The cycle of reincarnation through Venus & Mars

Raga and Dwesha (attachment and aversion) are shown by Venus and Mars respectively,

and so these planets drive all human thought and action. These two emotions are also the root of all relationships and represent an aspect of duality that binds us to samsara, keeping us from attaining immortality. To become immortal is essentially to destroy the causal body which is the storage space of our karmas. All our karmas and samskaras are stored in the causal body and at the time of death, the soul accesses the akashic records and chooses which karmas to carry into the next incarnation. Venus, as the planet of attachment and desire, is naturally linked to both death and rebirth. In astrology, Venus rules the 2nd and 7th houses which are maraka or death-inflicting houses, meaning that these houses and the planets connected to them produce death or death-like situations during their dashas.  Interestingly, the same Venus is also deeply connected to life as the sanskrit name for Venus “Shukra” means semen & Shukracharya, the personality who rules Venus, possesses the mrityasanjeevani, the power to give life back to the dead.

Venus rules the 2nd and 7th houses of food, wealth, and sex which are the three things that most strongly bind us to the material world. The first binding force, food, comes immediately after birth. The Vedic texts give information about the condition of the child in the womb, and how the child has glimpses of previous incarnations. While in the womb there is an awareness of the illusory nature and temporality of the world outside & in this condition the soul vows to remember God and make his coming incarnation the last. But at birth, the baby’s source of nourishment is cut off and so the craving for food turns the mind outward, and identification with the body begins. This is why Taurus, the 2nd house which rules food and family from which the child depends, is the first maraka. The second binding is caused by Libra / 7th house as they rule relationships & sex which is a physical manifestation of the natural craving for union born of separation from the Divine. Sex is the strongest reinforcement of bodily identification and this is why Brahmacarya (celibacy) is recommended for sadhakas who want to reduce bodily identification. The 1st house is ruled by Mars, the significator of the body given to the soul so that it may begin again with a new identity and continue the cycle of birth and death. Mars embodies ego, impulse, and the newness of life. The 1st house is life force itself which dissipates through the activities of the 7th house. When this life force completes its creative functions, physical life ends and the soul passes on to the 8th house which is also ruled by Mars. The 8th house marks the soul’s journey after death, the first stage of the soul’s journey on the astral plane. Mars rules both the 1st and 8th houses because life and death are two sides of the same coin and it’s in the unembodied state that the spirit can go to its new form, and the cycle of life and death begins once more.

In the science of yantra & sacred symbolism, the downward triangle is always the symbol of feminine power (Shakti) and materialism, while the upward triangle represents the masculine power (Shiva) and spiritual ascension. Together they form a six pointed star which is viewed as a symbol of perfect balance. Even in the broader cosmic play of Shiva & Shakti, or Radha & Krishna, the divine masculine & feminine are eternally separating and reuniting. When They finally unite out of deep unconditional love, there occurs universal dissolution and all the jeevas (individual souls) merge within Their body and exist in an unembodied state until They separate again and duality manifests once more. So in a cosmic sense, Venus is the female aspect representing the creation of duality (the woman can "multiply" herslef by giving birth) while Mars is that masculine principle representing dissolution of duality: in the 1st house, the duality of the sperm & the ovum dissipates to create one body, and so Mars is the significator of the body. In the 8th house, death occurs which is a smaller scale manifestation of the principle of universal dissolution where there is nothing external to identify with.

So the relationship between Venus and Mars is inevitable as they both govern life, death, and rebirth. Both are also born of Shiva, the lord of dissolution—Mars emerged from a drop of perspiration born of Mahadeva’s intense tapas, and Venus was reborn from Mahadeva’s phallus earning the name Shukra. Their combined influence is reflected in Bharani nakshatra, ruled by Venus and Mars, with the god of death Yama as its presiding deity, and the yoni as its symbol. Sitting in the first zodiac sign of Aries, Bharani represents the eternal cycle of birth and death through the combined forces of Mars & Venus.