Star of the Month! Shree Ram

Well, hello everyone. We're here today because this is the star of the month. And what I decided to start doing is really honoring some of the students with the university as to their achievements. And I want everyone to know a little bit about who they are because we have some of the most amazing, interesting people at the University of Vedic Astrology. And so this month I decided that there's somebody who deserved it more than anyone else. And it is my dear friend, colleague and student of the University of Vedic Astrology, which is Srikala Ram. Welcome, Sri Gilla. Thank you for joining us. And I have to say we fondly call you Sri. So.

I thought I might give you the formal introduction with your name.

Thank you.

Yes. So I wanted to present you to the world so everyone can learn a little bit about you and how you came into Vedic Astrology and how we met because a long, long time ago. And I just think you are so brilliant and I'm so honored that you have, you know, we've come together and pretty much you helped me from the very beginning of the University of Vedic Astrology because you used to come to my house and I would give you private lessons.

It was all one on one at that time.

I know, because that's how we started together. But tell us a little bit about you, how you got into astrology and what your experiences have been along the way.

Now that's a fun story because it's a Joni story.

It is, yes.

So let me just back up and kind of tell you guys where I'm from and what my background is. I was born in Kuwait, but my parents, they come from a small state in the southern part of India called Kerala. And you know, growing up I learned like three languages because I had to learn my, you know, native language. And then I had to learn English, of course, and Arabic because I grew up in Kuwait. So my parents were, you know, they were very much rooted in the culture of Kerala. So growing up, even though we were in Kuwait, we practiced all the, you know, Malayali traditions and all the festivals and astrology was a big part of it because in Kerala, you know, everything is dictated by, you know, going to an astrologer and finding a good date and a good time for, whether it be a marriage or if it is, naming ceremony for children, anything that you're starting new. You know, that kind of muhurta kind of astrology is very rampant. It's a lot in Kerala. Plus also, you know, people going to astrologers with their questions. There's, you know, you Will see these long lines of people outside astrologers homes and it's hard to get in on the same day because they don't have an online booking system like we do. But it was, you know, astrology is part of day to day living in the culture that I am from. And even though I grew up in Kuwait, my parents followed that. Anything that was important that they had to do, they would, you know, call the astrologer, the family astrologer back home and get the time and date when things can be done. So I grew up around it. My, my father's father, my paternal grandfather, loved astrology. And he, he was kind of, that was the first time I kind of saw, you know, how the charts are made. He used to make it all by hand. And Joni, you know what I'm talking about, you know, there was no software back then. So, you know, I know he also caught an error in my natal chart. He called my father and said, oh, that astrologer did that wrong. Her moon is not here, it's here. Because they didn't include the time zone calculation because born in Kuwait. And he was my first insight into the world of astrology. But I have to tell you, I was not that interested to get into it as an astrologer. It was just there, it was always around us. So I was accustomed to hearing about planets and houses and signs, but it wasn't to the point where I wanted to get into it and learn it because, you know, I always had a scientific mind. So my vocation, what I really wanted to do was get into engineering, which, you know, as, you know my generation, either you're a doctor, an engineer or a lawyer.

So I got into engineering and I became a software engineer. I got a job even before I left college. You know, even like during my last year in college, I got like a wonderful job with an international company. So everything was great. But what happened was in the year 2009 and this was a particularly challenging Saturn transit for me, a very karmic lesson was going on at the time. And it was a time when I felt like I needed to understand why things are the way they are. You know, you get to that point in life where you ask that question, all this stuff is happening. You feel like you're a victim. And the question is, why is this happening to me? Can somebody answer that? And that answer wasn't coming from anywhere. And I think maybe because of my background, having grown up around astrology, people always talking about going to astrologers. I thought, you know, Let me go to an astrologer. Let me find out an answer to this. Like, why is this happening? I didn't even know my birth time at the time. I had to call my mother and find it out. That's how, you know, less I knew about astrology at the.

So, you know, of course I pull up Google and I had only been in the United States for what, three years at that time? Three or four years, I didn't know anybody here. I had no family. And, you know, I pulled up Google and I just searched astrologers in Dallas, Texas. And of course, the first search result that comes up is Joni Petrie. And I didn't know you at all, Joanie, at the time. You know, all I knew was that Google gave me the search results. So I scheduled an appointment with you. But I have to be honest, 40% of me, 40, 50% of me was skeptic at that time. I wasn't really, you know, thinking that. I didn't know how it worked because all I saw was people getting dates and times for events and such. I never saw how it was applied to life. So when I came to you, I didn't know if you would be able to give me the answer. So if you remember, I came to you to that restaurant that you guys had. And, you know, and I remember you were sitting in that chair, you had the printed out papers because at that time you would have the chart. You know, you didn't have all this. I mean, I know you have the software, but you always printed it out because you like to see it on paper. And the first 10 minutes of that appointment, and I still vividly remember, that's. That was a turning point for me because I don't know how you knew so much about me. And it's just, you know, you look at my chart, of course you're looking at the fifth house and, you know, the seventh house. Now I know how you knew that. But at that time, I was like, what? How does she know this? You know, I don't even know you, right? I mean, you're complete strangers. You're looking at my chart and you're seeing this. So that was the turning point. That's when I realized, and, you know, that scientific mind of mine wanted to understand, how is this possible? You know, how do we do this? And that's where, you know, I didn't sleep that night. I didn't sleep for many nights after that because I kept pulling up all kinds of articles, trying to learn, trying to analyze all of this. By myself. We didn't have a whole lot of YouTube back then. There were, I know there were YouTube videos, but not to the, you know, effect that you have now, you know, so I did a lot of research. And then of course, you know, I came back to you for readings and, you know, I decided to learn. I came to you for lessons, the, the tutoring sessions that you had.

You're so generous. Because I remember I used to take the one hour lessons and we would always go over and I feel guilty. I tried to pay you extra and you're like, no, no, that's okay. You know, I love teaching. That's what you always said. I love teaching. And you know, I always kind of resonated because I have Jupiter in my 10th house. So I love teaching too.

So it's just, that's how I met Jody. And I have to say, you know, even though I tell people, yeah, you know, I'm from Kerala, you know, we've had astrology while I was growing up. But I always make it a point to tell everybody. The reason I'm an astrologer today, the reason that, you know, I, even though I'm a software engineer, I took that kind of a detour and wanted to go into astrology, is Joni. That's all Joan. Because that day in your, in your office is what really got me intrigued about it. Trying to understand how the whole thing works. But. But as you all know, Jyotish is the study of light as, you know, as it's perceived at the point of birth or at the time a question is asked or when an idea is conceived or, you know, an event takes place. Place. So that light and the emanated by the planets is what really captures the essence of that instant and it really does define everything about that individual. So when Joni looked at my chart, you know, later on, I understood, you know, this is how you look at the planets. This is how you look at the houses. And it is a life map. It's a map of your life. And that's, that's what Joni taught me, which I never saw growing up, that it's not just, you know, of course you use astrology to, you know, does. And that's a big part of it. I'm not discounting it. But the part that I'm really interested in is how it can help people. Because that side of it, when you look at it as a life map and you tell somebody, hey, you're going through this because of these aspects, you stop feeling like a victim you're no longer a victim, you're now aware. And that awareness is half the battle won, right? Because when you're aware, you're mentally prepared for it. And also now you can take it one step forward and learn from it. Right? It's a very enlightening experience. So that is what I like about astrology, and that's what I learned from you, Joni, how to help everybody with. And I still remember I was sitting in one of your tutoring sessions and, you know, something that was going on at the time, I was really upset about it. And you told me, sri, just experience this, because this experience is what you will be able to use to help people in future. And that stuck with me to some extent because, you know, I was always thinking, why is this happening? But that gives me, gave me the answer, you know, when you experience something, that experience helps you to help others who are in the similar situation. So that's what, that's how I came into astrology and that's why I stuck with it. It's. To me, it's not just a tool or, you know, just a way to predict a certain time and date and such. To me, it's a very enlightening kind of experience. It's your soul's journey and it's very empowering when you see your client understand why certain things are happening way they are and how they can learn from it and overcome it. And, you know, I think, I think that's, that's why I still, to this day, I love it and I'll never, ever finish learning astrology. And I know, Joni, you agree with me because as you know, it's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more to learn, and I think this entire lifetime won't be enough. But, but I'm grateful to you for bringing me into it and, you know, giving me this, this ability and this opportunity.

Well, I have to say, you were such an incredible student because you really listened and you followed instructions. Heaven forbid.

Some people just cannot, but you followed the instructions. And I noticed, you know, as you were learning, you were like spectacular with your understanding. And then you even took it to another level. I mean, really, you did. And you were there at the very beginning of the university, very, very beginning when I just started all the videos and, and it was so funny when we first, first, first started because I hadn't had. I didn't even have all the videos completed for the entire course. I knew what I was going to do the videos on, but I Still had a few more to complete.

Before people got there, but it was like this whole program that I devised. And you just, you know, I remember.

How worried you were when somebody just bought the whole thing.

I was like, oh, my God, I have. I have a few more videos to do. What am I gonna do? So that was the very, very, very beginning. I forgot how many years ago, but now it's just.

It'S such a great.

Learning platform because here, what my beliefs are, and I know you believe the same way I do on this absolutely, is the way that we empower other people, empower ourselves, really, is through empowering other people. That's just the most wonderful feeling to see people, when they learn, they light up, they grow. And that's so empowering to me to see. See that in other people. So as this university grew and I gave all the basics that I have learned throughout all the years, and as you well know, a lot of my lessons are from experience. It's not just from the books or the slogans or the. Any of the old texts which we had, which we based the whole principles of the Parashara system here with, with the whole course. All the basics are in here, but now everybod broadening out to other aspects of Vedic astrology. And you, above all else, you took it and you ran. I mean, this came, this, this whole system and learning came so natural to you. I know you were an astrologer in your past life. Why it wasn't interesting.

I think you told me, you told me that at the time, but I didn't really, you know, later on it made sense to me because you said you have Uranus stationed on your ascendant. Uranus is the planet of Star. And at the time I was into software engineering, so it didn't really like, click at the time. But later on when I was studying, I was like, oh, I remember Joni said this back then. But I do have, you know, you know, like you say, the past life purva punya. And there is a level of familiarity because when I came to you, it didn't seem like it was new, you know, what you were doing was new to me, but it still felt vaguely familiar, you know, so that was. It did have that past life quality to it. So I'm just glad I'm able to do it now. And I know I'm not perfect and I'll never be, but whatever you've taught me and whatever I've learned from the university is what I practice day by day. And, you know, I can See, when I see somebody feeling much better after reading, feeling uplifted, even though you know things, the challenges are going to continue for a while. Now that they know why those challenges are happening, you can see the light go off on their face. Like, you know, like, this is it. Now I know. You know, it's like you have the choice of either blindly feeling your way through life or you have the choice of knowing why certain things are happening. And I think that really empowers a person. Absolutely. And you always told me, sri always give, you know, upbeat reading, never give a beat up reading.

Yes, because, you know, because really, you and I believe the same way. We have to look at a chart as to what is somebody's best assets, what are their power, what are their gifts, expound on that, get them going that direction, to be who they are, to find their gifts and to really expand that. And when they do, then they're living their life.

The opportunities, the potential, the prosperity. You know, people feel like it's. They feel guilty when they talk about money or prosperity, but, you know, you attract what you put out there, you know, so. And it's another little thing I learned from you. You know, you see it work. Yeah. So when you, when you give that upbeat reading, and it's not that you're making stuff up, it's in the chart, right. You're looking at the chart and you're seeing these potential, which the person is in such a difficult state right now, they're oblivious to it. They don't see it. Right. When you give them that reading, they walk away with that feeling of, okay, I can do something. And I think that's like, you know, that's the first step.

So what I saw in you was an astrologer and a teacher. And so I empowered you and you took to it like, you know, incredible. And I loved seeing that in you. And now you help me so much with the university. You help me, of course, with the technology.

A lot of it. Because what we're doing with the university is we, we have a whole platform of videos, but not only that, we have live classes. But what I want to really promote all of my students to do is to create their own learning experiences, their platform where they become the teacher. And SRI now has a semester on Gemini astrology, which is, I mean, she is just the most perfect, wonderful teacher. She's so passionate and cares so much. And the learning. Well, I told her, I said, sri, to become an authority on something, you have to write a book. And when you're in the process of writing a book, you do all this massive research and you learn so much. And then again, when you become a teacher teacher, you've got to know all the answers to the questions the students may ask. So you have to really learn your stuff. So in the process, I have to show everybody in the process. Sri did write a book and here it is, her book on J Mini astrology. You can get it on Amazon and probably off your website. Can they go to your website?

Yeah, there's a link on my website. My website is www.vedicliving.com, but it is on Amazon what Joni just showed. It's the Fundamentals of Germany Astrology. That's the book. And again, this again comes back to Joni because I had no intent of writing a book a couple of years before even talk to Joni about this. And I also wanted to kind of go back to what Joni was saying about the university and how I help you. Joni, there is a selfish reason behind it. You know, my intent or calling, the feeling, the calling that I've always had. And the intent is that I want maximum people to learn astrology. It should get to as many people as possible. And the platform that you created, it's amazing. I mean, there are hundreds of students on there right now from everywhere, from all around the world. I mean, I think we have students from every single continent. I mean, we haven't left a single one, right?

And. And it's just an amazing platform. So, you know, the reason I feel like this university and I do anything within my. My ability to help and make it grow is because it's a great avenue for people to understand astrology. What you've put together is not just any course, like you very rightfully said, it's a course which is based on your life experiences. You can't get that anywhere else. And, you know, how long have you been doing this? 40 years, 45 years. You know, it's a long time, a long time to learn so much. And, you know, you can't really get that information in any book anywhere. So I think, you know, just the fact that this is able to reach so many people is my selfish reason for wanting to help and bring as many people into astrology as possible. Because it is a very empowering, enlightening tool that you can use, everybody can use it. And then of course, when we come to my book, when I first started tutoring for the university, you know, of course, like Joni said, we as tutors, you know, it's not like we know everything. We are learning every day too, right? When somebody asks a question I don't know an answer to, I go and research it. So that was very empowering for me because you know, I've always wanted to teach and in my line of work that I chose before astrology there was option for that and teaching was something that was very close to my heart. And then Joni, I think you said one time because I asked you, you know, what area should I focus on? Because astrology is a vast ocean. There's so much, I mean Jyotish, you cannot really hold it in the, in the, you know, cup of your hand and say this is it, you know, it's a vast ocean. And Joni, you said shreya, why don't you research Germany astrology? And you know, that was when you said it. I didn't even know what Germany astrology was. It took me two years of continuous research to get to a point where I felt like I knew something to write the book. But it was amazing what I found out and only because of you pointing me in that direction. And when you said write a book at that time I was really scared because I was like me write a book. You know, I'm seeing, you know, a seasoned astrologer like you like churning out books every year. But I never thought, you know, I could get to, I mean even now I don't think I'm at that level. But get writing a book was something that I felt was I'm not going to be able to do it. And the first moment when you said it, I felt no, it's not going to happen. But then when I started learning Germany astrology it captured me. There is something about this form of astrology. Parasha system of astrology is amazing. It, you know, it is the all encompassing. I feel like it's the, it's the superset over everything. And Germany astrology is a portion of it. But the what really sets Gemini astrology as apart from the Parash concepts is the soul centric view. It's very much a spiritual view of your chart. A spiritual angle of the chart. When you talk about the Atma Karaka and the Amatyakaraka, every sentence that you talk about in a sense Germany astrology, it starts and ends with the soul's purpose or the soul's journey. That's always very, very spiritual. So that part really intrigued me because like I told you, you know, help when you want to help somebody, that's what you need to know kind of how to guide Them, right? And you don't want to give them the wrong advice because you have too much power in your hands to misuse it. So that side of Germany astrology, that, you know, the spiritual side, the soul centric side is what really attracted me. And as I researched it, it just opened my eyes like the charadas and, you know, the Karakas. And when you talk about the Argalas. The Argalas were an amazing concept. I mean, I know when I explain it to you, I go on and on and you have to kind of stop me because I can't stop talking about it. But the Argalas made a lot of sense to me because whenever I looked at a chart from the Parasha standpoint and I saw a lot of planets, amazing planets in a house, and I thought, oh, wow, this would be great. This, you know, 10,000, this guy will have a great career. And it never happened. And of course you can explain part of that through the navamshire, right? Because it's a fruit of the tree. So if it doesn't carry on into the navamshire, of course it's not gonna happen. But at some times, even if it did, I still didn't see that coming across. You know, the would still be kind of a mediocre career, even though they have like an exalted Jupiter in the 10th house or something that all great aspects. That's where, you know, the Argonaut system in Germany, astrology really helped me because it tells you whether the house is going to come into fruition. You have all of this there, but is the door open or close? And that was amazing. And just like all the other concepts in Germany, astrology. So when I got to the point where researched it and Joni, I think I asked you, how do we do this? And you said, you need to look at charts. So I started looking at charts. I started putting together all these examples. Because if you have to teach somebody, the best way to teach is through examples. You can sit and talk about a concept forever and they just glaze over. But you have to give examples to keep them intrigued and interested. So when I got to that point, that's when I understood. Joni was right two years ago when she said, write a book. Because I think I may have enough to write a book now. You know, even then, even then I wasn't 100% confident. But, you know, when the book came out and so many students read it and they said, oh, I just understand everything now, it was so easy to understand. It's so well written that kind of gave me that feeling like, okay, it was a good thing, you know. And again, Joni, it's only because you pushed me down that path. And you know, and of course now, like I said, I'm writing the second book, the advanced concepts on Germany astrology. These are the fundamentals. I'm writing the advanced concepts, which will be the second book. And then I also have another book on the, on, you know, on parallel tracks which is going to be on how to make world predictions using astrology where we talk about outer planets because they are the generational planets. Let me talk about eclipses. Eclipses have a big role to play in world predictions. And everything that happens in the world today, everything is cyclic. It's, you know, it has, it has happened before and then time passes and it happens again. It's, you know, the cycles of humanity. Right. I think that's what we call it. So I wanted to, this, this book is very close to my heart, the world predictions book, because I did a lot of research to find out every time a certain aspect or a certain eclipse happened, you know, the, the houses that the eclipses are happening in, what did, what happened the last time this happened. Right. All that research. So that's going to be a good book too. So that's what I'm doing now on writing the books.

Oh, I know it'll be good because I know you are going to research some to the most extreme, wonderful degree.

And I know I'm going to be learning from you. That's what we do. We learn from each other. You know, nobody's, nobody knows everything and we're all learning together. And I thought what a great thing to bring together all these brilliant minds in astrology that are passionate and learn from each other. So we started research groups.

Yes.

And there's, there's one right now, like when we have a specific prediction coming up, such as the Saturn square to Uranus, what happened in the past when it happened every 12 years and what happened when other planets came, such as this. Mars is going to trigger it all coming up pretty soon here. But I had the whole research team go back and look what happened before when we had a similar aspect going on. And we're all learning together through doing this research. But absolutely, yeah, I love that you're going to take even the predictive tools down the road to a bigger place. And one reason why I say I go by experience is Vedic astrologers don't use the outer planets, but I know they work. So I Had to find a way to incorporate them into the university, in our learning, because they absolutely work.

They do.

They absolutely work, especially with world events, because they actually rule the collective, the unconsciousness. That's why they're not a part of the system of Vedic astrology. Because Vedic astrology deals with the physical, personal side. But the outer planets bring out this connection we have to everyone else, our generations. And it deals with, as these outer planets aspect each other, it's the big waves of humanity and the big changes. That's the collective unconscious.

They're all connected to each other. I mean, have you ever had that experience where you taught a thought and somebody calls you that morning and says the exact same thing back to you? That that's just a simple. But we are all connected, our thoughts are all connected. And that's where the outer planets come in. And Joni, I don't think any astrologers, traditional astrologers use it, but in, in the university, in the course that you teach, you use the outer planets. And just because, you know, I came from your university, I use them too. And they absolutely work. Especially when they go over one of your personal planets by via transit. You know very well about the Neptune, Mars transit that I experienced. It really does work. You know, each time it goes over that planet, if it goes multiple times over it, like, you know, it retrograde, direct, you know, sometimes they go over it three times in the same spot. And each time there is an event. And if you cannot, you cannot ignore these outer planets. They are absolutely essential in making predictions, you know, world events for sure. And even in personal charts when they are in connection with personal planets. So I'm just, you know, I love your outer planets book books. You know, all three of them. They're my favorite especially I think my favorite is the Pluto one.

Yeah, I think by the time I got to the Pluto one, I understood all, all the more because it's sort of like it was the unity of understanding all three of the outer planets and their effects on the world and world events. It just, you know, while I was writing that book, I actually learned something which is when an individual has a personal planet within a 3 degree range of an outer planet, there's something about their life that will be remembered after they're. After they're gone.

After they're gone. Yeah.

It's amazing how I, how all of a sudden I was looking at all the charts and I made that connection. Especially last year when George Floyd, I.

Think he had all three right, Pluto.

Uranus, all three connected to an outer planet. I mean, all three outer planets were exactly conjunct a personal planet. And look, he's remembered after his. He's gone.

Yes.

And I thought that was so astounding that that just was like, now I get it. So, you know, it's always through experience that we learn and the practice of learning. So looking at that, what's been your experience with university? Give people a little idea what your experience was, personally being a part of it and how it worked for you.

When we first started it. And Joni, you know very well what I'm talking about. You know, we had students, you know, we did the lessons and everything, the webinars, but we were still trying to figure out the best way to do it. And I think we got into the flow of it in the second or the third group of students that we had because now what the university has become is it's just exponentially growing. As you know, my experience, my personal experience with this university is every lesson is no matter how much, you know, some people join the university, they say, oh, I know everything that's in the first semester, I want to start in the second semester. Well, no matter how much astrology, you know, you'll still learn something new in that first semester because that's the way it's built. They are all like building blocks on top of each other. And that's what I really love about it because it's so structured. You know, I always like, you know, I think maybe it's a saturnian aspect. And me, I love things that are structured, easy to kind of, you know, navigate. Everything is so easy to understand. And a lot of what Joni's talking about in the lessons in the university is from her experience. All the charts that she uses are all, you know, what she has like, used over her entire career. And then the best part, Joni, that I feel about the university is the webinars, the live webinars. Because people feel like, oh, you did Those videos, what, 10 years ago? You know, I don't care. But when you come to the live webinars, they are like a fresh new class which anybody nobody has ever seen before. It's a brand new class. You know, it's the current event charts, which have never been looked at before, keeps people engaged and it's so much fun. I mean, I've never felt like I'm sitting in a classroom in this university. It's a community, it's everybody comes together. I've made so many friends, you know, it's hard to Find like minded people. When you do astrology.

In the outside world, people give you like those weird looks when you talk about planets and signs. But it's just, you know, we found a way to bring all those like minded people under one umbrella. And you know, we have the telegram group now everybody chats on the telegram group. And we also have the research group that Joni was talking about. You know, Gautam Gupta and Emily Butts, they put together, they're right now heading up the research group and they're doing a lot of really interesting topics. And I think that is very essential because you don't want to be stagnant. Right. You have all of the stuff in the university, but we want to keep growing, we want to keep growing our knowledge on astrology. Right. And that is what the research group, it brings in the new concepts. Okay. So that's amazing that they're doing that. And you know, of course we also have our book club which is going to be tomorrow. In fact, everybody looks forward to the book club because it's a time when we all just like relax. We talk about a book, we have the author come on to the meeting and the author talks about his or her book. And till now we've done all of Joni's books. Mostly because Joni, you have written so many amazing books. It's hard for us to go outside that.

So we need a variety here, which we will get.

Yes. And we do have a whole list of people that we are going to bring on board. So the book club is amazing. You know, it starts with a one hour meeting but it always goes for two, two and a half hours because everybody loves it. It's just so fun, so casual. There's nothing about this university that's, you know, binding. You know, the classes you want to take, the classes, they're self paced. Everybody has a life, you know, that they have to live outside of astrology. And we understand that you're not bound to, oh, you need to do one lesson this week. Okay. It's very much self paced and my experience, I have to tell you, the self paced part was the best for me. Although, you know, how quickly I got through it because I just had so much interest in it. But just the fact that, you know, I could take the time I wanted to if I, you know, if I wanted to. That gave me a lot of freedom and in learning it. But, but yeah, it's been an amazing experience and I can't wait what this university to see what this university is going to do. I mean it is growing.

Yes. And we have many, many that want to do a platform on medical astrology.

Medical astrology, yes.

That's where we're taking, you know, all these different, the Drekinus. There's all these different areas that I'm encouraging other students to, to become proficient about because I want them to have their own learning platform, their own semesters. So, you know, just like any big university, there's not just one teacher, there's going to be many, many, many teachers.

There'll be electives, it's just. And then coming to the platform, you know, that has been amazing experience for me too. You know, once I wrote the book, if I wanted to put, put up a course by myself, I have to figure out, you know, which platform to use and how to, you know, get it set up. And it's just a lot of work. But with the university being in the university, you have a ready made platform. You know, all you have to do is create the videos, put it on there. And I've already had two batches of students graduate from my Gemini course which is, you know, I, if I had to do this by myself, I would not be anywhere close to that like even to getting one group of students, you know, to graduate. It's just amazing how, you know, Joni has put, to put this together and everything. Everybody else, they are just plugging into it, you know, as various entities and it's amazing, it's an amazing experience. And this university has been godsend, you know, because when you want to learn astrology, start thinking about who do I go to? You know, like I, like I first found you on Google Joey, you know, I'm just glad, you know, it's just like chance that I found you. But you know, it's hard to find the right teachers and go. But then when you see the, you know, university and you see all the graduates and that's another thing that I wanted to talk about. You know, when you graduate from the university, you immediately become a tutor. So you get to tutor students and that's an amazing experience because like I said, you learn a lot from teaching. And then Joni is also empowering us to do readings on the university website. So if you go to the university, the online of Vedic astrology website, and you look at book a reading with graduates, you'll see all the people who have graduated from the university, you know, who have tutored for a while and then they get into doing readings and you know, that is another amazing opportunity that Joni's opened up So I think that's. That's another, you know, that's another generous side of you, Joni.

You know, I know that all of you that have graduated, you know how to do a chart. I've given you explicit ways of making predictions. How to predict when someone will get married, how to predict when someone will come into money, how to predict what their career should be and when will those opportunities come? These are all the questions that all the clients I work with want to know. And when I give you all the rules, what to do, I feel good about sending you out in the world and doing readings, especially the readings that I can't. I don't have the time to do. So I want to give to my students because I know you know how to do the work, because I've taught you myself, because remember this, I don't know that anybody knows this, but in the last semester of the university, I work with the students one on one, and I make sure that they know all the principles and that they can do the work and the predictions. And then for the very last exam, of course, you have to do a live reading with the real person. And from that point on, then, you know, I put you out in the world. And, you know, the way that we really grow in anything is through experience.

So, yes, absolutely.

Yeah. So I want to empower all my students to. To do astrology professionally, have it as their work and as their career, because to me, there's no better career in the world to help people, have fun with people, empower people to change their lives. I mean, what gets better than that?

Absolutely, I agree with you, Joni. And when you empower others is when you empower yourself, too. So that's an amazing thing that you're doing. But I just wanted to, like, also thank you for the opportunity because a lot of universities out there don't do this, you know, and this is an amazing opportunity. We are very grateful and, you know, also for making me the star of this month, which, you know, I'm grateful, you know, it's an amazing opportunity.

Well, I gotta say this. When you come from a place of gratitude, that's the most powerful emotion that creates abundance and wealth. So I'm so glad you are going to be bestowed so much wealth. And then you are so passionate and wonderful in your readings and you help so many people. So SRI does readings through the university, so please check her out, and please check out her website as well, which I'll put down as a link down below. But I just wanted the world to know about everything that you've done, Sri. You've helped me so much. I am so grateful in such gratitude that we met and we thank you, Joni.

And, you know, of course, like I said, you know, it's from you that I learned everything I know, and I'm glad you're giving us the opportunity. And, you know, like. Like you said, anybody who wants to come to book a reading, the link will be below this video. And if you want to buy my book, I'll put a link for that to be below this video. And hopefully, you know, I get to help people, because my only intent, like I said, the calling that I've always felt, is to help others experience and, you know, the beauty and, you know, the wondrousness of astrology. It's just amazing how much it can do for you. So thank you, Joni, for showing us the path. And thank you for today, you know, doing this interview and calling me the star of the month.

Oh, you're amazing. It's my honor. And I'm so grateful that you accepted and you're doing it. So thank you, Sri. And, yes, I just wanted the world to know about how wonderful and grateful we are that you're in the world. So thank you. All right.