[quote="basab"]Rohiniranjanji,
Quoting from your post: "You should stop reading my posts. I have been labeled as a BAD INFLUENCE by many who are poised and ready to give. give, give! The true teachers -- I suppose!"- You are misunderstanding me. I quoted from the book because I was being accused of being imaginative with the yogas which was not at all the case, but at the same time that doesn't mean that I meant that you were wrong about what you said. Maybe the author is wrong but the blame of "imagining new theories" were being put on my shoulders which I didn't like at all.

I find your posts fascinating and I am grateful to you for all the help I am getting from you so there is no question of stopping reading your posts. I am learning new things here everyday, thanks to you, Rishiji and the other learned members in this forum so I am extremely sorry if anything from any of my posts has got you offended.[/quote]


Dear Basab,

The nature of these forums can lead to misunderstandings and misperceptions, etc. So I think I should clear the air a bit and explain my position. Firstly, I am not at all against imagination. That is the glue that enables us to synthesize readings and interpret charts in a meaningful way. The way astrology has been presented in jyotish texts (classics) is rather terse and pardon me for saying so: disjointed. For the thousands of combinations given and so on, a literal interpretation and direct application can lead to problems, hence the application of imagination becomes essential.

In modern connotation, sometimes imagination gets confused with 'making something up' and I would never intend that connotation because I do not know everything that has been written out there and so how am I or anyone to judge.

When you interpreted the fourth as the house of luxury I explained why I consider it as house of sukh (contentment, happiness) and not Aishwarya (luxuries) which I see better reflected in the 2nd house which deals with wealth, the objects of bhog. I also pointed out that the 4th may have the conveyence aspect too such as a chariot or car and these can be utilitarian objects or luxury items. Also someone may have lots of wealth and luxury but no contentment or peace as opposed to another person with phooti kauri in his pocket but a beatific smile on his lips all the time and a song in the heart (and with no chemicals in his blood or brain, by the way to explain the smile and song!).

These linkages and then the examples are what we must then apply to the bare-bones launch-pad of knowledge provided to us by pithy texts, old and new.

I hope you understand where I am coming from better and any misgivings and misunderstandings that you may harbour have been addressed by me, and hopefully resolved

Peace!

RR,
     the subtle difference between sukh and luxury was very well expressed in your post.


Basab,
      Hope you are convinced now. I cannot imagine a better explanation than this. I understand you have an issue with conveyances/vehicles being items of luxury which was your major point of contention when we discussed this offline. Well, for places with a well developed omnipresent public transport system like Calcutta, owning a vehicle might be a luxury but think of people in small towns or places which don't have well developed public transportation systems using bicycles or motorcycles/scooters. If they don't have one, they won't be able to go work. I myself bought a car just because i had to go work, not because I wanted to wallow in luxury and show it off. It was not even free will, destiny gave me such a job that I had to own a vehicle to get there 8 am every morning. Let's not get into the discussion of driving in snow, if you ever have to drive in snow, you will not consider vehicle ownership a luxury any more, trust me.

Proj

Basab,
          have you ever heard this before from a famous poem.

"If pleasure be happiness, happy indeed I was"

[quote="projenator"]RR,
     the subtle difference between sukh and luxury was very well expressed in your post.


Basab,
      Hope you are convinced now. I cannot imagine a better explanation than this. I understand you have an issue with conveyances/vehicles being items of luxury which was your major point of contention when we discussed this offline. Well, for places with a well developed omnipresent public transport system like Calcutta, owning a vehicle might be a luxury but think of people in small towns or places which don't have well developed public transportation systems using bicycles or motorcycles/scooters. If they don't have one, they won't be able to go work. I myself bought a car just because i had to go work, not because I wanted to wallow in luxury and show it off. It was not even free will, destiny gave me such a job that I had to own a vehicle to get there 8 am every morning. Let's not get into the discussion of driving in snow, if you ever have to drive in snow, you will not consider vehicle ownership a luxury any more, trust me.

Proj[/quote]

Proj,

Extending this a bit further: Maybe we can find further evidence of this 2nd/4th split by finding a nativity whose first car was an old but functional (and necessary) 2nd hand car but at some point he managed to buy several cars and one of them was a Porche or Mercedes or BMW. Would it not be interesting if the first purchase was made when the factors pertaining to the 4th were operating whereas during the later luxury acquisitions, the 2nd may be prominent. Now this is where imagination is operating to design the experiment which is fine. Then comes the more difficult part! Finding real life examples and one or two would not do such is the Maya of the science of probabilities

Rohiniranjanji,
Peace, definitely and I am also sorry for misunderstanding you. I agree that these forums can get people into a lot of misunderstandings. Anyway, I am happy that the misunderstanding that had been created has been finally resolved and that also in this forum so we can't blame it totally.

I agree that imagination should be used in analyzing charts but I believe the theories should be used flexibly only after one has gained a good grasp over it and not before that it's because otherwise there is every chance of wrongly using the theories instead of flexibly using them. That's why I try to use those theories flexibly which I know very well(sadly they are very few).

Talking about the 4th house being the house of luxury, well, I said that because I had read that in the author's note in the BPHS, even in one of the slokas in BPHS there is mention of the Chaturamsha(D-4 chart) as the house of fortune, so that also had made me believe that the 4th house is the house of luxuries. I have also read that the 7th house is the main house of pleasures and 7th being the 4th from the 4th(Bhavat Bhavam principle) so I had this feeling that the 4th house is also the house of pleasures as logically that's what it is indicating. But what you have said about the 2nd house is also logical and that definitely makes me feel that you are absolutely right about what you are saying. 2nd house definitely is the house of luxury.