Jyotish Maha Charts

Chandra

As the Sun represents the cosmic masculine force, the Moon indicates the cosmic feminine force. The Sun is the God and the Moon is the Goddess; the Sun is the Deva and the Moon is the Devi. The Sun is the spirit and the Moon is its creative force, which becomes matter; the Sun is Shiva and the Moon is Shakti. Together they represent the great primal duality as masculine and feminine, active and passive, mind and body, day and night, independence and relationship, will and love.

As the Sun is the Divine Father and creator, the Moon is the Divine Mother and creatrix. As the Sun rules time, the Moon governs space. As the Sun rules fire, the Moon rules water.

As the Sun is the Self, the Moon is the mind. According to the Vedas from the Moon the mind (Sanskrit, "manas") was born. Yet the Sanskrit term for mind has a different meaning than the usual western one. Mind includes emotion and means feeling; it is consciousness in general that reflects upon things. It means thought, care, consideration, as well as musing, dreaming, and imagining. As the Self is the point of central clarity and perception, the mind is the field of conception and manifestation.

The Sun represents the Self, which is our independent, directly perceiving consciousness. The Moon shows the mind, which is our dependent, reflective, usually conditioned consciousness. As the Sun [ represents who we are in ourselves, the Moon shows how we relate to others, our social consciousness. As the Sun represents character or individuality, the Moon indicates our personality.

The Sun shows the causal body, which indicates the will of the soul to be achieved in incarnation. The Moon shows the astral body, the field of impressions or past karma operative behind the present incarnation. Hence, the Moon is an important karmic indicator.

The Sun represents the present and future; the Moon, the past. The Sun shows who we are and who we are meant to be; the Moon shows who we have been and what of the past we bring with us. Thus, the Moon can show positive resources from the past which give us greater consciousness in life, or it can show negative influences from the past that bind us to regressive patterns of behavior.

Afflictions to the Moon show personality disorders, difficulties in relating to other people, and emotional disturbances. A badly placed Moon gives wrong imaginings, hallucinations, and psychological turbulence. It creates lunacy, as our language reflects. A badly afflicted Moon shows bad heredity, poor family background, bad education, and other traumas to the emotional nature that may be very difficult to overcome and may indicate severe imbalance or disruption of the astral body.

The Moon shows our capacity to receive and to be affected, but it also indicates our capacity to be hurt. It is the most easily hurt of the planets and indicates our general vulnerability. A strong Moon, on the other hand, shows sensitivity, receptivity, caring for others, and a nurturing attitude in life. It gives emotional maturity, responsibility, and the capacity to have a beneficial effect upon society.

The Moon, like the Sun, is a Sattvic or spiritual planet. It gives faith, love, openness, surrender, devotion, peace and happiness. It imparts the grace of the Goddess, the Divine Mother. It makes us pliable, sensitive, and contemplative. It causes us to do good for the sake of others and to be obedient to higher principles. People with such a religious or spiritual Moon often have a strong connection with a traditional religion and may have had many monastic past lives. They have sweet, tolerant and humane dispositions, and can even become saintly. They are often the easiest people to be around and the least critical. They will tend to see the good in all.

The main weakness of the lunar type religious or spiritual mind is that it may cause people to be too orthodox. They may rely unquestioningly on an authority that does not represent the truth. They like organization, ritual, and tradition and represent the best of it; but when that tradition has become negative, they are often unable to question it, much less break away from it. They may be more concerned about being good than about finding the truth.

As a very sensitive and mutable planet, the Moon can be easily influenced and overcome by other planetary energies. Saturn can darken it, depress it, or give it detachment. Rahu can cloud it or cause us to lose power over our minds, which the Moon rules. The Moon represents our impressionability, our capacity to become whatever influence we give ourselves over to.

The Moon is not only responsiveness but also inertia. Through our lunar sensitivity we can become accustomed to a life of pain, sorrow, or ignorance as well as to one of joy and truth. The Moon is our capacity to endure in any environment, which can also become a negative factor whereby we accept subordination, subservience, or degradation.

The mind is purely a dependent consciousness; it has no real nature of its own. As such, it can function in one of two ways: it can reflect the inner nature of things or their outer appearance. It can mold itself after the inner light of truth, the spiritual Sun, or after external influences and authorities, the outer or social lights (which the planets can project upon it).

In its higher nature as pure, receptive awareness, the mind is one with the Self, the Moon and Sun are one in function, and the consciousness of the human being is integrated. Such a well-placed and spiritual Moon is found in the charts of yogis and other conscious individuals. In its lower nature as impressionability to mass influences and collective traumas, an ill-placed and malefic Moon is found in the charts of criminals, the insane, or those suffering from neurological disorders.

As indicating the feminine nature in general, the Moon can give beauty and attractiveness. It can make for a good wife or homemaker as well as mother. When more intellectually disposed, it can give a broad grasp of many fields of knowledge, and often, like Venus which resembles it, it can give artistic accomplishment or religious devotion. у On the level of human relationships, the Moon represents the mother. Through it we can read her nature, her influence, and her longevity. It also shows our birth and through it we can read the difficulty or ease of our birth and the factors which brought it about. It indicates the home or where we feel at home. It shows happiness and the state of the emotions. It shows where we place our love, care, general affection and friendship in life.

The Moon gives love and friendliness to all. Such a benefic Moon is often found in the charts of doctors, healers, or psychologists as well as good mothers and wives. It is the capacity to focus our attention the other and his or her needs.

The Moon gives us sensitivity of human feeling, a strong social consciousness, and a need to exchange emotions. It makes us require that our feelings are recognized in life and shared by others. While the Sun / stands alone, the Moon is the friend of all. Hence, the Moon measures our popularity, our social status, and our capacity to influence the masses. In this capacity it is, like the Sun, an important planet for political and social power and prestige. A strong Moon can give power or preeminence like the Sun. A strong Moon can outshine the other planets, sometimes even the Sun. Whereas the Sun creates the king or strong-willed leader, the Moon creates a good administrator or a leader open to the needs of his people.

The Moon indicates relationship, interchange, and communication. It shows our general propensity for relationship and how we receive others and view society. It also gives creativity and expression to the mind, the capacity to influence others as well as to be influenced ourselves. It can be used as a general measure of our creativity or self-expression.

While the Sun projects the seed, it is the Moon which gives birth. While the Sun stands alone and overcomes any planet with which it is associated, the Moon brings together and accepts into herself whatever planetary energy she is conjoined with. While the Sim measures our independence, the Moon reflects our dependency. Lunar people are friendly, caring, and nurturing but not always honest, consistent or clear. Lunar people work through cooperation and mutual help, through family and friends; solar people rely upon the power of their own character, the strength of their own will. As solar types may become egoistic, lunar types may become circumscribed within a family, clan, group or belief system and be unable to work with anyone outside of it.

The Moon is our social nature and points out our social concerns in life. It indicates our popularity as the Sun does our prestige. It shows the effect of our personality on others as the Sun shows how we uphold our individuality even against others.

The Moon governs water — water as a psychological symbol, water in our own body, or water in the world. She sustains our fluidity of body and mind. She allows us to flow. As such, she is the creative flow of life, the stream of awareness, the waters of creation from whose well we must drink to find contentment in life. She is the water of delight which bestows happiness in life. In her influence is love and communion.

The main name for the Moon in Sanskrit is "Soma". This refers to our inner nectar of happiness which alone has the power to calm the mind and refresh the nerves. The Moon gives the inner contentment through which alone longevity and rejuvenation can proceed. She is the general beauty, bliss, communion and communication from which the more specific energies of Mercury and Venus arise. The Moon is also called Chandra, "the giver of delight and rhythm," as the great cycles of nature, like the rhythm of the tides, reflect her.

The Moon represents the mind or consciousness generally (Manas), our feeling potential.

The main lunar issue is peace and receptivity of the mind. This is achieved by surrender of the mind to the Divine, not by any mental activity or achievement, nor by surrender to any personal or social force. Our feeling sensitivity does not have to be denied or controlled. It merely needs to be directed in the right way, which is to be open to the presence in things, the Divine significance of each thing and each moment.

Element: water
Colour: white
Metal, stone: silver, pearl, moonstone
Day of week: Monday
Number: 2, 11, 20, 29
Direction: North-West
Chakra: Ajna
Traits of character in Sattva: good memory, rich imagination, conscientiousness, harmony
Mantra: OM NAMO BHAGAVATE WASUDEWAYA, OM SHRAM SHRIM SHRAUM SAAHA CHANDRAMASE NAMAHA

Source: «Astrology Of The Seers» by David Frawley