Gola Yoga is formed when all the planets occupy one sign, and Yuga Yoga is formed when they are in two signs.

Gola Yoga — Yuga Yoga

One of the rarest, yet simplest, of all combinations in jyotish shastra is the Gola Yoga. The last Gola Yoga was seen on February 4, 1962. Gola means “sphere” or “globe” (like a planet). Hence Gola Yoga indicates a worldwide change as seen from the combination that always follows it, the Yuga (or “era”) Yoga. Gola Yoga is formed when all the planets occupy one sign, and Yuga Yoga is formed when they are in two signs. So when the Moon moves out of the “huddle” of Gola Yoga, then the global change is underway as seen by name “Yuga” Yoga. Although Gola/Yuga indicates a new emergence in worldwide “evolution”, such dubious social progress is not necessarily welcomed.

Gola and Yuga Yogas are two of the seven Nabhasa Yogas which are formed by counting how many signs the seven planets are divided among. For assessing the Nabhasa Yogas, the shadowy planets, viz, Rahu and Ketu are not considered. Here, then, are the 7 Nabhasa Yogas.

All seven planets in...

1 sign: Gola (“ball, sphere or “globe”, as in a planet) Yoga

2 signs: Yuga (“era or epoch”) Yoga

3 signs: Shula (“spear”) Yoga

4 signs: Kedar (“buffalo”)Yoga

5 signs Pasa (“noose”) Yoga

6 signs Damini (“conqueror”) Yoga

7 signs Vina (“stringed instrument”) Yoga

Let us consider for a moment that the basic principle of astrology is understood via Krishna consciousness. This means realizing that the planetary deities are all unique personalities; they are powerful demigods and not lumps of dead matter. They, like us, are all parts and parcels of Lord Shri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Like all other fragmented jivas, embodied and endowed with sensory perception, they have their own unique traits, personal likes and pet dislikes. And, according to jyotish shastra, they do not like to get too crowded or they may become embroiled in antagonism, known in astrology as graha yuddha or planetary war. Also, planets who find themselves too close to the Sun may become asta or combust and lose their power to create beneficial results either for an individual or the world. Therefore, as a general rule, planets — like people — need space. It is usually better if the planets are spread out in houses where they feel comfortable.

When planets are too confined, it is difficult to say what the results will be. It is like mixing many colors of paint, you do not know exactly what color you will get, but it will likely be a displeasing one. The most stunning element of Gola Yoga is that after all the planets have huddled together for their rare board meeting; there will be new policies to enforce once the pow-wow is over. When the Moon breaks free from the celestial assembly and all the planets are then in two signs, the ensuing Yuga Yoga, marks the start of a new era and the enforcement of new policies. Indeed, history ascertains that the date of the last Gola and Yuga Yogas marked the emergence of a new era in world history.

4 Feb 1962

I remember the Gola Yoga of 4 February 1962 well, because it coincided with a frightening eclipse. At fifteen, I was making 75 cents an hour working at John Villano’s Sinclair gas station on Long Island. Mr. Villano warned me not to look at the Sun during eclipse because he didn’t want to lose his star gas jockey to blindness.

Some years later, I would discover that in India many believed that the world was coming to an end on 4 Feb. 1962. Pious Hindus had gathered in huge groups at places like Kurukshetra to pray for the future of the earth. In a way they were certainly correct: it was an end of the old and beginning of the new as new lax standards in morality would emerge. Indeed, many significant changes have come into the world since that date. Innocence has been lost. Much that was simple and wholesome about America — and the world — has since been swept away with the winds of time.

Frighteningly ominous, the eclipse that occurred during the Gola Yoga was a solar event in Capricorn, America’s ruling sign. (Remember that five recent eclipses in Capricorn foretelling America’s current problems were the subject of our last newsletter.) A co-incidental eclipse with Gola Yoga means that on 4 Feb 1962 an eighth planet, Rahu, entered into the stellar conjunction making it a phenomenon as rare as it was unwelcome. When the moment arrived and Rahu hid Lord Suryanarayana, the chief of the nava-grahas from view, there in the darkened afternoon sky several angry planets shone visibly. And the daytime turned black.

The singer Clint Black was born on that date under Gola Yoga. In his chart, all of the planets but Ketu are in Capricorn (Makara), his sixth house of enemies. Such a horoscope indicates that one has come to this gola from some very unusual place indeed. No wonder his name is Black, like the sky void of sunlight. In fact he only wears black garments. Black is his namesake and his trademark. His videos are on You tube and his melodious tunes are seductive. They deal with four basic subjects: illicit sex life, intoxication, gambling and meat eating. Of course he is but one of Kali’s many crooners, but no “celebrity” has a stranger horoscope.

1962 saw the seedling sprouts of the mass hippie movement as it burst forth from America and overtook many countries of the world. Thenceforward, public intoxication and indiscriminate sex would become commonplace. No less significant, the bad karma burger joints of fast food would gain celebrity status, leading to the decimation of South America’s rain forests at an alarming rate. Whole tribes of ancient nomadic civilizations were brushed aside and valuable herbs were bulldozed so that beef cattle could be raised to feed a planet’s horrendous appetite for ugra-karma.

A sexual revolution ensued, and in its wake came legalized abortion or planned parenthood as a rationalization to wage war upon the innocent and unborn. Epidemics of venereal diseases and horrific plagues like AIDS followed a few years later. After the Gola and Yuga Yogas of 1962, small countries could be now invaded on the whim of a cruel gigantic oligarchy, which had self-righteously appointed itself as the world’s policeman. In the name of “fighting Communism”, the slaughter of millions of innocent villagers in Viet Nam delighted the banks and the very “military-industrial complex” that President Eisenhower had warned Americans about just a few years earlier. Today the Viet Nam precedent serves as a carte blanch for the neo-bullies in Washington who have hijacked a nation to wage war anywhere on earth. Demons rattling their weapons in the right hand, while stoically clutching their Bibles in the left, receive Nobel Prizes for peace. Back in the 1960’s the excuse of fighting a phantom called Communism has been conveniently replaced today with “a War on Terror”. For “Terror” is another conveniently elusive concept that can be no more captured than one can nail down one's own shadow. What most fail to realize is that the real terror is the war on dharma waged by meat eating, illicit sex, intoxication and gambling.

A few days after the Gola Yoga and the eclipse, Jacqueline Kennedy, First Lady of the US took America on its first television tour of the White House. In America’s love affair with Jack and Jacquie, the Kennedy White House was royally dubbed America’s Camelot. The next year, sitting beside her husband in an open top Lincoln limousine, the First Lady would watch her husband breathe his last as assassin’s bullets found their mark. Kennedy, born under the kingly Moon sign of Leo (which is ruled by the Sun) fell victim to Rahu like the king of the sky the Sun himself. Now the silent prophecy of the eclipse, the Gola and Yuga Yogas was well underway. Later, a million pages of the Warren Commission’s research could not figure out that a bullet fired from behind a man cannot enter his skull from the front.

The psychological impact of Kennedy’s death on Americans was remarkable and immediate. The manner by which citizens viewed a national leader changed forever. No longer would a President or Prime Minister be revered as a demi-god. Thence forward, at least in the West, a leader would be considered as mortal, fallible and subject to criticism as anyone else. In a way, the death of President Kennedy was responsible for a new era of anger and social anarchy. And also in America the prophecy of the planets proclaimed a new era of White House-Corporate greed. The next day, acting President Johnson, a Texan cow-slaughtering millionaire, lost no time in sending tens of thousands of Americans to South East Asia to likewise $laughter and be $laughtered. The war machine flourished.

In India, while thousands of brahmanas were praying that the world would be spared from doomsday, a saintly acharya alone in Old Delhi had a more practical approach. Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami would scrape every last paisa together and publish his English commentary of Srimad Bhagavatam. Penniless, he would take India’s eternal message overseas and change the world from America with a timeless message he would dub Krishna consciousness. As history would testify, through the efforts of an empowered representative of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the gola (Earth) would experience a new yuga (era). From the bowels of New York City, seedlings of a mini-Satya Yuga would emerge centered on the Hare Krishna movement of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

We now know that the more devotees chant, the more public sankirtan that is performed, the sooner times will change for the better. Srila Prabhupada credited the robust sankirtan movement of the 1970’s, days when a million BTG’s were distributed monthly, with stopping the Viet Nam War. Srila Prabhupada raked the soil of the Earth for a garden of world enlightenment. Today, the watering of that garden for the coming Hare Krishna Yuga is a duty the pure devotee has bequeathed to you and me, his fortunate followers.

Looking back at the forty years that has followed the Eclipse/Gola/Yuga Yoga of 4 Feb 1962, we contemplate the years of sandhya that demarcate the old versus the new. Will a once-great land burdened by a need to exploit material nature now enter into its death throes? Or will Srila Prabhupada’s pure Yuga Dharma of sankirtan overcome the tyranny of ignorance now plaguing America and the world? The answer lies in how seriously we "Prabhus" understand the task that the pure devotee has entrusted to us.

Srila Prabhupada’s bold preaching against Viet Nam Era injustices inspired and attracted many of us to this wonderful movement. We were searching for universal love as an alternative to political dominance and found the solution in loving devotional service. I still remember the thrill of reading for the first time the eternal truths from the verses and Bhaktivedanta Purports of Bhagavad Gita As It Is. As Shri Krishna explained to Arjuna, the mentality of the warmongers is no different today than it was during the 1970’s, or on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. For Krishna’s words, like truth itself, are eternal:

“The demoniac person thinks: ‘So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more. He is my enemy, and I have killed him; and my other enemy will also be killed. I am the lord of everything, I am the enjoyer, I am perfect, powerful and happy. I am the richest man, surrounded by aristocratic relatives. There is none so powerful and happy as I am. I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give some charity, and thus I shall rejoice.’ In this way, such persons are deluded by ignorance.” (Bhagavad-Gita As It Is 16.13-15)

What we know is that only we devotees of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness have in our hands the workable solution of Yuga Dharma. Prabhupada’s soldiers alone can turn the tide of world events. Yes, the ability to change history is in our hands. And Rahu loves it when we fall into disarray. The goal is great and we must work together.

Kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha...