Vedic Numerology – An Introduction
My fascinating journey with numbers started more than 10 years ago when on one of my numerous trips to America, I stumbled upon the website www.sanatansociety.org, and finding it interesting I wrote to them.
I had read a lot of books authored by Harish Johari in my teenage years due to my early interest in the occult sciences and immediately recognised the site as belonging to students and family members of “the man himself”.
I have always regretted not having met “Dada” (as he was fondly called) in the flesh before he left the world not so long ago, actually especially because he left not so long ago (Harish Johari passed away in the year 1999).
Harish Johari was a psychic number 3 and a destiny number 7
I have met some of the most interesting people I know through the Internet and so have absolutely no qualms of meeting people online. I would always stop by at an Indian friend’s place in Antwerp, Belgium for a few days before proceeding back to India from the United States. Having studied in Europe for four years, I could never resist a chance yet again to experience Europe’s cobbled streets, outdoor café’s (imagine doing that in Mumbai, one would be covered by black soot in no time), “real” people, systems and the gloomy weather. I set up a meeting with Peter Marchand who I was in touch with on email at my friend’s place in Antwerp. I can never forget that meeting and the impact that it created on me; maybe it was the age and the excitement and newness of it all. Peter, who was dressed in a crisp, white Kurta-Pyjama had to be rescued from the lift by me in my friend’s fancy loft in an apartment building just walking distance from the Haupt bahnoff Strasse (Main Train-Station Street) because he went into the service elevator.
The days of the week and the planets associated with them
When we finally sat down and spoke, Peter asked me my date of birth. I was amazed that he was able to describe my deepest feelings and emotions and know me so nakedly when actually this was the first time we had met. I was hooked on faster than instant noodles take time to boil. I still do this, asking people I meet for the first time their date of birth and start to calculate their numbers, and give them gory details of my subjective interpretation of their personality, thereby shocking them beyond belief on their first encounter with a strange humanoid like me! It helps me immediately to go to the heart of the personality of a new friend, which would otherwise take me a long time to get to know over many experiences and incidences which occur due to to time spent together. It is nice to work within some structure. Also in a way it is nice to blame the planets for the strange, multitudinous ways and manner in which people conduct themselves than the people themselves. If there is something one doesn’t like about a person you can always attribute it to an external energy somewhere in space the person is a victim off rather than labelling them as an assailant and us as a victim.
My psychic number is 1 and my destiny number is 5, born at 6.31 AM on the 10th of July, 1977.
Years later, I still feel like a student of this vast subject when I speak to more learned people about it. I would greatly recommend the book, “Numerology – a key to Human behaviour” by Harish Johari as a great resource into the subject of Vedic Numerology. Being a keen student of Jyotish or Vedic Astrology, which is a much more detail oriented occult-science than numerology can ever be, the advantages of numerology are many. First of all it is a very easy to learn and a short-cut method. Most of the significations indicated in numerology can also be found in the birth-chart in the Jyotish system. Secondly it requires no computer/software/app like Jyotish does to calculate the birth chart etc. all it takes is a few seconds of mental calculation to arrive at the psychic, destiny and name numbers – the three pillars of Vedic-numerology. It makes great conversational material, and if the person is accepting to listen to what you have to say, it can make quite a first impression that you can know so much about a person you have just met, something like a magic trick. Few disadvantages are that it is a short-cut method and so it can only give indicative results in terms of good or bad periods, success in career, wealth and so many details only a good vedic astrologer can give you when he/she reads your horoscope.
A view of planets in our solar system
More than using this occult-science on others most importantly I use it for myself. Know thy self! I have found out so much about myself that I subconsciously knew but those habits and repetitive patterns were brought to the surface once pointed out, and a conscious awareness of them was created. This process can be either through self-study and introspection or then at various readings of my numbers/horoscope by learned men and women. The mind is a vast ocean with depths, which are million leagues deeper than the Marianas Trench. Every human being is a universe in him/herself. Six billion universes reside alone on planet earth, each with their own unique strengths, weaknesses, secrets and unique nature. Vedic numerology uses maximum 81 (9 numbers/planets in combinations of psychic and destiny number (name number is only used in detailed calculations) for example psychic number 1 and destiny number 5 is one combination) permutations and combinations to categorise people, Jyotish might go into millions, as there are 12 houses, 9 planets and 12 zodiac signs. So before I loose you again, lets dive right into it!
Nine planets so nine number or nine numbers so nine planets?
Which comes first the chicken or the egg? Why do we have only nine planets in the solar system? Actually seven visible to naked-eye planets and then recently discovered Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and others recently discovered. So I am not sure how many planets are there in the solar system according to science, which keeps changing definitions and is an evolving “science” still. But let’s say there are 9 planets, why 9 and not 15? Similarly, Why only 9 whole numbers? And not 14? Or 22? (All other numbers are simply a combination of these nine numbers and a zero=infinity) Is it a coincidence that there are 9 numbers and 9 planets?
Sun – The center of our Solar system
Just to clarify in the Vedic system, the lone star of our solar system, the Sun is termed as a “planet” seen from the earth, the ancient rishi’s or meta-physical scientists were completely aware of detailed intricacies that the Western Scientists only recently discovered in the 17th century AD including relativity of time-space, exact time taken for the earth to rotate around the sun adjusted to a leap month, the “Adhik Maas” and the precession of the equinoxes. The seers might have or might not have known about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto but anyway did not include them into calculations of astrology because Saturn being the farthest, is dark and cold enough – alienated enough, slow enough to afford to include, forget the far colder, much further away and more terribly obscure three that lie beyond Saturn, to exert any influence on human beings and their behaviour.
Rudi Kuhn and Gauri Babber discuss numerology on the youtube channel of Sagar World.com – https://youtu.be/N9RpZmujyFc
The Sanskrit word for planet is “Graha” which means “to seize”, these astral bodies exert control over the quality and quantity of our thoughts to coerce us to think in a particular way about something that just started brewing in our heads, as the greatest physical manifestations always start off with just a humble idea in our mind. From where do these thoughts come? Why do some people have greater ideas than others? The grahas influence our thought processes, making us take certain decisions, thereby steering our life in the direction desired by them which gives us results which they desire us to have, they are something of executors of our Karmic fate or destiny (i.e. fruits, sweet or sour of past life good/bad karmas, the karmas in this life can mostly only be reaped in the next or towards the end of one’s current life).
To take into account the “X factor”, which is the unknown, the Vedic seers used the North and South node of the moon to add to the seven visible planets. When the ecliptic paths of the Sun and the Moon cross each other producing the scientific phenomenon better known as lunar or solar eclipses, these energies are awakened. Rahu and Ketu are also considered the timekeepers of the universal clock and connected with birth and death. They swallow large “planets” like the Sun and the Moon only to squirt them out, renewed and re-aligned with new awakenings and learning. Eclipses are times when the energy portals open and transmission of new or old energies takes place. In India, during an eclipse people are advised not to step out of the house, in way to protect them from unknown energies that may have come to earth from this portal or left the earth as their purpose has been completed. It is all part of the Divine plan.
The north node, Rahu is a mysterious, materialistic, Machiavellian demon, whose head has been cut-off and Ketu is the south node, which is represented by the headless body of a demon, directionless, spiritual and non-materialistic in nature. Rahu and Ketu are complete opposites of each other in nature and geography being 180 degrees apart from each other.
Description and Nature of Nine Planets
So seven visible to the naked eye planets including the sun along with Rahu and Ketu comprise the nine planets in Vedic Astrology/Numerology for each of which a number is assigned.
1 – Sun – King, Masculine, Royal, Individualistic, Ego, Intelligence, Truthful, Structure, Original, Cruel, Image-conscious, Attention-seeking, power hungry, political mind, Stable, proud, supporter of arts and tradition.
The vibrant and glorious sun energy represented in a human form. He rides on a single wheel chariot with seven horses, which represent the seven colours of the rainbow. His charioteer Arun is the pre-maturely hatched and hence handicap son of Vanita, the mother of all the bird species in our world. His colours are Orange-Yellow.
Thanks to “Pieter Weltevrede” for providing the images of each planet.
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2 – Moon – Queen, Royal, Feminine aspect, Caring, Sensitive, Ever-changing, Creativity and Arts, Traditionally has a Supportive function, Loves being at home, Diplomatic, Waxing and Waning hence moody, Clever, think on their feet.
The gentle moon on his animal – vehicle, the fickle-minded, sensitive and symbol of spirituality, the deer. The moon in Hindu mythological stories is married to 27 wives, each of which actually represents the 27 nakshatras in the sky (A more detailed breakdown of sky than the 12 zodiac signs, Each nakshatra consists of 13’20” degrees whereas one zodiac sign is 30’ degrees (making a 12 X 30’ = 360’ circle)). Romantic and prone to indulging in sensual pleasures the moon is cursed to wax and wane as he was only partial to one beloved wife, Rohini, in which Nakshatra he still remains most exalted in astrology. The stories were woven around facts and data to make them easy to remember and so that they became visual, symbolic representations of that particular energy.
3 – Jupiter – Teacher, Talkative, Creative, Prime-minister, Giver, Deep knowledge on particular subjects rather than knowing little on many subjects, weakness for sex, happy, independent, positive, religious/spiritual, creative, critical, masculine.
The guru of the devtas/angels, Jupiter or Brihaspati in Sanskrit is considered one of the most benefic and auspicious planets. Extremely learned and knowledgeable, his universal role is to make sure the balance of good and evil keeps tilting towards the positive. He rides on a stable, royal and revered animal-vehicle, the elephant. Jupiter signifies progress and prosperity. Guru is the divine guidance that takes us from the darkness into the light. The good advice, the dear friend, the helpful father or the devoted mother, a caring sister, a strict teacher, a correction rocket, lady luck, a protector and saviour, a good doer, one’s whose intentions are good. Jupiter is truly a great saviour and in the world (physical, mental and spiritual) fraught with pitfalls and traps.
4 – Rahu – unpredictable, rebellious, disrespectful, materialistic, practical, antagonistic, accident-prone, disciplined, devoted, out-of-the-box, unconventional, neutral gender, non-conformist, secretive.
Rahu, was born when the oceans of milk were being churned for universal treasures by the demons and angels alike. Both sides needed each other for this churning to take place, which produced amongst other gifts, the nectar of the immortality, Amrit. Rahu, a demon/asur keen to have a taste of it, disguised himself and crossed onto the side of the devtas/angels and stood in the line where it was being distributed but just as he took a sip of it, Vishnu, the god of preservation, recognised his disguise and cut his head off. The demons head is Rahu. Immortal he did become as people still write about him, worship him and want to know more about him in 2016! Even a demon can be worshiped as a God, the line of good vs. evil was again redrawn. The ferocious tiger is the animal-vehicle of Rahu. Imagine the mastery that Rahu has over the craft of illusion that he was able to trick the nimble and alert divine beings that dwell in heaven, the devtas, into making him immortal. A master of disguise, a trickster, a magician, a great movie director all remind one of Rahu’s powers of illusion.
5 – Mercury – youthful, prince/princesses, communicative, good at business, neutral gender, problem to maintain relationships, bored easily, nervous, problem to concentrate, easily distracted, can come across as superficial, not so great health, intelligent, entertaining.
Evergreen, knight on a shining amour, Mercury has a dual personality thus represented by the Lion and the Elephant, both of which are his animal-vehicle. In this picture he is shown as a lion having an elephant trunk. These two represent the fierce and the calm side of mercury personalities. The mercurial nature of this planet reflects in their inability to perform spiritual practices, which require a lot of patience and concentration, as they are ever changing, bored easily and love new things. Born from the affair of the Moon (mind) with Jupiter’s (knowledge) wife, Tara, the illegitimate child mercury (intellect) can be very shrewd and cunning when required. He is the planet for logic, mathematics, business, communication, writing, luck, money, entertainment and calculation.
6 – Venus – slow, female, luxury, beauty, lacks discipline, poor health, love the good things in life, problem to say “no” to people, problems in relationships, pleasing, sensual, romantic.
Venus, or Shukracharya (Shukra in Sankskrit translates as semen, and Archarya means teacher, a teacher of the art of love?) is the guru of the demons/asurs. He specialises in the technique called “Sanjeevani Vidya” that can bring people back to life and he is only one who has this knowledge. It is interesting to note that Venus, the planet goes through a very interesting visibility cycle, appearing for 263 days each as a morning star and then an evening star disappearing for a few weeks in between and then like being re-birthed again reinstating his connection with cycles of birth, death, re-birth and the vital force semen in the male body. A scientist held in great esteem, He advises the demons on warfare, medicinal herbs, strategy and philosophy. Venus is the most beautiful planet in the sky, and no doubt represents beauty, romance, sex and the arts. There is no land animal that is more elegant than the horse, how apt for it to be selected as the animal-vehicle for the planet of beauty. Venus had a troubled childhood and developed a long-standing enmity with Vishnu and the Devtas/Angels. So he is in some ways the atheist scientist that is always trying to deny the existence of God and defend the might of science.
7 – Ketu – spiritual, directionless (no head only body), philosophical, artistic, creative, writers, doubting nature, detached, occult, suspicious nature, neutral gender, intuitive, inventive, obsessive, always asking the question, “why”.
Ketu, is the headless body of the same demon that stole a few drops of the nectar of immorality. Since there is a body with no head, Ketu dominated people are directionless, roaming forever in the deep woods of self-realisation, on long and never-ending spiritual journeys. Ketu is the planet associated with Moksha or Nirvana or self-realisation. The symbol of the fish is considered extremely auspicious in the Vedic Tradition. The fish symbolism can also be found in the sign of Pisces where Ketu happens to rather exhilarated. Ketu is the complete opposite of materialistic Rahu, hence very often spiritual worlds and materialistic worlds have little in common and no connection in fact they are diametrically opposite to each other. Ever heard of a genuine saint that lived in a palace?
8 – Saturn – King-Maker, Servant, likes to do monotonous jobs, represents the masses, justice-seeking, unfortunate in materialistic sense, occult, mystic, slow, good judge of other people, depressive outlook, dark, neutral gender, wise.
Saturn, the dark lord of the universe is the planet of justice and rules law & order. He is the half- brother of the god of death, Yama, so he gives a near-death experience but wont let you die because then the suffering that one has to undergo would not be possible. He is the son of the Sun from a shadow-image his real wife created of herself because she was not able to bear the heat of the sun. Saturn grew up with a feeling of injustice having been meted out to his mother. He hates the Sun i.e. authority and went off on his long journey to find his purpose in life, carrying the burden of being the son of an illustrious father until he is blessed by Lord Shiva and appointed the portfolio of Justice. The animal-vehicle for Saturn is a raven or bird of prey or scavenger or then a black buffalo. Saturn is a planet associated with occult practices, occult-sciences, esoteric matters, penance and mysticism. His strange and mysterious nature and ways makes him one of the most misunderstood planets in Vedic Astrology. Saturn gives us suffering so that we may burn up our Karmas, good or bad, and go closer to God-hood. Unfortunately God would not exist if it weren’t for suffering.
9 – Mars – action, warrior, idealistic, direct in their talk, no-nonsense, energetic, like sports, commander-in-chief, auspicious, live their spirituality instead of talking about it, masculine, strong, love to say “no”.
The warrior planet Mars is represented by the fertile red colour. Extremely auspicious and full of energy Mars is a planet associated with fire, anger and brute force. Idealistic and agile at the same time Mars, is associated with Kartikeya, the warrior son of Lord Shiva as well as with Hanuman, the monkey-god from the Ramayan, both known to be associated with the animalistic raw energy that loves action versus wasting time thinking things out. There is an association with land as Mars is the son of the Mother Earth. A Ram is the apt animal-vehicle for Mars always poised in a posture that appears to defy the “look before you leap” philosophy. Mars is fiery and angry. It is passion, the fire in the belly, energy levels, ability to work hard, intensity of the stomach acid, health, accidents, martial life, traditionally a malefic unless well placed.
Number 9 and Number 8 –The ying and yang of numbers
Nine is a whole number. Anything added to nine equals that number itself. Nine remains unaffected.
9 + 1 = 10 = 1+0 = 1
Nine, the number assigned to Mars is considered a very spiritual and auspicious number. It is the universal male energy, the Purusha (male), the unchanging, formless aspect of God, universal consciousness. Number 8 is the female, Prakriti or Mother Nature. Any number added to 8 reduces by one.
8 + 2 = 10 = 1 + 0 = 1
Eight is the number connected with the Goddess (Asthmi – the eight day from a total of nine days during the Durga (Goddess) festival/fast, is the day a fire worship is done and the fast is broken) consists of the Five sense organs of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste and the three guna’s – Rajas (active), Tamas (inertia) and Sattva (calm), our entire world as we perceive it to be! So god needs a world to exist or else who will call him god! That’s how important we are in the entire universal plan. God in this case is a “male” energy which is unchanging, eternal, infinite and unimaginable and the our entire world i.e. planet earth, along with billions of galaxies, milky ways and black holes all consist of the “females” body.
Psychic Number, Destiny Number and Name Numbers
Psychic number is the day of the month in which we are born. Say someone born on the 29th of a month. He/She would be a psychic number 2 i.e. 2 + 9 = 11 = 1+ 1 = 2 (For ease of calculation you can just drop a number 9 the minute that you see it and continue onward with your calculation without having to use it). Please note that it is important to ask the time of birth of the person in question as in the Vedic system the day begins two hours before sunrise each day. So someone born at 2 AM on the 1st of December, on a long winter night (in the Northern hemisphere) would be considered to be have been born the previous day i.e. 31st of November instead of changing the date at 12.00 mid-night as in the modern calculation of time. In the summer, the nights would be shorter and the sunrise earlier and so calculations would differ. *
Mahatma Gandhi was a psychic number 2
The psychic number is the how we subjectively traverse this world of forms and shapes, our point-of-view of the world. It is more prevalent in the years from 0-35 years of age after which the destiny number comes into play. We are a combination of two numbers. Generally speaking it is better to have one odd and one even number instead of two even and two odd numbers as one’s psychic and destiny number, to have some balanced and varied perspective. All odd numbers are considered male (dynamic) and all even numbers are considered female (static) in nature. Psychic number is how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Even logically speaking till the age of 35 we are figuring out our own nature and the nature of the world at large.
Amongst the psychic numbers for Number 1’s – 28th which is combination of Number 2 (Moon) and 8 (Saturn) is considered the best amongst the others i.e. 1st, 10th and 19th; 29th is the degree for exaltation for the number 2’s; 12th for Number 3’s; the date of 31st is the best for Number 4’s; 23rd is best for number 5’s; For the glamorous number 6’s it is the 24th of the month; 25th does it for the number 7’s; 26th and 27th win the race in the case of number 8 and number 9 respectively. If you study the pattern of exaltation, it always takes place where two fairly different numbers form one number together showing again how differences gives rise to varied opinions and hence better balance.
Colours and associations with number 3 – Jupiter
Destiny Number is the sum total of our entire date of birth along with the month and the year adjusted to Vedic-sunrise calculation. The single digit number is our destiny number. This number represents the way the world perceives us and also what the hand of destiny has meted out to us in this life time due to our previous Karmas.Generally speaking numbers 1, 5, 7 and 9 are better to have as destiny numbers and not psychic numbers and numbers 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 are better have as psychic numbers and not as destiny numbers. The destiny number is even more important than a psychic number as it signifies the fructification of our desires. Only 4 out of 5 numbers are good destiny numbers which goes to show that luck shines on fewer than more. Even amongst the planets there are more malefic’s than benefic’s, going to show that the purpose of us being here is to burn our Karmic pasts in the fire of suffering. Sun is considered a malefic and not a benefic because of his cruel nature. Saturn, Rahu, Mars and Ketu are malefic’s whereas Jupiter, Moon, Venus and Mercury are benefic’s.
Name number is the sum total of the numbers each of which is connected to an alphabet except for number 9, which is a complete number in itself. The selection of the name could be the entire name with the family name as exists on the official documents such as passport, driving license or then a popular name that one is known by such as a pen name, screen name etc. The name number is entirely connected with the outside material world and often lives on even after the person has left this world. The three numbers of psychic, destiny and name should be complementing each other and correctly selected to achieve best results. One needs to be see a trained numerologist/astrologer for going down that rabbit hole. See diagram below on how to calculate your name number.
The name DAVID adds up to number 7
Conclusion
Vedic Numerology is an ancient science. It is something to have fun with and not take very seriously. Spirituality doesn’t have to be drab and boring, it can be fun also. Eastern Motion Pictures, my production house has made a web-series on this very subject to reach a larger number of people.
This link for the channel is https://www.youtube.com/c/SagarWorld Multimedia pvt.ltd
Please subscribe to our channel for more videos on such and other subjects.
Rudi Kuhn, the numerologist, lives in Amsterdam but spent his childhood days in South America. He had the great privilege to have studied under Harish Johari for many years during dada’s travels to the West. He comes to India each year on holidays. Rudi has developed his own sense of the numbers after playing with them for many years. He other interests include naturopathy, Ayurveda and he is an excellent chef. Gauri Babber from Mumbai plays the role of asking questions in the videos. She is from Mumbai though born in London, and is a fashion stylist and a real-estate investor.
* Also one could argue that the modern time system of dates is based on Gregorian calendar and the Vedic seers would have counted the dates according to their ancient Hindu calendar so how could their system apply to our modern day calendar? The only explanation I have to that is by using a modern day calendar, which is prevalent in the society thus belongs to the collective consciousness of mankind and by using it we are making this practice relevant and up-to-date. Though garbs might change but the core nature remain unchanged. Yugas and Eras go by, things change but then again the changes are synthetic only, surface only. The core concepts that make a spiritual practice or thought don’t change and apply in all eras. The day of the week is pretty much in the same order in the Vedic Calendar as in the modern system, and Rahu and Ketu are not assigned any days of the week only certain times, as they are not real planets but imaginary points in space. The calculation of the month in the Hindu practice differs (Please refer to my previous blog post – The apparently confusing Hindu Calendar explained) than in the modern time system but then these ancient concepts were married with the modern time system by Late Harish Johari to arrive at this current form.
