Introduction to Jyotish, Part 2: Ethics for Jyotishis

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A Jyotishi is a person who practices Jyotish or Vedic astrology. And as a Jyotishi you have certain ethical principles that you must observe. Why is this? Because really, Jyotish gives us a special kind of vision that ordinary people don't have access to. We can see things, for example we can see the hidden motivations of a person, through Jyotish. If we know their birth data and can do their chart, we can basically know them better than their own family, better than their own mother. So, we have a responsibility to use this knowledge wisely. If we use it for our own advantage, this is not ethical. Astrological knowledge can be used to take advantage of a person because we know their weaknesses. But this is not ethical, and if you do it what will happen is that Krsna will take away your spiritual knowledge. So, the consequences of misusing this knowledge are that one loses his spiritual advancement. Therefore we have to be very careful with Jyotish to apply it only for spiritual purposes, not for selfish material purposes.

Now, people will come and they will ask you all kinds of questions: "How can I get money?" "How can I marry a nice girl?" or "How can I defeat my enemy?" or something like that. They're going to ask all kinds of things. But really, the application of Jyotish is for spiritual advancement. We should always lead the person back to the subject of how they can make advancement in spiritual life. When we're giving readings, for example, they're going to ask this and that. And we should answer those questions honestly, and to our best ability. But we should also indicate the relationship of those answers to the fundamental subject, "How can I make advancement in spiritual life?" That's the ethics of a Jyotishi.