thank you dylan, for the beautiful explanation

my humble gratitude to you omid :)

Namaste Agni, can you please also tell me who my Ishta Devata is? My Atmakaraka is Surya and my Amatyakaraka is Shukra. It is very important to me. I can provide detailed birth information if needed. Thank you

Namaskaram Agniji, Does the deity change according to which sign our amatyakaraka is placed? For example, if mars is our amatyakaraka, will the preferred deity be Maa Pratyangira regardless of which House/Sign/Nakshatra Mars is sitting in? Also please share more about Maa Pratyangira, hearing about Her from you is like pure nectar. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us.

When it comes to calculating karakas, I am having some issues. One is that sometimes Rahu gets listed as my atmakaraka, this is the case when 365 degrees are subtracted, as is the tradition in some schools with nodes. More confusingly, changing the chart system totally changes the karakas. I’ve noticed that, for people born in northern latitudes like Europe, northern US, Russia, Canada, whole sign and some of the other systems seems to do a better job of placing planets and houses per predictive capacity. But that’s tangential to my trouble. I used various Indian systems which do not use the 365 degrees subtraction with the nodes, or don’t include them at all for atmakaraka, and sometimes moon is atmakaraka, and mercury amatyakaraka, and in one system mars is atmakaraka, with mercury amatyakaraka, while in other systems mars is darakaraka for me. So I am very confused. I was told most recently by a Sufi fakir, that Rahu is indeed my atmakaraka, but we did not discuss amatyakaraka. I really want to properly figure out my body tattva. This is also very confusing as one tries different if the numerous systems, as the elemental concentrations will totally shift depending on which system is used. If I go only off of the mystics I’ve met in this life, two have said Rahu and one said Chandra for atmakaraka. Per experiences with sadhana, my body responds badly to vayu and well to prithvi . Firey element goddesses have mixed results, for body and mind, but are turbulent. Water I am not sure. Please pardon my rambling worries. Anyone’s guidance would be tremendously helpful and appreciated, as I have some major surgeries this spring and summer

Namaste Nesh. As I view it, there is a post-expansion structure of existence, where the interrelations of the ongoing occurrence of expansion are mapped out. That is the view where mantra bodies are fixed, like stars in the firmament, the body of the thing itself. Then there is the use of a mantra in a puja or purascharana or so on. It is possible to eventually create such a resonance with a mantra that one essentially dissolves into the mantra and then joins the mantra body in the structural sense. However when a puja is done or when a mantra is invoked for a purpose, that is very different, it doesn’t take its own pure form. What results is like a chemistry event, where the mantra mixes with the environment and conditions it was invoked in. If you chant a Pratyangira mantra perhaps it will have an effect on your neighbor, but for someone else perhaps on their coworker. But why would the same mantra have two different effects? The mantra isn’t coming into resonance in its pure self-form, but mixed with the circumstance it is invoked, like the result of cooking a dish isn’t the same as isolating a pure ingredient. Salt may be salt but it is a very different thing to discuss salt, to study salt, to use salt to flavor a stew, to salt meat, or to transform oneself into a pillar of salt. In this way this first question from Prince I see as constituting a question of ontology, deities as descriptive of structure. The second question has to do with technology, the invocation of deities within a process: and where that first case is more universal and fixed, the second case is very specific to the who and what and why and when, and doesn’t generalize the same way. That is how it shows itself to me.

Dear Agni, why as per the Parashuram Kalpa Sutra a devotee of RajShyamla is not supposed to utter the word "Kaali"?. Here is the verse: एतन्मनुजापी न कदम्बं छिन्द्यात्, गिरा कालीति न वदेत्. Also, can the 98-letter Rajshyamala mantra be chanted without initiation? Thank you!

Namaste Nesh. Kāmakalākālī embodies the oneness of sṛṣṭi and saṁhāra, the manifestation of the world from the will of consciousness and its withdrawal into consciousness. Each one implicitly contains the other: death in lust, passion in destruction. This is taught in the first kārikā of the Spandaśāstra: "We laud that Śaṅkara by whose mere opening and shutting of the eye-lids there is the appearance and dissolution of the world and who is the source of the glorious powers of the collective whole of the śaktis." In every instant, the world appears and disappears. Every cognition is the cosmic cycle of sṛṣṭi, sthiti and saṁhāra. It is implied in this verse that the two inhere within each other. The manifestation of the world is, in a sense, the withdrawal of pure subjectivity, and the manifestation of pure subjectivity is the withdrawal of the world. Of course, both of these are the activity of the one Self, but this is its play. The same is taught in (I believe) a more profound manner in the Chummāsaṅketaprakāśa: "She who emits everything instantly merely by withdrawing everything into Herself is said to be the Supreme Licking One who constantly exists everywhere." The statement that the Goddess emits everything by withdrawing everything seems strange on the surface, but it is very profound. There is nothing other than the Goddess. If something exists, it is because it is of the nature of Her Light. Her activity is the awareness consciousness has of itself, which is its defining characteristic. Her contemplation which brings about all things is ultimately Her self-contemplation, even if the object of such contemplation seems to be a distinct object (this is the meaning of the name, the Licking One, "licking" being a metaphor for consciousness subsuming all things within itself). In other words, She brings about all things precisely because all things are subsumed within Her being. Nothing is external to Her. So in a way, the line between destruction and passionate creation is blurred. She is the passionate vimarśa which in the very act of manifesting the garden of existence with all its diverse flowers is also the great cremation ground where all things come to an end. Śitikaṇṭha says: "The expansion of the universe is merely the fruit of resting in one's own essential nature." Contemplate this teaching deeply, let it purify your intellect and un-make your thoughts. It is no coincidence that the lineages of teachers and the scriptures are said to come from the same place as the universe itself: the Yoni. For those who do not know it, their existence severed from this, the Void of their true nature, it is recurrent death. For those who are true yogis, Skyfarers in the Void of their pure consciousness nature, it is eternal life.

Dear Agni, thank you for sharing such a clear explanation of ma pratyangira and her nature. Please can you tell us more about Kamakala Kali in the same way? Is she safer to worship without the risks you mentioned being applicable for Mahapratyangira devi?

Namaste Agni. Is Arul Shakti one and the same as Grace Shakti?