How do you Knowflakes feel about Vedic astrology?According to astroved.com, here are my "Astro Details":
Birth Star : Punarvasu
Birth Lagna: Taurus
Sun Sign : Virgo
Moon Sign : Cancer
In western astrology, I'm a Libra w/Cancer Moon. My Rising is Taurus 29.48 degrees.
I signed up for the newsletter. Here's some interesting stuff I've NEVER heard of. You would think that in India, men rule. But according to this...
"Goddess or Eve: The Concept of the Feminine
(The following note is a summary of lecture that Baba Sri Siva gave to the Department of Asian studies, University of Pittsburgh about 15 years ago.)
"Ancient civilizations worshipped the goddess. Pre-Pythagoran philosophers had been in direct communion with the goddess for their knowledge. Even Socrates had a woman Guru by name of Diotima. The goddesses like Minerva, Venus and Diana were well-known in Greek and Roman mythology. The Egyptians had their own goddesses.
But most of the goddess worship is dead today. One thing that is curious about India is that it has sustained a living tradition of the goddess. The goddesses are present in the Indians singing as early as the 3rd Millennium BC during the Indus Valley Civilization. India had past through both matriarchal and patriarchal societies. Remnants of both have continued to this day.
The goddess if very much alive in the Hindu pantheon. The goddesses are not simply mythological figures, but they are actively worshipped in homes and temples.
The concept of the goddess or the archetypal feminine is very unique in India philosophy. Paradoxically, the goddess is the symbol of strength in Indian Meta-physics. She is called Shakti in Sanskrit. Shakti means power and energy.
It is somewhat confusing to conceive of the female as power. Usually we think power or energy goes with the male. But in Indian philosophy, male is a stationary force without energy. Siva, the archetypal male, is often pictured as one a dead body. His wife Parvati or Kali on the other hand is the power. This is represented graphically of Kali coming out of the dead body of Siva.
That the god is motionless and the goddess full of energy is not simply a concept unique to Hinduism. Sylvia Browne has channeled a lot of material on this subject. The channeled materials say that power and energy is with the goddess. The god simply is without power in the absence of the goddess.
Shankara, the greatest exponent of Indian philosophy became depressed. It is the goddess that put him back in a blissful state after he started worshiping her. In his last work called "The Waves of Bliss", he maintains that the world is the goddess and without her nothing can exist.
Who is the goddess?
The goddess is the archetypal feminine energy that is both within the human males and females as part of their unconscious. A human female has more of the goddess energy than the human male. It puts the woman on an elevated pedestal. She holds the key for success or failure.
There is a common saying that a woman is fundamentally responsible for a man's success. Conversely, the woman is also responsible for a man's fall as well. This brings us to the discussion of my title, whether a goddess or an Eve.
As a goddess the woman can do good things; or as Eve she can bring destruction as well. During the upcoming Satya Yuga, we will increasingly feel the power of the feminine. Days are not far off when there will be a woman President of the United States. Personally, I look forward to this happening. Why?
A woman is full of love. She is the nurturer. The man plants the seeds in the womb and becomes aloof. He has no role in growing the embryo and then later on, to nurture the baby when it comes out of the womb.
Freud had profound understanding of this male-female behavior. He pointed out the phenomenon of millions of sperms running around, directionless as the basis for the typical male behavior. The eggs sitting on the other hand, disallowing the entry inside is the basis of the female behavior. I want to stop here, my aside on the male-female eschatology.
On a practical note I want to say something about the goddess. The human female and the archetypal female (the goddess) have a symbiotic relationship. You can access the archetypal goddess energy of primordial power through the human female. She can be your mother, your girlfriend or your sister. Being nice and kind to the human female pleases the goddess immensely. In India there is a tradition even today to worship the woman as goddess herself.
If you want quick material benefits like getting a house, car, relationship, etc., you can go to the goddess. Primarily there are three goddess archetypes very active in the Hindu tradition. They are Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, Saraswati, the Goddess of Music and Education, and Parvati, the Goddess of Energy and Enlightenment.
-- Baba Sri Siva"
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I found SEVERAL versions of the image Kali: