Nikhil
Hi everyone, this is Nikhil Torsekar coming to you from Chicago with The Shelly Story. Today we have Julia Taparia, a very exciting guest. It’s something a little bit different. As you know, sometimes we talk about a lot of different ways of managing mental health. And mindfulness and meditation are really key in my practice. And it’s something I found very valuable in addition to other conventional therapies.
But we’re what we’re going to talk about today is Vedic Astrology, and a lot of how that can inform our insights and the way we interact with the world and the way we process a lot of the, I would say “interesting” times that we live in. So I’m very excited to talk to Julie, get her insights about the world and learn a little bit more about her background because it’s very unique. So with that, I will tell you a little bit more about Julie’s story and just she can weigh in as well.
Julie Taparia has studied Vedic Astrology extensively for 13 years, and under the guidance of Sanjay Rath’s six-year Parasara Jyotisa Course. Her astrology passion has allowed her to work closely with Anita Dongre, a top fashion house in NYC, the United Nations, and collaborated with Bravo TV personalities on astrology fashion wear and astrology podcasts.
She recently taught her first batch of students Vedic astrology in 2020. And writes for a South Asian magazine on current astrological transits and trends.
She currently works full time in Healthcare Strategy & Operations and holds a Masters of Public Policy degree from University of Chicago, and a B.S. degree from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
She’s on Facebook and Instagram, and we’ll share some of that in a little bit.
So Julie, it’s, it’s great to have you have you on the show a story and thanks so much for joining us.
Julie
Oh, no, thanks for having me. I mean, what a pleasure to talk to you and talk openly about Vedic Astrology when it’s a topic that is kind of underground and hidden, and only the “auntie scene” talks about it. So that’s definitely nice. Yeah, this generation?
Nikhil
Yeah, for sure. As you and I were talking I just before, before we got on, I find your background very interesting. And it’s interesting, a lot of the overlaps that you and I have, because, as with you, I have a Big 4 background, and I also went to the University of Chicago, albeit in a different school.
And similar to you, I think, recently, sort of as, as I go along, in my journey, I’ve gotten a lot more into Eastern philosophies and spirituality, just to navigate, as I mentioned, some of the interesting times we live in.
So could you tell us a little bit more about your background, because as I mentioned, I find it extremely fascinating to go from, I guess what you could call a typical or traditional career path of going to school, and then you know, doing consulting, and then sort of embracing this.
And it sounds like it wasn’t like a light switch that went off, and you switched into this and changed your identity completely. But it’s something that you adopted more in your practice. So maybe you could tell us a little bit more about that.
Julie
It’s all starts from you know, your childhood, your upbringing. And you know, us just being Indian, we have access to this type of stuff. And so, any one of us can dig into this whenever we want. My family’s always been into going to Chinmaya Mission, going to temple. And I have, by chance, a very famous Indian astrologer uncle who lives in Bombay, and he kind of would teach me basics, fundamentals. And I go there because it always asks questions like, “How do you know that? Why are you telling me to do this random mantra, why do you think my marriage will be late? Or why is this person having a really big career and why? Why is my career taking off later, like just different aspects of life and people have different timing.”
So as a consultant, you ask a lot of questions, you break down problems going to University of Chicago, as you know, Nikhil, you’re always trying to problem solve and the problem the problems that we had, you’re always trying to find the answers. So Vedic Astrology is like a puzzle and, you’re always trying to put everything together to make sense of how your life turned out and what is coming up in the future.
And it’s not 100% accurate because we’re not God. But it definitely can give you a high probability of when things will happen, if it’s a good thing are not so good thing and what to be prepared for. Like, if it’s a health issue, or will you win the lottery, like all sorts of different things like that, like, at least like an insurance policy to know kind of what’s coming up in the next in the next 10 years of your life, so you can kind of prep for it and plan for it.
So if you think of it, as you know, us just loving math us being Indian, it’s kind of like geometry, there’s a lot of angles to Vedic Astrology, there’s a lot of permutations and combinations to Vedic Astrology. So it’s a pretty vast topic. But in the fundamentals are pretty much stuff that we all already know.
So it’s not as hard as people think it is. But I just started digging through my uncle first, when I started buying a bunch of books on the way our bookstores of India go through charts and kind of analyze it.
Nikhil
Maybe if you can tell us a little bit more about the timeline? Is it something that is it something that you were exposed to as a kid? That’s because I’m asking because, like, for instance I’ve become a big fan of Deepak Chopra. recently. And it’s interesting, because I was exposed to it in the early 90s. You know, I was like, 16, it’d be sitting in the minivan, I had, my parents would have those big old plastic boxes of Deepak Chopra, cassettes. And it didn’t make any sense to me at the time. But now, it’s something…it’s one of those things that you get exposed to as a kid, that later in life, you adopt more firmly.
But can you talk a little bit more about the timeline, like how you know how exposure kind of turned into it?
Julie
In every Indian family, like some of your mom or dad, or some uncle would look at your birth chart and say, “Oh, this is a good time to get married,” or “this is a good time to get a good career or a good job.” But I think I was always there, and our family had that astrologer and so it always was something I’d always kind of dive into.
But in my mid 20s, I spent some time in India just volunteering. And that’s when I started kind of digging and asking questions when my uncle who lived in the same building as I did, so I just go in and talk to him, he would have a lot of clients come in, and the clients would just you know, tell him stuff, he’d go in the room, talk to them, and they’ll come back and go feel better. So it was quite interesting to me.
And so and he did say, “you’ll have a late marriage.” And I was determined not to have a late marriage, and I did have a late marriage. And so I think timing is somewhat out of your control, some of your karma is somewhat out of your control, and it started getting me very, very interested in this whole philosophy, like how can you not control parts of your life? And when I moved to New York I think the whole thing was integrating men meditation, like this school of Chinmaya Mission, like all the Hindu philosophy, it’s all it’s all part of it in astrology.
Nikhil
You mentioned Chinmaya Mission; Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I mean, and just to sort of set the stage here. I know almost nothing about Vedic Astrology. I don’t even know if I’m pronouncing it correctly.
Yeah it’s something I know very little about. So I a lot of this terminology would be it would be helpful. Like, if you can just tell us a little bit more about like, what Chinmaya Mission is.
Julie
Chinmaya mission is like a Hindu school. It’s like Sunday school. And it just talked about the Gita. So it was like, the classes and it talked about, like so it’s a book a book of psychology. I feel like how to deal with problems in your life and how they were taught by the way in the Gita, so we had the classes, and it was nothing to do with Vedic Astrology. But then, when I came to New York, about three or four blocks away from me was a meditation center called Brahma Kumari. Brahma Kumari is pretty big in India, but they would have meditation classes for free. And there were a bunch of Indian nuns that actually you know, we’re living in this kind of this kind of school in on Fifth Avenue.
And it was just fascinating because I’d go there and sit there and it was the most relaxing place on Fifth Avenue just to get a breather in from all the noise.
Nikhil
You definitely need that in Manhattan for sure.
Julie
And I went in there twice a week. I would just go and sit there just to get my head clear and then you know, I met the nuns. I started joining their classes, and it was the same thing, it talked about the Gita in a very easy way to understand. So it talked about karma, it talks about very, like different topics that we always want to know.
But it was so easily accessible for me to learn it. So I would go there, like twice, three times a week and sit there and talk to them. And it was amazing. So I got into that. And then in the background, when I had free time, I would read books on astrology and just, it all ties together, like these when you’re pandit and I don’t know, if you, your mom, your dad ever asked a pandit like, oh, what’s going on there’s a, she, he’s going through a bad time, or she’s going through a bad time.
And then the pandit would give a mantra, and you’re like, what does this month are about, like, this is so random. And I feel like it integrates with Hinduism — with the philosophies, with the chanting, with the mantras. It also integrates just spiritually with our philosophy.
So it’s all kind of the same package like, so that I started reading books on my own for about six years, and I started looking at my own family’s charts, my close friends, charts, people, I knew, I totally experimented on them. And I totally said, oh I know about your past relationship, let me go see if the timing was the time that shows up on your birth chart. and I would do these practice sessions with like, all my friends, and all these, my cousins, my, my aunt and uncle, my brothers, my parents, because I knew their life.
And so sure it kind of was showing a lot of signs that there were events that took place at a certain time period, or you want my brother got married at a certain time period, my, my mom got married at a certain time period you could see all that stuff when you have the birth chart at hand. So it was quite fascinating.
And then, probably in 2017, I started just putting myself out there, I was like, “this is something everyone should know about, we should all learn a little bit about it and take control of our own lives.” And so I started talking about it publicly in New York. And I had so many people just at our age group, just call me and say, “hey, I need help, and”
Nikhil
How are you getting your message out there? Social media is obviously big; are you using word of mouth?
Julie
New York is surprisingly, a pretty small scene. I mean, with our age group, professionals, and people talk and you know, when you have, when you’re a lot of single people who don’t get married don’t get married till their 40s or everything is at work. And they have a lot of stresses here, and sometimes they’re looking for an outlet. So, I mean, people would just come knocking on my door and say, “hey, I need help I’m going through a divorce, I’m going through a bad work time.” And I would sit and practice with them.
And yeah, it was nerve wracking for me, because I wasn’t completely confident. But once I started getting more, more and more practice, people would just open up and I would see these time periods that just activate, like, certain events in their life, and like, oh, this was not a good time period would happen. And someone said they a death in the family or some sort of issue and it was really tough for two years, but then the next period was great. They got promoted, and they got married and everything good happens.
Nikhil
It’s just that age-old aphorism “the stars align,” right?
Julie
Yeah, exactly. So I just wanted to talk about you know, why Vedic Astrology and astrology is kind of part of our daily life. I mean people kind of bring up astrology in terms of astrology all the time. So if you think about like, for example, Mercury retrograde. With Mercury retrograde, people say, “Oh, it’s Mercury retrograde, our computers will fall down and they’ll break and we’re gonna have miscommunication. And like the airline control towers are not going to work.” So, stuff like that. There is always some sort of feeling that we’re controlled by different planets.
And even like, the moon the moon, there’s high tide, there’s low tide and if you think about, like, Teen Wolf from 1985, that movie activated Michael J. Fox to become a werewolf. So, I mean, there’s definitely some strong implications that you know, during a full moon people act a little bit hot and heavy, they’re definitely you know, hungry for like attention.
Like there’s some indication that the world around us is, is having some effects with the planets around us like Saturn, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury. So even though we don’t feel these planets, they definitely make an impact on our lives. So you know, even in India, India, they say, the ABCs are the only thing people care about: A is for astrology, B is for Bollywood, and C is for cricket.
Nikhil
Is that a common term? I’ve never heard that before.
Julie
You know, I think I heard it a couple times. And I was pretty fascinated.
Nikhil
Because whenever I hear “ABC,” I think of like American Born Confused Desi but this ABC thing. It’s I like that. That’s cute. I thought it might be “Astrology, Bollywood and Chai,” but I guess…
Julie
No, exactly. And it could be that too. And I feel like you know, India is obsessed with these three items. They’re obsessed with astrology, and Bollywood, and cricket and chai as well. So, I feel like it’s, it’s really common in India to talk about astrology pretty openly.
But in the West, it’s not as common because it just seems too complicated and too out there for us to even make sense of it. But I do want to make light of it, that it’s not as complicated as people think it is. And I want it to become and make astrology more mainstream. So all of us can use it, we don’t have to call a pandit who doesn’t speak English, and we can understand what they’re saying. And we can make a sense of our own lives and take control over it.
So I really think this could be very empowering in the long run and make it give us the liberty to make our own decisions.
So yeah, so going on just a background of Vedic Astrology if you think about Vedic Astrology, that the Sanskrit term is Jyothisha, if you break it down. Jyoti means light, and ish, or Ishwara means God. So it’s the light from God, like you can have visions, you can have visions of the future visions of the past. And this is all about visions.
So a sage by the name of Parashara, had visions, the seventh century AD, and he wrote the manual that we use today for Vedic Astrology. So it was an Indian sage. And he wrote the manual for what we use today to predict events in our life.
So you know, and also the, the Vedas does have a lot of texts on planets and the influence of planets. So I really do think that unfortunately, the Vedas are so complex and so not user friendly, that it’s hard to know what our, our spirituality is. So that’s one of the reasons why I kept on digging and digging just to find what this is all about. And it’s not that complicated.
Nikhil
Sure. Now is there a relationship and you might get into this a little bit but as I mentioned before, I mean, I’m a big fan of Deepak Chopra and a lot of what he talks about is Ayurveda. So you might get into this in a little bit, but I’d love to hear if you what the connection is between Vedic Astrology and Ayurveda.
Julie
Oh yeah. And Vedic Astrology is, is kind of like, “what’s your composition?” Ayurveda is too – looking at your composition from a Dasha standpoint. Pitha just based on your like, pulse and bass in your tongue and all sorts of different things. But Vedic Astrology can actually you can actually show your weaknesses like you can have a dosha, you can say, Oh, you’re, you’re really hot tempered, or you’re very, you’re very cold all the time.
So I can look at the chart and say, Oh, well, they’re very pitha, they need to pacify their pitha because Mars, the planet of anger and war is on top of their head. So I would say okay, use the Ayurveda techniques of pacifying the pitha. So eating yogurt, or something cooling, that’s where your body and your mind and your planets (which is essentially the same thing) like it’s you, you can pacify and help yourself out with these tools.
So I would say Ayurvedic remedies are a part of Vedic astrology, because they’ll help you overcome some of your weaknesses by the foods you eat. And by the breathing exercises that Deepak Chopra talks about, like pranayama and you know, all these things like pranayama actually helps Saturn, like, it helps you from clearing your head, right? Like you can stop your mind from suffering.
So it really alleviates a lot of stresses. So you know, stress is Saturn, and we’ll talk about that later. But this is it’s all very complimentary. Now. That’s why I love being Indian. Because it’s all there for us.
Nikhil
A lot of wisdom sort of in our DNA.
I did have another question. Like we talked because you’re talking about the signs. And one of the other things is with Deepak Chopra, he talks about primordial sound meditation. Now, is there something where like, each of the signs is like you have personalized mantras?
Julie
Yes based on, like, let’s say, your chart, I mean, if you have Mars and Gemini, you’re gonna be doing a different mantra, than if have Mars and like a different planet in a different sign.
So because Mars isn’t, it’s different energies and signs and different Zodiac signs. So the mantras that you speak out loud, or will pacify or activate a certain planet in your chart. And there’s actually a mathematical system and how pandits pick up the mantra for you (if they’re a good pandit) because they want to activate a certain place of your chart.
So they would pick that number that’s sitting in that child chart and have a mantra that has the same syllable. So let’s say Mars is in the fifth house, it’s number five. So you would pick a month or that has five syllables. So activate that area on your chart, so it can help you alleviate some of those problems.
There’s a science behind all this stuff. And it’s pretty fascinating. But we don’t understand it because people don’t share the details of why are you know, like, that’s frustrating. Yeah, yeah. So going on.
The difference between Western and Vedic Astrology: Vedic Astrology, I feel like is a king. I don’t know, maybe I’m biased, but it’s like the king, that is the king and all the other ones or queens. And it’s kind of like a subset of Vedic Astrology because Vedic Astrology has two differences in that Western astrology does not.
Western has a sun sign, it predicts by the transits in the sky. But Vedic Astrology actually has your own personal timing system, it tells you when things will happen to only you, and no one else, they’ll tell you what is good for you what’s not good for you.
So it’s really personalized. And it also gives you remedies like it gives you the mantras and the gemstones for you to wear so you can like kind of balance out your life and your energies. And Western astrology doesn’t have that. So that’s a difference. But we’re all it’s all good, like Western is a subset. So the same methods do apply in many cases.
Julie
So going on, 2020 was a horrific year. I mean, and we saw a lot of chaos, a lot of ups and downs, people’s lives are turned over. But we want to know why that happened.
Vedic Astrology actually says there is a dangerous configuration in the sky that happens every 18 and a half years. So it’s, it’s fascinating because people are like, “oh, it could happen without this conjunction,” but it’s really when Mars and Ketu, which Ketu is the dragon’s tail come together in the sky in Sagittarius, and it makes episodes happen.
So the last time before the pandemic, a two and a half years ago was 911. I mean, that changed the whole world security was changed, everything has changed the way we fly the way we are having racial profiling, everything’s changed than before that 18 and a half years ago, AIDS virus, it was the beginning of the AIDS virus epidemic. And it was the really bad I mean, there was no cure back then. And people are dying. So really big change globally.
And before that was the JFK assassination. I mean, the whole world was looking at the US and was shaken up the US totally was shaken up that time is before our time.
And before that was the bombing of Hiroshima. If you go down this 18 and a half year period, you can hit the Spanish flu pandemic from 1920. So there is something that does take place every 18 and a half years. So it’s quite fascinating. So you can start planning and plotting just by these cycles in time to kind of see what’s going to happen next. And this is just the past to show you what happened in the past. And maybe we don’t know, it’s more a two and a half years from now, but it’s good to kind of mark that on your calendars.
Nikhil
Yeah. Set a reminder.
Julie
Yeah, exactly. So going down. The next slide I wanted to just talk about is what is what is the Indian birth chart? Like, how do people look at this chart and say, Oh, your marriage timing is coming up, oh, you’re gonna have a big career. Oh, you’re gonna go to a great school, all that stuff. So this is the basics of Vedic Astrology. There’s, it’s, it’s a box, it’s a square box, the square boxes, 12 different boxes are cut up in slices. And each box is called a house.
And it’s pretty much your zodiac sign. So there’s 12 zodiac signs. So it’s 12 houses. And each house represents something it’s represents an area of your life. So one box or one house represents one area.
So we have 12 areas of concern.
- So the Number one is ourself, it’s always ourselves.
- Number two is your is your family life, your early childhood, your maybe your family
- Number three is sibling
- Number four is your home and your mother
- Number five is romance children.
- Number six is usually enemies and health.
- Number seven is the marriage house. So when people get married, their seventh house is activated.
- Number eight, is occult, or your spouse’s wealth. You know, it’s quite segmented out
- Number nine is your father when…
Nikhil
When we hear the word “occult,” I think “indoctrination.” Is this something completely different? Like a “occult sciences?” Like anything that’s deep and mysterious?
Julie
Like, I would say like, yeah, I could also show if people have a lot of planets there in their in their chart, you could say that they’re like, in a lot of secret societies or something like that.
But yeah, it’s fascinating. And the ninth house, there’s one area just for your father, your higher education, your gurus,
The 10th house is the house of career, like, if you have a great planet, they’re gonna have a big career.
So it’s really easy to kind of see if you start thinking in your life and 12, like the 11th area of life is your social networks, your long term gains, like it’s just these areas of life that are pretty prominent everyone, but we don’t think about it in that way. And the 12th house is really foreign lands is spirituality. It’s things are far from you. It’s even losses.
So this is how Vedic Astrology and even Western astrology comes up with, “how can we define your life in 12 different segments? And how can we make sense of it?
Nikhil
And this just this might just be a coincidence, but obviously, 12 is also there’s 12 months in the year. So yeah, I don’t know. Is there any correlation there with the house in the months?
Julie
Yeah, so 12 months is the 12 zodiac signs because there’s every month the Zodiac changes. So essentially, each of these homes, these houses have a zodiac sign attached to it. And that’s where it gets where all the permutations and combinations exist.
Your first house can be a different first house from me, based on the time you’re born. And it could be a different zodiac sign. So, but generally speaking, there’s 12 zodiac signs, so 12 houses, and 12 months of the year, so we’re all connected. And we’re a microcosm of the macrocosm. We’re all part of the same, right. So that’s a really good point.
Julie
So going on, and now in Vedic Astrology, we have nine planets. And we do not use Pluto. So, and nine planets, they all represent something. Like Venus: everyone knows it’s for love. You know, it’s pretty so when we talk about Venus and everyday life, I mean, it is true, it is a planet of love, or planet of wife, the sun, the sun is like the ultimate source, right of our survival.
So sun is kind of like, what’s the highest power in a patriarchal family is your father. It’s your career. It’s like just your ego, it’s yourself. It has a lot of connotations to sun. The moon, if you think about the moon, how there’s high tides, low tides, the full moon, a lot of emotion is attached to the moon.
So the moon is your mind. So when I see people that have gone through a lot of disturbances I’d be like, Oh, this was a really hard time and hard time for you, because your moon was going through so much pain that time.
Nikhil
I think you had mentioned in one of your posts about — I’m always fascinated by the etymology of words. And when I think of moon, I think of lunar, and the concept of lunacy. Can you talk about how the moon plays into mental health?
Julie
It’s huge. When you have a full moon the mind is bright. It’s very aware like, that’s when the werewolves like Teen Wolf, like, bring that up that. That TV show in that movie, that’s when people just got activated, and there was a lot of like, lust in the air and a lot of desire. So people the moon is a bright, is a, it’s bright. And so, if you think about, there’s phases of the moon. It depends, when you’re born, if you’re born a full moon, I would say, wow, this, this person’s a pretty bright person, they have a lot of energy, their way, their, their thinking is pretty wide, because it’s a bright moon.
But if you’re born in a different phase, it really changes the way your mind operates. So now, when it comes to mental health, the moon is very, very emotional. Like if you think about the high tide, low tides, women you know, talk about women are very intuitive. And it comes from just their emotions and stuff. So the moon is a big part of being a mother.
So when I look at, when it’s time to become a mother, I look at their moon cycles. And so when you see mental health, you usually see afflictions to the moon in the birth chart. So, for example, the like Mars is kind of a soldier, it’s, it’s usually a red planet in the sky.
If you look at Mars ever in the sky, it’s living. And red is a hot planet shows that anger. So if you have Mars next to moon, the mind is going to get really agitated.
So that’s how Vedic Astrology figures out the mental makeup of a person. So, just going down the list, you can kind of see the permutations that can exist if the moon is near another planet. So it’s quite fascinating. And it’s a puzzle, right? So. So if you look at Mars, it’s a planet of the war. It’s anger, but we all need it. We all need that courage to do something in our life. Otherwise we’ll just sit there and not have any movement.
Nikhil
Yeah, what about this? You mentioned Rahu, and Ketu. So I, I see these other planets, obviously, these are ones that we Westerners are pretty familiar with these Rahu and Ketu. I mean, are these physical planets or constellation or the solar system?
Julie
And Rahu and Ketu are the north and south node of the moon. So in Western astrology moons have shadows, and it has a little mythology behind it, but the moon has shadows and what it is it represents a dragon. So Rahu is the head of the dragon, and Ketu is the tail of the dragon. So what happens when you have Rahu? You don’t have a tail. And when you have Ketu you don’t have a head.
So let’s say when you are running a Ketu time period, that person is checked out. They don’t want it headless, they’re headless. They want to live in a moat. They want to have moksha. They want to live in an ashram, they don’t want to be part of society. So it’s kind of fascinating when you have Rahu. really prominent Rahu is I mean, you have strong desires to have a huge career, an expansive career. So I’ll show you an example. And you know, it’s quite fascinating how these planets make things happen in your chart.
Julie
So the next one is Donald Trump’s chart. So how did Donald Trump become the president of the United States? So now when I go back, and I look at what is the house of career, he has the biggest career anyone could possibly have the President of the United States, that’s the largest career. So that’s the 10th house. So we count to one as the ascendant, and you go at 10. So you want to see what is in his 10th house, to activate a very big career.
And so when we look back, what do you want in your 10th House, you want to have power, you want to have the sun? And like you said, you want to have maybe another planet that can make it even bigger? So what does Trump have? So Trump’s ascendant (This is where his number one is).
Nikhil
Yeah. So this looks like the Periodic Table of Elements.
Julie
Exactly. So when you count, you count 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10. This is his house of career. He has Sun. And he has Rahu. So Sun makes him the leader. He has a lot of power, and then Rahu expands it. So he’s expanded his career with the sun, which is already good in the 10th House of career, it gives them a good career, but then when Rahu expands it to the million times stronger.
So in a way, he became the president, probably because his 10th house was loaded with very strong planets that would make him rise to the top.
So it’s an example I wanted to show that this stuff really works I mean, and look, he was born in a full moon. So he’s a little bit of a firecracker. I mean, he has like that Sun Moon opposite, when full moons happen. It’s always sun and moon are opposite signs. And that shows up in his personality, so, and K to K, he is right next to the moon. So it makes him a headless. So not to talk about him. But you know, he’s made some pretty crazy decisions or spoken in in pretty harsh terms.
Nikhil
“Interesting” in quotes; that’s my way of shorthand for what he is.
Julie
Right? So but just looking at this chart, you can just see a lot of things that come up. I mean, this is not hard. Anyone can do this. And if you have your chart, you count to number 10, where you’re as is find out how your career is going to be in your life. So no matter
Nikhil
What this is this thing you’re showing us right now, is there some kind of software for astrology? Or what how did how was this put together?
Julie
It’s a free software. It’s called J hora; you can download it for free. Type in your birth data, you need your time of birth, date of birth and place of birth. And it makes this chart for you. And what is this chart? It’s exactly the point in time where the planets were the hour and minute that you’re born.
So it’s just a snapshot of the sky. This is how the sky looked like when Donald Trump was born. There was a bright moon in the sky. And it was a full moon and this is how his how the sky looked. And that’s all we’re analyzing them the moment of his birth. It shows up a lot of karma has various lessons of Vedic Astrology of like your predestined and if you think about Indians always believe, “oh, this is predestined.”
Nikhil
A lot of superstition, right? Yeah, yeah.
Julie
I have no free will. Now there is free will. But that’s a separate topic. But you know, there’s a lot of predestiny in Vedic Astrology. So we all have to kind of understand that this is for a mindset if you really want to get into it. Some things are just gonna happen. And it’s out of your control right.
So now going down. Now, why did he become the president later on in his life and not earlier? And this is where the timing system takes place. So you know how we talked about before that there was a personalized timing system that’s called “dashas.” So, this is a timing system it of each planet.
So everyone’s ruled by a planet for a certain number of years, and Vedic astrology figured out that the human body can last for 120 years on its own. If we take care of ourselves, then the nervous system dies after 120 years. So even though the most the oldest person that lived in the world is around 120 years, that’s been documented. So if you go down this list, this is a sequential list of every planet that will kick and activate for X number of years in your in your life, and that will activate a certain life event to happen.
Nikhil
So does each human being go through this sequence, then? Or is it kind of circular or linear? Or how does the how does the time play out?
Julie
This is very linear. So I am, you and I are not going to the same time period because you were born in a different time. And I was born at different times. So let’s say you were born on April 1, and I was born on May 1. Now the moon, it all depends when where you activate yourself on this timescale, this timing scheme. So you could be running the sun cycle when you’re first born, and I could be running the Jupiter cycle and first born, and then it’ll go down to Jupiter and Saturn, then mercury, then to Ketu Venus then you’ll be going through son the first six years of life, the moon after that for 10 years.
So it’s sequential. But everyone, if you’ve lived for 120 years, he will go through every one of these planetary time periods. And this is where if you talk to someone who’s nine years old, they’re like, Oh, for 20 years, it was really hard. I had such a hard time in my life, I worked really, really hard. And I struggled and I made no money. Then after that, 20 years later, I did really well.
I could probably say, “you were running a Saturn period for 19 years, and then you busted your butt. And then after that mercury came, and it gave you some free time and some happiness.” So you have stories like that. And it’s quite fascinating.
Nikhil
One thing I find very interesting about this, going back to what I was saying about the etymology of certain words. I’ve definitely heard the connotation of Mars being sort of like the planet of combativeness, I guess, aggression, or whatever.
But what’s interesting is, there’s that term mercurial, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but like somebody who’s. Like I think of Steve Jobs, right? He was brilliant. He was very mercurial. And yeah, with that, it was that he was he was also very combative. You know, he was very impulsive, and he would be given the fits of rage and criticism.
But what’s interesting, if you go back to that explanation? With Mercury, you’re saying that it’s related to speech learning intelligence. So that’s, it’s kind of an interesting juxtaposition.
So it’s almost like mercury almost the way we think about it as we think more about you know, that that impetuous, impulsive nature. It’s like a toy. Yeah. And also think of sushi because I know, it has a lot of mercury. But yeah, if you could talk a little bit more about that.
Julie
Yeah, no, I mean, so when you see someone who’s a leader, they usually have good Mercury’s they have to speak in front of an audience. They have to motivate.
So usually, when you see the house of career like that 10th house, if you see Mercury in the 10th house, that person is going to be you know, a leader because they’ll be able to speak in front of the audience. They’ll have very strong wits.
I mean, Mercury is all about quick. Mercury retrograde is quick. And so it’s about speaking, talking, working with people, and it’s like a child. Children are always kind of spastic at times, they have so much energy and they’re just always doing something, so it’s kind of very fast moving. So I’m assuming if we looked at his chart, you would see that his Mercury was really strong. And maybe he had Mars, looking at it. So he would probably be more combative.
This is where the combinations really matter with someone like he could, he could probably have Mars and Mercury together in the 10th house, and then you’re like, an angry communicator so like, stuff like that.
So it’s not hard. I mean, it’s the basic concepts. And then you dive in and you’re saying, Okay, how does this work in my chart, and so it’s not hard at all, and I want people to know the basics. so they can go look at their charts and say, you know what’s happening with me?
Nikhil
Have you found that with, because you mentioned like 2017 was when things started picking up a little bit, it got a lot more adoption. Did you find that with because I think your podcast with Anisha was in 2020?
Julie
It was two months ago.
Nikhil
Because I’m just curious, like, what the pandemic happening? Nobody could have ever predicted this, right, like now. So I’m just curious, like, did you see where people just sort of pounding down your door, like, Hey, can you make sense of this?
Julie
When people struggle, that’s when you’re closer to spirituality and God, and I really feel like people who go through a lot in life the only thing they can really hold on to is some sort of belief in God. And that’s why I think spirituality became big I feel like when the material world is falling apart when people are suffering you want answers. And it’s, it’s quite fascinating.
You know, I do think that Vedic Astrology and Indian philosophies will become a really prominent part of society in about 20 years, I really feel like we’ve become a leader in this area. It’s just a matter of time and I think that we’re going to end up doing that, because we’ll see a lot of suffering. And when people suffering, you always go back to your source.
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it COVID was, I mean, something we’ve never watershed moment. Yeah. Yeah.
So now going to. So now, like, when we talk about this time, in system you can apply what Jupiter is. So for example, Jupiter, 16 years long. So Jupiter, if you go back to the previous slide, Jupiter is like, prosperity, its children, its wisdom, its theme, its spirituality, its all the good things that life would provide a person. So everyone has a Jupiter, and everyone will get some prosperity in their life. And you can time when a woman will have children if they’re in a Jupiter cycle. And Jupiter cycles are how long, it’s for 16 years. So usually, you might see women for 16 years, like pop out all these kids and just be focused on their children, their family life. And that’s it.
And then after that, another cycle starts. So maybe they want to work after that and become something else. They want to focus away from their children because their children are grown up now. So you’ve seen a lot of those people like they get married in their 20s pop out a couple children work really hard to raise your kids the right way, then now the kids are independent, you can move on to something else.
So a lot of women tend to have the Jupiter cycle in their mid in their 20s and 30s. And that’s when you’ll see them get married and have children.
Julie
So now, for example, the next example is Brad Pitt. So Brad Pitt, if you look at his Jupiter cycle happen 2003 to 2019. So what happened to him? I mean, he had six children during that time. I mean, so it’s the fifth house. His Ascendant is here. 12345 What is five? What’s the number fifth house mean? Fifth house if you go back, fifth house means children. Number five, romance, children acting fame. And then Jupiter is prosperity, children, husband, fame, spirituality.
And what happened to Brad Pitt? He started his time period in Jupiter in 2003. And ended in 2019. He met Angelina in 2004. adopted two children had one child of his own 2006 adopted another kid from Vietnam in 2007. Had another set of twins in 2008, Married Angelina in 2014. And then he was listed the most influential people in the world. And he had multiple awards, nominations, he had many blockbuster movies. And so this was all during this time period of Jupiter. So it’s fascinating. And yeah, it is interesting.
Nothing lasts forever, because now he’s in a different time period in his life. But this is how Vedic Astrology really works. And you can really see he was really into children and fame during this period. So it’s fascinating and based on his karma, you could see you know, he was just all about children fifth house, Jupiter. Well, that’s it. Yeah. You know, that’s amazing.
Nikhil
There’s so many different implications to this, but I’m always thinking about like with disease, right, because there’s members of my family who we’re going at a great clip, and you know, their career was going great their family and everything. And then one day they would get a diagnosis of like Parkinson’s disease or cancer or have a heart disease? And is that like how? Obviously there’s different nuances to that. But how does that play out? Like with specific charts?
Julie
It’s usually a Saturn, or Rahu thing. Saturn is a planet of obstacles, hard work, grief, anxiety, it’s suffering. Rahu is like kind of so confusing. Rahu is illusions, like you don’t know is like when it’s hard to diagnose something, there’s usually an influence with Rahu or Ketu. Because it’s very confusing. And Saturn usually causes diseases.
Mars can cause these diseases too. But Saturn usually is the place where people start aging that the planet Saturn makes you age makes you go through a lot of hard work and obstacles and health issues.
And where is health? Health is in the sixth house. So if there’s planets here, and if someone has a diagnosis randomly in their life. 20 years later, they’re probably going through a period where some planet has been activated in their sixth house, and all of a sudden, they’re like, “I have diabetes,” or something like that.
So it will show up in this timing scheme. Yeah if there’s a sixth house planet, so if you don’t have a sixth house planet, most probably you’re going to be healthy. But you know, if you do have a sixth house planet, I would say you know, that’s there, try to find out when you’re running that sixth house planet, and then take precautions. This is where you really can help yourself. And you know yourself the best. And I really feel like this is where you can take control of your own life.
Nikhil
When you do readings for people. I just curious, like, is that something? Like, do people come to you after like, let’s say, if I came to you, and I’d say, oh my uncle just got a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer or something? Have you found that a lot of people have come to you to try to unpack that with the astrology signs? And then you found that they’ve gotten a lot of like, relief from that, or what’s,
Julie
It shows up in that uncle’s chart that you know, something dangerous is going to happen, because maybe six house planet was there at activating this time periods. And then, basically, when you ask, was this the time period he got ill, they said, “yes, and then he had treatment.”
And then if he lives or not, that’s something you can also see, but I don’t like sharing that information of because that’s not really up to us when people are born and dead. People come in most of the time to seek help and answers because when you’re struggling, it’s out of your control. I mean, we all need help, and we need to, we need help. And I think this, this is always gonna be the case in life, but if you have some knowledge in your own charts, you really can use our Vedic methods, the mantras to really pacify some of those planets to give you harsher effects.
Nikhil
Activate others that you want to get good effect from.
Julie
Perfect, and Nikhil that’s like, perfect. My teacher always said, “never activate the negative planet always activate the positive planets.” So positive planets are Jupiter, Venus and Moon. So those are really nice planets.
But if you think about it, half the planets are negative. So people refer people go through life and the stuff they grow through. It’s mind boggling. People don’t share a lot. But everyone has a chart with Saturn Rahu Ketu everyone has these planets. When you’ll suffer, it’s kind of up to you know, your chart. So this is why I really feel like Ayurvedic when people say oh, I’m going to like, help cure myself with Ayurveda. I mean, yeah, that’s, I can understand why people in India do that. But at the same time, modern medicine does treat a lot of illnesses on the spot. Yeah. I think okay, that’s good for preventative medicine and good for just maintaining your health.
But when it’s acutely there, and it’s acutely, like, you acutely have cancer, that’s when you need modern medicine.
So, this is kind of like just a timing scream I wanted to talk about and like just the this is the basic one a one a Vedic Astrology now, it’s not hard people can all understand these concepts. It’s just a matter of applying it her own charts, that’s where things get really interesting. So, but other part of Vedic Astrology is remedies, that’s a very different thing. And this is where Indians get superstitious and Indians kind of say, “oh do this mantra.”
And it bothered me a lot when you know, pandit would say, “do this mantra and you’ll get married on time.” Well it made no sense. And I really wanted to get answers. And this is kind of a remedy she, like, it talks about Venus, like, everyone wants money in relationships, they want good relationships, and everyone goes through really hard times, and really good times.
And, and when you’re going through a hard time, like when you feel like there’s a loss of love in your life, or there’s some sort of issue with a spouse, you can do these remedies. Like these are basic remedies. So Venus is beauty. Venus, love its relationships.
So when you want to enhance Venus, you want to make it stronger within yourself. You do things like dancing, you do things like artwork, I mean, it’s, you can wear beautiful clothing, like you can match make, like give back that Venus to someone else, and you’ll get 100 times more. You know, you can wear diamonds. I know it sounds so crazy. The things that Venus loves,
Nikhil
Like pay it forward.
And Shukrawar, like if you think about the days of the week and Hindi Shukrawar is Friday, but Shukra means Venus.
Nikhil
So Fridays, does that tie into like when you say Shukriya, then that’s Hindi for religion?
Julie
I wonder. I don’t know. That’s a good point. I wonder. I don’t know that for sure. But Friday is a day of Venus. The Friday is a day of love. So when you want to have a good date, go on a Friday, don’t go on a Saturday, because Saturday is Shanivar. Shani is what Saturn and Saturn’s a day of work. It’s I mean, even though Saturday is not considered a day of work, and in our day and age, but Saturday is just not the day of love.
So if you want to pop the question, if you want to get down on one knee, do it on a Friday.
But this is pretty much the basics of Vedic Astrology. And it’s, it’s part of our life and if we all can get a piece of it it’ll be really, I think, beneficial to everyone.
Nikhil
Did you have anything else? Any more slides on this?
Julie
Oh, no, that was it. And then okay, yeah, perfect.
Nikhil
Wow, this was this is extremely interesting. It’s, like I said, it’s a little bit different, a little bit out of the – not really comfort zone – I guess its comfort zone adjacent, because I’m very into Eastern spirituality and philosophy and sort of going back to my roots, and embracing a lot of things that I’ve sort of rolled my eyes about as a kid.
And I think I told you that I’ve been reading the Gita a little bit more, doing a lot of these primordial sound meditation. So, yeah, for me, I think just because I have been through a lot in the last, I’d say, five years, six years I’ve been on a very intense healing journey, through a lot of different techniques and talks of you, I talked about how my wife, Shelley, and I wrote a book about it and working on a movie.
And when I find these different tools that don’t get the same coverage, that a lot of the a lot, a lot of the traditional things, like when you talk about medication or therapy, it really sparks a lot of interest. And it’s something that I really, I really hope that through people like yourself, and through conversations like this, more people, it becomes more mainstream. And it’ll help people I guess, sleep better at night, just sort of knowing that there’s a there’s some rhyme or reason and yeah, some method behind the madness, as they say. That’ll sort of help connect the dots or connect the constellations of the Big Dipper or whatever, whatever strategy you want to use, right?
Julie
Yeah. And you’re, you’re doing a lot of great things for yourself. I mean, just the fact that you’re doing the meditation. That’s all in the mind. That’s all the moon. So you’re really helping yourself out. I mean, these are these, what you’re doing.
You’re kind of finding your own remedies, but this is the way Indians would do it 100 or 200 years ago, and I think you figured it out on your own. So that’s, that’s amazing. And I applaud you all for you and your wife to really bring this topic forward and to really think get normalized and we should talk about these things because we all need to heal. And we all need society and community in our life.
Nikhil
Yeah, likewise, right back at you. So tell us, Julie, like if people are interested in finding out more, what’s the best way to get ahold of you, I can actually pop it up on the screen.
Julie
Just look me up on Instagram or Facebook. You know, this is all for fun, and it’s extreme interest in hobbies, and I’m happy to help people if they really have a deep interest in in Vedic Astrology. I don’t really do a lot of readings, but you know, if I, if I do feel you know, something, I will help for sure if you know, so.
Nikhil
Well, was there anything else you wanted to add Julie?
Julie
No, thank you so much. I mean, I think I hope we’re like those agents of change that can really make this one step further into the mainstream population. So I’m really thankful that you invited me on to speak and happy to see your journey unfold. So, I would love to see that.
Nikhil
Yeah, I appreciate that. Okay, thanks a lot, Julie.