Welcome to Eye of the Vedas

My name is Kavi-karṇapūra Dāsa and I have been an avid student of Vedic astrology since 2002. My interest in astrology was initially sparked sometime in the mid-nineties when I came across a book on Chinese astrology at our local library. Although just an introduction to an ancient art, the book drew my attention to the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of the East and hinted at the depths of the latter’s wisdom traditions.

A lot changed with the dismantlement of Apartheid in 1994, but South Africa and Vereeniging in particular, was hardly hospitable to my burgeoning esoteric interests. Within days of finishing high school in 2000, I was in London, working odd jobs to save up for a higher education. It was an unusually pleasant summer’s day in London the following year, when I had yet another significant encounter with a book, this time the Bhagavata-purāṇa, an encyclopaedic poetic text from ancient India, closely associated with esoteric Vaishnavism. This encounter coupled with my own search for a meditative path led to a 14-year stint as a monastic in the Vaishnava tradition. During this time, I was fortunate enough to spend 4 years in India for a truly higher education, studying Sanskrit and Vaishnava theology, going on pilgrimage and meeting some remarkable sadhakas (spiritual practitioners).

With this full-scale emersion I soon began to recognise the crucial role played by the astral sciences in shaping and articulating Indian spirituality from its earliest beginnings right up to the present day. This is not to say the many religions of this subcontinent can simply be reduced to the astral—but that Vedic, Yogic, Buddhist, Jain and Tantric traditions all grew under the same sky. The spiritual ancestors of these great traditions understood enlightenment as a drama unfolding against the canvas of a living cosmology aware of the vibrant continuity between the inner subjective cosmos and the greater, outer cosmos. This core insight underpins their intricate expositions on the individual, time, karma and ultimate reality.

 To me, there was a visceral sense of the sacred interconnectedness of all things reverberating in these ancient teachings with the astral sciences offering a tangible means to experience this connectedness. Like so many sciences, whether they are ancient or modern, astrology when deeply understood and wisely applied fills one with awe—not merely in terms of one segment of objective reality, as is the case with the natural sciences—but of subjectivity itself, the experiencer, without which objective reality cannot exist. From this perspective each birth chart is a darśana, an evolving perspective of the sacred whole.

In the context of monastery life, Vedic astrology proved itself to be a potent tool of self-discovery, getting to know your sva-dharma, or how you are ‘wired’ on a physical, psychological and spiritual level, is a great asset on any path, but possibly indispensable when self-realization is the goal. As I honed my craft and started sharing my insights with those around me astrology evolved into a valuable counselling tool.

In 2016 I returned to lay life and I am currently based in Germany—completing a master’s in Indology at the University of Hamburg with a focus on early Buddhist astrology.