Aligning with the Cosmos: Vedic Astrology and Hidden Meaning in a Global Yoga Community

In the metaphysical buffet of spiritual living, yoga is often on the first plate. People get into yoga for a whole host of reasons—stiff backs, the desire to touch toes, etc.—but those can, and frequently do, lead them to something else. Yoga-as-physical-alignment turns into yoga-as-spiritual-alignment, and more practices build from there. No buffet is exactly the same, but those seekers particularly interested in Hindu or South Asian ways of being might find themselves gravitating toward the Yoga Sutras, reciting mantras, singing kirtan (devotional music), and constructing altars with deities like Ganesh or Kali, among many other things. To be clear, this scenario is far from theoretical. I have conducted research among yoga practitioners for close to a decade, interviewing many, speaking with more, and learning about the different ways they further and deepen their practice. In 2021, I studied alongside a particular group of people whose members have, at one point or another, tried one or several of the above practices, but who came together in order to try something new: astrology. More specifically, they enrolled in a 75-hour online course presented as an introduction to Indian, or “Vedic” astrology, also called jyotish. In this paper, I explore this astrology course and ask the following questions: Why would a person choose to study Vedic astrology? What does one have to believe for astrology to resonate? And what does the world look like when all things—body, spirit, and cosmos—are in alignment? 

My work here is based on research primarily done over fifteen months in 2021 and 2022. That timeframe is recognizable by many as the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and by me more personally as the second year of “doing fieldwork” in an 8’x10’ home-office. Ethnographic options were understandably limited then, but a fair bit of the yoga world went online as others did too. At that time, a global yoga organization based in Rishikesh, India (which I will call the Akshaya Yoga Foundation), advertised a course in three 25-hour modules, all on Zoom, titled “Jyotish—Working with Planetary Energies through Yoga.” Here is part of the advertisement, from Akshaya’s official Facebook page:

Are you interested in knowing more about how the planets influence your daily life?

Would you like to discover more about the ancient wisdom of Vedic Astrology?

We're thrilled to offer you a brand new 75-hour course divided into three convenient 25- hour virtual modules…

Yoga is truly a holistic path to wholeness, and together with Jyotish we can better select the right tools at the right time to balance the planetary influences in our lives, and accelerate the positive results.

By understanding our unique life map, we focus better on which roadblocks to release, and we may more easily find inner alignment on our journey.

I first saw this post as a link from the course’s instructor, Nish, whom I had met at a yoga festival a few years earlier. Nish is a Hong Kong-born Californian of Bengali background who has built a lucrative brand out of being a former business executive who now works as a life coach “with a spiritual twist.” He not only advises on marketing and product innovation, but also incorporates “Yoga Wisdom,” “Ayurvedic Health,” and “Jyotish Life Counsel” into his consulting practice. So, upon seeing the advertisement, I contacted Nish, asked for permission to conduct research on the course, got said permission, signed up, paid $399 (for the first module), and two days later found myself on a Saturday morning at 7AM staring into the Zoom rooms of 36 aspiring astrologers.

Jyotish is the study of jyotis, or celestial light. As with its cousin, “Western” or “tropical” astrology, this is a discipline whose arbiters and devotees have for centuries laid claim to the idea that what they study is, in fact, science. In his own effort toward bringing Vedic astrology to a Western, yoga-practicing audience, Nish presented jyotish as a “secret occult science” that is simultaneously Indian and universal, mysterious and accessible to all. For those unaware of the cosmic forces that rule our lives, Nish’s brand of jyotish promised to deliver the vocabulary, tools, and methods toward making meaning out of that which was previously hidden. Importantly, unlike conspiracy theorists, who might equate “hidden” with “kept hidden,” Nish taught that the universe’s secrets only remain hidden if we consented to ignore them. As such, through jyotish we can “cultivate sensitivity” to those unseen forces and eventually recognize that “things are very beautifully and powerfully connected.”

In this paper, I explore this effort of finding hidden meaning, as well as the broader implications that it has for the global yoga community. I hope to show that this particular brand of Vedic astrology serves as a means toward some of the broader goals of the spiritual seeker: namely, alignment, oneness, and harmony, as well as an affirmation that the secrets of the stars point to a beautifully connected universe. Finally, I reflect upon how this vision of the universe rubs up against—and is navigated within—a social reality where distinction, difference, and hierarchy persist.