Debunking astrology myths with logic: Nitesh Tanwar's mission to change the perception of astrology

Get ready to challenge everything you thought you knew about the subject of astrology with Nitesh Tanwar, The Logical Astrologer. Fascinated by the workings of the universe and the logic behind the impact it has on human lives, Nitesh has been curious about the field of astrology ever since he was diagnosed with an illness. Soon enough, he delved deeper into the concepts and began questioning the traditional methods of astrology and its accuracy. He is now on a mission to revolutionize the field of astrology and make it more accessible to everyone.

Join us as we delve into Nitesh's journey of combining his logical thinking and passion for the relatively unknown subject of astrology. With a unique approach, he’s been on a quest to debunk myths and stereotypes associated with the subject. From self-discovery to personal growth, astrology can be a powerful tool, and Nitesh is here to show us how The Logical Astrologer does it himself. 

Transcript

Speakers:

Akshay Kapur and Nakshatra Nitesh Tanwar

 Akshay Kapur:

Welcome to the Sony Pictures Networks Go Beyond Podcast where we chart our destiny to uncover the extraordinary. I'm your host Akshay Kapur. Today's guest is here to talk about a subject which is thousands of years old. An alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology, he was stricken with an illness that rendered his full body paralyzed in 2011. But as the saying goes a slight of hand and twist of fate, the fates were surely in his corner as the paralysis was not the end of his journey, but rather a start of his destiny. For although doctors had given him six months to live, astrology told him that his recovery began in six months. Now twelve years later he joins us fully recovered and in a new avatar for where once stood a science student, now stands an expert in astrology. It is truly a pleasure to welcome The Logical Astrologer - Nitesh Tanwar, also known as Nakshatra to the Go-Beyond Podcast. Nakshatra, welcome to the Go-Beyond Podcast.

Nakshatra Nitesh:

Thanks for your kind introduction, Akshay. I'm doing really very good. Just coming to the podcast straight from my wedding. So, Thank you.

Akshay Kapur:

(laughs) Ah, well congratulations to you and we're glad to have you on the show. I think at the at the very start the obvious question is before becoming an astrologer yourself, what were your thoughts on astrology?

Nakshatra Nitesh:

I used to think astrology as pseudoscience just like everyone thinks, and anyone who is very scientific and whenever he sees the astrology ads in newspapers, on TV channels, so they are always giving you remedies that do this and then you will get rich. Always telling you shortcuts. So, any person who's of scientific temperament will always think this is pseudoscience. This should be called a superstition and astrology should be banned. So those were my views also at one point of time. 

But when I got ill so at that time I was like okay, some astrologer is saying these things so before commenting on them, I should first read this and then I will comment. So that's how my journey began.

Akshay Kapur:

And we're coming to that moment that turned your entire belief system around. I have to ask you, was it hard accepting that the answer to your question, about whether or not, you'd recover from the illness, lay in a subject that many consider superstitious like you're alluding to?

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

Of course, when many astrologers to whom my parents went to get the prediction. How will be our son? Will he get okay or not? And they said he will get okay in some six-months, at that time I was like okay let the prediction come true. And during those six months I also started reading astrology and then I also came to the same conclusion and things happened. Well! I'm sitting here and talking to you. So, I was like okay this ‘Vidya’, this knowledge is something. So let me study it more and as you said in the introduction, I'm an expert, I don't think myself an expert. Astrology is very vast just like science, it is universal in nature. To understand the laws of the universe it takes a lot of time. I'm still a practicing student you can say.

Akshay Kapur:

Could you tell us a little bit more about the events that sort of led you to studying astrology and how it was when you first began studying astrology and started changing your beliefs?

Nakshatra Nitesh:

In Feb 2011 when I fell ill and after that I started studying astrology, the beginning of it was very tough because the texts are in Sanskrit. And what you get to read from the market are the Sanskrit translations in English and in Hindi. And at that time there were different kind of translations for the same ‘shlok’, for the same text. So, I started applying those predictions or those formulae’s for predictions in my consultations, some of them went wrong. Then I corrected them, and I think after 1-year I was able to predict accurately for many people and after 10-years when I felt comfortable that yes now, I can give predictions in open, in written form I decided okay now I can open a page called - The Logical Astrologer. 

Akshay Kapur:

You're known by the title of The Logical Astrologer. What is your reason for choosing the word “Logical”? 

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

Yeah, because I used to consider astrologers illogical. So, for me if anybody used to say that astrology is scientific, I used to think that it's an oxymoron. So actually, The Logical Astrologer is an oxymoron for general public who do not consider astrology as science. So, my purpose was that I want to popularize astrology as science. I want to bring back the glory of Astrology to the whole world. So, I thought what's better than naming my page as - The Logical Astrologer. 

Akshay Kapur:

We're talking about logic here where do the two subjects really meet?  As you say, they're not that different right? So, what is the convergence of these two? 

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

First of all, you have to understand when anyone asks me how astrology works right, I can give the reason, but the thing is whatever reason I will give can always lead to some fallacies, some heated debates. And people can always say okay I have understood your reason, but I don't believe it. So, that particular point was the turning point of my page. I said okay I will not give you the reason but I will not even tell you how astrology works. I will just give predictions. If I'm predicting something on the basis of some formula and if the predictions are going right, then at least that establishes that yes, it is something. Even if we do not know how something works still, we can use it. And to give you a better example, Newton had no idea how gravity existed, why gravity works? But still he was able to use gravity in practical terms, right? 

Akshay Kapur:

Yeah. 

Nakshatra Nitesh:

So similarly, I'm trying to put it. Do not believe how astrology works, forget it. Just think astrology as a correlational subject. I'm just correlating your events of life with the planetary movement. That’s it!

Akshay Kapur:

Well could you elaborate for us when we talk about the correlations and the inner workings of the subject?

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

So, the basic concept behind astrology is that whatever laws are being applicable in the universe are also applicable upon us. That's the basic tenet. So, for example, you must have heard of the five elements, right? Five elements which have been established by science also - earth, fire water, air, space. So, I will pick two, earth and water. So, under general conditions fire gets extinguished by water. Similarly, whenever we get angry. Now anger is an emotion but whenever we get angry, it gets quelled by water. We always say have some water. Even our language is programmed like this - chill just have it, right? 

Akshay Kapur:

Right.

Nakshatra Nitesh:

So, this was a turning point in that time that fire is a matter, water is a matter, matter is quantifiable, we can make some formulas in quantifiable terms. But anger is an emotion, it is not quantifiable right? Still, it is being satiated by a quantifiable amount of water. And whenever we get angry our body temperature rises, that means the fire element is getting activated. So how do you pacify that? You give a person a glass of water. So now this was the basic tenet if one law of universe, fire and water is being applicable upon one of my emotions, that means other laws of universe can also be applied upon me, and now we can check it whether the laws of universe are equally applicable on our emotional side.

So, for example one of the laws of nature as said by Newton - action and reaction. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, right? Which in terms of our lives we say cause and effect. Everyone has a trigger point to get angry, that trigger point is the cause, and that anger is the effect, right? So similarly, they started studying other laws of nature. Now, among those laws of universe, the time of sowing the seed is very important to get the right amount of fruit. So, whenever you sow a seed, you need the right kind of environment to get the right kind of fruit. This was one of the basic principles which was applied upon us. That whenever a person is born, compare that person with a seed and if somehow, we are able to quantify the environment in which he was sown, in which he was born, so we can understand the potential of the person. And once we understand the potential of the person, we can tell the time of actuality of that potential also. 

Akshay Kapur:

Okay. There's this huge phrase people talk about you know it's been thrown around in the last decade called YOLO - you only live once. But what it seems to me that you are saying that in the eyes of astrology, we are not really born as a blank slate. Is that correct? Could you elaborate on that please? 

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

Absolutely. So earlier in psychology and earlier philosophers especially western philosophers used to think that a person is born ‘tabula rasa’. It's a Latin word, it's termed as blank slate. Even in psychology people say a person is a product of its environment, right? So, whenever a person is born, he's born with some qualities. But earlier they used to think that any person can be taught any kind of quality which they later found, it's not true.

Akshay Kapur:

Okay.

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

And reasons for that they have attributed to genetics, that because we are a product of so many genetic mutations, so who knows which gene part of million years ago is getting activated and that's why the person is kind of different. But in astrology there is a concept of karma. And if you do a certain kind of karma, you will get the corresponding kind of results. 

Akshay Kapur:

Right.

Nakshatra Nitesh:

So what astrology is saying that because you are born in a particular environment, so you are born with particular traits and who has given you the particular trait? The environment. For example, when we say people from the mountains have different kind of nose, they have different kind of hair, different kind of skin. They are born with that. Similarly, they are saying if you are born with some physical features, correspondingly you are also born with some mental features. Because whatever happens in the physical world will affect you mentally.

Akshay Kapur:

Interesting.

Nakshatra Nitesh:

They say that when you are born with particular traits right? That is the effect so there has to be a cause and because your traits are very complex, and traits means your pattern and pattern is always made after much practice. Only practice can give you a pattern, right? For example, whenever we eat, if you are talking to me, you can subconsciously eat. You don't have to be conscious. Your hand will automatically go to your mouth. Why? Because you have practiced it so much times that now you don't even have to be conscious about that. So similarly, astrology is saying that you are born with a subconscious pattern and that means you must have practiced it so many times that now it has become part of your subconscious. But when did you practice it? You are born today! Because the pattern is so complex, he/she must have practiced it in some other life. 

But if she was born in other life then also, she must be having a physical body and as we all know physical body it perishes with time. So, that means there has to be a mechanism through which all those memories are being transferred from one world to another, and there has to be a constant substratum on which this complex change is happening. And that substratum on which the changes are happening is called a soul, and on that soul, they are saying that all your memories are stored in terms of your ‘mann’, your ‘chitt’, your ‘sooshma shareer’. There are so many terms for that. 

Akshay Kapur:

Could you just define those terms for our audience who are not familiar with Hindi and Sanskrit? 

Nakshatra Nitesh:

Okay, so suppose there is reincarnation, a person dies and suppose he reincarnates what is getting reincarnated? That's a question, right? 

So, what they are saying is there is something which is being transferred from one person to another body that particular thing is called a soul. And on that soul, you have all the memories embedded right, and those memories which are being embedded are collectively called as ‘sooshma shareer’. 

Akshay Kapur:

Okay. 

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

Let me give you another example. Just imagine that there is a data analyst who's analyzing you, who is analysing your patterns. Just understand your body is hardware, right? 

Akshay Kapur:

So, you're saying ‘atma’ the soul is the software, and the physical body is the hardware. 

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

And whenever you use a software it has many features, right? It has RAM, it has ROM. It has different graphics card, similarly the way you feel emotionally about some things is denoted by the planet moon. So that's how astrology has coded your every aspect of your behavioural pattern in terms of these nine factors. So, every particular trait has been codified in terms of 9 factors. These 9 factors or 9 variables are called as 9 planets.

So, suppose if you want to know how my ego is, they will say see your sun, how I'm emotionally see your moon. How am I at romance? They will say look at Venus. So, among these 9 variables they have codified you.

Who is the substratum of all these 9 variables? That we call a soul or as we have understood - its software. 

Akshay Kapur:

Right? What we're saying is the computer is the hardware, is the body. The software is the ‘atma’ is the soul, and astrology is the programming on which that soul operates, and the hardware is how you interpret the operation of the software, is that right? 

Nakshatra Nitesh:

Absolutely. 

Akshay Kapur:

And it brings me to a very interesting thing. What did you mean when you said earlier on that the limitations of the sensory organs lead us to not be able to understand this better, that's essentially what you alluded to right? 

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

Yeah, so if you will observe sun directly you will find sun is yellow sometimes orange right? But we do not have sensory organs who can see sun in ultraviolet light,For infrared light, you would need a machine. So, you must have heard of this very famous term in India “maya” which was made famous by a very famous sage, the propagator of Vedanta philosophy, Sage Shankaracharya.

Akshay Kapur:

Before we go ahead. Could you explain the translation of “maya” in English as well for the listeners?

Nakshatra Nitesh:

Well, the incorrect translation of “maya” is illusion. 

Akshay Kapur:

And the correct one? (laughs)

Nakshatra Nitesh:

I don't think English has a particular word for that. For example, when I say planets. It is also a wrong translation when I say 9 planets. Because in astrology we call it “grahe”. So, anything which is affecting you, will be called as “grahe” which is wrongly translated as planet, but it is the closest thing through which a normal human being can understand what astrology is trying to say. But “grahe” is not equal to planet. Because a planet has a different definition. A star has a different definition. When I say planet in astrology, it has a contextual meaning, and the context is that anything which is affecting you is “grahe”. So, for example, if my maid is not coming, I’m not able to get food now I have to order through Zomato or Swiggy, I'm in tension Oh my god! the maid is not coming so she is affecting me on the level of food. So, she's a “grahe” for me.

Maya is simply perceptive reality. For example, whenever I observe sun, I see sun rising from the east and setting in the west. So, for me, sun is revolving around earth, but in absolute reality sun never sets. Of course, it is revolving around the universe. But with respect to me Sun is at the centre of the solar system, and revolving around us which we got to know through science right? But when I see sun, it is rising, and it is setting and my whole life my whole life decisions are getting influenced by that rising and setting of sun. So, to me that event is real. When I look at the stars in the sky. The stars are like 1 million light years away, five million light years away from earth. That means whatever image which we are seeing in the sky, it is not a real time image. This is the correct word. So, if you are looking at these stars in the sky, actually you are seeing the stars position which was five million light years ago. Who knows that in real time it is not even there?

So, what you are seeing in this sky it is also an image. When you meet a person how do you see a person you can only see something when light gets refracted, and it comes back to you. So even when you are seeing a person the image is milliseconds late. So, whatever you are seeing it is always based upon perceptive reality and we make decisions as per perceptive reality,

That is why whenever planets go retrograde, what does retrograde mean? When we see the planet in the sky, we do not see the planet going forward. We see the planet doing backward motion. In absolute reality planets can never go backward. They will always move forward.

So, you must have seen, whenever we travel in a train, everything seems going backward, right? So similarly, whenever Earth overtakes a planet because of different planetary motion speeds, so from our perspective it seems to be going backwards. So, astrology says because in perceptive reality you are seeing the planet is going retrograde, that means it will also have an impact upon you. So, this perceptive reality is called ‘Maya’.

So, what Shankaracharya was saying ‘Jagat’ is ‘Mithya’, this world is an illusion. This world is unreal. Unreal does not mean that it does not exist. It exists, but you will never be able to see the true form of the thing which you are seeing.

Akshay Kapur:

Interesting.

Nakshatra Nitesh:

This is also very well explained by Immanuel Kant as “phenomena and noumena.” The listeners should research about this, and they will be very amused to learn about these concepts, that you can never get to know the real thing because you are perceiving it through limited sense organ things. 

You must have heard of this phrase ‘first impression is the last impression’ right? It is also talking about the perceptive reality which I'm very against. 

Akshay Kapur:

Ah, okay, right? 

We talked about one more thing which was patterns. People are born with patterns; babies have patterns of behaviour and that is where the theory of you know past lives and future lives come from. What produces the correlation between patterns and predictions?

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

Suppose a person has ordered pizza for ten consecutive days, so the data analyst sitting in Zomato or Swiggy will say okay for eleventh day he will also order pizza. And because if he or she orders pizza at 8 pm, so around 7 pm he or she will give notification - hey you want to eat pizza? and because for ten consecutive days if he or she's ordering pizza then my prediction will be for eleventh day he or she will also eat pizza.

Akshay Kapur:

Right? 

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

So, through patterns you get to know how a person will behave and then you know how to trigger it.

Akshay Kapur:

Okay, interesting. 

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

If I know that a person has a particular behavioural pattern and if I can induce a particular kind of environment, then I can trigger that particular pattern of his. So, through astrology we get to understand about the person's pattern which I call as potential, and when that potential will get actualized, we call as time or in Hindi we call as ‘Dasha’. We all have good and bad times in our life. So, ‘Kundali’ is basically, whenever we say ‘Kundali’, ‘Kundali’ has 2 main elements - one is the pattern part, the potential part and the other is the time part, the actualization of potential part.

Akshay Kapur:

Interesting I think that it's a very very interesting point it leads me to ask you, what is your goal as the logical astrologer? Where do you want to take the subject of astrology? What do you see as the trajectory for it going forward. And I'm not asking for a prediction, I'm asking for an ambition. Just to clarify. (laughs)

Nakshatra Nitesh:

My main vision is to bring back the glory of astrology number 1. Number 2 as I say astrology is science, and science is based upon universal laws. The laws which are applicable to everyone both physically and mentally.

Akshay Kapur:

Okay.

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

One of the best things which it can help is if a person is able to understand his pattern his behavioural traits and if he knows that in this particular environment, these triggers will happen and he will behave in a particular way and at least he can know whether his behavioural pattern is benefiting him or not. If his behavioural pattern is not benefiting him, he can try to work on that particular attribute within the particular time period in which his behavioural pattern will be triggered. So, through astrology a person can know his good and bad time in advance and then he can make suitable changes required.

Akshay Kapur:

Right

Nakshatra Nitesh:

So, this is one of the main things by which a person can be benefited. The other thing I am working on is the medical part through astrology you can easily predict what kind of disease a person will get because if you are able to understand the pattern includes everything. Your marriage pattern, your disease pattern, your children pattern, your house pattern even. How your house is going to be everything's from quantum level to macro level everything you can tell but the quantum level research has not been done widely. So right now, we only predict the macro level things which is the marriage, which is career, which is friends, your luck, your kind of opportunities you can get. So, if a person is able to get so much information just by looking at this one document it can do wonders.

Akshay Kapur:

That makes a lot of sense and I think it's a really powerful mission especially for someone like you with a scientific mind to be able to turn around and say you know hey this subject of astrology is not something that you yourself said you know hey it's pseudoscience. It's not what that is. And I think that gives you an edge on how to explain it coming from a scientific background. But now having given I think you mentioned nearly four thousand consultations till date or maybe even more, as we come to the close of our conversation today, we have to ask you what advice would you give to listeners who are in their own lives want to seek astrological consultations and maybe from you maybe from anyone else? 

Nakshatra Nitesh:

Whenever common people come to me, and they ask me about predictions, the first thing which I tell them is please clear the myths behind these signs. Because they come with these biases and prejudices about astrology, they think a remedy can change their life which is the biggest myth. The second myth is when they come and ask me okay, my first marriage was bad. Will my second marriage will go good? So, then I have to make them understand that there are some concepts in astrology which have been marketed very wrongly. I'll give you a very brief example. A very big thing people come to me for marriages.

Mostly people come to me for money and honey. The money is the career part, and the honey part is the relationship part. But they equate relationship with marriage which is not the case. As I said astrology is universal in aspect. There is no concept of marriage in astrology because marriage is manmade. But a male and female coming together for the purpose of creation is a universal thing. 

So, in a Kundali there are 12 houses and one of the houses tells you about marriage. So, I'm saying marriage because that's how people understand these things, but the real word which should be used instead of marriage is the quality of relationships. So, if a person is having issues in quality of relationships, then he or she will face the same kind of issues with everyone. 

So, one thing my whole consultations process mainly goes to rectify his or her behavioural pattern with respect to marriage, with respect to career. And then I would tell him or her that okay you have these relationship issues and because currently you are going through a bad time period, all those bad qualities which you have in dealing with the relationship will come to light. So please control them. How to control them? Then I use the mix of psychological and astrological remedies. So first I clear the myths and then I give them mainly the behavioural pattern remedies and then I come to the astrological remedies. 

Akshay Kapur:

A quick follow up here is what is the importance of patience in the subject of astrology?

Nakshatra Nitesh: 

It took me 10-years to understand the field of astrology. Then only I gathered the confidence to do predictions in open. It's not bragging but it's a fact I'm one of the rarest astrologers in the world I can say who gives predictions in written form in the open. That confidence was given to me through my 10-years of research on the subject, and I was very lucky enough to get very good teachers. 

These were the teachers who changed my life, who taught me how to understand astrology. So similarly, if anybody who wants to learn astrology, he has to know that it requires a lot of patience just like every field of science does. Einstein was not able to tell how gravity works in a day! He studied for so many years then after 30-years of extensive research he came to know that okay, this is how gravity exists this is how spacetime works. 

Akshay Kapur:

Right? 

So, Nakshatra, is there any prediction you can make about AI taking over the job market and rendering us without streams of income? (laughs)

Nakshatra Nitesh:

So last year in May, I predicted about the coming recession in jobs and mass layoff last year I think around I've made this prediction in May or June but started happening after November I also made this prediction in November that after lunar eclipse you will be hearing so much news of the mass layoffs. 

And I don't think this question needs astrology for prediction that of course AI will take many jobs anything which can be done by machines, will eventually be done by machines. Anything which is predictable, anything which is codable, anything which is replaceable will be done by machines. Future is for humanities.

For example, anything which requires a particular way of saying, a particular way of thinking, artist, music for example, no AI can copy the way Hans Zimmer works right? Even if we make a code, it will give some kind of music as given by Hans Zimmer. But still Hans Zimmer has his own experience. How will you code those experiences which he has filled personally?  But of course, AI will be a hit and you will see anyone who is replaceable in the tech world will get eventually replaced. So, they have to work on their emotional quotient and the humanities aspect will become more popular in the coming times, this is for sure.

Psychology will become more popular in the coming times. Mental Health is going to be an issue and I can also tell you I'm also working on my algorithms, and I will be making my own Chat GPT about astrology which will be a new kind of thing for the world.

Akshay Kapur:

(laughs) Ah, that sounds amazing.

Nakshatra Nitesh:

It will be a very cool thing and so, after my wedding in these six-months I'll be working on this and soon you will be seeing my app, and which will be very similar on chat GPT lines. So, it's a very exciting venture and I think that my particular idea will change the world.

It will be a very new idea predicting future is something which everybody is working upon through analytics. I'm just saying the missing variable in Google's analytics or Elon Musk's analytical software is astrology. Once they enter this correlational factor their AI will become flawless, which I will prove in the coming times. 

Akshay Kapur:

Well, I think I think that brings us to a fantastic close to our conversation Nakshatra. I have to say I think the subject of astrology has long needed a person to do the things that you are doing.  Wish you all the best and thank you again for taking the time to be here.

Nakshatra Nitesh:

Thank you, Sony Pictures for inviting me to this brilliant podcast I'm very honoured. Thank you so much.

                                                                                   ENDS