The Lajjitaadi Avashtas are a technique described by the ancient sage Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra to indicate the different emotional states that become activated at various times throughout your life according to what Mahadasha or time cycle you are currently running. Avashta is Sanskrit for the “state of” and the Lajjitaadi Avashtas reflect to us how we feel by the positions of the planets in the chart based on what their relationships are. Each planet represents an aspect of the human experience and some are friends and some enemies to each other. Enemies can be thought of as two parts of yourself that have conflicting agendas that end up creating internal conflict. The avashtas can be thought of as a very complex personality theory. In this article, I will discuss only one avashta because it is one of the most common and complex in how it presents differently depending on other factors and the rest of the chart. Everything must always be considered in regards to the whole but for the sake of trying to understand, we must break it down and simplify it.

Kshodhita means “starved”, and when we are starved for something, we tend to act in desperate ways to fulfill ourselves. The Sun represents our soul and its role is to co-create our lives out of inspiration. Saturn’s job is to survive and keep our physical body alive. Our ego is part of that physical form, so when the Sun starves Saturn there becomes too much of a focus on preserving the ego (which is an illusion). As Ernst Wilhelm describes, “The Sun starving Saturn reveals that the individual identifies with that which they are not and that which they do not have. Identifying with that which one is not, is to be identified with one’s weaknesses, to be identified with that which is not perfect in the individual. The normal human condition is to possess weaknesses, this is one half of what makes us different from others – what makes us individuals. There is nothing wrong with having weaknesses, however, the person who identifies with these weaknesses, seeing these weaknesses as who they are, can only suffer, and only cause others to suffer as well. Suffering will come in the form of jealousy, haughty behavior, arrogance or timidity. All of these will have the same effect of there being a lack of creative freedom without which the individual cannot create an inspired destiny. The results of this are slavery to more creative individual’s or slavery to one’s own petty conflicts.” – (The Heart of Parahshara Astrology).

So what does it mean to be identified with your weaknesses? It can look like very different behaviors but the root goal is still the same = ego validation. Sometimes it may present as a person who cannot accept that they made a mistake and so must project blame onto others. They would rather continue to make the same mistake than admit they were wrong and change course. It may also manifest in the opposite way as an unreasonable focus on what’s “wrong”, making the weaknesses and faults a central part of their personality. In psychology, we would likely discover that this trait developed from authoritarian parents. Astrology allows us a different view- that we were born to experience this. In the extreme cases, disorders occur, and many people become caught up in the correctional systems of society because of the resistance to accept blame or responsibility. They refuse to accept help in changing their behavior, even when help is made available.

Others with this avashta may know that they have made a mistake but cannot bear to discuss or admit it and so they avoid and engage in unhealthy behaviors to validate their ego like chronic infidelity or addiction. A person identified with their weaknesses may be vulnerable to any person who shows them attention and can lead to unhealthy expressions of sexuality. Sexual pathology can be seen sometimes with this aspect because the person is overly identified with the physical body (Saturn) and can come to crave the power they perceive in the sexual union. They cannot create their inspired full life’s potential because they are too busy trying to validate their ego through their sexual conquests. Another way that this can manifest is through projection. A person could be identified with their weaknesses so that it motivates them to be attracted to people who they see as having the traits they believe themselves to be lacking. In this scenario it could become healthy if the projected trait is eventually reclaimed and integrated, but not when the person continues to only see the trait in the “other” as this creates feelings of lack that lead to suffering.

The differences in expression and behavior depend on whether Sun/Saturn are conjunct, in the same sign, or aspecting each other, and the strength and dignity of the planets. Also a factor is the quality of Mars which is the will. When faced with a truth the ego doesn’t want to accept, the fight or flight response is activated and the state of Mars indicates whether the person will fight to prove their truth or simply withdraw and avoid the conflict and get their validation elsewhere. Some may fluctuate between the two styles. These could all be viewed as different problems, but through the lens of the avashtas, we see they all have the same root of Saturn starvation.

So, what can be done? First, as with all problems, the issue must be identified and agreed upon. The beginning step would be to begin taking the recommended Bach Flower Remedy in order to remove any energetic blocks to healthy self-esteem. This would be used in conjunction with counseling and the person would have to be willing to work on themselves. In the cases where there is aggression and denial of responsibility, therapy would focus on building that initial rapport. There will be no further progress without this base relationship to work from. For the very extreme cases, as seen in traditional narcissistic personality disorder, the ego is very fragile and the narcissistic shell is vital to the ego’s survival and will be protected at all costs. Usually the work includes long-term psychodynamic therapy which can create the safe environment to do the difficult work. It takes a lot of building trust and mutual respect and finding ways to encourage the ability to admit small mistakes. Therapy essentially “re-parents” the inner child in a way that is validating and emotionally safe (usually not what they received in childhood). Therapy would also focus on gaining insight and empathy. A healthy spiritual practice of some kind is usually encouraged.

For the strong Mars, interpersonal skills in the form of assertiveness training would be helpful to reduce aggression and to communicate clearly while tolerating the impulse to “fight”. In the cases where the person has a weak Mars, assertiveness training would be helpful to learn to speak their truth, tolerate the impulse for “flight”, and engage in connection with the person they are avoiding so they can come to experience vulnerability as less terrifying. The therapist should assist the person in examining the coping mechanism of projection and how it plays out in their experience and prevents them from seeing aspects and qualities in themselves. This can also be called “shadow work” as the shadow is what we repress and do not allow ourselves to “see”. The chart should then be consulted again, and the positive avashtas should be identified and through guidance and practice, the person can learn to use those positive avashtas and not focus on their weaknesses. Learning forgiveness and self-compassion are also central pieces to healing. It is not an easy process and many will never take the journey, but they will also likely continue to be unfulfilled in their lives….

In the last post, I talked about developing a healthy relationship with the unconscious. This week I will discuss the importance of integrating that work into a better relationship with the “Universe” (Cosmos, Purusha, God, source etc. Whatever term you are comfortable with for working with your higher entity). It doesn’t really matter what form your belief takes, you still need to have a good relationship with it to live your best life. Working from a psychodynamic model (which is my preferred orientation), this relationship can begin to be explored by the usual method: exploring the relationship you had with your initial caregiver growing up. This primary attachment not only serves as the template for your future relationships, it also serves as the basis for how you conceptualize “god”, how you believe it influences your life, and the feelings generated from your attachment style (anxious/avoidant/secure). For example, believing the Universe is all loving or believing it is punitive and “out to get you” will influence the way you act and feel accordingly. The next way of exploring this relationship, is to discover new ways of seeing and experiencing it and looking for the unhealthy ways in which you might be acting in relationship to it.

In Richard Tarnas’s, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a new world view, he offers a lengthy but useful discussion of the modern conflict between our spiritual/psychological subjectivity (internal) and the nonspiritual materialism and reductionism of modern science (external). “Because of science’s sovereignty over the external aspect of the modern worldview, [our] noble spiritual journeys are pursued in a universe whose essential nature is recognized-whether consciously or subconsciously-to be supremely indifferent to those very quests. These many spiritual paths can and do provide profound meaning, solace and support, but they have not resolved the fundamental schism of the modern world view. They cannot heal the deep division latent in every modern psyche. The very nature of the objective universe turns away any spiritual faith and ideals into courageous acts of subjectivity, constantly vulnerable to intellectual negation.” This prevents us from experiencing being part of a “whole” and leads to feelings of isolation. He goes on to suggest that we challenge the pervasive projected assumption that the exclusive source of all meaning and purpose in the universe is centered in the interior of the human mind. He describes the development of our knowledge of humans moving from external to internal exploration and suggests that it would follow logically, that what we see of the external Universe is not “it”, but that there is also an interior to the whole of what we are seeing. He asks us, “Might this not be the final, most global anthropocentric delusion of all? To presume that the universe utterly lacks what we human beings, the offspring and expression of that universe, conspicuously possess? To assume that the part somehow radically differs from and transcends the whole?”

As we learn in Ken Wilber’s, The Theory of Everything, the parts make up the whole and the whole transcends and includes ALL parts. So, if we have an interior consciousness that creates meaning and purpose, then of course the “whole” would also have it, as it must be included as well as transcended. His integral theory states, “’Holon’ means that every entity and concept is both an entity on its own, and a hierarchical part of a larger whole. For example, a cell in an organism is both a whole as a cell, and at the same time a part of another whole, the organism. […] Each holon can be seen from within (subjective, interior perspective) and from the outside (objective, exterior perspective), and from an individual or a collective perspective.” This would certainly lead to a logical next step that the universe does indeed have an interior dimension of consciousness of some sort that is interacting with us as we are interacting with it.

Carl Jung believed that we were embedded in a dance with the universe due to his time studying astrology and alchemy and wrote about it in his famous paper “Synchronicity” in which he describes and explains, “As the etymology shows, this term has something to do with time or, to be more accurate, with a kind of simultaneity. Instead of simultaneity we could also use the concept of a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than the probability of chance is involved.” He describes events within the psyche corresponding with external events in the world. This is the realm of the unconscious described in my previous article as the feminine/negative/simultaneous/experiential perception. Modern quantum physics also agrees that what we are experiencing right now as matter is inseparable from our own mind.

The word coincidence is misunderstood in our culture, and somehow became associated with random chance and unrelated “accidents” due to the modern world view of an uninvolved exterior-only universe. But coincidence literally means, “correspondence in nature or in time of occurrence”. Two or more similar things happening together (coinciding). A psychic state in a person with a coinciding, simultaneous, objective, external event. The alchemists sought to transform the material within their own personal psyches and unconscious matter, so that they could then transform and influence the universe in return. Perhaps by effecting this possible “interior consciousness” of the Universe? In Paul Levy’s article, The Sacred Art of Alchemy he states that “the unconscious is revealing itself through its very projections onto the world, which is to say that the unconscious is synchronistically revealing itself through our experience of life itself. The unconscious is its own self-revelation. All we need to do is to recognize what is being revealed.” If people encountering each other evoke unconscious emotional responses from each other’s unconscious, then why not the encounter between the universal consciousness and our own. Who is to say that when I sit and watch the rain, that it is not feeling and responding to my presence in return.

This concept is a large part of why indigenous cultures lived more harmoniously with their environment. Nature has much to teach modern man in the ways of being. Many indigenous and native cultures used oral storytelling (in contrast to the written word which favors linear logic processing see The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain) and saw this interior consciousness of the universe behind every exterior and honored and respected it. They saw the omens in the environment and new how to relate them to what was happening within. This is how astrology and other divination arts work. Even though most of us may only experience one thing at a time with our dominant, reductionist, linear way of perceiving, the world is happening all at once and so whatever we are experiencing inside of our psyche can be seen reflected in the rest of our environment. We must learn to be sensitive to it. Our unconscious will be drawn to what matches our internal unconscious state, thus we choose the card “by chance” that is most meaningful to us right then. The planet’s positions at the time of your birth show the forces at play in the consciousness of the universe and those are reflected in the creation of your psyche at that specific moment in time. The transits then reflect what the motions and dynamics of the universe are at any given moment and how they react and respond to your dynamics.

Using astrology and omens won’t make your life perfect, it won’t make you blissfully happy, and it won’t get you everything you want (that’s the other type of processing: the ego). But it will teach you to interact with the possibilities available to you in the moment and allow you to understand more deeply the ebbs and flows of the suffering and joys you experience. It can let you know what developmental cycle you are currently in or what lesson you could be learning. It can help reduce the feeling that you are just adrift in a meaningless dead subjective world. It can open you up to amazing amounts of growth and a deeper appreciation of life and harmony.