This is a transcript of a radio interview given by Chakrapani Ullal to David Anton Savage.  This interview is about the terrorist attacks on America on September 11^th, and its relevance with relation to the American Independence Chart.  There are various dates and times given for the American Independence, however I follow July 4^th, 1776 at 6:30pm in Philadelphia, PA which indicates the rising sign as Sagittarius, Ketu in the second house in Capricorn, Moon in the 3^rd house in Aquarius, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Sun in the 7^th house in Gemini, retrograde Mercury and Rahu in the 8^th house in Cancer and Saturn in the 10^th house in Virgo, according to Vedic Astrology.

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David: I’ve heard Sagittarius on the negative side has a little bit of this “hey, I know I’m right and you need to go with me.”

Chakrapani: Yes, it is there but it is because of other factors and we will come to that.  The other factor is that Sagittarius rising indicates a warrior, so that means he is one who thinks he is a dispenser of Justice.  And especially because Sagittarius is influenced by Ketu here, that influence becomes strong. 

Now, ruler of the rising sign Jupiter is in the 7^th house, aspecting the rising sign very strongly and very powerfully.  When the ruler of the rising sign aspects the rising sign, it makes the rising sign extremely powerful.  And now, in the 7^th house in Gemini that Jupiter is conjunct with Mars, Mars is the ruler of the 5^th and the 12^th houses and Mars is called the planet of war.  And when Mars conjuncts with Jupiter it makes a natural Commander-in-Chief.  Jupiter supports Mars fully as the planet of energy, aggravation and aggressive spirit.

D: And Jupiter and Mars are friends so they’re liable to support each other.

C: Correct.  And they are natural friends.  Therefore, that Jupiter/Mars conjunction coming in contact with Sagittarius supports that power of war-like spirit.  Also, Jupiter is conjunct with the Sun, a fiery planet and ruler of the 9^th house — so the connection indicates wanting to excel and grow.  The 9^th house has a strong influence and the Sun is the ruler of the 9^th house, Jupiter is the significator of the 9^th house so there is a special connection.   The 9^th house is always wanting to expand and grow continuously.  Sun is always associated with power, prestige and status.

D: Royal or regal qualities.

C.  Correct.  So Mars, Jupiter and the Sun promote this.  And the Sun associated with Mars brings a little bit of an arrogant nature. 

D: You won’t get any argument from me on that one.  Our policies in the United States tend to be a little bit, shall we say, pushy.

C: Yes, and that goes along with the Mars, Jupiter, Sun conjunction.  And now we have the Venus there which is supposed to be the dispenser of friendliness.  But after all, even though it is a friendly planet and it is placed in friendly sign — still it is a malefic for this rising sign.  So, being a malefic, “if you are not a friend of mine you have no power to influence me.” 

D: Also, Venus is not exactly a friend of Mars or Jupiter...

C: Correct, he is not a friend of Mars, nor the Sun, nor Jupiter.  “So, even though you consider yourself a good man, you have not influence over me.” 

D: That’s one of the interesting things about Vedic Astrology - the friend, enemy and neutral relationship that various planets have amongst each other and within sign.  Although, Venus situated in Gemini is not necessarily a bad place for it, it just has a lot of rough company.

C: Company that will not listen to Venus.   Now these four planets aspecting the rising sign is a very powerful indication.  Because that shows the strength and the power and the spirit, energy and dynamism of the rising sign.  That is one aspect we must consider.

The second aspect we must consider is Saturn in the 10^th house.  It is aspecting Mars, Venus, Jupiter, the Sun.

D: Oh that’s correct since Saturn aspects the 3^rd and 10^th house from whatever position, counted inclusively, from where it sits in an astrological chart. So that really gets Saturn quite involved there. 

C: Correct, Saturn is very much involved with the 7^th house here.  So when Saturn is aspecting the Sun, Mars and Jupiter it naturally attracts a certain amount of struggle, a challenge.  And it attracts war-like energy.   

D: Much has been said about the interaction between Saturn, Mars and Jupiter for war patterns in the world. 

C: That is exactly what it attracts. War-like energy, spirit, dynamism, aggressiveness, conflict, a sense of struggle. 

D: And it’s in the 10^th which is the most, shall we say, the mid-point, the most visible part of the zodiac for this chart.   

C: Correct.  It indicates the sense of responsibility in establishing order and discipline for the world.

D: The 10^th house is also naturally the house of authority or government.

C: Correct.  It is the government.  That is why it believes “I have the responsibility to bring order and discipline in the world.

Then, added to that, another very important factor is the fact that Mercury and Rahu are situated in the 8^th house from the rising sign.  And ruler of the 8^th house is the Moon which is situated in the 3^rd house.

D: Which is 8^th from the 8^th.  What is that Sanskrit term? 

C: It is called Ashtama and the 8^th from the 8^th is a malefic sign.

D: The 3^rd house is 8^th from the 8^th, so we have the ruler of the 8^th house (Moon) 8^th from the 8^th, that tends to pump it up.  How do you say that in Sanskrit, Bhavat Bhavam?

C: Yes, Bhavat Bhava.  So, 8^th from the 8^th is a malefic placement.  It is one of the houses that has a tendency to indicate death.  Now if you look further, the ruler of the Moon Sign (which is in Aquarius) is Saturn and it is situated 8^th from the Moon.

D: So again we get another extension of this concept of 8^th.

C: And 8^th is a malefic house.  It is called a Shosta Astama Vaya.  The three malefic houses are 6, 8 and 12.  So it is indicator of the 8^th.  So what happens then is that the Moon occupies an important placement.

D: Also, the Moon gives the emotional character of the U.S.  Being Aquarius it’s, how shall we say, it’s a kind of reformer but it’s also very idiosyncratic.

C: Yes correct.  It is the reformer, it is idealistic, it is philosophical but at the same time it is eccentric.

D: “You must change but I don’t change.” They say about Aquarius’-- “I’ll show you how to change but I won’t change myself.”

C: No, because “I already changed!”  “You haven’t changed, I have!”

D: I find it’s an interesting match with the Sagittarius rising, you add an Aquarius Moon and there’s something about that...

C: Yes, they are thinking “I am perfect, you are not.”, that idea.  “I have already reformed myself and now you must reform.”

D: There does seem to be a little bit of that going on with some of our foreign policies.  We keep telling other people that they have to do it our way.

C: Yes, so that’s the nature of this Moon.  But from the Moon, the 5^th house is well-placed and well connected.  That indicates the other side of the U.S.A which is brilliance, cleverness, supporting learning, education, knowledge, engineering, technology.   All of those things are indicated from the Moon — those aspects are very good.

D: We should also mention to our listeners that those 4 planets in Gemini, across from the rising sign, that when you change the chart to look at it from the Moon it shows a very, very powerful  5^th house.  A house of great intelligence, the ability to learn...and with those 4 planets it’s very well lit up.  So from the Moon’s position it’s very positive.

C: It is a sharp intellect! 

D: And many bright sons and daughters have been born in America.

C: So that is the nature of the 5^th house from the Moon.  But we see now that we are in the Moon Dasha (cycle) of the US chart, which has begun from October 1998 and the Moon Dasha operates for 10 years.  And this Moon happens to be the ruler of the 8^th house situated in the 3^rd house.

D: A very powerful malefic situation from the rising sign.

C: Correct.  From the rising sign it attracts a certain amount of powerful malefic situations. 

D: And as we said before, the ruler of the house where the Moon is sitting is also 8^th from the Moon which amplifies this even more.

C: Yes, that 8^th house aspect becomes more and more important. 

D: Mr. Ullal, should we talk about what planets were transiting what parts of the U.S. chart on September 11^th or do you need to make some more points here.

C: On September 11^th the most important transit at that time operating was Mars, a very dominant planet, planet of war was passing through the rising sign at 7 degrees, 17 minutes.

D: Almost conjunct the rising degree of the Natal Chart?

C: Correct, it is very close.  Mars, a planet of violence and also Ketu was transiting the same point at 9 degrees.

D: Oh, so this is a very tight conjunction between two very violent, rash planets.

C: They are occupying either side of the rising sign point. 

D: The scissors.

C:  It’s called Papa Kartara Yoga.  It is like a scissors.  The two malefic planets act as a scissors, wanting to cut.

D: We should also remind that the rising degree is in Mula [the Nakshatra] ruled by Ketu. 

C: So that means that the rising degree is ruled by Ketu and Ketu is transiting Mula in the rising degree and Mars, which is a malefic planet, is conjunct with Ketu.  And Ketu is poisonous!

D: And Ketu is Kujavat which means “acting like Mars”.  So this is all a very tight conjunction right around the rising sign, with 1 or 2 degrees in all cases, very, very tight.

C: Correct. 

D: That’s one thing that will set up extreme violence and of course anything that happens in the 1^st house happens to the “self” so what happened on September 11^th felt very personal to everybody who lives in the U.S.

C: Yes, it affects the country.  It is the body of the country affected.

D: Anything else we should look at in terms of what was a critical transit moment during that morning.

C: Another point which is very important is that the Moon is conjunct with Saturn.

D: Ahh, I see the transiting Moon was conjunct.....

C:  The transiting Moon was conjunct with the transiting Saturn.  And the transiting Saturn was passing through one of the most critical points in Taurus.  It is called Rohini Shakata Beda. 

D: Oh, I’ve heard about this. Saturn transiting through Rohini.

C: Yes, the Nakshatra Rohini.

D: Which is one of the lunar mansions, one of the 27 lunar mansions in Vedic Astrology.  Can you talk a little bit about that.

C: It is said that when Saturn is passing through Rohini Nakshatra until 23 degrees 20 minutes in Taurus.  It has a tendency to go through some negative aspects, like it went through the negative aspects with Mars, very lately until the 26^th of August.  There was a Mars/Saturn opposition and especially because Mars was retrograde in Sagittarius, it went back into Scorpio and was challenging Saturn and then it came back to Sagittarius again.  So the Martian influence was operating very strongly even though Mars was in Sagittarius, that Saturn/Mars opposition situated in Scorpio has been the theme. 

D: Now we should also mention that this transit position of Saturn through Rohini is in the US chart’s 6^th house of enemies. 

C: And moreover, Rohini Shakata Beda means that when the malefic like Saturn is passing through it creates a powerful inimical situation which acts as if it is breaking the vehicle of Rohini.

D: And Rohini is symbolized by the cart. 

C: Yes, so it is that kind of influence which was operating and it is operating in 2000 until June 2002.  Then, more importantly, the transiting Jupiter was aspecting Gemini.  Now, everybody may think “Oh, Jupiter is in Gemini and it is transiting it’s original house and is aspecting the rising sign very strongly therefore it must support the rising sign”, one may think like that.  But it doesn’t work like that.  In mundane astrology, sometimes Jupiter’s cycle — meaning the placement of the natal Jupiter when in transit comes to the same point.  In certain circumstances it acts as a negative influence.

D: It’s also that in some ways the 7^th house is not the best directional position for Jupiter to be in.

C: No, Jupiter in the 7^th house is okay.  It acts as a negative because Jupiter is conjunct transiting Rahu.  Rahu and Jupiter when they are conjunct are a conjunction of two opposites, unequals.  Jupiter is Supreme, Rahu is the greatest malefic. 

D: Malecha — an outcast.

C: Correct.  When they are conjunct it creates a malefic influence.  Moreover, for US chart Rahu is Avayogi.

D: Avayogi is a very significant special calculation or status of a planet.  Which makes it a very severe malefic for the US chart.

C: And that Rahu is coming in contact with Jupiter but it is also, of course, in conjunction with Mars.  But much more importantly it is aspected by the transiting Mars.  The transiting Mars is aspecting Rahu.  And Mars is fire, Rahu is poison.  So when they are connected naturally it is fire or poison they are likely to manifest.

D: Also, isn’t there a situation where even though Jupiter may be in a good position if you have Saturn in the 12^th from Jupiter its like a Veda — it takes away some of the benefic power of Jupiter again, so Jupiter is yet again not in a position to help as a great benefic as ruler of the rising sign in the US chart but having Saturn in the 12^th from it takes away a lot of power.

C: It acts as a malefic.  That Jupiter acts as a malefic because it is occupying the Jupiter cycle and when it is associated with certain malefics it purely acts as a malefic and moreover, that is where war-like energy is indicated.  Jupiter is a peacemaker but he is also a warrior. 

D: Well every planet has to have its dark side to it.

C: So that kind of influence is operating due to Jupiter.  Jupiter supports that war-like energy.

D:  Do you take into account any of the outer planets like Neptune, Pluto and Uranus, the so-called neo-Vedic approach?

C: No, I am only purely Vedic Astrology.  So, these are the powerful significant positions of the planets transiting.  Out of these, the most significant position is the influence of Saturn in Taurus which created a ground for getting into problems.  And Mars/Ketu conjunction in Sagittarius and Jupiter/Rahu conjunction in Gemini created additional aspects which created this problem.

D: I noticed also that not only transiting Moon is aspecting Saturn natally but Saturn transiting is aspecting the Natal position of the Moon.  That’s quite a reciprocal thing and as we said before Moon in the 3^rd house as ruler of the 8^th is 8^th from the 8^th , Saturn is the ruler of the house where the Moon is and is situated 8^th from it.  So its now doing a natal position, transit position and mutual aspect thing at the same time. 

C: And moreover, from the Moon, transiting Saturn is in the 4^th house which is very malefic. And malefic Saturn in the 4^th house associated with Rohini Shakata Beda created what it created. 

D: So many people might ask couldn’t someone have predicted what was going to happen?

C: You know, people would have been able to predict it but what happens is that this mundane astrology is meant for leisurely work.  People who are funded can have the time to do this leisurely work for the purpose of research.  It requires the interest in pursuing that sort of information.  For instance, if there is an organization, like the government funding money to research scientists, funding a hundred astrologers then they would be able to do all this kind of work. 

D: It’s complicated affairs because if you’re looking at the birth chart of a nation I’d say the karma or the destiny of a nation is far more complex than that of a single individual.  It would be a very difficult task indeed.  Like if you wanted to a chart for the fate of the president you have to match this with the US chart and then see the outcome, he’s no longer an individual person acting by himself. 

Any comments on what you see down the road.  I see there are some eclipses coming up, I think December 14^th there is a lunar eclipse 29 degrees Scorpio which is a gandant or a point. 

C: Correct there are eclipses coming and now until the end of June 2002 it is still a difficult period.  The Rahu is still passing through Gemini and Ketu is still passing through Sagittarius. And there are eclipses in the months of December and January which is influencing the rising sign, very much so.  And thereafter the Rahu and Saturn conjunction takes place in Taurus which is a malefic conjunction which is in the 4^th house from the Moon.  And then there will be Saturn/Mars conjunction in the 4^th house from the Moon.  There will be Saturn/Sun conjunction in the 4^th house from the Moon, and there is an eclipse on the 10^th of June 2002.

D: A solar eclipse.

C: Yes.  It means May and June are very difficult months comparatively and therefore it is a continuation of the present situation in some way, and will increase in May and June in some form or another. And until the end of June 2002 it is going to be difficult from all angles, from the angle of terrorism, difficulties, suffering, fear and psychology strongly until June.  And generally speaking because the Moon is the ruler of the 8^th house the Moon is operating until 2008, there will be this fear, this struggle with terrorism and this sort of activity in some measure continuing until 2008.  

D: It seems like the Nodal influences with their unexpected results, poisonous influences and strange toxins and also fearful psychological states and irrational eccentric thinking on the part of many people tends to be quite oppressive psychologically.  I’ve sort of noticed that recently, it’s putting pressure on people right now.

So how do you feel about this?  This is a ten year Moon cycle that just started in October 1998, how would you characterize the U.S.?

C: It is good and bad.  It is good from the angle of education, intellectual pursuit, for creative pursuit for talent, the expression of talent, improvements in technology.  It’s good for that but the psychology, sense of struggle, sense of fear and a sense of suffering exist. 

D: The 8^th house which the Moon rules is a house of intrigues, plots, conspiracies, those types of things.

C: Correct, and fear and worry.  And also it will always bring worry about money. 

D: Yes it’s a house of loss but also of inheritance, its an interesting combination.  You may get something but it comes through loss. 

So, what would you suggest people do, or what would be a nice thing to say about the approach a individual person can take during this time. 

C: The best thing is first to be aware of the possibilities of what is happening.  But, becoming spiritually oriented, gaining more trust in oneself and the supreme.  Trust in God, trust in oneself.  And wanting to do, as far as possible, everything right. 

D: Anything we should avoid in these times.

C: The most important thing to avoid is hatred.  Negative psychology. Because negative psychology acts as poison and when the mind becomes poisonous the body becomes poisonous.  And when the body becomes poisonous then it is called disease. 

Whereas, if it becomes optimistic, spiritually oriented and trusting in God and getting away from negative thinking and fear at least the environment becomes pleasant, positive and uplifting.

D: Which is interesting if you go back to the original idea that the U.S. chart has Sagittarius rising, the natural ninth house, the seeker of higher spiritual knowledge, the relationship with Guru, the longing for divine knowledge — it is there in the core. 

C: That is correct, and that is where we belong and that is where we should go.  Then everything changes and becomes better, more positive.  So there will be peace, there will be harmony, there will be friendliness, there will be respect. 

D: Well, it certainly seems like it would be nice if some of the elements of this nation learned how to respect other cultures a little bit more, and tried to come to some kind of understanding because it seems like we got off guard,  how did we get here, how did we get such severe deep enemies.  The Ketu/Rahu involved here suggests it is a past karma thing.  So how did we arrive at such an outrageous, horrible thing. 

C: We can overcome it only through knowledge. 

D: Yes, and we must come to a higher understanding of the world, also.

C: Yes, when you have knowledge you know how to do it.  Knowledge is like power.  When you have knowledge you know the disease.  When you know the disease you can find the correct medicine.   

Namaste