Beneath a Vedic Sky: A Beginner's Guide to the Astrology of Ancient India Paperback – January 1, 1999

This message might sound very strange to whoever is reading, but hear me out, please.My name is Shakti and I got to know Das Goravani through his astrology program. My father was the one who introduced me to his program many years back.But here is what's important.I am writing to you because this Thanksgiving weekend, I had the opportunity to visit Das and Sonia. I stayed with Sonia which lives next door to Das. I have known them by phone and email for quite few months. But in the past 5 days I had the chance to live with them and experience them quite intensely. Their love and hospitality is just heartwarming and exquisite. However, I was able to experience something beautiful with them. And after I came back home I felt the urge of sharing this.Just like you, I have gotten tons of emails from Das about issues, problems that he was dealing with, and what not. You probably know what I am talking about. We have seen his intense writings about many general topics, even about his own private life, which is probably not so private anymore.Did you ever think, or did it ever come to your mind: "What's with this guy? Who cares about what he thinks about the IRA, or the war in whatever place or his own private issues?" Or, "Why is he writing to me about what's going on with him or asking for my help when I don't even know him, met him, or talked to him? All what I wanted is his program, make some money out of it and that's it!!!".Well, you are not alone. I've seen many react the same way as I followed his journey recently.I want you to know that I never thought like that. I always thought that there is always a reason for someone to do what they do.I will confess that since I knew about him, I always wanted to meet or talk or communicate to him in some way. I have this admiration for him because of what he has given the world. His materials, his services, etc. really caught my attention and I wanted to be in touch with this person who I thought knew so much about so many things.Warning: I am not here to advocate him. I am writing to you to describe what I have seen.You may not believe me, but all I have seen is this man with the most pure heart, good and harmless soul with one aim only: Spread the knowledge and wisdom about spirituality, God.He is obsessed, yes, I agree. But this obsession is for a true cause that you might benefit from. I know I did.He is not a preacher, nor does he want leadership of any kind. He does not want to start a revolution or a war against anything. He wants us to be aware of things that he is that will make our living in this world better.Now think that if you have knowledge of something that will help others in some way or another, wouldn't you want to say it away? Well, he does too. In his way. In the way that he thinks that will catch our attention. Sometime aggressive, sometime docile. In whatever way he finds effective.People, he has Asperger's. You don't know Asperger's until you see it with your own eyes. It's HEAVY!!! He also has ADHD which only makes it worse. However, Asperger's makes him the genius that he is.I cannot even begin to describe the storm of emotions that he goes through. I wanted to help him at that moment and I couldn't because I was not familiar with how this condition reacts on him. His body becomes so weak! He curls up in a corner and is engulfed in this monster fear of an unsafe world as if he is in the middle of a F5 tornado and you see the world being sucked up in this vacuum with nothing to hold on to. Picture yourself into it. It freaks you out!!! And in that moment it's totally real!!! I've seen it with my own eyes.Oh my God, I have to tell you that Sonia Manzo is this angel that holds him together. Sonia was at the market when this panic attacked him and I didn't know how to help him. Suddenly, Sonia arrives and sits next to him and start saying things that he starts to listen. They are common words for us, but when they come from the mouth of someone who you feel safe with, they mean the world to you.She holds his hands and speaks to him, and boy, you have to be there to see it. Sonia lights this glow that shine around her like an angel shining his way out of this dark place and pulls him out from this scary hole and brings him back to LIFE!!!!!She has no training in Asperger's. Just like any of us, but you know what she has? LOVE!!! She has the ability to show a special kind of love that anchors us back to reality. Oh my God, I was amazed to see how this strong, stable, confident person was able to throw this rope of hope at this dark, scary place where he was and pull him out of it. This energy of light that she brings to him is so strong that is almost visible to the common eye. And I am not exaggerating. What I've seen is Love, compassion, and spirituality. She showed me that you don't have to be related with family ties to someone to give what she gives. And she had the same love for me. If I was in the same place that Das was at that moment, she would do the same for me. She will go out of her way to help. She is a special kind of person that I learned to admire more in this visit.But, do you know what he kept saying while in this storm of emotions? "I've tried so hard to spread knowledge, wisdom, God, in this world and no one gives a crap about it!!!".Can you imagine a person, who is emotionally, mentally, in the verge of an abysm, ready to fall because no one listen to him and he is just trying to bring clarity about spirituality to us?If a person dies for a cause, starves to death, sacrifices or do any other extreme action for some cause for the HUMANITY, it makes the news. But why, when a person tries to be less extreme, calls for your attention, asks for some response we turn our backs!!! Just because he didn't jump off a bridge holding a sign: STOP EATING MEAT, or YOU ARE PART OF GOD, or some other thing that he tries to reach us to listen to him, doesn't mean what he has to say is meaningless or not worth paying some attention.And even if he caught our attention, why can't we just react to it. Respond in agreement or disagreement, giving him feedback, an honest one. Why can't we open our hearts, be a little more human and pay attention on what he says, because he just wants to help us reach a better level of spirituality.If you know him is because in some point in your life you wanted to elevate your spirituality. You probably know him either through his program or in an event or meet or family/friend relation. That means that we all have something in common. So why can't we try to help him with a small act of response. Get a slight bit involved in what he is saying and if you agree, pay it forward and spread his writings. If we have time to check our facebook newsfeed, can't we copy and paste his writings on our page and spread it out? If we are getting together somewhere, where all the people are involved in some spiritual work, can't we invite him to add his wisdom to our party? Don't you think that people can only be benefited by his knowledge? What harm can it do? If we don't agree with him in one thing, there's got to have something else which we agree and can share words with him.His exact words: ".... so that the messages of determinism, jyotish's proper vision and function, proper dealing with all people's based on their god given innate natures, care for all equally as siblings, like some big kids help the little kids, etc., everyone, everywhere, cuzz, that's how we should think, for full life and happiness, the inevitable heaven is like thiswe who are going home, direct others thereit is in gita jesus common sense etcthat they the devotees of god will speak about himi have nothing elsefor i see through all elsei have this mission, am fading....."Somehow, I got my priorities straight and this visit definitely touched me in a manner that I feel I can do more to become a better person. He taught me that in this trip.I truly appreciate his life and what he brought us to this world.I truly appreciate Sonia more for her strength and love towards any of us. She doesn't choose who to help. She just does it. And does it with perfection, with God in her heart.These both souls are not to take advantage, are not to be leached out and throw them out in the world. These two souls can bring true meaning of God in our lives and help us become better souls. I know I have. I am blessed for having such true loving souls as part of my life now.Thank you for reading this. I truly appreciate it. I hope you can help Das by only connecting with him. He doesn't ask for much. He doesn't want your money or any other material thing. He just wants to be connected with people who want to learn more and became spiritually better.God has put Das Goravani on this Earth for a reason. Use him, take him as a tool from God. You will only benefit you and those around you.Respectfully,Shakti

This is one of the most comprehensive book on Vedic Astrology for Beginners and it's written in an easy to understand language.The book covers much more material than other books for beginners in Vedic Astrology.You'll learn about different formats of charts, the attributes of planets (grahas), signs (rasis), houses (bhavas), then you learn to combine them and see what happens with planets when they find themselves in different signs and in different houses and when rules of houses find themselves in other houses.You will learn the basics of different planetary comabinations (yogas) and the attributes of 27 Nakshatras - moon signs. There is a brief chapter on one of the sub-charts - Navamsa. You will also learn few ways of rectifying the time of birth.At this point you are guided through a step-by-step process for analyzing the chart as a whole - looking at the strength of planets, signs, and aspects, which ones seem favorable, etc.Then, you can have fun learning how to work with transits and predict events, as well as find out what may be the best timing to start or end specific projects (e.g. business, marriage, etc.)You will find a chapter on remedies you can use to strengthen desirable planetary influences or reduce those which are unfavorable. Several remedies are listed such as performing yagyas, chanting mantras (no specific mantras are mentioned in this book, though), doing charitable work, chanting vedic hymns, using gems. I would recommend Linda Johnsen's "A Thousand Suns" book for beginners in Vedic Astrology for those who are interested in learning much more about "remedies".The book ends with few very brief chapter on chart comparisons, ayurveda and vastu.Of course, to have fun with this book, you'll have to have your astrology chart done. The book contains a CD with a demo of Goravani Jyotish program, which may or may not work on your computer, and which may not let you save the chart on your computer. If you run into difficulty with creating or printing your own chart, feel free to contact me and I'll help you out by sending you your chart through the email.

This book is very clear and concise. I always wanted to learn vedic astrology and tried to read a couple of books on the subject some years ago, but lost interest as I found the treatment of the subject very dry in those books.I happened to stumble upon this book in a book store and it revived my latent interest in Vedic Astrology and I ordered it from amazon.com.This book keeps the reader's interest alive and very clearly explains the principles and rules of Vedic astrology even to a novice like me.It is a very good book to start on Vedic Astrology even if you have absolutely no background on the subject. It touches the advanced concepts too and encourages you to read further.A careful sudy of this book should enable one to:1. Understand the basic principles of Vedic Astrology2. Interpret a birth chart to determine a person's personality, talents, skills, orientation, luck and other aspects of life3.Forecast major events in one's lifeThis book comes with an accompanying software to compute a person's vedic birth chart. This book does not explain how to calculate one's chart, rather focuses more on how to interpret a given chart.I find this a reasonable approach as claculation, though involved, is a standard mathematical method and same for every one, given the birth data. Moreover, computers can do it for you.The real skill is about interpreting a chart, which this book teaches very well. For serious students of astrology, however, learning to manually cast a horroscope is equally important for a deeper insight.The only thing, I found lacking in this book are example charts to illustrate how to apply the principles of vedic astrology to interpret a chart.