Saturn (Shani)

The Strict Teacher: shani: meanings, strength, signs, houses and harmonization

About the book. "Saturn (Shani)" — The Strict Teacher: shani: meanings, strength, signs, houses and harmonization. A book for astrologers on Vedic astrology (Jyotish). Author — Andrey Drobotin, teacher at Atma School. Read online and download the PDF — by donation from $5.

A book for astrologers

Andrey Drobotin

Introduction

Saturn is the most ascetic planet of all. It is not always easy to study. When we come into contact with an energy, we begin to feel it. It happens with nakshatras, with houses, and with planets too. While I was giving the lesson on Saturn, my sound kept cutting out, I had to move the microphone and reconfigure the monitor. Saturn was reminding me of itself and making me work.

Saturn is the planet that teaches us, purifies us and helps us grow through limitations, trials and hardships. Its energy is so strong that it demands humility before the higher will. And at the same time Saturn gives the greatest opportunity for spiritual growth. It is no accident that he is called the one who decides destinies.

Many people fear Saturn. I want you, after this book, to respect him rather than fear him.

Who this book is for

For those who study Jyotish and want to understand one planet deeply. For those going through a hard period who want to understand what it teaches. And for those whose Saturn is weak, debilitated or afflicted, and who are looking for how to work with it.

What you will get

1. Stories about Shani: who he is, why the demigods fear him, and what his justice consists of.
2. Significations of Saturn: time, karma, limitations, work, structure.
3. The twelve qualities of Saturn in goodness, and its expressions in passion and ignorance.
4. The twelve parameters of Saturn's strength in the chart.
5. The "compensation" method: how to read Saturn in each sign.
6. Saturn in the houses and the power of its aspect.
7. Briefly on Saturn's conjunctions with the Sun, Moon and Mars.
8. Practical ways of harmonization.

What this is for in practice

Saturn shows where in life you need to work longer and more patiently than you would like. If you know this, hardships stop seeming like punishment. They become work for which a deserved result will certainly come. A person stops fighting Saturn and starts cooperating with him.

I talk in more detail about Saturn periods, Sade Sati and how to get through them in the book "Lessons of Saturn". Here — the planet itself.

Andrey Drobotin

Chapter 1. Who Shani Is

Born of a shadow

In Sanskrit Saturn is Shani. He is the son of the Sun God. The Sun's wife, the goddess Sanjna, could not come close to her husband: unbearable heat came from him. She very much wanted a child, but because of that fire nothing worked. Then, with her mystic power, she created a double from her own shadow. The shadow took on her form. That is how Shani was born.

That is why Saturn is called the lord of shadows. Your own shadow is also Saturn. In yoga there are even practices where a person's destiny is studied by their shadow.

Hence also Saturn's difficult relationship with the Sun. Father and son are enemies. We will come back to this.

Brother of the god of death

Shani is the younger brother of Yamaraja, the lord of death. They are both sons of the Sun, and they work, you could say, in the same department. Yamaraja assigns destiny, and Shani carries it out. Yamaraja handles the most difficult cases, like a prosecutor general. Shani deals with all the rest.

Yet Yamaraja is a pure soul, a devotee of the Supreme. To pass just judgement, one must represent the interests of God. Shani and Yamaraja are subordinate beings. They carry out the higher will, not their own whim.

What Shani looks like

In the scriptures Shani is described like this: tall, lean, like a yogi. His hair is black and thin, like iron wire. His skin is the colour of a raven's feather — dark with a sheen. His eyes are dark maroon, his teeth large. His clothes are black or blue. He rides a crow. In one hand he holds a staff, in the other the keys to the worlds: he determines where each one is to live.

Those who practise yoga are under Saturn's strong influence. Austerity, discipline, a lean body, detachment — all these are his qualities.

Why he is feared

Once the demigods gathered and invited Shani. They told him: "You are so fierce, everyone fears you, even Shiva." They reminded him how Shani looked at the son of Shiva and Parvati, and the infant lost his head. Shiva had to give him an elephant's head — that is how Ganesha appeared.

Shani replied: "I am not cruel. I simply perform my function. I watch over destiny and give living beings what they have earned." And to show how complex and thankless his work is, he told a story.

The story of the brahmin and the cow

There lived a brahmin from a good family. From childhood he prayed to God and did almost nothing bad. He took a vow: whatever happened, to speak only the truth.

Once he was sitting under a tree reciting a prayer. A cow ran past, followed by a butcher. The butcher asked: "Did you see a cow?" The brahmin had promised to speak the truth. He said "I did" and pointed where it had run. The butcher caught the cow.

In his next life this man was again born a brahmin, into a family of sages. Once he set out on a pilgrimage. Shani entered his heart and inspired him to take that very road. At night the brahmin asked a family for lodging. The lady of the house suddenly became infatuated with him. He refused her: "You have a husband, and I am a guest and a pilgrim." Then the woman, offended, slandered him and accused him of a grave crime he had not committed.

The brahmin was arrested. The case reached the king. The brahmin swore he was innocent, but the woman did not tell the truth. He was severely punished: his sacred thread was taken away, he was forbidden to preach and was banished to the desert.

In the desert he wept bitterly: "Lord, I was walking towards You. Why such injustice?" And that night he had a dream. Again he is sitting under the tree, a cow runs by, he points where it ran. And Shani says to him: "The cow you gave away became that woman. The butcher became her husband. You should have protected the cow, but you became an accomplice. That is why there was resentment towards you in her heart. You received what you yourself sowed."

The brahmin understood why he had suffered. He went away and atoned for his guilt for a long time.

Shani finished: "You see, I gave nothing extra and punished no one in vain. I restored justice."

What this story teaches

Honesty must go with common sense. Truthfulness is a quality of Saturn in goodness. But the truth can be told in different ways, and sometimes it is wiser to keep silent. If the truth helps evil, it is no longer goodness.

Saturn does nothing without a reason. If you find yourself in a situation with no visible way out, if you feel hopeless, that is Shani at work. He arranges the circumstances in which we receive the fruits of our actions.

Saturn teaches through suffering, Jupiter through awareness. Hence a simple conclusion: where there is awareness, there is no suffering. Where there is no awareness, there is suffering.

The centre of life

Look at your palm. The longest finger is the middle one. It belongs to Saturn. Saturn stands in the centre of the hand, just as he stands at the centre of every person's life. In the Vedic picture he gives sanction to the demigods: he can open a person's right to happiness, or close it.

Shani is a person, not just a cold ball. He has a will. So you don't joke with him. Attempts to "neutralize" Saturn with a horseshoe over the door or a stone as a shield are, in essence, an insult. We don't protect ourselves from Saturn. We learn from him.