Saraswati Miller, Dharma Mentor and Spiritual business Coach
Have you established a deep connection with your ancestors? Did you know that your Dharma, your purpose, is handed to you by your lineage? This week Saraswati Miller, a Vedic Astrology Coach & Dharma Mentor, discusses the interconnectedness of trauma, ancestral healing & spiritual purpose. Sharing her blend of Vedic wisdom & spiritual insight, she unlocks the missing piece for fulfilling your Dharma.
Highlights:
What is embodied Vedic Astrology and how did Saraswati come to practice it?
What’s the connection between Dharma and trauma?
Can meditation take the place of trauma and grief work?
What is the biggest missing piece for Westerners in terms of healing, grief and ancestral work?
How do Eastern and Western Astrology differ?
What does the term “contract worker” mean spiritually and why do only contract workers find Saraswati?
From Saraswati’s spiritual perspective, why do we incarnate?
What is karma and how do we heal it?
What percentage of our karma is ancestral?
How can you navigate the ancestral component of trauma for personal and lineage healing?
What are some of the different types of ancestors?
Why is it important to work with the ancestors?
How can we develop a stronger connection with the ancestors?
Why is an embodied approach so important to Saraswati’s practice?
In which house do your Dharmic gifts reside, according to Vedic Astrology?
Did you know you can ask your ancestors for a yearly increase in compensation?
SARASWATI MILLER is a Dharma Mentor and Spiritual business Coach who loves helping experienced healers build profitable and fulfilling businesses by honoring their embodied wisdom. Her personal dharma is to empower as many women-led business owners as possible to build the foundation for their authentic dharmic offering and understand the exact business systems they need to reach their financial goals with ease. https://saraswatidharmacoaching.com/ Watch her on Youtube
TIANNA ROSER is an Usui Reiki Master Teacher, Soul Plan Practitioner & Certified Clinical Hypnotist specializing in Past Life Regression, Life Between Lives Regression & Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique (QHHT). She uses tools to help people experience their true self, the source of real healing & growth. https://www.awakeningtransformation.com. Tianna is the author of “Awakening Transformation: A Beginner’s Guide to Becoming Your Higher Self.” Her book is filled with practices to lighten your spiritual journey & accelerate growth, available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Transformation-Beginners-Becoming-Higher/dp/1737705303
TIM HOWE has always been interested in unusual and strange phenomena and considers himself to be a consciousness explorer. He was born and raised in Table Rock Village, Wyoming, which happens to no longer exist. He currently makes his home in Austin, Texas where he’s constantly surrounded by beautiful females (wife, daughter and cat).
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TRANSCRIPT
Tianna, So Saraswati. I love hearing everybody's unique spiritual journey and how it's led you to do all of the wonderful things that you're doing today.
Saraswati: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. This is exciting, just sharing about the journey and also how the body and Dharma are so interrelated. Yeah, that's something I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand is that Dharma, of course is the spiritual journey, a path of soul purpose. But trauma is a huge part of that process actually and that's been my journey. So that's been my experience. I can kind of give you the lay of the land and how I really came in with a pretty heavy dose of trauma.
Saraswati: My birth father died, just after a year old, just as I turned a year old in a tragic car accident. My mom almost died right before that. So that. Early childhood experience for me was a lot of grief , loss, tragedy, heavy emotions navigating things that felt confusing, uncertain. And like most of us who go through early childhood trauma, we kind of stuff it away. We learn how to survive, we move on with our lives. And certainly there was a lot of moving and a lot of changes that happened in my childhood. But it wasn't until my mom passed very suddenly, 10 years ago from a brain tumor that my path started to unravel. I really see that as a turning point for me.
Saraswati: I call it an initiation in many ways, and I'm sure that many who are listening have similar journeys or have had similar experiences where it's something tragic and very painful, that cracks you open. And so the loss of my mother did that. What I now understand is that that trauma and loss opened up all the other traumas and losses and all of the undigested grief that I hadn't really processed. You try to live, you try to do the best you can. And I think in our teens and our twenties, we're just trying to live, right? Mm-Hmm. And then it's not until we get into our thirties and forties when we're really trying to make meaning of the journey, the experiences that we've had.
Saraswati: And so it was at that turning point with the loss of my mother that I was really forced to take a deeper look at why things have been the way that they are and what was going on in me, what is the ancestral part of this? And I've met some really wonderful teachers along the way. I had a very unusual childhood in that I was born and raised with Vedic knowledge and transcendental meditation. So despite all of these hardships and tragedies, I also had this wealth of knowledge and wisdom and resources that supported me and kind of helped me make meaning of all this.
Saraswati: But you know, what I also tell my clients and, and what I think is really important to remember is that no amount of meditation and we'll say spiritual bypassing takes the place of doing the trauma and the grief work and the ancestral work. And I think that's really what I've learned in this journey is you can have incredible knowledge and wisdom and resources at your fingertips. And you might even be using them consistently. But we still have the humanity piece. Mm-Hmm. The sort of like hands-on heavy lifting the dark deep inner stuff that has to be dealt with in a very tangible way. And so that's what I call grief work. And Sabon Fusome was actually very instrumental in helping me understand why the grief was so stuck for me and why I wasn't moving beyond the grief, why it wasn't moving.
Sabon Fusome is from the dagura lineage of Burkina Faso. And she's now with the ancestors, but her lineage is very wise and has potent wisdom for ancestral medicine and grief work. So I learned a lot about the ancestral work and the grief work through her, through grief ritual, and realizing that the biggest, missing piece, especially for us Westerners, is the community piece. Mm-Hmm. We're all trying to do our healing work, our grief work, our ancestral work alone, hiding away, don't want anyone to see it. God forbid anyone knows how bad it's been or how icky and sticky it is. And that communal piece was a huge shift for me in understanding, that I just isolated myself and even my background in therapy and master's work and body-centered, expressive art therapy.
Saraswati: It was very focused on the individual, the individual's body, the individual's needs. And in fact, what we're really missing, many of us are, are missing. I would even say most of us are missing is the community piece being witnessed, being held, being seen that knowing that we're not alone in this. So that has influenced a big part of what I do, how I understand the healing journey. Even how I use the tool of Vedic astrology. I've created a process that I call embodied Vedic astrology. Hmm. Having grown up with Vedic tools , and I started studying Jyotish at age seven. What I realized is there's a real disconnection with how, as astrologers, especially Vedic astrologers, which is what I'm familiar with how Vedic astrologers interpret the chart and it's very clinical in some ways, and it's often devoid of feeling and emotion. It's pretty masculine centric. Mm-Hmm. And, it's very disconnected from the body in my experience. And certainly if you're using it for prediction, it's sort of like this is what's gonna happen to you, rather than how do you feel in your body?
Saraswati: So I've created a different way of working with Jyotish that is actually rooted in the body and this ancestral understanding of how we even got here and what we're even doing. This body at this time and place. And the short answer is, we're here to heal. And we're here to heal our ancestral wounds.
Tianna: Yeah. Wow. There's so much there , I was curious. Yeah, it's interesting, right? Like Vedic astrology, I'm not very familiar with it. I'm assuming it's coming from the east and then here in the west we don't have a lot of exposure to it. And I'm wondering how can Westerners sort of integrate that Eastern approach? Or if that matters at all, kind of integrating the Eastern and the Western?
Saraswati: Well, in fact, I'm very passionate about this. Mm-Hmm. And first and foremost, I think it's important to understand, and this is very controversial, so I just wanna name that there can be a little headbutting between Western astrologers and eastern astrologers. But as an Eastern astrologer, I will say that the thing that is most important for us is that we are using an astronomically correct tool, meaning it is exactly what's happening in the sky. And we use the star patterns or the constellations, which are fixed, and these are called nakshatras. And we have twenty-eight nakshatras actually in the Vedic system. They do correlate to western star patterns, but we have our own name for them, and they're very ancient and they have deities that are connected to them and also planets that rule them. And so it's a very vast, intricate, layered approach to understanding the cosmic body. And so, the Vedic astrology is thousands and thousands and thousands of years old.
Saraswati: I mean, modern thought is, it's about 5,000 years old. Most of us who study Vedic knowledge and wisdom know it's much older than that, but we'll say 5,000 just for ease. The Vedic Jyotishis thousands of years ago, they knew that there was a different way, tropical and sidereal approach to mapping the sky, but they chose the sidereal approach because they knew it was astronomically correct and through the course of time it would withstand the course of time. So, , it's what I'm familiar with, certainly what I've studied for many years. And when I look at a Jyotish chart, I'm looking at a map of someone's body and I know that I'm looking at not only their physical body, but their cosmic body and their ancestral body. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies. And so when we're looking at a chart, we can really take it from multiple perspectives. What I'm using it for is for Dharmic purposes and one of my most beloved teachers and guides is an Ayurvedic Vidia. And he gave me his blessing to use Jyotish for Dharmic purposes.
Saraswati: And he told me that using Jyotish for healing purposes is really the highest purpose of Jyotish. Mostly what you get out there is prediction. Ah, predict this. Predict. Everyone wants to know, when will I get married? How much money will I make when you know this, that, but who cares really? Mm-Hmm. Because if you are not in right relationship with your body and your own body needs and nourishment and consciousness, then what's the point? So using the Jyotish chart to support consciousness, expansion of consciousness, more understanding of self and, ultimately the spiritual journey. So the path of the soul, the purpose of the soul. And I think that that's probably the most important and and powerful purposes of Jyotish. It's Dharma.
Tianna: Can you define Dharma for people who are not familiar with that term.
Saraswati: So my definition of Dharma is wholeness. Wholeness in body and soul. That includes things like sharing our gifts and our wisdom, our embodied gifts and wisdom. And there's something about a soul that longs for Dharma or even is inspired to live from a place of Dharma wholeness. There's a desire to share one's gifts and wisdom. Mm-Hmm. It just part of the journey it seems like. First we have to discover what are my gifts and wisdom, and we go through this whole process and it takes a lot of work and a lot of effort. Then we can share that knowledge and wisdom with others and that's just the way.
Tianna: And so is that something with the Vedic astrology that you can see and you share with people? Or is it important that we figured that out on our own through living our life or both?
Saraswati: Oh, it's a both. Mm-Hmm. It's definitely a this and Mm-Hmm. Yes, we have precision with the Jyotish chart exactly what someone's Dharma is, but then you have to live it. And here's the thing is, I can tell you, here's your Dharma. This is it. These are your gifts. This is what you're here to share. This is the ancestral wisdom that is in your body. You're here to share this expression of your ancestors. But if you don't believe that in your being, it doesn't matter what I say. Right. So we have to live it. We have to embody it. Mm-Hmm. In order for it to be true.
Tianna: I'm just curious, I don't know if this is your perspective or not, that we choose to incarnate within certain ancestral lines to heal those energies or work with those energies or is it something random that we end up with these ancestors?
Saraswati: Well, I'm gonna say this and because ultimately we don't know the way of karma and anyone who tells you they know the way of karma, run the other way. Because the reality is that karma is just a reaction. It's an action and a reaction. And, even though your Jyotish chart is a map of your karma, your past karma, and no one should say they know why you're here, how you got here. And this is the exact reason for your karmas as they are. That said, it's my belief and my understanding that we incarnate to fulfill our Dharma, the purpose of our soul. Mm-hmm. In this process of fulfilling our Dharma, sharing our gifts and wisdom going on this journey of awakening, we heal our karmas. And we're doing this not for ourselves, only the souls. Incarnation, but for our ancestors, for our lineage. So in the Vedic tradition, we understand that seventy-five percent of our karma is ancestral.
Tianna: That's huge.
Saraswati: Yeah, it's huge. Mm-Hmm. I think that's something that our culture, especially in the West, we're so disconnected Mm-Hmm. So disconnected from our ancestors. It's almost as though we're just this individual, we're so individuated that the ancestors aren't even a part of the journey. Mm-Hmm. They couldn't even possibly be supporting us or guiding us or encouraging us and the reality is we wouldn't even be here without the ancestors. So when we're looking at a Jyotish chart, we can see the makeup of that karma, how that stacks up. Twenty-five percent of the karma comes from mother and mother's lineage.
Saraswati: Twenty-five percent of the karma comes from father and father's lineage. Twenty-five percent of the karma comes from your soul and its previous incarnations. And then twenty-five percent of the karma is actually the nine-month gestation period. Hmm. So 50% of the karma is really mother mother's lineage and her body, what's happening in her body during our incubation period. And of course her environment foods that she's eating, what's influencing her emotionally, mentally, and I take a very different approach to therapy. I'm pro therapy. I think it can be really helpful if we're willing to kind of decolonize some of that, but we're so focused in therapy on early childhood Mm-Hmm.
Saraswati: What happened in early childhood. But the reality for me anyway, and certainly looking at hundreds and hundreds of Jyothish charts over the years is that it's the ancestral piece, epigenetically that even predetermined that early childhood karmically, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, what set us up for that experience. And so I don't think it's random and I don't think that it's just circumstantial. And that's actually what we're doing in the healing process is really understanding the ancestral component. How did I get here and what do the ancestors need want of me in order to move forward for me in the lineage in a very different way.
Saraswati:And guess what, it's your Dharma. Hmm. So I can say more about that because that's something that Sabomfu really helped me understand on a much deeper level. Because of the dagura lineage. And she talked a lot about contract workers and all of my clients, they happen to be contract workers. They find me somehow and it's like, oh, okay, another contract worker. So what a contract worker means is by that..
Tim: Do you mean like they're actually contractors for somebody else's business or something like they're not permanent employees.
Saraswati: for the ancestors.
Tim: Oh, okay. I was thinking that you were talking about like literal sense. Okay.
Saraswati: Well, it is kind of, it's pretty literal actually. Okay. Maybe you're a contract worker. I'm certainly a contract worker. What that means is that the ancestors have hired us to clean up the lineage. So we're actually in a contract with the well ancestors. They've hired us. We're under contract. We have certain parameters things we're supposed to fulfill, duties that must get done, healing work that has to be done in this body and this lifetime to fulfill the contract. We cannot sever the contract. It's dangerous. We can often restructure the contract if our needs aren't being met. And I think a lot of people don't understand that we do get to have some choice in the matter. We don't have to suck it up.
Tianna: Yeah, that's good. When you said it, of course I'm like, what does it mean it's dangerous? What's the worst thing that could happen if somebody's like. Nah, I don't wanna do this contract. I don't wanna be a contract worker. I don't know anything about my ancestors. Why do I care? Like, what could happen?
Saraswati: If you severed the contract and you said, I just refuse to do this? You would have to drop the body and come back and do it again. Yeah. So the thing about being a contract worker that I've realized is it's very Dharmic work, it's duty work. Dharma actually translates from Sanskrit as duty, when's duty in this life, the soul's dutyWe can see that very specifically from the ninth house of the Jyotish chart. That's one layer of understanding one's duty, spiritual soul duty from an ancestral level. We've been hired to fulfill this duty for the lineage. And what I've realized working with my clients is that this dharma has been lost in the lineage. These gifts, these wisdom, this wisdom has been lost over many generations for whatever reason. Often it's due to survival. Mm-hmm. And, trauma and immigration and, being forced off your land and horrific atrocities that our ancestors had to endure just to survive, just so we could be here right now.
Saraswati: And as a result of that, the dharma was lost for the lineage. And every lineage has a very specific Dharma gifts that we're here to express. Whether that's healing gifts or spiritual gifts, or maybe it's, gifts of teaching or art or expression, storytelling, whatever the gifts are of the lineage, many of these very precious, expressions of the divine were lost due to trauma, survival and just a disconnection from the land, from spirit. certainly through colonization, through religious dogma, through being forced to leave one's homeland, famine, these sorts of things, you're not gonna be too concerned about. If you're an artist, if you come from an artist, family. If you're going through a state of survival, it's much more about food at that point. And I work with a lot of clients who are first, second generation immigrants, and we realized that the lineage had these incredible gifts, but when they were forced to come to America, for example, it wasn't about that anymore.Their grandparents had to figure it out. They did whatever they could to survive. And lo and behold that wisdom was lost. Mm-Hmm. But guess what? It's still in the body and it still wants to express itself.
Tianna: How do people find it in their body or what kind of practices and I like that you call it embodied Vedic astrology I like that you have the embodied aspect of it, which brings in like the feminine energies. Yeah. I would love to hear more about how you do that.
Saraswati: So most of my clients have already been on this journey for many years, they know some of their gifts and their wisdom, but they don't trust it. So that's a big sign of adharma that which goes against one's Dharma is when we don't trust the gifts. And I think that first of all is Kali Yuga. So this thousand and thousand thousand of year , cycle in the Vedic calendar that is about darkness and disconnection from Dharma. It wasn't always this way, but this is the time we live in. It's a time of Maya and illusion in the Vedic calendar. And if you look around, I mean, nobody knows what Dharma is. No one's talking about Dharma and soul purpose isn't really the top priority, is it? It's whatever it takes to make money. Or, we're very focused on the shiny outside rather than what's happening on the inside.
Saraswati: So, embodiment brings us back to the body. Embodiment brings us back to listening, getting curious, asking the body to share with us, and actually learning how to communicate with the body. And we can use the Jodas chart as sort of a resource, a reference point to that embodied knowing. But, honestly, to answer your question, I have found a lot of support through expressive art therapy and through the expressive arts.
Saraswati: If we look at our indigenous ancestors, it was all rooted in the express, what we call the expressive arts. But it was just a normal life. It was just normal life, everyday life included creating with your hands, singing, dancing, storytelling, healing, so spirit land, ancestral work. It was all just rooted in daily life. And this is across all indigenous cultures. It's not just one mm-Hmm. But if you look at all indigenous wisdom, there's a similar thread of truth. And I believe that's what we're missing these days. And that what our souls are longing for is to just come back to that original way of being in the body, which is rooted in nature and earth and creativity. So we all have those gifts and it's our job to get curious and, play and experiment and follow the impulse. So if there's an impulse to create, follow it and then track, do I stop it? Do I say no? Do I say this isn't good enough, this isn't valuable or it's not practical, or what's the story there?
Tim: Do you see that happening like in the next few years or even longer for people to become more in touch with that side of themselves? And then also, you mentioned, this long cycle of like illusion and I'm assuming that that's coming to an end, or am I wrong?
Saraswati: I wish.
Tim: And how that is also affecting things as well for everyone.
Saraswati: Yeah, so for those of us that understand the Veda calendar and this 60 plus thousand years of Kali Yuga and we're only about halfway through. Yeah. Many of us. Are focusing more on creating Sat-Yug inside of this time of darkness. So being the light and bringing the resources and the tools, which is what Dharma is. So I see Dharma as a way to cultivate light and be basically a torch carrier through dark times. My hope as a Dharma worker is that if enough of us orient towards and cultivate this connection with soul and body and purpose, that we could sustain some element of light through this darkness until we get to the next cycle, which is much more about Dharma.
Tianna: And only 30,000 years left
Saraswati: Only 30,000 years or more or less, you know? Yeah. Do you think we'll make it?
Tianna: ;Oh, we'll come back many times until we get there.
Saraswati: Do we have to?
Tianna: Well, that's a good question that we could ask you. What is your perspective on that?
Saraswati: Oh, I just don't wanna have to do this again.
Tianna: Yeah. What do you say when your clients say that?
Saraswati: We laugh and we chuckle. Actually that came up in my Embodied,Vedic Astrology, course that I'm teaching right now. And it's a wonderful group and we have these kind of dialogues and we laugh a lot about it. I think we kind of have to laugh. Because if we don't laugh, then it can get really heavy. I don't have all the answers. I'm never gonna claim to have all the answers. Mm-Hmm. I don't know. And so , I'm getting more and more comfortable with the unknown. the way that I kind of keep going is, well, I'm going to do the best that I can and I'm gonna do my duty and my work in this world as I know it. And that's about all I can do. And I believe that if we each do our part. Then collectively we will move forward in a harmonious direction, but it really does take all of us, or the majority of us, or even half, for a tipping point, living our duty, just doing our part, whether that's living on the land or whether that's being a good mother or a good father, or, giving your gifts and wisdom into the world. Whatever that thing is for you, whatever heals you and your lineage, that's you doing your part.
Tianna: I like what you said about laughter. I totally agree with that and also you said in your group you laugh and you mentioned community before, I think there is a lot of comfort, right?
In just like, oh, we're all in this together. Let's keep going. Well, I was going to say if we're all contract workers, so what are the others that are not contract workers? Or maybe you don't know 'cause because you work with all contract workers, but I was curious so are there souls that are coming in that were not hired by their ancestors and they're coming in for a different purpose? And what is that?
Saraswati: Well, I mean, if you look around, not everyone even cares about dharma. I mean, really I sort of have to break out of my bubble sometimes and realize 90% of the world is not at all talking about what we're talking about right now. Do not care. Not on the radar. Not on the agenda. They are just souls moving through their individual karma and there's an evolutionary process taking place for them. Okay. The distinction for contract workers is we are in a contract with the ancestors to move through yes, our own personal karma, but our ancestral karma specifically and. What I believe and what I've seen to be true again and again, is that if Dharma is a priority for you, there's always an ancestral component.
Saraswati: And what I say to my clients is what I remind them is there is no Dharma without the ancestors. Your purpose is handed to you by your lineage. And this is actually where a lot of people are coming to me, confused. Actually, everyone comes to me confused, what is my Dharma, what is my purpose? Can I trust what my path is, what I've been doing thus far as this actually the right thing? And how do I make money from this? And how do I live a good life and this, that, and the other? And so it's the confusion, the self-doubt, the uncertainty, and the gifts and the wisdom that they're here to express are always ancestral, but they're missing the connection with the ancestors. And as soon as we connect them with the ancestors, things start flowing.
Tianna: That was gonna be my next question because as you'd mentioned before a lot of us in the Western cultures were not raised with any connection with our ancestors and it's obviously so important. So how do we do that now?
Saraswati Hmm. Yeah. So, the most important step is just to ask, and of course we're working with the well ancestors. If you do have unwell ancestors, you're gonna need very specific help with that. And, if they're giving you problems, then you'll need someone who can help you help that soul move on and move beyond this realm. Often they get stuck, an unwell ancestor might be stuck in between realms. So we're working with the well ancestors and we're very clear with that. And the first thing is just to ask for their support. Sometimes we have to demand, so it's interesting because the clients who come to work with me and they get through all my gates and they're ready to go and we start working together, I know that their ancestors are on board.
Saraswati: And that they're ready to work together. I have also met people who start the process, come to work with me, and then, or everything stops, things fall apart, chaos ensues. And what I've realized is that typically there's a breakdown between the relationship between them and the ancestors. Sometimes the ancestors aren't ready to do the work with them. Sometimes the individual isn't ready to do the work with their ancestors, but we have to be able to have that clear line of communication and that willingness to work together in order to get the job done. And so first we have to ask. I need your support. Sometimes it's a demand. I demand your support.
Saraswati: This is the other mistake people make. People often think that this is, especially in the spiritual world, it's all lovey-dovey, airy fairy rainbows and unicorns. And that we have to be filled with gratitude with the ancestors and actually a lot of ancestral work includes grief work, and Sabunfu was very clear on this, that ancestral work requires a hell of a lot of grief work. And that might look like yelling at the ancestors, demanding they fix something or purging. Our sadness, our tears, our rage, our disappointment, our loneliness. It's not all this happy, gratitude, love, and light so it's really important that people are not bypassing the emotion when it comes to ancestral work.
Tianna: I went through a dark night of the soul where I cried for like nine or 10 months. It was this big energy, it was like a storm. It would come in and it would like wash over me. And it didn't make sense to me for a long time because this life had not been, I didn't not have a lot of trauma.But then my connection with my spirit guide was saying exactly this, it was like, this is, well, my stuff from other lifetimes and a lot of my ancestors stuff that I came in intentionally to transmute. Mm-Hmm. And so, that makes a lot of sense to me because it was so strange.
Tianna: It was really like a storm. it didn't seem personal. It just came through me and I needed to feel it and I needed to let that energy be experienced and hold space for it and be embodied, as you say. And then it would clear and be lighter until the next day when it more would come. But anyway.. Yeah, very, interesting or validating to me that you shared that. Beautiful. So thank you. So going back to, I think community's so important in the times that we are now, and I think so many other healers practitioners that we've talked to and myself and Tim and other people I know have had a past Spiritually that was a lone path up to a certain point.
Tianna: And then really through this connection with each other, which is part of why we do the podcast, we get a lot of strength and comfort and inspiration to keep going forward, through all of the challenges through that. You mentioned you have a group, I was wondering if you have things that are online or so forth? Because a group that I organize is located here in Austin, but I've had clients drive from all different parts of Texas, which is a pretty big state, just tell me there's nobody else in their community Mm-Hmm. Where they live five hours away, that they can talk to about this, that offers anything like that.
Saraswati: Well, I believe that I'm from Texas. Okay, okay. You know? Yeah.
Tianna: So anyway, I'm always curious for any resources or community that can point people to, that might not have it maybe in their local area.
Saraswati: Yeah, well, my entry level offering, I mean, the easiest way to work with me is what I call my Dharma Foundations course. So we do have live classes, every month, and then there's modules that you're working through on your own, and this includes ancestral work and Jyotish, if you want an embodied approach to Vedic, astrology, and then building a Dharmic business, a six-figure, dharmic business. But we can't really even get there until we understand what is my purpose?
Saraswati: Am I working with my ancestors and what's actually in the way here of my success? And there's always layers of resistance. And I like to remind people that it's ancestral work that we're doing in this Dharmic process. So Dharma Foundations is always a great option to start. and then those who wanna like deepen the embodied Jyotish perspective, there's more available there and then, with my group. And I do private mentorship as well. But Dharma Foundations is a great place for people to start, especially if they wanna do some self study with their Jyotish chart. So, those resources, there's a vast archive of self-study. It is important that we have each other.
Saraswati: And I think more than anything right now, I'm just passionate about helping people understand the ancestral component and how to deepen the understanding of their path and their purpose, and how to bring the ancestors into this journey so that we're not working alone, we're not walking alone and we never have been. But once we have that awareness, everything starts to click. And the other thing, you asked how to connect with our ancestors, an ancestor altar. Feeding the ancestors every day is one of the best ways to deepen the connection with all the ancestors. It's not just our lineage. It's the ancestors of the land, it is the pool of ancestors.
Saraswati: There's animal ancestors, there's mineral ancestors, there's all kinds of ancestors ready and willing and available to help. And we just have to ask. We also feed them through our emotions and our grief work. So if we're not doing that and we're just repressing it and it's undigested, it's, clogging the channels of the body, then we won't have access to the life force energy that's available to us.And that's one of the most powerful and important reasons to do our grief work. Hmm.
Tim: That's really excellent information. And, I watched some of your YouTube videos and they're really great by the way, and some of them really spoke to me like on a personal level, and I was wondering if maybe you could talk about some of the points that you cover in them.
And the two that I'm really referring to are, one is called How Trauma Impacts Your Dharmic Path, and then the other one was called How Trauma Impacts. Your business success, I think is what it was called. And those really spoke to me because, you mentioned like things that, like physical signs in your body that can happen when you're experiencing the signs of trauma and how they're impacting your Dharmic path and so forth. So, you kind of list out the reasons and or some of the things that you could experience in your body and even in your life. And I was wondering if you could touch on what the inspiration was to make those videos and then also like how that seems to help either your clients or just people in general.
Saraswati: Well, I think this is the thing about dharma is it's that thing you can't stop and you would do no matter what, you're eating, sleeping, breathing, this thing. And so that's why I make those videos is because this is what's going through my being. And if I don't say it and express it. It causes harm actually, when we don't express our dharma. I'm very passionate about this awareness around dharma. That's my dharma is dharma. In fact, not everyone's Dharma is Dharma. Mm-hmm. There's the path of wealth, there's the path of health, there's the path of relationships, and there's the path of purpose. My dharma happens to be the path of purpose, and it's just how I orient my whole orientation is purpose.
Saraswati: The easiest way for me to respond to your question is from a Jyotish perspective, so I'm gonna try to explain this. It would be helpful to have a Jyotish chart to understand what your soul purpose is, where the trauma lives in the body, where the disconnection is physically in the body, what part of the body needs your attention so that you can reconnect. We know, and trauma research is proving this now, that wherever we are disconnected in the body and trauma disconnects us. That is where we need to reconnect in order to find wholeness. In fact, we can see this very specifically in the Jyotish chart. However, K-II lives in the chart and K-II is the trauma node, as I call it, the tail of the serpent. Rahu is the head, Ketu is the tail. They're always seven houses away. There's a lot of lore and mythology in the Vedic tradition around Rahu and Ketu and the serpent energy. But where Ketu lives in the Jyotish chart, we know that's the point of trauma in the body. It's a place of sensitivity. We could even say it's an entry point for parasites and entities. Most disease is rooted in a parasite or an entity. In fact, and so in the body we are seeing where this disconnection is. Let's say the K-two point is in your pelvis, the seventh house. This is someone who has trauma in their pelvis.
Saraswati: They might even have had sexual abuse or maybe they've had a hysterectomy or some sort of trauma disconnection. K-two disconnects us. He's disembodied. So that's going to show us, well, there's a lot of sensitivity in this area of the body. There's disconnection, and from an embodied perspective and from a therapeutic and healing perspective, then we know exactly the place to enter the body. And support reconnection, and there are a variety of ways we can do that. I have my toolkit. You probably have your toolkit. Everyone's got a toolkit. The important thing to remember is that wherever the disconnection is, that's gonna be the place in your life where, sorry to say, you're gonna have to keep coming back here over and over and over and over again.
Saraswati: That point in your body is asking for your attention, and that is the Dharmic path. And it's not, oh, it's so easy. No, it's actually the place where this is hard actually. There's pain involved. What I've discovered is it's not just about you. So let's say this trauma point is in the pelvis in the seventh house. This is actually an ancestral issue that's systemic to the lineage. It's not just you with trauma in your pelvis. No. We have a lineage issue here that is rooted in that for some reason. The lineage has a disconnection with the pelvis and all that the pelvis expresses. It's usually about creativity and creating from your womb, right?
Saraswati: Receiving nourishment relationships, all the things that the seventh house represents, and the pelvis represents the body metaphors of the seventh house. So in that way, we can very clearly understand wherever the disconnection is for you and your body and the ancestral body, that's where we're going to need to put our focus for healing. And that's where your Dharmic gifts reside. That's the easiest way I can say it. Wherever you're disconnected, you have to put attention there. And guess what? Through your effort, through your consistent one-pointed effort, those gifts that you gain, that awareness, that understanding that becomes the offering. Beautiful. And do you understand how that disconnection, that's the lineage saying, come back here, come back here, pay attention. We are, we're missing this piece. We want you to pay attention to this piece. These are the gifts, the lineage. We want you to share these gifts. And that's your time. Yeah.
Tim: That's great. Yeah. Thank you so much for explaining all that and for taking the time to talk with us. We're actually running out of time and I was wondering if you could let our listeners know where they can find out more about you or connect with you if they wanna do that.
Saraswati: Yeah, sure. Saraswatidharmacoaching.com. Easiest way to find me. My blog has my transit reports on the website. My offerings are there. You could book a clarity session with me as well, saraswatidharmacoaching.com. Easiest way to find me. You can also join my Facebook group, can find me on, as you said, YouTube and Instagram as well. Go to my website. All the links are there.
Tianna: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Yeah, I really like the sound of your foundations course. I think that that really covers a lot of the things that you were discussing today too. So I'm going to look into that. Thank you.
Saraswati: Yeah, such a pleasure to be here. Thank you both for having me, and I just appreciate your curiosity and your willingness to have these conversations.It's so needed right now. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Tim: Wonderful. Thank you, Saraswati. That was really great.
Saraswati: Oh, my pleasure. I really appreciate you taking a leap and having this conversation with me. I know it's a pretty bold conversation. Not everyone wants to have it, and so I appreciate you.
Tianna: No problem, actually. I mean, I feel like I'm in my Dharma, but I actually don't have a strong connection with my ancestors. And so the way that you'd said it, I was like, oh, well actually I need to have that connection with my ancestors to really be in my Dharma. And it's funny because I'll connect with my own higher self or spirit guides, but I have sort of neglected having a clear connection. I've definitely felt them show up in the past, but not made the effort really, this is sound really, I mean, it's a little judgy, like, oh, why would I connect with my ancestors when there are higher, more evolved beings than my ancestors?
Saraswati: Right. Here's the important thing to remember. We're humans in a human body and we're doing human work. This is probably something we should have talked about because there's so much spiritual bypassing out there Mm-Hmm. In the name of spiritual healing work. Yeah. And what I love about ancestral work is it just grounds us in the reality and the truth of how we even got into this body and why we're even here. I mean, we wouldn't be here without them.
Tim: Yeah.
Tianna: Yeah. I think that's a really good point. And I'm still recording on my side so we can put this part in because I do think there's lots, and that was part of my journey as well, is the whole embodiment part. Like when I first started on my spiritual path, it was a lot of spiritual bypassing of like, oh, it's so beautiful up there out of the body. Mm-Hmm. And then not,
Saraswati: I would say the same thing growing up in the mental meditation community. Just meditate. Mm-Hmm.
Tianna: Everything's fine. Actually. It's not. Yeah. And having to kind of go into the lower chakras and really sork through the heavier stuff and also start to embrace the body and do like Mm-Hmm. Now I love to do ecstatic dances, a way for me to connect to my body and I love to sing In my living room and the play perspective as well. Like, yeah. All of those things a lot of people don't honor or understand the value of that. And certainly I was one of them. And so yeah, I appreciate that you have that embodied perspective and I think that we're moving more into that as a culture, hopefully. I see spots of that.
Saraswati: I think things are moving. I mean, I'm certainly seeing more changes than I have even at 10 years ago, we can actually talk about grief work and ancestral work and shadow work and trauma work. Now, trauma work's the buzzword, right? Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. So I think ancestral work will be the next buzzword. Mm-Hmm.
Tianna: That's what I've heard in the spiritual communities more and more. I've heard more and more people talking about ancestral work. So I do think that that is kind of the next stage of where people are ready to embrace and look at. So thank you for everything that you do.
Saraswati: Don't forget to feed your ancestors.
Tianna: Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. I have a couple books…we had another person on before too that, did Shamanic practices and talked about the ancestors, and I got one of the books that she recommended, and this was like what, Tim, three years ago or something? It's sitting on my shelf. I have not opened it. I'm like, yeah I'm gonna get to that eventually. And then now, I just like the way that you put it, it's kind of pushing me to recognize like, oh no, that comes first. It doesn't come later. It comes first because that's the foundation. That's where we start to really shift into our Dharma, not just to think I'm doing my Dharma and not understand the foundations of where that came from.
Saraswati: So. So true. And I tend to have pretty fast turnaround when I demand support. A nice ask doesn't cut it with my ancestors. I often have to withhold food and make my demands really clear and kind of give a big f you. Like I said, I'm not doing this anymore and I mean it, and that's when they start to pay attention. And I had that experience yesterday. I am having an issue with a neighbor next door, and it's not a great situation. And I demanded that my ancestors changed this. This has been going on way too long. I cannot live in this environment like this, and I demand a change. And lo and behold, yesterday my landlord reached out to me and said he'd taken action on the situation next door.
Tim: Wow. Wow. Very cool.
Saraswati: And it's that kind of thing that I need that reference. I need that reminder. Like, okay, they're listening. I don't need to escalate here because I know they're hearing me. I can trust they're hearing me, they're taking my needs into consideration. That's part of the contract. I also get my needs met.
Tianna: Right. That's very cool. I love that story. I think it's like important part of it too, to understand the mutual side, both sides of the value that you bring to your ancestors and that your ancestors bring to you.
Saraswati: Absolutely. And the other part of this that most people don't understand is the payment exchange. So every year I ask the ancestors for a raise if I am in contract with them and we're doing this work together, and I'm doing their work right for the lineage. I demand compensation and I want the compensation that I need. Mm-Hmm. And every year, as I progress and I continue to do my side of the contract, I ask for a raise.
Tianna: Wow. I never would've thought of it like that. That's super interesting. I love that.
Saraswati: And be sure you give a dollar amount with that. Like any negotiation you would be in, you would give a clear dollar amount. So make sure you're clear with your ancestors about what you need, what the parameters of the contract are, what you need for compensation, and be very clear in that.
Tianna: Wonderful. I've never heard anything like that before.
Tim: That's very interesting. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, definitely. Right.
Saraswati: Okay. Very well, great. Glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Tim: Yeah, thanks for coming on for sharing all your wisdom and experience.