My Jyotish journey – the light and shadows

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” the saying goes. But once you know, you cannot un-know. That is the nature of knowledge—like life itself, it moves only in one direction, always forward, always expanding. With new understanding comes new awareness, and with that, a new way of living: new values, new priorities, new decisions… in many ways, a new life.

Although my formal Jyotish studies began over a decade ago, it wasn’t until I entered a traditional paramparā—a living lineage—that I truly caught the glimpse of the real essence of this science. Until then, Jyotish was something I was learning. What followed was something entirely different.

The Nudge I Didn’t Ignore

“How did it all begin? Who encouraged you to get into Jyotish?”

I’m asked this often. And the honest answer usually surprises people—no one did. There was no teacher, no family member, no astrologer, no persuasive friend planting the idea in my head. What there was, instead, was a silent inner impulse, a quiet calling “to check the stars”. I’ve always functioned best when given complete freedom, and this felt like one of those moments where the direction came from somewhere deeper than thought.

If I trace it back, it leads me to Nepal, many years ago, during my first yoga teacher training. That’s when I had my first Jyotish reading after creating a drama in the family by insisting on finding my exact birth time. I needed it. I finally got it. Voilà. There I was, sitting across from a jyotishi, my birth chart laid out between us. One of the first things he said was, “When you were fifteen…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. I already knew. Fifteen marked a decisive turning point in my life. In that moment, two things became undeniable: the precision of timing, and the unmistakable hand of destiny.

Strangely, that didn’t satisfy my curiosity—it just ignited it. I searched everywhere. Google, YouTube, books, courses—everything I could get my hands on. And yet, beneath all that effort, there was a persistent inner nudge whispering, there is more to this.

Years later, that whisper led me to enrol in a Parāśara Jyotish course within Sri Acyutananda tradition, originating in Odisha, India.

At that time, the decision felt almost casual—born out of curiosity, a desire to see what I might have missed, or perhaps to fill certain gaps in my understanding. What I didn’t realise was the depth, the breadth, and the intensity of what I was stepping into. Looking back now, that moment quietly rewrote everything. The rest, as they say, became history.