Good morning ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Progressive.
Today I want to speak to you a little bit about Rahu, the North Node of the Moon
and Ketu, the South Node of the Moon.
As two points which are very predominant in every chart,
every birth chart is being a little bit about Vedic Astrology here today,
which are there in every incarnated human being.
So these two points and what do they mean and how can we sort of move past them
or have them under a little bit of check.
Because if you don't have these points, Rahu and Ketu are little under your conscious check
and control and awareness, you can pretty much run away in any direction with it
because they are illusory points. Now what do I mean by this?
Well first of all, we are strictly speaking Vedic Astrology here,
first of all the points Rahu and Ketu are the North Node of the Moon
or South Node of the Moon, these are just nodes, these are not real planets.
We got to understand the first basics of it. What are these nodes formed by?
Well they are formed by the two intersection points that happen
of the orbit of the Moon around the Earth and the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.
If you take this as two circles, these circles intersect at two points.
One is called the North Node and one is called the South Node.
One is Rahu and the other one is Ketu. It's that simple.
Now these two nodes, the intersection points of the orbit of the Moon around the Earth
and the Sun around the Earth around the Sun are virtual points in space.
They do not actually have a physical body to them but they have virtual intersection points.
And in Astrological terms, Vedic Astrological terms, what does this mean?
It means simply that there is no reality to this as it plays out in our life.
It just provides an obsession about things or a detachment from things.
Obsession being the Rahu energy and detachment being the Ketu energy.
It's like the dualistic play of Maya.
Maya or this universe of duality as it is termed in Vedic texts is basically a play of Vishnu
or the Preserver of the universe.
The deity called Vishnu is responsible for this entire Maya or entire creation.
So it's just forms coming in and going or forms wanting experience and dissolving, going back to their source.
And they need a particular platform. They need a stage to enact this drama.
That is this universe.
So this entire universe is held by Vishnu or the Preserver of the universe
who is responsible for this platform where all experience happens.
In essence, they do not mean anything because it's just a stage created for enacting a drama.
Think of it as stage created for enacting a particular drama.
You go to the stage, you go to the auditorium, you see certain players come on stage, act and then go back.
You understand that it's not real from the soul perspective. It is like this.
It understands already that none of this is real.
So Rahu and Ketu come here and play out as the parts of us that is obsessive about certain things.
The part of us that is not wanting attachment or detachment or doesn't care about certain other aspects of our life.
Because these two are intersection points of circle on a chart, they always appear 180 degrees apart.
That means to say in opposite houses, if Rahu appears in the second house, Ketu will appear in the eighth house.
If Rahu appears in the seventh house, Ketu will appear in the first house.
Opposite houses essentially.
That means whatever you are attached to as Rahu appearing in your chart,
opposite end or the opposite side of the house, you will feel detached from.
If you are feeling, if you are having Rahu for example in seventh house and Ketu in the first house,
you feel obsessed about having a partner or partnership or spouse or having relationships with the opposite sex.
And you will feel detached from yourself or who you are as a sense of self will feel very detached.
So you will feel your sense in the direction of Rahu.
You will be detached from the opposite house which is Ketu.
I am just giving you a random example here.
It can go through all the twelve houses.
This axis of Rahu and Ketu can revolve around the chart.
It can go in any direction.
You can have for example Rahu in the first house and Ketu in the seventh house in which case you will be detached from partnerships and spouses.
You don't worry too much about them.
Your attention does not go there automatically but it goes towards obsession about self narcissistic.
I want all attention towards myself.
So this is how it plays out in our charts.
But I want to take you here more into the deeper Vedic Astrology and Vedic aspects of this.
Essentially Rahu means the mind, the head part of your body.
Everything that is in the head, in the face, in the brain, the head, everything neck and above is Rahu.
Everything below the neck and all the body is Ketu.
Even if you go through the mythology of Rahu and Ketu, it is very clearly mentioned that Rahu is the head and Ketu is the body.
And Mishno is the one who separated both of them.
So that's how it plays out in our life.
These are hints from mythology that we can see in real terms how it plays out.
So Rahu becomes the energy in your head.
What is your brain or mind occupied with most of the time is Rahu.
What you do not see and what you do not give any credence to and what you are least concerned about is everything below the neck or Ketu.
Most people are detached from their bodies.
Most people do not really bother about what is neck down, everything from neck down.
This is another interesting aspect to notice.
People do not really bother about what is below the neck other than looking in the mirror and saying I am fat, I am thin or ugly or I have these scars etc.
That does not mean that on a day to day, on a moment to moment basis, your conscious energy is going anywhere below the neck.
It is always stuck in the head.
Everybody is pretty much stuck in the neck above.
Everybody is obsessed about their face, about their mind, about what they think their brilliance is or talents are etc.
That is the Rahu energy we are speaking of.
And looking at charts and various divisional charts, divisional charts will give you even where Rahu Ketu goes.
Let's say in terms of your career, in terms of your relationships, money, job studies etc.
Different areas of life. This is where Rahu Ketu keeps shifting the axis and that is where you can go deep dive into where these obsessions and compulsions are playing out in your life.
But it is one thing to know some knowledge and another thing to embody that knowledge and say how can I get past this?
So here we are talking about how can we simply start to explore the possible ways in which to be neutralizing this opposing forces of Rahu and Ketu.
They are essentially opposing forces if you look at it.
One wants to drive towards the head and obsessive desires, obsessive compulsions of what I want to achieve fame or I want to achieve this much amount of money in the bank account or I want this popularity or I want to have this kind of a relationships or money or job or anything.
One goes in that direction which is Rahu. So why Rahu is called the Bhoga Karaka or the one who gets physical things manifest in Vedic terms.
Ketu on the other hand is called Moksha Karaka or the one who is not interested in anything material, does not know who or she is.
It has no sense of identity because it is just the body without the head on top of it. So it just goes around the world through life not knowing who the person is, not knowing what my identity is and it is kind of a fearful thing place for a person to visit even consciously.
Even for the consciously aware people this is kind of a difficult stretch. How does one go to a place where one does not know who he or she is, complete loss of identity and still retain some form of groundedness because it is like going into a void.
If you go into a void you have no sense of identity, no sense of space, time, nothing. You are nowhere essentially.
So that is the Ketu space. One is full of the head energy, one is full of the void energy. These are two extremities, these are two polarities.
I want you to understand this only in very simplistic terms. One Rahu is always neck above, Ketu is always neck below.
So how do we neutralize this? How do we come to a place where this can become a way in which we can recalibrate and come to a neutral point where we are not always obsessing or we are not even dissolved from everything else.
I can offer you this much today. I can confirm to you that the place where your Rahu and Ketu will meet will be in the center of your chest, in the heart space, the high heart space where the breast bone ends and the stomach begins, the upper portion of your abdomen begins.
So that point just beneath the breast bone is the high heart space. If you sit silently, close your eyes and go to that spot just below your breast bone and focus there, you can literally feel your Rahu energy or whatever is going on in your head.
That whole energy ball of consciousness, descend into that space, the point below the breast bone. Try to keep it there.
Mind will go on about mind chatter, but you are taking that mind mental chatter energy and you are refocusing it and pushing it down into that space of heart, the high heart.
That's where the physical plane and the mental plane meet. That's where Ketu and Rahu meet at the heart space.
Because what did this whole mythology of Rahu, Ketu and come about and what are they here to teach? Everything is here to teach something.
They are here to teach that you are not here to be obsessed about materialistic fulfillment of desires because what happens in Rahu houses, wherever Rahu is landing or north lord of the moon is landing in your house, you will be obsessed about that area, accomplishments in that area of life.
The opposite axis, side of the axis Ketu, you will be detached from that. It is neither of the two. The truth is neither of the two. You know, not we have to be obsessed about something.
You need not have to be detached from the opposite aspect. Like they say, truth is always somewhere in between.
The in between point or the mid point is heart center where it meets because heart is the root of all desire.
The essence of pure desire is where the heart is met and that is in the center of your chest.
So if you sit down quietly, bring your attention to that point in the center of the behind where your breast bone ends and you bring that energy from the head as if it is traveling down through your neck and coming there all the energy in the head.
And in as much time as possible, try to retain that energetic focus. You will find that your head goes blank and that is good.
You will find that you have lesser and lesser crowding enough thoughts and that is good.
You will find that you have gone into a void space where neither the body exists nor the mind exists.
That's the space where these two meet because the place of pure desire or the high heart center is where this entire universe is being dreamt from.
This is the dreaming space of the heart. This is where every creation is dreamt from.
So you are going into a place of essentially in absolute terms you are going into the essence of pure desire.
Pure desire does not need to have anything in materialistic form. Neither is it opposed to anything in materialistic form.
So it is not detachment. It is not attachment either. It just wants to feel everything.
The essence of pure desire is to feel for the sake of feeling. Remember we spoke of soul as a place of just come here to experience things,
not to take things, not to possess things or not to have things materialized.
And that's where you can bring the energies of Rahu and Ketu whatever they might be in your chart doesn't matter which way they are placed.
Everybody has one. So there's no judgment here where you can bring that focal point to replace of I wouldn't necessarily call it neutrality because it's a place of pure experience of desire.
Desire is the essence of this creation that your heart came here because of desire.
Its entire universe is made of desire. It is composed of desire. But that desire is not for the sake of thinking that I want to possess something or thinking that I am not bothered about such and such thing.
These two places are not where the universe comes from. If you want to see that you have to go to this higher heart center in your daily meditations.
You can practice bringing your attention to that point behind the breast bone just where it's your abdomen starts and the breast bone ends in the center of your chest.
Bring the energy down as if the energy is coming down from the head into that point and hold it there. Keep practicing this. It's pretty easy. It's not tough.
This does not require hours and hours of training. This does not even require you to sit in funny positions or asanas or something.
It's just you can do sitting anytime or even walking around. If you're going for a walk you can do this. Bring the attention there and walk and see how it feels.
It will feel very different. You might not feel like the human identity that you are. You might not feel like the body that you are.
It will be neither. First to neutralize Rahu and Ketu. You need to come to that point of neutrality. The point where you are neither the head, neither the body and that's pure desire.
That's where you meet the soul space as it is embodied. So I'll leave you this much. Practice with this and see how it goes. I wish you luck. Be safe. Have a good day.