Welcome to the new Jyotish Tutorial series by Patti Foy

Basic Money Indicators: Difficult Houses

1.3 Difficult Houses (Dusthanas) and How to Work With Them

There are a few houses in Jyotish known as dusthanas that are big bug-a-boos. And with good reason, since they can be difficult.

But they each have other, more neutral or even positive indications as well, and the positive doesn't cancel the negative (or vice versa). Instead, a mixture of positive and negative effects will likely show up.

Positive or Negative?

"But which ones will predominate, and when?", you may ask.

Well, that's part of general analysis but in short, It will require seeing if the houses (including their rulers) or the planets therein are:

1. Afflicted or especially malefic (in which case you'll likely get negative effects), or
2. Well disposed and benefic (in which case you'll likely get more positive effects).

(And be sure to consider their placement in related harmonic charts.)

But here's an important point. Planetary energies are going to manifest one way or another. I think of it as a remedial measure to try to use the placement in a positive way so that it doesn't "need" to manifest negatively. So here, if one takes action to exercise a planet's energies positively, then it may not need to manifest as negatively.

As to the "when", look primarily to the dasa periods of the relevant planets.

The Dusthanas

When money planets are placed in these houses, then they can cause difficulty related to finances.

But they can also show possible sources of money, and the means will be related to the house meanings.

So let's take a look at each of the dusthanas and their indications specific to finances and prosperity, including possible careers or sources of income.

Note: This list is not exhaustive! It's more to spark your own ideas about how to apply these "negative" meanings in a positive way. Also, there are other, important meanings to these houses as well but right now we'll just discuss those that are typically seen as problematic. We'll cover other finance-related meanings in a later segment (3.1) where we cycle through all the houses.

6th House

Negative
The 6th can show challenges related to health and legal issues. It can also be a house of servitude.

Positive
That means this house could show earning in fields related to health (or disease), the legal system, or through serving as in being employed by someone else (instead of working for oneself).

8th House

Negative
Sudden and unexpected calamity or upset; death. Chronic issues. Loss.

Positive
Anything related to death/rebirth. This can include such obvious vocations such as working in a slaughterhouse or at a funeral home, but also includes transformation-related careers. These would be professions that provide counseling or therapies (long term as similar to chronic vs. one-time consultations), especially those that go very deep such as psychotherapy or hypnotherapy. It could show work related to the "occult". Careers related to kundalini oriented practices such as a yoga teacher or certain types of meditation would apply as well.

This house also shows money through inheritance, or "other peoples' money", i.e. "unearned money" in general. This could include money from a one-on-one relationship (spouse, clients, or partnership, as 2nd from the 7th), or money from investments especially in land (5th from 4th) since it can show mortgages.

Or it can show earning and working but with other peoples' money such as being an accountant, a banker, a real estate broker, or a tax advisor.

12th House

Negative
Loss, uncertainty, imprisonment, endings.

Positive
Usually, this house does show some financial loss, but sometimes it can be more of a spending than an outright loss. So here it can show how one uses their resources rather than earns them.

It can show income related to endings, such as hospice work or helping people make transitions.

Also, because of its nature of imprisonment or institutions, i.e. being hidden away, it can show someone working in any kind of institution (such as prison or hospital work) or even just a place where they're tucked away from the public eye. Or it can show a career that's carried out "behind the scenes". This could indicate a lot of professions: writing (especially ghost writing, speech writing, etc.), directing, and working from home to name just a few.

Here again, you'll need to look at the whole chart to determine which of these indications is most likely. For example, how these will manifest will depend upon what you see about that person's ascendant and personality, their career house and dasamsa, their physical health and well being, etc. And of course, influences on the relevant money planets will give further clues as well.

So now we've covered Basic Money Indicators, including the Money Houses and we'll move to the next section on Money Planets & Yogas. That's where the real "meat" of financial analysis lies.

And remember, if you have questions or comments, we can interact directly on this comment and question page on my site.

Namasté.