Ketu Keeper of the Past

Excerpt from Before Your Future

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your
very existence is an act of rebellion.” 

—Albert Camus 

Ketu is the keeper of our past-life karma, and therefore also the skills and experiences familiar from previous births. Rahu is the new kid on the block, “playing with fire,” always forging ahead and hungry for new experiences, skills, and talents. Everything in Vedic astrology is a double-edged sword. While Ketu has access to past-life talents and the genius that results from them, he also carries in his consciousness all the terror and failures of our past lives. This makes him hyper-nervous, anxious, critical, and averse to repeating past experiences. The end result is often an underlying dread of being “spent” in the areas of life Ketu influences in the horoscope. 

The most difficult paradox to understand with Ketu is that his unconscious ambivalence and reluctance can swing to have a complete reverse effect on us. Unwilling and headless, he demands the fulfillment of the area of life he influences—not intentionally or actively, but because it’s what he knows and is familiar with. 

The head (Rahu) is the doorway to this world. When our heads fall off in Ketu dasha planetary periods, the lines blur between the physical and metaphysical world, as do the blocks (Rahu) that keep past-life memories and experiences (Ketu) from spilling over and merging into the current life. Ketu planetary periods are most inexplicable and indescribable because we no longer know where the present life begins and the past life ends. As the boundaries between the physical and spiritual world disappear, there is much confusion and anxiety, but also a potential for total freedom. 

Ketu’s job is to teach us that any search we take outwardly—even the most altruistic—is usually limited; the inner search is the only source of light. Ketu planetary periods have a divine plan for us: to reverse engineer our psyches so that all our endless outer searching— especially in the area he influences—concludes. 

If we allow Ketu to do his job without becoming cynical or cutting ourselves off from social norms and conventions, we will have a less difficult time in Ketu dasha planetary periods. If we can convince Ketu that the perfection he seeks is not possible in the real world, we can flourish in Ketu dasha. 

In India, when something doesn’t make sense there is an expression—na sir, na per—which means “This thing has no head and no feet.” The combinations of Rahu and Ketu or Ketu and Rahu dasha/ bhukti feel just like that, becoming one of the most tumultuous planetary periods of our lives as we find ourselves navigating the world without a head or a body. This is also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to neutralize overblown aversions (Ketu) and attractions (Rahu). 

Like all planetary influences, inner consciousness also expresses outwardly through events and circumstances we attract in our lives. Ketu attracts the most untoward, bizarre, unusual, and “out-of-this-world” experiences, people, and teachings during his planetary periods. Ancient scriptures describe Ketu as a wanderer, loner, minimalist, and sadhu who is woke to the game of life, knowing it so well that he does not want to play. 

People in unusual professions or working to access subtle universal energies like psychics, astrologers, and energy healers all have a strong Ketu in the horoscope. Even in everyday life, we meet people who might be living their outer realities like everyone else but seem to have an odd detachment and disinclination to fully engage. 

Ketu is the karaka, or producer of the science of Vedic astrology, as it is “not of this world.” It was the “headless” insight of the great Vedic seers that brought us the incredible astrological calculations which allow us to see our past and predict the future. Yet it can only be practiced and perfected if we play along with the game of life (Rahu). 

The inner search does not run from anything (Ketu), nor does it run toward anything (Rahu). Freedom is simply about being here in the moment.

Learn more about the headless statue in the picture by Magdalena Abakanowicz
https://landmarks.utexas.edu/artwork/figure-trunk