Luck, Strife and How to Calculate the Punya Saham

[00:00:00] Introduction and Overview

[00:00:00] Fiona Marques: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Vedic Astrology Podcast. 

[00:00:06] Exploring Varshaphal in Vedic Astrology

[00:00:06] Fiona Marques: My name is Fiona Marques, and today we're going to be looking at the Vedic Astrology of Luck, Strife, and How to Calculate the Auspicious Punya Saham. This is going to give us chance to examine the world of Varshaphal or Solar Returns in Vedic Astrology.

And those of you who follow me on Patreon will know that I launched an investigative group into Varshaphal during the summer. And so this episode is also a chance to feedback some of the research that group is doing. And it fits quite nicely too, with our November theme of the podcast, because we have Inkeri joining us again at the end of the month.

She came to The... Vedic Astrology Podcast and shared with us an episode all about crime scenes and Astrology. It was about the Brinks Matt gold robbery. It was fascinating. It was fun and it was great to see Astrology being used in this way. So Inkeri is back this month and she's going to be helping us look at the Astrology of Lying and people getting caught in those lies.

 That was on my mind preparing for that episode when at the very beginning of November there's another famous or infamous case of lying and fraud. In this particular example, it is a person named Sam Bankman Fried, who at the beginning of November was convicted of fraud in the amount of... billions of dollars, like 8 billion or 10 billion dollars. And he was involved in cryptocurrency trading. So he is the subject for our AstroliJam this month. And he's also a great subject for us to look at this Astrology of Punya Saham, the Auspicious Saham, but also some other Sahams like the Strife Saham.

[00:02:10] Concept of Solar Returns

[00:02:10] Fiona Marques: Let's begin by touching base about what Varshaphal is. And it'sa piece of Persian Astrology that has been preserved and continuously practiced within Vedic Astrology. And Varshaphal is a word that apparently means "Fruits of the Year". So there's a part of Astrology that would help give us a sense of what the coming year is about.

And the way the Varshaphal chart works is it is a Solar Return chart or an Annual Chart. And it's created when the Sun returns to the exact degrees that it was in your Birth Chart. So it connects your Birth Chart with this Annual Chart through the idea of a progressed ascendant, which is called the Muntha.

So with our Patreon investigators group, we began by looking just at the astronomy of Solar Returns, because it's easy to imagine that the Solar Return happens on your birthday, on the day and the time of your birth. But this is not actually the case. So it is not a chart that you make with your birth time and day every year. Instead, it's about the degrees of the Sun. And if you remember back to trying to wrap your head around leap years when you were a child, this 365 days that we use for our calendar, these 365 days do not actually line up with reality because you know that every four years we have to add an extra day, that 366 day length year, so that we realign our calendar with the reality of the length of our orbit.

And as part of our preparation to start investigating Varshaphal, we watched this fascinating video trying to help us explain or get into our minds the idea of the astronomy. And they had this visual experiment. So the idea is that you visualize a ballerina spinning or pirouetting as a representation of the earth, because we know that the earth turns around on its axis once a day. So this is the ballerina spinning around. 

And now put that ballerina that you're imagining on the back of a flatbed truck. And so the ballerina is still spinning and pirouetting on the back of this truck. And the truck is driving around a circular racetrack. And we could imagine that the start finish line is the position of the Sun at birth. But the truck does not quite make one lap of this racetrack before the Sun is in the same position as where it started. It has to go an extra, inverted commas, quarter of a day until it reaches that line. 

So we've got the ballerina spinning quite independently, and then we've got the truck driving around the orbit, the circular racetrack. And we will see this quarter of a day that the truck has to travel or that the earth has to travel when you look at your Varshaphal chart. So if you do have software and you want to go and have a look at your own Varshaphal chart, you will notice that the Ascendant of the chart each year, it moves about six hours from the Birth Chart, or from the previous year's Varshaphal.

So each time you look at it, this ascendant has moved, and it will do that keep moving for about three years. And then that fourth year, the leap year will kick in and the Ascendant will be back closer to where it originally was.

Now, for everybody, that leap year is going to kick in at a different point in time. So it's everybody's VVarhaphal are going to be, ascendants are going to be a little bit different. 

And we also have to remember that it's not going to come exactly back to where the original Ascendant was, because even though we do the 365 for three years, and then we do the 366 for one year, that gets us pretty close to the reality of the orbit, but it's not actually the length of the orbit.

And you may remember that every 300 years out of 400. There's one year where we don't do that leap year. So when we do that, it's much closer to the reality of the orbit. 

And I'm just sharing this to let you know how Varshaphal is linked to the astronomy and how your chart, when you see it, when you look at Varshaphal for when you were 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. Just notice how that ascendant moves and it give you this idea of that truck, trying to get to the finish line. But it has to drive a little bit further to get there. And I love linking Astrology to astronomy. 

[00:07:29] The Role of Varshaphal in Predicting Life Events

[00:07:29] Fiona Marques: So this was our first getting contextualized to what the Varshaphal Chart is doing. And then the next step that we took is to have a look at the progressed descendant, or what is called the Muntha.

And this just takes the Ascendant degree that is in your Birth Chart and moves it forward one sign each birthday. This tells us that when you were born, it was a 1st House profection or Muntha. That kind of makes sense, right? Because the 1st House is all about starting our life journey. It's all about getting a body and getting an identity. So the Birth Chart, which is also the first Varshaphal chart, is the 1st House profection. And then, when you turn one, it would move to the 2nd House. When you turn two, it would move to the 3rd House. And it keeps doing this every year. This arrangement of moving houses every year really brings to our attention the idea that perhaps we are undergoing 12 year cycles, because at the end of going through the houses one time, then of course, when we turn 12, here we are again, experiencing a 1st House profection. So our homework before we even started was to reflect on our own lives and just write down all the years that we've been alive, what house that would relate to, and then plenty of room on the other side to write down, "bought a house" or "started university" or "moved cities" or "fell in love" or "got divorced", all of those milestones, just writing them down related to the year and the house to see whether we can see some patterns that in, in 1st House years, this type of thing seems to happen in 7th house years this is the kind of events that happen. And that was really fruitful for all of us, the chance to look back on our lives with a bit of distance. And of course, depending on how comfortable you are with Varshaphal, you can add to that reflection other elements of the Varshaphal chart, so depending on what you already know.

Now that group of investigators on Patreon is closed because we limited it only to 12 people. But if you like the idea of this kind of activity and you want to have a look at doing it yourself, the workbook that we built through the process and that we road tested, that's up on the shop at fionamarques.com. So you can grab the workbook and do this kind of 12 year reflection yourself.

And just doing a simple exercise like that might help us mentally prepare for the kind of year that we have coming up. It helps us be more aware to the lessons that we might have the chance to learn.

Now, obviously, it's not as simple as just looking at that progressed Ascendant going through the houses of our Birth Chart, because everybody who is the same age is going through the same profection. So everybody who's 24, everybody who's 36 is starting a 1st House progression. So we know that not everybody who's 24 does exactly the same thing, or everybody who's 36 does exactly the same thing. 

We've got a few things to help us out with that. Obviously, the signs are really important and foundational in our Birth Chart. So these house Munthas that are changing are sign based and a Leo 1st House profection is going to be very different to a Libra 1st House profection. So there's signs to keep in mind. 

But then the Varshaphal also brings us even more nuance because it maps the sign that was rising when the Sun is at the exact degree of your Birth Chart each year. So this rising sign becomes the Ascendant of the Varshaphal chart for the year. And therefore we know that everybody who's going at 24 through their 1st House profection, one is having that possibly in a different sign, but two has a different ascendant in their Varshaphal. So you really want to combine what is happening with the Muntha that links it to the Birth Chart, and what is happening with the rising sign in the Varshaphal.

And using the embedded language of numerology that is inside Vedic Astrology, just knowing these two numbers, the house number of the Muntha, and the number of where the Muntha goes in that Varshaphal chart, these give us two really powerful numbers for understanding the year. 

For example, we could have a 4th House Muntha in the Birth Chart. So we know that it's going to be about inner contentment. It's probably something deeply involved with our sense of our security and our inner peace. But it will be very different for each person, if that 4th House, Muntha, is then happening in the 8th House of the Varshaphal, then we know that we might have sudden unexpected changes in our inner security. Or it might be happening in the 3rd House of the Varshaphal, and we know that we might be asked to step up and really find that courage and adventure and work with our peers to solve our sense of inner peace and inner strength. Or it might be in the 9th House of the Varshaphal giving us a sense of grace and purpose and a meaningful journey through this discovery of our inner sanctuary, the 4th House.

So you can see how the two numbers, that is, the Muntha, where it is in the Birth Chart, whatever house that is, plus whatever house that becomes in the Varshaphal Ascendant gives us these two very powerful numbers. That is all in the Workbook if you want to have a look at that. And also the apprentices on the Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program that's on teachable.com, their first essays are all writing about this numerology. So if you want to catch up a little bit on the numerology, I'll put a link in the description, and you can go read some fantastic papers about that numerology. 

Anyway, this was our homework for the second workshop, was to examine how the Muntha fell in the Birth Chart and how it fell in the Varshaphal chart. And with those two numbers, contemplate what that was going to tell us about the year ahead.

Then we moved to looking at the strongest planet in the Varshaphal chart because obviously that is going to give us a lot of information about the year as well. And Varshaphal has its unique way of calculating what will be the strongest planet. It's not based on Shadbala, they've got their own calculation. And then we added that to our understanding of the year. 

And the third step was to look at the Ascendant of the Varshaphal and what flavor that added to our year. With these three components, the Muntha, the strongest planet, and the Ascendant, we had a better sense of what the "Fruits of the Year" were going to be.

 As this is all on my mind, when we come to a case study like Sam Bankman Fried and his year, we begin to wonder what can Varshaphal tell us about the "Fruits" of his year or the past few years. 

[00:15:36] Investigating the Astrological Chart of Sam Bankman Fried

[00:15:36] Fiona Marques: Before we jump into the chart, let's summarize a little bit about this person in case you haven't followed their story.

Just coming from Wikipedia, it says that "Samuel Benjamin Bankman Fried is an American entrepreneur who in 2023 was convicted of fraud. He founded FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, which became one of the largest in the world with billions in deposits. He was celebrated as a kind of poster boy for crypto and he ranked the 41st richest American in the Forbes 400 in 2022.

This public success of Bankman Fried masked significant problems at FTX and in November, 2022 when evidence of potential fraud began to surface, there was a rush on deposits and everybody tried to withdraw their funds and this forced the company into bankruptcy". So that's a little summary from Wikipedia.

And then from an article on Reuters, it explains that these charges that he was found guilty of by a jury fell into two categories. One was, they've labeled "Stealing Customer Funds". So "prosecutors said that Bankman fried embezzled customers money to plug losses at Alameda Research, a crypto hedgefu nd that he also owned as well as to make investments, buy real estate in the Bahamas and donate to U.S. political campaigns". And in that area of stealing customer funds, he faced one count of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of money laundering conspiracy over the theft of the funds. He was found guilty of all of those. 

And then "Lying to Investors and Lenders" was the other kind of group of charges. And "prosecutors accused Bankman Fried of hiding the fact Alameda had borrowed large sums of money from FTX from the exchange auditors. And used the resulting inaccurate financial statements they produced to reassure investors about his company's risk management. Bankman Fried was also accused of directing former Alameda Chief Executive Officer Carolyn Ellison to mislead the fund's creditors about the money it had borrowed from FTX in order to convince them not to recall their loans. And Ellison pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution at the trial".

So for these charges, he faced one count of wire fraud and two conspiracy counts on the alleged misrepresentation to investors and lenders. 

And he was convicted on all of those counts and at this point in time faces decades in prison. So this gives us an overview of this person's current drama. 

[00:18:46] Analyzing the Birth Chart

[00:18:46] Fiona Marques: And if we go have a look at the Birth Chart, we have a Taurus ascendant.

And Taurus is good for making money because, like all fixed signs, its financial houses are ruled by the manifesting planets of Mercury and Jupiter. 

And in this chart we have Jupiter in the 5th House of investing and gambling. And also the 5th House is our intellect. So this person's intellect may be focused on gains because Jupiter is also ruling the 11th house of gains. And we know that Jupiter likes to expand and grow bigger and bigger. 

In the chart we also have Rahu in the 9th House of fortune, and so together these two trinal houses, the 5th House and the 9th House, they're both in earth signs, and they're giving the person perhaps a sense of ease with investing, and with fortune.

We also have three planets in the 10th house, including the Ascendant Lord. So fame is a natural energy for this person. 

And Saturn, which is a natural Raja Yoga for all Taurus Ascendants, because it rules the 9th and the 10th, in this chart, it's in the 10th, so it's activated. Although it's there, creating a Raja Yoga it's also with the 6th Lord of obstacles and enemies, and it's with the 12th Lord of imprisonment and losses. So all of those things are taking place in the 10th House. 

And if we look at some of the Bhava Yogas for the chart, we can see some indicators that this person might have a fall from grace. So when Mercury is the 2nd Lord, and it's in the 12th house, the person can be prone to fines and penalties, and they can lose money due to imprisonment and foreign travel. And in this case he took his location of business offshore out of the United States, I think first to Hong Kong or somewhere in Asia, and then to the Bahamas. 

Mercury's also ruling the 5th House and it's in the 12th and that can mean that the government makes one pays fines or increases taxes and that the person pays too much for investments.

The Moon is the 3rd Lord for Taurus ascendants and it's in the 11th. So some of the Bhava Yogas perhaps here is that the personal income producing side projects do not give good results on investments. The person may have difficulty also connecting with people socially. And I think that he was a very unique personality for that type of work. And that's why people were calling him like a wonder kid. He was not your kind of normal slick back hair with the expensive suit. He was very much look like that kid in college look. The 3rd and the 11th can make people jealous of other people's success and it can cause public or social disturbances because we've got that 3rd House ofcombative or competitive in the 11th house of our social networks. It can make us try to get ahead financially, but try too hard and can try too hard to get public recognition as well. And perhaps. gives us a focus of maybe more about being known and being seen rather than having the skills and talents worthy of that recognition. Of course, this all depends on the chart and the indicators that are putting stress on that 3rd Lord, for example.

Now we have Venus for a Taurus Ascendant, it rules the 1st and the 6th, and in this chart it's in the 10th house. So being the 1st Lord in the 10th house, we can get some friction with authority figures in government, their personality can get in the way of their own success. They don't take proper action towards their own success. They can get a poor reputation due to unfortunate events or poor behavior. And it can mean that it's hard for you to maintain your career. And you think that you know everything, the 1st Lord in the 10th House, but perhaps can you really handle that fame?

And when we combine that Venus is also ruling the 6th, again, this brings up that disrespect to authority figures. We've got the 6th Lord of enemies with 10th House of authority. We can have trouble defending one's reputation. And it's interesting because he actually took the stand himself, which is quite unusual in a criminal case. One of the Bhava Yogas for the 6th and the 10th is may become a loan shark. I don't think that's necessarily what this person set out to do, but it's just interesting that pattern comes up. The person may feel disrespected, and maybe doesn't adjust well to changes in career and work. And so maybe this is a case where this grew very fast and in some ways, the financial management was a bit more like what we would do at home with our own money, plug a hole in one part of our budget with money from another part of our budget. But here he was in a regulatory framework that perhaps he didn't adjust to. 

And we mentioned that Jupiter is ruling the 8th and the 11th, and it's in the 5th. So this is great for investment because the 8th house is other people's money, and the 11th house is gains, and they're both there in the 5th house. So perhaps we can see why this person was able to exponentially increase their wealth. But Jupiter can make us overly optimistic. And make us gamble even gambling on the stock market, the 11th Lord gambling on the stock market. And the 8th, Jupiter being the 8th, can interfere with our discernment, so maybe not making those ethical choices. 

We also have the son, the 4th Lord is in the 11th. The Sun something about our soul,our drive and inspiration, it's in the 11th of gains. So the person, can be financially blessed. And can be involved in investment clubs, like social networks grow money. But it could be also prone to excess and expecting things to work out easier than they actually do.

And then finally, we can have a quick look at Mars. Mars rules the 7th and the 12th and it's in the 10th. So that's also very nice, isn't it, for making money because business, the 7th, and trading, which is what this person did, is in the 10th house. In an activated house, in their career, in what they're known with. But if it's not being supported, perhaps that's going to lead us to unfair partnerships and business deals.Mars is also the 12th. The 12th of renouncing the world without maybe understanding what true renunciation is. And this person's quite interesting because they have a kind of charity focus to their work or to their pphilosophy. But, it didn't end up working out that way. And when the 12th is in the 10th, the person can be punished at work because of a lack of work. And they might seem lazy, which I think goes with his whole college kid look. 

Mars is our sense of right and wrong. It's a very righteous kind of planet. But in this chart, it's losing planetary war to the 9th and 10th lord of fortune and fame. Losing our sense of right and wrong to the fortune and the fame. 

And that brings into our awareness as well that we have got Venus in Saturn's sign with a malefic, actually with two malefics. It's with Saturn and Mars. They're in this 10th house. We know that Saturn and Mars together can be quite a difficult combination in a way because they're both of our strongest malefics in any chart, and they have completely opposite ways of solving problems. So there can be the friction between those two, which, you don't want friction between two malefic planets, they were already maybe putting out enough kasta without... annoying each other. 

But we have Venus, the Ascendant Lord is in this same environment in Aquarius in the 10th house. We have Rahu also in Saturn's house, in this case in Capricorn, so if you like to read the Lajjit Avastha that is the Shamed Avastha, if you like to read that by House Lord, ,one could say that Venus is being shamed by Saturn and Mars in this chart.

And Venus is the Ascendant Lord. So that this person ends up experiencing a fall from grace and a shame, it's very public because it's happening in the 10th house. Interestingly, we've got the 9th Lord there, the parents, I think the parents went to the trial every day and they're well respected academics, professional academics in the financial field, I think. We could maybe see that this person was going to have some kind of fall from grace. 

And If you're looking at the timing of the chart through tropical Vimshottari, then it's a Rahu Dasha. Which goes into this shamed avastha that we were just talking about, because Rahu would be a trigger to create that.

And business boomed during the Rahu Jupiter Dasha, that was in 2019 and 20, 21. This FTX just grew and grew. Increasing wealth. It was innovative wealth like Rahu Jupiter, increasing opportunities. But then came along Rahu Saturn and perhaps that exponential growth and fantasy was constrained by the reality of Saturn.

So there's plenty in the Birth Chart to help us understand this person. And before we look at Varshaphal, we always want to go and have a look at the Birth Chart first is the most important thing. A little bit like the Vargas, the way that we speak about the Vargas, that Vargas can't really make anything happen that isn't in the D1.

And I think the way that I look at Varshaphal is a little bit like that too, that the "Fruits of the Year" is within the context of what's possible in the Birth Chart. 

[00:29:59] Analyzing the Varshaphal Chart

[00:29:59] Fiona Marques: So then, when we think about Varshaphal with this Case study, I think looking at 2022, which was the year of the arrest and when the "Emperor's New Clothes" occurred this person was running a 7th House profection, that is, Scorpio was the sign that was the focus of the year.

And the Scorpio is what links the Birth Chart to the Varshaphal chart. And we must remember that Scorpio is always the 8th sign of the Zodiac. 

Now, in the 2022 Varshaphal chart,Ketu is located in Scorpio, and we know thatKetu is a liberator. The nodes are not really used very much, or not in the same way as they are in the rest of Vedic Astrology, but it's still something noticeable.

And Ketu being the liberator, I think gives us a hint at a theme I find really interesting, which is that often when people are leading double lives, when they're lying and keeping secrets, they're actually on some level relieved when they're caught, even though they're doing everything to avoid it, when the game is finally up, there's a sense of relief.

And it makes me think about lying and truth and how important truth is. That in our 8 limbs of yoga, when you get to the first one and you look at what the very first part of the very first limb of yoga is and it's truth. I think this is really important to be contemplated on and the huge advantage of being truthful is a connectedness with the light, with the reality of where things are at. And that the consequences of lying is that the we move a little bit away from the light, or at least in that area of our life, and we feel a little less worthy of that light and we feel separated from people.

So lying is really interesting. I hope we get a chance to talk with Inkeri next episode, because lying is a really important psychological step in the brain development. Realizing that we can keep information from people is very important. And in a way it's really important to free will, which is very important to the karmic journey that we're on.

So it's like an essential thing, the ability to realize that one can lie and create something that is not reality. But then it's how do we handle that gift or that curse that I think is really interesting. 

So, Ketu the Liberator, is in Scorpio (the Muntha, the sign that is being highlighted between the Birth Chart and the Varshaphal chart).

In this Varshaphal chart in 2022, the Ascendant is in Virgo. This means that Scorpio, the progressed Ascendant, or Muntha, is in the 3rd House of the Varshaphal, and it also rules the 8th House, and it's Mars. So there's a lot of volatility in that combination. We know that the 3rd can make us competitive and can lead to friction. We know that the 8th is sudden breaks and changes. And we know that Mars is impulsive at times. And the three of those things together is associated with lots of accidents and difficulties and making things break. So It's a strong combination.

And Mars is in the 5th House of this Varshaphal chart. So we know that means that that volatility could involve investments, the 5th House of investments. And the 5th House in this Varshaphal chart is Capricorn. And we know that Rahu is in Capricorn in the D1. So this impulsive, explosive combination is happening in the place where Rahu is in the Birth Chart.

And Venus and Mars are within two minutes of each other in Capricorn as well. But they are not at planetary war with each other. Now we know that Venus and Mars can make one very passionate, maybe taking risks, getting caught up in the moment. And we also know that Pluto was in Capricorn at this time as well, and it was within two degrees of Venus and Mars, and Pluto can be associated with imprisonment as well. So there's an awful lot going on there with Mars, which is the Muntha lord for this Varshaphal chart. 

Now the year lord for the Varshaphal is Jupiter, and it is in the 7th House of the Varshaphal, it's in Pisces. It's less than 20 minutes from the Sun, so it's within a degree, and the Sun is the 12th Lord.

In the D1 we see that Mars rules the 7th and the 12th, and in the Varshaphal we have the 7th Lord conjunct with the 12th Lord, so it just brings this idea of business, 7 and 12, confinement and imprisonment and losses. What about luck for this year of 2022? 

[00:35:51] Understanding the Role of Sahams in Vedic Astrology

[00:35:51] Fiona Marques: One of the neat things about Varshaphal is that it has its own calculation for sensitive points in the chart.

And these are called Sahams, which Wikipedia defines as meaning share of stock, and which I saw another astrologer call an arrow aimed at a very small target. And other Ancient Astrologies call them "Parts" or "Lots". The calculation of these Sahams involve various points within the chart, for example, the position of the Sun or the Moon, or the Ascendant. And it's very important to take into account if the Varshaphal chart is a Day chart or a Night chart, because the formulas, the equation is reversed if it's Day or Night. So we're talking about the Varshaphal chart, is it a Day chart or is it a Night chart? Not the original Birth Chart.

And it's really fascinating to contemplate the combinations of planets and points in the chart that make up Sahams. Every Varshaphal chart has the same Sahams calculated, you cannot read anything into the existence of a Saham and that it's going to occur, because it's always calculated. What you need to do is work out, just like with the rest of Vedic Astrology, what's going on in the D1 and what's going on in the Varshaphal chart. So for example, every Varshaphal chart has a Marriage Saham. Every single year that you look you'll find a Marriage Saham somewhere. But not all of us are getting married every year. So we really need to look at the D1, see if it's possible in the D1 to support marriage and see if the timing suggests that now is a good time. And then go have a look at the Varshaphal, see if that is also bringing up indicators.And, if from analyzing the Varshaphal, we can see that there is some potential for partnership, for romance, then we can go have a look at the Saham and see where it falls in the chart. And then it might have something useful to say. So this is an important thing to keep in mind, the Sahams are calculated for everybody every year, but the practice is to identify from the D1 and the current Varshaphal, what other themes of the chart.

There's only one exception to that, which is the Punya or Auspicious Saham. And they recommend that this can be checked every year because we all need a bit of luck in our lives. So why don't we start with that for this person's chart, because this person definitely needed some luck. 

[00:38:42] Case Study: Applying Varshaphal to Sam Bankman Fried's Chart

[00:38:42] Fiona Marques: And in the 2022 chart, the Punya Saham for this person was located in Scorpio. We're going to have a look at how do you calculate this Saham. 

Now, we already mentioned the very first thing that you need to do is. work out if it's a Day or a Night chart. In this case, the 2022 Vashaphal, the Ascendant took place at 16:46. So that is in the afternoon. It's quarter to 5 in the afternoon. So we need to very first work out, is it day or night? And you can do that by working out the time like we did just there, because it's pretty clear that in March at 5 o'clock, the Sun is still above the horizon. But if you're a bit unsure, you can make your chart a circular chart, and that will show you if the Sun is above the horizon. Or if you have Kala, you can go to the Sunrise calculator and it will tell you when sunrise, noon, dusk, and midnight, I think, are. So if there's any doubt about day or night, you've got a couple of strategies there to help you work it out. 

But in this chart, it is in the afternoon, we are going to call this a Day chart. In the case of a Day chart, the formula is that we find out where the Moon is, and we take the degrees of the Moon, and we subtract the degrees of the Sun, and then we add the Ascendant.

So Moon minus Sun plus the Ascendant. That is the Auspicious Saham for Day charts. If it was a Night chart, we flip that around, Sun subtracting the Moon degrees and adding the Ascendant. But for this one, we just stick with the standard formula. Moon minus Sun plus the Ascendant.

So let's have a look at this chart. This is the Varshaphal for 2022. And the Moon is at 26 degrees of Aries. And when we're talking about all of these degrees, wherever the planet is, you want to convert it into 360º. So you know that Rashi means a heap of degrees, and these heaps, the Rashis, are 30 degrees each. For calculating the Sahams, we want to... spread out all those heaps again, so that we have the 360 degrees consecutively lined up with each other or unheaped. And every point that we're looking for, we want to convert it back into 360 degrees. 

Now, Sam is being very kind to us here because the first one we need to look at is the Moon. It's at 26 degrees of Aries and Aries is the very beginning of the Zodiac, so we know that 26 is the correct answer for the Moon's degrees in this case. 

And you may notice that I am rounding these up to whole degrees, because it's degrees, minutes, and seconds, and the minutes are in a base of 60, and the seconds are in a base of 60. So just to keep my simple brain functioning, I'm rounding everything up to only the whole degree. And this means it can be a little bit inaccurate, one degree here or there, because I've rounded it up.

Okay, the Moon is at 26 degrees of Aries. the Sun is at 15 degrees of Pisces. So this is our first chance to put a point back into the 360 degrees. We do that by noticing that the start of Pisces is 330 degrees. And if you like you can count that around, that it's 30 at the end of Aries, it's 60 at the end of Taurus, it's 90 at the end of Gemini, you can keep going all the way around and you would get to 330 degrees at the end of Aquarius and the beginning of Pisces.

So the Sun that is at 15 degrees of Pisces, we actually want to add 330 degrees plus 15 degrees to get us to 345 degrees out of the 360 degrees. 

And we want to do that one final time because we are looking for the Ascendant. The Ascendant in this chart is at 1 degree of Virgo. And Virgo, if we go around and count our 30 degrees, is 150 degrees around the ecliptic, and that lets us know that this person's Ascendant is 150 plus 1. So 151.

And then we do our calculation, which is the Moon, 26, minus the Sun, 345, plus 151. And the first thing that we notice is that we cannot take 345 away from 26, because that would be a negative number, and there's just no negative numbers on the ecliptic. So we have to add a whole cycle to that first 26. So we add 360 degrees to the Moon, and it becomes 386, minus 345 plus 151. And this would give us 182 degrees as the answer. So that is 12 degrees into Libra. But we noticed that the Ascendant here is in between the Moon and the Sun. So let me just see if I can click that for you. Yeah. This calculation is Moon minus Sun. And if we travel from the Moon all the way around to the Sun, we actually went past the Ascendant. And for that reason, we add 30 degrees. So the 182 that we had, we add another 30 degrees to that. And this gives us 222. Which is, in fact, the Saham that is there on Kala, and 222 or 221 falls in Scorpio. So this person's lucky, Saham is at 11 or 12, if you're using the whole numbers like me, degrees of Scorpio. That is the sensitive point for luck for this person. 

And it's really interesting, isn't it? Because Scorpio is the Muntha. And so we're getting more information about how important Scorpio is to this chart. And it's also telling us that Mars is really important.

 We know that Mars is in the 5th House. So a person might feel lucky that they've got their lucky point ruled by a lord who's in the 5th House. And, Mars is exalted in Capricorn, we remember. So they might've even felt like they're going to get away with it. It's a really strong placement for Mars to be there in Capricorn.

But we do know that Mars is also very close to Pluto. And it's in the hyper realistic sign of Capricorn. And Ketu is also in Scorpio. And we know that the eclipses were on the Scorpio-Taurus axis during 2022.

I think it's really, It's worth us now looking at what other Sahams are impacting Scorpio, because it seems to be where everything is going down in this chart.

And if we go have a look at the other Sahams that are taking place in Scorpio. We find, sure enough, that we have the Forgiveness Saham, the Poverty Saham, the Strife Saham, and the Sorrow Saham. They're all located in Scorpio. And actually, some of them are at the same degrees as each other. So I think it's worth going to have a look at how these are calculated. 

 Let's begin by looking at the Strife Saham. Now in a Day chart, this is calculated by taking the degrees of Jupiter and subtracting the degrees of Mars and then adding the Ascendant. So similar to what we did, but instead of the Moon and the Sun, this time we've got Jupiter and Mars. And remember, this is the Strife Saham.

So isn't that interesting, just regardless of whether we work these out, and by the way, you never have to work them out, your software will do it for you, but it's nice to work them out, in that it brings to our mind that the Strife in our year is in some way related to Jupiter and Mars and our own Ascendant. I think that's really fascinating. 

 To recap our locations, Jupiter is also at 15 degrees of Pisces, which you remember the Sun was also at 15 degrees. So this one we know how to do. Pisces starts at 330 degrees. We're adding 15, it gives us 345.

And next Mars is right at the very end of Capricorn. It's a 29 something degrees of Capricorn. So I've actually rounded it up to 30, which I know is really weird, but that was my policy is to round it up. So Mars is 270 degrees for the start of Capricorn. And then I'm adding 30, taking it to 300. 

And the Ascendant, we already know, it stayed the same, it is in Virgo at one degree, and that was 151 degrees of the 360 degrees of our ecliptic.

So our equation becomes 345 for Jupiter minus 300 for Mars plus 151 for the Ascendant. And that gives us the answer of 196. 

But, we'll notice again, when you go from Jupiter to Mars, you have to go past the Ascendant. And for that reason, we add 30 degrees. And this gives us... 226, which is 16 degrees of Scorpio.

So we have not only the Punya Saham is in Scorpio, but the Strife Saham is in Scorpio. So that's just fascinating, isn't it? That your luck and your Strife end up in the same sign with the same Lord, exalted in the 5th House in Capricorn, but very close to Pluto. And we know there's the shamed avastha is going on in the Birth Chart. So makes for, yes, some exciting developments. 

Now, I mentioned that there were other Sahams in Scorpio. And one of the other ones is the Forgiveness Saham. And in a Day chart, this is calculated by Jupiter minus Mars plus the Ascendant. So we find that actually the same calculation for Strife is the same calculation for Forgiveness.

This again fascinates me, it speaks about what I was saying, that when you are lying about something, you're leading a double life, there's actually this great sense of relief when things get resolved. Even when you get caught, it's just, you can stop running.

Okay. Now we've got a couple of other Sahams and one is the Poverty Saham. 

And for a Day chart, this is calculated by identifying the Punya, the Auspicious point, and we've already done that, and then subtracting the degrees of Mercury and adding the degrees of Mercury. For a Day chart, actually, the Punya, the Auspicious point, and the Poverty point are the same. However, in a Night chart, they are not, because we reverse the equation and then it would be Mercury minus the Auspicious Saham. So they would be different in Night charts, but in Day charts they're the same. 

Just to walk you through it, in this chart we know that the Auspicious Saham is taking place in Scorpio. It's at 221 degrees. Mercury is just towards the end of Aquarius, at 24 degrees of Aquarius, so it becomes 324, and the calculation we don't even really need to do. It's 221 minus 324 plus 324. So stays exactly the same. 

And I think there's one final Saham that we wanted to have a look at, and that would be the Sorrow Saham. It is calculated, in a Day chart, by taking the degrees of Saturn and subtracting the degrees of the Moon and then adding the degrees of the 6th cusp. So isn't that interesting, that combination, that Sorrow, according to the ancient Varshaphal process was a combination of Saturn, Moon, and the 6th cusp.

To work out this calculation... Saturn is in Aquarius, it's at 19 degrees of Aquarius. So we know that Aquarius starts at 300, therefore Saturn is at 319. 

The Moon, we already know because we calculated it for the first one, it is at 26 degrees so that just stays as 26.

And then we need to find the 6th cusp. If you're using Kala software, you can find the cusps by right clicking anywhere on the screen and it brings up that choice of pop up menus and over on the far right, so the far right column, about halfway down, there is a Bhava Chalita cusps option and you can click that and it will pop up on your screen with the cusps in the Varshaphal chart and then in every Varga or in many of the Vargas after that.

For this calculation we just want the main Varshaphal chart. In this case, the 6th cusp is just in Capricorn. Hasn't this been a very popular area of the chart? We've got Mars there, we've got Venus there, we've got Pluto just a couple of degrees away, and guess what? We have the 6th cusp at 29 degrees as well. So to work that out into 360, that is 270 degrees to get us to the start of Capricorn, plus 29, and so then that becomes 299º. 

Now we have everything we need to do our equation. So we're going to take the degrees of Saturn, 319, and minus the degrees of the Moon, 26, and then add 299 from the 6th cusp.

Now, when we do that, it actually creates a number that is bigger than 360. The answer is 592. So we need to now remove one rotation to get it back inside the 360. So we just take off 360, and that is how we get to 232, which is Scorpio 210 plus the 22 degrees. As I'm rounding up, so on the software, it's 23 degrees, but It's in that area of Scorpio. So our final Saham that we're looking at is also in Scorpio. 

 Isn't it remarkable how much of these Sahams are residing in the same sign? It doesn't matter whether we did the calculation with the Moon, with the Sun, with the Ascendant, with Mars, Mercury, Saturn, all the 6th cusps, they all led us back to the same place, which is Scorpio.

 These Sahams can be used for many things including timing. Just like with Vedic Astrology timing, I think Varshaphal timing we're still learning how to use it, but we can notice that the Hada timing table does put Mars ruling the time from the 12th of November, 2022, and after that it was Saturn, so maybe we can say that November through February and beyond to March was going to be maybe more difficult than the earlier part of the year.

And keep in mind thatMars is in Saturn's sign. So it's interesting just with the timing that those two are related. 

But as we said, we can also notice that those eclipses took place on the Taurus-Scorpio axis. And in fact, the run on withdrawals that precipitated the collapse of FTX, and in that way the collapse of Sam Bankman Fried, that took place between the Solar and Lunar eclipses of October, November, 2022. That was happening in the sign of Scorpio where the Sahams for Strife and Poverty and Sorrow were all taking place. And in the D1, Mars was transiting the 2nd House of resources, and Saturn was transiting the natal Venus, which is the Ascendant of this chart. And Jupiter was in that very special place between Pisces and Aries, between a water sign and a fire sign. 

[00:57:14] Conclusion and Final Thought

[00:57:14] Fiona Marques: So we can see that the Vashaphal is giving us a really interesting way to examine this chart. And that's why I launched my investigation group on Patreon, because I wanted to dig deeper into this and see, case after case, what we can find out.

Now we're only partway through that. And as I said, that group is closed but actually I think I would like to start another investigation group into another element of timing. Do be in touch if you would to join another group that is self examination using our own charts to examine a timing method.

Now this was my take on what might be interesting to have a look at in Sam Bankman Fried's chart, but what would you research? Where would you look for lying, or the fraud, or the simply bad management? I get the sense that I'm not sure that this person intentionally wanted to defraud people. I think they just didn't understand the constraints and the importance of those constraints.

But what do you think when you look at the chart? I'd love to know your process and your favorite methods. And that's why we've chosen Sam Bankman Fried as our subject for AstroliJam, and that is on the 30th of November. And you can get tickets for that on fionamarques.com, or you can become a patron on Patreon and join the tier that is related to AstroliJam. And then you get to come every month and you also get to come twice a week on Zoom for meditation, if you would like to come for guided meditation. 

And for having a look at your own Varshaphal chart, and you want to have a look at that workbook. It is also available on the shop, or you can book time with me to go through the workbook. You get two half an hour slots when you buy the workbook through my booking system. That does not cover Sahams in any way. So don't buy it if you want to learn about Sahams. But it does cover how to read the Muntha and its link back to your Birth Chart, and then how to read the Significant Planets and the Ascendant in your Varshaphal.

All right. I hope that has whet your appetite for our next episode with Inkeri all about lying and the Astrology of lying and defrauding. I'm really looking forward to that. And until I see you then, be well, and I will look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Vedic Astrology Podcast.

Bye.