Dusthana Houses and The Value of Adversity

As mystics have said for thousands of years, we need to bless our enemies and the adversities that life sends us, as they are our greatest teachers. We are often awakened, chastened, and made both humble and compassionate by the difficult episodes we undergo.

"It is easy to fall asleep floating in a swimming pool lulled by perfect weather, but one tends to wake up after running into a brick wall."

We also can clear the incomplete events of the past by recognizing that our reactions to the trials of the moment are the re-activations of past unfinished traumas that need to be felt through, forgiven, and released.

Note: These include karmic patterns that need to recur in this life to be addressed.

Astrologically, the houses that have gotten a "bad name" are the keys to transforming our lives and our consciousness. The events represented by these houses shock us into awareness. They represent, in Gurjieffian terms, the shock points in our lives. These are opportunities not only to "wake up", but to jump more permanently to new levels of consciousness.

Vedic astrology recognizes the Dusthana houses -- 6, 8, and 12 -- not only as representing suffering, but as helping us -- through our journey in their realms -- to cultivate spiritual detachment, achieve release from the Earth plane, and reach enlightenment.

In other words: "What is bad for life on Earth is good for the return to Heaven."

Sixth House	Eighth House	Twelfth House
enemies	strife with in-laws	secret enemies
acute illness	chronic illness	hospitalization
minor debts	major debts/bankruptcy	expenses
worries	crises	insanity
misdemeanors	felonies	imprisonment
injury	killing	major losses
minor accidents	major accidents	death
scandals	disgrace	exile
grief and misery	dejection	fear
miserliness	depending on other's money	extravagance
disrupted routines	unsurmountable obstacles	breakdowns
OCD	uncontrollable passions	addictions

Yet these same areas of life afford us, indeed confront us, with the necessity to:

1. Face ourselves, our complacencies, blind spots, indolence, narrowness.

2. To recognize where we are over-attached to and over-valuing the impermanent and the material.

3. To embrace change, and see & learn from the teachings that come to us through loss and suffering.

4. To align to the Spirit, the Eternal, and the essential aspects of our own beingness.

5. To recognize the Unity of all life, and develop abiding compassion for all suffering in the Universe.

6. And to learn how to take pain and all adversity in stride, and as -- ironically -- a path to healing.
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Postscript
Each of these houses also denotes many positive themes:

The Sixth House represents the ability to create a working schedule, to establish routines, to attend to coworkers and the work environment, to serve others in the health field, to coach and motivate people, to establish new procedures, and more.

E.g. Many doctors have strong planets in the sixth house.

The Eighth House indicates the capacity for intimacy and deep communication, the motivation and ability to work on oneself and to help transform others, mastery of esoteric gifts (e.g., psychic and healing abilities, advanced understanding of herbalism and acupuncture, etc.), investigative and research skills, and much more.

The Twelfth House signifies the ability to transcend material existence, "pleasures of the bed" (sleep and sex), devotion to helping those in need, capacity to work with foreigners (and settle in a foreign land), and philanthropic and charitable inclinations.

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