Kethu
Sikhi
Shri Shri Ganapati
Ganesh, Vighnesha, Vighneśvara, Vināyaka; Pille, Pillaiya
Cauda Draconis – The Dragon’s Tail
“Distancing, disenchantment, dilemmas, and doubt”
Restlessness and mental dissatisfaction; disengagement; alliances severed; affections detached
“the thrill is gone”
Spiritually: the Witness
Ketu has the influence of a Mars conjunct Saturn. In Ketu, too much of the Saturn accent can produce fear and hold the Mars action back. This can give poor timing. Mars represents energy and Saturn, a cycle of time. With the Combination, we need to take stock of the issues involved, and do something about them.
There is an ambition for power where Ketu is located by house. The trick is to use the energy of Mars in the right amount by the disciplining of Saturn in an area of selfless service rather than over-possessiveness
“Ketu can have a strong influence on things in this way:
It sometimes renders the mind unbalanced, disturbing social relationships & makes personal life difficult.
Ketu makes itself felt in the psychology of an individual rather than on the material conditions of life.
…Ketu is a planet greatly involved in the spiritualization process
…Ketu is our critical faculty, seeking self-knowledge & self-importance, in exchange for which it receives humiliation in the short run, followed by enduring recognition & respectability
Ketu = disconnection from the desire (Rahu) to experience perceptual reality. Ketu imposes a state of chronic discontent, ambivalence, and dissatisfaction. However Ketu is resigned to this condition and takes no action to change As narrated in the myth of Rahu-Ketu, Shri Ketu lost His head. Ketu is associated with out-of-body states of consciousness, such as flying meditations, cosmic travel, trance states, and the above-body hovering behaviors of trans-medium healers. Rahu-Ketu are a material plane-astral plane pair. During Ketu periods one’s clairsentient awareness of dreams, intuitive intelligence, and the meaning of symbolic imagery will increase. However the lightness of being (sans caput!) and general directionlessness of Ketu’s influence may results in a spacey, float-y, awake-but-disengaged social presentation. The native is present but ‘tuned out’ of material-plane chatter while distinctively ‘tuned in’ to the spiritual voice. Ketu signifies: the psycho-emotional consequences of Abandonment & Neglect. post-traumatic shock disorder, where the victim compulsively relives a horrible loss. Ketu evokes subconscious fears of forcible disconnection from one’s host body & terror of painful exposure, including traumas of: the agony of birth parental death or abandonment divorce (abandonment by spouse) painful romantic separations unrequited love, where the native’s mind is locked into the quest for union with an inherently unobtainable object. all of life’s hopeless losses that are part of the human condition
Massive Push of the Elephant-Head
Ketu has one goal and one goal only: to push the native’s perception, as far as possible, in the current lifetime, toward re-unification with the Divine. In order to effect that forward movement, Ketu ruthlessly destroys any obstacle that occurs upon the individual’s path toward enlightenment
(Remember the myth of Rahu-Ketu. By force of Vishnu’s razor-sharp discus, Ketu gets instantly, brutally severed from the desire-mouth of Rahu.)
If Ketu, in His wisdom, determines that any relationship is creating an obstacle to the development of the consciousness which is necessary to permit the native to advance on the path of spiritual re-unification with the Divine, that relationship will be severed.
If only one component of that relationship is compulsive or damagingly habitual or hiding the native’s true feelings from oneself or otherwise problematic for consciousness, Ketu will take action – that particular obstacle-element of the relationship will be cut off. But the relationship itself, or its social shell, will remain.
Ketu = A Great Difficulty, and (potentially) a Great Genius
For example:
Ketu in domain-5 may indicate a Genius for Teaching Difficult Children. Here may be found not only a parent who must raise a difficult child, but also a gifted teacher of hypersensitive, out-of-orbit, anti-social, pre-criminal, or other “behavioral disorder” children.
The native has a special blessing of “witness” consciousness which allows one to resist the impulse to react negatively to threatening or inappropriate behavior from children.
Free from habitual punitive reaction, the children suffering social adaption difficulties may feel more safe and accepted, and even quite adversarial children may learn and begin to thrive.
With Ketu in putra bhava, one’s failure to produce “successful” children may bring wisdom that can greatly advance the spiritual life
Trauma
The brutal act of separation, abandonment, and rejection is described vividly in the myth of Rahu-Ketu.
Ketu = trauma. Look for trauma in the signification of Ketu’s house and the character of His lord, as well as in any co-tenants who share a house with Ketu. Wherever the native shall suffer unbearable separations, with a great but unachievable longing for consummation or reunion, there is Ketu.
Ketu is a karaka for ex-communication, divorce, being shunned, ostracized, or invalidated.
Ketu’s trauma is not likely to “heal” in the sense that material reunion will not be fully accomplished in this lifetime. However the emotional pain can be neutralized by deep acceptance and forgiveness .
Each new Ketu bhukti will re-stimulate the core trauma of separation, rejection, abandonment, and loss of wholeness. Each Ketu bhukti offers and opportunity to practice neutrality and forgiveness.
Myth of Ketu’s Dismemberment
Ketu’s personal story tells it all. There He was, the innocent tail of Rahu the Serpent God, sitting at the Deity Banquet, minding His own business. Ketu doesn’t have an Ego – He’s a tail. He’s present, but absolutely soundless & uninvolved.
Shri Ketu is as innocent & quiet as a tail can be, completely tranquil & neutral in the scene, when Rahu the Rage of Desire decides to make His big ego ploy. Rahu has snuck into the divine banquet illicitly, and He wants a sip of that divine immortal Amrit, the exclusive private drink of the Gods. He has an intense desire for it. Rahu will get a drink.
He will.
The chalice of Amrit is being passed around this gathering of Gods… Rahu slips into position to receive the next drink. Rahu succeeds! However at the very moment when the first drop of Amrit touches Rahu’s lips – guaranteeing Rahu a lifespan of the Gods — Shri Vishnu sees illicit Rahu! Vishnu is enraged at this slimy impostor and throws His magical discus at Rahu, slicing Rahu in half.
With a terrible shriek, the head of Rahu’s severed body flies in one cosmic direction, and the tail of Rahu’s body flies off the opposite way.
Rahu’s severed tail-half is now called Ketu.
Rahu the Naga Head retains all His passion-driven intention & desire. Thus Rahu remains a perpetual troublemaker. Ketu however has no sense of purpose or goal. Ketu forever languishes in memory of His once-whole Self. Ketu pines for unification with His lost Other. Ketu is bereft, abandoned, hopeless, lost, unrequited – and locked into an orbit wherein He can see His other half Rahu, but never rejoin with Him.
RISHI PARASHAR HORA -JAIMINI SUTRA 