After nearly half a century of teaching, as the Buddha laid on his deathbed, his distraught disciples asked, “Blessed One, who will be our teacher now? Who will guide us? How will we achieve enlightenment without your help?” Buddha’s last words were, “Be your own light”. All those who had followed his teachings understood the deep message: The light is nothing but the Truth. Seek the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

Perhaps this is one of the biggest learnings we need to imbibe from 2020. This year will go down in history as one of our greatest teachers of all time. It shook us like never before, made us question the fundamentals of our existence, sharpened our survival instincts and made us accept and face the truth about the vulnerability of our existence. It also made us appreciate how Mother Nature has provided us the perfect equilibrium to not just survive, but also thrive.

In astrology, this is the power of a debilitated Jupiter. Jupiter is the universal preacher, but when it reaches Capricorn sign, it gets debilitated and is rendered powerless. Capricorn is Saturn’s sign of discipline and solitude, hard work and soul-searching. This position is akin to a priest who is made in charge of a police station. But, such is his aura that instead of supervising the set up, he brings about deep rooted changes in the attitude of those involved in policing as well those engaged in the act of crime. In other words, it cleans up the system fundamentally, and strengthens our morality.

When Jupiter entered Capricorn on 30^th March 2020, it brought the entire humanity down on its knees and forced us to think about the eternal truth. When the preacher himself got weak, the world became directionless and all of us were forced to find out own interpretation of what this crisis meant and how to cope up with it.

This lead us closer than ever to explore the truth about our own self, and about those so-called well-wishers of ours. Jupiter’s sole purpose is to teach, and in spite of being powerless, it taught us the greatest lesson of our life in 2020 – Be your own light. Look within yourself, find your own truth (which differs from person to person), accept it and achieve your self goals.

Jupiter will continue to be in Capricorn sign till 6^th April 2021. Perhaps, we need to build upon our learnings of 2020 as we step into 2021 and welcome the New Year with a sense of satisfaction and achievement. Lets us continue to be “our own light” and be guided by it.