Interview with Vedic Astrologer James Braha

Foreign.

Well, hello, everyone. Well, today I am so excited because I have one of my favorite Vedic astrologers here today, James Braha. Oh, my God, James, I am thrilled you're here today because I cut my baby teeth on your book back in. Wow. You said you wrote the very first Hindu astrology book that we could all understand here in the west. And let me tell you, your books were my very, very favorite. I love your writing, I love your techniques and how you do Vedic astrology. As a matter of fact, you and I kind of do it the same. And we both started with Western, but we became passionate about Vedic astrology way back when. And you have, you have contributed so much. As a matter of fact, I don't even know if we would all be this big passion if it wasn't me.

Somebody, somebody else would have come along there. You know, it just happens the way it happens. But I was lucky. I have to say, I was lucky. When I came back. When I came back from my second trip, the first trip, I. I learned and I actually started to write and it didn't come out right. Anyway, I went back to India and the next time, you know, after the second trip, learning with my teacher, then I started to write and it just came out. It just flowed out.

Yeah, but, but that was 1985. I wrote. It came out in 1986.

Right.

And yeah, I remember feeling incredibly lucky. I said, how is it that this field hasn't been presented in a clear cut way?

Yeah.

You know, when I went to India, I brought about 25 horoscopes with me, Western horoscopes, hoping I could find an Indian astrologer. But I didn't have a lot of hope because I had read.

The Indian books and they were not written for Westerners. They were inconceivable.

And then when I learned it, I said, this is not hard, especially if you already know some Western astrology. This is not difficult. So I put it together and that was the start. And then it took off really quickly and interestingly. So this was the book Ancient Hindu Astrology for the Modern Western Astrologer. Interestingly, it's Revised now in 2020. Interestingly, I sent that book to three publishers, not because I wanted them to publish it. I had planned to publish it because I wanted a big book and I wanted a hardcover. I said, they're never going to do that. But I said, oh, maybe they'll make me rich. So I sent them the book and they all say, thank you. No. Then I got scared. I said, how could they say, no, it's, it's so clearly written. And I called one of them, they said, we loved your book, but we've never been able to sell Hindu astrology books. I said, yeah, that's because they weren't written. Right. Anyway, so I self published and it was the best, best move I ever made.

Yes. And I absolutely learned from your books because like you say, I could have learned from the, the Indian old books, they were written terribly.

And you know, you know what, in, in India, especially back then, in the 70s and 60s and 80s, especially back then, they're not. They'd had no money. So their currency was their knowledge. They wanted to write books to make themselves famous, but they didn't want to share their secrets.

Ah.

So they wouldn't really tell because that was their currency. So it was a. There's a complicated thing.

Yes. So you shared everything. And you know, I loved about your books is it was written for a Western astrologer to take it and go for it because.

Well, you know what, you know what? When I brought that book to the British publisher, I brought it to a. And he said, we can sell this in India. I said, what? They said, oh my God, this will sell in India. So. And it did. It sold plenty.

Yeah, because it was.

Let's talk about the conference for a second because I want to talk about the conference because.

Something that.

I mean, I don't know your audience, but if people have not gone to an astrology conference, they have no idea what they're missing because of course you go to the classes, of course you go and you take notes. But I'm telling you, the best part of a conference is when you're eating dinner with other astrologers and other students, you hear all sorts of things that you would never hear. You know, it's like when I went to college, I thought the college experience was great, but what I really loved was being around other people that were intelligent. And that's what it's like at a conference. You meet people and suddenly, suddenly you hear somebody say, oh, well, there's this technique over here. Oh, well, I use eclipses this way. I mean, that's where the learning takes place to a very large extent.

You nailed it. I mean, think about our experiences in college. What do we remember? All the social events, not necessarily the classrooms, but sharing ideas with people outside of the classroom. That's exactly what we'll be doing at this conference. And you know, I wanted to put this conference together because has been way too long that we have been able to come together with COVID and lockdowns. It's time that we come together in person to be able to really reconnect and share ideas and grow in our knowledge. And I think we have the dream team of teachers here at this, at this conference. It is amazing.

The other thing is that. The other thing is that when you go to. When like there's a certain. I've written six books. You can see them way in the background over there. I've written actually seven. Six are astrology one's non duality. There's a difference between what you can write and what you can say. It comes out differently. And Jyotish is really an oral tradition.

Yeah.

And it's interesting because, you know.

You. You process things by reading and you process things by. By hearing. And you know, one of the things that. That has always been so odd for me is that, you know, I would get clients and they'd say, I've read all your books, I've read all your books. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I would say, I would state some very simple thing about their horoscope. And they say, oh, really? I didn't know that. And I'm thinking, well, I. I've re. I mean, I've written at least three hardcore Hindu, Vedic astrology books filled with knowledge. And I'm talking basic stuff. They read it, it goes in one out the other. When you hear it, it's oftentimes different, you know, and. And so. So that also happens at, at conferences. You. You learn stuff that you. You can't learn elsewise. You, you know, and then there's also, then there's also when you're. You, you know this when you're giving a class, people don't want to ask questions during the class. So they wait and they corner you and they say, listen, I got to ask you a question about my chart or I got to ask you a question about some issue. So it's very personal. So I don't. I actually very rarely do conferences. I did this. Marilyn said, james, you've got to come to this conference. And I did it for Marilyn because she did so much for me.

Yes.

But it's, you know, being at a conference, like I gave a conference after 10 years of not doing them. I gave one in 2019 and the title of it was what I Wish I knew 40 years ago when I started. Really. So that's what I wrote about. These were all the things that it took me 40 years to learn. And a lot of the stuff that I've learned has taken a long 20 years, 25 years. I mean, there's all kinds of experiences that you have as an astrologer. You believe that the planets are going to act this way, and you're sure that they do because it's logical. And after a certain number of years, you say, you know, it's not working exactly, something's wrong, and then you start to investigate it. So it takes a long time. And this is why.

It'S really best if astrology authors wrote their books at the end of their careers when they put it all together, you know. And so that's what I try to do. I try to teach.

I. I don't. When I give workshops or lectures at conferences, I don't teach so much the way others do where, oh, this is all going to be about career. And we're going to look at 10 career charts. That's not what I do because they can do that on their own. What I do is I talk about the concepts that are being misapplied in the world of astrology, misunderstood misapplied, or things that have taken me. Like, for example, Rahu. Rahu is a malefic, but it's also.

Worldly cravings and worldly power. And Rahu, when it's, when it throws its aspects, it's throwing the aspect of a malefic, because it's a malefic. But if Rahu is aspecting, let's say it's aspecting a house that has been aspected by two other malefics, and then Rahu joins in and just makes it worse. But if Rahu is aspecting a house that's got other very benefic aspects, then when Rahu throws its aspect because the house is already so benefic, it just throws the worldly power, the worldly power aspect. And so it's more malleable, so to speak, depending upon what the horoscope, what those things are doing. This took a long time to understand. Also, for example.

When a planet is near Rahu, it's near Rahu. That means in the western system, it's near the north node. The north node is an area that you are living your life. You're going toward the north node. It's your purpose, it's your destiny. So if Jupiter is near that north node, if Jupiter is near Rahu, it means that if you choose to do something Jupiterian, it will go extremely easy. And. Well, it doesn't mean the person will go toward Jupiter. It means that, that if they do, it's a cinch if Mercury is near Rahu. If the person goes toward Mercury, it goes very easily. These are things they took decades to learn. Yeah, that's what you. That's what I teach. So I, you know, I have, like. I mean, I have the book, the. My most recent book, the. The Braha Sutras. That's what that book is. It's 200.

Everyone has to get that book. I'm serious, James. I love it.

So that book is 200 and. 216. 108 times 2. 108 is a spiritual number. It's 216 different concepts, ideas. That took a long. I mean, when I did charts. When I did charts for the first 10, 5, 10 years, I'd start anywhere. I'd say, oh, your chart's really great for this house. Oh, your chart's really what? Oh, you're going through a divorce. I would. Anywhere. After 20 years or so, I developed a system of looking at the foundation of the horoscope, which is the Ascendant, the moon and the sun. And so when I do a reading, I start with the foundation. If the foundation is strong, the Ascendant, Ascendant, ruler, moon and sun, if they're strong, you go through life with confidence, with ease. If they're all weak, then you go through life scared, shy, introspective, like. But it's the foundation. So that's, you know, that gives an astrologer a starting point, where to start from. So there's just all, you know, there's. So that's what I teach. I teach. I'll talk about, you know, 50 or 60 different concepts, all of which are different, and I call them distinctions. So you learn the distinct. Once you learn the distinction that a planet near the north node becomes very easily accessible. Accessible, it's done. You got that distinction right. You know, whatever it is. Once you have the distinction that if the Ascendant, moon and sun are strong, life is going to be generally easy. It's a distinction. It's. It's done. As opposed to, you know, I mean, I've done classes and conference where I'll talk for two hours about career, stuff like that. But I get the feeling. I get the feeling that a lot of it gets lost when I, you know, if I'm just talking about one subject like that versus versus Doing distinctions. And they get the distinctions.

Yes, I agree. And, you know, even my class and my latest book that I just did is just like yours. It's my 40 years of experience. Because when you just read something and apply it. You don't feel it because you haven't lived it. You know, all the astrology concepts we have actually in our 40 years experience through our own lives. So there's a sense of knowingness of what we know truly works when we're working with our charts and our clients. And that's what we're here to give back and teach. And that's what your class is going to. Well, tell us more about what your class is going to be about here at the conference in Dallas.

Well, it's, it's going to be, it's going to.

Let me tell everybody, Let me remind everyone, mark your calendars. It's June 2nd through the 5th in Dallas. We're going to have links so that you can click on it so you can check out everything. James, tell us what you're going to be speaking on. I'm so excited about it.

I mean, there's lots of different things, but like for example, the moon, you know, you learn when I learned Hindu astrology, so. Oh, the moon is more important than the sun and the ascent. The moon is like the ascendant and the sun, but the moon is just critically important. And you notice that the moon.

I, I live on this mountain, Mount Soma, where there's a Hindu temple actually in North Carolina. It's about 3, 500ft up. I see the moon at 4 o' clock in the afternoon. What does that tell you? The sun is up from, you know, six in the morning to six at night. Then you don't see it. The moon you see all night long. And the moon is also seen during the day, which is, it just lets you know how important it is. But the importance of the moon. I'll talk about the importance of the moon because the moon is the subconscious and the nurturing in childhood. So, so whatever goes on in those first seven years of life, that's going to color your inter. In your entire life, the first seven years. Aristotle. I thought this was Freud or something saying, give me a kid till he's seven. It's Aristotle in the year 300 or something. Like it's way back when I was writing the Brah Sutras. I was writing about how important the moon is because the moon is the nurturing in childhood. And if the nurturing is bad in childhood, you go through life not expecting love, not feeling like you deserve money, not feeling like you deserve love and happiness. That's how it is. Because it's the childhood. It's the childhood and it's the subconscious. If the Moon is very good. I deserve everything, I'm great. So I'll be talking about the moon.

I'll be talking about, I mean everything. So transits. I just updated my book on transits. This is, it's at Amazon now. It won't have that not for sale business. But this is the book. It's called how to predict your future. So in the transits, for example. For example.

A very famous astrologer, Stephen Arroyo, who wrote many great western astrology books, he said most transit books are useless because why? Because there's certain subtleties that you have to understand about transits. If, let's say that, let's say that Saturn is about to conjunct your Saturn's about to transit the sun and you think, oh, you read the books, oh, this is going to be terrible. Problems with authority, problems with father, problems with government.

But this is what people don't necessarily understand. It's just a little tip that I'll talk about. So if Saturn and the sun are in a good position in the natal chart, if they're well disposed in the western, we call it a Saturn trining the sun. If Saturn and Sun are in a good relationship in the birth chart, then when the transit of Saturn hits that sun, it doesn't cause all the problems. It just doesn't because the person already knows about responsibility and discipline. So when it hits, likewise Jupiter could hit something and you think, oh, it's going to be fantastic. But it's hit, but it's hitting a planet that's in a bad aspect with Jupiter to begin with. So there's, you know, subtleties like that. I'll also talk about the Varga charts. I don't use the Varga charts the way, the way I was taught, you know, the traditional way is you, you take the divisional chart and you look at the whole chart. Like if you're looking at the career chart and there's four planets in the house of the arts, people who say, oh, he's going to be an artist. That never worked for me. I look at the career house.

Yes.

If Mercury is in the career house of the career chart, that's a mercurial career. It's intellectual writing, teaching. If the person may have five planets in the sixth house of the career chart, you think they're going to be a healer, a doctor, but they've got Venus in the tenth house. It's the tenth house. It's the career house of the career chart that matters for the VARGA chart. So this I, you know, like I say I've got 216 of these different things, but some of them took me a long time. One of them is the Jupiter, Mercury conjunction or the opposition. I always thought these for years, decades. I thought I'd see Mercury, Jupiter, oh, this is fantastic. The house is going to be great. It's holding two benefics. But I kept coming across these. People would say, well, actually, no, I'm not so good in that area. No, I'm not. Not always. But a fair amount of time this was happening and I couldn't figure out why. I thought, well, it's just. Astrology is not perfect. But one day my friend, friend from Connecticut came to visit with his wife and I play guitar and I play music and they were enjoying it and his wife was just loving the music. We didn't know her birth time, but we knew that she had Jupiter conjunct Mercury within one degree. I said, well, you might. You must be great at singing. She's no, I can't hold the tune. I said, wait, you have Jupiter, Mercury conjunct and you can't hold the tune? She goes, no. I said, come on, I don't believe that. And I looked at him, Alan, he said, no, she can't hold the tune. That was it. I said, okay, that's it. For 20 years I've been telling people, Mercury, Jupiter together is great. It's all good. It's not great. It's not all good. And I had to think about it. So I thought about it for a few years until. Till I understood. When Jupiter's with Mercury, it expands the nervous system. Jupiter is great with any other planet. It expands Venus, you get art, it expands the sun, you get. You get strong confidence. But when it's with Mercury, it expands the nervous system and the person becomes delicate and nervous. And singing is all about confidence. So you get somebody like Bob Dylan. The guy's got a terrible voice, but he can carry a tune because he's got the confidence. So. So what I realized was she can't sing strictly because she. She's scared. She's nervous or scared like that. But anyway, that's just the sort of thing that it takes a lot. Those things, they take a long time to figure them out. Because I'm an astrologer that.

I'm really embarrassed when I get things wrong, okay? I don't like it. I really don't like it. I get off. I get off the session and I think, what the hell happened? Why did I not know that guy was in medicine? Why did I not know, so it drives me nuts. So that's how I've come to be able to figure out all these different issues. You know, one of the, one of the, one of the hardest ones was people would be doing a chart and they'd say, well, you're in Jupiter dasha. Jupiter's in the first house, it aspects the seventh. So you're gonna have a relationship because it aspects the seventh in the dasha. No, planets don't throw aspects in the dasha. But this was not easy to figure out either because half the astrologers are using them, half are not. And I finally reasoned it out. It was when I was writing the Braha Sutras. I finally reasoned it out how I could prove, I, I suspected that it, that they don't throw aspects. But I wasn't sure because some look a dasha. I'm in Saturn dasha. Saturn's in the fifth, it aspects the 11th. And my oldest brother died in the Saturn dasha. The Saturn Dash is 19 years.

Yeah.

And he was 70, you know, so it wasn't the dasha that did. But how I figured it out was through the thought process. And finally what I realized was if planets threw aspects in their dasha, then when you see a person who has Venus in Virgo, maybe a really afflicted Venus in Virgo because it's near the 27th degree of Virgo, and that planet, say that planet is in the. The fourth house, and it's terrible for mother and it's terrible for home for the whole 20 years. It's difficult for the fourth house because it's fallen. If planets threw aspects in their dashas, then I would say, oh, you got a really bad period for 20 years with the mother, with the home and land and real estate. But guess what? The career is going to be spectacular because Venus is going to throw its aspect onto the 10th house, its exaltation sign, Pisces, and it's going to throw the aspect and the 10th house will flourish. That does not happen. And if a. And if a planet's exalted, you say, oh, you got, you know, you got.

Jupiter is, is in cancer in the money house. It's going to be a great 16 years for money. But the eighth house is going to suffer because it throws the aspect on the fallen site. So, you know, so those are the things that you come to a conference to, to, to learn that, you know, everything I just told you is in my book, the Braha Sutras. I guarantee you people read it. It goes in and goes out. But if they hear me speaking it, they're likely. And then they'll have a question. Hey, what about my chart? This is happening.

You know. You know, there's a. There's a section in that book about clients, about clients, difficult clients. And one of the things that took me a while to find out was it if a person is not sure of their birth time and they know some astrology. Well, I'm not sure if it's cancer or Leo. I take a look at the chart and if it's really clear, I say, well, does your husband have health problems? Yes. Do you have a successful career in the arts? Yes. I say, okay, so your ascendant is Leo. Yeah, but I'm still not sure.

That, that. What you have to understand about that is when a person does that, when they tell you that, immediately stop. Don't even try to convince them. You'll never convince them because they've got something going on about that issue. And I see it all the time. Other people goes, wow, thank you. You finally made me understand something that I like. One woman was. She was trying to do her. Her.

She was trying to figure out Taurus Ascendant or Aries Ascendant. Right? So she says, well, I'm pretty sure it has to be Aries because I don't, I don't relate to Taurus. I look at the chart and guess what? The sun is right next to Mars. I said, look, the Mars energy that you're thinking is Aries is the sun with Mars. Let me ask you, do you have a great marriage? Yes. Do you have great money? Yes. Do you have problems with kids? Yes. That's the Ascendant, Right? Not, you know.

Well, I think sometimes people are thinking about their western sun sign type stuff, and that's not what it is when you're trying to rectify a chart.

No, no, no, no. I have to use. I use the whole chart. This brings me to another issue.

The Baba chart. You must use the Baba chart. The Baba chart means if you have the Ascendant at 2 degrees Gemini and Jupiter's at 28 degrees Gemini, that Jupiter is going to be in the first house and the second house. In fact, it'll be more in the second house because it's so close to the second house. And recently I came. This is. Took a long time, but recently I came up with a great, A great way to express it to my clients. I say, look, your Saturn is in the sixth house, but it's also in the seventh because the ascendant's 2 degrees, and Saturn's in the sixth house, but at the 28th degree. So it's, it's near the. It's in the sixth and seventh both. And the concept is this. You have a mango tree, and you plant your mango tree at the very edge of the yard by the fence. You get half the mangoes, your neighbor gets half the mangoes. But if you don't use the Bhava chart, if you don't take notice of when a person has a very early ascendant or a very late ascendant, which means that some planets are going to be in degrees that make the planet fall in two houses. Gives two houses. When I was in India, and if you don't use that, you can never rectify a chart. If you don't do. You don't know that. Yeah, but when I was in India, so much of the stuff I learned, I had learned by myself because they wouldn't explain it really very well. One day my, my astrologer would say, oh, this person's going to have problems with kids because Saturn's in the fifth set. Because Saturn's in the fifth house. I said, yeah, yeah, they do. They do. A couple weeks later, we're looking at the chart and said, oh, they're problems with land because Saturn's in the fourth house. I said, but Saturn's in the fifth house. He goes, yes, but still, what he was. He just didn't explain that it was on. It was both. That's the Baba chart.

Yeah.

So I'll be speaking about that.

I might mention some things in the, in the.

At the, at the conference about how to handle certain situations, the. How to handle the counseling process. You know, what do you do when you know the chart is accurate? You know the chart's accurate because they got several brothers and sisters versus, you know, not having that. You know, it's accurate. But none of the good stuff that you say.

Agrees. No, I don't have. No, I don't have money. No, I don't have. No. At that point, if I know the chart is accurate, I stopped the reading. I gotta say, what happened? They go, huh? I go, what happened? They go, what do you mean? I said, you know what I mean. What happened in childhood such that nothing is working for you? What trauma occurred? And then you find out, well, I got raped. Well, my father beat me. You find out what it is. But suppose the things that, you know, you're doing astrology, it's not making sense, but a lot of the chart does. But some of it doesn't you don't know what to do. In my. When I came back from India, I was not ready to practice. I had all these.

Hindu books with me. I had learned. I studied with my teacher, but I wasn't ready to practice. But I was going around looking for.

An apartment, and I couldn't stop talking about astrology to anybody. I was just. You know how you get obsessed. So the guy says, I want you to do my chart. I said, I'm not ready. He said, no, I want you to do my chart. No, I'm not ready. Finally he says, look, I'm a haircutter because I didn't want to take money. He said, I'll cut your hair. We'll trade. I said, okay, we'll trade. So I give him a reading. And the next thing you know, my phone doesn't stop ringing. So I'm in business now.

Yeah.

So the very first client comes, and this is. We're talking 1983. Yeah. And, you know, I was just very scared. I don't have a real strong foundation in my chart. So for me, you know, everything. You know, I have to know what I'm doing and be perfect. So the woman comes in, and I have analyzed the chart for four days because I'm so scared.

And she comes in, and I say, okay, so. And this is. This is lesson number one, how not to do a reading. So, okay. I just jump right in. I said, okay, so your life is difficult. You have problems in this area, in that area, because the problems with your father were so intense. Now, you don't start a reading like that. It's. You just don't do it. But I didn't know this. I was, you know, 32 or whatever. Anyway, so she says, no, no, everything's fine with my father. You know, I've studied the chart for four days, and everything cannot possibly have been fine with the father. I said, everything's fine with your father? Everything went well. Yeah. Childhood with your father was good? Yeah. Yeah. Everything's fine with the father.

I said, listen, we should stop this. You should just go home. I'm not ready to do this. She says, no, no, keep going. And I'm thinking to myself, how can I keep going? The fundamental.

Ten minutes into it, I start talking about the mother, and I say, things don't look very good with the mother either. And she says, well, things weren't good with my mother because my mother was completely obsessed with my father, who was an alcoholic.

Oh, no.

So these are things. This is why you go to conferences to get your questions answered. What do I do when the chart's not working? What do I do? You know? Yeah. And you share. And the thing is the stories when you're. When I think about conferences, I think about eating dinner and going out to places and, and talking about the astrological stuff that, you know, the clients that you've had. And the stories, to me, that's the, that's the fascination.

Well, I remember at the last conference, you and I sat together at the banquet and we shared some amazing things about astrology and what we experienced. I was talking about eclipses. You're going, what's going on with this next eclipse that's going to be happening? Why do you see it as being such a terrible thing? I said, well, because they're in Gemini and Sag. Every time something terrible happens, you're going, what? I said, yes. Guess what happened right after that Covid hit. Remember when we were having that conversation? I'm sure you remember because this is what we do at conferences. We share information.

Yeah. And Ronnie Dreier talks about Steve, I've been hit by eclipses many times without it having an effect. That's why I don't do much with them, because I don't. I get hit with them, they don't do much. Once in a while they do. But I was talking to Ronnie Dreyer and she says, oh, I get the best, I get the best predictions out of eclipses. Now that stops me in my tracks.

Right.

They don't do much. They don't do much to me. I don't know why. But now Ronnie Dreier, who knows what she's doing, gets her best results from them. So that, you know, then I start to take notice.

Yeah, yeah. No, I remember every single time the eclipses happen where my son is. Well, that particular year, right after both my parents died, I mean, I have to pay attention to eclipses. These are life changing events they created in my life.

Yeah. Another thing that I, that I talk about is I don't get a lot from Chandra Lagna. Chandra Lagna is where you look at the whole chart from the position of the moon. Doesn't, doesn't give me a lot. But when there is a planet seven houses away from the moon and it will never fail.

Never, never.

It just doesn't. But I actually, I believe that.

That the way Chandra Lagna may have come about way back in time, they may have noticed that the planet seven houses away from the moon had such a big effect on marriage. So then they started looking at the whole chart in relation to that. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. All I know is the Chandra Lagna isn't so important, you know, in, in my, my experience.

But the thing I have to tell you, I look at Chandra Lagna, the entire chart through and through, it works like a charm for me. So we'll, we will compare notes, James, and see what.

The thing about astrology, the thing about astrology, when I, when I did the updated version of this.

Yeah.

It was written in 85, in 2020, I completely redid it, which was so important. I actually, as I was Getting into my 60s, I said, I don't want to die leaving that book the way it was written when I was 35. It needs updating. Right. But when I was writing the introduction. The introduction is all about the fact that, that every astrologer is going to practice from their own. It's like an actor. You can't get Danny DeVito to play Muhammad Ali. He's too small. The body doesn't work. Actors have a voice, they have a Persona, they have personalities. And it's going to get into their acting. And with astrologers, every astrologer has to practice the way it works for them. And I really don't care. I mean, I'm, you know, if you watch my videos, I'm extremely passionate. This works. That doesn't. But I understand if it works for somebody else. All that matters to me is that you get accurate results. I don't care about the philosophy of it. If you get accurate results. A lot of people have philosophies, but they're not getting the accurate results, then. Then I'm not going to care. But if they get accurate results, I don't care how. I mean, my mother used to talk about.

The gypsies or something. They would take a cup of tea, turn it upside down and, and read the tea leaves or coffee grounds.

Right.

They would read coffee ground, whatever you use, if it works, you know, that's, that's the important thing.

Yeah, it is the important thing. So you and I have a lot of things that we will converse about. Hey. And if the people are around us, they'll get to hear it. Right.

But it is through life experience, I believe, that we formulate, become the astrologers that we are. And through all the readings that we've done for 40 years. I've been doing astrology for 40 years, and, and then some, which I don't like to go into because then they start wondering, how old are you?

I have to tell You, I have to tell you, you know, I'm 71. I kind of look at you don't look like you've been doing it 40 years, but you probably. I did not have my first reading until I was 27, but when I got that reading, oh, my God, I was so hooked. It's all I could think about. And I didn't become an astrologer. I studied Western astrology, but I wasn't going to practice it because.

I was able to make predictions with transits and progressions, but the natal charts, I couldn't make them work predictive enough. And so. But then five years later, when I went to India, that's when it all came together.

Right, right. Well, I did western astrology for 20 years, and it just wasn't giving me the results I wanted. And when I looked to Vedic astrology and these astrologers were making these accurate predictions and everything made more sense, I had to switch and I had to learn. And the books, of course, I started with yours. And for teaching purposes for my students, I thought, you know, all these books, I'm talking about, the Hindu books, they were not good. So I wrote my own book. And that was in the year of 2003. Eastern astrology for Western minds, for my students, so that they could make that transition. That's why I named it that. From Eastern thought. I mean, from Western thought to Eastern thought. And that's what it's all about. It's helping Western astrologers take what they already know and use it in Vedic astrology. And, you know, they're already ahead of the game by knowing what planets mean, what houses mean, all of that. But the Vedic is so much more predictive when we use it. It really.

The other thing is.

The theme of the chart. That's something that I, that I like to talk about.

You know, it's not like I've had a lot of Hindu astrology readings or Western. I haven't had many. But of the ones that I've had, never, never had I gotten a reading where they understood, where they could see the theme of my life. Yeah, they would see parts of it. The.

I had my very first paid Hindu astrology reading was in Benares, I believe. And the guy said, you're going to write some books. And I thought he. I said, Really? I was 31. I'm going to write some books. No, you're definitely going to write some books. Now, this was a very accurate prediction. But I didn't stay with that guy to study with him. I kept going Traveling because I wasn't impressed. He didn't know who I was. He didn't get a lot of this stuff. He got one accurate prediction, which is great. But even with my teachers, both of them, neither of them saw my career in astrology. They did. They just, they didn't get. They didn't get the essence of the horoscope, the theme of the chart. Now, part of why they didn't get my career in astrology. When I say my career in astrology, I don't mean that I would be an astrologer. But they didn't even say that. They didn't even say, oh, you have the chart of an astrologer. But I'm talking about. They didn't see how big my career would be. They didn't know that I would be into metaphysics my whole life. They just didn't see it. That had to do with the fact that they don't use degrees. Well, they do now, but they didn't back then. I promoted the idea of, you got to look this Jupiter aspect, you're moon within 2 degrees or 20 degrees. The Saturn aspect, you're ascendant within 5 degrees or 25 degrees. It's a huge difference. They weren't using that. Yes, but the theme of the chart, if you like. It's interesting because, because I was on Facebook. I got knocked off of Facebook. Somebody hacked my account, but I was on Facebook and I was, I put one of the sutras up there about, about finding the theme of the chart. And, and because that's what I look for and that's what I give to the person, I don't necessarily say the theme of the chart is this, but they get the theme because I've, I've explained their life and they see the theme of it. Okay, so I got this client and, and, and he was a friend from college actually, and I did his chart and he emailed me. He says, did you tell me my theme? The theme of my chart? I said, well, I didn't say it in so many words, but you know, you're an actor. We know that. I mean, but a lot of times what astrologers do is they give you little bits of information out of context. They're meaningless. You've got to have the context. You got to have the theme of the chart. So.

Right. Well, that's telling people who they are and what path they're supposed to go down. So important. That's what people need. That's what they want. So I think that's a beautiful, beautiful way of looking at it that we know our theme of our life, what we're about, and astrology does give us that. So it's beautiful that you're able to really compact that and help people. You know, I'm sure it's an aha experience for your clients, right?

Well.

Yeah, it's a powerful experience. It depends on the client. Yeah, it depends on, it depends on the information that's there. It's, it's pretty impactful, you know, to have it. Sometimes it's very thrilling and sometimes it's upsetting because it depends on what the theme is and what's going on, what they've got to work on. It just depends. But it's a very powerful. Most of the times it's extremely profound because they, they go, wow, I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, or, wow, I've always known that's where I should go, but I haven't been doing it yet.

Yeah.

Well, James, tell us, what are you doing now? What, what is, are you're doing?

Well, right now? Right now I, I've done so many. I'm going to tell you a funny story because Kapil Raj is going to be at the conference. I'm going to tell you a funny story.

And then we should go. It's getting late. But I, I did. I did.

I quit astrology in 2005. I got into non duality and I quit astrology. Not, not for, because of non duality. I was burned out. I had been writing books and doing readings. I was just burned out. So I quit. Quit for five years. Then the cr. You know, after the crash, I said, I need to make money and.

Let me do some astrology. It was very different after having a five year rest. It was very different after non duality. It was very different. Astrology became much easier and much more enjoyable. But in any case, no matter how much I advertised, people remembered, oh, James Braha doesn't do it anymore. I would advertise, no, he doesn't do it anymore. It's, it's kind of like, it's kind of like.

In the media, you know, National Enquirer will say something stupid about an actor and it'll be untrue. No matter how much they apologize, no matter how much they, they retract it, it's out there and it, and the public gets it and it just stays out there. So it just stayed out there that James Braha doesn't do astrology. Even though I'm trying to come back.

So There's a. There's a. A town in near Orlando, Florida, called Casadega, and it's a town of about 30 or 40 mediums or psychics. They came from New York. They. Now they're in Florida for many years. And you go there and you get two or three psychic readings in a day. Choose this one, that one, because there's a bunch of them. So my son was around 12 years old, and I said, hey, Julian, go get some psychic readings. And he was, wow, it's going to be great. So we go there and. And meanwhile, I've been trying to get back into astrology for like a year or two. I'm getting some readings, but not enough. And she says, she says some guy is going to be very instrumental in your career. Rog. Roger. Roger, Rog, Roger. Something like Roger. Right. Month or two later, I get this email from this guy I don't know. His name is Kapil Raj.

Yeah.

And he says, hey, would you like to do a video? So I come to find out he's got a huge following. So I do the. I do the one video and now I've got readings for about three months. People are coming to me because they've seen me on the video.

Yeah. So anyway.

I forget why I. Why I went into that story.

Well, what are you doing now? How does it.

Oh, that's it, what I'm doing now. Thank you. That's what, that's what led me to this. So what I'm doing now is I'm So people know my ancient Hindu book. They know the Braha Sutras. They know this one, which is a dialogue, the art and practice of ancient Hindu astrology, which is a dialogue where I teach. Martin, a friend of mine, I taught him astrology, transcribed the sessions, made a book. So people love it because it's. It's a dialogue. They like it. But I have other books. I have these other books. One is the transit book, how to predict your future, and the other is the aspects, planetary aspects, sun conjunct, moon, sun opposite, Saturn, Venus, trine, Mars, whatever. So I took the book and I. It's the Same Book from 1992, but it has a new cover and I've edited some stuff, but it's extremely useful. You can't do astrology just by understanding the planets and the houses. You've got to know what happens when Jupiter and Saturn are conjunct, what happens when they're opposite. So when I wrote that book, I did a tremendous amount of research looking at all these horoscopes of people that I knew. And then the other one is the transit book. And here's the thing. The transits. The transits. A lot of Hindu astrology students, Vedic astrology students.

They.

They just don't really understand enough about transits. They understand Saturn transiting a house or Jupiter transiting a house, but they don't understand what happens when Saturn specifically conjuncts Mercury or when Saturn specifically opposes Venus. You have to know those things. So I just got through and this thing here, this is like. This is like 500 pages. The transits. I cannot tell you. I cannot tell you what it was like to write that. It took 18 months of. Of five, six days a week. It is, yeah. Anyway, they're all at Amazon, so I just got through getting them on there. They're on Amazon right now.

Wonderful. Good. So we can all find.

I'll bring some of. I will bring some of those. I'll bring some of those to the conference.

Yeah, no, I want to have a full table of all your books. So please bring plenty of them. Yeah. Because I love your books. James, you're a phenomenal.

You're flattering me too much.

I do. I love your books. And I have read every single one of them and I have gained some. Something important from every single one of your books. So you're an amazing astrologer. I am thrilled that you're coming to the conference. And everyone that's watching right now, put this on your calendar because we're going to be all together. Look at who's speaking. The dream team of astrologers are all going to be here and it's called the Future of Astrology because I think this is the future of astrology. So Future of Astrology.com is the conference website and it's going to be in Dallas, Texas. Dallas is easy to get to, guys. It's a main, you know, airport. You can one stop, come here, be part of this, I think astrology event of the. Of the year or the century. Truly, it's going to be amazing. And it is June 2nd through the 5th. One more thing I want to add about that. I planned those days astrologically. Jupiter is going to be with Rahu. Talk about what you were talking about before. Expansion with learning. And it's an Aries New beginnings. And the other aspects that I planned with this conference, I think you might find this interesting is the first day that it begins, Venus is going to be in Cancer and the moon is in Libra. So we've got this mutual exchange for the very first day of Venus and. And the moon. But then right after that, the moon is going to go into Scorpio. Oh, no, it's debilitated. Mars is in cancer. Oh, no, it's debilitated. But guess what? They're in a mutual exchange, which highlights and brings them to this powerful position. So that whole time period, June 2nd through the 5th, is going to be exceptional. I am so excited about the dates and the times, and really, I just hope everyone will pay attention and come. We both. James and I both want to meet you. We love people. We love talking, and this is going to be a blast, so don't miss it. Any last words you want to say, James?

Come say hello.

All right. Good.

All right.

Thank you, everyone, for watching. Namaste.