Natural Benefic and Malefic Planets

In previous posts I’ve touched on how planets show up in our lives and how different planetary periods show up in our lives. Sometimes in readings people ask questions around their current planetary periods such as “well is that good or is it bad?” The answer is always “it depends”.It depends what time is unfolding for you right now, what time period you’re in and what specific planet it’s ruled by leading into ; benefic and malefic and what that means.

In Vedic Astrology we don’t necessarily talk about planets perse, we talk about the word ‘graha’ the word graha in sanskrit actually means that which grabs or seizes “gr” is actually the same as to grab or to seize so the planets are really these evolutionary archetypal energies that can seize us and seize our attention and direct them towards whatever is predominating in our lives.Changing our interests, changing our desires, changing what’s available to us within that certain time period relevant to the energy of that planet. That is why when there’s a shift within one time period to another sometimes there’s a drastic change within someone’s life because it is a drastic shift in what that planet represents within the archetypal energies.

The way it’s defined in the Vedic framework, astrological framework is that we have the shuba grahas which are the natural benefics and there are the papa grahas which are the natural malefics. So specifically when we’re speaking about benefics we’re talking about Jupiter, Moon, Venus and Mercury. And when we’re talking about the papa grahas, the natural malefics, we’re talking about Saturn, Mars and the Nodes; Rahu and Ketu.

We can even go one step further and say that the Moon and Mercury are what we would call conditional benefics, depending on how full the Moon is, how waxing or how waning it is will have a positive or negative influence. Mercury is kind of neutral and it will become whatever it associates with.

The Moon is brought into there because if you think about a full Moon the luminaries (Sun and Moon) are opposite. There is the most possible space between them giving the Moon a lot of light which is considered to be benefic, there is more is available to us. It’s also considered the time of harvest because things are coming to bloom, fruition this is why it’s considered benefic within certain phases and why it can be temporal within that. When it’s a new moon the Sun and Moon are together not allowing the Moon any light, it’s said to have low paksa bala: waxing strength.

The other important one to talk about is the Sun. Sun also joins the team of naturally malefics or papa grahas, however Sun has a different energy, at times it can be considered a “functional malefic”. If a planet is within 15 degrees of the sun, the sun takes out the light and significations of that planet, considered “burnt” and overpowered. Within Vedic Astrology it is thought that the sun has a very purifying energy, when that energy is purifying you it doesn’t necessarily feel the greatest but it’s for your highest cause it’s the natural Atmakaraka (AK), the natural soul signification. When looking at sun it is malefic however with the caveat that it is purifying.

We have all of the energy of the nine grahas which are sort of vying for attention and shifting our desires, our attention, and what’s sort of coming up for us.