Why Life Changes So Dramaticaly at 16, 35, 42 and 48

Why Life Changes So Dramaticaly at 16, 35, 42 and 48

[00:00:00] Coming Up ...

You just need to know the age of the person and just need to know what the Grahas do, and that's it. You have a full-blown technique.

Rahu and Ketu is probably, in my view, the point of Jyotish. The whole point of Jyotish is to understand one's Rahu and Ketu placement. And, That's when they mature and that's when midlife crisis happens. 

[00:00:21] Why Certain Ages Change Everything

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Vedic Astrology Podcast. My name is Fiona Marques. I am joined today by Sachin Sharma. Hi, Sachin

Hello. Thank you for having me

And today we have the opportunity, you and I, to talk a little bit about timing, understanding how karma manifests itself over time. This is something that when you become a working astrologer, you spend a lot of time thinking about time.

What Sachin's bringing is this ability to use the different influences of these time models have insights that we haven't even opened an astrology chart for We didn't even have to get the software out and, and plot something. This is part of what your book is doing, isn't it 

yeah

Have a conversation, a powerful conversation with someone perhaps only knowing maybe their age, 

[00:01:14] You Only Need Someone's Age

You just need to know the age of the person and just need to know what the Grahas do, and that's it. You have a full-blown technique. If you're a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst interested in Jyotish astrology and stuff, this can enrich your practice so much.

If we have a five-year-old in front of us, they're fundamentally in the natural age of Mercury. Mercury is games. It's a curious cu- the fundamental curiosity we have. It's about trial and error making mistakes, falling, getting up, falling again, getting up again, learning new skills, having a lot of hobbies and interests.

All of these different mercurial things. Comedy, laughter learning languages, acquiring languages all of this stuff. And then we have a lot of literature around that age, around that developmental age. So if we see, you'd be like, "Yeah, it makes so much sense that four to around 12 is a Mercury age."

And then you can permit a Mercury age to be mercurial Now, on a personal level, that child might be in Rahu Dasha, Vimshottari Dasha, with with maybe Rahu Ashtottari Dasha, which is also what I use. I use a bunch of Dasha systems. Let's stick with Vimshottarior an Ashtottari, and they could have-- be running in Saturn-Rahu, but they are in Mercury age.

So it's time to play, it's time to explore, but they are feeling a certain way. Rahu is in a certain place, Saturn's a certain place. So how do we reduce that conflict? How do we permit them to live their Mercury age and go through their Rahu and Saturnine processes that the soul, that particular individual is going through?

[00:02:52] What Ages 13-32 Are Really About

For example, 13 to 32 is Venus age. Now, Venusian things will happen. So how to, first of all, not shame Venus because sexual agitation can feel very shameful at that age, and kids start to hide, and all of that stuff happens. So how to understand what Venus truly needs. What is Venus really about?

It needs something to devote itself to. Venus needs to build a sense of self-worth, that it has something valuable. That's what Venus is. 

 on a personal level is your value system, what you value the most. what are you gonna place on the scales?

When someone puts something on this side of the scale, or you place your psyche on this scale, what should be on this side of the scale for it to find balance? If you think you're cotton, then you don't need much on this side. But if you think you are gold, weird thing to say, then you would be-- probably you need a lot of things here on this side for fine balance.

 so we have to build the person, we have to build ourselves in Venus age in that way. And, 

venus also brings a beautiful softness and lusciousness to youth, doesn't it?

Yeah

us to move softly through those first, those first ages of making our mark in the world, maybe choosing a university degree or, or working. I- speaking from personal experience, the, the patience that I had to be fluid and fit into work environments and just say yes to things, this is how it's done here, and sort of go along with the flow a little bit as a younger employee. That if the person was starting that job at 50 or starting at 70, they would not enter it with that kind of ease and grace that, that Venus provides

Amazing. Yeah, truly. Yeah, it does give that ease, grace, smoothness makes you more pliable, flexible. And so there's a lot of things there with Venus and people who do get that at the right age find themselves moving through a lot of transitions in life, a lot of changes in life with more grace.

And,

Yeah.

It

as a society, we can also really idealize, idolize youth, can't we? That's what we see on all of the advertising posters or whatever is, is youthful appearance because i- that, that time of life is so graceful and so exciting, so full of different opportunities. One can as you said, find whatever is valuable to you during that time.

It's You get to choose,

Exactly

yourself to what you find valuable. we all look back perhaps now that we're in older we look back and we think, "Wow, I had so much grace when I was younger," or, "I was... had so much beauty when I was younger," or so much ease. The body is also to recover from injuries so well in that age period because Venus is well, graceful, and it is moist, and it is rejuvenating so, yeah.

Yeah, so now even just speaking with you, I'm seeing how we can almost immediately begin to use these planets, to help us understand what's enfolding in the person's life through time.

[00:06:04] Why a Planet Can Be Mature Before Its Time

But you also bring in many, Well, that's why I'm calling it a matrix because you bring in a beautiful, staying on the Jyotish side, matrix between, yes, we have these natural ages, and we have the planet maturing ages, and they don't correspond. For example, Jupiter's the easy one to remember, is ready, mature at 16, but actually won't be the natural age until well into your 30s, whatever it was. So this tension between when a planet is naturally available and when it's mature-

Yeah, and that's the thing. And the word mature can be interesting because on one hand it can feel like it's ready, ready to be used, it's ripe. And on the other hand, it can be, Ready to be cultivated now for the first time. So my take it, it's, it can be both. It depends from person to person.

And then they'd be like, "Okay, nice. I wanna work on this part of me." And then they could start doing a sport, for example, at 27, 28, 29, because they were ignoring their bodies completely.

They'd start to stretch their fascia in the body because for the first time they realize it's important. As opposed to another, another person with a robust Mars who would be doing all of that. and then when the age comes, they'd be ready in a way to act through that capacity, act through that strength.

That's one of the things. And so maturation ages are when a Graha becomes available to be used. Sometimes it is ripe and ready because it's strong in its placement, in its situation in the psyche, and sometimes it's not, and either way, it's a revelation for the psyche. It should be ideally.

[00:07:53] Why Midlife Crisis Happens Around 42-48

But maturation ages also has a very interesting idea, which is super Jungian and super analytic, psychoanalytic, that Rahu matures at 42 and Ketu matures at 48.

And Rahu and Ketu are this fundamental thing of making the unconscious conscious. Rahu and Ketu is probably, in my view, the point of Jyotish. The whole point of Jyotish is to understand one's Rahu and Ketu placement. And, That's when they mature and that's when midlife crisis happens. And Jung writes a lot about midlife.

Jungian psychology is primarily at this point Jungian analysis used for midlife work Of individuation, where Jung says the first half is more so for making money and raising a family, and the second half is for individuating, for developing the undeveloped parts of the self. And he says this very clearly, like this is how he exactly puts it, and then he takes it into nuances and stuff as he always does.

And so that's one thing about matur- Which is a very interesting insight, which also blew my mind when I first heard of this for the Rahu and Ketu maturation ages. It's not that Rahu and Ketu become ripe to use, it's that their unconscious situation of life intrudes, makes it way into the psyche. For the first time one realizes maybe I'm not living my own life, maybe I'm living my parents' life.

Maybe my father wanted me to be an engineer or a doctor. Maybe my mother wanted me to marry this girl. which is a more intense examples. They could also be around creative pursuits. A book that was started when a person was in their 20s, and now it comes back because an event takes place in a person's life at the age of 43, 44, 45 or 47 and suddenly it comes back.

 They open up some sort of old box, and they find a half-written manuscript of some kind, and they start to work on it. it's very specific to the person. They're very unique. Yeah, Rahu and Ketu are very extremely personal. So that's the thing.

saying is really fascinating, Sachin, as I'm talking to you because you're talking about Rahu and Ketu at 42 and 48. And then from the other model, we have the sun ruling the natural age from 50, which is very close by. Was we're talking about this midlife thing that you're bringing up with Jung about the first half of life, the second half of life. it's really interesting that as you were describing it with the nodes, might in that 42 or 48 have this experience of, am I, am I doing the life that I wanted to? Like, who set me up on this life? This is not where I wanted to be. also ex- at exactly around the time that the sun the natural sun age is coming online.

And what is the sun but, you know, the true light of the self, the best, connection that we have to our inspirational truth. Laura Barratt and I touched on this many episodes ago around perimenopause for women is in this 48, often becoming menopausal. I think the average age is 53. So for women, there's also this kind of threshold of moving from being a fertile contributor to society on some biological purpose, you know, that women are here for or something, comes this 48, 50 perimenopause, and yet that's when for women, and all humans according to this model, the sun is now the natural planet to rule that age.

So I find it really

Oh, fascinating

story for midlife that it's e- it's exactly correct. If you're having any of those doubts about what is, what is my journey? What have I been doing? You know, this is not truly who I am. Who am I gonna be now as I age? You're in exactly the right spot. Th- th- this is exactly what Rahu, Ketu, and sun are, combining to do is, is help you more brightly and more truly

So nice, right? That example. such a deep insight around the how biology creates cultural expectations also, but there's a metaphysics, metaphysical angle to it, and how whether one chooses to have children or not. But when one cannot anymore out of a, a natural process that has taken up in the body, how when that finally that pressure is released of some unconscious pressure, if one happens to have it, how that brings a person back to oneself.

almost as if there's attention being held captive by this particular movement of some kind that needs to take place out of this cultural expectation. 

[00:12:36] Origin of the Book and the Phases of Life Models

And in the book, you take the opportunity to explain a Jyotish view of human development, perhaps a rhythm or a cycle that all humans go through, rather than particularly a Vimshottari dasha or a very specific chart development of the person. And you also take the opportunity to look at how Jung perhaps classified some major stages of life. Tell us about The Stages of Life.So first and foremost, This book, "The Stages of Life: Jyotish Jung and the Qualitative Field of Time," comes from A series of events that took place in my studies. And so this book is like a logical conclusion of that.

[00:13:18] How Jung and Jyotish Came Together

My first encounter was not with the Jyotish idea, was with this essay from Jung, which was called "The Stages of Life." And that's where Jung speaks about the beginning of life being like a sunrise, and midlife being like an afternoon. And as we descend into, towards the final phases of life, it's like the sun setting.

Then my second encounter happened with Ernst Wilhelm's Ages of the Grahas course. And then I kept studying more depth psychology, Jungian works, Jungian analysis of different kinds. And as I practiced more and observed more and more connections kept happening between what Jung was saying, what Ernst has brought forth from these Jyotish texts, and my own insights that I was receiving or whatever was going on with my own studies.

So this bookI was pushed to write it almost. I was nudged, and it it-- this idea just became so ripe in my head that it needed to be brought forth. And so it's it's a deeply Jyotishic text book and a Jungian book at the same time. So anyone who's interested in either will get a lot of value from it, I hopefully

 it speaks so deeply on so many levels that

there are these sutras that we find in Yavana Jātaka, but also Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra or Parashara Hora. And these sutras are talking about giving ages and phases to every Graha.

so there are two things that take place. There's a natural age of the Graha, and there's a maturation age of the Graha when the Graha becomes ripe. 

Just to

the

in case they've heard that, that's the one where Jupiter matures at 16. Is this the one that you're talking about?

Yeah.

[00:15:06] When Each Planet Comes Online

Jupiter ma-matures at 16, Sun matures at 21 Moon and Venus at 24, 25 then Mars at 27 to 28 years, then Mercury from 31 to 32, Saturn from 35 to 36 Rahu from 41 to 42, Ketu from 47 to 48, and that's it. So those are the-- all the maturations. are different

may have heard of those before 

Yeah. And that's the thing.

[00:15:34] Why 35 is a Major Turning Point

The most beautiful part about this is that Jung also talks about this, these ages. Jung speaks about 35 being a very critical moment. He's writes about this in 1935, he speaks about this at a certain point when one of his essays where he writes that at 35 this consciousness of death begins to appear in a person's psyche, unconsciously or consciously, and we start to either hold on to patterns or start to, he says, plunge into the process of preparation for the afterlife in some sense.

And that's very interesting because that's when Saturn matures.

maturity?

Yeah. Yeah. And that's when for the first time we have experienced Saturn one way or the other with one of our... Where our attachments have been tested. And that's just one age that has been given. So maturation ages, one

that as you were going through it, you, you were kind of in your own studies, things were connecting from one model to another model even though they come from completely different sources. So

Exactly

kind of stimulates the thinking, doesn't it?

Yeah. For sure. And 

[00:16:44] The Letter Jung Sent to an Indian Astrologer

Jung himself was very interested in astrology. He writes to Professor B.V. Raman who was probably the first person to have translated Jyotish into English and organized the knowledge around his books in the early 1900s. And Jung writes t- a letter to B.V.

Raman, and that begins the dialogue. This was also a very profound moment in my studies when I found this letter, where he writes to Professor B.V. Raman that, "In difficult psychological cases, I usually get a horoscope in order to have a further point of view from a completely different angle." So he's writing, first of all, he's aware that there is something, there's an astrology that exists in India that is very profound, and he's trying to reach out.

But there's just an exchange of about two letters that happens between them if I'm if I'm remembering correctly, and then the, the exchange stops. So this is, in a way, the continuation of that dialogue between Jung and Jyotish, which were not... Because J- Jung was also very deeply interested in Jyotish in astrology, and he was reaching out for Jyotish, but he could never fully get into it.

And Jyotish has not found its way into a psychoanalysis, complex psychology, Jungian analysis, depth psychology, all of this stuff. Western astrologers have been making that effort, but of late, even Jyotishis have been making that effort to psychologize, to understand, to have a framework to understand the psyche.

And in my view, Jyotish is the ancient psychoanalytic method, and very nuanced and very precise, in fact. 

One should understand this idea as in the foundation courses of while learning Jyotish, where you understand at what age in life, at what stage in life is governed overall by which Graha, and it gives us a timing technique. And timing, as we know in Jyotish, is called dashas. And this dasha, natural ages dasha, is called Naisargika Dasha, which means the natural dasha, the dasha when nature takes over, And then we have our personal private cycles, time cycles. And the natural time cycle and our private personal cycles can be in conflict or be in alignment, so which is part of the technique as, as we go further into this idea, further into this concept So it's quite profound that way

[00:19:12] The Ancient Source of Planetary Ages

So I'd read a sutra, a translation of the sutra from the sutra is appears in Yavana Jataka of Spujidhvaja, but the same ages and stuff appear in Parashara Hora as well. So it says, "The Moon's age is that of consuming milk. One should know that of Mars as following of teeth arising, and Mercury the time of learning lessons up to the beginning of, sexual agitation."

So we know zero to one, consuming milk. Two and three isteeth arising. Mars is the following of teeth arising. Mercury, the time of learning lessons from four up till 12. And Venus is youth, which is known as that described previously, which is sexual agitation, which is 13 to 32.

And then it says, "Jupiter is spoken as that of the middle." So middle age, which is 32 to 50. The Sun runs from the half, which is 50 to 70, and from that the last great accomplishment is Saturn's unfortunate time, which is post-70s. And we have another sutra in Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, which also gives us a way to calculate more precisely, because there we don't have the exact times.

Because Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra says one, two, nine, 20, 18, 20, and also 50 from the time of birth. From that order is also known as Nisargaja Dasha. So it's giving a calculation of how to calculate it, 

So Moon is one year, Mars is for two years Mercury is for nine years, Venus is for 20 years Jupiter is for 18 years. So it's the numbers that it's giving is the, the number of years that each of these natural ages appear.

that's where we get this one sutra, if I may. In chapter two, 2.7 it's Shrestha Dasha Sve Vayasi Grahasya. Excellent is a Dasha of a Graha in its own age, which has been such a...

When this sutra appeared in my practice, it appeared quite late after me practicing for about seven, seven years or eight, eight years. And I was always in my sessions, one technique if I can give, the first thing I see is not a Graha, nothing.

[00:21:20] What Parents Can Learn from this Approach

I just see which Dasha did this person have in the first three years of their life.

What, what's happening to that Graha.

Yep

Because from developmental psychology literature, from trauma-informed approach, we know how important those formative years are. 

 so that's the first thing we need to see. And so if a child in their Moon age, in their Mars, Mercury age, is getting a very complex Dasha, like Rahu, Saturn, which mature at 42, which are late stage Grahas.

Even in maturation, Saturn is 35, 36, and 70 in the natural ages. In a lunar age, when you have that, first of all, the parent needs to have a little bit of strength in their ego structures to hold this information together, not freak out, but take it as knowledge which can help them understand their child, that soul's karma.

Because it's their child, so you're gonna get a little sensitive about it, but it's also soul that is here for you to work with. So that's when, this information can be very powerful if your ego structures help you stay okay in the face of, And I've I've had the good sort of opportunities, good fortune in some sense to do sessions for parents and little kids or little children, babies and stuff also who had interesting conjunctions, interesting complex dashas.

And as the session went, the parents were so relieved. They were so relieved to understand what was happening and how to navigate that, how to deal with that, and where to look. What's the aftermath of a session after, where to go, where- how to approach this, and what kind of things that a child, a soul going through an experience like this needs.

What a parent raising a soul working with a child like this needs also, which is even more important, this is a very important part

example, Sachin. Yeah. And it's, it's a great way for people to understand the power of this work that you've put together, that it is something practical, and it's something that if you're listening to this as a parent, you will be able to implement straight away. It's gonna give you insights right now into how to be the most useful and helpful custodian of that consciousness in a, in a maturing body. So I love that example. There's many other ways that I can think of it being used as well. teenagers really come to mind for me because with teenagers, we have Mercury out there wanting to discover everything, and being like a... young teenagers I'm talking about. trying on every costume that there is, not knowing really who I am yet. But Jupiter's mature, so my ideals, are very strong perhaps or very clear to me. And, one week I'm coming home and all the injustices that teenagers... "How? I just found out that, there's poverty in the world," or, "I just found out that, people are wrongly imprisoned," or whatever. really see that, that ide- idealism in young people so strongly. And this, again, is a model that straight away you can begin to, to find a useful way through that.

[00:24:32] How Awareness Changes Your Parenting Approach

And it's also in the context of Jungian work, which I feel like I haven't done as much justice as bringing out from Sachin. So this is perhaps a conversation for us to pick up again. But just one of the things that I got from reading the book was the, the idea of how important effort is, how important efforting is, that this is what helps us wake up. It's what helps us bring our awareness and have self-reflection on what we're experiencing, which is what helps us mature, 

just participation is, would be the word that I evoke for myself. Participation in the natural rhythms of this unconscious winds of fate that we'd experience. All of us would experience. Different genes would randomly activate and deactivate at different stages. Psychogenetic factors would activate, deactivate.

So as these winds would appear and take hold of our psyche, there has to be some sort of active participation from time to time where you're gonna s- live very fortunate moments, and to sit and to acknowledge, to do as much as you can, and then whatever it's whatever is ultimately, which is anyway the case.

But that's the side of, yeah, participation, it doesn't just look like probably effort, I would say. Effort is one part of participation. Awareness. Sometimes you just, for example, you just watch your teenager do some shenanigans. You can't do anything. There, there's no right move.

Whatever you're gonna do is gonna backfire. All you can do is watch, but your watching is important, for it needs to probably have a psychological impact on yourself, maybe to have an impact on your own inner teenager. Maybe you'd extract some interesting thing from their righteousness about w- the world and how much wrong is happening in the world, and how maybe you, as me, as a human being, has become numb to it, and maybe they would freshen that part of ourselves up.

It's oh, they're not wrong. This generation that's coming up, it's they're not wrong in what they're saying, and just probably become numb to it because you can't help it. So sometimes it's about just being present with it, aware. Sometimes it's an effort, sometimes... But there's some form of participation that will take place when a knowledge appears if the knowledge doesn't appear, then there's no participation because we don't even know what Jupiter is, what that age is, what maturation is, what any of this is.

But once you know something will happen it's not a problem to solve. The knowledge will act itself upon your psyche in some ways, if I-- if that makes sense

Good. All right, Sachin.

[00:27:13] Join "The Phases of Life" Book Club

Now how do people get ahold of this book, The Stages of Life:

 just my website, www.searchinsachin.com,And there you can find both my books, "The ologies of Jyotish" and "The Stages of Life." And you just click on the thing, and you just make the payment, and you receive the book.

And yeah, it is just a digital copy, just PDFs that you'd receive, and yeah

Fantastic. And, and if you guys are listening to this, you're interested in it, interested in it as an astrologer perhaps bringing this matrix of information about ages so that you can do some insightful work even without a chart, or maybe you are interested in Jyotish but are not up for studying, an enormous amount about dashas and about Jaimini techniques and about transits, but you would like to access information about how karma makes itself manifest over time, you might like to join Sachin and myself in a book club that I'm hosting on this very book. We're going to meet once a month beginning in November, and we'll have the chance to go through section by section. when we get together, we'll be able to over any paragraphs or concepts that are new or interesting or how these concepts match together with Sachin himself. people will be able to bring their charts or their own scenarios and talk through examples with Sachin and myself. So if this is the kind of topic that interests you, please do follow through and join me on Patreon at Fiona Marques. 

If any part of this interested you, whatever we discussed today, know that it's just the topmost layer of it, and just any one, just maturation, natural age, or any other of these ideas that get opened up, you just go a little deeper in it, and it's just so enriching.

It comes from a place of practice, and 

 we also, we haven't pulled the threads on the Jungian side because in within those four natural stages of life from a Jungian point of view, there are these ways of learning, aren't there? You go through and talk about how that stage unfolds, and what you might see in the first portion of that stage and in the middle portion of that stage.

So lots of like sutra threads to pull on both the Jyotish and the Jungian side

side, yeah Yes.

Good. Well all that remains, Sachin, is to thank you so much for coming along again today, and helping us to see how Western psychology and ancient traditions of Jyotish can complement each other, can dialogue with each other. They're not the same systems, but they complement and enrich our understanding as practitioners. Really appreciate

Thank you so much. Always. Thank you. Always a pleasure, truly

Great. And thanks everyone for staying with us, and look forward to talking to you the next time that we're here on the Vedic Astrology Podcast. Bye everyone. Bye-bye