Is the solar eclipse caused by Rahu, and not the Moon?

Those of you who grew up in Nepal, India and other parts of the subcontinent have heard of Rahu-Ketu, especially in the context of astrologers who repeat these terms in a tedious refrain. If you frequent astrologers, you might also have come to associate these terms with malefic events and happenings—anything catastrophically bad, it seems, is always due to the presence of these two malefic “chaya graha,” which translate to “shadow planets” in Sanskrit.  Note graha means “to seize”, and astrologers believe these planets seize us when their ruling time periods are dominant in our lives. 

Some of you may also be aware that astrologers believe Rahu eclipses the Sun, and Ketu the Moon, although this bit of astronomical information may be less remembered than the overwhelming impression of malefic energy associated with these two terms. Eclipses in birthcharts are always viewed as malefic events—even though they may heighten material powers and wealth. 

The two shadow graha tend to magnify the planets they are with, and the houses they sit in--meaning malefic effects get heightened for malefic conjunction, and benefics get heightened for benefics.

Eclipses are also powerful moments of transformation. 

Western astrologers have also adopted Rahu and Ketu, tactfully give them the moniker of the “north node” and “south node” of the Moon and shearing them of mythological weirdness. They do not give those two full planet status, as the Hindus do. The navagrahas, or nine planets, are propitiated fully by the Hindus, who see the seven planets plus the two chaya graha as a set of nine planets (navagraha) that are intertwined, inalienable and part of the same cosmic system. The navagraha are all powerful, and they rule our lives every moment and every ghati till our last prana, or breath.

If you live in Thailand, you know Phra Rahu (pronounced “Pla Lahu”) as a potent force who brings success and luck with his magnifying powers. The Thais have temples to Phra Rahu, and they make offerings of plateful of black food—black incense, black Oreo cookies, black Coca-Cola, etc—to the black deity. Businesses put out fish aquariums full of white rock sugar which are munched by a slightly moving layer of giant black ants, which are thought to signify the presence of Rahu, and whose contentment will bring about expansion and success to the business. Thailand’s ex Prime Minister Thaksin has publicly stated he believes his prayers to Phra Rahu saved him from an airplane crash.

If you have practiced Jyotish (Indian, “Vedic”) astrology, as I have, you may also have been puzzled as to why these two mythological chaya graha or shadow planets appear in perfectly plotted charts which feature the seven other planets, which Western science also agrees exists. In birthcharts which are now calculated by computers, you will see Rahu and Ketu appear beside the other seven planets, and their presence are a potent and powerful presence to explaining the happenings in people’s lives. 

If you’ve learnt a bit of “Vedic astrology," you may even have migrated to it after leaving your original discipline, because you’ve realized the Vedics used the sidereal zodiac, which is an exact replica of the heavens—if they say Jupiter has moved into Leo, NASA will also tell you Jupiter has moved into Regulus, which is a part of the constellation of Leo. Western astrologers, in contrast, will say Leo is already in Virgo— they use the tropical zodiac which is not synched to the heavens. 

So jyotish astrology uses actual objective observation of the stars, and the movement of heavenly bodies, for their calculations. Their zodiac is not imaginary—it is a map of real constellations. 

The 27 constellations or nakshaktra are also a very important part of jyotish astrology, closely consulted and minutely broken down in mathematical formulations. If they say you were born with Jupiter in your Sagittarius ascendent, you can be sure Jupiter was in Sagittarius, the heavenly constellation, when you were born. Surely for practitioners who seem to be one step ahead of the Western astrologers in terms of scientific observations, the inclusion of Rahu-Ketu is a bit…weird?

Well now, its about to get a lot weirder. Because what if, in fact, the Western scientists who pretend to know-it-all in fact had no clue about what caused eclipses? And they were following old theories based on the restrictions of Christian belief?

If you take a look at this video, you will see two men talking about how the notion that the solar eclipse is caused by the Moon coming in between the earth and the Sun doesn’t make sense, because there have been many documented cases in which both the Sun and the Moon were visible in the sky during an eclipse. Don’t freak out or shut down because they put swastikas in the end—their point is that swastikas were ancient symbols of auspiciousness which were then perverted by the Nazis, “darkening the mind”—in much the same way as the eclipse does to the luminaries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ILkHoaySeY

Now lets check out the interesting phenomena of Donald Trump’s chart, which according to jyotish astrology has two eclipses—one is the lunar eclipse and the other is the solar eclipse directly below. Donald Trump was born during a lunar eclipse, as Western scientists will agree—and as his chart shows with Moon being conjunct to Ketu. Note that I could easily know this information just by plotting his chart whereas for journalists seeking information on his birth this wouldn’t have been as known—because who in the Western world is keeping track of eclipses and their effects on people, frankly? 

I should note that before we start blacklisting people born during eclipses, that these can also be powerful magnifiers of creativity, spirituality, drama and art, amongst other human impulses—Paolo Coelho, Lady Gaga, and Johnny Depp all have Moon conjunct Ketu, which means they were born during lunar eclipses.

Here is Trump's chart (slightly cut at one end because my computer and browser are really old and get buggy):

This is a screenshot of one of my Tweets:

Check out Donald #Trump's chart.

See his Sun conjunct #RAHU, which astrologers believe causes solar #eclipse?

See Moon is conjunct Ketu?

Note Trump's Moon is conjunct Ketu, meaning he was born during a lunar eclipse—the Moon chart shows the day in which the person was born. 

Note that in his 7^th house, which is his house of marriage and partnerships, he has Sun conjunct Rahu, creating a solar eclipse. This is known as graha yogas, or eclipse conjunctions, and both are considered inauspicious by astrologers. 

I don’t want to speculate about Trump's marriage, but from the look of unhappiness on his spouse's face we can be sure its not the happiest one. Sun is the sign of governance, and Rahu can often be the rule-breaker, who tries to rise high and get to priviledged places beyond its allotted sphere, so obviously he’s succeeded in the material sphere of "success". Rahu also magnifies, and is the signifier for fame, electronic methods of communication, and also crowds—Trump’s relationships have an element of all of those. Eventually though, Rahu is an illusion—and it will shift and vanish, letting the sun shine once more, once the eclipse is over.

Both eclipses darken the qualities of the luminaries—Sun represents the state or government, and the Moon represents the mind as well as the masses, meaning that both of these have received an element of darkness from Trump.

When the Moon conjuncts the Sun in a chart, this doesn’t automatically lead to an eclipse—as Western science tells us. Jyotish tells us its two specific and autonomous grahas of their own, independent of the moon, who cause this. If you look at the TIME magazine video below, you can see the narrator struggling to explain the odd shape of the lunar shadow, and twisting himself in knots to explain why its such an odd, uneven shape.

http://time.com/4902132/solar-eclipse-path/

I have a bit of fun with that.

We don’t actually know what causes eclipses. Science says it’s the Earth coming between the Sun and Moon during a lunar eclipse, and the Moon coming between the Sun and Earth during a solar one. The jyotishi say it is Ketu and Rahu, shadow planets which deserve their own status as planets. Note Rahu-Ketu move in retrograde motion, and science has also observed the shadow during eclipse to move in retrograde motion. As mentioned in one of the videos, and as we know from our own observations, the Moon doesn’t move in retrograde motion.

Perhaps know-it-all Western science can learn from “superstitious” astrology, after all? Eclipses are these rare moments of total blackness during which you can see phenomena otherwise invisible to the naked eyes. We are often in partially eclipsed darkness, and do not see what’s going on because we are blinded by disinformation at every turn—as with the Nazis that are embedded in every institution and every little town of the USA, and which have now emerged into that spectral light of the full solar eclipse. This is an opportunity for the USA to see into its soul, see the Nazis that are embedded in their institutions and their bureaucracy, their planning and their defense. This is the time for a revolution.