(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 22 December 2014, Cape Town, South Africa, Srimad Bhagavatam 9.19.19)
If you do marry, then be careful that whoever you marry is a devotee. Whatever you do, do not marry a non-devotee. That would be the worst thing to do because then it will be goodbye to yourself! You can say goodbye to the self you were because that is surely a way to go down!
People spend hours and hours matching astrological charts and sometimes you get a ninety percent match! Anyway, that gives you ten percent opportunity to give each other hell; that is also there. But beyond that ninety percent match, are you both chanting Hare Krsna? That is more important than all the astrology and all the karma. Even if the charts do not match, if you are both serious about being devotees, about vaisnava etiquette and if you are willing to offer obeisances and approach each other like devotees, then you might just transcend those bad charts, even if there is Rahu! Prabhupada said that Krsna can kick out millions of Rahus. So, the real criteria for compatibility is how serious are we about devotional service.
Sometimes, a few planets collide, create a little fireworks and almost the destruction of the universe; that can happen… But, what if your planets match really well and you are so happily together, in maya! It can be a great match and you have never had an argument at all, okay great, but how Krsna conscious was it? “Well, we are trying!” When anyone says they are trying, it means that they are not doing. Trying means that we are not doing it!
So, we should make a realistic choice and we fill in the grhasta ashram with Krsna. Our house is a holy place. Our house is a place that reminds us of Krsna and in the house, there is so much prasadam and in the house, there are always guests and in the house, we have many things but they are all Krsna conscious things so whenever we come home, we get so much nourishment. In that way, the grhasta ashram is very nice because one can very nicely make spiritual advancement.
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2 Comments
Dear Mataji,
Please accept my best wishes. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
I was just reading this text and had a few comments to make based on my 38 + years experience as devotee and my knowledge of Vedic astrology.
First let us consider what Srila Prabhupada has written in his purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 6.2.26 (emphasis mine)
“The men of the higher classes — the brahmanas, ksatriyas and vaisyas — do not beget children in the wombs of lower-class women. Therefore the custom in Vedic society is ≫ to examine the horoscopes of a girl and boy being considered for marriage≪ to see whether their combination is suitable. Vedic astrology reveals whether one has been born in the vipra-varna, ksatriya-varna, vaisya-varna or sudra-varna, according to the three qualities of material nature. This must be examined because a marriage between a boy of the vipra-varna and a girl of the sudra-varna is incompatible; married life would be miserable for both husband and wife. Consequently a boy should marry a girl of the same category. Of course, this is trai-gunya, a material calculation according to the Vedas, ≫but if the boy and girl are devotees there need be no such considerations. A devotee is transcendental, and therefore in a marriage between devotees, the boy and girl form a very happy combination.≪”
So as Srila Prabhupada himself says we do chart compatibilities for marriages but it is not so necessary for “devotees.” I have put quotes “” around devotees because it is quite apparent from the number of failed and unhappy marriages in ISKCON that Srila Prabhupada is talking about a much higher echelon of devotees than is currently found in ISKCON and that such “devotees” are actually quite rare in our society. Thus there is actually great need to use jyotish to do astrological compatibilities for us lower level aspiring devotees who make up the mass of ISKCON’s members.
The problem is that none of the astrolgers in ISKCON and the vast majority outside of ISKCON simply do not know how to compatibilities correctly. I say this based on my 38 + years studying jyotish as my exclusive service to Srila Prabhupada (I was recruited into the Bhaktivedanta Institute in 1978 specifically to study Jyotish as per Srila Prabhupada’s request that the BI study jyotish and I was picked to do it).
As soon as you see an astrologer say that you have a 58% or 72% match with your prospective partner you can be sure that they do not know what they are doing. Why? Because they are using a very simplistic method that only takes into account one index, the Moon, leaving out many other factors. For more details about this go to this link https://shyamasundaradasa.com/jyotish/services/explanation_services/matchmaking.html
It should be pointed out that in the past some gurus purposely mismatched couples into “deranged marriages” so that they would be miserable on the assumption that it make them more serious in KC. Instead they became disillusioned by such misguided leaders and left the movement leaving behind a shattered marriage and angry children as collateral damage.
Another point is that it is incorrect to think that planets do anything. Astrology is a very complex symbolic language given to us by Lord Krsna. It is literally the symbolic representation of Vedanta and Sankhya philosophy. You could say it is a divine cryptogram needing special training to decrypt. Just as it would be wrong to say that the thermometer makes you feel hot or cold, because actually thermometers just measure the ambient temperature, they don’t make the temperature. In the same way the planets do not make you do anything, rather they just describe the situation.
Finally in a properly arranged marriage one must look at four basic factors, there are other details depending on community etc. but these are the four basic ones. They are (no special order) 1 physical attraction –sexual compatibility. 2 emotional sensitivity to each other – emotional compatibility. 3 ability to communicate and exchange ideas — intellectual compatibility. 4 Spiritual commitment – spiritual compatibility.
If one of these four is missing it would be like trying to sit on a chair that has one leg missing – not very stable.
I could go on but do not want to take any more of the readers time.
Here are links to two educational texts about how to maturely use Vedic Astrology:
http://akincana.net/essays/343-astrology.html
http://shyamasundaradasa.com/jyotish/what_is_jyotish/what_is_vedic_astrology/what_is_vedic_astrology_1.html
dasa dasa anu dasa
Shyamasundara Dasa
krsne matirastu
http://www.ShyamasundaraDasa.com
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven dasa dasa anu dasa
HK dear Ragalekha dd. PAMHO AGTSP. Thank you for the blog. I always look forward To news of Maharaj. Ys Draupadi dd from ladysmith