S2 Episode 16 - The Nature and Role of Mars with Sachin Sharma

The Nature and Role of Mars

[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome

[00:00:00] Fiona Marques: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Vedic Astrology Podcast. My name is Fiona Marques. I am joined once again today by my friend and colleague, Sachin Sharma.

[00:00:10] Sachin Sharma: Hello. Thank you for having me again.

[00:00:13] Fiona Marques: Sachin, I've invited you back because we have so much to speak about in this episode about Archetypes, Avatars, and the planetary energies that it just couldn't fit all in one episode. So shall we dive right back into our discussion?...

and we are talking about Archetypes and we're talking about Avataras.

[00:00:38] Sachin Sharma: When we understand the Archetypes, the a Avataras from the context of Jyotisha, is that it, it becomes a journey from this random chaos of these imagistic, emotional urges that are spontaneously arising and drowning one into unconsciousness. It's a journey from this state to a state of this orderly structure. Of these thematic tales, acts. It's like a "Leela", a play. That allows one to derive wisdom. Know one's script, understand one's role in the cosmic play. And come to terms with the fundamental nature of reality. So we dissolve certain resistances towards existence, becoming conscious of these instinctual archetypal themes, these primordial patterns, primordial representations, ultimately breaking free, liberating, getting this sort of psychological moksha, first and foremost, by understanding these themes.

And this has to be assisted with your psychophysical, psycho-spiritual yogic practices. With an understanding of Jyotish. So it's a Jnana Yoga path. And you break free from chaos. You find yourself placed in this space-time where you are placed. Regardless of good things happening to you, bad things happening to you. You understand where that's coming from, why the judgment is the way that it is within yourself.

It's a perfect tool for analytic thought, for meta-analysis, metacognition, for Jungian analysis. Because Jungian analysis works a lot with symbols, motifs, images and these sort of things. And Jyotish really connects it, like really align, super imposes it and then circum ambulates, does this sort of parikrama, with the psyche. And you see it from different angles. It's really profound that way.

Now how this is a psychoanalytically relevant to us is that this tells us, how anger is considered to be something that shouldn't be there. But anger is a part of your psychospiritual structure, Mars.

[00:02:55] Cultivated and Unclutivated Mars

[00:02:55] Fiona Marques: People can feel like anger is undesirable state to be in. And yet it is the power that has allowed our ancestors to survive until this point. Why I have DNA here is because of all of the anger, the power that my ancestors had to survive the various threats that humans face...

[00:03:20] Sachin Sharma: Yeah. And just from each other. Even if two human beings are there, you just need that Martial energy to keep another person's demons at bay. Because whenever demons see a capacity to invade... one of the very core things of the psychology of thievery / kleptomania is that "Because I could! I saw loophole.".

So that's the thing. And that's why you need to have, it's not to build walls, but to build fences. You can communicate, relate, but there's a fence. And there can even be a gate on the fence. And you can invite the other person over. But to not have a fence is, can be a problem because they're two different structures, like two different chemicals that may or may not be good for each other. And building a wall is also bad because it creates total disconnection. It's just the right amount of height.

And Mars gives us that capacity to stay.

And an uncultivated Mars is rage, frustration, breaks down not knowing when to stop. There's cowardess. It doesn't know what to stand for, and doesn't even know how to stand for something.

It burns out, it applies more force than necessary. And it breaks the thing because it applied too much force, or doesn't apply enough force and is not able to push through, pull it off. So Mars is a very important capacity.

So Mars becomes this indestructible energy if it's cultivated. It knows when to go fast, when to go slow. It has a capacity to transform, generating enough pressure within itself to work with that internal pressure in churning and move through that.

Uncultivated Mars quits. It quits. It's moody. It's emotional. It changes from day to day. It can feel really disciplined today and not so disciplined five days ago.

The key with Mar is reason. Purpose. Which is Jupiter. If you give Mars a proper purpose, an army with a purpose, a army with faith, which is Jupiter, goes a long way.

There have been instances, so many instances where armies with the purpose defeated armies far bigger than them. Alexander the Great, I think has some of the biggest examples. And even when he reached Persia, they were like 10,000 people against a hundred thousand people. And they won because they were so driven by this sort of thing.

[00:06:07] Fiona Marques: Even in this current Ukraine conflict, just on numbers, it seemed like "Wow, that conflict will last a week!" because Russia's obviously got a lot more soldiers, a lot more resources, a lot more military equipment. And that hasn't been the case. It's really interesting.

[00:06:23] Mars' Debilitation

[00:06:23] Fiona Marques: What you were saying there also though, was making me think about why we say that Mars is Debilitated in Cancer.

Because what you were talking about that adaptability that Cancer has of going with the flow and always changing, which is such a strength, such a great thing to have. And yet for Mars, that doesn't work well.

[00:06:43] Sachin Sharma: Yeah. It doesn't work well. For a Mars and Cancer to work well, you need to really work on stabilizing the Moon. The more regulated the person's hormones are, the more regulated the person is on a psychological level, and the more therapised their psyche is, the better the Mars will function. But the Mars is in a ground which is not stable. Mars is looking for stable ground, but it's just waters. It's just like going, it has to constantly what's it called? Swim upwards to...

[00:07:11] Fiona Marques: ...against the stream. Yeah. Yeah. And isn't it interesting that Jupiter and Mars swap their Debilitation and Exaltation? Because you were just talking about how an army that has faith, and Jupiter Exalted in Cancer. And yet Mars Exalted in Capricorn where Jupiter struggles to find its hope.

So it's really fascinating combination between those two signs and those two planets.

[00:07:37] Sachin Sharma: Yeah. Jupiter Exalts for a different reason. Mars Exalts for a different reason. But their personal relationship without the Zodiac is a different theme. Why Mars and Jupiter are really, like each other is a different sort of theme. What's interesting, but there's no sort of, I've personally not, I don't find a correlation with Mars' Debilitation and Jupiter's Exaltation being a certain sign.

It's just a relationship with Jupiter and Cancer. That field works out for jut themes a little bit,

[00:07:37] Fiona Marques: And we have to remember that what I notice in charts all the time is that people who have Mars in Cancer get great Ayana Bala. Which is a very great blessing, right? Because Ayana Bala is what helps us to know when to engage in conflict or not. And when you have it going very well in Cancer, at least which battles to, to fight. However, your approach and tactics, might be challenged by the Cancer environment. But I think that of all of the Exaltation Debilitation, that is a great inverted commas "Boon" for Mars to have when it is in Cancer. At least it gets great.

[00:08:14] Sachin Sharma: Yeah. The, so Ayala helps it in a way that I feel it's with Cancer, it's more like Because Moon and Mars are not fundamentally enemies, they are friendly towards each other in natural relationships of the planets. I think that's a different sort of a tangent.

Obviously other planets speak to Mars, so it needs to be guided by Jupiter. It needs all the other Grahas.

A well cultivated Mars is patient, calm, protective, restrained, logical surgical, solution oriented, watchful, and knows when to fight and knows when to flee. So if you see a good fighter, they would know when it's not their fight. You would know when, what's their fight, what's not their fight.

They would know when to run away. And they would be okay with that. It wouldn't make them feel less or wouldn't hurt their ego. "If I would've stayed, I would've probably not been alive". So it knows when to flee. And it knows how to train. It's disciplined. This is a cultivated Mars.

[00:09:16] Mars, The Sun, Coups and Fallen Heroes

[00:09:16] Sachin Sharma: It knows how to remain focused on the agendas of Sun. Because Mars is the army general. The Sun says "Okay we need to build this thing". So a good Mars stays and does it. Fulfills the mission. It gets the job done. A bad Mars is unable to get the job done.

So how to take commands from the Sun without feeling this sort of resistance to the Sun. Because (with) army generals there can be coup. Mars can have a coup against the Sun and destroy the government. And there's anarchy. There's no replacement after the coup. You never see a coup workout because there's no other Sun. Either the Mars becomes the Sun, which is a very transformative process. Can happen? I don't know, maybe it's true? But usually coups lead to no replacement of the government and there's just a fallen state. Until there is another leader shows up and takes over and stuff.

[00:10:12] Fiona Marques: In Portugal, it was a dictatorship here in Portugal up to 1974. So that's very recent. Like I was alive in 1974, so that's like in my lifetime. And the revolution actually happened at the level of the Captains. So it turned out I, I wasn't living here, so I'm being liberal with my understanding as a foreigner, but that we, we see that leaders get absorbed by power.

And the Sun mythology is really helpful for that. And we covered that in a previous episode, but I, one day, maybe Sachin and I will also cover that, but it's a weakness, isn't it, that when one is in power, one can get consumed by that and you want to hold onto it. And this had actually seeped down to that level of the Generals. That they were all in cahoots with the leader. We hold onto what we have. And so this revolution happened at that soldier level. Which I think shares something about that Mars energy. That they just know what's right and wrong. They know what they've been trained to do. They know that they're supposed to be protecting the innocent and the meek. And they can begin to see through this power thing that's deluded that upper level.

And so the revolution happened from the captain level down. They came into the city and within the morning they had achieved their purpose and to, there was some firing of gunshots, but no one was actually killed on the day, apart from a couple of people, had heart attacks. There, there were some general deaths that probably happened every day of the week, but there was no nobody was shot on the day.

So it was a very clean Martian thing.

[00:11:45] Sachin Sharma: That's a very good point about sometimes Sun can become a tyrant and then you need the rebelliousness of Mars to temper the Sun a little bit.

The leader, the president, or the Prime Minister must understand that the Army is ultimately what helps the leader exert its strength and ideas and vision.

[00:11:54] Fiona Marques: So this dictatorship was eventually toppled by the captains. So they're called the cap, which happened in April and it was their revolution. They executed it, like I say, very effectively. And then of course, in a good Martian way, they handed back power to to the people. Or to the leadership. And there was a time it was quite turbulent. So it took time to settle into a democracy after that. There were many elections. And it took a while for that maturity to come to know how to manage a country democratically after such a long dictatorship. And before that a monarchy.

But what I also wanted to point out was that I think that demonstrates that Martian quality, that "when my job is done, I step back". And that's exactly what they did. They were not operating to install a particular leader. They were just operating for the righteous purpose of protecting the weak.

But what I wanted to point out was that after this event, the main Captain struggled to find that role in life in Portugal. And it has some of this theme of the way that we hero worship warriors. But then after the battle is done, what does one do with that hero worship? And this person, I believe, did not wanna get drawn back into politics in any way. And that was seen as not good. And his reputation was tarnished. And he went through a period of time where he was really ostracized or not venerated.

And now as time moves on, some 50 years later, actually his star is really rising and he's seen for the good deeds that he did do.

But I think this is an interesting thing, isn't it? Then transition of Mars from action to repose.

So let me follow up another habit of Mars or something that goes along with these stories and let me know what you think that When we did the Mars episode, I actually ended up calling it "Mars and the Marginalized", I think because just noticing how important Mars energy is for people who are marginalized. That is people who don't have power, right? So whether it's children or women or people of different races, those are the people that are not playing in the game of power as equally and fairly as other people.

But part of what's inspiring from that perspective is that Mars has no parents in the various mythology of Mars. It's not coming from a mother and a father, like in this case, Mars bursts out of a pillar.

[00:14:22] Sachin Sharma: Yeah.

[00:14:22] Fiona Marques: And then Mars is released when he's done his auspicious work. It's time for Mars to, to dissolve, retreat, go back. And then finding Mars, finding one's place after it has successfully completed the deed. Where does Mars belong after that? And we have all of those experiences in our culture around where do veterans fit in once they've participated in a battleground. They've fought on the winning side or the losing side. How do they come back to their city, their town, their village, and be integrated?

And it seems that both the creation of Mars and this after effect of Mars, there's a little bit of the outcast or a little bit of the "Where do I belong? I don't have parents, so I have to, my identity or my lineage is not established by my bloodline. And then where do I belong after?" There are different mythologies aren't there about Mars establishing his place.

What are your thoughts about this part of the Archetype, Mars before and Mars after the event?

[00:15:35] Sachin Sharma: There's no Mars after or before there's just Mars and there is no Mars. It's like the outcasts and stuff is more related to Raghu and Raghu is the outcasts. Raghu is, uhk is something that one can get into, but it, The Archetypal theme with Mars primarily the predominant theme is innocence, protection of innocence, saving a devote, saving someone who has faith in a and is experientially good in that way, and blessing those that stick to their word. And things like that.

Apart from that there is Karthik care as a de of Mars, and that's the second theme that Mars is portrayed again as a seven day old child. Who is deci chosen by the Davis to defeat the yess and he's able to defeat it. And symbol one of the ways to understand this is that there was innocence required to defeat the inner demons require that sort of innocence.

So with Mars there's always a strength of character theme Satwan. Which is a word used by Parashara for Mars Satwan. So there's a theme with Mars of Satwan, strength of character, which Pralhad showed. And devotion. And protection of those who can't protect themselves. That is first and foremost ourself.

If someone feels victimized by a reality itself, Jyotish can bring one to an understanding that reality is what it is, it's fair and square.

But Mars, when it's fighting outer battles, it turns into an activist. "What do I stand for? What do I stand against outside of myself? Which may or may not be an important theme for a person, but internally it's more about why does this bother me?

Because I may have wasted 500 lifetimes on, on, on issues like this. Ultimately, what's my fight to fight? What 's the proper way?"

Mars is the activist within us. Things that make us angry and we stand against them. And but Mars is Uncultivated Mars is a victim of reality. Ultimately, Mars gives you this feeling of rage and then you need to deliver justice. And that can look like a huge transformation within yourself. It can't be changing reality. When Mars tries to change outside world, it always dies frustrated. It dies with a lot of pent up pain and sorrow. Always there's no and that's one of very core parts. Yeah, So our job is to take care of ourself.

[00:17:27] Fiona Marques: So if we identify with our role as a warrior after the event, that's when it's not functioning well because, that identity doesn't need to exist after the event.

[00:17:46] Sachin Sharma: Maybe you needed to become a warrior. Maybe you maybe many people after a war realize that they have this capacity to defend their country really well. And then there's just even if the war is over, they go into positions of becoming an army general and stuff. So this is where I get, gets complex and this is where We have to understand that we have all the nine Avatars active within us. That ultimately all nine Archetypes have to function in the best capacity. We don't want a Narasimha which when Prahlad was like the pillar never split open. And Prahlad is left, confused. And Hiranyakashipu is see like "Now, it is what it is now. Either I killed you or you go join the Demon school and finish your lessons".

That wouldn't be good.

[00:18:15] Fiona Marques: And it wouldn't be good if the lion man stayed angry forever as a, as a force for good, as an auspicious, righteous pet. It has to leave.

[00:18:25] Sachin Sharma: That's the critical part of the tale. That's a good point. Because then Prahlad has tears of devotion and Narasimha calms down. So we actually have five, nine forms of Narasimha. There's one Yoga Narasimha, which teach teaches yoga.

We have 9, 5, 6, 7 different forms of Narasimha, ferocious Naim. We have the different ones. I was make taking notes on this Bhadra-narasimha which is fierce aspect of Narasimha. Jvala-narasiṃha flames. Vira-narasimha. Krodha-narasiṃha, angry. Guha-narasiṃha concealed Narasimha. So this would be more Scorpionic. These are in inner warriors. People who are on a spiritual war. That's the Scorpio aspect of things. Yogānanda-narasiṃha peaceful Narsimha teaching yoga. There's a peaceful Narasimha. So you can see people with really strong Mars influences being really peaceful. Why is that the case? Because they don't pick random battles.

[00:19:13] Fiona Marques: They're our personal trainers who are helping us with our daily exercise regime to get fit or whatever. So they're using all of those discipline and auspicious goals, but in a healthy way. healthy

[00:19:26] Sachin Sharma: a perfect one. That's a very good one that you said. Yeah. The personal trainers that Yeah. Yeah.

That's so good. I really like that. Yeah. Yoga and that's, and Thekla, which was blessing, Prahlada,

[00:19:29] Fiona Marques: Yeah.

[00:19:29] Sachin Sharma: Yeah. Yeah, that's we see that like when wars finish, army Generals are just uselessly sitting around. Playing cards, over drinking and there's a war, and everyone suddenly even if they're unfit, they can let get a lot done. That's a very good point.

That's one. And then you need Jupiter, that, that realignment of purpose, that sort of opening up the path. So one of the interesting things could be interaction of a Jupiter Vamana and Narasimha.

But in Narasimha theme, we don't see, like after Narasimha leaves, we don't see Narasimha being sad and purposeless. So with that Archetypal theme we don't see. But yeah, in an of itself as a Martial theme that's a very good point and a very good example you give that, yes, after wars. Now I understand what you meant by post-war, like post episode and pre episode. Like I understand what it means that Mars, when it's doesn't have anything to fight for, it starts to die off instead of like really loses its fire. So fire element is weak in the body. You, you, your hunger goes away. You start feeling, you can start having water retention or start losing a lot of weight and you need that element to come back. So when people feel hungrier, they have, they're also hungry for life. And if you drink coffee, you become like this Martial opinionated. Mars also holds opinions that we really feel strongly about.

That's your energy in your body that helps you exert your will, your vision. But if your energy in your body doesn't work for you, when you have an energetic breakdown, if you drink 15 cups of coffee and you just are vibrating and just buzzing and falling on the floor and sweating and having almost like a panic attack, then you wouldn't be able to fulfill Sun's vision. And you'll need rest and care and stuff like that.

Mars is an important thing. It's important to be the right activist, good activist, but it's just that Mars is not a pacifist. Mars is active, but the war can be internal or external or both depending on the balance. And for that, you need that guided internal wisdom. That's a

Yeah,

[00:21:22] Fiona Marques: Yeah. I'm thinking about how we hero worship. That these people do heroic deeds and we as a society put them then up on a pedestal. But that's not a place that Mars ever wants to be.

[00:21:37] Sachin Sharma: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Again, that's true.

[00:21:41] Fiona Marques: And then you get lots of problem with fallen heroes, right? The people who did do a great deed in that action in the battle, and then post the battle, we put them on a pedestal. And as you say it's their, they're almost Debilitated then because they've got no enemy, they've got nothing to do.

We see them at their worst, perhaps indulging in something that's not good for their body, like drinking or whatever it is, without a purpose. And then we question our heroes.

[00:22:11] Sachin Sharma: Yeah. Like you, you see these US Marines who are entrepreneurs now with really good companies or like motivational speakers and stuff. They, there's no walk. They're trained. They, if they're called for duty, they will go, but they're not just sitting around. That's a good expression of Mars. Mars can waver.

So that's where the principles and methods of Jyotish make the Archetypes like a theme. Like why did this person in their Exalted Mars for, in their Mars, Dasha did so much in the war. And after Mars they started their after Mars comes Rahu Dasha. In their suddenly there was identity crises because they have Sun-Rahu or Moon-Rahu conjunction of some sort in a certain placement. And they're like trying to figure out who they are or they're trying to manifest a new person, when their Mars is at odds from all the P T S D from the war.

And that's when Moon needs to be worked at.

[00:22:51] Fiona Marques: You've just blown my mind that Rahu Dasha comes after Mars Dasha. If we put our heroes on pedestals, the next thing we're going to see is them going through their most lost period.

[00:23:02] Sachin Sharma: Yeah. But Rahu is not necessarily always lost. But yes, definitely it, it gives you an opportunity for new exploration. And some seafarers discover new lands and some ships sink, and then they're given another chance.

[00:23:20] Fiona Marques: Good.

[00:23:20] Sachin Sharma: And with Narasimha story, we are being told about righteous anger, which is firstly the chosen child ard, innocent child. So Mar's key role is protection of innocence. It's it's not rage. It's not this sort of

[00:23:20] Fiona Marques: tantrum.

[00:23:20] Sachin Sharma: yeah, not a tantrum. It's more like a state of pushing pushback and this sort of energetic wall around knew that this is not permitted and that is part of our system and narc.

And one thing is Narasimha quickly shows up, navigates through the boon, fixes and leaves. That's very Martial. Mars' job is not to stay active all the time. It's like a cheetah. It can run really fast, but it can run really fast for a short duration. That's Aries aspect of Mars.

There's a Scorpionic aspect to Mars, which is more long-term calculative. It's more transformative, disciplined.

[00:23:53] Fiona Marques: And there's that Exalted Capricorn element of Mars as well, isn't there? That this boon is quite, sounds watertight. When you hear it, you're like you didn't give him immortality, but you're pretty much guaranteed this guy's not going to die. And I think Mars in Capricorn is just ingenious with its logic.

"What have I got? What can I use?" And it can solve any problem. And I think this is also a little bit comes from Scorpio, doesn't it? That Mars is whatever that obstacle is, even if it's deeply psychological, the Shakti of Mars is going to navigate through that. What a gift to

[00:24:36] Sachin Sharma: it's beautiful.

Yeah.

[00:24:37] Fiona Marques: Shakti of Mars.

Yeah.

[00:24:39] Sachin Sharma: Now one of the names with Mars is "Mangal", which means auspicious. So it tells us something about how it's a very important energy to have within us.

[00:24:39] The Astrologer's role in navigating the watertight boon

[00:24:39] Fiona Marques: Yep. Yep. Alright. And then I think part of what you're sharing with us is that the boon that the demon had that seems so watertight, can be overcome. That's what this story tells us, that there, there's always a way, and Mars is that energy that

[00:24:58] Sachin Sharma: Yeah, that's a good point. That's, yeah that, there's always a way. That's the key with Mars, there's always a solution. A good Mars, a well cultivated Mar realizes that "There's a way, there has to be a way, there's got to be a better way". That's what they say. "There's got to be a better way and there has to be a solution to this".

And a good Mars just doesn't get frustrated and doesn't quit. And eventually figures out. And if it doesn't figure out, it just is not still not frustrated. It's just, I couldn't figure it out.

There has to be a better way.

[00:25:20] Fiona Marques: yeah. But Then I'm also being inspired that as an Astrologer, sometimes that's our role or the gift that an Astrologer has is that the birth chart map can show kind of those conditions, can't they, "Can't be at this time and that time can't be on this planet or this location can't be on this age group and can't be with this person or that person".

And a client coming to us can feel a little overwhelmed or defeated that the structure of the chart is such that it seems like there's no way through there. But then the advantage of seeing the Astrologer is that the map is laid out and so the Astrologer can use her ingenuity, can use her Mars to have that perspective. "There is a way through this!" That's what the Astrologer goes in with. And then can help guide, in co-creation with the client, a pathway through that.

[00:26:14] Sachin Sharma: Exactly. That's the thing. If Astrology feels like a defeatist of philosophy, then the Astrology in and of itself doesn't have a philosophy. Astrology is just the astronomy of space-time itself. It's just it's the structure of reality. It has no philosophy. It just is. It's just fire will burn the wood. How can you be in resistance or for-or-against that?

And the structure of Astrology in and of itself allows for change because that's one of the tenets in Hinduism that there's constant ayana, there's constant movement. We are in constant gochara. The gochara, the transit is all about movement and transition and transformation.

So any Astrologer who says life is a hundred percent fated is philosophically misaligned. That's why argumentation, proper debate and proper clarity and grounding Jyotisha in a proper philosophy is very important. Because the personal equation (which I spoke about in an interview with Ryan Kurczak, and anyone who hasn't heard that can hear that on YouTube), the personal equation of the Astrologer is really important.

So if if you want a defeatist attitude, then you subscribe to that kind of Astrologer. If you want this sort of empowerment, ...because Astrology structure inherently is, there's a eighth house. A house for change. There's a period within time when planets go through eighth house and create changes.

The code of this Solar System, the coding it has a built-in function for transformation, enhancement, change. And Sun is the free will. Moon is the fate. All habitual, instinctual stuff grounded in Rahu and Ketu and Moon are all things that are fated. The more Lunar we are, the more fate is powerful. The less control we have.

The more Solar we are, the more we are grounded in awareness in Self. Or Atman or Chitta or whatever you wanna call it, (to whatever degree - not enlightened, spiritual degree, just grounded in your own heart) the more you'll feel there is will, you can will things. "Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up at six and I'm going to do this".

But if you are a Lunar person, you'll say it, and you wouldn't be able to wake up because you're feeling so low and you're feeling drained. You're energetically not okay, and things are not fine and you couldn't sleep until really late because your hormones or circadian rhythms weren't working for you.

Good Sun-Moon rhythms are very important and that's why we, a lot of astrological work is a work on the level of Ayurveda. Ayurveda, Yoga, Jyotish, and Vastu all speak to each other. and basic introduction to all four is, was like a basic thing. That's what was taught in the schools back in the day, like thousands of years ago.

"You're going to be alive. You're a consciousness. And you're in the space-time. Let's learn about the space-time. You need to understand space. That's Vastu. You have body and you're going to fall sick. And there's all these elements and doshas working with you. You need to take care of your health. You need to, you are, you have a space. Function And then you need moksha. You need to first be fully embodied. So you do these physical Asanas, and you feel psycho somatically at ease. Along with that you get into yogic things". But this was what was taught. With Garnet and with linguistics. And we had panini and we had such genius linguists.

And UR wasn't Python. It isn't Ur, it's I think it's bother Jan's the it was, the s text is from 700 or 800 BC and Pathoras came from 500 bc. So we literally have a sutra, which speaks of the Pathoras serum. The square of two sides is the, is equal to the in the right angle triangle like that.

The whole tum is s So that was, that's what was taught back in the day. And now we are taught We are glorifying evil kings. We call Alexander as the "Great", there's nothing great about Alexander. There was nothing great about Agba. Agba was a, just a total asshole, if I may. And there's nothing great.

We, we glorify these things. We are taught different things like this, which are not useful. Math is good. I feel math is good. It can be learned. It's a good art and math and stuff is fine.

[00:30:10] Fiona Marques: Sergeant gives permission for all to continue to

[00:30:10] Sachin Sharma: I I, I permit. Yeah. So

that's the thing,

[00:30:10] Mars Shadow Work - Stealing Innocence

[00:30:10] Sachin Sharma: And Prahlada is that force and you can see a bad Mars. And this is what's super interesting about archetypology, if I may, is that a bad mar in a, an uncd mar or a mar that is evil?

Let's call an evil mar with certain problems like deep issue. But Mars in and of itself cannot be evil, like more to do with mourn and Sun. But let's say dysfunctional, uncultivated Mars will play out the Narasimha theme in a dysfunctional manner. There will be moments that you couldn't enter and protect the innocent within you or someone else. Uncultivated, deranged energy of Mars can create perversions which feed off of taking away other people's innocence. It gets a kick on that. So that's a perverted Mars where you like it when you steal away the innocent. So this is something with to do with shadow work using archetypology and Jyotish. And this is the shadow work domain. And this is extremely important and interesting research. So anyone who wants to engage in this sort of research can definitely get in touch with me on jungianastrology.com.

And I'm all for any kind of research and studies in integrating analytic psychology, which is Jung's school of Thought, Y's Jung established that. And

[00:31:18] Fiona Marques: can I jump in there? Such an, and Keeping our answer general so that nobody freaks out about the Mars in their chart. An uncultivated Mars and the shadow work that you're speaking of, (which I find really insightful, that the Mars shadow work is around stealing someone's innocence), is that uncultivated Mars, do you think that's a Lajjit Avastha? Do you think it's Mars in a difficult place in the chart? Do you think it's aspects or conjunctions? And I don't want you to name any particular example cause we don't want a whole lot of people saying, but I've got Mars in my fourth house as pected by this. But if you have any thoughts about an uncultivated Mars, would you like to say anything general about that?

[00:32:07] Sachin Sharma: I think yes, Lajjitaadi Avasthas with Mars can have an effect, but ultimately you can work on your Sun and Moon. There's something to do with Moon's perceptions with that element. The element itself can get distorted. Like for Mars, if it's fire element in your body, then it can have a certain perversion to it.

It there In Daoist schools, poisoning of the internal fire. There's a Chinese a word for it in Mandarin. There's a word for in Daoist alchemy. So you internal alchemy your elements can literally become I'm like absolute like I have no idea about DAOs alchemy, but I'm dabbling a little bit here and there.

But I know a certain very fascinating that certain elements can get perverted. And they use the word perverted for that in their language.

[00:32:41] Fiona Marques: Fascinating.

[00:32:41] Sachin Sharma: Yeah. Yeah. So that's, So you have to protect it within yourself first. Because what you give, you have. What you don't have, you can't give. It's a metaphysical fact. You can't make another smile if you're not smiling. If you're angry, you cannot give happiness. You can give anger, you can give insight, you can defend yourself.

But what you are, you can give. There are these, so icono graphically iconography is also very interesting.

[00:33:03] BPHS and Avatars

[00:33:03] Sachin Sharma: What's important is that the way that Avatara is being expressed, how that purpose of establishing dharma and destroying evil is fulfilled, is expressed through the Graha. The story of the Avatara is in alignment with the qualities of the Graha.

So Rishi Parashara is touching at a very beautiful thing. It's so profound. Basically Avataras is what the idea of Archetype has been. What the European scholars or the priests of ancient times were trying to get at. And what Jung theorised and built further.

So Parashara tells us that there are full Avatars, which are full Paramatman consciousness, which is a Sun, Moon, Rama, Krishna and Varaha, believe it or not, Rahu. That's so fascinating. That blows my mind. And then it says Matsya has a lot of Paramatman, but it's not full Paramatman. It has Jiva consciousness, which you can see because it's a fish. But maybe one way to make logically understandable, but there might not be any logic to it as such.

We don't really have to have a logic to these things. .

But it, these are very in very interesting tales because all these, it tells us about everything in Hinduism. The philosophical presupposition of Hinduism is liberation moksha. That's the philosophical presupposition. Everything assumes that the final goal is moksha. Whether it's Ayurveda, Vastu, any discipline, any shastra. It's moksha. Be it any Martial arts, this, that. It can be physical moksha with physical practices. It can be psychological moksha. And then ultimately spiritual moksha. So in this case, we see so lot. Lost my train of thought there with that moksha tangent

[00:34:45] Liberation from what?

[00:34:45] Fiona Marques: And so then are the planets, are they Archetypes?

[00:34:52] Sachin Sharma: The planets have Archetypes. Planets are energies. They are elements. The, this idea in archetypal Astrology that planets are Archetypes is not true. This is just 10 sutras from the entire discourse on Grahas. 10 sutras were devoted to Avataras, archetypal themes and Archetypes. So the difference between Jungian Jyotish and Archetypal Astrology, the key difference is that Archetypal Astrology sees the planets as Archetypes and grounds all of its theories in Mars Archetype and it's Pluto Archetype. Which makes no sense because Pluto was named Pluto by an 11 year old girl in the 17, 18 hundreds.

So how do you know that Pluto is manifesting in the same Archetypal theme of the Pluto the myth of Pluto? So it makes, I don't know how the Western Astrologers try to make sense of this. I've beat my head around this a lot for many years. It makes no sense to me.

So in Jyotish, in Jungian Jyotish, Avatars and Archetypes are a part of the system of the planets.

So planets are also expressed as the kingdom. They're also expressed as grains, weathers different different parts of time. And so all these things are shown, depicted as different themes. As as elements panas, which is a very critical system with Una. There's planets, wick planets and rasik planets and stuff like that.

And for psychoanalytic work, the Avatara theme becomes really important. But planets Graha is not an Archetype. It's not an Avatar. An Avatar is an Avatar and Avatar which is being birthed through a Graha. It's expressing Graha-ness of that Graha. The qualities and characteristics of that Graha.

This is a huge mistake that people o of union Astrology background or people using Archetype theory of Archetypes in this context is a oh a, it's an Archetype. Mars Archetype. It's a gra that which seizes. Graha means that which seizes, it just means seizes.

[00:36:25] Fiona Marques: Yep.

[00:36:25] Sachin Sharma: possess what? Or just to finish that one.

Possesses. Possess what? Possess the Sun. So what is aha? Po? So Sun is not really a guha.

[00:36:27] Fiona Marques: Yeah.

[00:36:27] Sachin Sharma: Sun is a guha because Sun possesses other planets also. So for other planets, for Moon, other planet's, Sun can be like a gra but Caesar, but Sun is Sun. It's consciousness

Liberation? Moksha from what? Off what? Liberation off the Sun from the Graha system, from the Solar System. Liberation of the self, from the Solar System is what we are seeking to do in yoga.

[00:36:46] Fiona Marques: Yep. So in some ways what we think of as the Sun or the Moon is actually also a an Avatar or an Archetype seized by the energy. Of, is that what you're saying? That it's not the Sun, the planet that is also a representation of this archetypal energy.

[00:36:46] Sachin Sharma: The Sun can be understood from a, on a psycho-spiritual psychological level through the Archetype of the Sun, which is ram. So Sun as the role, the goal, the demeanor, the expression of the Sun is ram and, oh the work the the first section. The C of Ram and the , which is post-war of post killing Ravana is written later on.

It's not real. So all that stuff that was exiled and love and was born is, it's not a real ramina. Real ramina ends with him living with cita peacefully and that whole thing, and which really gets fi, the feminists fired up about cita being exiled this way and Rama Ram Rama not seeing cita as pure and this, and that is not true.

It's written later on. It's a different sanscript. It's written in a different there's scholarly reasons why it's not true, but it's a consensus amongst unanimously agreed upon thing that it's not remain proper.

[00:36:46] Fiona Marques: Okay.

[00:36:46] Sachin Sharma: So Sun is actually very good. It's very noble, idealistic, and sac self-sacrificial as themes with drama.

[00:36:46] Fiona Marques: All right. I'm going to try then ask this question again, but I think language really gets in the way here. Can we go back to the theme of being liberated from what

[00:36:46] Sachin Sharma: Yeah, that's a good one.

[00:36:46] Fiona Marques: And try to ask this question with words. Talk to me more about being liberated from what? There you go. See, I didn't have enough to ask the question. Just Talk to me more about that... being liberated from what?

[00:36:48] Sachin Sharma: So liberated from the, from the

[00:36:48] Fiona Marques: Because the gras is seizing our pure consciousness.

[00:36:48] Sachin Sharma: It's like you were looking at the pillow and "It's my pillow". To the point, if someone hits the pillow, you feel hurt. So your Sun is radiating its light out onto the pillow and your Moon became attached to the pillow. And now if someone sets the pillow on fire, you are getting disturbed to the point of losing your Self (sense of Self).

So getting liberated from that thing that, but it's an actual experience. The self-realization is realization of you at the center of the Solar System. But the journey it creates a a Pancha Mahabuta Shodana. Which is cleansing of the five elements. Which is a very clearly defined practice in Daoist Alchemy. Which is also very Ayurvedic practice.

But the knowledge is lost, but in various systems of yoga and it's very clear still. Of the lineage is still very pure. It's very difficult to find, but it's very pure and clear lineage. The texts can be found very easily online and the books are not that expensive and you can, but the practice is life changing and difficult.

Kriya Yoga is one of them (what Ryan teaches). So Kriya Yoga is very transformative that way. It works with the elements. And liberates you into your sense of Self. That self realization, which is artman anubha art people are those who have experienced the self as a self. So you feel liberated from the Solar System and its pressures. Have a huge say on all of this.

And even after liberation, Rahu, K2 themes can still play out as far as I could've could, can make up from all the things that I've read and gathered. Have I experienced all of this? I need to clearly say it. No. Do I have an insight? Yes. Can I make sense of these things? Yes, but that's as good as me being like here which is giving a discourse on the artman without then going on a, going a going on a thing with wish new and like trying to kill everyone and take everything over.

and then, The journey begins Then the spiritual journey begins after self realization.

[00:37:58] Fiona Marques: We're on a long journey session. So one of the images that I'm getting from what you're saying there is that being, identifying ourselves with planet Earth, which we are made of earth and when we look out on the planets and the planetary paths, all those orbital paths seem quite crooked and to the layperson, a little difficult to understand.

Whereas if we were to identify ourselves with the Sun, where everything is in its place, from the Sun's perspective, the Solar System makes complete sense and nobody's damaging anybody. Everything's all in the right place. Is that a little bit freeing ourselves from the

[00:37:58] Sachin Sharma: Yeah. Yeah. That's a, it's a change of perspective a little bit, but it's difficult because Moon has like really intense feelings towards things and ideas because of its conditioning. Like I can say something that you truly believe in and it'll bother you for a week. And that's the thing. So I, you can really say something to me, which I really am, which is close to my heart. That's a Lunar theme, and then it'll, it can literally make me physically sick. So when yourself becomes self realized. When you clean the psycho imagistic contents (which is all these spontaneously rising images, feelings, memories in your psyche when you sit for meditation), when you clean yourself of them and you constantly clean clean, and you've come to subtler, it's just cleaning the slate.

It's just cleaning the window to the point that Sun can shine through. It's just Moon becomes so calm that when you look into the lake of the Moon, you realize it's the Sun. Was looking into the Sun can see its own reflection and realize itSelf. Right now, Sun is looking at the lake, but the lake has so much movement that the Sun cannot see itSelf. It can just see splintered orbs of light within the lake and just identifying within, trying to figure it out. And then there are these objects of shadows and which come out from the bottom of the lake, which is Rahu and Ketu and pull you down. And then you use these five elements to figure out life as you're pushed and pulled. You try to use your Venus Mercury.

Right now I'm trying to reuse Mercury properly. I'm hoping my internet works. I'm hoping my mic is working. I'm hoping the right words are found. I'm able to articulate. I'm trying to make sense of things. I'm using etymology philosophy, this, that then my Jupiter is working. All these plan, all these plans are working at all times.

And just the fact that we are doing a long conversation, it's just how much Saturn you have and you to go on without feeling drained. And with Mars, you're trying to stay like energized. We, using all our five capacities in different wearing ways and certain que destinies being fulfilled through our alignment.

Where my K2 is feeling fulfilled by being able to do what it needs to do in Mira, who is entering this domain of, oh, I am doing an interview, which freaks me out a little bit, but I'm like, yeah, it's good. Like I'm trying to overcome these fears since the beginning, since I've been talking to you since the very first episode of or we did on your YouTube channel and then with your own brow.

Okay, you're working on your own things. So we have these things and then we have Moon, which is wire, things that we are experiencing day-to day things. And then we have a Sun, which we don't pay attention to at all. That's yoga. That's where we need to figure out not not physical yoga, but sitting still yoga. Stilling the mind, stilling the Moon Yoga.

[00:39:23] Conclusion and Farewell

[00:39:23] Fiona Marques: Delicious. Thank you, Sachin. We have so covered some territory today. As you were saying, our Saturns are perhaps getting towards the ends of their attention and our listeners as well. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, your research, your passions. I've really gained a lot. I think it's something I'm going to keep digesting for many days after our conversation.

Thank you for being here with us.

[00:39:48] Sachin Sharma: Thank you so much. Your line of questioning and your curiosity and your own understanding and insights of Astrology just add so much. It brings out the best in me and it's just such a good loop, feedback loop between you and that perfect flow. Thank you so much for doing this, for making this effort.

Thank you.

[00:40:14] Fiona Marques: Thanks also everyone for listening, and I look forward to the next time that we have Sachin Sharma join us on the Vedic Astrology podcast. Bye everybody.