Our life never behaves in a straight line. It is a complex cause-and-effect diagram with a whole lot of causes, sub-causes, primary and secondary causes, and desired or undesired outcomes, but eventually moving in one general direction. What we derive out of life is also a similarly complex set of physiological, psychological, and spiritual experiences which all fuse together to give us one single experience in that one general direction – Life.
In some senses, Astrology, or Jyotish, helps decode life. It helps us construct the complex cause and effects of our lives mapping how it and everything associated with it, works together in concert to be able to move us further in our life journey, year by year, month by month, and day by day. Just like life, astrology too has many layers and shades to it, and dealing with the subject as a single composite may be a mistake all of us make when learning to bring the building blocks of astrology together. For this article, let’s focus on one area of astrology which relates to how the timing of events unfolds themselves during the course of our lives – also known as Dashas and Transits.
When we are born, a certain position of planets in the sky gets imprinted on a piece of paper, or in todays world, bits and bytes of an astrology software, which we call as our Birth Chart. This is a unique signature we carry with us for the duration of our lives. But the planets don’t stop moving, do they? They haven’t for time eternity, and will not for time eternity. The movement of the planets in our solar system across the topology of space and stars is termed as the Transits. By astronomical calculations, we now know the position, orbits and speeds of each of these heavenly bodies and where it would be with respect of the earth at any given moment of time. So, what is a birth chart if not just a snapshot of the transits of the planets at the very moment when we were born. So, in essence, the birth chart is our first transit chart. We take this chart to be our imprint on this planet, but the moment we take the imprint, time changes and so does transit. So, this gives us two deductions which we would work with –
A. A birth chart is static
B. Transits are dynamic
This brings us to the next element of analysis – Dasha. Dasha is the measure of time, a period, a timeframe. If we go into the theoretical roots, Dasha was nonexistent. We, as humans defined a Dasha, just like we defined time, or invented a clock to measure time. Time flows and doesn’t wait to inform us it’s 12:00 noon. It is we who have divided the time into logical parts to measure, control, and act on our daily events as per the time. This article does not go into the science of defining time. Let’s take that as a hypothesis that time is logically bifurcated into multiple parts based on various types of calculations – the position of sun, position of moon, position of stars. Dasha is one such definition of a period of time, with finite start and end points, during which a certain planet has an influence over various aspects of the subjects life. The Dasha sequence is the order in which planets influence our lives over certain periods of time. It is similar to the different developmental phases of life we experience – infancy, childhood, teenage, adulthood and old age. There are periods defined by humans, as to 0-1 year is an infant, or 12-18 years is teenage. These are generally acceptable timeframes during which there are some generally expected behaviors and outcomes. For example , a teenager is generally expected to be a rebel without a cause, or during old age a person is generally expected to be mature, calm and balanced.
Similarly we experience a sequence and durations of periods from the time we are born, till the time we leave this life, know as a Dasha sequence. A Dasha sequence starts with the position of Moon at the time of the birth of a native. This is our first Dasha, our initiation to the world. Another translation of the term Dasha is conditions we experience. For example, a bad dasha period might expose us bodily or otherwise to tough conditions, so the dasha period is not conducive and our dasha (condition) might not be good. Lets remember this term “condition” as applied to Dasha. It will help us in our later analysis of how Dasha changes affect our life. So, the first Dasha is the conditions we are subjected to when we are born, and the duration of the first dasha, as operated under the influence of a certain planet, will expose us to conditions or promises by that certain planet. Lets take an example of a child born in a Saturn period. For now, since we have not gone into the intricacies of dasha period, we will keep it simply related to a single planet. Saturn, in a general sense, is associated to the hardships we have to face in our life. There are many other areas of life which Saturn will affect, but the general theme in which Saturn teaches us these lessons is through hardships. So, in a broad sense, a child born in a Saturn dasha could face health issues which are very bodily oriented. This is where we have to introduce the “Magic Wand” for every astrology student – Desh, Kaal, Paristithi, translated to, Place,Time,Conditions. This is by far the single most powerful concept which will help us understand how planetary influences and their complex inter-dependencies play out at any given moment of time for a native. We have to bring into perspective, the place where the native is, the time he is in, and the conditions he is in. A person who is on his deathbed, may not be too worried about career options in life. In our earlier example, if Saturn is supposed to bring hardships to a child who is just born, the hardship which a infant is capable of experiencing is bodily harm. Having a bad spouse or a tough boss, probably is not very here and now for the new born baby. This is how we have to bring into perspective the results which a person can/may/will experience, but bring in perspective, logic and common sense all at work together.