JOURNAL
Introduction to Vaidyakeeya Jyotish
By Suhas Kshirsagar, BAMS, MD
with Bruce Davis MD, MDiv, editor
"All the Vedic sciences are consciousness based and understand the creative energy behind the entire creation. Everything that has a name, form or quality can be modulated and regulated by counter-balancing the Guna or quality. This is the very essence of energy healing that is often used in Jyotish & Ayurveda alike."
--Dr. Suhas
Introduction
Vaidyakeeya Jyotish, the field of Medical Astrology, includes the principles and practices of Vedic astrology, but it also implies a wider base than Jyotish alone. Vaidyakeeya Jyotish draws from the vast and varied Vedic arts and sciences, including but not limited to Yoga, Ayurveda, Vaastu and Vedanta. It incorporates numerous technologies of diagnosis and treatment; in the process it is open to the unique contributions of diverse medical models. The Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi attends to health maintenance in the well client and provides the ill client with treatments, life-style enhancements, and hope—all the while promoting the client’s return to wellness and a meaningful level of function. Medical astrologers are less interested in trying to change the client by doing something to them or for them; rather, they aim at a facilitative role, like a catalyst, to initiate healing and resilience in their client’s return to wellbeing. Vaidyakeeya Jyotish depends on the holistic and integrated assessment of the client, with the understanding that body, mind and spirit are constantly influencing each other, sometimes toward wellness and sometimes toward illness. Medical Astrology requires skill in relationship building and communication with clients and their families, in a way that must consider cultural diversity, class, and economic differences.
In traditional India the practice of Vaidyakeeya Jyotish was handed down from generation to generation within the medical families. Promising children and youth became students, learning at first from parents and grandparents before matriculating in their formal education to become practitioners. The learning was lifelong, and not every senior practitioner was considered a master physician. Often serving the community they were raised in, the life of the healer was unified with the lives of people of every age. Those who had nothing to pay would offer gifts in trade for thoughtful care, like home-made crafts or choice vegetables from the kitchen garden. There was great Punya, merit from past lives, implied with birth into such a family.
Where is the Vaidyakeeya Jotishi today, in a world of cell phones, mega hospitals, and increasing divide among rich and poor people and nations? Though the traditional life in the Indian village is vanishing, the intentions of Medical Astrology are not gone and may be found in both the East and the West. What, then, are the key characteristics of the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi in our own time? The word Vaidya simply means “the one who knows.” He or she is stable, grounded, consciously present. With clients the medical astrologer is watchful, vigilant, Sattvic, and a skilled listener. He or she pays attention to the energy present in the client, sensing the flow of that energy both at the time of birth through the birth chart and in the momentary shared presence of a consultation. The Medical Astrologer pays close attention to how this energy is manifesting and where imbalances may be taking place. The intuition of the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi is well developed, and his or her very presence brings a powerful healing quality into the client relationship.
It can be very helpful if the Medical Astrologer is an empathetic communicator with clients, eloquent in public speaking and articulate in the various facets of the work. As important as these abilities are, they are secondary qualities. Of primary importance is the ability to be mindfully present, paying attention (Dharana) to the myriad influences arising from within the client and from his or her environment, embracing the fullness of the data available without getting lost in the complexity of analysis. The key is the ability to grasp the bigger picture, to synthesize and simplify the complexity of the all the data at hand and to identify the truly relevant patterns that emerge. Medical Astrology is sometimes misunderstood as the simple mechanical association of a certain planet in a certain house creating a certain disease at a certain time—as when a weakened, malefic Mars in the fifth house is seen as proof positive that the client has a heart condition. The Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi approaches the vast and complex information obtained from the client to discern the deeper energetic causation and to apply his or her knowledge and wisdom in the most life-supporting way.
This brief article for the CVA Journal intends to invite interest in the conjunction of Ayurveda and Jyotish in the time-honored role of the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi, especially for two groups of people. The first is medical persons, especially trained Ayurvedic physicians, inviting them to incorporate the powerful tools of Jyotish as one of the most powerful means for the assessment and guidance of clients, in both illness and wellness care. The second group is comprised of Jyotish practitioners and aspirants who are motivated by the vision of Vaidyakeeya Jyotish to avail themselves of formal study of Ayurveda, adding to the power of their established or growing Jyotish knowledge the ability to more directly serve their client’s health and healing needs at the levels of body, mind and spirit. Such deeper study by astrology practitioners and aspirants can be daunting because the required knowledge is comprehensive in nature; yet, with commitment and personal investment that knowledge can be won. Both groups may find that an ideal relationship exists between Jyotish and Ayurvedic healing. Both may find inspiration in this merger of Vedic knowledge and wisdom in the person and practice of the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi.
The Flow of Energy
The highest principle of Vaidyakeeya Jyotish is the flow of life energy. Jyotish and Ayurveda are both energetic disciplines that comprise the two foremost elements of Medical Astrology. This focus corresponds to the energy that governs the forms and phenomena of the universe. It is the same energy of Vaastu, as each direction shapes the energy in distinct ways for our habitation of physical spaces. It is the energy of Yoga. It is the energy that we sense directly when we encounter another person, whether friend or client, and this sensitivity to the energy field increases with experience.
Medical Astrology employs all the above systems of energy and as many more as may be helpful to assess and support a client in their resolution of illness and their path to wellness. The multiplicity of data that the Medical Astrologer works with ranges from the psychological to the physical, from past traumas to current challenges, from personal choices to familial influences, from internal struggles to relationship issues. By paying close attention to the innumerable factors that have shaped and are shaping the life of the client, the Medical Astrologer begins to identify distinct patterns in the flow of the client’s energy. It is as if certain of these patterns stand in stark relief to the background of energy data that the Medical Astrologer is assessing. It is a matter of gazing at the seemingly countless data points and discovering essential factors that have the potential to compromise or to improve the client’s wellbeing.
The process here is not merely analytic or empirical. Some call this discernment of the client’s situation “intuitive,” but it is somewhat different from the popular definition of intuition, which for many means that the answer to a question or resolution of a problem leaps spontaneously into the awareness, even before considering the full complexity of a situation. In Vaidyakeeya Jyotish the intuitive process includes a disciplined assimilation and synthesis of gross and subtle data points that reveal the pattern or story of the person’s distress. It is the function of broad knowledge, openness to every detail, and powerful attention (Dharana) that give rise to the discernment of patterns of energy in each client. As this information begins to fill the awareness of the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi on behalf of another human being, he or she experiences an energy shift into a higher, more comprehensive awareness state, which confers the power to deeply see the client and his or her situation and to provide a profoundly helpful response.
In his Yoga Sutras, Patanjali accounts for this quality of deep, intuitive awareness in Vibhuthi Pada. In Sutra 3.33 he states, “Prathibhad va sarvanam”—translated as “By intuitive illumination (Prathibha) comes knowledge of everything.” First the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi looks at the wealth of data associated with his or her client. As the fullness of information is held in the attention (Dharana) he or she shifts into transcendental awareness or pure consciousness, making possible the Prathiba or intuitive understanding. In Sutra 1:48 Patanjail writes, “Tatra prajna rtambhara,” describing this movement as bringing powerful, essential understanding of the truth of the client’s whole circumstance. This state of deeper intuitive understanding, “Ritambhara Pragya,” carries a cosmic order of truth and the power of benefaction and healing. Patanjali describes this intuitive discernment of truth “Sanyama,” where concentrated attention on anything, associated with a shift into transcendental awareness, reveals the inherent, intuitive truth of that thing.
With this focus upon the intrinsic energy of the client, the Medical Astrologer can predict at a subtle level what key factors there may be promoting wellness or illness. Causative factors can be remediated before symptomatic problems arise—referred to as primary prevention. Similarly, early conditions with predictable severity can likewise be remediated—called secondary prevention.
The Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi focuses primarily on Nija factors in their clients, which means “diseases that may be foreseen.” The body creates imbalances from within, frequently related to whether the client takes care of body and mind or not. Bad food, irregular daily routine and unhealthy lifestyle habits create the toxicity of Ama in the body, which then creates unhealthy imbalances in underlying energy. Aggravating factors then begin to arise in the body and mind that predictably lead to all variety of health conditions.
If the Nija aspect of disease refers to the foreseen, Agantu indicates “illness and often injury that cannot be foreseen or predicted.” Such conditions seem to come out of nowhere, with no identifiable primary cause. Suddenly a person has been rear-ended in their car without any idea that this would happen. The resulting whiplash injury often does not have a foreseeable imbalance that led to the injury. Similarly, a client may sustain a perforation in the intestine during an endoscopic evaluation, without any predictability ahead of time. Unpredictable medical problems that occur to clients are often difficult to judge ahead of their time.
The flow of energy is at the heart of the Medical Astrologer’s work with a client, and as we have suggested, there are many tools available to him or her in that discernment. Yet, there is one tool that provides the utmost power and practicality to the Vaidyakeela Jyotishi as he explores the life of his or her client. This tool is the Vedic astrology assessment of the client’s life and current situation.
Assessing Prakriti and Vikriti in the Jyotish Chart
Perhaps the most consistently helpful tool for the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi is the astrological chart itself because it provides such detail in the energy assessment of the client. Jyotish creates very fixed parameters upon which one may depend in this assessment of energy. The conjunction of Vedic medical understanding and Vedic astrology creates a unified discipline that underlies the Medical Astrologer’s ability to work so intimately and effectively with the client’s energy parameters. The very nature of the manifest body/mind, from the time of the first breath to the time of the last breath, is clearly present in the Vedic chart, and this is referred to as Prakriti. The imbalances that have occurred and will continue to occur to that pure nature are also readily seen in the Vedic chart, and they are referred to as Vikriti.
The terms Prakriti and Vikriti arise in the Sankhya Philosophy of India and are essential in the science and art of Ayurveda. In this ancient Sankhya system, the flow of energy structures the creation in the following way. At the source is the timeless, undifferentiated, unmoving, absolute consciousness, called Purusha, which gives rise to Prakriti, the subtle energetic potential of manifestation and the origin of material nature. At the level of the human being, Purusha is that unmanifest pure awareness itself. Prakriti is comprised of the subtle energies, qualities and elements that come together in the process of creation, bringing form to what we recognize as the body, the mind and the soul of each uniquely manifested person. As soon as the natural energy becomes manifest, imbalances in that energy begin to arise, and they increase with the passage of time. The body/mind that began as pure, potential Prakriti comes under the influence of imbalances, leading to the potential of infirmity and illness, which is called Vikriti.
The Medical Astrologer sees the complexity of Prakriti and Vikriti in the Jyotish chart in a way that allows him or her to foresee (Nija) both the pure nature of the client and how the original nature has become imbalanced. At the point the Prakriti and the Vikruti are perceived in a client’s Vedic chart, the pure medical Vaidya and the Jyotishi become one powerful healing force. Here is where the unified Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi is born.
The Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi’s energy assessment of a client’s chart is both practical and subtle. He or she does not only consider the potentials for illness, but also attends to the subtle flow of energies that form the psychophysiological picture. According to the Sankhya system, the primordial elemental energies of ether and air coalesce in the psychophysiological potentials of Vata Dosha. The Pitta Dosha potentials arise primarily from the elemental energy of fire but with a secondary contribution from water element. Kapha Dosha potentials are formed from the combined elemental energies of water and earth. The overall psychophysiological potentials of the client’s Prakriti nature arise in accordance with the way these three Doshic potentials are uniquely integrated at the time of the first breath. This is all demonstrated clearly and practically in the Medical Astrologer’s review of the Vedic chart.
The subtle energies of the manifest person have additional ways of expressing themselves. The Doshic energy in the human body/mind may operate in three ways. It may be anabolic, meaning building the system of body/mind, catabolic, meaning tearing down or dissolving the system of body/mind, or simply supporting the ongoing healthy operation of the body/mind, referred to as metabolic. We may sense the trifold actions of the Vedic trinity bringing dissolution, creation and maintenance as the three movements of the Universe. At the same time the Doshic energy may bring the body/mind kinetic energy (the energy of movement, based primarily on Vata Dosha), thermal energy (the energy of heat, based on Pitta Dosha) and potential energy (as yet unexpressed energy ready to be activated, based on Kapha Dosha). Thus, in his or her mastery of Prakriti, the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi is looking simultaneously at all three varieties of energy and their interaction. The natal Rashi chart, the current Prashna chart, the Mahadasha planetary periods, and other standard Jyotish practices become very useful tools to assess and work with the manifest energies.
To assess the primal Prakriti nature of the client’s body and physiology the Medical Astrologer looks primarily to the ascendant sign in the birth chart. The planetary Lord of the ascendant, any other planets in the rising sign, and any planets aspecting the ascendant give the nuances of the Doshic picture of the client. The Medical Astrologer considers the condition of these planets, their exaltation or debilitation, their strength related to the sign they are in, and how they are aspected by other planets. These practices that are well-known to any Vedic astrologer give essential information to the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi about the client’s original manifest nature.
The assessment of the mental and psychological Prakriti nature of the client is just as important in Medical Astrology. The significator for the mind is the Moon, and the Medical Astrologer will look to the placement and condition of the Moon in the birth chart to determine the Dosha that guides the client’s mental constitution. The strength and condition of the Moon is based on several factors, including sign, house, Nakshatra and Tithi, and this will determine the strength and condition of the client’s mental constitution. For the Medical Astrologer the Moon represents not only the process of mentation but more broadly includes the entire sensorium of the client—how the data from the senses come together in the awareness, forming what and how the client perceives in his or her world.
The Vikriti assessment is key for determining what Doshic imbalances may have arisen in the client. Here the Medical Astrologer looks to the Dusthana houses, sixth, eighth and twelfth. He or she identifies the signs, condition of ruling planets of these houses, evaluates the placements of other planets in the Dusthana houses, and determines the favorable and unfavorable aspects from other planets on the Dusthana houses. Integrating this picture he or she begins to see the potential challenges to health and wellbeing in the client, giving some clarity about what may be causing certain of the client’s health conditions.
As direct as it may be to determine Dosha for Prakriti and Vikriti using the Jyotish chart, it is important to realize the complexity that is available to the Medical Astrologer with the modifying factors of planetary aspects. Taken together with other data the Medical Jyotishi has learned from the client, the complex data begins to reveal unique potentials for illness and health in every client.
The Quality and Qualia of Human Energy
The Doshas show us the nuanced shape of the client’s manifest nature (Prakriti) and their penchant for imbalance and disease (Vikriti). But there is a deeper dimension of energy assessment that helps the Medical Astrologer understand how the Doshic nature is expressing itself. Indeed, when it is not easy to modify the expression of a particular Doshic configuration, the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi finds great leverage by helping the client to learn to raise the quality of energy they are expressing daily in their life.
There are two levels on which the Medical Astrologer may work with the client to support a healing, life-supporting energy. The first level is comprised of the basic building blocks of manifest existence, the three Gunas, which are the essential qualities of everything in the world of form. The qualities of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas Gunas participate in the creation of all things. Sattva refers to purity, harmony, balance and clarity. Rajas brings passion, movement, action and desire. Tamas leads to inertia, heaviness, darkness and ignorance. By identifying and helping the client to manage these qualities in body, mind and emotion, the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi can support the client’s physical, mental and emotional health.
There is a second, more-subtle level for the support of the client’s energy, involving what are called Nirgunas, which are subtle energies at the level of consciousness, often termed “qualia.” Where Gunas operate in the world of form, Nirgunas operate at an unmanifest level. To get a sense of the two different levels, we can consider the Dosha of Vata, existing in body, mind and emotions of a client. The qualia of Vata is Prana, the essential life force. Similarly, the five senses associated with body, mind and emotions have the deeper correlate of subtle senses, the tanmatras, that are qualia related to subtle sensing of deeper awareness. Both levels are important to the work of the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi.
How the Gunas may be operating in a client’s life can be partly determined by the Prakriti assessment of the Moon in the Jyotish chart. The Moon is noted to be in a particular sign, and the Lord of this sign has a particularly potent effect on what Guna or quality the Moon will primarily express in the client’s body, mind and emotions. For example, if the Moon is in Capricorn, Saturn as Lord will confer a Tamasic tendency to the client’s energy. If the Moon is in Aries, then Mars as Lord will cause the client to have particularly Rajasic tendencies. If the Moon is in Pisces, then Jupiter as Lord of Pisces will cause the client to be Sattvic in behavior and thought. This Jyotish analysis of the expression of Gunas is one important part of determining the quality of a client’s energy expression. The nuances of how the Moon is otherwise aspected by other planets in the birth chart, by the planetary period, and by current transits will provide a more refined assessment of the Guna’s expression.
Through good history taking and sensitive conversation the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi may begin to get information to suggest what Gunas predominate in the client’s physical, mental and psychological life, as well as what behavioral modifications might positively affect the client’s life and medical conditions by simply raising the Guna quality. A client with Pitta nature will function very differently day-to-day if their energy is guided by Sattvic qualities compared to Rajasic ones. In this example a Rajasic (Guna) quality of Pitta (Dosha) would make the client often angry, resentful, jealous, controlling, and judgmental. By helping a client to raise the Guna to a more Sattvic level more of the time, the underlying Pitta Dosha would become transformed to attributes of leadership, perceptiveness, clarity of thought and action, and the roles of guide and teacher. This is a purely energetic shift, not caused by changing the client’s Prakriti nature but by a shift in the quality of the Dosha’s expression. Considering Doshas and Gunas together in this way, the Medical Astrologer can reveal important information to his or her client about options for improving how they feel and function in their world.
The following chart offers a simplified way to look at the interaction of Dosha and Gunas in client assessment. The expression of the Doshas is dramatically different depending on the underlying expression of the three Gunas. As you read through the various combinations of Dosha and Guna consider people whom you know to have a particular Doshic expression in their Prakriti and how their behavior may tend consistently to involve one or more of the Gunas. Note also how someone you know could dramatically improve their function simply by changing the quality (Guna) of the Dosha’s expression in their life.
As a counselor the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi seeks to help the client raise the energy in this way, working with him or her on expressing Sattvic attitudes and behaviors in the various areas of life—by identifying foods, activities, values, schedule of the day and the week, and more. This is the intention of the Medical Astrologer toward the body, mind and emotion, of the client, and it encompasses an attention to how manifest qualities and Gunas are lived in the healthiest ways.
As a spiritual guide the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi goes one step further—beyond Guna to Nirguna. Deeper than qualities are qualia. As there is attention to the client’s Gunas there is also attention to the Nirguna level—meaning the support of the client at the deeper energetic levels associated with awareness. If Prakriti is the principle of manifestation that supports the expression of the Doshas in the client, Purusha is that pure consciousness residing as the unmanifest source of the client’s life. In an on-going relationship and with the thoughtful guidance of the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi, the client who has grown in Sattva Guna throughout his or her life naturally becomes less bound by the expression of the Guna qualities in general. Effortlessly he or she begins to sense the Nirguna reality of his or her life more often. This is the shift invited and intended by the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi, as a client previously confined to a world of duality begins to let go of the adherence to manifest qualities and opens to non-dual reality in the direct realization of pure consciousness. The spiritual essence of Advaita, the awakening to non-dual awareness, may dawn quite naturally. With less attachment to the dramas of life a client may begin to experience more freedom and greater joy.
The three Gunas are ultimately Maya, bondage in the illusion of relative manifestation. Transcending the three Gunas into pure consciousness releases the attachment to illusion, brings liberation and opens the attention to the absolute reality. The fulfillment of the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi’s invitation to his or her client is this realization of Self.
The Context of Family and Community
The Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi learns through a lifetime of practice that his or her clients are not isolated human beings. How a person fits into the family and the community offers profound insights into who they are and what they are experiencing. Medical Astrology extends this assessment to reach across the decades to early life experiences and even beyond that to the lives of family members before the client was even born.
The ancient Medical Astrologers of India had a distinct advantage in this regard, in comparison to our ultra-modern, fast-paced and mobile culture. The traditional Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi was part of a village system, in which families often stayed together for generations. The Medical Astrologer knew personally not only the client with whom he or she sat but also the siblings, parents and grandparents, as well. The constellation of family values and behaviors that affected the client, directly and indirectly, were well known to the Vaidya, giving much more data to work with than the modern Western practitioner. Though the Medical Astrologer of our time does not have this advantage, he or she must do everything possible to obtain the wealth of information related to generational history and family matters.
There is much research on the impact of adverse early life traumas on the health and happiness of persons who are now in their middle or senior years. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) score, developed by the California Surgeon General’s Office, shows a direct correlation between such early-life challenges as loss of a parent, addicted family member, physical abuse and the development of physical and psychological health conditions in later adult years. Medical Astrology has always taken this association between early life distress and later life problems into account as it delves into the causes of its clients’ distress. The Medical Astrologer knows that the past can’t be changed. But healing can begin when the awareness dawns in the client that changing their impact now, in the present moment as it is occurring, is something that can bring powerful healing.
Many medical practitioners will take a family history to see what illnesses may be relevant in the care of a client, but the Medical Astrologer will broaden this search to include the lives of the client’s parents, grand-parents and even significant ancestors. When I was studying Jyotish as a young Ayurvedic physician on the staff of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi many years ago, he told us not to limit ourselves to our client’s chart but to include the charts of siblings, parents, and grandparents to obtain important data relevant to the client’s life, energy and health conditions.
The Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi pays attention to a client’s early relationships as he or she explores the origins of current problems. A primary one is that with the mother, called Matruja. Especially conditions that may have affected the pregnancy or early life, such as illness and distress, can have an impact into adult years for a child. What the mother may have eaten or drunk during pregnancy can also have an important influence later in her child’s life, termed Rasaja. There is also Pitruja, which are the early impacts that may have come through the father. Medical Astrology also looks for conditions that may be part of past-life Karma and the Purva Punya (merit) of previous lifetimes, which is called Atmaja.
How much information is enough for the Medical Astrologer? As much as he or she can imbibe and assimilate. By observing this detailed picture of their client, the most relevant patterns will show themselves. Also, when this comprehensive client information is given full attention, with the intention of transcendence into pure consciousness (Sanyama), this wide-ranging data base transforms into a powerful realization of the simple truth, the primary needs and the fundamental opportunities of growth and healing in their client.
Case Study
I saw a young man some years ago who had found his dream job developing software in a prestigious tech company not far from my clinic. He had started the job several months before seeing me, and everything seemed to be going his way. He was making more money than he thought was even possible so soon after completing his graduate work. He lived in a condo with a view of the water. He enjoyed the view, and he was permitted to work at home because his productivity was very high, as was the quality of the software he was developing. But he was very unhappy.
He came to me because he was experiencing a variety of physical symptoms, and he indicated that he had been sleeping poorly for several months. He acknowledged the pressures of new job, new colleagues, and tight deadlines. He had gained about fifteen pounds that he wanted to lose and mentioned mild depression and lethargy at times. What he wanted was a medication to take that would lessen these uncomfortable symptoms.
I checked his Jyotish chart to see what stood out, and mostly it was auspicious. Dhana Yoga indicated the probability of wealth through his lifetime. Indicators of father and mother were beneficial, as was his penchant for success in technical matters. But as I contemplated the chart for a while, there was one simple pattern that stood out prominently as having the potential of limitation and challenge. Amid the auspicious features of a great chart, there appeared to be one axis of potential trouble. Mars was strong in the first house, opposite Saturn in the seventh house. The affliction of the two malefic planets in the seventh house of partnership was very direct, very intense, against the backdrop of so many auspicious factors in the chart.
I began to ask him if he had a girlfriend or significant other in his life and he immediately took offense. He didn’t just disagree; he simply flew off the handle! He indicated that he had come for medical help for a distressing condition, and I was asking about his love life? He demanded why I needed to ask silly questions, when all he really needed was something to help with sleep and help him have more energy for the demands of the job, which he reiterated was both important and interesting.
I didn’t flinch; nor did I react defensively. With that clear pattern in the chart in mind, I just repeated my questions about current and past partners and romantic connections. He was furious at this point, but then, suddenly, tears began to fill his eyes, and he broke down weeping uncontrollably.
After his sobbing abated, I asked what was so upsetting for him about that question. He then told me about that he had moved away from his partner of three years, whom he had met in graduate school. When the new job in California was offered, he had told her that he couldn’t see her anymore—that they needed to break up because he didn’t really like her anymore. He felt he needed to put his full attention on the new job, but he thought there would be more finality if he just said the relationship wasn’t working for him. She had been hoping for marriage and family, and suddenly that was all gone. She felt deeply hurt, and they hadn’t talked again since that afternoon when they broke up. He acknowledged to me that he had just dumped her and even lied to her about the reason for it.
He said, “Since then I’ve lost my motivation, and feel tired all the time. At night I often think about her and can’t get back to sleep.”
“Have you talked to her since you so abruptly left her?” I asked?
“No,” he replied. “She will just be very mad and upset. I’m not even sure she would talk to me now, after so many months. I’m so ashamed!”
“I have a remedy that might help for your trouble sleeping, your low energy, and all those related symptoms that brought you in,” I answered. “But it’s not an herb or a potion or a pill. She thinks that you chose your fancy new job over her, so I want you to call her and talk to her. Just communicate with her person to person the truth of what you are feeling.”
He gave her a call that same afternoon and told her that he was sorry and that he ended the relationship this way. He told me in our next visit what he said to her through his tears. “You really loved me and cared for me, but I gave you a hard ‘no.’ I'm not saying we should patch things up, but I often think of you as a good friend. I can’t stand what I did to you. It’s making me sick!”
He became more conscious of the guilt and shame that had been held subconsciously for so long. He began to sleep much better, and soon his low energy was rising again. He and his former partner started exchanging photos and talking regularly. They resumed their connection, their friendship. In time he was even able to talk with her about a new romantic partner he was dating, and she reciprocated with stories of her own new friends.
I continued to see him as a client as he felt better and more himself. I offered Vata balancing herbs and teas and suggested some changes to smooth out the rhythm of his daily schedule. We talked about his intense focus at work and with relationships, and he began to work on balancing Pitta with his diet. Some of his Rajasic behavior slowly became more Sattvic, and I pointed this out as a healthy path of growth for him. But the core of our work together arose from that one Upaya, that reconnection with his former partner, in response to the stark pattern in his chart of Mars in the ascendant aspecting Saturn in the seventh and Moon in the eighth.
As his Vata/Pitta energy became more balanced, he began to meditate regularly, and he now prefers a plant-based diet. Now he is asking questions of a spiritual nature and is finding books by spiritual teachers that move him deeply. Above all he has become much more authentic in his relationships, and he prioritizes them often ahead of his work. We have an on-going dialog, and I continue to see him every month or two, whether he has an acute concern or not.
Conclusion
Medical Astrology embraces a great range of complex data from multiple sources. No doubt the Jyotish chart is one of the foremost tools for understanding and working with the clients in a Medical Astrology practice. I tell my client that it doesn’t matter whether they believe in astrology. I explain that it is a critical tool for me, one that I use every time I work with a client to identify their challenges and opportunities for health and growth. A thorough history, sensitive conversation with the client about their authentic concerns and the wider review the client’s family add to the picture that is developing in my mind’s eye.
The efficacy of the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi comes from what he or she does with that information, finding the core patterns or stories and distilling the information to its essence through contemplative process of Pratibha (intuition). Often the patterns appear simple once they are seen clearly against the complex background of innumerable data points. In retrospect, after beginning to explore the active patterns with the client, they almost appear obvious—first to me and subsequently to them. Those emergent patterns of energy reveal the clarity of diagnostic and remedial options that the Vaidyakeeya Jyotishi can confidently recommend to the clients he or she is fortunate enough to work with.