Redemption Avasthas

Redemption Avasthas

[00:00:00] Fiona Marques: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Vedic Astrology Podcast. My name is Fiona Marques. In today's episode, I want to look at the Lajjitaadi Avasthas, which are planetary combinations that speak about the state of a planet. But I want to do it in the context of reframing the Lajjitaadi Avasthas to turn them into something powerful that any one of us can harness.

We're going to take on that challenge of how can we reframe some of these Lajjitaadi Avasthas so that they become empowering combinations in our chart, adding value and increasing our happiness in life. Rather than perhaps feeling a little bit trapped sometimes by our Ladhatari Avasthas. 

We're going to weave together mythology and anecdotes to illustrate how to navigate and thrive with these different planetary states called Lajjitaadi Avasthas.

So join me, stay tuned, it's going to be an enlightening and transformative journey. 

[00:01:06] What are Avasthas?

[00:01:06] Fiona Marques: And so to begin, let's remind ourselves about what Avasthas are. They are descriptions of planetary states in the birth chart. There's a whole chapter in Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, Chapter 45, that touches on Avasthas.

And for example, in that chapter there's information about the Balaadi Avasthas. That is how mature a karma is for a particular planet. And there's information about Jagraadadi Avasthas. Which is like how awake and alert a planet is to what's going on. And then there are several others, but it's in this chapter as well, that Lajjitaadi Avasthas are described.

And just like those other Avasthas that I mentioned, they take their name from the very first Avastha that's described in that particular grouping. So the Lajjitaadi Avasthas take their name from the first Avastha in the group, And that is the Lajjit Avastha. And Lajjit means Shamed. So in this group of Avasthas, the first one that's named is the Lajjit Avastha, and that's how the whole group gets this name, Lajjitaadi Avasthas.

And in my mind, I think of the Lajjitaadi Avasthas as being five Avasthas. And if we take them from more helpful to less helpful or easier to deal with going towards harder to deal with. If we look at them that way, the first one I think about is the Proud Avastha, which is when a planet is in its Exaltation sign or its Moolatrikona sign. And I think we can all identify that's a planet that's going to easily work well and feel very natural for a person. Proud is a great way to describe that state. And that is why it's in Avastha.

And then next, if we're going in this continuum of easy to not so easy the second one to tell you about, we'd be Delighted. That there is a Delighted Avastha, which is when a planet is in a friend sign or when it's with a friend or aspected by a friend (* or conjunct Jupiter). And here we're talking about natural friends. So we can all relate to how life is better, more fun and more Delightful when we're with our friends. So it's a good way to remember the Delighted Avastha. So these two make sense.

And now let's move towards the Lajjitaadi Avasthas that might be on the more difficult to deal with side and give our attention to an Avastha that's called the Starved Avastha. And this is when a planet is in a natural enemy sign or when it is with a natural enemy (* or joined by Saturn) or aspected by a natural enemy. And then the planet experiences Starvation. 

And perhaps we can all identify with that as well, that the way we can be intimidated around people that we feel that they don't support us or don't like us, then it can starve some of our natural brilliance and light. 

We have the Starvation Avastha. And this Is also called a Thirsted Avastha if it happens in a Water sign. So that's why I think of these as being five Avasthas. It's actually six, but the Starvation and the Thirsted, they go together. It's the same concept. 

And then moving perhaps even more difficult to deal with is an Avastha called Agitation. So the Agitated Avastha. And this is when a planet is with the Sun. Or it's with or aspected by an enemy that is also a cruel planet. So it's a little bit more intense than Starvation perhaps, because you're actually with or aspected by an enemy who's malefic.

And then the final Avastha to tell you about in the Lajjitaadi Avasthas is the Shamed Avastha, even though it's the one that gives the name to the grouping.

And the Shamed Avastha can be created in two ways. One is if you have a planet in the 5th House and it is also joined in the 5th House by a natural malefic planet. So joined by Sun, Mars, or Saturn, that would create a Shamed Avastha. And the other way is if it is a planet joined by a node and any natural malefic in any house. So whatever house you like, we have this planet that we're thinking of, plus a node, plus the Sun, Saturn, or Mars.

[00:05:55] The effects of the Shamed Avastha

[00:05:55] Fiona Marques: And what is so tragic, I think, about the Shamed Avastha is that the effect of it is it often leads people to withdraw from life because they feel that whatever, there's something about them, their natural state that causes these shameful events to occur in their life that they feel responsible for. And that the only thing that they can do is withdraw from that situation.

And why I think this is really tragic is because Life is in the flow of the energy of all of our relationships with each other and the way that we're sharing that experience of being alive by being in the flow of energy together.

And that's where all the health is. It's where all the connection is, where all the love is. And so to have an Avastha that predisposes you to individuate and to internalize and take ownership for a particular type of pain, on one level, it hurts very much on the inside of the person, but on another level, it's like the exact remedy that the person needs is what they're withdrawing from altogether. So the chance of experiencing healing and openness and connectedness is very much affected by this this Avastha and the way that one withdraws.

And I have recently had a run of clients when I've been speaking about this particular Avastha who can become quite defeated about it and feel like perhaps that's what the chart is telling them to do is to withdraw almost like damage control, in order not to damage others keep one's pain to oneself. And that maybe that's what the chart is asking is to not go into these areas of life, wherever this particular Avastha is happening.

And that is the challenge that I'm throwing open with our episode today is how can we reframe these Avasthas to see actually how we can harness them to powerfully change our experience of being alive.

 And I'm really calling now out to those who would like to learn more about that, those people who have a Shamed Avastha in their chart who would like to join a group with me to explore these Avasthas more deeply with others who are experiencing the same Avastha. So a community of friends delighting each other by sharing the experience and really being Detectives, really getting down to understanding what these Avasthas are all about. 

So let me tell you a little bit more about that because I love running groups and I love being involved in groups and I can tell from the email that I'm getting from my provider that it's four years since I launched my website. I'm just about to pay that annual subscription for my website. And it reminds me that when I started the website, I already had that desire to run groups of people with similar astrological combinations in their charts as a kind of community of peers, people who are going through similar things and can maybe learn from each other and certainly inspire and motivate each other to continue to solve problems. Cause some of these combinations in charts can be really quite challenging. I have had a secret wish to get these groups going now for four years. And when I launched my Patreon account a year ago, I also put this Redemption Detectives is what I'm calling this tier. I put that tier it's been there since the beginning. And until now, I haven't had any subscribers or patrons for that tier. And yet just now with this run of clients talking about Shamed Avasthas, which I'm renaming Redemption Avasthas, out of the blue, I now have several people who have signed up for that tier. So I really feels like it's time to make a move on these groups where we can learn from each other.

So let's talk a little bit about the experience of a Shamed Avastha, you might like to check if you have one in your chart, or if you can identify with these kind of experiences. So for me, I remember one when I was very young in primary school, perhaps I was 8 years old and. I went to quite a hippie primary school, or maybe it was just that, us children of the, this was in the early eighties, children of the early eighties, maybe education was a bit more relaxed back in those days. And this one particular day, which may have been towards the end of term, maybe it was the very last day of term, we had, I think, all been doing Papier-mâché, which is that thing where you rip up newspaper and you soak the paper in glue and then you mold it around, I think in this case, it was probably balloons and you make a shape. But suffice to say that our craft space was by the end of the lesson filled with mess. We were just having a great time cleaning up. And we had these big brooms. So maybe there were five big brooms and a bunch of kids all got some brooms. And we were pushing all of the waste paper into the middle of the room. And then other kids were picking it up and bagging it or something.

And I was lucky enough to have one of these brooms. And so I was I was really enjoying, I think we had some music on and I was pushing this paper into the middle of the room, but somewhere in the enjoyment of the activity, I lost track of really what I was doing. And sure enough, I, after one pushing with the broom, I actually ended up then taking a whole lot of paper and sweeping it back out with me, not realizing what I was doing.

And this was, of course, pointed out to me and we, I was made fun of that "This is not helping now, this is hindering". And of course, I'm sure that was meant in a very jovial manner, and probably with a lot of warmth and love. But for me personally, I just felt incredibly humiliated.

And that I, there was something wrong with me that I, everybody else could manage to broom and sweep. And yet here I was, I had so embarrassed myself with this effort at helping the team when actually I was making the work for the team harder. 

And I remember going and just putting my broom away, like feeling "I'm not deserving of one of these, there's only four or five of these brooms. I'm not des I'm not deserving of one of these brooms" and retreating into the self. And taking myself out of that situation because I was like, "wrong" and "bad" at this particular thing. There was something wrong with me, I just couldn't broom. I couldn't sweep.

And, that really stayed with me. That experience really stayed with me and was very, felt like a really deep hurt. And now that I look back on that experience, of course, there was no intention for that ostracizing to occur. It was a statement that was meant humorously, and that if I didn't have that Shamed Avastha, I could have just laughed off and swept the paper back into the pile and kept going, and no one would have thought anything at all about me continuing to do it.

And I think this is the big lesson and challenge for those of us with a Shamed Avastha is to realize that the remedy for the pain that we have is actually to return into the fold and to be part of the group and to experience that love of being loved for one's flaws and one's lack of skill or whatever it is. That's actually a very lovable thing. There's no need to isolate oneself about it, even if you do something shameful or embarrassing. 

And it makes me think about this children's story that I read. I don't know whether you guys are aware of the teachings of Abraham? Which is Abraham Hicks, which is somebody who's it's ended up the way it's been accepted culturally is it's like a person who talks about manifesting and manifesting that kind of life that you want.

But anyway, this teachings of Abraham have written a children's book. And I remember the very, the first part that's in three parts, I think the first book the main character, whose name is Sara is actually, she befriends this incredibly wise owl called Solomon, who helps Sara to understand how life works spiritually, energetically. 

And this bird explains to Sara about cutting oneself off from the flow of life. And as I remember it, it's a story about how each of our houses is connected to the water mains, right? So all of the pressure, the water pressure that we need to run water inside of our house arrives at the plumbing to our house, fully 100 percent at pressure, the same as everybody else on the street. We are all blessed with our access to the mains water. But each individual house has a main tap that they turn on or off depending on whether they want to allow water into their house. And how much pressure they want from that mains pressure, how much of that pressure they want to come into their own house.

And the bird in the book was explaining to Sara that each of us is in charge of that tap of how much mains pressure water we let into the house. And this is what I see is so hard about the Shamed Avastha is that having that Avastha, predisposes the person to go to that tap at the bottom of the garden or wherever it is in your layout of your world and turn off the mains tap, or at least reduce it to a very small amount.

And that seems like the wisest thing to do. And yet then it leaves the house with not enough water, not enough pressure to actually live well. To do your washing up and to have a shower and all of the things that we need to do with the water inside of the house. 

And I've always thought that was really beautiful story, because when one is on the inside of these things, it seems like the best thing to do is to turn down that tap. But the story helps us to realize that there's just no benefit to any one of us turning down that tap. That Life is supplying that energy full bore all the time for us and just wants us to take advantage of the mains pressure. 

[00:17:04] The Redemption Arc

[00:17:04] Fiona Marques: So would you like to join me on this challenge of reframing some of those more difficult Lajjitaadi Avasthas and seeing how we can harness the power of them. As I've already said, for me, the Lajjitaadi Avastha, the Lajjit Avastha, the Shamed Avastha, I think instead of feeling cursed by this Avastha, which is what can happen if you learn about these Avasthas, or if you go on YouTube and you watch some case study or some information, you might get the idea that this is really a curse, it's something very hard to deal with.

And I actually think it's perhaps the opposite that the Lajjit Avastha is the redemption arc that is so powerful in any story or any mythology is that character who really transforms, who is humbled and gets basically taken down to their knees. They really have to face the truth of some situation. But from that, they make that internal decision to change. And then they soar. Their character arc then becomes one that we're so familiar with, which is really in a way, fundamentally, it's the hero's story. 

So my challenge is, can we reframe the Lajjit Avastha as a Redemption Avastha? And I want you to think about stories of redemption and how often they involve some kind of shame.

 One of the big ones that comes to mind for me is like the ultimate, "The Prodigal Son". The son who disowns, goes and spends all the inheritance and disowns all the values of the family and treats his family shamefully. And then returns and is accepted without question back into the family. This is a great story of redemption. 

And then the person who wrote Amazing Grace. So this guy who wrote Amazing Grace was a slave trader. So he was ferrying human beings to be sold as if they were animals. He's got a ship sailing across the Atlantic ocean selling humans.

And the story is that in a particularly bad storm, he prays to God and in that moment of surviving an experience that he feels is going to be certain death, his heart opens to faith and he becomes a Christian and eventually he becomes a minister and eventually he becomes someone who really denounces slavery. And then he also writes this hymn, "Amazing Grace", "how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me", right? 

So imagine being that person who's done something so shameful as selling other human beings. Imagine being that person and yet still feeling deserving of grace. And this is what the Shamed Avastha is offering us, is that no matter what it is that you have done, if you can be honest with yourself and look at that, is there this chance for redemption? Can you come back into the group? With all of your flaws and receive the love of those around you.

And it makes me think also about, do you remember when Sachin was on the podcast back in Season 2, we did two episodes, episode 15 and 16, talking about Mars, which allowed us to delve into the mythology of Prahlad and Narasimha. Prahlad is this child of a demon king, and Prahlad is devoted to Vishnu and is a spiritual person, a very gentle devotee to auspiciousness and righteousness.

And that actually, as far as his parents were concerned, that must've been a cause of shame to have a child who was such a bad demon. He was so bad at being a demon. So I think we want to recognize that the Shamed Avastha is maybe not a straight jacket that is disempowering and can never be overcome, but in fact that it is a chance to look for the redemption arc in your own life.

And that's where the Narasimha bit comes in, isn't it? That in the story, Prahlad stays devoted to Vishnu and his father the Demon King throws down the challenge that "If you really believe in Vishnu so much, is he in that pillar?" And then out of the pillar comes this mythical, magical beast that fulfills all the criteria to defeat this undefeatable demon king. And go back and have a listen to those episodes if you'd like to catch up, because it's just such a beautiful story. And for all of us, it reminds us that with our creativity, we can find the solution to our straight jackets, to our Shamed Avasthas. We might have to be quite creative. As Narasimha was in this mythology, he was got the demon king off the ground. So the king's feet are not either on the ground and not in the air. And he made the fatal blow, just as the Sun was going down. So it wasn't nighttime and it wasn't daytime. That's the kind of thing that we might need to be quite creative to harness our Shamed Avastha, but I'm of that Pollyanna view that if it's in the chart, it must be there to help us learn something and feel closer to our true self. To our energetic, pure soul energy. And we just have to, get in there and find out what it is. 

[00:23:22] Are you a Redemption Detective?

[00:23:22] Fiona Marques: So if you would like to come along and join this group, you need to go to my Patreon, which is Fiona Marques, all one word, and you need to look for the Redemption Detectives. And you also need tohave one of these things in your chart. So this is not a group for learning. If you just want to learn about astrology and you'd love to be part of this group, that's not quite the right one. We definitely, if you're coming to this group, we want everybody here to be vulnerable and reveal their charts and feel safe that they are among friends and peers.

So if you have some of these challenging Avasthas in your chart and you would like to be a detective with others, come along. 

And that is why I'm also throwing this open to reframing several of these Avasthas because obviously the Lajjit Avastha is the one that kind of stands out, but Agitation and Starvation are no walk in the park either.

If you feel that you're struggling with those also let me know, because I think that there's powerful stories to be had that will help us understand Starvation, for example. And really tap into that "Self Abundance" that would be the renaming of the Starved Avastha becomes the "Self Abundance" Avastha. And we think of something like, something as simple as Miley Cyrus' song, I Can Buy Myself Flowers, it's so important for those of us with Venus being Starved by the moon, for example, that "I can buy myself flowers", "I can actually love myself and look after myself better than you can".

And, sometimes we just need help to see how to unlock these other Avasthas. If you have Shamed, Agitated or Starved that you're struggling with, and you want to learn with others in the same situation, come and let me know. And then I think there are. A couple of other tricky combinations that, I'm also inviting. This is a bit like that Statue of Liberty thing, the New York Harbor,that says, "give me your tired, give me your poor, give me your huddled masses". And I'm calling for that as well, that if you feel that you're overwhelmed in how to deal with the Avasthas and you want to solve those problems in a group together, let me know.

And the other couple of states that I wanted to invite as well is people with Debilitation, a planet that's Debilitated in the chart. And for me, this kind of does become a Lajjitaadi Avastha because we had the Garvita Avastha, the Proud Avastha, for when a planet is in Exaltation or Moolatrikona. It's Proud. But I think that automatically lets us know that there is an Avastha there, even though it doesn't receive a name, there's an Avastha there for when a planet is Debilitated. And Debilitation is a little bit like for those of us in a female body, we know that cycle of ovulation, just feeling like everything is just jamming, we feel that the day is brighter and easier and our smile is bigger and brighter and there's more opportunities and everything's easy on those ovulation days. And then on the other end of that cycle, as we're coming into menstruation or when we're menstruating, there's this kind of feeling of vulnerability and maybe feeling low, feeling heavier. And of course, we're still the same person. And of course, we're still achieving beautiful and brilliant things. But there's a softness and a tenderness to that that's not possibly there on the sparkling ovulation days. So Debilitation can be a little bit like that. How do we let our true self shine at times when we feel more vulnerable, tender, or low.

So if you have Debilitation in the chart, and the other one I'm going to throw in is one of my personal favorites. It's not really in Avastha at all. But is in Shadbala. If you have Lots of negative Drik Bala. And I would be renaming this the Undefeated or the Undefeatable Avastha, because when you have negative Drik Bala, then planets in the chart are actively interfering with the flow of a particular planet. And it can mean that it turns up in your life as whenever you try to make forward motion, there's all these different sorts of demands and responsibilities and distractions that are really important that you have to attend to that mean that you get taken off that forward path that you were aiming for.

So, for everybody listening, whether you come along to the group or not, let's take this conversation today as an invitation to reframe perhaps our relationship with these more difficult Avasthas and actively look at ways of harnessing these combinations, whether it's the nodes with a planet and a malefic or whether it's the aspect from a malefic enemy, or whether it's the lots of negative Drikbala, whatever your particular combination is, how can that be reframed so that it's empowering and brings you closer to your true sparkling self, like your true pure energy? Let's do that and break out of feeling straightjacketed or cursed by our Avasthas. 

Another important thing to keep in mind with all of this, whether you do it in a group with me, or whether you want to take what we're talking about today and reframe Lajjitaadi Avasthas for yourself, I think an important thing to keep in mind is around re traumatizing. I'm going to be really focused on that. And that's why I want a group of people who have these Avasthas in their charts is that I think sometimes it can be easy on YouTube or in the lessons when we're learning about Lajjitaadi Avasthas to speak about these Avasthas almost in a detached way, or as if they're not real people that we're speaking about.

And it can be, especially if there's no hope offered for how to work with the Avastha, it can be quite traumatizing or re traumatizing to be exposed to Lajjitaadi Avasthas in that way. So whether you're taking this inspiration from today's podcast to pursue your own work in reframing them, or if you join me in one of these detective groups, one of the main things that I want to be doing is treating everybody with respect and everybody with these Avasthas with respect and the kind of sensitivity and tenderness that we need when we're talking about these topics. So keep that in mind as you also progress through your understanding of the Lajjitaadi Avasthas. 

So I hope that you've enjoyed thinking about the Avasthas in maybe a slightly different way today.

And that this conversation inspires you to be that child who keeps her broom and keep sweeping and lets people laugh and enjoy being part of a group of people who love you and that you're experiencing that love and the warmth of that. 

And this is really, I think one of the things that we will do in the group,we'll be solving these problems together. And I'm certainly not a doctor or a therapist, so I'm not going to be fixing these problems, but we'll be exploring mythology and powerful stories that we already know that we haven't realized are very helpful for these Avasthas. We might be looking at songs, like we already talked about Miley Cyrus. We might be looking at affirmations and artwork, and we'll definitely be digging into people's individual charts and really understanding the dynamics that are in the chart. 

But mostly we'll be finding ways to reconnect with the love of being alive that is experienced in our relationship with other people. And we can do that by connecting with the Darshan of the planet. For those of us that are in my greatness of Saturn book club at the moment, we've been studying the Darshan of planets, how it is the image of planets that grab a hold of our psyche.

And A great way to help with all of these Avasthas is to learn how to tap into a, an empowering, powerful, pure, helpful version of that planet and have that as a lighthouse that helps guide us back to the main flow of life. In our own charts with these particular Avasthas, the darshan that we have with the planet keeps leading us into a kind of twisted, crooked way of experiencing that planet.

If you think about especially the Shamed, for example, imagine a planet being with a malefic and a node. That's Shamed and it gets twisted and it gets it's perverse. And we can correct that by learning like the frequency of that planet when it is at full strength and when it is shining and glorious.

So that will be for sure one of the things that we're working on because we have to remember that many charts that have Shamed in them, that planet is going to be Delighted first and then maybe Agitated and then maybe Shamed. It has actually all the potential for the Delight in there.

We just have to retrain our Darshan of that planet. So we'll be discovering all of this together in the Redemption Detectives. I look forward to seeing you there. Okay. Bye for now. Bye everyone.