Prarabdha Karma in the birth chart

This article is about how we get Prarabdha Karma, how to identify the intensity of it from your birth chat and if there is any remedy for it.

As per our sages, there are three types of Karma. Sanchita Karma, Prarabdha karma and Kriyaman karma. Over many births we keep doing karma, some are good and some are not so good. All of these from various past births get accumulated as our total Sanchita karma. Prabdha karma is that part of the Sachita karma for which we suffer and it is our debt to all and everything around us. This is the pending Karma of our past births that we are mitigating in this life. In some births, we may come with less amount of Prarabdha and more or Purva Punya or fruits of our good deeds. We keep adding to it by our Kriyamana karma.

In each birth we are allotted certain amount of Prarabdha to mitigate and then comes a birth when it is heavy payback time or settlement time for us to go through the repercussions of these wrong doings. We take birth to mitigate Prarabdha karma and that is why its effect is unavoidable in our life and we have no control over this. For example, a person is born with some physical or mental deformities, or someone is having enemies just because he or she was born in a particular family, he or she did not choose to have these, but has to endure the results of it throughout the life. Similarly some of us go through misery and unprecedented difficulties in life without any explainable reason for such happenings. These are all due to Prarabdha karma.

Video link on YouTube: Prarabdha Karma in Vedic Astrology

You may say that we get to see so many people around us who are doing horrible things and yet enjoying a good life, what happened to me that I have not done anything wrong and yet suffering so much?
In Vedic Jyotish, there are ways to see the sufferings caused by of your Prarabdha karma. It is mainly 6th house that shows the Prarabdha karma or our debt to everything and everyone around us. 8th house and 12th house also show results of difficult karmas coming from our past lives, but it is mainly 6th house. If the 6th, 8th or 12th houses are extraordinarily strong and heavy with planets, it shows that this birth is to mitigate the Prarabdha karma. We also need to check where the 6th lord is sitting in the chart.

Why is 6th house so important in assessing our Prarabdha karma? 6th house is the house of debts, diseases, enemies. In vedic Jyotish there are two kinds of malefic houses, one is called the Tri K houses or Dushtanas and these are 6th, 8th and 12th houses. The other kind is called TriShadaya houses, mainly the houses of materialistic desires that create karma; these are 3, 6 and 11th house of any chart. The 6th house is belongs to both types. Our 5th house is the house of our past life good deeds or Purva Punya and 9th house is the house of our past life. Our 6th house is 10th from our 9th house; this means today what you got as your debt in this life, is actually generated through your karma in your past lives. Therefore we pay off our karmic debts through money, through diseases, litigation or through the enemies. We can also utilise this 6th house energy of karmic payback to heal others and reduce others problems.

Is there a particular planet that is related to Prarabdha karma? Yes, it is Saturn. Saturn is the significator of karma not only for this birth, but for all our births, past, present and future. Saturn plays a very prominent role in delivering the results of Prarabdha karma. Saturn’s degree, its placement, whether it is direct or retrograde in the chart or it is stationary will reveal the intensity of the Prarabdha karma in this life. Check out my video on Stationary Saturn to know how it works.

Is there a remedy to get rid of Prarabdha Karma in Jyotish? Before I answer this question, I would like to share a small story about our ancient Sage Ashtavakra. Many of you may have heard of the great Sage Ashtavakra. He was born with eight deformities in different parts of his body. These not only made his appearance unsightly, but also made living a normal life extremely difficult. On his Guru’s advice he started very harsh penance to get rid of his deformities and pain. Pleased with his penance Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva all three appeared in front of him one by one and asked him to take a boon from them. When he asked them to rid him from his deformities and pain all three of them replied that they cannot, because Sage Ashtavakra got this form due to his own Prarabdha karma and they cannot change it. So when Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar did not want to interfere with Prarabdha karma, who are we, the tiny mortal beings to mess with it? With our shallow and superficial knowledge about our existence, how do we know what dominos effect it would create if we try to manipulate with karmic planets? It is said that only a truly self-realised Guru can reduce the intensity of Prarabdha karma of his or her disciples, that too if the disciple is pious enough in this life.

Therefore, the only way to mitigate Prarabdha karma is to accept the challenge this life is throwing at you and keep doing your work, pray earnestly to God to give you strength and finally absolve you from the wrong doings and then leave the rest to God. Does this mean if we are suffering from a life threatening disease due to the Prarabdha karma, will we not see a doctor? OR if we are entangled in any unfair litigation, will we not seek help of the lawyers? Of course we will; but the testing and trauma that we have to endure to get reprieve from the Prarabdha karma is the way to mitigate it. Always know that if your are getting reprieve from it, that was also destined for you. The fact that you are mitigating your Prarabdha karma itself shows that you have been given an opportunity to pay off the accumulated debts and absolve yourself off from the effects of all the past wrongdoings. You have been given a chance to begin a journey as a pious soul from here. Otherwise you would have been in the process of creating Prarabdha karma by doing wrong deeds and yet having a good life.

What we should not do is to try to manipulate the results of the planets in a way that will defer the karma or change its course because that will create more negative karma for you. I want to share an incident from great KriyaYogi Lahiri Mahashaya’s life. Lahiri Mahashay and one of his disciples used to go for bath in river Ganga in Varanasi every morning. One day when both were on their way, suddenly Lahiri Mahashay told the disciple to tear off a part of his clothing. The disciple was taken aback and did not know what to do. The next moment a brick fell on Larihi Mahashay’s foot and he was injured. The disciple then tore off his dhoti and bandaged the injury with it. Then he asked, ‘Guru ji, if you knew this was about to happen, why did you not stop, you could have avoided getting injured’. Lahiri Mahashay replied ‘This was Prarabdha.’ He further added ‘It is best to accept the results of the Prarabdha without any hesitation. If I had avoided or manipulated it, Prarabdha would have come back in even more intense form.’