherever they go. Now, everyone was focusing on whomever was becoming immortal in that moment in this moment it was Rocco. So the sun in the moon by virtue of their light, spotted demon disguise, and the sun god Soria, exclaimed Vishnu. There is a demon among us and all were aghast and jumped his feet in the blink of an eye and launched his Sudarshana Chakra is discuss the divine discuss, he launched it in its sailed through the air towards the neck of the demon, just as a drop of elixir was descending towards his tongue. Now what on earth would be the outcome of this event? With a discus to arrive first to his neck, he would certainly be decapitated, and therefore dead. And the dead can surely not be mortal,
or the elixir to pass through his neck and be imbibed by his body, he will become immortal and the immortal cannot become dead. So which is it?
Remember what I said before about whether it is a or does be in fine Indic style. They both happen at the same time. It disgusts decapitates a neck of the demon just as the drop of ambrosia is passing through
So, what is the result of this paradox is both dismembered as he is immortalized. Okay, there are now two immortal halves of self of the demons for Bhanu
the body without a head Ketu a the south node of the moon and the head without a body of Rahu ie the north node of the moon. Okay, so Rahu chases the sun and the moon to this day, having never forgiven them for this act by this encounter, this altercation catches up he swallows them, but having no body they pass straight through him. The conjunction of Rahu in the sun marks a solar eclipse. And when Rocco gobbles up the moon it creates a lunar eclipse. It's a bit more complicated than that it can entail Ketu. But you get the idea. It's brilliant mythologize ation of the process whereby the luminaries are eclipsed. And what does all of this mean? Well, the removing an impulse, which we'll focus on for a moment, is the impulse towards individuation individuality, but not tempered individuality that is mindful of harmony. I was a narcissist Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee, mee, Mee Mee 's nose space for anyone else's needs, anyone else's wants rouse a shapeshifter, everything is someone else's fault. There are Who is the King a false promises of pretending to be something it is not. What Rahu most desires is power. And we can think of power as occurring into varieties secular or spiritual to use shorthand, King or the priest the one who rules ie one who wields secular power social power or one who wields spiritual power. So, by virtue of this principle, in the human experience, this is why charlatans are so over represented among spiritualist, spiritualists, among spiritual practitioners and especially spiritual leaders, many more comic con men per capita among spiritual teachers than math teachers, or other vocations many more on men per capita. among politicians, leaders, those who seek power tend to care about other people, tell people whatever they want to hear in order to wield power, and then just use it for their own advantage in an enormously toxic and short sighted manner. This is the energy of Rahu. And so, synergy is empowered. During eclipses, there's a time when the sun and moon are understood to lose energy, power and the nodes Rahho in particular, to gain energy to be strong. So it's might be a time not just the moment of the eclipse but to the day the days leading the days leading after that is following I should say, where all things removing gain power. Now, in certain cases that might be benevolent or useful, in most cases, that is absolutely detrimental to human relationships and human consciousness, to awareness, what is detrimental to awareness, while shadow, the occlusion of awareness, right? Like, you know, I'm, you know, decent with math, math, but you know, spiritual psycho spiritual math, hey, it's where I live, and put up an Ikea shelf but can change someone's life who's actually putting up IKEA shelves by talking about their beliefs and the relationships are problem. So this sort of makes sense to me as I hope it's making sense to you that luminaries represent light and awareness. And the nodes represent shadow and the occlusion of awareness. And yes, they are all in water. Yes, they are inimical but yes, that is to binary modality to be truly wise because reality the holes in spectra, what switches that Dial dial versus switch and the interplay of shadow and light, the relationship or shadow of light as such that the one defines the other and shadow and encounter with the shadow will necessarily confer light. One of the there are three experiences that among the most embittered experiences to human beings are part of forget about the other to another day. But being betrayed is disillusionment where somebody fooled you pretended to be something they weren't. And the rug was ripped out from beneath you, especially in a situation that matters or someone you cared about and you trusted. This is an extraordinarily in bittering experience that question and yet, it is an extraordinarily instructive experience, you necessarily learn something very, very important about the world about that person, which you did not before. And, more importantly, you learn something very important about yourself. Once you learn all there is to learn about yourself, you your self realized and therefore awakened. So, perhaps these reflections are useful in terms of processing. The nature of eclipses processing, the import of this energy for one particular nation besieged with misinformation and delusion. Perhaps one can meditate upon what this means for that nation's election cycle, which is occurring in this year. And perhaps one is not called to lament. Over that which is beyond one's control, perhaps in times of great darkness, one is called to cultivate and share light. I hope that you have benefited from or enjoyed this transmission, a fraction as much as I've enjoyed sharing with you. All correctly, I did create a course on this very method, the turning of the ocean, I think it's potentially the most powerful, insightful midcycle have ever come across with respect to the mechanics of waking up the pursuit of consciousness, because the the quest for the ambrosia of life is very much a metaphor for the quest for awakening for capital T truth. There is such a course at the Indian wisdom school. Feel free to check it out. Feel free to contact me if I may be of service to your education, your spiritual education in particular. And feel free to reach out for requests for further content. Until next time, take good care of yourself and pay attention. Pay close and careful attention because the truth without question without question will set you free. Namaste
