Vedic Astrology in the Astraline App with founder Kevin Keegan

Check out:  www.astralineapp.com

The guest on this episode is visionary Kevin Keegan who unravels the celestial tapestry that weaves together Vedic Astrology and Yoga. This episode promises to illuminate the spiritual pathways charted by the stars, guiding you through the profound connections these ancient practices share. Kevin, a yogi since 2005 and a student of the stars under Dennis Harness, brings to life his transformative Kriya Yoga experience, as we discuss the intricate ways in which yoga and astrology coalesce, particularly through his creation, the Astraline app. 

Prepare to have your curiosity piqued as we contrast the rich traditions of Vedic Astrology with its Western counterpart, revealing how major planetary transits can herald periods of significant personal growth and transformation. Kevin's intimate knowledge, drawn from his dual passion for technology and spirituality, manifests in Astraline's innovative blend of AI, astrology, and yoga to offer a bespoke wellness journey. As we reveal how the app's expansive features can align your yoga practice with your astrological blueprint, you'll be amazed at how the wisdom of the cosmos can be harnessed to foster your personal evolution. Tune in for an episode that's not just informative, but also a gateway to harmonizing your inner and outer worlds.

Kevin Keegan is the founder of Astraline,  the first app to blend the practice of Vedic Astrology with Yoga to create a custom experience tailored to fit you and your individual karmic profile seen in your astrological birth chart.

One common question is “What is Vedic astrology and why do you use it for Astraline?” Vedic astrology is the ancient Indian version of western astrology that most people are familiar with. Unlike in the west, its traditions and practices were never suppressed and the practice itself has been passed from teacher to student over thousands of years, just like yoga has. The main difference between Vedic and Western astrology is that Vedic starts with a sign behind western astrology, so for instance, if you are used to being one sign in western, you will most likely be a sign back from that in Vedic. . The system of astrology is much more than your sun sign however! Astraline considers the position of all the planets in your chart minus Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (still a planet!) The second major difference between Vedic and Western is that it does not traditionally use Pluto, Uranus and Neptune. Astrology is a map of the karma that you bring into this life and how that karma will unfold. Yoga is the system that is used to help alleviate this karma, which is stored in the Chakras. By using astrology to focus on a particular chakra, yoga can be used to the best effect and get the most efficient results.

www.jilljardineastrology.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to Cosmic Scene with Jill Jardine. I'm your host, jill Jardine, masters in Counseling, psychology, long-con Astrologer, psychic Healer and Yogi. Speaking of Yogi, all you Yoginis and Yogies out there are going to want to stay tuned for this episode featuring my guest, kevin Keegan. Kevin has combined Vedic Astrology and Yoga postures in the Astraline app. Stay tuned to find out more. Welcome to the episode featuring my guest, kevin Keegan. Developer of astralineappcom.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Astraline app is a app that blends Vedic Astrology with Yoga to create a custom experience tailored to fit you and your individual karmic profile scene in your astrological birth chart. Kevin Keegan started doing Yoga in 2005 and was inspired to get into Kriya Yoga after reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Hyokananda. After joining the Self-Realization Fellowship, he studied the Temple of Kriya Yoga and learned more about how astrology and yoga can work together. He got the idea for the Astraline app when he was wondering if there was a way to bring the marriage of Yoga and astrology into the digital age, and the app was born. He has been doing astrology readings for 15 years and he loves the study of Indian astrology known as Jyotish.

Speaker 1: 1:53

It's my honor and pleasure to welcome my guest today on Cosmic Scene, kevin Keegan. Kevin Keegan welcome. Hello, jill, thank you for having me. Well, I'm so psyched to have you on here as a fellow Yogi and as a Vedic Astrologer, and I know we want to talk primarily about your new app, astraline. So how can people see more about this? Can you please give the website, kevin?

Speaker 2: 2:21

Yeah, the website is wwwastralineappcom.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Excellent. I know there's quite a bit about the app, but I want you to introduce yourself to my guest and tell us a little bit about your progress and process as a Yogi and then as a Vedic Astrologer. So when did you first get into Yoga?

Speaker 2: 2:44

Well, like a lot of other people, I think I was never anybody. I think when I initially was younger I never envisioned myself personally as being into yoga or being an astrology. The little bit that I really did know about yoga was based on the positions and things that I saw on TV and just basically popular yoga. So I got involved in yoga through my own healing journey. So just a bit of background on me. I grew up in Milwaukee, wisconsin, and my father was a Vietnam vet and our family struggled a lot with a lot of his issues. A lot of those issues kind of got passed on to me. So while I was trying to search for kind of a solution to my pain, I ran into a therapist that was very, very good and adept at yoga and so what he did is he pointed me to autobiography of the yogi and that's kind of where I just picked it up and that book just clicked with me. I mean it was like it hit the head right on the nail. I was raised Catholic but SRF had a lot of seemed like a little bit of Catholic influence to it. So when I read the book, the kind of the understanding of how Korea is and how the spirituality pulled it into itself really gave me a good basis. So from there I started taking the Korea Yoga at home correspondence courses from self realization fellowship and I found out I had been into regular Western tropical astrology probably since I was 16 or 17, but I had no idea that the Vedic is existed, and so I learned about Vedic astrology by from somebody that was in one of my SRF groups and he was talking about astrological bangles, and so I was like, oh, that's pretty neat. And so the first Vedic chart I actually got was from him and the recommendations of what kind of Bengal I should get. However, I wasn't really interested in that. I looked at the chart and I wanted to know more. I'm like you know what is this Rahu, what is this K2 thing? And that's when I just really started grinding into the Vedic part. So from there I studied under Dennis Harness at the American College of Vedic astrology in Sedona and that's where I got my first level certification and then after that I started doing readings on the side and then I started a full blown thumbtack business a few years later and then I did really good at that and I discovered that I have a really, really strong talent for astrology.

Speaker 2: 5:27

So from there, though, I noticed how yoga really intertwines with astrology. The fascinating thing that I saw is that here we have this practice of yoga that we use to deal with the samskaras inside our consciousness, and here we have astrology that actually shows us where they are and when they'll be triggered. And I'm thinking to myself why are we not using astrology to help point yoga in the correct direction for timing, and also where exactly to focus your energy, on what particular chakra, based on transit, and also to the natal chart? So what I noticed, too, is that the classical Vedic zodiac and the planetary rulerships actually match up with the Kundalini. So if you take, starting at the bottom with Saturn so the root chakra being Saturn, you go to Jupiter, mars, then we have Venus and then Mercury, and then the sun and the moon are essentially one chakra, but they're divided you can see that the rulerships of the zodiac planets correspond also to the positive and negative I guess I should say masculine, feminine, positive, negative, that kind of like that tone that each one of those signs has. So, for instance, if you take a look at the planet Mars, mars rules Aries and Scorpio, and those two represent two sides of the actual Mars chakra. What is that? Your solar plexus. And I'm like, wow, why are we not using because you know we already have all these Vedic astrology API's and programs why are we not using the movement of the planets to calculate when the these chakras are actually going to be triggered? So that's where I came up with the idea of Astraline.

Speaker 2: 7:15

I came up with the idea of Astraline in 2015 and I've been trying to get the program off the ground. So, like me, my primary background is in IT support, so I really don't know very much about video editing and things like that. So there's a lot of tries to try to get things done on a shoestring budget and whatnot. But I eventually got funding and I went through one round of for Astraline, but that one, the first version, didn't really turn out exactly like I wanted it. But this next version, astraline version two, is really great. It really points. It really hones in on what I wanted in the concept for the app, and so that's really how all this stuff came, came about, and I am very proud of the product that we're going to be putting out.

Speaker 1: 8:03

Yeah, it's perfectly poised at this time where, in Western astrology, pluto has just gone into Aquarius, and this is exactly, and then Saturn and Pisces in the Western. This is exactly what we need is that kind of transformative information through the technology, the Aquarian technology, of an app. So you definitely have timed this right that maybe these earlier false starts were because, astrologically, we need it to be the right time. And then, of course, the spirituality of the Pisces, saturn, tools and techniques that people can use. So I think it's all actually lining up perfectly for you, kevin, and I'm.

Speaker 1: 8:44

I really enjoyed you sharing your personal evolution in yoga, the kriya yoga, and in the Vedic astrology and how it led you to the development of the app. It sounds like you are using some of your gifts from this lifetime and others and Bringing it into the Aquarian age and sharing it with the collective, because it's so great to watch how astrology, both the Vedic and the Western, is now in mainstream Vedic maybe not so much Vedic is still a little lagging behind. I think people can't quite grasp it as much here in the West, in the United States, but they love their. They love their Sun sign astrology, don't they?

Speaker 2: 9:24

Yes, they do, and that's one of the major hurdles that I found with developing this app is I had to decide which zodiac to use and, honestly, if we use equal house, it's it's really not necessarily based on the house system, like Placidus or or the equal house system. It's really more based on the signs themselves. So I had to decide. Well, I could use Western, and that's actually people want it. That's something that we could easily build into the app, but I decided to use Vedic because I think it more closely matches the spirit of yoga itself. But but as far as Western astrology, the program could work in Western astrology just as much it. What it does is if I just move the zodiac back to the 20th or move it ahead, I guess, with the procession, the 24 degrees, and then what the what the program would do is it would just calculate your natal chart based on that and you would probably you get different results, but it would. It's something where we could give people that option in the future if that's what they wanted.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Yeah, that could be like the level too, but I agree with you, it's best to start with Vedic, because Vedic astrology, known as Jyotish, the science of light, is really connected to yoga very strongly and and it is traditional to give remedies such as the gem or the Sanskrit mantra, or you know, I know Vedic astrologers like yourself who have given yogic postures to kind of shift the planetary energies, and this is so new to the Westerner that I think it's it's great that you're trotting this out for them to take it at a deeper level, because the days of newspaper or online Sun sign forecasts are Are our upon us or they've been upon us for a hundred years. But it's time to go to the next level in the evolution of the human species, don't you agree?

Speaker 2: 11:21

I absolutely agree. And like you said earlier, just Pluto moving into Aquarius in the tropical zodiac that's, that's a really big deal. And then to, I think too, isn't now Neptune in the Vedic zodiac just moved into Pisces itself, so that was a big transit. And then we're gonna, and then in the Vedic to Uranus is gonna move into Taurus too next year. So there's a whole lot of Transformative energy, but especially the Pluto and Aquarius. That one, I think, is pretty odd, like the timing of the app, and you know, actually for me too, that Uranus, jupiter Conjunction on my ascendance at 22 degrees Taurus.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Oh that's gonna be happening right on my ascendant. Yes, get ready, then my moon is going to be subjected to a Mars Jupiter transit square Saturn at oh, I guess I had 20. Oh, what is it? It's at 2320 degrees of Taurus in the Vedic zodiac, so it's gonna be very interesting.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Yeah, I think that you know those of us who are feeling these outer planets. I'm an early degree Aquarius in the western, in the tropical, so Pluto is my friend. But I have a strong Pluto placement in my natal, so I am I'm actually looking forward to it because I think you know, people are scared about Pluto. But if you've done any level of Psychological work or you've done any level of transformational work, energy work, pluto, pluto likes that. In fact, it doesn't want you to sit on your laurels, it wants you to, you know, be a transformational agent. And that's what's gonna happen to everybody. If they're ready. You can go what I say with Pluto, you can go and do the plutonium purging and purification, or you can Let Pluto give it to you, kicking and screaming, so to speak.

Speaker 2: 13:16

Yeah, it's weird how Pluto kind of, in a way, acts like Saturn. Yeah, it's a little more subversive, and, and the thing about Pluto is because it goes so slow, I like not not too long ago probably, geez, three or four years ago Pluto was opposite my Mars for a very long time and I was just like. I was just like when is this gonna end? But what, what it did is it really gave me a long time to focus on some of these Subconscious anger issues that I was having. Actually, this is especially around my father and, at the end of the day, what Pluto did is it brought me to peace with the whole thing for like the first time in my life. I actually was like you know what, I'm okay with this and to me that was a huge deal and I am so grateful for Pluto to for helping me through that right.

Speaker 1: 14:08

I mean I think you kind of hit it on the head. Pluto tends to be much more psychological in nature as it transits and Hits any personal planets where Saturn I've seen is more circumstantial, situational karmic. So it's a little bit. They're both still going to be challenging and require you to make some Energetic shifts, but it's all to bring you to a better place. Which actually leads me into our next discussion the differences between the Vedic astrology and tropical. You know, the obvious is the outer planets, but I want to hear you Explain from your perspective, kevin, to my listeners, what you see are as the differences.

Speaker 2: 14:46

Yeah, I think from what I see with VEDIC, vedic has a lot of very in-depth unique tools that I haven't necessarily seen as much in Western astrology, but they are there in some sort of form. So the first, most obvious difference is where the zodiac starts. The VEDIC zodiac is 24 degrees behind the tropical zodiac and how that usually I've seen it happen all the time is that people all of a sudden they're a Leo and then they wake up and, vedic, they're a cancer and they're like wow, that's the worst thing that's ever happened to me, which I don't understand. It's just another way to look at it. But other than that, the signs basically mean the same thing, the planets basically mean the same thing, same with the houses. So all that overlap is very, very close. I haven't really seen a discernible difference between the two.

Speaker 2: 15:45

Vedic aspects work traditionally different than Western aspects. So, for instance, saturn, what Planet does? Is it aspects, a whole sign? So, for instance, let's just take what's the name Jupiter, jupiter basically aspects, all the trines and then the seventh house from itself. And the VEDIC zodiac doesn't necessarily take into very much consideration orbs of aspects. And so what I like to do is I like to use the VEDIC zodiac but I like to use Western aspects. So, for instance, if Jupiter is squared Mars, I consider that more powerful than a Jupiter doing a full sign aspect.

Speaker 2: 16:31

But what you get in VEDIC is what I've noticed with VEDIC. Vedic is very good for computer programming and interpretation because it's very literal in its depiction of what happens. So it'll basically VEDIC will say if you have this placement, this placement, you'll get this results, and that transfers over very well to computer logic. So and another difference too you got the Dasha system which, just for brevity's sake, kind of tells the timing of when the karma unfolds, based on certain planetary periods, and that's based on Nakshatra and Moon placement. Now the Nakshatras are basically a whole subzodiac of 27 signs in the actual zodiac sky itself that have their own unique meanings.

Speaker 1: 17:20

So there's another level of depth, the lunar mansions that we don't have in the Western astrology, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:26

I know, and it's so, they're so beautiful and like if you read the Vedic texts and all of the literature and you know the basically the history of it. The stories are beautiful. And you also do have the Varga charts, the divisional charts, which take up signs and divide them into separate, smaller zodiac signs and you could derive a whole other chart from that. That's very, very basic, though it's a little bit more complicated.

Speaker 1: 17:57

Right, and let's not forget the Rahu and Ketu. They're very, very different in Vedic than in the West. They're the karmic axis, as they are in the West, but they just seem to be much more focused. I mean more more Vedic astrologers know about the nodes in Vedic astrology than I think Western astrologers work with the nodes in the West. That's been my experience.

Speaker 2: 18:21

Yeah, I agree, and I have seen, you know the nodes. I used to kind of poo poo them myself a little bit, but then I really have seen a lot of major transformations happen when the nodes shift signs in Western and tropical and in Vedic and that's when I really started paying attention to them. And even in my own chart it's just like man, when K2 translated my ascendant probably a while ago actually it was a 2012, it just it outbent everything and I was just like, wow, these things, they mean business and they're very serious.

Speaker 1: 18:54

Yeah, they are. I feel like whenever you know I see clients in Rahu Dasa, k2 Dasa is like okay, your life's going to change from how it was before. And I love the Dasha's timing because I've seen, I've given clients predictions, I see, and I'll be like see them changing a sub dash even and I'll give them the date and I said this is going to happen, buh-buh-buh on this date, like if it was Rahul Mercury you're going to start communicating more, you might start writing, you might be studying some new things. I'll give them that and they're like it's amazing what happened on that day. So it's such a scientific approach. I believe the Dasha's with the timing. I, you know, I don't think you can get the accuracy to the day as much with Western astrology. You can talk about a time period, but I'm continually blown away about the accuracy of the dates of Dasha shifts. So I'm not sure if you've had that experience or if you agree, but I see it.

Speaker 2: 19:53

Yeah, especially on the Mahadasas. Oh geez, I mean, I just looked into my Saturn Dasha around. I was in 2019. And in that within that month span I had a daughter, I started a new job. I really got serious about this business. It's just every a lot of things. It's like all of a sudden my life was kind of easy for my Jupiter Dasha and now all of a sudden, hey, saturn means business buddy, time to mature rapidly, right yeah?

Speaker 2: 20:22

And you know, especially like with Saturn in my fifth house, it's just like, you know, all of a sudden it's just like I got a daughter now and it's like I actually I thought with Saturn in my fifth house it was going to deny me children. It just really delayed it. But you know, it's like now. It's just all of a sudden I'm busy, busy, busy. But yeah, things are very. Yeah, it's got, it's got to mature, you, saturn. And then, like in my Rahu Dasha that was when I was younger there I was just kind of like flirt, you know, I carefree and doing whatever I wanted. So it's, you know, it's really an amazing thing, the Dasha system.

Speaker 1: 20:58

I totally agree and again, it continually blows my clients away when I can do predictive dates and then have them have major shifts on them. Welcome to 2024. This is Jill Jardine, host of Cosmic Scene International. Astrologer. Hey, go to my website, jilljardineastrologycom, to my shop page. I'm book a reading so that you can find out what the stars have in store in 2024 for you personally. We talked a little bit about how yoga applies to astrology and how the app is used to customize yoga routines, but I'm wondering if you have any more to share about that, kevin, to our listeners.

Speaker 2: 21:50

Yeah, so just to basically kind of go back to what I said earlier, really each chakra, according to the app, is ruled by a planet. So, for instance, the root planet is ruled by Saturn. I'm sorry, the root chakra is ruled by Saturn. And so what we do is like, for instance, we look at where Saturn is placed in your chart and so, for instance, if you're an Aquarius, rising Aquarius is ruled by Saturn. So what we'll do is we'll recommend just kind of some base positions for Saturn and then also to like what we do is the app looks at transit. So, for instance, if we see Mars is coming into a particular sign, like, say, if Mars is going into Scorpio, we'll give you the option to do Mars related routines. And so really what the app does is, when you open the app, you'll see first of all, we have over 900 pose videos. All the pose videos are basically free and it's just that what we do is the after is going to be a subscription charge for some of the astrology.

Speaker 2: 22:53

So the astrology you can actually look and it'll tell you that day what transits are going on and then kind of give you just like a basic horoscope overview and then to for a little bit more.

Speaker 2: 23:05

It will allow you to kind of look into the future and kind of see, like, for instance, a couple months from now, like if there's a particular day, like if you're getting married or if you're having the like trying to plan a certain event, you can actually go forward and kind of see what the horoscope for that day will be. But then, like to, when you open the app, it also has just basic yoga routine customization ability so you can sort it by lower body workout, upper body workout, full body, and also to you have the option to have beginner, advanced and intermediate and then to like, on the second page of the app you'll see like all the chakras will be listed and then what you do is you just to basically tap on that chakra and what that'll do is it'll bring forward a list of video, recommended videos for you, and that's basically how it works.

Speaker 1: 23:54

That sounds fabulous. I'm so excited for this being released and, again, they can find out about it at Astraline appcom and they can get a hold of you at, kevin, at Astralinecom. Now I'm also interested to hear about how you have merged the technology of your day to day job with the yoga and astrology and bringing them forward with AI and actually merging your talents in an app. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that, kevin?

Speaker 2: 24:25

Yeah, so I am have been in my IP career, I've been all over the place and I've picked up so many different technologies. So really, this came about when I started using Vedic astrology software and I saw just how powerful just the basic software is, and so I was just like, all right, well, you know, there's two ways I could go about this. I could manually recommend routines, but why don't we just have a computer do it for me? So what I? What we did, is we went out and we found a nice it's called a Vedic astrology API and that's an application programmable interface. And then what we do is we take that and then we build the app in the program around that. And so what will happen is when you first open the app and you'll just put in all of your basic astrology details, like time, place and that, your birthday and the city that you were born in, and then what that'll do is that the that goes out to the API.

Speaker 2: 25:27

The API generates a chart, and then what it does is it pulls it back down into the app and then you'll see the. It's a I believe it's a southern Indian chart. And then what? From there, the app actually uses that as a basis for recommending positions. So, once you have your natal chart, then what we can do is we can run. We run the chart against where it is today and that's where we get, just like your basic transits. That's where we get the idea of what chakra to focus on and then also to built into the app.

Speaker 2: 25:58

Is the sign rulership corresponding to the chakra? So, for instance, like I was saying, like I'm Aries and Scorpio correspond to the Mars chakra, and then of course, let's see it's tourists, and Libra correspond the Venus, and so on and so forth, with the one exception being the sun and moon. And then I combine those into one chakra because technically they're split, but that's, you know, cancer, leo. So, for instance, if you have the sun and Leo, you're going to get you know kind of sun, moon routines combined. And yeah, so, and also to my background really, you know working with like back ends and working with, like Amazon and things like that, like Google, firebase, and I think it's a good basis for understanding, like to how all the stuff gets interrelated. So it's really this is kind of like the amalgamation of all my experience and joy wrapped up into one little creative project, and it really is my baby other than my daughter. But it's a close.

Speaker 1: 27:00

I love it, and can you share any other information about how they can get the app? Any other information, kevin, that you want to share about the app and or promote the app? Go for it.

Speaker 2: 27:12

Yeah, absolutely so. You. You will be able to get the app or hoping to release it around mid February. But you could just go to Astraline appcom and at the very top of the page there's links to the Google Play Store and the Apple Play Store and then also to. You could also search for Astraline inside both of those stores and you should be able to find it. And then what I'm hoping to do in the future is possibly put it on the web so we can do that.

Speaker 2: 27:39

But also to another thing that says the app also has a marketplace to where you can order astrology readings. We also have fitness clothes, we have jewelry in there that you would like to, and also to like yoga mats and then like stretch bands to help you get into yoga positions. So there's, I think I probably added 40 items in there. So there should be anything you could possibly want. That's and it's all branded Astraline to. But one thing I'm really proud of, by the way, is our logo. It's a sun. It's very beautiful, I think, one of the things that my developer does. They did a great job with that, that logo. So if you really like the logo, you can definitely get it on some of the items in the store to and will be branded.

Speaker 1: 28:20

What wonderful offerings. Thank you so much, and, kevin, thank you so much for being on Cosmic Scene and sharing all this. This has been very, very enlightening and I'm so glad that you have shared your light with us here today. Thank you so much, kevin.

Speaker 2: 28:38

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it and I really appreciate you giving me the time.

Speaker 1: 28:48

I hope you enjoyed this episode featuring my guest, kevin Keegan, discussing the Astraline app. Make sure you download, subscribe, share and give us a five star review. This is Cosmic Scene, with Jill Jardine sending yogic and Vedic waves of consciousness through the quantum field.