Latest / Magic Thread Media / How Astrology Can Guide Your Leadership Path | Vish Chatterji (Encore)

Transcript

How Astrology Can Guide Your Leadership Path | Vish Chatterji (Encore) · Magic Thread Media

• 0:00
  Vish Chatterji: If you were to look to the eastern horizon, what star constellation, what energy was influencing you at the moment you took your first breath, and that has a profound effect on your being. So, it's an observable system that's connected to energy, real energy in specific locations relative to your birth, so it becomes a much deeper system. You could almost say that Western astrology is like kind of a photograph of your current state, whereas Vedic astrology is like an X-ray vision into your soul.
• 0:39
  Amy Lynn Durham: Hey everyone, it's Amy Lynn Durham, and you're listening to Create Magic at Work. Create Magic at Work is on a mission to equip senior leaders with tools they need to be a true quantum leader and actually understand what that means, improve employee engagement, retain top talent, and transform your workplace culture to have less drama and stress. So, let's start making magic, you
• 1:02
  Vish Chatterji: oh, he is such a Virgo, and since I'm a Cancer, I just don't understand him. A human resources executive explained to me at a conference as I suddenly rolled my eyes, what nonsense that astrology stuff is all hocus pocus, I thought to myself, politely smiling without betraying my disdain for this subject. Trained as a mechanical engineer and further shaped as an MBA, my rational mind endeavored to find logical explanations for everything in our universe. I maintain a healthy skepticism testing any scientific or business thesis with hard data before drawing any kind of conclusion. My own business success in the field of product management was predicated on this data-driven approach to understanding consumer needs and market trends. To me, newspaper horoscopes, magazine astrology, and pop culture tarot were all in the realm of make-believe. Though I had been a practitioner of yoga and meditation for over 20 years, I saw yoga as having a solid scientific and logical basis as a sophisticated mind body health regimen, as has been validated in recent times.
• 2:28
  Amy Lynn Durham: After a successful career as an engineer, executive, and entrepreneur, Vish Chatterji is honoring his sole purpose as an East meets West executive coach and Vedic wisdom teacher, he helps people find light in their work through the wisdom of his ancestors, leveraging the traditions of yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic philosophy, and Jyotish. His coaching practice, Head and Heart Insights, counsels clients across the globe, and he serves as a faculty coach and educator for the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley. Vish holds a BS in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University, an MBA from the University of Michigan, and an executive coaching certificate from UC Berkeley. Vish has studied in traditional Himalayan ashrams and at the Chopra Center for Well-being, Vish has held public office as a board director for the Beach City's Health District in Los Angeles, and is the author of The Business Casual Yogi: Take Charge of Your Body, Mind, and Career. The newly released Astrology Decoded: The Secret Science of India's Sages through Mandala Publishing is out, and that is why Vish has returned to the Create Magic at Work community and audience today. He was born in the bustling city of Hong Kong to Indian parents, has traveled to over 50 countries, and can get by in seven languages. Incredible. He currently resides in Redondo Beach, California, within a bike ride to the Pacific Ocean. He's a married father of three and is often found cooking with the family, working in the garden, and tinkering in the garage. Vish, welcome back to Create Magic at Work, and thank you for that beautiful reading from Astrology Decoded to kick us off.
• 4:24
  Vish Chatterji: Thank you, Amy. I'm so happy to be back on Create Magic at Work. It's been a show that I've been listening to over and over since I first appeared on it, I think several years ago with Business Couch Yogi. It's an amazing community that you've created, and I think more and more people are starting to realize how important it is to have magic at work or magic at life in general, right?
• 4:45
  Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah. Thank you. We're actually celebrating three years this month of the podcast. I just.. I can't even.. like, how have I been doing this for three years with all of these incredible people? It's.. it's amazing. It's quite extraordinary. It doesn't even. Feel like it's been three years, and I'm excited to have you here. We have had some really amazing conversations about Jyotish, which is Vedic astrology. We've also had some amazing personal conversations in regards to how it compares to Western astrology and how it ties to leaders in the workplace, so I want to start off. There's a part in Astrology Decoded way towards the end in your thank yous where you said the book was born partially from a conversation you had in a cafe with someone where you started talking about planetary archetypes for leaders, so why don't we start off with you sharing how you, how you ended up on this path, an engineer, someone with an MBA. Your reading was like this HR person at this conference was telling me, oh, so and so's a cancer, I'm this, and you're rolling your eyes. Now you're here on Create Magic at work as the wise sage that helps people with Jyotish with Vedic astrology. Tell us a little bit more, how you got here.
• 6:12
  Vish Chatterji: Yeah, it's been quite a journey. I think you know it's almost like the veil got lifted little by little along along the way for me. Trained as an engineer, being a business leader, I was always very skeptical about anything sort of too mind, body, spirity, focusing on data and hard science. I'm trained as an engineer, and I guess there's two, there's two converging paths. One was in the corporate world, as a leader, we were constantly doing these personality assessments, like, you know, there's Myers Briggs, there's the disc profile, there's, I mean, there's just, they just keep growing. There's probably 10 or 12 different personality assessments in vogue. And why is it that all these corporations keep doing personality tests on employees? Like, what do you think, Amy? Why is that
• 6:57
  Amy Lynn Durham: straight? I just keep, never going to my head, Strengths Finder, there's them, Myers Briggs. I really, that's such a good question, because I'm like, why, why are we doing this to help people have some personal self exploration, maybe some self awareness about how they interact with others as a team, hopefully those types of things, how to, you know, strengths, how to amplify your strengths, how do you hone in on those? Yeah, maybe shine a light on some of your shadows.
• 7:25
  Vish Chatterji: Yeah, so that's that's what's happening, is everyone's trying to understand themselves better, and companies are trying to help their understand their leaders, especially understand themselves better as they lead better and interact in teams better. And the person at the cafe that I was chatting with happened to be the associate publisher of Mandala, and he's trained in Myers-Briggs, so he's kind of personality type expert, and I was telling him how Vedic astrology is the ultimate personality assessment. It goes deeper than anything else out there, right? And this is, you know, after the practices of mine had subsided, so realizing that you look at the moment of somebody's birth and you analyze their birth chart, their horoscope, so to speak. You actually get a much deeper personality read than anything else out there. And when people go to the newspaper horoscope, back in the old days, or a magazine horoscope, or online, or whatever, they're also trying to do this self-exploration. Everybody seems to want to understand themselves better. And I have been a coach and executive coach for the past eight years, and as a coach I want my clients to help to understand themselves better, and of course, you know, some of us coaches, we use personality assessments, but I got really interested in the Indian Ayurvedic medicine system, so it was an Indian ancient tradition called Ayurveda, it's a mind-body medicine system, and it divides people into these three sort of archetypes, they call them Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, and I talked about this a lot in Business Casual Yogi, my first book, and you could say Vata in general is an airy, creative type, Pitta is a fiery, driven type, and Kapha is more of an earthly counseling grounded type, right, and so everybody is a combination of these three archetypes, either very heavily towards one or the other. And in Ayurvedic medicine, a doctor would figure out what is your particular type, mind-body
• 9:12
  constitution, and then they would give you lifestyle regimen, herbal regimen protocols, or massage, all these different sort of approaches based on your unique mind body constitution. The idea is that it's a more personalized approach to medicine, right? But I thought this was such an interesting tool to understand leaders better. So I started using these Ayurveda archetypes in my coaching practice, and I would give my clients a quiz, and that quiz is in Business Casual Yogi. You can take this quiz, and as you take the quiz, it'll, you'll figure out what is your archetype, and then, based on that, I would, you know, suggest different leadership approaches, like a vat, there's a very creative type, very spacey, very airy, lots of ideas, but can get very ungrounded and start to have issues with, you know, ungroundedness, right, not like anxiety or insomnia. The air, not thinking straight, but then I was noticing that in corporate America we all want to be the type A personality, we all want to be that driven leader, and so we kind of self select towards the fiery archetype, and so when I would give my clients a quiz, I would see before my very eyes a different archetype, a different, you know, my intuition was saying, hey, I think this person is more airy or spacey or more earthy or more grounded, but they would take my quiz and almost self-select to be more fiery, and so I went to my Ayurveda teacher and I said, people are cheating on my quiz, people are cheating on my quiz, and he said, well, he said, well, very simple way to deal with this. You should look at their birth chart. I said, birth chart, what do you mean that astrology hocus pocus stuff? He said, yeah, you look at the birth chart, see when they're born, pull up a chart for the moment, and he started teaching me the system of Vedic astrology, and I started to get a real ground truth on people. So, I would, someone come in my office, I'd give them the quiz, I'd see the
• 11:09
  cheated results, I'd ask them for their birth info information, I pull a chart, and I would say, you know what, this is what I see, and I would ask them some questions, and they would say, How do you know that about me, I've been trying to hide that for years, and so then I started to realize, like, this astrology system actually does give quite a ground truth. And then, of course, my question became, what else can I do with this birth chart, and that opened up this entire journey into Jyotish and Vedic astrology.
• 11:39
  Amy Lynn Durham: I love in your new book, Astrology Decoded, I wasn't familiar with, I was a little bit familiar with Vedic astrology, but I didn't learn so much about it until, of course, you and I started collaborating on different things, and I love the definition of geo to, of Jyotish, the study of the light of our consciousness, I just think that is so beautiful, and I think you're speaking. I'm like, gosh, this is so cool that we're studying the light of our consciousness, and what a release for people to not feel like they have to hide who they are in these corporate systems, and they can actually be seen for what their unique makeup is in this world. I think that that's a really beautiful thing. In the past episode, when we talked about compassionate leadership, you shared a little bit about the difference between Western astrology and Vedic astrology. I have found that, at least in my algorithms, Western astrology is extremely popular, and more people than I've ever encountered know their, their sun sign, their moon sign, their ascendant, they're reading all these things. Oh, well, this, they're studying all of these different things, and an important distinction that you made, and of, I mean, you're, you're the Jyotishi, so are we gonna have you answer this? Share with us the distinction between Western astrology and Vedic astrology, and let's leave it at that for right now. I have so many questions, so yeah,
• 13:15
  Vish Chatterji: yeah. And so I think when I first started going down the path of Jyotish and Vedic astrology, because I was so skeptical about astrology, I went with this sort of, you know, skeptical mind, and I was looking for the chart to prove out reality, so I would say, if I'm, if I'm seeing this in a chart and somebody's, you know, birth chart, and I ask them questions and they're affirming what I'm seeing, then I'm sorry to say, okay, you know what, the data is coming back and affirming what I'm seeing, but I also didn't know much about Western astrology, and even to this day I don't really know much about Western astrology, so I think something - it's not something I ever followed or researched or understood. But then it's so popular, like you said, like people are talking about it all the time, and you know, is one system better than the other? It's hard to say, right? I don't want to disparage the whole Western astrology system, because it has its place and its value, but the first thing I want to preface is that we are all of the signs, all zodiac signs show up somewhere in our birth chart, so some aspect of us is represented in each of the 12 different zodiac signs, so if you were to pick up a newspaper horoscope or a magazine horoscope, or look up something online and read anything random. There's something in there that will apply to you. And I think that's what happens, is people read something like, oh yeah, that's me, I kind of get that. But underneath there's still a bit of like, I'm not sure if that is really me, I'm a little skeptical. So the first thing that happened is when I started to learn about Jyotish as a Jyotishi, I started to notice that the calculations that Vedic astrologers use are very different to the Western system, and the calculations that astrologers in India use are accurate to the actual observable sky. So, Vedic astrology is an observable system, you. Yesterday the moon was in Pisces. If I took a telescope and
• 15:04
  looked behind the moon, behind the moon would be the star constellation of Pisces. Now a Western astrologer may say it's in a different sign because they're using a different calculated position. So what's going to happen is the Western astrologer is looking at the birth chart, or looking at a chart, looking at a sun sign, a moon sign, a rising sign, but if they looked out of their window, away from their computer, up out the window, they would see something different in the sky with Indian astrology, or whatever they're looking at on their computer, or on their piece of paper, when they look out the window, what's in the sky matches what's on that piece of paper or on the computer screen, so observable system, and why is that important in Western astrology? You call it a zodiac sign, and the sign is very interesting. It's a word sign because it's kind of symbolic, because it's not really there. In Vedic astrology, we call it a rashi, and rashi means a heap of energy, so we don't look at it as a sign, we look at it as a constellation of stars that emits a particular energy, and so we need to know exactly where that energy is and how it's influencing us in order to understand the energetic influence on us, and you know, in Western astrology, you use your sun sign, like where was the sun when you were born, and that's the same for everybody in this 30 day period, and everybody anywhere on earth. In Vedic astrology, we zoom in on the rising sign, which means at the exact moment you were born, at that time of birth, that date of birth, and that location on earth. If you were to look to the eastern horizon, what star constellation, what energy was influencing you at the moment you took your first breath, and that has a profound effect on your being. So, it's an observable system that's connected to energy, real energy in specific locations relative to your birth. So, it becomes a much deeper system. You could almost say that Western astrology is like kind of
• 17:02
  a photograph of your current state, whereas Vedic astrology is like an X-ray vision into your soul.
• 17:10
  Amy Lynn Durham: On that note, I have had a Vedic greeting from you, just to share with everyone listening, and it did feel very, very deep. One of the things that I remember from that is a way that you, that you, as my Joe Tischy, am I saying that right,
• 17:30
  Vish Chatterji: my
• 17:30
  Unknown: Joe Tischy,
• 17:31
  Amy Lynn Durham: the word that you can help challenges in our lives or help with karmic debt, and I'm wondering, how that ties to leaders and teams in the workplace. How does, how does a leader that is a results-driven executive, how does someone like that blend something like the system in to help them benefit from it, live a more fulfilled life, have greater inner peace, all of those things.
• 18:02
  Vish Chatterji: I mean, that's the thing, right? So, you're a leader, you're an executive, you are taking personality assessment to understand yourself better. You're trying to understand sort of things that don't add up in your own mind, and so you're sort of grasping, trying to find a way to understand yourself better. You hear the word astrology, and you think, okay, that's that's who, that doesn't really work now. When you use a system like Vedic astrology, you're using good data, right? So, as an executive, as a leader, you want good data behind everything you do, and that's why these personality assessments keep changing, because new research keeps coming out saying, oh, this one's better, and, oh, this one's better. So, you want good data, and that good data is good actual calculations of where the planets are in the sky at the moment of your birth, and right now, at this very moment, right, and how they're influencing you, and once you have that good data, you can start understanding and applying a little bit of your intuition that, wow, that is some strength of mine that I didn't really recognize, I didn't, I didn't cultivate, but I know was there, right? So I start to see the Vedic birth chart as a SWOT analysis. So, you know, as an executive coach, we're a lot of times in the business world, we do a SWOT. We do what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, what are your opportunities, what are your threats for an individual or for business? And so I can basically pull up a chart for an individual or even for their business, and quickly identify based on those energies of these different star constellations and different planets, what is the strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat for that person, which in essence allows me to ask a great question. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if the chart is, if the interpretation is perfect. What's great about is you're asking a great question that probes into something that
• 19:45
  that leader probably hadn't thought about before. So, I feel like the astrology system, just like any assessment out there, think about as a tool to ask a great question for deeper self-awareness.
• 19:57
  Amy Lynn Durham: How does this, how do we differentiate? Between ego versus higher self in our approach to this, I'm just thinking with the rise of popularity of a lot of this, which is great. How do I say this? I feel like I'm seeing some approaches to tapping into this, coming from a bit of an egoic state. I mean, myself included, like I want to know what this is for me. I want to, oh, I'm so this or I'm so that. Well, I did this because, you know, my Mars is in Aries, so I'm fiery, so that's my excuse that I popped off on you. I'm just like making stuff up right now. So, how do we use all of these amazing tools in the right way, where we're approaching this from higher self, and thoughts on that?
• 20:49
  Vish Chatterji: I mean, that that is a question coming from somebody who is deeply trained in spiritual intelligence, and that's why you're able to ask that question. It's a brilliant question, Amy. The ego and the higher self, right? So, in the yoga system, this is where yoga philosophy is very powerful. We recognize that there's a deeper soul within, a higher self, so to speak, and then an ego that is often not aligned with the soul, but the ego is a reflection of the soul. So, the ego is a reflection of the soul, but oftentimes it's very disconnected from the higher self, and the ego is so much in charge that we've almost forgotten our deeper nature or our higher self, and so when you do practices like the yoga system, or meditative practices, or spiritual practices, or you start going deep into spiritual intelligence and those tools, you start to reconnect the ego to be more aligned with the higher self, and what a Vedic chart does is it explains to you the makeup and the nature of that higher self, so you kind of know what is the roadmap or the ground truth of the higher self, and then you can assess how far has your ego drifted from that. What's interesting about Western astrology, the calculations they use are seasonal based, so the horoscope or the birth chart, the chart that is cast changes every year, and that point shifts over time. So the Vedic people picked a point in space that never ever moves, it just is constant throughout eternity. The Western astrology system had the same point about 2000 years ago, which, when I believe, maybe that system started, but then it drifts one degree of space every 72 years, and so now it's drifted about 24 degrees of space, almost a whole sign over, and that drift, you could argue is incorrect math to the sky, but also that drift gives you a snapshot of where you are right now, seasonally speaking. So, you could call Western astrology a seasonal system that changes by the season, but it also then gives you a
• 22:55
  snapshot of your ego, where it is this season and right now, and so I kind of see Western astrology as a tool to understand where your ego is at this moment, but it doesn't give you that clue to what is the ego trying to align to, and Vedic astrology gives you that deeper sort of soul level alignment, and so then you know, okay, here's what I need to work towards, so they're both useful in that way, right? A Western astrology can say, okay, here's what I see in your ego, and you're like, wow, that's me, right? Sometimes I'll read the chart, and if somebody's very ego driven and very misaligned, they'll say that's not me at all. And then a year or two later, they said, hey, I've been doing all these practices, now I'm starting to see I was way off, I was way off my true self, right. So, as a tool to find your true self, Vedic astrology, yoga, these systems, they're designed, they're developed to help you find your true self.
• 23:55
  Amy Lynn Durham: All right, it's time for a fun, playful, quick break, and it's time for you to discover your spiritual intelligence at work, so over here at Create Magic at Work, we are not just a great podcast, we are an executive coaching firm, a team dedicated to helping leaders like you create healthier, more fulfilling workplaces, whether it's through private coaching, transformative workshops, or impactful keynotes. We're here to help support your journey to have less drama and stress and more magical moments in your life. So have a little fun, take our quick quiz in the show notes, and see where you stand. Discover your spiritual intelligence at work. Click on the link in the show notes and reach out to us for support if you need it. Sending magic to you. Interesting, I have the most randomest question right now to that.
• 24:52
  Vish Chatterji: Go for it.
• 24:53
  Amy Lynn Durham: Okay, so to me you're describing if somebody was operating from a real deep e. Ego state, and you had a chat with them as their Jyotishi, and you pointed out these ways they can tap into higher self, then they're aligning with true inner peace, true fulfillment, who they, who they are at soul level. What does that look like if somebody wants to use a tool like this for their deep egoic state? What if somebody wants to not operate for the greater good or for a higher level of global consciousness, or you know, or for a elevated collective? What if somebody wants you, wants to use these tools for more money? Just go, go, go. How do I? How do I, because I know there's a lot of great manifesters that can manifest things, and that's sort of where I was going with my other question too. It's like, how do we use these tools so they ripple out in a way that it's for the greater good and not just for self-serving reasons? I mean, I can get into that space myself, like, oh my gosh, like new moon and tensions. I need this deal, you know, trying to bend the universe to your will.
• 26:08
  Vish Chatterji: Yeah, I mean, it builds off your question on karma, which I didn't fully understand. I didn't fully explain the karma question, because there's so much of it to understand, right? So, there's a few pieces of your question. One is, are people ready for the truth, right? And I wrote about this in Astrology Decoded. I think the opening chapter I talked about a yogi friend of mine who is deep in the yoga tradition, practices yoga, is understanding yoga philosophy, but then follows Western astrology, and I was confused. I was like, why would you do a system of yoga that is to try to try to find your true self, but then use a system of astrology that takes you away from your true self, and she very intelligently said, Well, I'm not ready for the truth just yet, I'm kind of attached to my ego, I'm attached to what I've created for myself, and I don't want to leave that, and that's fine, right? So you can say, you know what, you're not ready for that level of truth, and even as a Jyotishi, clients aren't going to come to me if they're not ready for that level of truth, right? If they want to stay in kind of more superficial, ego-driven existence, that's fine, they can do that, right? And not everyone needs to access the truth at every point in their life. When you're ready, then the knowledge will be there for you, but then it is a powerful tool, and what Vedic astrology is, ultimately, I look at it as a karmic management tool. We're a sum product of every action, everything, every choice we've ever made in this lifetime and other lifetimes, if you believe that paradigm. And so things happen based on debts that have to be paid off, and so the Vedic system looks at life as this really powerful accounting system, right. In the Judeo-Christian system, there's this idea of judgment: did you do good, did you do bad? There's judgment placed on everything. The Vedic system, there's no judgment, it's just a balance sheet, it's either plus or minus, just
• 28:00
  like numbers, or you look at numbers, and you look at a balance sheet in finance, it's there's no judgment, it's accounting, right? And so when you look at the karmic balance sheet, as an astrologer looks at your chart, they're looking at current balance sheet, and they're saying, look, based on all the karma that you have, these are the kind of things are going to happen to you, and you have the ability to change that by paying the debt off in a different way, so when you said you know, Vish, I want to bend the universe, you can literally bend the universe by doing karmic remedies, if you, for instance, let's say harmed a child sometime, you, that debt is going to come back to you, are gonna have to pay that back, right? So, either you'll get harmed or a child of yours will get harmed. That debt has to be paid back. And so, if you then decide, you know what, I'm going to do some charitable work. I'm going to donate to a children's charity. I'm going to volunteer to help children. You sort of, in a way, bet the universe to pay back that debt and even out that karma, right? So, then the question becomes, what if you decide to bend the karma, bend the universe for some personal gain? Sure, go ahead and do it, but there's a balancing effect, there's a karmic effect. If you did something that harms somebody else, you're going to have to pay that back. So the thing is, as you take actions in life, as you start to push yourself in certain directions, are you creating more debt for yourself that has to be paid back at some point, so it becomes this karmic balancing act when you do something in service for humanity, in service for others, usually that's giving you a positive balance in your, in your karmic debt, and then good things will happen to you at some point. That's kind of the way to look at, is that kind of answer this question at the last one around Karma.
• 29:42
  Amy Lynn Durham: Yes, I want to share with everyone listening. So personally, when I did a reading with Vish, I was carrying some anger around someone I had seen as an advisor. That got really into, uh, they gave me bad advice, they gave me bad spiritual advice, and I had been carrying it with me, and I was really upset about it, and you know, how could somebody do this to me, and and I couldn't let it go, and what just to add to this balance old balance sheet thing that Vish is talking about. I went to Vish and I brought this up to him when he was showing me my Vedic chart, and very compassionately Vish looked at me and said, well, you got bad spiritual advice because at some point in one of your lives, you or in this life, you have given bad spiritual advice, and I was like, whoa. And for some reason, hearing that made it better for me. I was like, I get it, I get it, I can release this, and I can understand, because I've done this before, it just, it hit me, and it resonated so, so deeply with that, and it was actually really healing to, and really helped me have compassion for the person that I viewed that did that to me, you know, did that to me, so I just want to share a personal story to kind of amplify that whole karmic thing that you were explaining, and how it helped me release. Really, we're on a full moon energy still, so focus on release there. Yeah, what is one lesson that you hope people take away from our conversation today from Astrology Decoded, what is something you hope they will take away from this?
• 31:50
  Vish Chatterji: Well, I think there's a takeaway from our conversation, a takeaway that I hope from Astrology Decoded. So Astrology Decoded is a book to help you start to just dip your toe in this ocean of Jyotish. It's a massive subject, it's complex, it's not very approachable. There aren't very approachable books out there, and so my goal with the book was to just give you this very digestible, approachable way to start to understand this very sophisticated, elegant system from 5000 10,000 years ago, much older than the Western system, and my hope is through the book it doesn't turn you into a Vedic astrologer, but it turns you into somebody who lives with more consciousness, that you're able to go through life and notice, you don't have to look at charts, you just have to look at the world around you, right, because what is astrology, you're looking at planets way out in space, well, look at stuff right around you, look at your neighbor, look at the person sitting in the cubicle across from you. That's much closer information than a planet way out in space, and start to understand how these energies of these planets and constellations are showing up in the people and events all around you. I think that's the first thing, is living with this more conscious awareness of the universe communicating with you all the time, and I think the other thing is from this conversation recognizing, and this is my hope for myself as well, is can I find gratitude in every experience that comes my way? Right, somebody comes to me and gives me bad spiritual advice, I can get upset why this happened to me, or can I get the perspective? Be grateful that, wow, I just had a major piece of debt paid off, right? That bad spiritual advice I gave way back when it just got taken care of. Thank you. Oh, bad spiritual advisor, you have cleared up that debt for me, right? Oh, this person stole from me. Oh, thank you for stealing from me. Because that time that I stole way
• 33:46
  back, who knows how many lifetimes, has now been taken care of, and that's very hard to do. And all the spiritual conditions are trying to move us to that sense of gratitude for everything. Good thing happens, bad thing happens, no matter what, we're grateful. Very, very hard to do in practice, but theoretically, that's really what's behind astrology. Is can you find that? Can you let go of that? You know, can you let go of the anger and frustration when things don't work the way that you want them to? Because that was part of your debt repayment plan.
• 34:15
  Amy Lynn Durham: I like that. Yeah, it's like seeing the gift in everything that is hard to do when you're, when you're living it, but I love how you just framed that. If someone wants their Jyotish reading, how can they? But there's a part of your book that says find the right advisor, because you're opening up Pandora's box of your karma to them. How can they find someone that they feel aligned with?
• 34:39
  Vish Chatterji: You know, in my first book, The Business Casual Yoga, I talked a lot about intuition and cultivating your intuition, and so if you have good, solid intuition-developing practices, spiritual practices in business, you kind of know who is a good fit to work with you, not to work with you, who is a good partnership for a deal, who is a good employee, who is a good potential other company. Partner, so same thing here. When you're going deep into understanding your soul's karma, pick someone that resonates with you, right? Just understand, you know, how do I feel when I hear this person speak? Do I like what they're communicating? Is it is it too direct? Do I need direct? Is it too flowery, or do I need flowery? Does this person understand my context, my paradigm, right. There's many phenomenal astrologers in India, but they don't understand the Western paradigm, right. Some people that really understand the Western paradigm, but they're not solid astrologers, but they're great counselors, right. So, I think you know, a combination of bedside banners, explaining ability, and then just a general, just feeling that you feel like, yeah, this person is somebody that I could go to for counsel, so you know there are far more qualified, more intelligent, more computational astrologers than I am, but I bring a different perspective to it. My perspective is more, you know, asking the question as a coach, and so using astrology to ask great questions to help people understand, but sometimes you want somebody to tell you. I have clients that come to me and say, "Hey, tell me when I'm going to get married. I'm like, "Well, I can do that, but that's not my thing, you know? Like, else they'll tell you, 'You'll get married on this day, this time. Sometimes people ask me, 'You know, when am I going to die, or when is so and so going to die in my family? And I'm like, 'Well, I don't do that, that's you know, unless it's a certain kind of circumstance. I
• 36:20
  might do that kind of prediction, but if it makes sense karmically for me, so I think it's all about finding, as you would in anything, right, somebody who is a good fit for you is the main thing.
• 36:31
  Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, that was my part B of this is how do we approach predictive abilities of others when we're seeking predictions, or when we're, when we're with somebody that is claiming to have a really strong predictive ability. What is your advice for how we should be or discern in those moments? Should we even be seeking predictive things from others? I mean, I feel like that can get dangerous, you know.
• 37:03
  Vish Chatterji: It can, it can, you know, some predictions are great, like I want to build a new house, and I'm going to lay the foundation, but the weather forecast is rain for the next week, and if I try to ignore the forecast of rain, I might run to a lot of problems when I started doing the cement work. Okay, so, so better delay a week, right? So, in that case, that prediction and that forecast is helpful. So, knowing the karmic weather patterns is quite helpful, quite useful. But if somebody makes a specific prediction, like, you know, says this will happen this time, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, like, you know, in your spiritual intelligence work, your higher self is very powerful, so some astrologer that you feel is know all knows everything, looking at their crystal ball, tells you something, your higher self starts to activate and make that thing happen when it may not have needed to happen. So I put predictions with a lot of caution, because it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, but you know, sometimes when you look at a chart, you, you know, these are different techniques, you rotate it, you flip it, you make the moon this end, it, you make the sun descendant, you try these other charts, you look every which way, it keeps saying the same thing, you know, that's going to happen for the person, so then you have to decide, you know, what is the best way to deliver that, and in a helpful, meaningful way, but even you as a client have to think, how can I use this in a helpful way for myself? What can I do with this information? Right, you're somebody's in a terrible relationship, they're miserable, and they don't think there's any hope of it ever being any other relationship, right. And so there's a little bit of a mindset challenge there, but then you see the chart shows very clearly you're going to meet someone in these in this period of time, so you better get out of the relationship, so you're available when that
• 38:48
  beautiful weather forecast of Venetian energy comes your way. That's helpful, because then the person says, "You know what, I got to get out of this, and sure enough, when the time comes, they do meet someone, and they're shocked, right? That's when I get the email saying, "I can't believe it. Somebody did come into my life, that was a helpful prediction, right? So, yeah, so I think approach prediction with caution.
• 39:09
  Amy Lynn Durham: Yep, I love that. I love the everything you just shared, and I think one of the what I've learned with all of my my journey is when someone you're working with is deeply attached to the outcomes of their own predictions, if you're working with a coach or an advisor of some sort, and they are deeply attached to what their predictions are, I think that's time to discern, like this is this is a little much like this person's too attached to the outcomes for your life of their own predictions, and yeah, and as you know, Vish, we, we are open to outcome and not attached to it, that's one of our coaching values. We both went to the same Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute. I just wanted. To share that as well, I normally pull a journal prompt card at the end of every episode. I really feel like we should do something different today, because we have you as our Jyotishi here. Do you want to share any wisdom? I, before we started, I have to tell you, I was hoping you would read what you read, and I didn't even ask you to read that. That was my thought when we were emailing each other yesterday. I was like, I hope you, and he read that, then you read that, that was so cool. And you mentioned something about doing kind of something on the fly, so do you want to do that to end our conversation today with everyone?
• 40:39
  Vish Chatterji: Sure, yeah, I can, and yeah, a couple of things before we end. So, one is, please, please, please look for Astrology Decoded on Amazon and pre-order it. I, you know, to support an author, the pre-orders make a really big deal, and I think we are going to be launching this just before launch, so it'd be perfect. Like, the podcast will come out, and I hope all of you listeners pre-order the book, and that will help me a lot as an author. And the other thing I want to make very clear is Vedic astrology is full of remedies, so you can change the outcome of things. These things aren't fixed, right? There's some things that are fixed, there's some things that are modifiable, you know. Western astrology kind of lays it out and says, okay, this is what it is, but Vedic strategy says, here are the energies, but you have the ability to actively manage it, and when you work with a coach or a counselor, you are actively managing those energies and changing things, right, and so setting intentions, doing practices, doing rituals, doing the work, making the right lifestyle changes and choices changes the outcome of those energies, so even when I look at somebody's chart who's not very up on their spiritual practices, and they start implementing practices and tools around spiritual intelligence, a year later, when I look at their chart, it's a completely different read because of the way they're actively managing those energies. So, remember, you have, you are in the driver's seat. Okay. And so, finally, I'm going to pull a chart for when we started for this moment, right now, and so this is a technique that astrologers use, that they literally pull a chart of the heavens at this very moment, and where I am sitting right now, Venus is in the eastern horizon, so if I were to look east, I would see the planet Venus rising, and it's rising in its own sign of Libra. So, that means the constellation of Libra is rising. The constellation
• 42:28
  of Libra is actually ruled by Venus, and Venus is in it, very strong position. And so, that is very good for all of us listening. One thing I observed is to corroborate if Venus's color is pink, and Amy is wearing a pink lock, so that you know information, right? Okay, there, Venus, there, Venus is communicating, and we've had a very, you know, amiable discussion. We always been very harmonious, so that's another Venus energy, and Libra, and Venus also rules love relationships and prosperity, so this discussion for all of you listening will open up some energy for you to lean in towards healthy relationships and financial prosperity.
• 43:14
  Amy Lynn Durham: Oh, I love that. Well, I'm glad we had this conversation today, and thank you for sharing all of that. Yeah, actually the sun is rising behind me from the east in our video here, in real, in real life here, not just in the video. So, thank you for sharing that lovely, lovely energy with us, Vish. And yes, please, we will have the link to Astrology Decoded in the show notes, and as Vish said, for those of you that aren't familiar, pre-orders for authors are such a critical time. Pre-order the book, click the link. I've already pre-ordered my hard copy, can't wait till it gets here. And part of the book has a remedies section that is really interesting, interesting to take a look at Vish. If people want to connect with you more, get a hold of you, how can they connect with you to have a conversation, work with you? Where can they go?
• 44:14
  Vish Chatterji: Yeah, so the easiest way is we just launched a site, Vish chatterjee.com so just remember my name, V I S H C H A T T E R J i.com and when you arrive there, you'll see a picture of Astrology Decoded. This is the book, you'll see it there, and there's links to order from there. Yeah, it's just beautifully designed. And when you take the jacket off, the front hardcover just looks like a gift box, just
• 44:38
  Amy Lynn Durham: cool. Yeah, the artwork inside is spectacular. Yeah,
• 44:42
  Vish Chatterji: so yeah, vishate.com and you can go there, and then you can learn more about Astrology Decoded. We actually have a chart calculator, so you can calculate your birth chart from the website, and then there's links to Business Casyogi, and then if you're interested in working with me through there, you can find my coaching practice as well.
• 44:59
  Amy Lynn Durham: Amazing. Vish, thank you so much for being our Jyotishi today, and thank you for bringing some magic to everyone today.
• 45:07
  Vish Chatterji: Great, thank you for having me on the show again, Amy. This has just been magical, as it always is, creating magic as you interview and talk, and it's just wonderful. I'm so happy and honored and blessed to be on the show today,
• 45:21
  Amy Lynn Durham: sending you many, many blessings back for Astrology Decoded, just being at the top of the list there for you. Thanks, Vish.