New Opportunity to Learn Vedic Astrology!

Well, hello everyone. It's good to see you today on this Saturday. And I have something very special today that we are going to be talking about. Well, hello everyone. We are going to be talking about learning Vedic astrology. And I have Srikala Ram here. She's going to give you some of her experiences in learning Vedic astrology and, and what it's all about this session that we're going to have live with you. We want to take all of your questions and all of your answers and better hear what your thoughts are and how, how in the questions you have about Vedic astrology. Anything you want to know, this is what we're here to answer for you. And of course, there is so much going on in the world right now, such as the eclipse is going to be Monday. And that eclipse will really bring out so many things that we need to know within our, within ourselves. Because remember, eclipses are always uncovering things that are dark and we don't know about. So Shree Shrikala, I always call you Shri. It's a very affectionate name I have for you. She is, she's been one of my students for such a long time and she has mastered Vedic astrology and now she has her own practice and she helps me teach at the university. So I want to hand this over to you, Sri. Tell me your thoughts about anything. Today we can talk about what's going on a little bit in the world to help people, but most of all about the university of Vedic Astrology and what we're here to do and what it would mean for everyone out there if they were to join and become part of our community. So what do you think about it, Sri? Sure.

Yeah. Thank you, Joni. Yeah, I, by the way, I'm Srikala Ram. I used to be a student at the university. I graduated from Joni's university, Uva University of Vedic Astrology. And I have been practicing astrology since then. I have a couple of courses. I wrote a book. So it's been, it's been very amazing, I would say this experience of being an astrologer, being a Vedic astrologer. And I thought, you know, today it's when Joni picked this day to do the YouTube live. I was saying, you know, this is actually a really good day to do this because, you know, we have, the world is changing. We have an amazing eclipse coming up next Monday and you know, all kinds of changes around the world. And of course you saw Joni's video about how Neptune is at the midpoint of the nodes and how the ruler of the sign where the eclipse is happening is in Pisces and Gandha. And so this is amazing times. These are, you know, this is not our normal, you know, this is not the normal world that we are usually used to. We have so many changes happening. And as Joni always says, the change is always, you know, to bring something good out from the, you know, from where it's hidden, you know, it's brought out into the open. And, you know, this is, this is going to be good in the long run. Of course it's, you know, we are all kind of dealing with the changes right now. But I think, you know, just talking about the university, one of the things that I really wanted to kind of stress on is, you know, when we start thinking of learning a new topic, no matter what it is, right, you're learning something new. It's always a little overwhelming because you don't know where to start, right? There's so many aspects that you need to think about. And especially Vedic astrology is a vast ocean. There's so much to learn about. There are so many different types, you know, so many schools of thought.

How do you start? And, you know, my background is, you know, I'm an Indian, so I grew up around astrology. So, you know, it was a very common topic at home when I was growing up, you know, so it wasn't something new to me when I came into it in the beginning. But when Joni did my reading for the first time, that's when I was like, amazed at how accurate the system is because she knew everything about me just by looking at that chart. And she hadn't even met me before. So. So this was. That's kind of what really, you know, amazed me. And I was like, you know, I have to learn this. But I have, you know, of course, I don't know what I'm doing. You know, at that time you have all these YouTube videos, you don't know where to start. And that's where this university was so helpful. I mean, it was, it was a godsend. Because what this university does is that it lays everything out in a perfectly structured and easy to understand format. And Joni has really spent, you know, painstakingly. She has spent a lot of hours putting together these videos and kind of, you know, the way she has organized it is so intuitive because each chapter builds on the previous one, each semester builds on the previous one. So it's just a really structured way of learning. So when I first wanted to learn, this university really helped me because of course, not knowing where to start. And then you see this really structured way of approaching this new topic.

That's it. That is what really attracted me to this university. And also on top of that, you not only get these lesson videos that Joni has recorded, each lesson there is a video that is recorded. You get live webinars.

Every week. Every other week, Joni does live webinars with the students. We get to talk to her on these webinars. We get to ask questions, we get to clarify, you know, any, any doubts that we have. And it's such a casual and amazing atmosphere in those live webinars because everybody's trying to learn astrology. We come there with a common intent. So that is amazing too. So the live webinars are great because, you know, Joni uses current event charts. So anything that's going on in the world today, she has a chart for that which, you know, she'll go through in that specific live webinar. And it's almost like, you know, you hear about the Joni's YouTube videos or her newsletter before she even publishes it. So we get like the first look at what she's going to talk about. So I think that's amazing. And then I'm sure, Joni, you agree with me when I say that this is not just a university. That's the third and most important thing that I want to stress on because over the years this has ended up being a community.

We are basically, I would even go as far as to say that this is a family because the students are. We talk to each other about our charts, we look at each other's charts, we learn from that. We have a WhatsApp community which is very, very.

Strongly used by everybody. Like if you go on there, there's 120, 140 participants and they are all talking about astrology. You know, where do you find that? Because you know, in today's world, you go to work, you talk to your family. You know, if people don't have interest in astrology, you can't talk to them about it. But you have a community here which is all people who are like minded and they all want to talk about astrology. So I think this community aspect of this university is really one of the greatest strengths, I would say, because it really helped me because I mean, I don't have a lot of family in this country, but when I come into this community, I feel like I'm supported and everybody is talking to each other about a subject that I really like. So That's, I think, in a nutshell, Joni, what I wanted to really say about this university and how it helped me. And I wanted to kind of also ask you, going back to the first few days.

What inspired you to start this amazing university, this platform? What really inspired you?

Well, my passion's always been astrology. Ever since I was young. I always tell the story. Many of you know that even as a kid. I remember when being here in Dallas, that President Kennedy came to Dallas in 1963. And I was very small then. Yes, I was around then. And I'll never forget this woman coming on TV the night before he came to Dallas, and she begged him not to go or he would be assassinated. This was actually on tv, and if you Google it, they'll say it didn't happen.

But it did.

I know. So you know what? Going back to the media. But it was so interesting because it really caught my attention. I was really small. And then the very next day, my mother took my sisters out of school. I was too young, and went to go meet him at the airport. And we all know what happened 30 minutes later after she shook his hand and greeted him and took his picture.

Right.

I mean, I always tell a story. I watched some of the History Channel videos of him when he came to Dallas, and he walked down the stairs of the airport and he walked into the crowd. And on those black and white videos, he walked right up to my sisters and my mother, and they were the first ones you see on these old videos.

Oh, I didn't know that. Actually on tv.

Yes. This is actually on the old clips where you see him at Love Field, walking down into the crowd. I was like. One day I was like, oh, my God, that's my mother and sister. You know, this. This was so many years later. It was probably eight years ago. I saw that clip and I was just shocked. But that started it. I was always interested in astrology, and my mother was the same sun sign. So back when I was a teenager, she had the books all over the house. Back then, when I was looking at Western astrology, that's all I knew about. Right? So she had the Scorpio books around the house, and that's what we both were in the Western astrology. So I started reading them, and it was like, how did they know so much from just this? My birthday, I had to learn. And I finally, when I went to college, I found a teacher and studied explicitly under him the whole time I was in college. And I started doing astrology professionally at that time. Even. And from that point on, then I started, you know, I really wanted to understand, why are we here? What is the purpose of this life? That's got to be the most important question we all have. I mean, to not consider why we're here is I think, denial, you know, so, you know, there's in. Religion didn't do it. For me, religion didn't answer that, but astrology did. And then I started reading a lot of Eastern philosophy books and Autobiography of a Yogi and I, that was the first I heard about Vedic astrology, that, that this is. There's another astrology I didn't know. And I was going, now this is very interesting, but I've told this before. But the thing that really got me, because I love Edgar Cayce and I, I was reading all of his work and all of his books. And for those of you that don't know who Edgar Cayce is, look him up. He's called the Sleeping Prophet and he is one of the most phenomenal psychics of all time. Now he got some of the stuff wrong, but what he was known to do is he would go into a trance and he would diagnose people with disease. They would give just the name and location of the person. He would say exactly what was wrong with them and what to do, what remedies. And he was 99.9% accurate. And they have so many documents of all of his readings. And when he woke up, he didn't remember a thing. But then they started asking him other things besides healing people. And one thing they asked him was about astrology. And he had a completely different voice when he was in this sleep called the Sleeping Prophet. And he said that Western astrology was off by almost a full sign. That really got my attention. And that's when I really decided I had to learn Vedic astrology because I heard it was precise, more accurate, detailed, and it is, I can tell so much more. It takes it to another level. And not only that I really understand myself now and self realization, trying to understand what are we here for? Why are we here? It really transformed and changed my life. Astrology. Did I say this from the deepest point of my heart, that it transformed my life. And I really feel like in order to grow, you've got to empower other people.

I used to have a metaphysical center in Dallas back in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s. At first it was called the Dallas Metaphysical center. And I would have people from all over. I would bring speakers in. And so I started bringing in speakers with Vedic astrology because I wanted to learn Vedic astrology. I taught all the classes in Western astrology at my center. And once I got into Vedic astrology, I realized the importance of the galactic center because that is the point where consciousness comes from in our universe. And the closer planet Earth gets to the galactic center through procession is where more consciousness and awareness comes from. So I thought, you know, since I'm making this big change in teaching Vedic from Western, I got to rename my center and it became the Galactic Center Way back then. I changed the name. This was 20 years ago.

I love the name Joanie. I mean, it's a very inspired name. I mean, you know, Age of Aquarius, Age of Pisces, you know that when we go closer to the galactic center, I just love it.

The name, you know, I got that in a dream. And it was one of Edgar Cayce's dream techniques because I had kind of switched gears with my. With my center. And I thought.

I want to rename it. And so I did the Edgar Cayce trick where you get a glass of water right before you go to bed, and you say, I want an answer in my dream. And you say, and I will remember my dream. You say it about three times. You drink half of the water, and then when you wake up, you finish the water and start writing what your dream was. And I asked specifically, what should I name my center? And it came loud and clear. The Galactic Center. And I told Daniel, my husband, he says, that's the stupidest name I've ever heard. They're gonna think you're part of Star Trek. So.

I said, but, you know, it's gotta be named that. And it was the right name. And, you know, everything evolved from. From its name being the Galactic center. So. And then. So I started. Started teaching Vedic astrology because I felt like. Well, here's one thing I felt. I felt like it was really tough to learn all the terms and the names. That kind of scares Westerners off. And. And I became certified through the American Council of Vedic Astrology in the very early 90s. I was in the very, very first class. So I was. So then after that, I became one of the instructors for acfa, we called it back then. And then from there.

I decided that I know how to break this down to make it easier for people to understand. So after so many years of teaching at my center and writing my own book on it.

I actually use the book now. I wrote that book in 2003, Eastern Astrology for Western Minds. It's actually Textbook for the university. And what happened was those were all classes I taught at my center. And each one, and I had so many handouts for each class that I thought, why don't I put this all together in a book? And that way I don't have to print all these handouts every single time class. And that became my textbook and that's what I use for the university. So because I know that people have a hard time with all the names and the terms, people need this to be simplified and step by step by step and how you add one layer to the next, you learn that you add the next layer. Now, I have to say the first semester at UVA is probably the hardest one because that's where you have to learn all the basics. And there's a lot of memorization. A lot of people don't realize this is a science. This is not just something that we get off the top of our head. And after the first semester, then you can start really using all of these things. The second semester is all about prediction, all the tools I use to predict. And then it gets deeper with each semester, all the way to. To the time that you work with me on really doing charts and making your own predictions. I mean, this is the way it should be, I think in terms of one layer to the next, simplifying it so people can understand. And the terminology.

Making it more about understanding the energy. Yes, I want you to get the terminology, but if you understand the energy, the names come after understanding the concepts first. Understanding the concepts. With astrology so vitally important. And then more than anything, you asked, why did I get into this to help people? Because when I was in college, I couldn't find. Of course we didn't have courses in astrology in college. They actually did have one. It was the history of astrology. And believe it or not, my astrology teacher at the time came to the university to teach it. But my, my point is, I was an art major for a while and I was trying to decide whether to go into psychology or art. And I made the decision to go into psychology mainly because I want to help people. I love to help people. And it makes you feel like your life is purposeful and meaningful when you do help others and astrology takes it to the next level. I mean, you not only help them, you empower them to heal their lives. And there's nothing better. I know you know this sree. There is nothing better. When somebody comes in and says, you changed my life, oh my God, that's the most empowering thing that I can get, because when I empower other people, it empowers me.

And, you know, Joni, I've been on the other side of that transaction with you. Right?

Yeah.

I mean, I needed that help at one point. And, you know, I was so grateful that I got it from you. And I remember you telling me when I first started learning, because I was like, you know, why is all this important? And I remember you saying, you know, when you have all these experiences is when you know how to help people in future, when they have the same experience. So I think, you know, it's like. It's like the circle comes full, right? I mean, you have to kind of go through it, you learn your lesson, then you come out of it, and then you're able to help other people and guide them when they are in similar situations. And that's what really I like about astrology, because it's so empowering. You know, there are. I know, I know there are a lot of astrologers who probably, you know, look at it like in a fatalistic manner. You know, this is here and this is going to cause this problem. Saturn is, you know, going to do this. And, you know, you just have to, like, spend the time and get. Get through it. Right? Put your head down and get through it. But what I've seen the difference in the way you teach it is that everything, every. Every aspect of the chart, the planet's position or any, like the dusthana houses or any. Any difficult aspect in the chart or challenging aspect in the chart, you know, you have taught us that it has a lower octave meaning and a higher octave meaning. So when you come out of that and you give up your ego and you say, okay, you know what? Let me try to understand what life's trying to teach me. Now, that's when you go into the higher octave meaning. Because, you know, for example, Neptune. Neptune can, you know, as Joni was saying in the recent video, it rules deceit, deception, delusion. It rules all of that. Right? It all sounds so, you know, gloomy. But when you come out of it, when you go through that experience and you kind of let go of your personal ego and you say, let me. Let me learn what life's trying to teach me. That's when you go into the higher octave meaning of Neptune, which is spirituality, you know, it is that psychic sense. Why? Because you went through those experiences. So that. That is what I like in the way Joni teaches. And, you know, and that's kind of what I give forward, what I'VE learned from Joni to my clients because I always tell them, you know, nothing is like, bad. You know, you can't really label something as bad. But there is a lesson here for you to learn. The reason why you feel it as bad is because the soul hasn't learned it yet. So it's a challenge. It is a challenge, right? It's new. Anything new is a challenge. So, so then the soul's trying to, like, you know, revolt against it. It's like, you know, I don't want to learn this. You know, I'm set in my own ways. You know, so then it is difficult. But when you let go of that and you say, you know, the whole intent of our human existence here on this planet is to learn, to learn all these different things that our soul doesn't know already, right? That if we knew it already, there's no need to be here, right? So that when you, when you say that this is what I'm here to do, and you, you open yourself up to that learning, that is when you go into the higher octave meaning of that challenging or difficult transit aspect plan. It doesn't matter, whatever it is, right? So that's what I like. And the very first thing Joni told me when we started, when I, when I went to her for learning astrology is all, and I had that noted in my notebook that I had at that time, she said, always give an upbeat reading, never give a beat up reading. There is a reason for that. There's because positive always trumps the negative, right? Because everything that happens in life, yes, it may seem a little like, you know, at that time, we feel like, because we are inside it, we are in the storm, we feel overwhelmed. But when somebody, you know, like Joni or any, you know, an astrologer who knows, you know, what they're talking about, you know, and for me, it was Joni, when they give you that hand and say, you know what? I'll pull you out of this because I know what's going on with you and I can see it in your chart, just knowing that helps immensely because now, you know, things are happening for a reason, right? When you don't know, that is when we are lost. And that is where astrology has helped me. And that is what this university is teaching. It's not just there are concepts. Of course all the concepts are there. Joni was talking about her book. And, you know, I want to let you guys know, this is the book she's talking about. It's on Amazon. And this is the course material for this university, this is like a bible for us. We have everything in here. So, you know, the concepts are all there, right? I mean, Jupiter's aspect is 5 and 9, Saturn is 3 and 10. You know, you have to memorize a lot of those things. But eventually what Joni's trying to teach us is beyond that. You know, as an astrologer, what are you giving your client? Joni has created all these videos in the sixth semester about, you know, about how do you talk to your client? What are the soft skills required to be an astrologer? This is what this university is doing that other universities may not have. You know, it's not just learning astrology, it's a complete package. You know, by the time you come out of this, you have, you have this, you know, you have all the concepts, you have the soft skills, you are ready to do your reading. And the, that leads me into the next thing. When you graduate, what happens, right, when we graduate from the university, is it like, okay, you're done, here's your certificate, bye, bye. Right? That's not what happens at this university. We have a lot of graduates. I mean, I graduated what, like four or five years ago, I'm still here, right? When we come out, we immediately get absorbed into this community.

That is, and you know, that is really valuable because, you know, any of you who try to start a business, you know, you know how difficult it is to establish yourself, you know how it's, you know, you have to advertise, you have to get this following, you have to do YouTube, you have to do, of course you can do all that if you like to do it. But my point is, when you come out of this university, you're already on the platform, right? Joni has built this platform over the past 30, 40 years and she is so generous and open hearted that, you know, all her graduates have immediate access to her platform. Let me give you an example. When I graduated, I became a tutor at the university. So, you know, now I'm teaching. So what is the point of teaching, right? Whenever you teach, you learn more. You know, there are, there are times when I, when my student asks me a doubt and I'm like, oh, you know what? Even I don't know that. Let us go find this to be together, right? So you get to teach. So there you go. That's the first thing. The second thing, we help you set up your website for creating your own business. We have, you know, you don't have to go out there and try to find this out all on your own. There is a lesson in semester six which talks about how to market your business, how to create your business. So that's another thing. The next thing is, you know, when I came out of this university, you know, one of the things I really wanted to do was write a book. So, you know, Joni, of course, you know, she's always been my guiding force. And she said, you know, that's the one. So Joanie said, sri, why don't you. Why don't you research Germany astrology and, you know, write about that? So I went off and, you know, I started researching this, and it was so immensely interesting. I'm telling you this, this system of astrology, we teach it, it's there in UVA in semester five. It is one of the lessons. But when I created this, this, you know, when I wrote this book, there's so much more to it, right? So I was like, I asked Joni's permission, Joni, can I please make a semester in this university for teaching this? And, you know, the generous person that she is, she said, you know, this is how I want to empower my students and my graduate sri. So, of course, you have full access to the platform. And here I am, I have a book which is now the course material for my own Germany astrology semester, which has its own eight videos, and I do live webinars, and, you know, a standalone course in itself. You can do this. When you come out of this university, you create your own. Own course, you create your own material. You know, when we create something new, it's. It's a really wonderful feeling. And I know Joni will agree with me because you're creating something that didn't exist before. And that's such an empowering feeling, right? You've just put something out in the universe and you're saying you created that. And here you have Joni's platform, which is already set up. You have the learning management system. You have. The students are already there. It's all set up already. So you are pretty much launching your career as you come out of the university. So that. That, I think, is immensely valuable in today's world, because if we try to do this from scratch ourselves, you guys know as well as I do it'll take us years. And here, here Joni's trying to, you know, she's so generous, and she's like, I want to empower all of you to be teachers. I want to empower all of you to be astrologers. And, you know, she's giving she's so giving, and I think that that has to be appreciated. And, Joni, I say this a lot of times, but now that you know I'm again saying this, I just want to thank you once again for this opportunity. Because, you know, when I did this course for Germany Astrology in June of this year, I had close to 13 to 15 students, which I would not have had if I did this on my own. And, you know, teaching the course was amazing. You know, all these students. And of course, Joni was there supporting all the time. So this is what you get when you graduate. Everybody gets this. So I think. I think this is very valuable. And the other thing, like I said, is the social media. You have WhatsApp, there's a discussion forum on Schoology, on the system that we use, where students are always talking to each other. And Joni, if you have time on this, I know we have to take questions, but I'd like to really quickly show the website.

Definitely. I want people to see what it's all about.

All right, so let me share my screen and take you guys to.

So this is the.

University website. As you know, it's university of vedicastrology.com and when you come to this website, when you, you know, when you buy the course, this is where you come and you can click sign up. And as I was telling you, the GEM certification is down here, which Joni was, you know, generous enough to let me put up there. So I have that. But what I really want to show you is if you see this, this link over here saying semesters go in there. And it's a little hidden, but you can see these plus signs next to it.

Sree. We can't see it right now. Let's see. What we're seeing is just the Schoology front page where it's talking about Schoology. So how do you get back to.

Okay, let me. Let me just share again. I think I opened a different window. Just give me a second, guys. I'm sorry about that. Can you see it now?

Yeah. Right. Okay.

Okay, so let me start over then.

So here is the university of vedicastrology.com that's the website for the university. And then as I was saying, you have the click here to sign up if you want to buy the course. And, you know, when you. When you come on board to learn with us or study with us. And below that is what I was saying about the Germany Scholar certification, which, you know, Joni was like. I said she was very nice to. Let me put it up there. And of course, anybody who creates a course of their own, they get the same real estate, right? They can put their stuff up here. Because then anybody who's coming to the website, they see your course, right? So you're getting it up there right away. Now what I want to show you is when you click on semesters here on the top, you scroll down and you see how these little plus signs are here. It's a little hidden. That's why I really want to show this to you guys. So when you click on the first, the plus sign is when you see what is included in each of the semester. So you have six semesters. The first semester, when you click on it, it shows you all the lessons that are in there. And as I told you, it's like building blocks. Joni has set it up perfectly. You have the intro, you have houses, planet signs, aspects, yoga's, you know. And then you go into the second semester and you have all of these different topics here. You know, transits, dash us. One of my favorites here is eclipses.

What?

We have an eclipse coming up and.

I know we talk a lot about that.

I mean, it is so everything about an eclipse is hidden, you know, you just can't, you know, it's all you can say is it's going to be life changing. But you don't know. You know, kind of. Mostly what happens is things are brought from the hidden out into the open. And now, as you all know, there is a lot of such things going on which can probably come out in the open. But in the second semester, one of my favorite lessons is this one, Eclipses. But you can see, you know, you have all these lessons here and then you go into the third where, you know, third is actually a really good semester too, because you apply all the concepts you learned in the first and second. Because by the time you get to the second semester, people get a little overwhelmed. They're like, okay, I have all these little blocks. How do I put it together? That's what the third semester does. You apply it. You take. Joni takes current event charts and she applies all the aspects that are in the first and the second semester. Then you go into the fourth semester, you come out a little bit. It's like going from the inner planets to the outer planets, you know. So here in the fourth semester, it's all world predictions and earthquakes and, you know, global disease and, you know, if you want to do. If you're interested in doing that in your astrology career, then this is the semester for you you have all of that in there. Then in the fifth semester, we go into advanced principles. And as I was saying, you see this over here? Germany is one of the topics we have in the university. Although it's just one lesson there. And then now, like I said, I have a whole semester where this one lesson is blown up into, you know, a full semester for you guys. And then the sixth semester, once you're done with the fifth semester, you go into the sixth semester where Joni is going to personally work with you and do readings. So she'll send you these questions and she'll send you charts, and you have to send her the answer. So you. You directly work with Joni until then, first semester to fifth semester, you're working with the tutor who is assigned to you. And then when you go into sixth semester, you're working directly with Joni. How. How cool is that, right?

Joni is basically the celebrity you see on YouTube. And here you go, you get to work with her in the sixth semester. And then in the final exam, you do a full reading with Joni. And that is actually on Zoom, a live reading with a live client sitting in front of you. You know, that's how prepared you'll be by the time you come out of this university. So that's what I wanted to show you. And the other thing that I wanted to show you is once you sign up, what happens, right? So when you sign up into the course, you're going to get a link to join the actual university. And if you go in here, you can see how easy and intuitive this is. It says, if I close this, it says semester five. You click on that, you can see all the lessons, and if you click on that, you see there's a video, there's a test. So you watch the video, you take the test, then you go to the next one, you watch the video, you take the test, and your tutor is going to be right alongside you, helping you with each one of these tests, okay? And then if you want to watch all the previous live webinars, you have full access to all of that. You see how many live webinars we have all the way back, you know, dating back from 2016. You know, all these live webinars are here, which Joni has done already. So you have access to full access to all of this. On top of this, what I want to really tell you is, and this has really helped me, when you graduate from this university, you're not going anywhere because you have access to every single live webinar. From then on, in all the future batches, in all the years to come, you get to be on all the live webinars and you can access this at any time so you don't get kicked out of the platform. You are there to stay. Okay, so that's one thing that I really wanted to emphasize and show you guys how easy it is to use all this. Okay, so I'm going to stop sharing and we'll see. Joni, if you want to talk about anything that I missed and we can take questions.

Well, I was. I don't know if they understand. Once you're part of the university two years later, if you want to just come on and listen and to my weekly live webinars where we talk about current events, applying, what the lesson's about during that week, you're welcome. Yeah, as long as you have been part of that semester before. But I think the best deal going is when you sign up for the entire university all at once. Because then you get to participate in every single single live webinar weekly, no matter what class, no matter what semester you're currently taking tests in. So let's just say that you have some astrology knowledge and you start in the first semester, but you'd love to hear what's going on in the third semester that week because I do these every week for each semester I alternate a class, but I'm actually doing a class weekly for different semesters. And if you pay for that semester, you are welcome. So when people pay for the whole thing, they are invited to every single webinar. And let's say two years from now, you kind of lost track. You can come back and listen anytime. You are part of the university for life. That is what I love. And let's say you start at the university and life gets in the way. You can't finish. If you want to come back a year or two later, you can pick up where you left off. It's all self paced. The reason why I say classes are beginning again. That means I'm going to start the first semester again in January. By the way, I've set the date, it's January 27th, but you can start anytime. You get to watch the videos that have been the classes. Each one of those classes you saw, there's eight videos and tests that follow after the video per semester. So altogether there's 40 lessons and tests, 40 pre recorded videos that you listen to, then you take the test. And of course the sixth semester you're working, you are doing a lot of Work, you are going to apply everything you've learned in the university. So through applying that I guarantee you you're going to get through the sixth semester, which is for example, I'll give you a chart and ask, when did this person get married? Within a 10 year radius. You've got to come within six months to pass that test. Now let's say you don't get it right. You just go back to the drawing board on all of these tests till you do get it right. So it's not like you're going to get a grade, it's like whatever you don't get correct, you just got to go back and get it right. This is how I like to teach. This is learning. This isn't like oh Well I made 100 or I made a 90. No, let's take the two questions you got wrong and let's get them right. And your tutor will help you with any of the tests and you know, coming to understand and getting it right. And when you work with me, you're going to have to just keep going back and forth till you get it right. So, and that's how we learn too, right? So we learn through our mistakes. So there's, this is, this is a whole learning experience and we make it fun. I love making it fun because you know, even though you, you don't have to watch the live videos every week, but I do that to keep everybody on track and to keep them inspired because you know what's going out there in the world. Let's apply these concepts. Let's go apply aspects to people in the news. Let's apply the aspects, let's apply, they have planets in certain houses, let's apply that. And then it just goes deeper and deeper. With each and every semester I want to share everything I know because this is my legacy. And as I've said so many times, and I mean this from my heart, this is one of my greatest accomplishments in life except for my three sons.

Because that's, that's the order it goes in. But it is because, you know, I watch how students, their faces light up when they learn and they get it and it's like the light bulb goes off and, and you know, astrology, we're living it. So like Sri says, I, I, throughout all these years of being an astrologer, I've lived through all of these Saudi satisaturn being on the sun, what it feels like when Jupiter's on the sun. Because when I read for people, they feel recognized because I go, I know what you're feeling, I know where you are. But the student thing is even more empowering. So all these semesters and then, and here's another thing, I have people that have graduated, such as you, come to all the webinars that we have too, just because it's so fun to have a community. And another thing we forgot to mention, we also have a book club. So people, once a month, the group of anyone that wants to be on the book club, it's open to everyone. They discuss a book and they bring the author on. And lately they've been talking about my three outer planet books, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, which I finally got that Pluto book today. My goodness. So this is my most, my most current book just came out and I'm so happy I got this trilogy done during the lockdown. So there's Neptune, Pluto and Uranus. Got them, got them all done during the lockdown.

But you know, traditionally Joni and in Vedic astrology, like you say, they don't use the outer plants, but you do. And I think this, these books are really eye opening because a lot of Vedic astrologers don't use outer planets. But being your students, we have learned to use it from you. And they really do work, you know, all of these outer planets, especially when they intersect your personal planets or you know, they are, they are stationary sometimes, you know, it's just to the degree when they impact something, it's. It's like you can really see the effect in your life. So I think those books that you've written are basically a treasure trove of information because you've used all these example charts. And now we know how it works in astrology. You brought that from the western astrology into Vedic astrology, right?

And you know what people don't understand about the outer planets? You can't. It's not physical. That's why they're not used in Vedic astrology. I totally get it. Just the planets that you can see with the naked eye are the ones that are going to deal with our physical experiences. But the outer planets deal with the mass consciousness. It deals with the collective consciousness of everyone and the energy that they emit as a collective mass. We take in psychologically, they affect our lives psychologically. And this produces very real experiences. But that's the difference in how they work. And I do find this, that when people have outer planets very tightly conjunct one of their natal planets, there's something about what they do and who they are that will live on beyond their lives.

They'll Be remembered. Yeah, right?

Yes.

I just.

I discovered that when I was writing these books and researching, I was like, wow, that is really something that I learned. And like I say, when you're researching and being a teacher, that's how you really learn. That's why I want my students, when they graduate to become teachers, because that's how you really, really learn. And creating this platform where all of you are welcome to write, to have your own program, you know, what is your best interest? We have one that's working on spirituality. We have another one that's working on health and healing. We have. Shri is starting to get more interested in doing a platform on prediction and world prediction. She's discovering so many things because I give the tools that people can take and then they branch off and explore, expand it even more.

And really, we're all a learning community together. We learn from each other. That's the way life is. So one thing I have to say that gives me more joy than anything else is to teach. I love teaching. This is a blast. This is just a great community of such cool, interesting and fun people because we're all learning, learning about life, learning about astrology, and we just keep getting bigger because more and more people want to really understand the purpose of life. And that's what this is going to teach us. Yeah.

And of course, like you said, the book club is once a month. And again, you know, those meetings are supposed to be for an hour, but it goes on for like two hours because it's so much fun. Everybody's talking about what they learned from the book. And then Joni joins the call halfway through as the author, because who? Who? The book that we are reading. In that particular session of the book club, we bring the author on the call and they tell us about their personal experience which led them to write the book. So Joni comes on and then, you know, it's just like all of us getting together to talk. And, you know, it's really like a community, a family. And then also, I didn't want to forget to mention that, you know, Joni does conduct conferences, which this year she skipped for good reason. Right. She knew not to have a conference this year.

She didn't even plan one. But we had one last year and we'll hopefully have one next year. That that's what we are thinking we want to do. But when we have these conferences, you know, as students, we all. First of all, you have an opportunity to speak there once you are graduated from the university. And then as students, we all come together there. And it's again one of those intimate, you know, close knit kind of conferences where we all get to share our experiences and talk about astrology. And Joni gives a discount to all the UVA students when they come on to the conference, when they want to buy the conference. So I think that's another additional point about being a student of uva. So I think I forgot to mention that, Joni, so I just brought that.

In and you know, we have all sorts of discounts and things such as.

You even get a discount with the astrological program that we, we all use, which is Parashra's Light. Now you can use a different program, but when I'm doing the live webinars, I show people how to use the program as well. And you get a discount, 20% discount when you, when you're part of UVA. And there's just so many advantages to it if you feel like you're alone and you don't have anybody to talk to about astrology, which, which most of us do in the conservative world out there. This is where we can really connect from people all over the world. All over the world. And that's another thing. We get to learn what's going on all around the world. We have students in Australia, all over Europe, Turkey and Italy and France and Switzerland and Germany and Belgium, I mean South Africa.

Turkey. Did you say Turkey?

Turkey? Yes, because I was like, I was also drinking my tea out of my cup I got from Turkey last year. I used to go to Turkey all the time and teach to some spiritual groups there. And I've acquired a lot of students.

From Turkey because it is truly an international forum. Yes, it is.

Yeah. So yeah, and one more thing, when you do join for the whole shebang all the semesters, you save a considerable amount. You save $1,000. So. And remember, you're a lifelong student with the university forever when you do join. So do we want to take, do you want to say anything else?

Sri, I think we covered all, everything that we wanted to tell everybody and, and you know, it's important to kind of understand the details because when you, when you think about being an astrologer, there are a lot of aspects that you don't think about and we just wanted to make sure we come here and talk to you about that.

Yeah, I remember one of the questions that people ask me a lot is how long does it take to get through the university?

So if you consider it, it takes about a year. When you follow along with the live webinar That I have that start in January, maybe a little bit less. But we take, you know, we take a break in the summer and we take a break around Christmas and times like that. But it takes approximately a year. Now if you already know a lot of astrology, it could take half that time because you remember it's self paced. You can jump in and just, you know, plow right through all the videos and the tasks and you know, just listen to all the webinars as they come or go. Regardless what semester you're actually taking tests in. If you go for the whole, the whole uva. And I have to say this, it is a lot less than what I paid many years ago. It's half price from what I paid many years ago in the 90s, in the early 90s when I became certified. So.

Yeah, I mean consider how much you will be paying for college. This is like preparing you for a career. It's serious. This is a career.

Planner. You're going to get something out of this where you will be an astrologer. That's what we want. That's our goal, that's our aim. To really create a platform where everyone is, gets an opportunity. Another thing I didn't mention, I have an online magazine called Astrologic Magazine and I encourage all of the, all of the students and especially the graduates to write for this magazine. We have amazing authors and Elizabeth Waymire, she does an amazing.

Every month the Signs. What's going on for the Signs in the magazine. And she does who's in the News News. And she is.

And she's one of our graduates too.

Yeah. And I can't wait for her to have her platform. I know she's going to have a dynamite class because she is just brilliant. And everybody that, that's really with the university has their own talents and I empower them and want them to come on and explore and use their talents on this platform that we're creating for everyone as a community, not just, not just me. I want it to be everyone to have some wonderful semesters on specifics. And it's going to be, it's going to grow a lot in the next few years. Sri and I had.

What would you call it? Just this intuition that came over us.

Yeah, it was this wave of intuition at the exact same time, if you.

Remember, I know at the conference, the last conference.

We just knew that this is going to become something big. I mean it's already growing. I mean if we think about it, we have students from all around the world. It's Truly an international platform. So, you know, it's really going to keep growing. And now is the time join. And you know, that way you're already with us and you know in this community and you get to reap all the benefits. Right. Everything that you can learn from astrology is here. And Joni has really not held back. Everything that she's learned over the years, she has really put it out there with examples and with a lot of explanation. And I think this is truly a very, very valuable.

Course and for the price, it is really a steal. So I hope you guys think about joining the university. And now Joni, do you want to open it up for questions?

Yeah. Well, one more thing. I know you said this, but I want people to be aware that when we do the live weekly webinars that are in addition to all the others that they are recorded because I mean, we have people in all these different time zones. So you can watch it later and you can re watch any of these webinars. But you know, another thing is when I have a semester, I always got to assess where everybody's from because I may set the time, but I have to change it because if it works for the people in Australia or New Zealand, we also have students in New Zealand it is. Or in Singapore, it is not going to work in the people with Europe. So I do assess and change the time. So you might see the times on there as a certain time. But once we have the students register, I can change the time to adjust to. And one time we had people on one end of the world and the other. So I did half of the webinars in the morning here and the other half at night so I could appease everyone in some way to be able to come on live and ask questions. But yeah, let's open it up. Let's see what they're thinking and what they're asking. Maybe something we didn't think to explain.

So what questions do you guys have? I see one question right here. When do the live classes start?

The very first one for semester one. Right now we're currently doing semester three. So if you were to join tomorrow, the full university, you could start watching this coming week on Wednesday when we have another live class. So the people that sign up for the whole thing can come on and watch any of them, no matter where you're taking tests. But we're going to start the first semester January 27th. I have it scheduled for I think 7pm or something, Central Standard Time. But I'm waiting to see you Know, actually, I think I'm going to save that one, but I can change the later ones. But I'm saving it because I plan that time astrologically.

Starting the first day. You always plan a story because it's a muhurta. Right.

It's the beginning of the whole, you know, class, another whole group of people come on together.

All right, so the next question that I see here, and this doesn't have anything to do with the university, Joni, but they want to know. Dana wants to know your sun rising and moon signs in Western and Eastern.

My rising sign in Vedic astrology is Gemini. My moon sign in Vedic astrology is Leo, and my sun sign is Libra. So taking that to Western astrology, my sun sign is Scorpio, my moon sign is Virgo, and my Ascendant's Cancer. That's. That's all the western tropical positions, but I go by my Vedic positions.

We use the sidereal ones.

Yes.

All right, so any other questions anybody has. Let me scroll up and see if there were any questions while we were talking.

Are the tests question based with multiple choices or analysis?

It's both. Yes. Because, like, when we get to the Nakshatras, I'll ask you to say, what are the important things you learned and you know about the Nakshatras. So that's a written answer. I mean, where you would write everything out. I don't think we have any multiple choices, though. You've got to come up with the answer, what is this? What is that? But, you know, you have the videos to go back to, and some of the questions and answers come from the book. So it goes both ways. And if you don't understand, your tutor helps you.

Yeah.

Then there's another question. Do we have to begin in January.

For the semester one. That's when. No, not at all. You can begin now because if you begin now, you can get. You can start taking the videos, taking the tests. January is just when we start the very first semester's webinar, live webinar on zoom, which you get to. We all get to come together, live and communicate with each other. But, you know, you can join any time of year. And here's another thing. We plan on starting semester one over every quarter. And with that, I'm going to start having my tutors, they're going to start teaching these live webinars as well, because that's where I want them to get their feet wet with teaching. Of course, I'll be there to help them. But, yeah, this is like we're all going to come together and learn live. And then the self paced stuff is all the recorded videos. And if you can't make the live videos, they're all recorded, I mean, you'll have enough information to keep you really, really busy. Right Sri?

Yeah, absolutely. There's so much information. And actually somebody asked about the book too. This book, it's available on Amazon and it is called Eastern Astrology for Western Minds. And you can just go Google it or you can type it in the Amazon search bar. And this is the course material for the university. Somebody asked that question.

Yeah. Okay.

And there is a question. How much is the course for the entire. How much is the course with the discount? I think it's for the whole university. They're asking.

It's $4,999. And.

Each semester I think it's 97. We like that number. But everything has meaning. But when you pay for each semester, they're 997 per semester. So if you think about six semesters.

The cut rate, full price, you save $1,000.

Right. So it's almost like you're getting one semester free when you buy the whole thing. Yeah. And then somebody is asking, how many hours per week would you estimate for studying in the university?

What would you say? Shree?

Yeah, I was about to say, so the live webinar is usually an hour, hour and a half, sometimes two hours when it's really interesting topics. And then in order to learn that particular lesson, I would usually give it, I tell my students, give it one lesson a week. You know, that, that way you can really learn it. You can, you can watch the live, the video that's on Schoology. You can partake of the live webinar, you can write your test and you can really kind of, you know, absorb all that information. So one lesson a week, usually I would say three to four hours. That's, you know, including the live webinar. Couple of hours to just watch the video and take the test. But, but yeah, I mean, if you want to do more research, like, you know, when I'm learning something, I like to go and look at celebrity charts on my own just to kind of apply it. So then, you know, that will take maybe another hour or so. So maybe around five hours a week is what I would give it. But then again, like Joni said, we do have students who kind of go self paced. You know, we don't want to like rush them through anything. So if they need a couple of weeks to learn a particular lesson, as A tutor. I try to encourage them, but I don't want to rush them. Right. So you can take your own time. There's nobody telling you that you have to finish this at this time. Nothing is time bound in this university. It's all self paced. Okay.

But a lot of people, they like to follow along with the group and gauge it where it is. About one week per video test in one week. And when you stay up with the, with the live webinars, that keeps you on track. So it's kind of like it's motivating because sometimes you, you know, we can get lazy and go, oh, I'll do it next week. Oh, no, I'll do it another week. I know that's how exercise is for me.

But so this is the same thing, you know, we, we try our best. And I send emails out weekly to the students letting them know what's going on that week with the universities to keep everybody interested and abreast of what's going on and really just to stay connected to everyone.

So one of the participants here is asking, do we have to buy the book on top of paying the tuition?

Yes, it's. How much is the book right now?

I think it's like $25.

Yes, 25. And.

And the. I think you can get it for.

I bought it like five years ago, so it's been a while.

It's the same price. And I think that you can also get it on Kindle for less. Okay. But most people want the hard copy because you can go from page to page to look up things.

Yep. And yes, the book is available on Amazon. Somebody asked that. All right, what's the subject that students struggle with the most?

I would say I'll say what I think. And you say the same thing. Aspects. For some reason. Drishti. That's the hardest thing for them to remember. Drishti. That's my thoughts on that. What do you think? Sri?

I think the Nakshatras, because what I've seen is when they get to that topic, they, you know, they try to. Because there's so much information, they try to memorize it all. And as you know, there's 27 of them, the rulers and, you know, everything that goes with it. They know what the symbology is, the mythology. So I always tell my students, you know, you don't have to memorize the whole thing. You need, you do need to know the rulers, but like the stories and everything, it's good to know because it does kind of help us when we do predictions but at that point, when you're in the first semester, people struggle with that a lot. But as a tutor, I always tell them, you know, yeah, you know, learn the rulers. But as you go through the remaining semesters, everything will sink in. You know, you don't have to kind of at that point try to understand everything, like what's the color and what's the deity and what's, you know, you just have to know the high level concept. And then as you go along, you will understand everything. It'll all fall into place. So I've seen people struggle with the Nakshatras a lot. Plus, you know, it's also the Sanskrit words. I feel you're right. But we make it very easy for them to understand because you have really simplified it.

Well, they think they have to know everything about the Nakshatras from that one test. And really you just have, you know, you're kind of looking up the answers to write it all out. But by the time you finish the university, you'll know all about the Nakshatras because you'll be using them in your reading. So it's like, you know, each, each semester builds on the next and by the time you graduate, you have this full understanding. So that, that's how I see it.

So then there's a question. How many lessons cover the calculation of the degrees of planets?

So figuring out the calculations of the degrees of planets, we don't have to calculate charts like we used to when I started in astrology. We have the program, but I will require that you learn how to calculate.

Nabamsha degrees from the birth chart. So, you know, to really calculate a chart by hand, which I've done, and I don't require that you learn to do that anymore.

You need the book of logarithms, you need an ephemeris, you need these, the sidereal time charts. I mean, you need all these reference books that are really hard to get today. You can't even get a sidereal ephemeris anymore because the people who produce them, I mean, they're not making any profit. And it is so much work to do all of that in print. And you know, they're really. The one I have is so beat up and look at it, it's falling apart. It's all, you know, this. So it's like it's actually falling apart. So. But that's what you're going to need to calculate a chart by hand. And I will tell you certain things about knowing if the chart's correct. Because depending on what time somebody's born, the sun will be in a particular house. Like if you're born. So somewhere around noon, your son, the sun will always be in the 10th. If you're born at sunrise, the sun will be by. By the first house. If you're born at midnight, the sun will be in the fourth house. If you're born at sunset, it's in the seventh house. So these are certain things I will want you to know because we do talk a little bit about astronomy as well. Everything is there. And another thing I wanted to say is when you go to the website, University of Vedicastrology.com, there's a video where you can see what other graduates have said about the university, their experiences. And there's another video. The very first semester of UVA is there on my website. My. Not my website. Well, is it on the website? I know it's on my YouTube channel. That's what I meant to say on my home page. When you go there, you can watch the very, very first.

First class of semester one for free to see if it appeals to you.

And it is on the University of Vedic Astrology website. It's on the very front page and it says free first lesson. So you can, you can find it there too.

Great, good. Any other questions?

So, yeah, lots of questions. So let's see. Which one, which one was the next one?

Degree of planets. We talked about that. Do you have access to the class videos for a limited amount of time or is it lifetime access? It is actually lifetime access. You can, you have any, any time that you want to access it. Even when you have new batches of students coming in, you can always come back and come into the live webinar, all the lesson videos. Your access to the learning platform is lifetime. You know, it's not revoked at any time. Okay.

All right, so let's see. What's the next question? What is the cost of the program used for the charts? Is it lifetime or annual license?

It's lifetime. But how much is it? It's been so long since I bought it, I don't remember what the.

Yeah, me too. I mean, I bought it back in 2014, I think. I think right now it's at 299 or 300, something like that. But we do have a 20% discount as part of the university. If you tell them you're Joni student, you get that. So we do give them a list of our students when they sign up. So based on that, you get a discount.

All right, so Any other questions? I don't see any more.

All right, I think that's about it.

So one more thing I want to mention. This week we are going to post one of our live webinars that was pre recorded onto my YouTube channel. So if you want to know how the interaction happens and what we talk about, I am posting that this week and you can listen in. This is. I mean, I didn't plan to put this one out on, on YouTube, but I thought, wouldn't it be a good idea to show people one of our full classes? It's from semester three.

SRI particularly liked it. Who was I looking at again?

It was Alex Trebek.

Oh, yeah. So, you know, because he just passed away and he was so well liked, but if you don't know, he was the, um, he was the host on Jeopardy. For how many years? Like his whole life or something. And, and he just passed away. So I usually when somebody passes away, I love, I love to pay tribute to their lives. What was, you know, their accomplishments, who were they? It's so interesting. And when you look at celebrities, you have, you have everything documented in their life. When they got, you know, when he started Jeopardy. When he started into the movie business, what his family's like, all those things are documented. So we take real people, usually celebrities and something that's going on that's current in the news, and we analyze their charts together in these classes and I give specific rules according to specific lessons for that semester, wherever we may be. So it is really fun.

Actually, the live webinars are a lot of fun. So when Jodi post this on YouTube, you guys should all watch it because you get to see firsthand what it is like to be a student of the university. Because all of the stuff like Joni talks about in the live webinar, she doesn't put that on YouTube mostly. Right. This is for the students. Like the chart on Alex Trebek. That's, you know, that was done for us and you know, we went, we went through it. Of course there were a lot of things that everybody was chipping in and you know, we all talk about it and it's a really casual and fun atmosphere. So I think you guys should all watch it so you can, you know, you can kind of understand and see how our live webinars go.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's really, it was a fun class. I always have fun teaching these classes. You know, here's something I want everyone to know. I learned something new with every single chart I do. It's just Always expanding and growing. And my 40 years of experience, as I said, I've lived through all the transits. I know what they feel like. It comes not just from reading about it, it's firsthand experience. And, you know, the older you get, you gain more of this type of experience, which is actually called wisdom. And wisdom only comes with age. So I hope everyone that's been teetering on the fence, should I take this class or should I learn Vedic astrology? What can it do for me that. I hope that this, this live YouTube has helped you understand what it's all about. So don't be afraid to contact us, ask questions. We're here to help you. And when you join the university, we're here to help you with any question you have concerning the studies in Vedic astrology. So.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So with that, I think we'll close. Thank. Thank you, everyone, for joining. Thank you for your interest and the support of my work. And so blessings to everyone and let's get through this eclipse. Let's really focus in on what we're here to learn about ourselves, because always something very important comes up that we didn't know about, and that's a gift, because that gift can help us change, transform and heal our lives. So with that, we'll close. Thank you, Sri. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks, Joni. And thanks, everybody for listening in and we hope to hear from you soon and see you on the first class for the university.

Yes, thank you. Bye.