On 3 December 2012, the Wall Street Journal began an in-depth series titled, ‘Ayodhya, The Battle for India’s Soul’ discussing the first appearance of the Ramlal Idol in the then Babri mosque on 22 December 1949 and its subsequent impact on India. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the appearance, December 22, 2009, Thea wrote a paper entitled Ramlal and the Makar Sankranti – revisited. Now approaching the 63rd anniversary of the appearance, we would like to present this article for our Puranic Cosmology Updated readers, given the Journal’s recent interest and because the points Thea made then are still relevant now.
Patrizia Norelli-BacheletDirector, Aeon Centre of Cosmology25 November 2009
On the 21st of December this year [2009], we will participate in a homam at Skambha, at the exact time of the Solstice and entry into Makar/Capricorn – close to midnight – 11:07 PM for all of India, and 10:47 for Skambha.1 This is a very special observance because it marks the 60th anniversary of the epiphany of Ramavatar as Child at Ayodhya in what was known then as the Babri Mosque, built by the conqueror at the site millions of Hindus believe was the birth place of the 7th Avatar of Vishnu. We may not have proof of the birth, no ‘certificate’ as such. But we do have cosmic credentials to support whatever transpires regarding this special incarnation in the history of Bharat. And we do know that there was a temple on the site which was replaced by a mosque, a custom widely practised in those days of conquest and rule throughout the world. In India especially targeted were temples sacred to Vishnu Avatars, because the Line of Ten forms the backbone of Hinduism from the Vedic Age to the present as proven by the new Indo-centric cosmology. Recently I have laid out the pertinent facts in two publications: Secrets of the Earth, PNB, Aeon Books 2009, which reveals the truth of Vishnu Trivikrama and his very precise ‘three strides’ to ‘measure the universe’, or the 7th, 8th and 9th Avatars of his 10; and in a publication of restricted circulation from Aeon Centre of Cosmology, The Partition of India (September-October 2009) where, on the basis of this cosmology with its keys of higher knowledge, it was possible to dissect Partition with amazing results. Both publications are available at the Centre (aeon1@eth.net). In Partition I commented in the very beginning that the dismembering of India is a problem that refuses to be laid to rest. The same may be said of Ramlal’s epiphany at Ayodhya. Once again the controversy surrounding his birth site – legendary or real, it makes little difference – has erupted. Parliament is in an uproar, the news channels are having a feast engaging in their favourite pastime, Hindu(tva)-bashing; and the few intrepid souls who dare to voice an opinion contrary to this onslaught have to be considered real heroes of the cause. Aggressively guilt is sought by all means to be instilled in the hearts of Hindus throughout the land, accompanied by shame, and, hopefully, repentance. How successful they have been, remains to be seen. Ramlal may have other ‘plans’, other ‘conspiracies’. As might be expected, I see in the most recent brouhaha a process very similar to what takes place when Partition, for some reason or another, makes the headlines. I repeat what I wrote in the first paragraph of my analysis: it is a problem that just refuses to go away. Why? Apart from the fact that in each case the core of Indianness is touched, there is an element common to both, with a cosmological binding power. It is, precisely, the Capricorn/Makar Sankranti. In The Partition of India the application was largely spatial: the Body of the Mother was measured based on the keys the new cosmology provides. In this case it is largely temporal. It was the timing of the Epiphany that resulted in exactly what Makar Sankranti means – that is, when a ‘seed’ is planted that then uses Time to carry it forward to fruition on the wings of the cycles it produces. This means that when an event takes place in harmony with the true entry in Makar, it simply cannot die or be wished away. It has its own in-built mechanism for survival; similar, indeed exactly, like the whole of Vedic civilisation which was born with the same allegiance of Time. Now we have reached the 60th anniversary of the ‘miraculous appearance’. This particular cycle is especially appreciated by Hindus because it marks the completion of the fifth circum-ambulation of the Sun by Jupiter/Brihaspati. This 60th birthday is often celebrated by Hindus individually; how much more so for Ramavatar? He appeared in 1949 in the form of a child, precisely to allow us to appreciate the fact that as time presses forward he will grow; and given the rightness of things temporal and spatial, he is indestructible. In 1991 I brought out a special issue of our newsletter Vishaal, dedicated to the epiphany of Ramlal at that magical moment, the Makar Sankranti of 1949, just days after the new Constitution of India had been adopted which, need I remind you, took place to coincide exactly with the date of birth when Vishnu’s 9th Avatar would return as the 10th and therefore bring to a conclusion the Dasavataras? This was 26/11. These are now iconic numbers, similar to 9/11 in America; and also similar to the American experience, 26/11 in more ways than one marks a before and after. Ramlal’s growth presses on. The play of circumstances, or the circle’s periphery of which he is the binding centre, generates the events which will continue to prove that the only Makar Sankranti is the December Solstice and not the falsehood presently considered to be the beginning of Capricorn/Makar, 15 January, 23 days after the entry has passed. Isn’t it significant that Hindus, unlike the rest of the world, celebrate this most important festival LATE? But we are reminded again and again of the what and when of the true Sankranti. Tradition records that Bhisma also understood its importance by choosing to leave this plane on that date and no other. His case is the most precise confirmation of the innermost secret of the December Solstice, for apart from being the moment when a reversal takes place and the compression of the Light (cows/rays) begins to increase, its import for a Vedic Rishi and Initiate is that the Light experiences the same ‘death’ as the human being who faces his own death: one’s consciousness-being is compressed to a ‘point’; and through this method of extreme contraction a portal is reached which alone can give us entry to Swar – not ‘heaven’ as we wrongly understand the word today, but the dimension of immortality, the home of the Immortal Ones. From Swar, the Earth-bound dimension, those Immortal Ones continue to oversee the destiny of Bharat. Bhisma understood and timed his journey accordingly. This is the profound meaning of Makar Sankranti and why its timing must be celebrated at the moment of the year’s shortest (compressed) day. Ramlal gave this instruction to the Hindu Samaj when he appeared at Ayodhya at that precise and sacred moment. But apart from the Sankranti there are other noteworthy configurations surrounding his 1949 epiphany which I discussed in the special December Solstice issue of Vishaal. I have decided to present here the entire section on Ramlal from the series featured in Vishaal entitled, Culture and Cosmos, cosmic harmonies in Hindu civilisation and society. Since the newsletter was prepared for students of the New Way cosmology, it may be somewhat difficult for the layperson to follow; but its relevance now is important. Therefore, I am presenting here the entire sub-section, and with footnotes added when required. Ramlal of Ayodhya: the Retrieval Conspiracy Though the Knowledge has been well preserved in myth and epic, as well as in the realisations of certain Yogis throughout the Ages, the element that was lost in the vision was the correct key to Time which I sometimes refer to as the ‘0 Point’, – time, that especially elusive substance which was itself the focus of the Manifestation after the Egyptian Space Conquest was drawn to a close.2 In the intervening years, Ram and Krishna prepared the soil for the full conquest of Time – or rather its integration into the complex workings of the cosmic manifestation – in the 9th Manifestation3 in which indeed the number 9 would play a most significant role. But more than the 9, the 0’s discovery was the single most important factor to allow for this ‘conquest’. To briefly summarise why this was so, in all schools of higher knowledge the only scale known was the Space Scale of 1 to 12. This could provide utilisation of the horizontal/space dimension, but the VERTICAL or the Time dimension was left out of the process. Hence, it was not an integral manifestation. To incorporate Time as an ‘ally’ in the process, the first prerequisite is knowledge of the 0 because the Time Scale consists of 10 ‘notes’ but beginning from 0 rather than 1. This is what allows it to be considered a ‘vertical’ dimension. The true description, however, is a ‘seed’ unfolding from within, drawing out from itself the 9 notes which it contains in unextended form. These 9 notes are thus the 9 planets of our system. The 0 of the system is the Sun. It is only in this way, with the discovery of the Zero, that the Sun can be accommodated in its proper position as centre of the solar system. This ‘shift’ signified the most important breakthrough in the study of cosmic harmonies for many hundreds of years. At the same time, it is through the Time Scale’s 0 to 9 that the planetary structure could be connected to the calendar. Thus Time would become the ‘ally’ by virtue of the fact that its operations could be ‘measured’ in our flow of Earth-time and its power could be utilised to build elements of the new order through the medium of the individual/collective consciousness. Hence the Strategy of myth/epic and the individual realisation would be of foremost importance in such an operation. Concurrently, this shift introduced the need for a very great precision which hinged on the correct assessment of that 0 Point. Without that knowledge there could be no effective means to utilise Time in a non-speculative manner, nor could processes be initiated and monitored to permit a much greater conscious participation of the individual in the process of transformation. I repeat, none of this was possible before the discovery of the Zero. And it is an extraordinary confirmation of the premises of the new Cosmology that having established the fact of an Egyptian ‘space conquest’ and the shift to India for the ‘time conquest’, and that for the latter the 0 would be indispensable, it was precisely India that gave to the world the concept of the Zero. With this accomplished the work could begin. We need not review here the history of this ‘lost measure’, as I have called it. Indeed, it would be apt to state that this was the ‘ray/cow’ concealed by the hostile Panis of the Rigvedic ‘journey’, in the cave of the 8th sign/Manifestation, Scorpio.4 I have discussed this matter in depth in VISHAAL in the series, ‘The Capricorn Factor’. Let me simply state that the sacred Capricorn hieroglyph [see its reproduction at the end of this article], the very landmass of Bharatmata, holds the key to that divine and true Measure. For the real and essential question to ask is, When, in effect, does the Sun truly move into that special time-space of Capricorn, India’s own [astrological] ruler and an entry which, in spite of the loss, continues to be celebrated throughout the country each year? In Sanskrit it is called the Makar Sankranti, or the Capricorn Gateway. But given the decline of the Knowledge, the loss of the correct connection between time and cosmos and the Earth, this entry point has slipped back as if the civilisation’s pulse were skipping vital beats here and there. Finally, in this Age of Aquarius of our 9th Manifestation [begun in 1926], the loss consists of a full 23 days in terms of the year; regarding the cosmic age – the same circle extended to embrace larger cycles of time – it amounts to hundreds. The Makar Sankranti is celebrated on 15 January rather than the true date: the solstice of 22-23 December [or 21-22, depending on the motion of the Earth]. Be this as it may, conforming to its role of preserver of the highest cosmic Knowledge and land of the new order based on that Vedic Truth, the nation does continue to foster the true things simply by openly celebrating an event cosmic and zodiacal. In the West this date is camouflaged in the tale of the birth of the Christ-Child: 24-25 December. Closer to the mark indeed, but still imperfect, it was adopted as the birthday of Jesus simply because it fell in the traditional Festival of Light, perhaps the most auspicious and universal of all celebrations in antiquity. It was associated with the ‘light’, entirely due to a cosmic/planetary configuration: the Capricorn solstice marked the point when, from its period of longest ‘imprisonment’ (in the cave of the Panis?), the Sun would pass into the experience of increase of its light. This would be reflected in the increase of the length of the day from that moment onward. Hence, the Festival of Light was a celebration of a cosmic event and to locate this ‘gateway’ at any other point in time than the one which would indeed identify the exact beginning of the increase, would make no sense at all, if we place value on the physical harmony and the lived experience. Yet this is what has come to pass in India – largely because that physical reality came to be looked upon as ‘illusion’. Thus, the Yogis of old who should have been responsible for maintaining that correct link with time and cosmos, saw themselves drawn away from their duty by this concept which gradually undermined the act of seeing to the measurable degree of ‘23 days’. Thus that ‘gateway’, which bears no relation to the true entry into Capricorn, is the Makar Sankranti we know and celebrate today. Nonetheless, I repeat, it is indeed respected though the significance and measure may have been lost. The impact of the Vedic Seeing was just too powerful and electrifying to be ignored. Yet, the Avatars do carry on with their work and in spite of the loss they even contrive to rectify matters, similar to the Egyptian sages, and locate the Makar Sankranti at the real Gateway where it belongs in the divine Measure. This occurred in post-Independence India. I refer, once again, to Ayodhya. Thus, on the night precisely of 22-23 December, or the Capricorn solstice of 1949, that sacredmost moment when the Festival of Light begins as the Sun enters Capricorn and its light starts to increase, Ram made his miraculous appearance in the Babri Mosque in the form of the divine Child, or Ramlal. It was a night of 3 number-power [22+12+1949=3]. It was Ram’s confirmation in his traditional birthplace that this date is the true Makar Sankranti and the restoration of the lost Measure would coincide with the reestablishment of the ancient Dharma, all of which is the meaning stored in the Capricorn hieroglyph. That hieroglyph would thus prove to be the seal and sanction of the Supreme when revealed. And it would even disclose the true physical dimensions of India.5 Its revelation – that is, the time when the hieroglyph would first be ‘seen’ superimposed on that landmass – would mark the beginning of a process which would shape the new India in accordance with this true Measure. Its revelation or unveiling would draw together the two cosmic properties of time and space – the former through the correct and gnostic time-measure or 22-23 December, and the latter through the spatial dimensions of the landmass precisely in accordance with that sacred symbol. This revelation occurred in May of 1974. But a quarter of a century prior to this geographical/zodiacal discovery, Ram ‘corrected’ or retrieved the Lost Measure. After the glorious epiphany of the Child on the night of 22-23 December 1949, in the Babri Mosque, its doors were locked in 1950.6 None were permitted entry. Thirty-six years, or a completed cycle of 4 x 9, were required for the Child to mature in solitude. Thus, when the full 36 were completed, it was on 5 January 1986 that the process was started to unlock the doors of the Mosque. The Congress Party was then in power. A meeting was convened for that very special day – that is, the zodiacal point of the Soul of India and the close of the Festival of Light – to explore the possibility of shifting the mosque to allow a temple to be built on the site in honour of the divine Child Ram. The proposal was rejected. Shortly thereafter, on 1 February 1986, now of 9 number-power, the court ordered the mosque to be unlocked. Appropriately, at 5:19 PM, Ramlal was ‘liberated’. We are concerned with the lost divine Measure above all else, retrieval of which can permit the new India to be truly born. Ram conspired not only to rectify the position of the cosmic dial by appearing on the very night when in the true Measure Capricorn does indeed begin, but, also connected to his miraculous appearance then, Ram contrived to provide the full measure of the Festival of Light. Ancient tradition has always located this period in the first 15 days of the Capricorn month – from the solstice of 22-23 December to the mid-point of the sign, 5-6 January, or the 15th degree of Capricorn. In all there are 15 days involved. The orbital reason for this location has been explained previously, and why it was held as sacred. But for India the period is far more sacred than for any other country or civilsiation because Capricorn is the sign of her soul and its hieroglyph delineates her physical form. It can be appreciated therefore that the correct location in zodiacal/calendrical time and geographical space of this sacred sign is the single most important discovery in the history of Vedic civilisation in terms of India’s expression of her higher destiny. Is it any wonder then that, in perfect attunement with the revelation of the new way Cosmology, Ram should have ‘chosen’ to appear in such a manner and at such a time so as to rectify or at least draw attention to India’s lost Measure? And that exactly 36 years later his power should make itself felt on 5 January, again in perfect attunement with gnostic time, to disclose the last day of the Festival of Light and the degree/day of India’s own soul? Who was ‘responsible’ for this occurrence? A political party? Who ‘surreptitiously’ placed the child-figure in the Mosque? Who, or what ‘power’ stood behind the opening of the Gate on 1.2.1986 – again, a 9-power day? And complying with whose ‘design’? Was it a political manoeuvre, a communal aberration, a zealot’s madness?7These questions are irrelevant when it is known, as India knows, that the Time-Spirit works through human instruments. It moves the human consciousness in any direction it wills; however, in accordance with and determined by its higher Purpose. The real miracle is the conspiracy with gnostic time. Can there be a more exquisite display of the universal truth India holds, which in this one act unveiled the Cosmic Truth underlying countless tales of the birth of the sacred Child? Can there be a more profound confirmation for the location of the true Gateway to Capricorn than this divine Epiphany of Lord Ram, precisely coinciding with that entry in the very heavens at the time of his ‘surreptitious’ appearance? Similarly, if I state that myth and epic are universal, this ‘surreptitious’ epiphany, because of its timing, does indeed reveal the universal content in myth in that both in the ancient world and the Christian era, this date was always connected to the sacred Birth. Indeed, Ram the Child has appeared to restore things universally sacred, divine and true. Finally, the mosque in which the Child Ram chose to appear stands on Plot # 159. In the December Vishaal (6/5), on page 11, I wrote that these were the numbers via the Greek letters TH-E-A, which allowed me to discover the Map of the 12 Manifestations. It is this Map that holds the knowledge of the Line of Ten Avatars. It is this Map which reveals that 1-5-9 are the numbers of the Manifestations…that fall in the last quarter of the wheel where our present Age of Aquarius is located. Plot #159 is precisely the ‘disputed’ one at Ayodhya upon which the whole controversy is centred and on whose very soil the Child appeared. With this background, I leave it to the reader to decide whether the Epiphany was ‘lawful’ or ‘unlawful’, ‘real’ or ‘surreptitiously contrived’. After all, according to which ‘law’? And with whose connivance? 30 October 1991 Aeon Centre of Cosmology at Skambha
The Capricorn/Makar symbol and the map of Akhand Bharat Postscript For those of you who do not or cannot follow the Indian news but who have read my recent piece, ‘Ramlal and the Makar Sankranti – revisited’ an important point may have been missed. It is, in fact, the most important aspect to the whole exercise. In the recent events politicians engaged in the usual ‘blame-game’, as the current jargon has it. One party blames another, and back and forth it goes. That is their job, this one-upmanship. In this particular case, two major parties were involved, the Congress and the BJP. So, this involves a sizable quantity of the representatives of the people. The blaming focuses on, of course, the demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya, and naturally the Sangh Parivar has come under attack. On their part and quite legitimately, the Parivar has sought to bring up the ‘history’ of what actually caused the ire of whoever did the demolition. Thus, the Congress Party has come under attack since it was, as I pointed out, during that Government’s rule under Rajiv Gandhi that Ramlal was ‘liberated’ and the doors to his modest (but powerful) sanctum sanctorum were opened. Then followed the Brick-Laying ceremony, under the same Government. Of course these events are important, particularly their timing, as I have written. But what is missed and I trust that my article will make clear, those were all ‘measured’ on the basis of one factor, or seeding. This was of course the Makar Sankranti of 1949 when the idol mysteriously appeared in the then mosque. That was the true beginning and everything thereafter must be measured from that single point in time. But of course, it is an event we would all prefer to ignore! The most interesting aspect to this entire unfolding is that because no one knows who actually placed the idol there,it is impossible to engage in any blame-game! Of course, as I also pointed out, Mahakal does use human instruments to accomplish his deeds in accordance with gnostic Time. That is a valid point, but it is immaterial to the situation. The fact is history cannot lay the blame on anyone or any political party! We assume that this group or that did the deed, but we have no certainty. Actually, the only ‘blame’ must necessarily fall at the feet of Ramavatar himself, and his faithful companion, Mahakal, the Great God of Time. This situation perfectly describes the difference between India and the rest of the world. It is also a lesson for not only the Sangh Parivar but the entire spectrum of political parties in the nation: The unfolding of India’s destiny lays in the hands of the Great God, regardless of all the protests this may engender and the disbelief of all those who cling to the image of a reformist Indian civilisation. The Vedic Seeds are indestructible; and when Time matures and the unfolding starts, it is useless to seek to suppress the un-suppressible.
TheaAeon Centre of Cosmologyat Skambha 27.11.2009 Footnotes 1 Individuals interested in knowing the exact timing may verify the above through the Indian Astronomical agencies. 2 This refers to the 7th Manifestation with its focus on Egypt, circa 12,000 years ago. That civilisation’s wisemen had the task of ‘conquering’ spatial implications for the evolution of consciousness; witness their extant constructions which were virtual colossi. 3 The 9th Manifestation is our own, 234 BCE to 6480 CE.
On 24 October 1991, an interesting news item appeared in the Bangalore edition of The Times of India, concerning the results of certain tests made on the Sphinx at Giza. These were announced at a specially convened meeting where archaeologists had gathered to study the conclusions and implications of the tests. I quote,
‘Signs of ancient rainstorms indicate Egypt’s giant Sphinx may be as much as 4,000 years older than currently believed – a discovery that could rewrite the history of civilisation… The mysterious stone figure with the body of a lion and the head of a man was believed to have been built around 2500 BC, but an examination of the rock showed signs of weathering that led researchers to believe the Sphinx was built by a long-vanished civilisation at least 2,500 to 4,000 years earlier… “We do not know who might have made it,” John A. West, an independent Egyptologist, who was part of the study team said on Tuesday; “But proof that a civilisation capable of creating such a sculpture existed, even as little as 2,500 years earlier than commonly believed, is to history what the relativity theory was to Victorian physics.”
‘West said the discovery could take current historic thought on the creation of civilisation and “blow it sky high.”
‘Before the discovery, West said, it was not believed that people who lived as far back as 6500 BC were capable of building the Sphinx, which would have required handling stone that weighed from 50 to 200 tons…’.
In the last issue of VISHAAL (6/5, December 1991), regarding the date and place of Sri Ram’s birth at Ayodhya more than 10,000 years ago, I wrote, ‘…This is not a time-frame accepted by historians. But it ought to be clear by now that historical and archaeological research is highly unreliable, especially in the Indian context. Time and again their definitive statements have to be revised due to new findings…’ (Page 37)
The above was being recorded in VISHAAL at about the very same time the scientists were meeting in California to discuss their ‘new findings’ regarding the age of the Sphinx and its impact on current theories regarding ancient civilisations. At the same time, there is a connection between Ram and the Sphinx, or rather the Age during which the Sphinx was built: the 7th Manifestation and the Age of Leo within that span of 6480 years (see chart opposite). This was also the time of Ram’s birth, the 7th Avatar in the Puranic Line of Ten.
In The Gnostic Circle and The New Way I discussed this issue extensively. I sustain that both the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid belong to a much earlier age than is commonly believed. This seems now to have been accepted by archaeologists, at least with regard to the Sphinx. I feel equally confident that before long historians in India and in the West, who specialise in the history of the subcontinent, will also consider my findings on the birth of Ram. But this will only be possible when it is finally accepted that from ancient times India’s ‘history’ was recorded cosmically – that is, on the basis of the very same components of the cosmic harmony which I have been presenting in my published works and now in this series in VISHAAL. Without this framework historians cannot piece together a coherent mosaic of the developments on the subcontinent. They are unable to do so because they have no schooling in the elusive workings of Time and its periodicities which have been recorded in a cosmic script that has reached us precisely from those very ancient times.
Similar to so many aspects of 20th-Century investigation, we persist in this case too in attributing motives and concepts to the ancients which do not take into consideration the language and conceptualisation of those early times, nor the connection between those recondite systems and the effect they had on world events. The Indian historian is trained in institutions which dismiss any attempt at reference to the cosmic harmony as a means of discovery. Those who do attempt to base their analysis on this branch of higher knowledge belong to the fringe of academia; their findings are never taken seriously. At most they may be accepted peripherally when they confirm the accepted orthodox position. But anything more audacious is ignored. To further confuse the issue, the fringe elements are themselves products of academia and are inadequately prepared to deal with questions of time and cosmos. Hence none have presented a truly convincing perspective.
Insofar as the obsession with astronomy of ancient civilisations has been proven, a new discipline has arisen, archaeo-astronomy. It seeks to uncover the astronomical content in monuments such as those in Egypt or Great Britain, or the temples and pyramids of pre-Colombian America. But there too scholars attempting to unravel the cosmic mysteries of the ancient mind have no grounding even in the most rudimentary aspects of the science and script then in use, the zodiac, though it has come down to us through the ages intact. This was made evident in the last issue of VISHAAL in which I refer to the archaeologist Gary S. Vescellius’s work on the Incan civilisation – so close yet so far. Thus, similar to the mythic/epic problem discussed in that issue, we have a body of historians and archaeologists demanding to be considered ‘authorities’ on a subject about which they are only superficially interested, if they demonstrate any interest at all.
The ‘history’ of India is completely entwined in its cosmogony. And this is the underlying content of the Puranas, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out… ‘[The Puranas] are popular summaries of the cosmogony of the Indian people.’ Consequently the Puranas, and the epics in equal measure, record history very accurately. However, the thrust of this special method of documentation is the evolution of the consciousness of a people and the underlying psychic foundation of the civilisation. The reason for this approach was that nothing else mattered in terms of the true method to knit a people together in spite of the apparent divisions in the more superficial strata, which is the area of contemporary analysis solely. This soul content bore a direct relation to the flow of time in these cosmic patterns – a knowledge which is not at all accepted as relevant anywhere on the globe today, even in India, except perhaps in schools of Vedic studies which are few and far between. But even there, given the Lost Measure, many veils have gathered to cloud the true art of cosmic harmonies. In ancient times to dwell on a lesser truth or the more surface operations of the evolution would have been deemed a disservice to the people of India and an undermining of the civilisation which has managed to hold itself together through a dark age of merciless attacks and conquests, precisely because of this firm foundation which lay at levels not accessible to these attacks.
Renewal not Fundamentalism
A climax has been reached. It has been building up over the past three centuries and it peaks in our times. For two centuries India has been opening her arms to western secular education built upon those shallow concepts, and in the process she has denied the truths of her ancient soul and the methods her sages and seers provided in order to preserve that foundational binding energy of the civilisation. The result is that we read news reports today to the effect that the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya is a ‘symbol of secular values’, while the proposed Ram Temple is equated with fundamentalism, obscurantism, divisiveness. No one seems to care to question deeply the premises of such pronouncements, for the Babri Mosque, it is well known, was a statement of conquest by an invader and an attack precisely on that Epic soul-content; or an attempt to undermine the conquered subjects’ belief in the binding power of the Avatar symbol. If one considers that at the time there was no ‘secular’ consciousness reigning anywhere in the world, and that this sort of military statement was accepted as part and parcel of the spirit that was moving across the face of the globe in mighty colonising strides, Babar’s action was not only understandable but correct – in his day.
To my knowledge the mosque in Ayodhya was not the result of a mystical or spiritual or otherwise sacred experience. It was a monument to Babar’s hegemonic designs and a clever device to undermine the mythic/epic civilisation he had to contend with in his conquest of the subcontinent. It is also understandable that with a possible second partition facing the country today, the question of constructing a temple in honour of that epic Hero-Avatar should arise and stand as the rallying point for the long pent-up and suppressed mythic/epic energies of India’s soul and that this contemporary movement should come to symbolise the aspirations of the Hindu masses for a united and fully integrated nation.
A situation such as this inevitably brings to the fore very interesting questions which had been suppressed. Yet they can no longer be ignored, for the well-being of India as a united society hinges entirely on the correct perspective adopted in the review of what is presently the exclusive domain of secular academicians. Their western foundation cannot be expected to provide the basis for analysis, insights and understanding of the historic and civilisational content of the true Vedic culture; and perhaps for this very reason there is a blanket refusal even to entertain the idea that India might just be demanding this sort of larger perspective in academia. By this I do not mean to imply that shallowness is the mark of all western learning. Rather, what I mean is that societies of the West, which have imprinted upon the entire globe their perspectives and values, arose and became consolidated as predominant influences long after the cosmic harmonies had faded from the scene in most parts of the world. As I have written earlier, the only country which still does maintain a connection with that type of discipline is India. Therefore it is understandable that difficulties must arise when we find that the cosmic/mythic is pitted against the secular/academic, as in the Ayodhya dispute. And the burning question which this affair has forced to the surface is, Which shall prevail? I would like to state that it will be a combination of both – realising that this will appeal to the ‘spiritually-minded’ who always seek the good compromise and happy mean. But this unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, is not the case. The answer to the conundrum is something entirely different. The only avenue to reach that third way lies through the channels the Vedic culture and discipline have provided, simply because this is the true content of the secular Indian nation regardless of community or creed. And because these harmonies are indeed secular, at the same time they are eternally relevant and express an unending progression rooted in the evolutionary process itself. Thus, to appeal to and to awaken that cosmic voice in individual and in society, and to attempt to engage that power in the process of integration is not a question of fundamentalism – that is, a regression into the past. It is an activity of and in the present and opens the way to the new future. Certainly none can deny that this is what India very badly needs at this point: an ideal, a binding cause and call from a dimension which stands far beyond divisive poises and is truly secular in that it is based not on emotional responses but the more detached cosmic knowledge which can be claimed by any individual, religion, race, or class.
In these pages I am attempting to present another perspective, a ‘new way’ to perceive what the great Vedic Rishis had seen thousands of years ago and which formed the formidable foundations of the Sanatan Dharma – indeed, the eternal Truth. But if that Truth is really ‘eternal’, a mechanism of renewal is required to accompany its progressive manifestation through the ages. This mechanism is the property of the Evolutionary Avatars, of whom Ram is the seventh in the Line. Hence, his prominence at this critical turning point in Indian history merely indicates that something of this renewal is pressing to be experienced in the contemporary context.
The soul dimension is the ‘location’ of that eternal truth-seeing because it provides the mechanism of renewal by its link with Time; and in Hindu civilisation this is achieved through the Line of Ten Avatars. For this reason Sri Aurobindo has referred to them as ‘realisers’, not saints or founders of religions or even sages. At the same time, he has clearly stated that the Puranic Line of Ten is a ‘parable of evolution’; that is, each Avatar incarnates to add a further fundamental ingredient in the evolutionary process, and this is secured by the mechanism here described.
Given this fact, it is understandable that these issues should be surfacing now when the nation is grappling with a mighty and irreversible choice, centred precisely on the work of that Line. The present 9th Manifestation has witnessed the appearance of the 9th Avatar. His mission, together with the 10th is to carry the Vedic Truth to its fullest expression in the 21st Century. When the Tradition states that Kalki, that 10th, comes to ‘reestablish the Dharma’, it is this renovating activity that is indicated. It is a strengthening of those ancient foundations, but in support of a new edifice which is the result of a totality of conditions in the present. The Evolutionary Avatars unfold the means to accomplish this aim. Given the existence of this mechanism, healthy and alive, the Vedic Dharma can never become fossilised or serve obscurantist and retrogressive designs. It can only ‘go forward with the times’, for indeed the Avatars are those superior agents of the Time-Spirit. As such they incarnate fashioned even physiologically in such a way as to serve the civilisation by harmonising society’s evolving consciousness-being with the flow of gnostic Time. For Time as the gestating agent compels a forward march and dissolves whatever obstructs its creative drive. Indeed, Mahakal, or the Great Time as Shiva is known, is considered the Destroyer because of this activity, without which the work of the Avatars cannot bear fruit. Obstructive barriers impeding the manifestation of the New Way have to be demolished when they present a brittleness which defies any attempt at transformation. The Great Time moves on in an irreversible forward stride. The Evolutionary Avatars incarnate precisely to embody that Power and carry out the renovating design of Time in the impeccable manner of the divine Warriors which they are. India’s epics and myths are records – sometimes prophetic and previsonary – of this creative renovating drive. And blessed is the civilisation that knows the secret to this mystery of Stability and Change, coveted by wisemen of all times.
This superior mechanism of renewal via Time’s special collaboration is preserved in the Puranas, in myth, in epic. The outstanding manner in which Sri Aurobindo’s own birth and mission have conformed meticulously to the mechanism, as well as the other members of his Solar Line, is ample indication of the truth of my statements. This has been carefully recorded in all my publications, especially The New Way. The time will soon come when these cosmic records or ‘credentials’, as I have called them, will have to be scrutinised and accepted as the real ‘history’ of India. And they must come to be accepted as the key to an enlightened revision of the ancient texts and a complete reassessment of the true character of the Indian nation and its Vedic civilisation.
The Egyptian ‘Conquest of Space’
Let us now proceed to establish the cosmic credentials of Ram based on the fragments which have reached us today, preserved by the Tradition. The latest findings regarding the age of the Sphinx will help us to verify these credentials, as well as the power and purpose of The New Way. In Chapter 9, Volume 2, of the book, I discuss the planet’s geography in relation to the Gnostic Circle, that great key of Vedic measuring. The idea was to draw the zodiac on the globe with the aid of this special tool. On this basis I was able to locate the Sphinx (and the Great Pyramid) at precisely the spot on the planet which is seen by this method to correspond to the last degree of Aquarius. Its opposite point on the wheel is Leo. That the sign Aquarius should begin there (in a backward movement through the signs) might not have been such an exceptional discovery, except for the fact that the Sphinx is indeed a colossus formed of the two traditional figures of the signs involved: a Man (Aquarius, the water carrier) and a Lion. The Gnostic Circle’s 360 degrees laid across the globe help us to understand that locating the Sphinx at that particular spot on the globe was not whimsical but meticulously planned; and the flawless incorporation of measurements drawing into its form certain aspects of the cosmic harmonies, is another indication that this was indeed a superior civilisation, possessing a knowledge unknown to us today, revealed particularly in the Great Pyramid.
It is clear that unless archaeologists incorporate the correct study of cosmic harmonies into their discipline, they cannot make use of the clues the monuments of a distant Age provide. Nor can they, by consequence, pretend to reconstruct a correct image of the civilisation which left posterity with such massive and enigmatic structures. Yet they claim to do just that, and they are disdainful of any proposition which seeks to inject an element of truth-seeing into their partial and biased assessments.
But, let it be noted, India did not use monuments for the preservation of the Sanatan Dharma. It used the Puranic strategy of myth and epic together with the Line of Ten Avatars taking physical birth. The reason for this different strategy is also explained in The New Way, in the chapter cited above. Egypt was a ‘space’ manifestation; or, to be more precise, it was born of an age when Space was the cosmic knot to be unravelled. Hence the monuments it left for posterity conform accurately to the Space Scale of 1 to 12 (the zodiac), which is the scale being used in this portion of the essay to understand the passage of the cosmic Ages. Thus, laying the Gnostic Circle across the globe, we can confirm this fact by the position on Egyptian soil of the Sphinx which is itself proof of the Gnostic Circle’s accuracy. At the point east of Greenwich where the Sphinx stands, the Gnostic Circle’s geographical/zodiacal yardstick reveals that to be the very first degree of Aquarius which is met in the precessional backward movement through the signs. And there we do find a colossus in stone to commemorate this very fact; and at the same time, to draw the vast threads of the cosmic harmonies down and onto the earth through this very special act of measuring, entirely unknown to contemporary civilisation.
This was indeed the Egyptian strategy to preserve the Cosmic Truth when its civilisation, like the Mayan and Incan, would succumb to the onslaught of invading armies inimical to that timeless Truth. As foreseen, every vestige of that enlightened way was destroyed in Egypt. Intact remained only a few monuments, among them the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx at Giza, at 30 degrees longitude and 30 degrees latitude east of Greenwich – these two oldest and most important ‘documents’ in stone bearing testimony to the cosmic consciousness of those prior times.
Indeed, so accurate has been the method that the Sphinx was finally liberated from her cover of sand in the very year that she herself foretold in the contours of her form: 1926, or the year when the cosmic dial would touch, precisely, the Age of Aquarius, or the very degree of longitude/latitude on the globe which also corresponds to Aquarius. This is what is meant by a ‘conquest in space’ as the object of that 7th Manifestation.
In this light it can be appreciated that through this knowledge, the same that was known to Vedic India and that has resurfaced now in the New Way, those early sages were able to locate the precise spot on the planet and within the boundaries of their land which could connect it to the heavens and establish this fact of oneness in an entirely physical manner, but in a way which eludes our contemporary notions of physicality, correspondence and synchronicity. Moreover, the full form of that cosmic/geographical document would be unveiled in 1926, or precisely when the hands of that cosmic clock would come to touch that very point foretold by the form of the monument 10,000 or more years before the event. Needless to say, this is a form of prophecy unimaginable in our times. It is a capacity which, first of all, demands a knowledge of approaching periods of decline. The ancients had to foresee, before all else, that a colossus would be required which could withstand climatic ravages for a period of at least 10,000 years; and it had to be of a size that would defy the customary ravages the human being inflicts on whatever he does not understand but yet covets as an object of ‘conquest’.
In the case of a monument of massive proportions, it is clear that many decades would have been required for the construction to be completed. The entire population had to be engaged and committed to this cosmic endeavour with the full trust that the wisdom of their wisemen would prevail and that what was ‘written’ by them in stone in those distant times would indeed come to pass and justify the labour, while fulfilling the Sphinx’s inscrutable purpose. This too is a situation unimaginable today. If nothing else, it serves to inform us that our world and that of the ancients is impelled by very different objectives. For the cosmic vision does not simply involve function and utility. Above all, it explains the purpose of life on Earth and its evolutionary process, where it has come from, where it now stands, and where it is leading.
Finally, there is the sort of prevision which can ‘reconstruct’ conditions of a distant future and allow that monument to stand not only as a testimony to that cosmic truth it embodies, but also to serve by this special previsionary capacity as an accurate cosmic dial. Thus, the final uncovering of the Sphinx in 1926 was part of a prophetic capacity embracing thousands of years. Closer to our times we do encounter something of this order. In India there are papyrus leaves in the custody of certain families and astrological schools which were written centuries ago. These ‘horoscopes’, similar to the Sphinx, incorporate conditions which would prevail at the time the subject of the horoscope would approach the astrologer for a reading. Thus they would perhaps be written in the present tense, describing the life and destiny of an individual to be born hundreds of years into the future, as if that future were the present, a similar capacity to that of the fashioners of the Sphinx. I have pointed out the same situation regarding ‘The Revelation’ of St John. In Chapter 17, page 237 of The Hidden Manna, I write of this astounding capacity with respect to a prophecy involving the Roman Catholic popes of this century.
But the Lost Measure has affected every society’s grasp and utilisation of the cosmic harmony. In India’s case the misplacement of Time involves both the Earth year of 365 days, as well as the cosmic year of 25,920 years. In other parts of the world it is only the latter that has been affected by the Lost Measure. Consequently, none in the West (or in India) can agree on the exact year when the Age of Aquarius began. India is off by hundreds of years. Others miscalculate by decades. But any inaccuracy, large or small, produces similar results: an unfocused lens. However, the ancients, in their prophetic wisdom, devised a method of rectification through the collaboration of Time itself. To illustrate, the Sphinx’s final and complete unveiling occurred in the very year the Age of Aquarius began, 1926. Not only did the colossus point its zodiacal finger to the sign Aquarius through its composite Man/Lion symbolism, but it also saw to it that its power would be such as to provide a means for resetting the cosmic clock and to recapture the accuracy of old, without which no sense can be made of the cosmic harmonies. Further on I shall reveal how Sri Ram himself has done the same service for India.
Given its overt connection with the zodiac, it is obvious that the ‘enigmatic Sphinx’ is not much of an enigma after all. It is just that those who analyse these documents involving truth, time and cosmos are thoroughly unprepared to deal with the obvious. Their meaning and purpose have always been manifest. The question of secrecy and of shrouding or camouflaging the Knowledge have never been a part of the Tradition as we imagine it to be – i.e., the fanciful accounts of secret brotherhoods and esoteric, closed societies. These are products of the Dark Age and are not the demands of the supramental Gnosis, simply because it is known that the eyes of the beholder are automatically veiled by one’s own ignorance. That is, the Knowledge is self-protective.
Thus, to historians the Sphinx is an ‘enigma’. To a Gnostic Being it is a glaring expose of the great key of Knowledge of the old and new ways. So glaring that it is almost embarrassing: the incompetence of academia is made manifest by their refusal to accept the Sphinx on her terms. Violence is constantly done by the scientific/academic community – be this in history, archaeology, or in the manufacture of lethal weapons. Indeed, the latter are perhaps the more innocuous and less destructive; whereas the violence western-trained scholars have wrought on the intellectual life of the planet has left us with a polluted atmosphere that defies all attempts at cleansing. This ignorance of higher studies and operations has forced the rise of fundamentalist movements and regimes which are far worse in the wide-reaching and long-lasting effects of their attacks than any nuclear weapon might be. We have both academia and the clergy with their respective dogmas to thank for the emergence of the various brands of fundamentalism and obscurantism that plague us today. For it is this that stands as the ‘knot’ to be undone before the ‘centre can hold’, when the true new world order can be set fully on its way.
Thus, science has finally caught up with the new Cosmology by the latest discovery that the Sphinx is ‘at least 4,000 years older’ than previously estimated. (Let us not overlook the fact that until this new ‘discovery’ anyone who contradicted the earlier ‘fact’ was considered a lunatic.) I have given the approximate time as between 8000 to 10,000 BC. To reach this conclusion I have simply let the Sphinx herself inform me when she was built. Her very form provided the answer. Thus there was no violence done. There was simply seeing WHAT IS, discarding the veils that academia sought to cover this ‘enigma’ in. But now, gratifyingly, science is slowly catching up. More discoveries will have to be made to push the secular archaeological dial back a bit more in order to tally with the new way Cosmology in full. There is no reason to believe that this further adjustment will not be made. Moreover, there is the need to study cosmic harmonies if a real aspiration exists to understand the mind of the ancients, for it is all contained in the Aquarius/Leo axis the Sphinx herself describes.
The sages who gave birth to the Egyptian strategy of preservation, like the Vedic, were not instruments acting in ignorance. They were CONSCIOUS, AWARE, PREPARED. Above all, they had the cosmic truth as their ‘philosopher’s stone’ and on this basis they could proceed confidently in implementing their strategy. One of the most revered figures of modern physics and astronomy, Isaac Newton, spent the better part of his life in search of precisely that ‘stone’. To illustrate, I reproduce below a copy he made of a diagram of one version of the Lapis Philosophus, which was among his extensive notes on the subject. It can be observed that the ‘stone’ is entirely planetary and cosmological. Indeed, the basis of all alchemy, in the West and the East, was astrological.
The means to assure survival of the cosmic truth when the SPACE SCALE was the determinant – i.e., Egypt and not India – was to create massive structures which could not be demolished by hordes inimical to that Truth. The strategy was fully successful because the sages knew that the earth was entering a dark period in which even their advanced knowledge of material sciences that permitted them to construct these colossi in the first place would be lost. Not only would their construction perplex scholars ever after but, given the scientific immaturity which would set in and prevail throughout many a cosmic Age, their destruction as well would prove an impossible feat.
India’s ‘Conquest of Time’
The veils began to descend on humanity after the 7th Manifestation when Egypt finalised its strategy of preservation in massive stone – entirely in keeping with the Cosmic Truth they were preserving. The Time-Spirit then moved the Earth into the dark night of the 8th Manifestation. In India Ram’s 7th had closed. The Solar King gave way to the Lunar and the way was prepared for the 8th Avatar of the enchanting Night – Krishna, the Dark One, as his very name reveals.
At about the same time that Egypt finalised its strategy and began its retreat, in Tamil Nadu the Sangam seers recorded the closing chapter in their tales of a submerged continent and the establishment of the new kingdom in Madurai in South India. It was then that India took up the role of preserver for the world, but on the basis of her own inner truth and singular contribution. This lay in the dimension of Time. Therefore the strategy was entirely different from the Egyptian which used Space and Matter and physical structures. India used the consciousness of her people, from those very ancient times to the present. The first foundations of the mythic/epic strategy were laid precisely during the Age of Ram. It was then that the Epic moved onto centrestage and promised to be the infallible vehicle for the preservation of the Cosmic Truth through the dark ages that lay ahead.
The Age of Cancer, last of the 7th Manifestation (see Map of Twelve Manifestations) announced this happening. It was then, around 8000 BC, that the very first dimming began. And Cancer being a ‘water’ sign, traditions in various parts of the world began recording the onset of formidable floods whereby entire continents were said to have been submerged. But in fact what was submerged, buried deeply beneath those Cancer waters covering the soul, was the Cosmic Truth. At that point, as the previous essay described, myth and epic began to serve India in the very same way that stone and mortar served Egypt – as tools for preservation.
It is incomprehensible to contemporary historians that all the energies of a civilisation should be channelled into the construction of things so impractical and apparently useless as a sphinx or a pyramid. And since historical analysis rests in the hands of these ‘barbarians’, we find our textbooks replete with nonsensical theories of despots concerned merely with leaving monuments for their self-glorification, engaging slave labour of fantastic quantities simply to accommodate their superstitious beliefs in an afterlife, or else their ego desires – the size of the monuments mirroring somehow the size and scope of their egos! For centuries young people have been brainwashed by these representatives of ‘enlightenment’, of ‘secular values’ and the ‘scientific temper’. Their gross inability to deal with the truth they refuse to see is made apparent when a voice comes forth that can expose the pathetic limitations of these ‘authoritative custodians’ of the last word in matters both profane and sacred.
But the Sphinx would indicate WHEN the unveiling of the one universal truth would begin: 1926, for it was then that the 9th Avatar would officially initiate the ‘time conquest’ at the dawn of the new Age of Aquarius. The silent, enigmatic Man-half of the sphinx had joined the incarnate representative of her other half, the Lion, the latter being Sri Aurobindo’s own sign of birth. Twenty-one years thereafter it would be the birth sign (and even the day) of the new India as well.
If space was to be ‘conquered’ in the 7th Manifestation, the point had been reached in the cosmic flow of the Ages for Time to be drawn into the play as the central protagonist, because, as pointed out in the last essay, Time’s gestation had reached its final stage. Birth, in cosmic terms was near. Insofar as the mechanism of preservation involved Time, the supremely elusive substance, it utilised an equally elusive compound: the human consciousness. The seeds of the epic/mythic strategy were planted in the age of the Vedic Rishis whose hymns in the Rigveda, like the Sphinx, have proven to be equally mysterious. Contemporary historians and Indologists have distorted their message in the same manner that the face of the Sphinx was earlier disfigured and her message buried deep beneath covers of sand.
But the Puranic strategy was infallible. Thus we can review the epics on this cosmic backdrop and we discover the same Cosmic Truth underlying the tales as we have found in the Sphinx. There the medium was a material substance that could defy the onslaught of the Ignorance; and insofar as the gestation was not destined to be carried over into modern Egypt after the appearance of Judeo-Christianity and Islam, the severance with the past, as far as Egypt was concerned, was complete.
Today, in that part of the world, the Cosmic Truth is preserved only in Egypt’s stone colossi which defied destruction, unlike the temple of old which could easily be demolished by invaders hostile to the Tradition. And indeed they were destroyed throughout the world and particularly in the subcontinent. In India it seems there are historical records of thousands of temple and shrines having been demolished. It is clear therefore that the temple could not be the medium of preservation. It had to be an elusive, inaccessible medium. This was Time and Consciousness, offspring of the same cosmic process. The impregnable fortress was the soul. The strategy was Myth and Epic which, as I have explained earlier, are the repositories of the Vedic culture’s soul-power and truth.
Certain details of Sri Ram’s appearance and mission affirm his cosmic credentials similar to Sri Aurobindo and in an equally spectacular manner – though we must bear in mind that when Ram’s story was told and then recorded, Time had not yet been ‘conquered’ and the Time Scale was still unknown. It awaited the future discovery of the Zero in India itself. Thus his credentials, similar to Sri Krishna’s, are to be found in the Map of the 12 Manifestations which involves still the Space Scale of 1 to 12. Thus the figure of Ram, as I have written in The Gnostic Circle and The New Way, conforms to the zodiacal signs comprising the 7th Manifestation, which are Virgo, Leo and Cancer. The sign Libra enters by virtue of the Manifestation being the 7th, for Libra is the 7th sign. To provide a few examples, Ram is revered as the ideal Man and king/ruler. His incarnation took place in the Age of Leo, the sign of the King. Since the Manifestation was the 7th or Libra’s, this gives us the overall focus of his life and work. Thus the 7th sign being that of marital union, we note that his relationship with Sita is perhaps the most important feature of the advent. Indeed, almost the entire epic centres on her abduction by the Titan Ravana and Ram’s efforts to rescue his beloved. In the hearts and minds of the people of India, above all else it is this aspect of the story that is so irresistibly compelling and heart-rending.
Thus, Ram is reflected in the masculine sign Leo, while Sita is the following sign in the sequence, the feminine Cancer – and it must be pointed out once again that the movement is BACKWARD through the signs in terms of the Ages (not the Manifestations) because it is based on the precession of the equinoxes which traces this clockwise progression. These two figures/signs/ages bring the 7th to a close. The fascinating part of the strategy in relation to the cosmic script starts at this point, when the Time-Spirit moves the cosmic dial over to the dark 8th Manifestation and the preparation of the field for the 8th Avatar, the lunar Sri Krishna. To do this the epic calls into play the services of none other than Ram’s two sons, Luv and Kush, perfectly in tune with the cosmic notation in that the sign/age following on the heels of Sita’s is, very accurately, Gemini, or the sign of the Twins. Gemini is the first sign of the 8th Manifestation which signifies that it serves as a preparation for Krishna’s appearance in the following Age of Taurus the Bull. We observe then that the cosmic credentials of Ram and his entourage could not be more accurate as a means to preserve the Cosmic Truth for posterity’s needs. But it is more than that. The signs/ages/manifestations indicate the nature of the work the Avatar comes to do, similar to Sri Aurobindo’s which is so perfectly figured in the signs comprising his 9th Manifestation.
It was in the Age of Gemini at the beginning of the 8th Manifestation that the strategy of myth/epic for preservation began with the work of Ram’s twin sons, Luv and Kush, embodying this aspect of the avataric mission. Tradition confirms this amply. The vehicle for this act of preservation conformed to India’s destiny involving Time and Consciousness rather than Space and the material Egyptian contribution of the prior Manifestation: the cementing of the Knowledge in myth and epic and the dissemination via the medium of the human consciousness. This stands confirmed by the Ramayana itself in that the offspring Twins are held by tradition to have been the first to carry the tale of Ram far and wide throughout Bharatmata. Indeed, this was their precise mission. There cannot be a more conclusive statement made unveiling the ‘enigma’ of these ancient strategies and, above all, their irrefutable connection to the cosmic script, than the disclosure of these correspondences. Again, like the Sphinx, the question is not to do violence to the epic or myth by reading into them the twisted theories of an ‘age of enlightenment’, but simply to allow the truth they hold to enlighten us.
With Luv and Kush figured in the sign of the Twins, the Messenger, the Bearer of Tidings, the stage was set for the Age of Taurus, the Bull. It was only to be expected that Krishna’s appearance should draw into the symbolism precisely the Bull and Cow. The Map of the Manifestations on page 2 offers a visual appreciation of when these appearances took place on the cosmic spiral of cyclic Time. In everso many other details, it is obvious that Krishna’s Taurus cosmic credentials are as well founded as Ram’s Leo essence. For who can deny the enchanting role of the Cowherd, beloved of all, and his delightful escapades with the Gopis, calling up the potent symbolism of the sexual play so closely allied to the 8th sign Scorpio, ruler of the entire 8th Manifestation? Or else there is the pastoral Brindavan where these escapades took place – again a unique feature of the pastoral Taurus. And finally the questions that occupy perhaps the core of the 8th’s appearance and mission – i.e., Time, Death and Destiny, issues central to the 8th sign Scorpio, the sign of Death. This too is amply confirmed in Krishna’s great epic, the Mahabharat, when, on the battlefield (for Scorpio is ruled by the war planet Mars) he expounds to his beloved friend Arjun what has reached us through the ages as the Bhagavat Gita, the Song of the Lord, the most powerful words ever spoken and recorded on these themes which have obsessed the human spirit from time immemorial. Indeed, when Krishna does accede to Arjun’s request that he be allowed to see his Friend’s true divine form, the Avatar reveals himself as the Time-Spirit in the act of creating and then devouring that creation in the endless flow of the cosmic ages. Arjun despairs. The vision and deepest truth of the 8th sign Scorpio and the 8th Avatar are just too much to bear. The vision fades, the veils are drawn, and the mantle of inertia – for the 8th sign epitomises this energy expression because of its connection with Death – begins to descend upon the people of Bharat. It is for this reason that Tradition claims the Kaliyuga or the Dark Age began with the death of Sri Krishna. The strategy of preservation is driven to deeper levels. The physical dimension is almost entirely left behind and with it the Epic as the medium. The Puranic age of Myth takes over and those deepest psychic waters which the 8th Manifestation of Scorpio heralded become the plane where the images of myth are ‘seen’. For this reason the figures take on somewhat fantastic forms, while the Vedic symbols are drawn entirely from the physical plane, as Sri Aurobindo states, ‘…not starting with conceptions drawn from the physical universe, but supplied entirely from the psychic universe within us…’.
The Puranic myths go deeper into the soul dimension, the ‘psychic universe within’, in an age when the surface lost its connection with the truth, when the symbol was no longer the thing symbolised and equal to it in every way, as in the Rigvedic era. We are now in the 8th Manifestation’s dark and profound waters of Scorpio, for Scorpio is indeed a sign of the Water Element and it stands for the unconscious parts of the being. These are called into play as the repositories of the Knowledge, the ‘cave’ of the Rigveda. Scorpio does stand for those unconscious parts which the human being can contact only in sleep, in his or her dream experience, for the latter is also a property of the sign.
It is this cosmic background that gave India the phenomenon of the Puranic Myth. At the same time, it inspired spiritualists to escape in another way, through Samadhi and Trance and the Void. Indeed, the appearance of the greatest exponent the world has ever known of these poises of consciousness, Gautam the Buddha, occurred precisely at the end of that 8th Manifestation ruled by Scorpio, which, more pointedly than any other sign, epitomises the great Escape, namely death, of which these spiritual poises are a reflection, a compensation of an antidote.
The 8th sign/age is also present centremost in the Rigveda where it stands as the most dangerous portion of the ‘journey’ or ‘sacrifice’, the sign/dimension where the cows (rays of light and knowledge) are hoarded in the cave of the hostiles, the Panis, and which the Warrior of Truth must retrieve. The ‘journey’ of the Rigvedic myth in the passage of the 12-month year is the same as the one I am describing for the 12 cosmic Manifestations. The cycles may be vast or small but the goal is always the same: the attainment of Swar or the supreme heights of the solar Gnosis. In the Puranic period and the myth, this conquest is extended in scope to the entire civilisation and not merely restricted to the individual. Thus, as tradition in India states, there is the year of the Gods and the year of the human being. One is a multiplication of the other. While in the Rigveda we encounter the phenomenon of Scorpio and those deepest layers where the Cows/Rays are stored and must be retrieved by the individual realiser, in the Puranic period this same retrieval and conquest becomes the experience of an entire civilisation, spread out through the consciousness of an entire population – the elusive element that defies destruction. For so long as the human race exists, so long does the soul incarnate, and so long is the ‘chamber’ accessible to the realiser. For the civilisation the cycle is no longer mirrored in the 12 months of the year. It has been stretched out almost in proportion to the field of consciousness which these vaster cycles embrace: the Earth year is played out in the cosmic Manifestations.
A Contemporary Myth
I have laid emphasis on the individual soul as the repository of the content of myth and that securing access to that ‘hidden chamber’ can furnish any human being with the same Knowledge which myths throughout the world hold. On numerous occasions I have also discussed the non-speculative nature of this New Way. Its knowledge content is the fruit of a direct experience, hence non-speculative and empirical if its own language and discipline are employed as the parameter or frame of reference. Therefore, regarding the statements I have made about the universal character of Myth and its access being the individual soul, let me use my own experience as an example in order to confirm both the non-speculative nature of the New Way, a feature which distinguishes it from most contemporary schools of Knowledge and connects it to the ancient Vedic systems, as well as the role of the soul in the experience.
Thus, if I have stated that the soul is the universal fount of Myth, I am qualified to do so because I myself have lived and recorded the experience. In March of 1970, I gained access to that ‘hidden chamber’ through an ‘act of seeing’, and on the basis of what I ‘saw’, I recorded a modern myth. This came to be called The Magical Carousel. It was written in Rome before any contact with Indian mythology and yoga – indeed, even before any contact with the Mother who was its inspirer. That is, it was the Mother’s power which thrust me into that Chamber, though I ignored her existence at the time. Be this as it may, the lived experience of the ‘hidden chamber’ presented before my inner vision a story, a contemporary myth which not only conformed to myths of ages past and of diverse cultures, but it also revealed itself faithful and true to another characteristic of myth: its nature of prophecy.
I have always contended that myths not only record ‘history’ in its essential dimensions, but are also prophecies of things to come – or recur. Or else, they were recorded in states of higher awareness in which the Eternal is met and the Being and Becoming are experienced in their everlasting condition of oneness. Thus, on this basis access into the Chamber invariably tends to blur the time barriers. The future is drawn into the present, or else the present extends spherically to embrace what has been and what will be. In every culture in the world the cosmic harmony has provided the backdrop for Myth, though its zodiacal content may be difficult for the contemporary observer to perceive, being a language foreign to our modern research. Nonetheless, the cosmic harmony is always the foundation of Myth.
I have demonstrated this time and again regarding the Rigveda – the world’s oldest book and the original myth from where all others have evolved in Hindu civilisation. The Rigvedic myth is as zodiacally founded as my Magical Carousel, the latter being openly a 12-part ‘zodiacal odyssey’. It is ‘historical’ only insofar as the zodiac does indeed incorporate every dimension of human life in the manner I have demonstrated in this essay on caste and cosmos.
The cosmic harmony is a ceaseless unfolding of an eternal Truth. The stages of its development are 12 – hence the 12 months of the year. Indeed, it is the year that is the Divine Measure, backdrop of the sacred myth. Therefore the year was the main protagonist of both the Rigveda and my own contemporary myth. Sri Aurobindo’s epic, Savitri, has been faithful to this same divine Measure. It too follows the same sequence and the content of each of its twelve chapters (books) is equally faithful to the traditional significance of the twelve signs. With regard to this ancient formula, in a letter to a disciple Sri Aurobindo wrote, ‘…Twelve books to an epic is a classical superstition, but the new Savitri may extend to ten books – if much is added in the final version it may be even twelve.’ This did finally come to pass.
Thus, when I wrote The Magical Carousel I drew up the true knowledge the soul-chamber holds in its universal bosom; and at the same time I prophesied the true course of things to come, of the nature of my inner experiences and where and to whom they would lead in the following years.
There was even more. In The Magical Carousel I describe very accurately the nature of that ‘hidden chamber’ and, most important of all, its connection to Time. That is, the Chamber or the soul was seen in the lived experience as the abode of the Time-Spirit and the cradle of the human incarnation’s destiny. From that Chamber the lines in time of one’s destiny extend outward, spherically, and the web of one’s individual time and space, or our private cosmos, is drawn.
I have dwelt at length on this aspect of the story in a book of Commentaries which I wrote in 1979. The full connection with the Rigveda is given in that publication, as well as the significance of the symbolism of that 12-part ‘journey’ for both the individual and the evolution. But here I would like to furnish just a few examples of the coincidences between this contemporary myth and the ancient ones, those which I have mentioned with regard to the cosmic/zodiacal character of Sri Ram and Sri Krishna – 7th and 8th Avatars of the Hindu Puranic line.
To illustrate, I drew attention to the 7th sign Libra as the overall quality of Ram’s mission in that union and the perfect complementation of Masculine and Feminine are the sign’s contribution to the whole. This has been confirmed by Ram’s union with Sita and the nature of their ‘complementation’ – to the extent that it is impossible to consider Ram without his ‘other half’. Indeed, it is universally accepted that they are upheld in India as symbols or ideals to be followed by every married couple.
In The Magical Carousel this is corroborated when in the odyssey the two children, Val and Pom-Pom, main protagonists of the tale, travel to Libra (land) and there they meet the ‘ideal couple’, Frank and Felicity Harmony. They are taught the supreme virtues of ‘union’ and ‘complementation’. But this is yet an external projection, for it is only the 7th stage in the 12-part journey. The initiate is obliged to experience deeper inner layers until the Complement is found within and not without. Krishna adds this piece to the mosaic.
I mention this because there is an aspect to the Ramayana which has proven difficult to comprehend. This is Ram’s humanlike despair when Sita is abducted. On countless occasions I have encountered bafflement by analysts of the epic and scrutinisers of Ram’s divinity or avatarhood, when confronted with this apparently un-divine behaviour, all too human for a God. I have not come upon a satisfying explanation of Ram’s seemingly un-Godlike despair over the loss of his beloved Sita. But when the true function of Ram is gleaned from the cosmic content of his Avatarhood, this incongruous behaviour is seen as a fundamental part of his mission. His appearance as the 7th corresponds to the 7th Manifestation and the 7th zodiacal sign Libra. And the latter does indeed compel its subjects to a fixation on the human, external companion. This union is the be-all, end-all of the sign/manifestation – hence the faithfulness of the epic to its cosmic purpose. In The Magical Carousel this focus is emphasised when all the couples of Libra (land) confront the children with choruses of ‘Union!, strive for Union!’ Or else, ‘Solitude is our only enemy!’
At deeper levels this ‘human’ fixation is explained by The Magical Carousel in that Libra, being the 7th sign/age/manifestation, is the first of the ‘higher hemisphere’. That is, in the ‘journey’ of 12 stages, passage into the 7th is when one steps out of the ‘lower’ and begins evolution through the ‘higher’. In other words, it is at this point of the odyssey that the subject of the initiation (or the evolution itself) begins to shed these human fixations which are replaced by a ‘higher cause’, as it is termed in Carousel. This key aspect is conveyed time and again in the Ramayana when Ram is seen to forget his divinity and Brahma, the Creator, must intervene to remind him who he is and what his mission is, and that he must not let the doubts that plague all humanity cause him to lose sight of his true identity.
Together with this is the MORAL nature of the 7th and hence the highly moralistic tone of Ram’s epic in contrast to Krishna’s which is anything but moral, according to our contemporary standards. In his Letters on Yoga , Sri Aurobindo has discussed this aspect of Ram’s contribution to the evolution thoroughly. In The Magical Carousel this point is brought forth when the Judge appears in Libra and dispenses human justice with a small ‘j’, in contrast to the divine Justice when the yogi, through his realisation, steps out of the boundaries set for the human being and is governed by other laws, other compulsions. Indeed, a ‘higher’ poise.
Thus, Ram’s forgetfulness of his divine nature or his despair at the loss of Sita are entirely in keeping with the deepest significance of his 7th Libran Manifestation. And the zodiac being a ‘map of evolution’, as I call it, Sri Aurobindo’s reference to the Puranic Line of Ten as a ‘parable of evolution’ is also clear. Indeed, the epic is a superb record of the evolutionary drive of those early times, for that is the essence of the Avatar’s mission: to imprint on the evolutionary blueprint a particular ‘purpose’ or enhanced feature in an ascending scale. Ram’s contribution is especially significant in this regard because that ‘purpose’ is precisely a ‘higher cause’ and his coming marks the beginning of humanity’s own evolution into the ‘higher’ hemisphere. By the time the Line of Ten is complete, the true divine race for which the Earth was created will have been ‘born’.
Hindu tradition has placed great emphasis on this question of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ hemispheres. The ancient method of reckoning time, which I shall deal with extensively in the next part of this essay, divides the year into two ayanas – the southern and northern – which consist of six months each. The southern ayana is the ‘Night’, the northern is the ‘Day’. Capricorn is the peak of the Northern Ayana (midday) and hence it is the most auspicious of all the signs, and it is India’s own ruler. It is because of this calculation that in the Rigveda we find verses which speak of a ‘six-month day and six-month night’. This division is entirely in keeping with the ancient method of reckoning and is thoroughly faithful to the cosmic harmony and the zodiacal character of India’s ancient Vedic Dharma. Yet this Knowledge seems to have been so completely lost that a historian such as B. G. Tilak can speculate that these references must point to an Arctic night and day! And no one protests. On the contrary, they utilise these wild theories to support an ‘historic’ interpretation of the Veda, thus adding fuel to the Aryan/Dravidian divide.
I have also mentioned Ram’s involvement with the Age of Leo (within the 7th Manifestation; see map on page 2), and that Leo is the sign of the King. This too is amply confirmed by the epic wherein Ram’s right to rule is the other focus of the tale, or the question of who shall inherit the crown, Ram or his brother Bharat. It is this conflict that causes his exile for twice 7 years. In The Magical Carousel, written long before I had any knowledge of these epics and myths, I too describe Leo’s regent – the King of Day (Ram is indeed the solar king). Moreover, I have equated Sita with the sign Cancer, and in Cancer(land) of Carousel we do find the motherly and noble Queen of Night, companion of the King of Day.
But perhaps the most fascinating correspondence lies in the question of ‘exile’ of the Cancer Queen from the Leo King. For indeed the most poignant aspect of the Ramayana is not only Ram’s exile but also his separation from Sita, and then at a later stage, Sita’s own ‘exile’ to the forest where she bears Ram’s sons, Luv and Kush, a situation almost identical to the Queen of Night’s ‘retreat’ to her castle with her children, while the King of Day goes on lamenting that he has planted ‘seeds’ which bear only ‘roses’ and not ‘trees’ – meaning that the Queen has given him only daughters and not SONS! Though there is a slight difference with the Ramayana, the focus is on the question of an heir, for that is central to the 5th sign Leo, as it is central to the Ramayana.
There are countless such correspondences when one plunges into the soul to record what is seen in that ‘hidden chamber’. But let us leave Ram at this point and move on to Krishna. For the full extent of Krishna’s evolutionary contribution cannot be properly understood unless his mission is seen as a continuation of Ram’s. Thus, as I wrote earlier, Ram’s contribution was entirely moralistic, and together with that was his role of Ideal Man and Husband. Sita is the ‘external’ companion, fully in keeping with the stage of evolution in the 7th Manifestation. But Krishna comes upon the scene approximately 6000 years after Ram precisely to drive the seeker into deeper INNER dimensions, to find the Beloved within. Krishna’s essence and the reason why his consciousness-being has provoked so many delirious expressions of divine Love is because of this ‘purpose’, this ‘higher cause’ which must replace the human fixation with the outer companion. Krishna is no ‘ideal husband’. Indeed, gauging by modern standards he is positively debauched! For in the 8th Manifestation/sign the ‘knot’ to be dealt with is sexual. It is obvious that if a shift must come about and the external companion must give way to the inner Companion and the divine Lover, then the seeker is obliged to contend with the most unruly of his energy expressions and the one that keeps him nailed to the cross of his humanity. Indeed, the essential aim of the zodiacal odyssey as a blueprint of the evolution is to implant another ‘purpose’ in the species. Sex and procreation, as evolutionary purposes, must make way for ‘something else’. Krishna initiates this shift by driving the seeker into those deeper ‘waters’ where the bewitching figure of the divine Lover and the haunting strains of his magical and hypnotic Flute COMPEL that plunge within. Krishna collects all the emotional content of the seeker and leaves nothing for the outer world, for the external companion.
Again there is a parallel with The Magical Carousel. In the 8th sign/land of Scorpio, the children encounter Hayala, equally mesmerising, equally bewitching. There is even a ‘Kurukshetra’, a ‘battlefield’. In that sign/land the children come into contact with the power that Sri Krishna’s mission focusses on – the power locked in the sex centre. It is there that they must bring about the transmutation and channel the energy fully to the quest of the ‘higher purpose’, the very same theme of the Krishna epic in its deepest sense.
The Age of Krishna’s appearance was Taurus, as stated. This describes Brindavan, the ‘field’ of his love Play. In The Magical Carousel it is the pastoral Elysium of Taurus(land) where the children meet the Bull and Malamulapaga and the revelry of the contemporary Brindavan. The emphasis here too is entirely emotional. Throughout and particularly in the 8th sign/land, there is the temptation to remain fixed or pinned to the lower hemisphere, for the meaning of the Journey is to reach that Swar, that heaven of a Higher Purpose.
If a comparative study is made of The Magical Carousel and these epics and myths, as well as Sri Aurobindo’s ‘Savitri’, it will become amply clear that there is indeed an eternal fount of Knowledge within each human being; and, moreover, that this fount is universal. The knowledge content of myth ‘seen’ in this chamber TODAY is the same as what had been similarly ‘seen’ thousands of years ago. And it experiences no limitation of culture and creed. But the supreme figure upholding all these expressions is the zodiac and the cosmic harmony. Since we are dealing with a 12-month year and this is an eternally-recurring harmony, we know that the knowledge it holds is equally eternal. We know, as well, that it holds the key to the harmonisation of the Being and the Becoming. The Vedic Dharma is founded on this Eternal Truth.
Returning to the Puranic necessity, it is from within those deep Scorpio psychic waters that the fantastic forms of the Gods and Goddesses are drawn and the elaborate tales of their exploits. Insofar as these dimensions are accessible to each and every human being in equal measure, it is this universality that makes the Strategy one of the most sophisticated techniques the world has ever known for the preservation of the Cosmic Truth. At the same time it lays emphasis on the salient feature of the Indian destiny: the Individual – which in number harmony is the 3, or the Third Principle. We shall explore this unique feature further on in detail.
The actual forms of the Gods and Goddesses and their vahanas and helpers may be shaped by the more superficial layers of consciousness or cultural conditioning, but the TRUTH stored beneath those outer layers is universal and eternal. Hence the sanatan or ‘eternal’ Dharma. Every human soul throughout the world is a repository of that one underlying Cosmic Truth. Aptly ‘as above, so below’.
Conforming to the cosmic impulse, the night Manifestation of the 8th sign Scorpio draws to a close in the Age of Ram, Aries, with the appearance of Buddha to ‘mislead’ at the dawn of the 9th Manifestation and to prepare the field for the next Water sign/age, Pisces. The Knowledge is subjected to relentless attacks precisely on that Vedic soul-foundation. Consciously or unconsciously – and in my view, given the degree of the decline, it was indeed unconscious – the soul became the target, the element that had to be removed from its central position in the Dharma because it held the key to the mythic/epic content and its power. The attempt at eradication was only partially successful. Ayodhya in present-day India is just one testimony that myth and epic and hence the soul and the Dharma do live on.
Ramlal of Ayodhya: the Retrieval Conspiracy
Though the Knowledge has been well preserved in myth and epic, as well as in the realisations of certain Yogis throughout the Ages, the element that was lost in the vision was the correct key to Time which I sometimes refer to as the ‘0 Point’, – time, that especially elusive substance which was itself the focus of the Manifestations after the Egyptian Space Conquest was drawn to a close. In the intervening years, Ram and Krishna prepared the cosmic soil for the full conquest of Time – or rather its integration into the complex workings of the cosmic mechanism – in the 9th Manifestation in which indeed the number 9 would play a most significant role. But more than the 9, the 0’s discovery was the single most important factor to allow for this ‘conquest’. To briefly summarise why this was so, in all schools of higher knowledge the only scale known was the Space Scale of 1 to 12. This could provide utilisation of the horizontal/space dimension, but the VERTICAL or the Time dimension was left out of the process. Hence it was not an integral manifestation. To incorporate Time as an ‘ally’ in the process, the first prerequisite is knowledge of the 0 because the Time Scale consists of 10 ‘notes’ but beginning from 0 rather than 1. This is what allows it to be considered a ‘vertical’ dimension. The true description, however, is a ‘seed’ unfolding from within, drawing out from itself the 9 notes which it contains in unextended form. These 9 notes are thus the nine planets of our system. The 0 of the system is the Sun. It is only in this way, with the discovery of the Zero, that the Sun can be accommodated in its proper position as centre of the solar system.
This ‘shift’ signified the most important breakthrough in the study of cosmic harmonies for many hundreds of years. At the same time, it is only through the Time Scale’s 0 to 9 that the planetary structure could be connected to the calendar. Thus Time would become the ‘ally’ by virtue of the fact that its operations could be ‘measured’ in our flow of Earth-time and its power could be utilised to build elements of the new order through the medium of the individual/collective consciousness. Hence the Strategy of myth/epic and the individual realisation would be of foremost importance in such an operation.
Concurrently, this shift introduced the need for a very great precision which hinged on the correct assessment of that 0 Point. Without that knowledge there could be no effective means to utilise Time in a non-speculative manner, nor could processes be initiated and monitored to permit a much greater conscious participation of the individual in the process of transformation. I repeat, none of this was possible before the discovery of the Zero. And it is an extraordinary confirmation of the premises of this new Cosmology that having established the fact of an Egyptian ‘space conquest’ and the shift to India for the ‘time conquest’, and that for the latter the 0 would be indispensable, it was precisely India that gave to the world the concept of the Zero. With this accomplished the work could begin.
We need not review here the history of this ‘lost measure’, as I have called it. Indeed, it would be apt to state that this was the ‘ray/cow’ concealed by the hostile Panis of the Rigvedic ‘journey’, in the ‘cave’ of the 8th sign/Manifestation, Scorpio. I have discussed this matter in depth in VISHAAL in the series, ‘The Capricorn Factor’. Let me simply state that the sacred Capricorn hieroglyph, the very landmass of Bharatmata, holds the key to that divine and true Measure. For the real and essential question to ask is, When, in effect, does the Sun truly move into that special time-space of Capricorn, India’s own ruler and an entry which, in spite of the loss, continues to be celebrated through the country each year? In Sanskrit it is called the Makar Sankranti, or the Capricorn Gateway. But given the decline of the Knowledge, the loss of the correct connection between time and cosmos and Earth, this entry point has slipped back as if the civilisation’s pulse were skipping vital beats here and there. Finally, in this Age of Aquarius of our 9th Manifestation, the loss consists of a full 23 days in terms of the year; regarding the cosmic age – the same circle extended to embrace larger cycles of time – it amounts to hundreds. The Makar Sankranti is celebrated annually on 15 January rather than the true date: the solstice of 22-23 December.
Be this as it may, conforming to its role of preserver of the highest cosmic Knowledge and land of the new order based on that Vedic Truth, the nation does continue to foster the true things simply by openly celebrating an event cosmic and zodiacal. In the West this date is camouflaged in the tale of the birth of the Christ Child: 24-25 December. Closer to the mark indeed, but still imperfect. It was adopted as the birthday of Jesus simply because it fell in the traditional Festival of Light, perhaps the most auspicious and universal of all celebrations in antiquity. It was associated with the ‘light’ entirely due to a cosmic/planetary configuration: the Capricorn solstice marked the point when, from its period of longest ‘imprisonment’ (in the cave of the Panis?), the Sun would pass into the experience of increase of its light. This would be reflected in the increase of the length of the day from that moment onward. Hence, the Festival of Light was a celebration of a cosmic event and to locate this ‘gateway’ at any other point in time than the one which would indeed identify the exact beginning of the increase, would make no sense at all if we place value on the physical harmony and the lived experience. Yet this is what has come to pass in India – largely because that physical reality came to be looked upon as an ‘illusion’. Thus, the Yogis of old who should have been responsible for maintaining that correct link with time and cosmos, saw themselves drawn away from their duty by this concept which gradually undermined the act of seeing to the measurable degree of ‘23 days’. Thus that ‘gateway’, which bears no relation to the true entry into Capricorn, is the Makar Sankranti we know and celebrate today. Nonetheless, I repeat, it is indeed respected though the significance and measure may have been lost. The impact of the Vedic Seeing was just too powerful and electrifying to be ignored.
Yet, the Avatars do carry on with their work and in spite of the loss they even contrive to rectify matters, similar to the Egyptian sages, and locate the Makar Sankranti at the real Gateway where it belongs in the divine Measure. This has occurred in post-Independence India. I refer, once again, to Ayodhya.
Thus, on the night of precisely 22-23 December, or the Capricorn solstice of 1949, that sacredmost moment when the Festival of Light begins as the Sun enters Capricorn and its light starts to increase, Ram made his miraculous appearance in the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in the form of the divine Child, or Ramlal. It was a night of 3 number-power. It was Ram’s confirmation in his traditional birthplace that this date is the true Makar Sankranti and the restoration of the Lost Measure would coincide with the reestablishment of the ancient Dharma, all of which is the meaning stored in the Capricorn hieroglyph. That hieroglyph would thus prove to be the seal and sanction of the Supreme when revealed. And it would even disclose the true PHYSICAL dimensions of India. Its revelation – that is, the time when the hieroglyph would first be ‘seen’ superimposed on that landmass – would mark the beginning of a process which would shape the new India in accordance with this true Measure. Its revelation or unveiling would draw together the two cosmic properties of time and space – the former through the correct and gnostic time-measure of 22-23 December, and the latter through the spatial dimensions of the landmass precisely in accordance with that sacred symbol. This revelation occurred in May of 1974.
But a quarter of a century prior to this geographical/zodiacal discovery, Ram ‘corrected’ or retrieved the Lost Measure. After the glorious epiphany of the Child on the night of 22-23 December 1949, in the Babri Mosque, its doors were locked in 1950. None were permitted entry. Thirty-six years, or a completed cycle of 4 x 9, were required for the Child to mature in solitude. Thus, when the full 36 were completed, it was on 5 January 1986 that the process was started to unlock the doors of the Mosque. The Congress Party was then in power. A meeting was convened for that very special day – that is, the zodiacal point of the Soul of India and the close of the Festival of Light – to explore the possibility of shifting the mosque to allow a temple to be built on the site in honour of the divine Child Ram. The proposal was rejected. Shortly thereafter, on l February 1986, now of 9 number-power, the court ordered the mosque to be unlocked. Appropriately, at 5:19 PM, Ramlal was ‘liberated’.
We are concerned with the lost divine Measure above all else, retrieval of which can permit the new India to be truly born. Ram conspired not only to rectify the position of the cosmic dial by appearing on the very night when in the true Measure Capricorn does indeed begin, but, also connected to his miraculous appearance then, Ram contrived to provide the full measure of the Festival of Light. Ancient tradition has always located this period in the first 15 days of the Capricorn month – from the solstice of 22-23 December to the mid-point of the sign, 5-6 January, or the 15th degree of Capricorn. In all there are 15 days involved. The orbital reason for this location has been explained previously, and why it was held as sacred. But for India the period is far more sacred than for any other country or civilisation because Capricorn is the sign of her soul and its hieroglyph delineates her physical form. It can be appreciated therefore that the correct location in zodiacal/calendrical time and geographical space of this sacred sign is the single most important discovery in the history of Vedic civilisation in terms of India’s expression of her higher destiny.
Is it any wonder then that, in perfect attunement with the revelations of the new way Cosmology, Ram should have ‘chosen’ to appear in such a manner and at such a time so as to rectify or at least draw attention to India’s lost Measure? And that exactly 36 years later his power should make itself felt on 5 January, again in perfect attunement with gnostic time, to disclose the last day of the Festival of Light and the degree/day of India’s own soul?
Who was ‘responsible’ for this occurrence? A political party? Who ‘surreptitiously’ placed the child-figure in the Mosque? Who, or what ‘power’, stood behind the opening of the gate on 1.2.1986 – again a 9-power day? And complying with whose ‘design’? Was it a political manoeuvre, a communal aberration, a zealot’s madness?
These questions are irrelevant when it is known, as India knows, that the Time-Spirit works through human instruments. It moves the human consciousness in any direction it wills; however, in accordance with and determined by its higher Purpose. The real miracle is the conspiracy with gnostic Time. Can there be a more exquisite display of the universal truth India holds, which in this one act unveiled the Cosmic Truth underlying countless tales of the birth of the sacred Child? Can there be a more profound confirmation for the location of the true Gateway to Capricorn than this divine Epiphany of Lord Ram, precisely coinciding with that entry in the very heavens at the time of his ‘surreptitious’ appearance? Similarly, if I state that myth and epic are universal, this ‘surreptitious’ epiphany, because of its timing, does indeed reveal the universal content in myth in that both in the ancient world and the Christian era, this date was always connected to the sacred Birth. Indeed, Ram the Child has appeared to restore things universally sacred, divine and true.
Finally, the mosque in which the Child Ram chose to appear stands on Plot # 159. In the December 1991 VISHAAL (6/5), on page 11, I wrote that these were the numbers via the Greek letters th-e-a, which allowed me to discover the Map of the 12 Manifestations. It is this Map that holds the knowledge of the Line of the Ten Avatars. It is this Map which reveals that 1-5-9 are the numbers of the Manifestations (see page 2) that fall in the last quarter of the wheel where our present Age of Aquarius is located. Plot # 159 is precisely the ‘disputed’ one at Ayodhya upon which the whole controversy is centred and on whose very soil the Child appeared. With this background, I leave it to the reader to decide whether the Epiphany was ‘lawful’ or ‘unlawful’, ‘real’ or ‘surreptitiously contrived’. After all, according to which ‘law’? And with whose connivance?
30 October 1991
Aeon Centre of Cosmology at Skambha
***
From the works of
The Mother and Sri Aurobindo
25 December 1950
A disciple explains to the Mother’s audience that the shortest day of the year corresponds to the greatest declination of the sun to the south, about 21st December, then the sun again mounts to the north. The Mother comments:
‘…That is why the 25th of December was a festival of Light long before Jesus Christ. This festival was in vogue long before Christianity; it originated in Egypt and very probably the birthday of Christ was fixed on the same day as that of the return of the Light.’
*
The Mother’s comments on Sri Aurobindo’s 37th Aphorism
[37 –] Some say Krishna never lived, he is a myth. They mean on earth; for if Brindavan existed elsewhere, the Bhagavat could not have been written.
‘The whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifested here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. This is an indispensable condition for the manifestation. And the importance of the manifestation will always depend on the origin of the thing manifested.
‘In the world of the gods there is an ideal and harmonious Brindavan of which the earthly Brindavan is but a deformation and a caricature.
‘Those who are developed inwardly, either in their senses or in their minds, perceive these realities which are invisible (to the ordinary man) and receive their inspiration from them.
‘So the writer or writers of the Bhagavat were certainly in contact with a whole inner world that is well and truly real and existent, where they saw and experienced everything they have described or revealed.
‘Whether Krishna existed or not in a human form, living on earth, is only of very secondary importance (except perhaps from an exclusively historical point of view), for Krishna is a real, living and active being; and his influence has been one of the great factors in the progress and transformation of the earth.’
[From On Thoughts and Aphorisms, CWM, Vol. 10, p. 60-61]
*
Sri Aurobindo on the Ram and Krishna Avatars:
I am rather perplexed by your strictures on Rama. Cowardice is the last thing that can be charged against Valmiki’s Rama; he has always been considered as a warrior and it is the ‘martial races’ of India who have made him their god. Valmiki everywhere paints him as a great warrior… As for morality, all morality is a convention… Only by rising above mind can one really get beyond convention – Krishna was able to do it because he was not a mental human being but an overmental godhead acting freely out of a greater consciousness than man’s. Rama was not that, he was the Avatar of the sattwic mind – mental, emotional, moral – and he followed the Dharma of the age and the race. That may make him temperamentally congenial to Gandhi and the reverse to you; but just as Gandhi’s temperamental recoil from Krishna does not prove Krishna to be no Avatar, so your temperamental recoil from Rama does not establish that he was not an Avatar. However, my main point will be that Avatarhood does not depend upon these questions at all, but has another basis, meaning and purpose.
We have reached the point in our discussion of caste and cosmos where it is important to expand the vision and locate all the elements of our analysis in the vaster movement of the cosmic Ages. I have systematised the passage of the Ages on the basis of two formulas of the new cosmology. The first, 9/6/3/0, corresponds to time and number-powers – i.e., the 9 notes of the cosmic scale and the application of the Law of Three, or the descending triadic progression to the 0. When the process is ‘integral’, out of that 0 comes the first numeral, the 1. Hence, the complete formula is 9/6/3/0-1.
The second formula is 9/5/1, corresponding to the Greek letters/numbers, th=9/e=5/a=1. This grouping of three is what I call the space scale in a measure extending from 1 to 12. Accompanying this is the time scale in a measure extending from 0 to 9. The latter is VERTICAL; the space scale is HORIZONTAL. The two scales superimposed form the Gnostic Circle, the new key of Knowledge which permits us to measure the flow of gnostic time in space.
With the formula 9/5/1 at my disposal, I soon came upon the arrangement of the ’12 Manifestations’. These are vaster periods of time than the widely used zodiacal Ages. Each Manifestation thus contains 3 zodiacal ages and consists therefore of 6480 years, or 3 x 2160. The correct appreciation of the appearances of the Ten Evolutionary Avatars of Hindu tradition can be come upon by the formula 9/5/1, or the key to our own 9th Manifestation, which, in turn, opens the doors to the entire gamut of 12 and the greater passage of 77,760 years. The diagram (below) offers a visual display of this Harmony. It may be noted that 9/5/1 are the signs which fall in the quarter of the wheel where our present Age of Aquarius is located. This would be the last quarter of the zodiac, the signs Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces; the ‘months’ January, February and March.
However, as the diagram indicates, the movement through the Manifestations is not a closed circle but rather a spiral. To complete a full round of the 12 Manifestations 77,760 years must transpire, or 3 completed rounds of the zodiacal Ages, each round of which consists of 25,920 years. We are interested in our present cycle because it is within this particular Round of 25,920 years that the Evolutionary Avatars appear who bring the Line of Ten to a close.
The reader may refer to The Gnostic Circle , Chapter 5 where I discuss the appearance of Sri Ram, the 7th Avatar, Sri Krishna, the 8th, and then in Chapter 6, the 9th Avatar. The total span during which these three special agents of the Time-Spirit have made their appearances on Earth is approximately 12,000 years, covering the 7th, 8th, and 2160 years into this 9th Manifestation. We need not dwell any further on these details insofar as I have treated the subject extensively in my books, namely The Gnostic Circle and The New Way. What is of interest for the purpose of this essay is simply to illustrate that the single geometric form which previously we employed to integrate various elements and aspects of the Knowledge (see TVN 6/4, October 1991), is the same celestial circle which provides us with the key to the 12 Manifestations. Always it is the Circle that enlightens, and the Circle is the symbol of the Divine Shakti.
In other words, the foundation of caste has been connected to the year as the earlier diagram illustrates; and now this same divine measure of caste in time has simply been enlarged to incorporate first 25,920 years and then 77,760. The Laws of Correspondence and Equivalency inform us that the Cosmic Purush which is the celestial backdrop of caste is the very same celestial harmony which give us the measure of a day, a year, or the above larger cycles. To make these discoveries all that is required is a vision of unity and oneness – a capacity lacking in our science-oriented world.
What becomes evident is that the real purpose of caste is to be found in that celestial harmony; moreover, when the proper understanding of that cosmic foundation is lost or flawed, caste must similarly lose its sense and purpose. And when time via the calendar cannot be used to regulate and harmonise the two in the society in question, then it is clear that caste has become a meaningless as well as obstructive element in the civilisation. Its continued existence serves then to disunify and divide rather than to integrate and harmonise.
Be this as it may, and this is certainly the condition of caste in contemporary Indian society, a study of the true foundations of caste, its real inspiration as well as the motor (time) which allows it to play a dynamic role in society, is helpful in that numerous dimensions of life are drawn into the discussion. We are able to perceive that what corroded caste also corroded an interconnected spectrum of diversified aspects of life on the subcontinent, moving through those cosmic ages in an increasingly accelerated collective experience of collapse and disintegration. It would appear then that if we could grasp the factor which underpins all these degenerative civilisational expressions, we could undo the pivotal Knot and liberate the energies long held prisoner of this one great entanglement. Indeed, this present study seeks to do just that. I seek to draw attention to that problem, that one flaw or loss which permitted the evolution of the Vedic civilisation to appear to deviate from its original purpose.
But is this the case? It is in fact inaccurate to sustain that the lost Measure, for example, caused an interference or an unanticipated deviation. Rather, the true position is that the loss was just as much a part of the process as the more positive expressions. In other words, all was calculated and contained in the original ‘seed’.
Nonetheless, anticipated and calculated or not, we must contend with that Knot. But the true image is better conveyed through one experience common to each and every human being on this planet: the gestation and birth process. In this light, we must review the evolutionary process as a gestation and birth. The ‘measure’ is the same always – 0 to 9 in the ‘womb’ of 1 to 12. Or the seed brought to fruition during the 0/9 period within the ‘soil’ of the 1/12 zodiacal plane. This would be the correct way to understand the cosmic harmonies in relation to our Earth evolution, in particular the Gnostic Circle which is a synthesis of these features.
With this understanding, it is revealed that being the 9th Manifestation the quality that permeates our evolution at this point in time is BIRTH. After a long development stretching through 8 prior Manifestations plus an Age, or 54,000 years, we have finally reached the stage when birth can ensue – civilisational birth, societal, individual. This implies that throughout this long stretch of time we have never experienced that actual Birth. It has always been simply a gestation. But the quality of that process indicates the condition of the foetus and the Child that is finally born. All the events in the world today, of such outstanding spiritual and material significance for our global society, provide us with a very clear image of the ‘child’ that has been developing in this cosmic/evolutionary womb of Time throughout this period. It can also be appreciated that when the actual time of birth is at hand, similar to a human labour there is a quickening – what I call an acceleration. Compression of time would be the better description because indeed we observe that Time’s action in the world is to condense its periods. When the moment of the actual birth arrives, this compaction is very obvious simply because the cycles are smaller and hence more easily verifiable: the correspondences and interconnections are precise and unmistakable.
Such has been the case now. We have witnessed the condensation of the 7th, 8th and 9th Manifestations into the equivalent 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s. Then again, as the spiral tightens, or – in an apt image – as the womb’s contractions increase and the ‘space’ surrounding the foetus lessens in anticipation of ejection from the womb, those centuries are compressed into decades – i.e., the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The very unusual unfolding of events in these three decades can only be properly understood when the knowledge of this cosmic/evolutionary process is grasped in full.
Central to this understanding is the Map of the 12 Manifestations. To be more precise, if, as all new age groups do, we expect to understand the nature of the changes in the world solely on the basis of the precessional movement backward through the zodiac, which informs us that we have moved from the Age of Pisces into the Age of Aquarius, we will comprehend very little of the real development and its magnitude. For this does not reveal that this development has extended through 8 long Manifestations and that we are now in the 9th. Nor does it reveal the key to the Puranic line of Ten Evolutionary Avatars, their quality, the work they must do, and, more importantly, when they incarnate to fulfil their cosmic purpose.
The value of this data is immense for we realise that the entire process is regulated by the Time-Spirit and that even the advent of the ‘ruse of the Supreme’ was calculated as a part of the strategy of birth. We appreciate that the original Vedic seed has moved carefully through the gestating folds of Time and the moment for the Child to be born has come – on time, precisely in this 9th Manifestation of the cosmic sequence. We verify that the quickening or acceleration of events is simply a remarkable confirmation of the labour and birth.
But there is something more that the knowledge reveals. The Birth has ALREADY occurred. What we see now is the very initial development of that child, the very first stirrings. We see that the repercussions and reverberations of these infant flexing of limbs have produced such dramatic revolutionary happenings in our contemporary society, entirely unknown to our period of recorded history, and that these bear evidence to the stunning new features of the Child. We are dealing with a creature, a creation never before manifested. Indeed, we are, for the first time in this vast cycle, contending with a creation, an actual manifest REALITY, where hitherto all was concealed as if behind the membranous substance of the womb of the cosmic Mother. This too the Puranic tradition describes so well: it calls the child Guha, the hidden one. On a remote hill in the Tamil country of Sri Lanka there is a small, special temple. The deity is the Child in his form of the hidden, veiled One. In a ritual reminiscent of the earliest secret Mystery rites, during very special festivals in praise of the God, seekers experience the progressive unveiling of that mysterious Child. We verify once more that Tamil Nadu is the preserver of not only the tradition but of those miraculous things to come, precisely because it has indeed held tightly to its bosom the knowledge of the Child, of Guha, Shiva’s mighty and invincible warrior Son.
Traditions in many parts of the world have glimpsed this truth and have sought to capture and convey something of the Knowledge in their various belief systems and rites. But nowhere is it encountered in such a pure and uncontaminated form as in Tamil Nadu – precisely because this has been the chosen land of the realisation, of the yogic process which would permit the Child to emerge from behind the veils and reveal the shape of these formidable things to come.
This is the knowledge the zodiac transmits; by consequence, it is the knowledge that caste secretly contains in its fourfoldness. It may well have been the secret significance of the 12 and 18 ‘measure’ of the Tamil alphabet. It certainly is the knowledge of the ancient Veda – the ‘seed’ that has developed into this Child.
The Incan Temple of the Sun
I shall provide a clear example of the universal character of this Knowledge by presenting a fascinating discovery made in the early 1970s by the archaeologist Gary S. Vescelius during excavations in Peru amidst the ruins of the pre-Columbian Inca civilisation. It will be abundantly clear that the very same cosmic harmony which inspired the early Rishi in the establishment of the Vedic civilisation was similarly the unmistakable foundation of the Incan Empire. The example is so stunning in its correspondence that one wonders how it has been that these connections were never made by scholars. Eighteen years have passed since I first came upon Vescelius’ discoveries in an article in The New York Times, dated 19 March 1974. At that time I was writing The Gnostic Circle, but the discoveries he presented were not new to me. I had already written extensively on the same subject in my treatment of the ’12 Manifestations’ via the diagram reproduced on page 12, which is remarkably similar to the ‘plan’ Vescelius discovered for the lay-out of the ancient Incan capital, Cuzco. Thus, though the connection with India and the Veda were known to me then, to my knowledge no one has helped the archaeologist to understand the fuller lines and implications of his discovery, nor to correct certain errors, or rather incomplete interpretations of those findings.
I am presenting (below) the diagram Vescelius made of Cuzco, featured in the newspaper report. We may quote his own words and it will be clear that Vescelius had understood certain aspects of Incan civilisation which place it on a par with the Vedic – the Vedic as I am describing it however; that is, the true nature of the ‘seed’ and the ‘child’, shorn of the innumerable veils or growths of the centuries.
The almost exact parallel may be noted with my diagram on page 12, first presented in my book, Symbols and the Question of Unity a collection of articles written in 1973. The main feature in both these diagrams is an overall division of 4, within which we find the division of 3 and 12. In my presentation I have noted that the division of 3 refers to the energy flows of Creation, Preservation and Dissolution – or else the gunas Rajas, Sattwa, and Tamas. In India’s case this is perhaps the most important division insofar as the Capricorn hieroglyph is a combination of this triadic play of energy. Being a key to energy interactions which produce a creation in matter, it is entirely understandable that Traditions refer to this glyph as the Name of God. It would, however, be more appropriate to call it the Name of the Goddess, for that is the truth of the hieroglyph. But this distinction forms part of the lost measure, when ‘God’ then became unisexed and decidedly male. Our troubles began from that point onward since how can a Masculine Principle explain a birth process which is entirely a property of the Feminine? More particularly, a process which is the explicit property of the Third Principle of the triad?
India has, however, preserved the Knowledge intact. It has consistently called a spade a spade, regardless of the distortions taking place beyond the contours of its Capricorn hieroglyphic borders. Unlike the Incan, Hindu civilisation has maintained a continuity in time. The gestation of that Seed, which is Truth-Conscious or Gnostic in essence, has continued in spite of or possibly aided by serious attempts to slay the foetus right in the womb. In other words, to prevent its birth entirely. The strategy of the Void has had this objective. It has persisted in denying reality to that gestation process. As yet there is no question of a denial of the actual Child. The great Underminers were simply contending with a gestation, with an evolutionary process using Time as the creator and solidifier. It is for this reason that emphasis was laid on the ‘Permanent’ in contrast to the nefarious deception of the ‘Impermanent’. To put it more accurately, emphasis was laid on the Static rather than the Dynamic, on rest not motion – for movement is the definition of the Supreme Shakti and the very essence of the organic gestation of a creation in matter. In other words, Time, the creator, preserver and destroyer of the worlds, became viewed as the prime enemy of the seeker, and indeed of that very world it had so laboured to create.
To render the position even clearer, this emphasis could be sustained and accepted simply because in a certain sense the creation was indeed ‘illusory’ and ‘unreal’. But only because it was as yet unborn.
When the time comes and the birth is successfully achieved, as it has been in our 9th Manifestation, through a span of 91 years from 1872 to 1963, then of course the ‘ruse’ is unmasked. Theories of Void and Illusion cannot prevail. They must collapse into that very nothingness of their OWN unreal existence. They are a part of the veils that are shed at birth. Those are the concepts which are ‘unreal’ and not the creation they clothe. Hindu civilisation, given its ability to maintain the continuity of the gestation uninterruptedly, is the only vehicle which has the intrinsic prerequisites to serve the Earth in this noble enterprise. Though other civilisations did indeed possess something of the Knowledge central to the process, they did not have the sacred Capricorn hieroglyph which is the coveted Seal of the Supreme to identify the landmass where this high drama would be played out.
Because the zodiac is the description of the Mother, its prominence in Incan civilisation indicates that there was an understanding of her triadic energy essence and play. And this is the area where the lacunae in Vescelius’ deductions are noted. In his view the remarkable arrangement of shrines which serve to form the diagram here reproduced, provide proof that this ‘construction’ which encompassed the entire city of Cuzco, was virtually a calendar. He explains that little is known of the knowledge possessed by the Incans inasmuch as they had ‘no well developed system of writing’. Nor is much known about their calendar, he states. Whatever history records of this civilisation comes from the pen of Spaniards, particularly members of the Catholic clergy, similar to Mayan/Aztec America. It needs to be emphasised therefore that very little of the true substance of the Incan knowledge of cosmic harmonies can be gleaned from such Chronicles insofar as the men recording what they saw in the last death throes of the civilisation were anti-cosmos by virtue of their own belief system and conditioning. They did, however, record faithfully what they did not realise was connected to those cosmic harmonies. Therefore, on the basis of their texts and the extant monuments, in this case innumerable strategically placed shrines fanning out from the central Temple of the Sun, Vescelius was able to deduce that the structure of the city itself was a ‘calendar’. I have reproduced along with his diagrams a portion of the article reporting Vescelius’ discoveries and diagrams. It must be borne in mind that the treatment involves a location in the southern hemisphere and hence a reversal of the seasons.
‘Not only were the shrines and the calendar divided into four quarters but so was the entire world envisioned by the Incas,’ the article quotes of Mr. Vescelius’ theories. ‘He sees this in [the] division of the nitches of the Central Temple of the Sun into four groups of nine each, the total of 36 equalling the number of months.’
From this it is easily appreciated that what Vescelius believes was a calendar is in fact the very same cosmic harmony which inspired Vedic Rishis in their vision of the cosmic Purush, the Atman or universal soul from where the caste system emerged. Vescelius is therefore entirely correct in this supposition that the Inca ‘calendar’ was related to the ‘Inca’s concept of space and to their modes of social, political and ceremonial organisation’ in a ‘complex and…fascinating way.’
This may well have been the role of what are reported to have been the ‘clans’ organisation – related to the Chaturvarna via the fourfold division of the time/space structure. But he just misses the point when he connects the three names of the clans – Qallow (waxing), Qollona (resplendent), and Payan (waning) – to the phases of the Moon. Actually, they are simply Rajas, Sattwa, and Tamas, or Creation, Preservation and Dissolution, as the translation he gives of the Incan names amply verifies. The correspondence is superbly exact.
In his assessment of this Incan ‘calendar’, Vescelius sees this threefold division as an indication of a three-week month. It may well be. But the main feature is the three gunas contained in those zodiacal sign/months. Indeed, traditional astrology also divides each sign into three parts, known as the Decanates – and they can also be related to the gunas – to tally perfectly with Vescelius’ deductions regarding this particular aspect of the arrangement.
This is, however, one feature of the discoveries, and in my view the real content is missed. To illustrate, I am reproducing here another diagram on the same theme of the 12 Manifestations, taken also from The Gnostic Circle – the Map’s static version in contrast to its dynamic form on page 12. This particular version explains what Vescelius missed regarding the division of 3 and the overall 36, or 3 x 12. He considers this to refer to a 36-week year. Possibly, but it is unlikely that the Incas took such pains to plan an entire city on this design if it referred only to the year. My Map of the 12 Manifestations, consisting as it does of 36 signs (Ages) similar to the Incan design, reveals that the pattern dealt with a vaster cyclic arrangement. It is entirely possible that the same knowledge which has now resurfaced of the most ancient Vedic Way, pre-Incan, was the property of that now extinct southern-hemispheric Empire of the Sun.
The Incas may or may not have divided their months and cosmic ages on the basis of this triad to coincide with the zodiacal system, but more important to note is that in every detail Incan civilisation was organised according to this cosmic design. And similar to the Hindu model, the decline came in the Age of Pisces. But while India definitely managed to preserve the Knowledge and its civilisation, albeit somewhat battered, the Incan succumbed to the Conquistadores and the link was completely severed. We have today nothing but a handful of stone relics and dilapidated structures to bear evidence to the superior civilisation that gave the Earth a ‘Temple of the Sun’ and a city and society structured entirely on the basis of the purest vision of the cosmic harmony.
Further on I propose to discuss the new ‘Temple of the Sun’ for a contemporary Indian society and the manner in which it too stands as the central hub in a ‘city’ which was to be constructed along identical lines as the Incan Cuzco – a faithful reproduction of the cosmic script. In anticipation, I reproduce below a symbol, the Mother’s, which was to be the plan of the city, similar to the Incan. Note that the Mother’s symbol also contains all the elements of the zodiac: 3 concentric circles (the 3 spirals of my Map, and the gunas), an inner petal division of 4, and a further division of 12. Being the symbol of the Mother and the zodiac being the divine Mother’s ‘horoscope’, as it were, or the Map of Evolution as I sometimes call it, it is not at all surprising to observe that the Mother selected this particular design as her symbol; and further, that she desired it to form the basic plan of a model city. To complete the vision and parallel with the Incas, she also gave the plan for that contemporary ‘Temple of the Sun’ which would occupy the central portion of the symbol, from where, like the Incan, the rest of the city would branch out.
Myth and ‘Reality’: Strategies of Preservation
The Puranic mythic period marked the time when Vedic Knowledge was forced underground. It is widely acknowledged that myths are repositories of a civilisation’s cultural and psychic wealth. This is of course true of India, but in the case of the Puranic period there is much more involved.
When the divine Measure was lost and certain spiritual attainments undermined the soul, bedrock of the Vedic experience, there was no way to carry the Vedic thread through the dark age which had enveloped the subcontinent except by camouflaging it to the point where this veiling, by the tactic of simple story-telling and legend, served to keep the truth very much alive – but deep beneath the surface of the collective consciousness.
Indeed, myths strike a chord which is inaudible to the mind or is imperceptible even in certain higher states of awareness. The appeal is through the vital/emotional centres, in the Veda known as the ‘lower hemisphere’. This refers to the lower levels of consciousness which modern western psychology refers to as the unconscious or subconscious strata, or else the chthonic. Through this subterfuge the Puranic myths were able to IMPRINT the Veda on these deep-rooted, heavily concealed layers of individual and collective consciousness. Nonetheless, the Knowledge was of the highest order, equal in almost every degree to the original Vedic. The only problem was that in being obliged to use this method in order to assure survival of the Dharma through the foreseen age of a relentless attack on its foundations, one had to contend with the existence of those layers of darkness, or the unconscious strata that was accumulated and the effects that these would have in the subsequent unveiling process.
To provide an example, I have shown how the work of Durga and her warrior Son was a prophecy of our times preserved in the myth and accompanying iconography (see the article that follows, ‘The New Way Triumphant’), when these godheads would incarnate and liberate the Dharma from the forces of its suppression (the dark layers). But more especially, I have shown how very accurately certain keys of the highest Knowledge are contained in the iconography of the Goddess and God, how the structure of the Gnostic Circle is ‘contained’ in the myth and idol. These facts of the Knowledge are scrupulously protected by the Shastras (scriptures) which lay down detailed specifications for the fashioning of the idols and icons. This strategy occupied the spiritual mind of Hindu civilisation throughout the entire Age of Pisces. Lamentably, these facets of the Vedic sciences employed in the labour were erroneously bracketed with religious dogma and ritual by agents of alien cultures who had nothing but the religious framework of their own societies to apply to what they encountered. The categorisation of Vedic culture as religious arose in that period and persists until today. It was one of the most astute tactics to convert this high Truth into an almost unrecognisable travesty of itself.
Thus today not many are able to extract the real meaning from these Vedic prescriptions, the Knowledge having been so thoroughly veiled. But this is precisely the purpose of Myth. It protects the Knowledge, preserves it almost like a time capsule would when buried deep in the ground to safeguard history for future generations in the event of a cataclysm. The magic of the Puranic myth, however, lies in the fact that the Knowledge can at any time be brought up from those deep chthonic levels by the simple method of the soul realisation. Indeed, only the soul can allow access of the conscious mind to the content of the Puranic myth. It is something on the order of the Tamil rite described earlier where the seeker moves into the deep, dark sanctum sanctorum – the ‘cave’ where Guhavasi (‘the One in the cave’) dwells – the cave being the symbol of that soul chamber, ‘hidden and mute’.
When this transpires – and I myself can attest to its efficacy, having attained the Knowledge precisely through the soul realisation – whatever has been ‘stored’ in this subterranean memory bank is drawn up and can bring alive the dormant energies of an individual or a people.
There are other methods of preserving the Dharma through periods of decline and attack. For example, the realisation of yogis of different hues; that is, through the Guru/disciple tradition when the technique to attain a certain realisation is passed on to the disciple by the Guru, and so on throughout generations. These may or may not make use of the soul/myth combine. When they do not, as has been generally the case in India for the past millennium, then a fundamental element is left out: the Mother, the Earth, the energy that a creation in matter holds in its folds and can be released only via this method, similar to the release of energy in fission or fusion. This means that noble as they are and in their own way serving a high purpose, these attainments of yogis and sages cannot bring their realisations to bear on the layman or the masses, cannot foster an awakening of those sleeping collective energies. When it is a question of just the individual, there is no difficulty. But when we are dealing with a civilisation and its survival over long stretches of time, then the matter is serious and demands a ruthless precision in the yoga so that these distinctions may be understood.
For this reason I have written in this essay and elsewhere that the yogic realisation positing the ultimate attainment outside the body and material creation had the effect of draining the civilisation of its most valuable energies, leaving a withering collective consciousness behind. Now that the critical threshold has been reached, the time has come for this ruthless dissecting in order to avoid the total collapse of Vedic culture, which would mean the extinction of the Knowledge as a living influence insofar as it is only in India that the strategy of preservation had been successfully achieved.
Myth not Religion: a Primordial Schism
Thus we note that a yogic attainment as described above did virtually nothing to halt invading hordes inimical to the Dharma. We also note that the Puranic myth – and Epic, but more on that anon – evolved to preserve the Knowledge and serve as the method for release of power, or the arousal of dormant energies on a mass and an individual level.
Since myth engages the vital/emotional part of the being, it is clear that power is involved, a quality of the vital, – indeed, the Shakti, for in no civilisation where the Goddess is not worshipped do we find a living fount of myth. I have referred to the rise of the Middle-Eastern religious experience as an example of the displacement of the Mother worship, particularly reflected in its condemnation of idol worship. We may observe therefore that when the idol was ousted, so was the myth. Not merely the myth connected to that particular idol but the capacity to conceptualise in this fashion, as a respected ingredient in the intellectual life of a nation.
India presents a fascinating example of the capacity to at least preserve the Knowledge in this way, through myth. Studying the development through her long history, we observe that the two elements lacking in other civilisations remained part and parcel of the national obsession: the Mother or the Feminine Principle, and Myth. These expressions are as alive today as they ever were. This indicates that at any moment the POWER stored by this strategic method can be released. All that is required is the key to that door behind which this formidable reservoir of energy stands.
On occasion this source has been tapped, but imperfectly. That is, with much mixture, unconsciousness and interference. But recently India was indeed offered a display of how the masses respond to the appeal of the mythic – or in this case the Epic. This was during the ‘Rathyatra’ (‘chariot journey’) to Ayodhya in late 1990. The tremendous arousal of the masses during the exercise was met with a series of responses from various quarters, mostly disdain. The more coolly intellectual strata of Indian society – the intelligentsia, politicians, academicians, scientists – abhorred what they saw. It was clear that this tactic was considered ‘hitting below the belt’, as indeed it was if we know that the ‘centres’ in the body where myth operates are precisely ‘below the belt’. The cry was predictably ‘mixing politics with religion’. But since Ayodhya is not going to dissolve into nothingness, perhaps it is time to dissect this accusation because the health of India as a united nation relies now on this meticulous act of defining. If not done properly we risk missing the forest for the trees and losing the great opportunity the Mother has provided to redeem what presently appears to be unredeemable.
The mythic concept has nothing to do with religion. The ‘centres’ activated are entirely different, as any proficient yogi can attest. Likewise, the inspirational source of myth and religion are different. Worship of the Mother, properly speaking, does not produce a religion. Indeed, it would be hard to come by a formal religion centred on the Shakti anywhere in the world today. We can even go further and state that a definition of religion may well be a conceptualisation or an experience in which the Feminine does not enter or play any decisive role. This would be the proper definition. Contrarily, where the Feminine does exist, and centrally, religion cannot take hold.
Let us carry this scrutiny further, deeper. We understand then that myth and epic are, properly speaking, products of a world in which the Feminine is alive and well. The civilisation which nurtures the Shakti worship can therefore never become closeted in the proper parameters set for religion. Even more, India is the only country in the world where the Goddess is a living deity and influence. Therefore, Hinduism is the only ‘religion’ in the world which, to be accurate, is not a religion. It is time for the intelligentsia throughout the world to understand these few basic points.
But the intellectual in India and elsewhere, with rare exceptions, is severely handicapped in such an exercise, precisely because in the intellectual the centres which might be aroused by myth and epic are atrophied. Scholars, academicians, scientists, rely solely on mind and the mental faculties in their assessments and formulations. Thus, with this top-heaviness, how can they be called upon to structure a society which functions on the basis of entirely different principles and influences? The problem seeks to be presented as a case of retrogression where communal eruptions are the result of lapses into inferior modes of behaviour. But what is neither perceived nor accepted is that this is not a problem of Hindu civilisation – neither a thousand years ago nor today. It is the problem that arose when religions were imported into the country.
Thus we have an indigenous mythic/epic culture pitted against a religious. Patently, the twain have never met and can never meet. In addition, I have pointed out that religion and politics stem from a single source or plane of consciousness. That is, they require a specific set of circumstances and conditioning for their common and contiguous appearance in society. Thus, in this confrontation it is to be noted that – contrary to appearances – the intelligentsia did indeed side with religion, and India’s contemporary problems are largely due to an inability of those who are in the forefront of national life to really understand what it is they are dealing with. It can be appreciated that in this deeper scrutiny ‘secular’ is synonymous with ‘religious’, and indeed both concepts as they have evolved and reached us today, are products of western religio-secular conditioning. For the point has been reached where these intellectuals look upon those indigenous backward masses as hopelessly caught in a net of superstition and obscurantism. Yet what is extremely interesting to note is that this assessment and its consequences in the governing of Indian society are valid labels only for the Hindu segment of society. We are thus faced with an intelligentsia – anywhere in the world – organically incapacitated to offer inspiration to a people rooted in mythic and epic culture, having certain organs of perception for the purpose entirely atrophied.
The mythic ‘aberration’ is prominent everywhere in India. It surfaces in the ‘embarrassing’ delirium telecasting of the Epics provoked throughout the nation, in all strata of society, high and low. At viewing time the nation came to a standstill. It is even reported that a power station was attacked in Karnataka because of a breakdown or a power-cut at the very time when the Ramayana was to be telecast. These demonstrations of a people attuned to the mythic/epic, after the decline and conquests are considered to be remnants of an immature pagan culture, still not completely ‘educated’ and reconditioned by the saving grace of western rationalism and logic and the secular mindset. We have then an intelligentsia writing history, formulating policies, passing laws to govern these masses which is pathetically out of touch with the true ethnic and even cellular composition of the race they are meant to govern. In other words, the history of the subcontinent is a long saga of a millennium of violence done to its people, not only by foreign invaders but now by its own westernised élite. The question has to be asked, For how much longer can India be managed without accepting the TRUE character of her people?
Recently a documentary was telecast, ‘Eyes of Stone’, of a young woman director. It described the rites village women undergo when in the grips of possession and the Mother Goddess intervenes to drive the spirits away. In the film an old woman explained to the film interviewer that it is not that they do not go to doctors when they fall ill and take the pills they are given. They do. But they take the pill saying, ‘I know, Mother, it is you in this pill too, it is you who are curing me.’
The intellectual élite may well consider this a further manifestation of hopeless backwardness and superstition. Actually, it reveals one of the highest spiritual attainments, which in itself places India above any other nation in questions of the Spirit. It demonstrates that even the lowest strata of her society experiences the unity of creation, a material universe permeated through and through with the consciousness-being of the Divine Mother. This enlightenment, on a mass level, is absent anywhere elsewhere in the world. It demonstrates a civilisation totally unafflicted by a divisive perception of Reality. And this is India’s one great and abiding heritage.
Ayodhya and everything that surrounds it has boldly exposed this condition before the nation and the world. There is no other country anywhere on the globe that can be central to an exposure of such a chronic schism, simply because the Mother and Myth and Epic are absent as living influences elsewhere. Religion divides. About this there can be no argument. Never has a religion truly united people. All religions create an artificial sense of community which, because of the limitations of the plane from where their inspiration arises, straightaway sets about using that ‘unity’ to pit one community against another, or one sect against another even within the same belief system – with never any resolution in sight. Grievances are nurtured for centuries. But this chronic, in-built inability to unify has now been exposed insofar as the Time-spirit is in the process of carrying the evolution to the point of a One-World perception, a boundary-less planetary society which goes against the grain of every religion. For how can religions unify when each one is exclusive and held to be the best, the only saving grace? This cultivates an unavoidable sense of superiority which in turn breeds discord and division. It is the substance of all religions – that is, the real and not the illusory effects they have produced in the world during the brief span of history which they have dominated.
The problem is simply that the people who have drawn the lines of modern, independent India have not taken into account the real character of the society and civilisation. Thus there is no provision for a people MYTHIC and EPIC in their hearts and souls. Religions and religious sentiments are ‘protected’, but not the mythic/spiritual. Is it any wonder then that there are calls for a ‘Hindu Rastra’ (Hindu Nation)? These are simply the expressions of a people who feel (in the epic/mythic sense) rather than rely exclusively on the mental faculties. They realise that in modern India – indeed in the entire world – there is no accommodation for what is commonly called the soul of India. Laws, policies and the like are formulated to govern a race non-existent on the subcontinent. It may exist in the Middle East, in Europe and beyond. But it does not exist in India. Is it any wonder then that this situation has resulted in a breakdown of the integrity of the nation, which has exposed the imperative need to ask questions which until now have never been asked?
Ayodhya and the Strategy of the Epic
Again it must be emphasised that Hinduism does not suffer the limitations of religions, or any sense of superiority which arises out of a notion of exclusivism and by consequence a reliance on dogma and clergy. The much applauded ‘tolerance’ of Hinduism lies in this simple truth: it is not a religion and therefore it can afford to be tolerant. However, the real truth goes much deeper. Hinduism after the Puranic necessity relies heavily on myth for its survival. By this means the Dharma has been preserved from the Dark Ages to the present. And myth touches UNIVERSAL FOUNTS – what the psychologist C. G. Jung called the collective unconscious. It is, properly speaking, the collective soul. In the terms of our essay it is the macrocosmic Purush dazzlingly spread out in innumerable ‘sparks’ in the individual manifestation. Thus it is a known fact that myth cuts across national borders and ethnic divides. The fount from where they have sprung – here, there and everywhere – is that one Cosmic Purush, the universal soul and the binding energy of the human incarnation. The ability to tap that fount can result in a myth identical in its knowledge content to others throughout the world, regardless of the culture or civilisation in which they have arisen. A scrutiny of the Earth’s storehouse of myth reveals this simple truth.
The point then is that the soul-inspired mythic/epic culture UNIFIES. Religions, having each one of them closed the doors to that universal fount, to that Cosmic Truth, DIVIDE. And having established this point and by consequence revealed the unreligious MYTHIC/EPIC dimension of Ayodhya, it is more than clear that a case cannot be made linking the movement to religion. The parameters are exclusively cultural and civilisational. However, herein lies the problem.
In the desire to be secular in order to assure that the divisive forces of religion would not interfere with the foundation of the new independent nation, and without a proper understanding of the distinctions made above, the result has been on the order of ‘cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face’. The strategy of divide-and-rule has revealed itself to be masterful: that tremendous fount of collective power has been effectively locked behind iron doors. The way to attain this was to label the mythic culture ‘pagan’ and idolatrous – in a word, a substandard culture compared to its European counterparts. There is no way in which socio-political agencies – which are the only channels allowed to organise movements and the masses – can legitimately, constitutionally engage those sleeping energies which unify and do not divide, and which lie deeply embedded beneath the surface of every Indian. During the British Raj it was a most clever strategy to secure a minority alien rule over an indigenous majority. To be more specific, we must admit that the majority was cajoled into subjugating itself; and after independence it continued to do so wilfully. Indeed, by establishing this secular divide the result has been that divisive energies are the only ones permitted to govern the nation. The energies of those deepest psychic levels – energies which unify – are suppressed. And what is worse, that power accumulates and a deadly combustion occurs when certain thresholds are reached – very similar to volcanic eruptions. The numerous serious volcanic eruptions this year would seem to mirror this condition, when these collective energies are not allowed a regulated, controlled release. Then there are eruptions here and there in the form of insurgencies of various hues. Terrorism is a manifestation most accurate in exposing the results of a suppression of unifying energies resulting in evermore destructive eruptions in the collective body. To counteract we engage more energies of the same level. We never go deeper.
Ayodhya sought to do so. The spontaneous response the movement received created considerable consternation. It seemed that the sacred secular divide had been violated beyond repair and a concerted attempt is being made to heal the aberration, the lapse into fundamentalism, communalism, superstition. But hardly any attempt is made to truly see, to understand and to build a society utilising those unifying forces rather than condemning them.
But those energies stored in myth and epic have been, to some extent, released. It is unlikely that they can ever again be locked away. Yet it is well to understand what is really transpiring so that the phenomenon of Ayodhya may serve all parties, all people in the harmonisation and integration of India.
There is a difference between myth and epic, it ought to be mentioned. Myth preserves the Knowledge via the soul fount, and these energies when released are translated into that framework with its ability to transform the being. The epic, on the other hand, is not concerned with Knowledge as such, but with the storage of power – a power that when released functions on the civilisational level to transform society. We often refer to the two interchangeably, but in effect there are shades of differences, or different functions. More often than not – as in the Ram/Krishna epics, myth and epic combine; and this is the despair of historians. The epic records history, what we might call the politics of culture and the more surface details in the life of a civilisation. Ram and Krishna have their appearances on Earth recorded in this way. Myth, on the other hand, is equally faithful in recording real aspects of a civilisation’s life, but it deals with what is now considered unscientific, unhistoric, ‘unreliable’. A mere ‘myth’. Properly speaking, the myth is more accurate than history in revealing a civilisation’s contribution to humanity and evolution precisely because it does record the action of those hidden forces which are the true determinants of history.
Hindu civilisation has indeed managed to preserve its Vedic heritage throughout its long historic period of decline, uninterruptedly, through the subterfuge of myth. But it is curious if not confounding to note that while successful in this achievement during almost a millennium of foreign rule and unimaginable attacks on the very foundations of the Vedic Dharma, the real danger to its survival has come in this century, when the nation has been largely under self-rule.
India, condemned to the ‘centre’
The purpose of this discussion on myth is to demonstrate that while throughout the world tremendous forces of change have been released, the sources tapped for these dozens of movements are limited to a peripheral dimension, not central, not of the soul fount. The West, being precisely that periphery in the new cosmology, does not have direct access to that deeper reservoir. It is only when a civilisation is poised in the centre, like India, that the soul fount of energies that unify can be reached. Indeed, this is India’s mission and contribution to the world harmony. For it is only the centred poise that permits ‘the birth that fills the void’. And it is only an uninterrupted gestation that guarantees a living and not a stillborn ‘child’.
Thus we observe that forces of change are released in the world, but though there is a marked sense of liberation, truly a liberating of long pent-up energies, there is no evidence of the release of more deeply buried energies of the soul which can unify, integrate, harmonise what has been unleashed in the periphery. In other words, a ‘centre that holds’.
The problem is one of ‘alignment’. When a collective consciousness is aligned in the periphery – a metaphorical example would be the Earth rotating on its axis but in orbit of the Sun – one manifestation is a material/religious/moral framework. It is literally trapped or locked in that alignment. It cannot go deeper. It cannot ‘be the Sun’. The reason is that this is the cosmic dispensation, the faithful expression of the Cosmic Truth. There is ONE Sun, ONE centre in our system. All else orbits that luminary. And the ‘new world order’ is planned according to that cosmic harmony, though it may not be so evident as yet.
India’s dilemma is that a peripheral alignment, though sought to be adopted at all levels through western concepts and models of governing, has not been allowed. India is condemned to the alignment of the centre and not the periphery. She either accepts that and follows that line, or she disintegrates. She has no choice in the matter at all. But at the same time, only India has direct access to the central soul fount. This channel has been kept alive via the preservation and the living influence of myth and epic. The time has come for that ‘door’ to be opened, consciously, and in an accepting spirit of goodwill.
India can never function as an agent aligned in the periphery in this new and emerging cosmos. As the ‘centre’ only India has access to energies which go deeper than the socio-political/religious which govern the rest of the world and which, if left to themselves will only form another alignment from the remnants of the present upheaval. Since this is not to be, it is clear that India will have to shape up and fulfil her destiny – quickly – and release those pent-up, unifying, universal forces. The channel on a mass level is myth – not religion. Let us be clear about the distinction. Ayodhya must be seen in this light.
A contemporary example of the problem is Mexico, the nation that stands back-to-back with India on the pole that cuts through the northern hemisphere. Indeed, Mayan/Aztec Mexico presented a very similar cultural configuration to the invading Conquistadores as the Hindu did to its invaders. The dilemma the Knowledge faced there was similar to India’s. Even more exact is the fact that, like the Vedic culture, the Mayan had experienced an inner decline BEFORE arrival of the Spaniards. This is brought forth competently in Carlos Castaneda’s books on the teachings of his Toltec master, don Juan. Don Juan explained to Carlos the difference between the ‘old seers’ and the ‘new’ (see Castaneda’s The Fire From Within). The latter evolved when corrective measures were demanded in the practice of the teachings, a situation which was later compounded by the Conquest and then the imposition of Christianity. The Mayan/Toltec way was forced underground. But it did not do so by preserving its light and power in myth, which might then have been carried over into modern Mexico as a living force. Indeed, the entire indigenous population was converted. It simply devised a method reserved for an élite hidden body which could be engaged in individually or in small groups such as don Juan’s, while the masses were converted and thereby made to lose touch with that soul dimension when religion displaced the former way of Knowledge.
Thus the mythic culture for the masses was abolished, often brutally. In its place stood, and stands, religion. Consequently, Mexico, though having housed one of the most formidable civilisations the world has known in terms of solid content of Knowledge, cannot today lay claim to the Centre and is condemned to the periphery, insofar as the door is closed collectively to that sacred, ever-renewing fount.
On the other end of the northern axis India did discover the way to preserve access to that ‘space’ for its entire civilisation; and in so doing, India has been the only nation in the world to be in a position to state that never in its long and ancient history has the thread been broken and contact been lost with that Source. Survival of a civilisation depends on multi-dimensional conservation. A band of yogis, however enlightened they may be, cannot preserve an entire nation and culture by their individual realisations. There must be a method to bring forces to bear on all dimensions of the collective body. The Puranic period in India, right through to present times, introduced the divine strategy for that attainment, because of which the Veda does live on and as such India fulfils her destiny of CENTRE in the 9th Manifestation.
This is why it is so important for conquerors to attack all symbols and avenues of ‘pagan’ worship with the cry of idolatry. Full subjugation cannot be secured otherwise. And since this attempt was not entirely successful in the subcontinent, due to the Puranic strategy and the role of the South to ‘preserve’, subjugation was carried on through imposition of the western secular model on which the entire structure of modern India is fashioned, thus severely dividing the society from its true cultural, civilisational and racial/ethnic roots. The real soul-power has not really been in evidence in contemporary India before Ayodhya. It was somewhat utilised in the freedom movement through the Mother worship, but the energies thus released went to ousting the British rather than to the reestablishment of the Vedic Dharma. In any case, the movement was quickly suppressed and the then leaders drew the nation entirely into the religio-political sphere via the secular model they espoused. It is understandable considering that India had to function in a world where the mythic/epic had long disappeared as a moulding force of society.
A final word must be said on the difference between Myth and Epic, in the Ayodhya context especially and with regard to centres and types of energy to which each has access. While the myth opens the doors to Knowledge via the vital/emotional centres, the epic is concerned with heroic energies, less finely-tuned, we may say, but of considerably more effectuating power. The myth can be said to be an expression of the Feminine, while the epic is the Masculine.
We are employing the Goddess Durga and her warrior Son as means to convey the greatness of the Puranic epoch and its capacity to preserve the highest Knowledge via myth. At the same time, the Goddess and God are representatives of myth and epic respectively. The Goddess being the Third Principle, is the soul-power; the God as the Son Principle is the One. As the Warrior he is the height of the Kshatriya expression. Indeed, in the Tamil tradition where his worship is a living force, Kartikeya/Murugan is adored in a number of forms – the ascetic bachelor, the divine Lover, and, more importantly for this discussion, as the prince/king and the leader of the Divine Army. It is in the latter form that his epic connection is accommodated. I have referred to the God’s birth in the circle’s Kshatriya section in the zodiacal year. I have also mentioned the axes formed by the Goddess’s trident and the God’s spear. We may locate these axes in the circle of caste and cosmos and we note that the God’s spear-axis passes through the Kshatriya segment to the opposite Shudra. These are the sections of society and the individual whose energies are aroused by the epic.
The trident of the Goddess passes through the Brahmin/Vaishya sections of the circle and similarly they describe the sections of the individual and society which are moved by myth. Or, to be more accurate, these allocations describe affinities not imperatives. Nonetheless, they operate with a very high degree of precision. Insofar as the Brahmin is the traditional caste of Knowledge, and I have connected myth precisely to Knowledge, the allocation is clear. Similarly, the axis passes through the Vaishya, and that is the vital-emotional section of the circle, the domain proper of the Soul in the Gnostic Circle, or the Third Power. Thus the relations drawn are highly accurate.
If we turn to the Mother’s symbol, we observe that the four inner petals do not mark off the Cardinal Points but rather the same diagonal areas described above, or the Fixed Signs of Preservation – Vishnu’s periods or the four ‘months’ of the legendary Sphinx; Bull (May), Lion (August), Eagle/Scorpion (November), and Man/Woman (February). (See Map’s arrow-axes page 12.)
The point I wish to make is that if taken simply as ‘symbols’ these figures, axes, idols and so forth, have little relation to our actual world, our society, our evolution. It is only when we can accurately relate them to the year or the zodiac that the ‘symbol’ comes alive and is a non-speculative force and the key opening the doors to power and knowledge. Thus we understand why the Vedic Rishi made this very point when he sang of the ‘doors’ which the months and the year open (or keep closed) and which connect planes and worlds and behind which stands the Knowledge, that the months and the year offer the sacred way to that higher content.
I can equally well relate these axes to the months of the year and we see that in the Ayodhya affair, marking as it does the epic-Kshatriya/Shudra axis, it has invariably transpired that important points in the development, especially relating to the movement of masses, have occurred of late in the Kshatriya segment of the year, particularly the Scorpio segment, October/November.
The importance of Ayodhya as an example is to demonstrate how epic and myth are living influences in India today. But we may also observe the same phenomenon in the people’s response to the late prime minister, Indira Gandhi, when they unabashedly saw her as the Mother Goddess. Or, more recently, in Tamil Nadu where the chief minister, Jayalalitha, is similarly revered as a ‘living deity’ whose gaze her own partymen avoid because of its divine fulminating power.
These attitudes are by and large ridiculed. But it ought to be pointed out that they are not signs of primitivism, superstition or a society hopelessly blocked in a mother/child complex. They are simply indications or glimpses of heightened sensitivities, poises of consciousness rooted in deeper layers which are inaccessible to others in other cultures, except when the same soul fount is reached. The sensitivity and refinement that is sometimes evident in Hindu culture today, in spite of the decline, are due to an opening of the society to the mythic and epic, and, above all, to the cosmic as revealed in Indian classical music, especially that of South India. Thus, reactions to women leaders as above are manifestations which ought to be if not encouraged at least understood for what they truly are: hints of the presence, just beneath the surface of awareness, of very finely-tuned energies.
What is confusing and causes the observer of the Indian contemporary scene to be constantly confronted with the Paradox is the fact that while there is this reservoir of very sophisticated and refined energies embedded beneath the conscious surface of the collectivity, we must contend with those layers, those protective strata which in the divine Strategy served to clothe the myth and epic with this camouflaging device. These are the veils which must now be shed and release must be achieved, for it is there that the darkness has taken hold.
The layers are formed by the aid of Time. And we are dealing with an unbroken movement of thousands of years. The periods during which the last three Evolutionary Avatars made their appearances is approximately 12,000 years. That is, separating Sri Ram from Sri Aurobindo are almost 120 centuries. This is not a time-frame accepted by historians. But it ought to be clear by now that historical and archaeological research is highly unreliable, especially in the Indian context. Time and again their definitive statements have to be revised due to new findings. But the Knowledge, when it is true, does provide a precise framework; the Map of the 12 Manifestations, for one. Therein we locate the time of appearance of the last three Avatars and in the case of Sri Krishna and Sri Ram we are dealing with very early history and prehistory. And if the Knowledge has been revealed to be so very accurate regarding Sri Krishna and Sri Aurobindo, both appearances conforming to the dictates of the Map, why must we assume Ram’s appearance to be off and not to tally with that time-frame? As it stands, scholars even place the Rig Veda after the coming of Sri Krishna! This is a measure of their incompetence. It must also be pointed out that the period when the epics were recorded does not mean that that was the time of the appearances, except in the case of Sri Aurobindo and his epic Savitri which he himself wrote. The recording of the epic corresponded to the strategy of preservation; the purpose was not to offer specific dates. In this light, considering that Ram’s Ayodhya birth was some 12,000 years ago, scholars will have to dig deep indeed on the site to locate what might satisfy them that truly that is Ram’s janmasthan! In the meantime, while ‘the wisemen talk and sleep’, to quote Sri Aurobindo, those centuries-old dormant energies of a great mythic/epic civilisation are aroused by the magical formula of this divine Strategy.
In the next part of this essay, I propose to draw these vast threads of caste in time into the individual incarnation and to demonstrate how each human being can find his/her place in this superior cosmic design. At the same time, due to the lost Measure, caste is now meaningless. Be this as it may, it is important to understand the true foundations and functioning of caste, because, as stated, this discussion helps us to focus on that one great entanglement which, until now, has been so thoroughly occulted that none have been able to identify the precise nature of its hold over this epic/mythic culture and civilisation.
1 Age (1 sign/astrological age) = 2160 years 1 Manifestations (3 signs/astrological ages) = 6480 years 1 Round (12 signs/astrological ages) = 25,920 years 1 Great Circle (12 Manifestations) = 77,760 years 1 Greater Circle (4 Great Circles, or 144 signs) = 311,040 years
1. Of Vishnu now I declare the mighty works, who has measured out the earthly worlds and that higher seat of our self-accomplishing he supports, he the wide-moving, in the threefold steps of his universal movement. 2. That Vishnu affirms on high by his mightiness and he is like a terrible Lion that ranges in the difficult places, yea, his lair is on the mountain-tops, he in whose three wide movements all the worlds find their dwelling-place. 3. Let our strength and our thought go forward to Vishnu the all-pervading, the wide-moving Bull whose dwelling- place is on the mountain, he who being One has measured all this long and far-extending seat of our self-accomplishing by only three of his strides. 4. He whose three steps are full of the honey-wine and they perish not but have ecstasy by the self-harmony of their nature; yea, he being One holds the triple principle and earth and heaven also, even all the worlds. 5. May I attain to and enjoy that goal of his movement, the Delight, where souls that seek the godhead have the rapture; for there in that highest step of the wide-moving Vishnu is that Friend of men who is the fount of the sweetness. 6. Those are the dwellings-places of ye twain which we desire as the goal of our journey, where the many-horned herds of Light go traveling; the highest step of wide-moving Vishnu shines down on us here in its manifold vastness. (RigVeda 1.154) – Sri Aurobindo, Secret of the Veda, Vishnu the All-Pervading Godhead p. 331.
Twelve spokes, one wheel, navels three. Who can comprehend this? On it are placed together Three hundred and sixty like pegs. They shake not in the least. (Rig Veda 1.164.48)
One is the wheel; the bands are twelve; three are the hubs – who can understand it? Three hundred spokes and sixty in addition have been hammered therein and firmly riveted… Though manifested, it is yet hidden, secret, its name is the Ancient, a mighty mode of being; in Skambha is established this whole world; therein is set fast all that moves and breathes.(Atharva Veda 10.8)
The work of the Supramental Avatars has largely been to reveal the inner essence of profound spiritual truths which over time have been insecurely grasped and only superficially understood. Sri Aurobindo led the way by unveiling the ‘Secret of the Veda’ which had remained undiscovered for thousands of years. The Mother weaved those sublime truths into architectural form in the body of her Cosmic Temple. But it is the Third of the Line, Thea who has brought this knowledge into sharp relief because the very nature of the Third is Precision in Truth. The ability to see with such detail comes about because the action is observed from the most intimate dimension the human consciousness can experience, the ‘center’ or individual Soul. It was Sri Aurobindo who introduced the mystery of Supramental Time, but it was Thea who gave it language and form in her Gnostic Circle and Map of the 12 Manifestations. Following the manner in which these discoveries unfolded is one of the greatest detective stories of all time.
In Chapter 12 of the Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo gives an unparalleled interpretation of the Rig-Veda 1.154 which deals with Vishnu, the All-Pervading Godhead. It is the story of Vishnu Trivikrama which begins with a declaration of how Vishnu measured out the universe and that ‘higher seat of our self-accomplishing’ in the threefold steps of his universal movement. In Sri Aurobindo’s translation he described Vishnu’s first step as a‘terrible Lion’. His second step is as a ‘wide moving Bull’ and Vishnu’s third and highest step is as ‘that Friend of men’. To the ordinary scholar these passages may have suggested a form of zoomorphism in which certain archetypal qualities are given to a God by comparing him to an animal. But to ‘One who Sees’, these verses were pregnant with cosmological significance. Not only was Sri Aurobindo the only translator to interpret these passages in this particular way, but he had emphasized these epithets of Vishnu by capitalizing them in the text. One can only imagine Thea’s excitement when she grasped the inner meaning of these passages. By this time she was well aware that the Rig Vedic Myth contained the same story of the evolution of human consciousness as depicted in the Zodiac, but these verses gave a specific period in Time to the concluding stages of Vishnu’s incarnations. Not only did they confirm that the God of Preservation appeared in the Fixed signs of the Zodiac, his own signs, but since the verses had given these symbols in reverse of their normal order, it revealed that the Vedic Rishis who wrote these passages thousands upon thousands of years ago were fully aware of an astronomical phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes which was believed to have only been discovered in the 2nd century BC, by the Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus. As Thea later wrote:
‘Vishnu’s famous three strides (to measure the universe) cannot be more revealing. The first `step’ is like a lion (Leo), according to the Veda; the second is a bull (Taurus); the third, and most revealing of all, is the Friend. This is the same Aquarius of Agastya’s birth, which is also known as the sign of the Friend. More conclusively, they are given in their correct backward moving order, and are Vishnu’s own zodiacal domains because of their quality of PRESERVATION (`Fixed’ in zodiacal terminology, stable, balancing).’Thea, Cosmology in Rigveda — the third premise
It is well known to astronomers and astrologers that the complete round of the Precessional cycle is 25,920 years giving a period of 2,160 years to each zodiacal age. The last three steps of Vishnu’s Measure included the signs Leo (the Lion), Taurus (the Bull) and Aquarius (the Friend) each comprising three signs or a ‘Manifestation’ of 6,480 years. Moreover, these last three periods conclude with Vishnu’s ‘highest step’ which was to occur in our present Age of Aquarius.
Rectification and the Act of Seeing
One of the Seers many gifts of consciousness is the unique ability to synthesize seemingly disparate fragments of information into a coherent body of self-evident knowledge. This process is known as ‘Rectification’ or the ability to See each thing in its proper place. A lesser version of this technique is used to solve problems that arise in Astrology. When an astrologer is asked to cast a chart and does not have the client’s exact time of birth, he will ask a series of time specific questions in order to synchronize the time of the birth chart with the client’s own lived experience. Through the use of certain ‘Keys’, the Truth of What Is cannot help but reveal itself. We can see this process of rectification employed in Thea’s reading of the Rig-Vedic verses to Vishnu Trivikrama as well as the passage from the Atharva Veda that speaks of the ‘One Wheel with three Hubs’. What to the uninitiated might seem random and insignificant has given Thea a key to the order of the ages. Her ability to See the exact relation of Time and Archetype allows us to follow the unfolding of human history against the backdrop of a precise and purposeful evolutionary plan. There is of course far more to the story. The Vedic verses are just the beginning of a much larger process of unveiling. As Sri Aurobindo used to say when he was trying to solve a particularly difficult problem, ‘I’ve got the tail of it’ and he began to pull until the knot finally unraveled. For Thea the Vishnu verses are the tail of a far bigger picture which takes us into a precise understanding of our evolution in time.
The Ordering of the Ages
The Vishnu verses give us the signs and zodiacal order of three of the God’s emanations. When these appearances are seen in relation to the 25,920 year precessional cycle they reveal that Vishnu’s Avatars take birth on Earth every 6,480 years (a Manifestation) in the Fixed signs of the Precessional cycle: Scorpio, Leo, Taurus and Aquarius. But for Thea, there was another problem; exactly when did these Ages begin? Only with this knowledge could she be absolutely precise in the field of cosmic harmonies. There had been numerous dates put forward by pundits, astronomers and esoteric schools claiming to know the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. Most of these dates were the result of scriptural interpretations or astronomical calculations that differed from each other by as much as 2,000 years. Through a series of yogic experiences and careful mathematical calculations* Thea was able to work out this complicated issue and and in a letter to the Mother on 30 March, 1973 she wrote that she had finally been shown the exact date and it came within a design that included a sacred name of three Greek letters, ΘΕΑ (Thea) and the numbers 1, 5, 9. The date of the beginning of the Aquarian age was 1926 and it corresponded to the official beginning of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s joint work in the form that we know it today.
On 24 November, 1926, after a lifetime of yoga, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother sent word to their sadhaks asking them to assemble in the upper verandah of the Library House in their Ashram in Pondicherry to hear about something of supreme importance that had happened in the history of the Earth and Universe. On what was later to become known as ‘Victory Day’ or the day of Siddhi, Sri Aurobindo announced that Krishna, the Overmental Godhead had descended into the physical, meaning Sri Aurobindo himself. As the Mother explained, ‘…Krishna consented to descend into Sri Aurobindo’s body – to be FIXED there. Then I saw him – I saw him with my own eyes (inner eyes, of course), join himself to Sri Aurobindo’. With the integration of the Overmental consciousness begun by the 8th Avatar Krishna, Sri Aurobindo could now retire to his rooms and begin the establishment of the Supramental Consciousness-Force. This event marked the true beginning of his mission, the platform from where he could carry the evolution to greater heights. Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi Day, 24/11/1926, was also the close of the Age of Pisces (234 BCE to 1926) and the beginning of the Aquarian Age. It was a victory for the whole world, because without it transpiring right on time, the Avatar could not have begun his transformative mission to bring down the Supermind.
With this date, Thea could begin an ordering of the ages that would reveal an irrefutable divine plan and purpose to our collective evolution. It would also take us deeply into an understanding of the ‘Involution’.
The Mystery of Involution
Evolution is not some meaningless product of random chance as the old science and otherworldly religions would have us believe. It is a controlled and intentional process, a movement in time toward an ultimate and supreme apotheosis. This is a foundational principle of the Rig Veda whose entire cosmogony is contained in the ‘Hymn of Creation’, an incomparable account of the birth of the universe from a ‘golden embryo’. All material creation proceeds from this original involved ’seed’ as involutionary forms move across the event horizon, extend themselves, multiply, and grow in accordance with the laws of causation and the principles of time.
As we follow this passage from the Un-manifest to the Manifest it begins with an inverse compaction on the ‘other side’ into a Golden ‘Bija’ or Seed wherein Life is involved in Matter and Mind in Life. Crossing a certain threshold, what was originally compacted begins to unpack itself in an orderly predetermined manner. Similar to the nature of any Seed or embryo, Time is the driver of this process of unpacking because it is precisely what was compacted in the first place. The order of the evolution is simply the inverse of what was originally involved; Life emerges from seemingly inert Matter and Mind emerges from Life. But perhaps the most amazing quality of this passage is that the process occurs in exquisitely timed stages of development that follows a natural gestation process. The Vishnu Purana describes the unfolding of the cosmos and the coming into existence of the earth and its living beings as taking place in nine ‘creations’ or periods of evolution. In the Bhagavata Purana we find a similar division in the story of Vishnu’s periodic descent into human form as the evolutionary Avatar. According to Sri Aurobindo, the appearance of Vishnu’s Avatars through the ages is a parable of the evolution.
‘…First the Fish Avatar, then the amphibious animal between land and water, then the land animal, then the Man-Lion Avatar, bridging man and animal, then man as dwarf, small and undeveloped and physical but containing in himself the godhead and taking possession of existence, then the rajasic, Avatars, leading the human development from the vital rajasic to the sattwic mental man.’Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga – The Purpose of Avatarhood
What is important to note is Sri Aurobindo’s description of the development from the ‘undeveloped and physical’ to the ‘vital rajasic’ and finally the ‘sattvic mental man’. Here we have a perfect description of the evolutionary unfolding from the Physical, to the Vital and finally to the still incomplete Mental human being who is balanced upon Three pillars of Being with the Spiritual yet to emerge. But in the later stages of the Nine Puranic Creations, the 7th, 8th and 9th we will see the Mental, Overmental and Supramental Manifestations. Vishnu’s final Avatars come to unveil the Fourth pillar, the Supramental/Spiritual principle which resolves the contradictions of the Mental species and brings the Kingdom of the Divine upon earth.
Vishnu’s Final Emanations
In the Line of Ten Avatars we can see the order of the evolution unfolding over thousands of years in a precise order from the Physical to the Vital to the Mental man. The Rig Vedic verses to Vishnu Trivikrama allow us to focus in on the final stages of that unfolding taking place in the ages of Leo, Taurus and our present age of Aquarius. If 1926 was the beginning of the Aquarian Age, then the Avatar of the Age of Leo (the Lion) would have appeared some 12,000 years ago around 11,034 BCE. Historical records of that period are almost non-existent but we do have the Indian Epics which recount the lives and mythic adventures of two of the most recent of Vishnu’s incarnations, Sri Rama and Sri Krishna. While there are no reliable records of Lord Rama’s birth date, we know that he preceded Lord Krishna who was born around 3,100 BCE at the mid-point of the age of Taurus. In the Indian Epic, the Ramayana, we find a detailed account of Sri Rama’s life that reveals to the eye that sees volumes about his purpose in the scheme of evolution.
Lord Rama was born in the 7th Manifestation some twelve thousand years ago in the Age of Leo. He was what is called a ‘Solar’ manifestation and details of his epic, the Ramayana, reveal him to be the IDEAL or Sattvic man. Lord Rama’s purpose was, ‘to fix for the future the possibility of an order proper to the sattvic civilised human being who governs his life by reason, the finer emotions, morality, and higher Mental ideas’. The story of the Ramayana Epic revolves around Rama’s love and devotion to his wife Sita, an unmistakable theme of the 7thzodiacal sign, Libra. The plot of the epic involves the abduction of Sita by the demon king Ravana. In his pursuit to rescue Sita, Rama assembles an army of allies who attack Ravana’s army, slay the demon king and reunite Sita with her loving husband, thus restoring balance and order to the world.
Lord Krishna, the 8th Avatar was the Overmental Superman. He was born in the 8th Manifestation around 3,100 BCE in the Age of Taurus. He was a ‘Lunar’ manifestation as the meaning of his name ‘the dark one’implies. The most important document of Sri Krishna’s teaching is the Mahabharata Epic which contains the Bhagavad Gita, revealed during the battle of Kurukshetra. The ‘Gita’ is woven around a discourse between Krishna and his student Arjuna which centers on War, Duty and Death, an essential knowledge for the ‘Kshatriya’ or Divine Warrior. As all initiates know, the subjects of War and Death are the preeminent themes of the 8th zodiacal sign Scorpio.
Just as the overarching sign of the 7th Manifestation was the 7th zodiacal sign Libra, ruled by Venus, the sign of the 8th Manifestation is Scorpio, ruled by Mars, the god of war. The passage from the 8th Manifestation to the 9th follows the same progression from the sign Scorpio to Sagittarius. Scorpio is regarded in the Veda as the stage of the un-illumined Vital, the ‘cave of darkness’ where the ‘light’ or ‘shining cows’ are penned in. It is the stage in the Vedic sacrifice where the demon Vala is said to obstruct the journey. In other words, the passage through Scorpio represents the final contraction before the great expansion in the 9th sign Sagittarius where the release of the penned in energy (cows) occurs. According to the Veda, it is the domain of the ‘nine-rayed seers’ who by the utter thought of the soul broke open the fortified pens and released the Sun’s radiant herds.
As we follow this progression of Time and Archetypes we would naturally expect the 9th Avatar of Vedic tradition to appear in the 9th Manifestation in the Age of Aquarius. He would be a Solar manifestation and the overarching theme of his life and mission would correspond to the 9th sign Sagittarius, which represents a body of higher knowledge. Since we have been told by Thea that Vishnu’s 9th Avatar would immediately return as the 10th, in keeping with the Rig Veda injunction, we must view their appearance in the context of the culmination of the Vedic journey. What makes these final incarnations so absolutely unique is that they represent the last and supreme emergence of that original involutionary principle, Time. While Rama and Krishna prepared the soil for the conquest of Time, it is not until the concluding members of the Line that we see the complete apotheosis of Time as the ultimate feature of an integral Gnosis. We must expect therefore that their teachings would represent a radical reversal of an old transcendental spirituality whose strategy involved a complete denial of Time and Matter in order to reach the opposite pole, Spirit. Moreover we would expect Vishnu’s final Avatars to open an entirely new path for humanity, one that can at long last resolve the ancient paradoxes and unite the poles of Spirit and Matter through the instrumentality of Gnostic Time.
Sri Aurobindo
Our expectations of Vishnu’s 9th Avatar are overwhelmingly realized in the person of Sri Aurobindo. He was born in the 9th Manifestation and ushered in the Aquarian Age. He was the epitome of the Solar manifestation, born under the sign Leo which is ruled by the Sun. Considered to be one of India’s greatest sages, not simply of this age but of all ages, Sri Aurobindo fulfilled his Sagittarian mission by producing hundreds of volumes of an all-embracing and profound philosophy that has been described as a contribution to human thought the equivalent of which has not been attained by any other known thinker. Any serious student of Sri Aurobindo’s life and yoga will immediately recognize that his work represents a radical departure from all previous spiritual paths. It challenges thousands of years of traditional wisdom that believes transcendence of the physical world is the highest possible attainment. In an epochal reversal of direction, Sri Aurobindo and his line have presented humanity with a New Way, an entirely new direction that foresees the possibility of A MATERIAL UNION WITH THE DIVINE, one that takes us into the core of this world of matter and the innermost mysteries of time.
The Birth of the One
If we view the periods of Vishnu’s final emanations, the Mental, Overmental and Supramental Avatars, we see that they have occurred in the 7th, 8th and 9th Manifestations. This parallels the conclusion of the 9 Puranic ‘Creations’ and, so far as we know, the Line of Avatars. Since Vishnu’s 9th Avatar quickly returns as the 10th, Kalki, we must view them as a single incarnation which closes the circle so to speak and establishes the Supramental life on Earth. After Nine Creations and Nine Avatars unfolding in a perfect progression of Gnostic time the Birth of the One has finally taken place, bridging the planes of Spirit and Matter. As the Mother explained:
‘The consciousness is like a ladder At each great epoch there has been one great being capable of adding one more step to the ladder and reaching a place where the ordinary consciousness has never been… one more step to the ladder without losing contact with the material (consciousness)… to reach the Highest and at the same time connect the top to the bottom… To go up and down and join the top to the bottom is the whole secret of realisation, and that is the work of the Avatar.’The Mother, Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 10, pp. 137-40
To reach this goal, the two ends of existence, the spiritual summit and the material base had to be purposefully linked and this had never happened in the history of the world. But the time had come for the final unpacking or ‘Birth’ of what had been involved into that golden seed at the dawn of creation.
Switching our view from the widest possible perspective of the 7th, 8th and 9th Manifestations, let us now focus in on the 9th Avatar and his evolutionary entourage.
‘The 9th Spiral and the 9th Manifestation present the earth with the appearance of not only the Father but the Mother and Child as well. The full birth is lived through, and is probably the only time that the Divine Mother becomes actually singularly embodied, because it is then that she descends and literally brings forth her Child.’Thea, The Gnostic Circle, The Twelve Manifestations, p. 41
Just as the wider view revealed an entire body of Cosmological knowledge, the final Four staged descent of Sri Aurobindo and his Solar Line takes us on a plunge into the Individual Soul. This means that we have entered into a new stage of human development the expression of which requires an entirely new language, one that needs must include what Sri Aurobindo described as, ‘the rhythms and metres of the stars and the symbol powers of number and form’.
While it was Sri Aurobindo’s task to bring about the descent of this truth- consciousness of the Supreme Divine Nature into himself, that was only the beginning of a descent and compression that would extend to subsequent members of his Line, disclosing in the process the most profound knowledge ever revealed. Of course the Mother had foreseen this possibility in connection with the establishment of the Supramental life on the earth.
‘I do not think that a single individual on the earth as it is now, a single individual, however great, however eternal his consciousness and origin, can on his own change and realise — change the world, change the creation as it is and realise this higher Truth which will be a new world, a world more true, if not absolutely true. It would seem that a certain number of individuals — until now it seems to have been more in time, as a succession, but it could also be in space, a collectivity — are indispensable so that this Truth can become concrete and realise itself… That is to say, however great, however conscious, however powerful he may be, one Avatar cannot by himself realise the supramental life on earth. It is either a group in time, extending over a period of time, or a group spread out in space — perhaps both — that are indispensable for this Realisation. I am convinced of it.’The Mother, Collected Works of the Mother, Volume 3, p. 178
The Mother was exactly right. As the final emanations of the Time Spirit, the births of Sri Aurobindo and the members of his Line illustrate the stages of descent from the Spiritual to the Cosmic, to the Individual and finally to the Immanent Physical and in so doing, they recreate the mystery of the Involution by which knowledge of the entire creation is compacted into a tiny ‘Seed’. The ancient Alchemist expressed this same process of descent in the numerical formula: “One becomes Two, Two becomes Three, and out of the Third comes the One as the Fourth.
Indeed, the very incarnation of the 9th Avatar and the births of the members of his line reveal the occult dynamics of the process by which Spirit becomes Matter. Their births in time reveal a non-speculative objective truth which is both MEASURABLE and APPLICABLE and leads to the deepest understanding of the operations of the Supermind. Sri Aurobindo considered the numerical formula of this descent to be so important to his work that he included it in his Seal which is also known as the ‘Seal of Vishnu’ or Lotus of the Avatar. In it we find an arrangement of 9 and 6 lotus petals in a descending order, resting on 3 leaves.
In terms of the Solar Line and the fields that they represent, Sri Aurobindo was the Transcendent principle[9], the Mother was the Cosmic principle [6], Thea is the Individual principle [3]. They incarnate as a mathematical trinity to unveil the occult process by which energy-consciousness becomes crystallized into material forms. To illustrate how precise and specific the actions of the Supermind can be we need only look at the dates of birth of the Supramental Line. You have to ask yourself what kind of consciousness is capable of arranging the births of a group of individuals to reflect a geometry of Time that becomes the basis of a New Gnosis? Since the manifestation of the Avatars is determined by their inherent association with the Time-Spirit, their three-staged descent upon the earth occurs within an exquisite Geometry of Time that cannot possibly be concocted. It can only be arranged by the Supermind and thus becomes the basis of their objective cosmic credentials. As revealed below, these seed numbers calculated through the ‘Mathematics of Unity’ appear in the exact order of the actual descent:Sri Aurobindo was born in 1872: 1+8+7+2 = 18 = 9 The Mother was born in 1878: 1+8+7+8 =24 = 6 Thea, (ΘΕΑ) was born in 1938: 1+9+3+8 = 21 = 3 The Fourth (Kalki) was born in 1963: 1+9+6+3 = 19 = 1
Sri Aurobindo’s withdrawal in 1950 and return in 1963 completes the descent from the Transcendent to the Immanent Divine and provides us with the final integer of the formula by which the Supermind deploys itself on earth; 9-6-3-0/1. Thea explains:
‘…Whole numbers, as number-powers, alone ‘explain’ reality…The Zero/Contraction is what holds the universe together. It is the binding force – the eternal all-pervading Centre. Without that there is no universe at all. And those number-powers encapsulate the Transcendent, the Cosmic, the Individual Soul. These are the triadic principles of all creation, of all created things. These principles through the 0/1 are at the root of our universal manifestation – and they are the components of the individual Soul, our vahana in this material creation of 9.’ Thea, ‘The Miracle of Oneness’, 2012, p.1
The Birth that ‘Fills the Void’
In order to appreciate the full significance of this birth we must locate its position in the Map of the 12 Manifestations. According to Thea, there are four births, corresponding to the four different ‘sheaths’; Physical, Vital, Mental and Spiritual. We must proceed through the Circle of 12 Manifestations four times before the full birth is accomplished; nearing the fourth, the Child is truly born and delivered into his rightful destiny. We are now in the Third body or quarter, the realm of the Higher Mental body and Sagittarius, the 9th sign, is the last sign of that group. In the Circle of 311,040 years, the 9th Manifestation and the 9th spiral of the Greater Circle are equivalent to the 9th month of gestation and this is where the Child is born.
We are told by Sri Aurobindo that Kalki comes to correct ‘the error of the Buddha’, to solve the paradox that the mind imposes which leads to theories of illusionism ‘Maya’, and strategies of escape. The nature of the ‘Void’ the mind creates is due to an irreconcilable split between Spirit and Matter, Becoming as discontinuous from Being, and because of this, the absence of any Plan or Purpose.‘This void’, says Thea, ‘is the crux of the entire human dilemma, spiritually and physically and the reason why all spiritual paths until now have failed is simply because none have been able to ‘fill that void’.
When we follow the lives and mission of the Solar Line we see that they re-enact a process of ‘contraction to a point’ in which the undifferentiated Transcendent is reduced to a seed of itself, a Zero Womb. The compressed energy within this seed becomes ordered as a triadic force, the 9,6 and 3, known as the three qualitative modes of nature or ‘Gunas’. When the Zero womb or compaction of the 9-6-3 crosses a certain threshold, Contraction is balanced with Expansion, the Vertical is harmonized with the Horizontal, and Being and Becoming are continuous without any ‘gaps’ whatever. As Thea writes, ‘Time propels the contents of the Zero-Womb-Seed to the extension of Itself in our material dimension – with no separation between the two; that is, never leaving a void but bearing the seamless continuity of an upholding plenum’. The 9-6-3 extends itself as the 0/1 and thus the Child is born. Kalki corrects the error of the Buddha by joining the two poles of existence and erasing the separation that for millennia has depleted the reserves of higher energy necessary for our individual and collective transformation.
‘…The key to salvation of the civilisation lies precisely in eternal Time, the very vision Arjun shied away from. But that was another age, the 8th Manifestation of Sri Krishna; while this is the time of Kalki who returns to humanity the saving formula of sacred Time.’ Thea, The Sanctity of Materialism.
Thea
In past ages this precious knowledge has been the possession of a small group of initiates who had opened the doors to occult and spiritual knowledge and were charged with its preservation for future generations – the ‘few who shall see what none yet understands’. But with the advent of the Supermind the time has come at last for these mysteries to be revealed. In a prodigious body of higher knowledge Thea has laid bare the evolutionary ‘scheme of Avatarhood’ and disclosed in its entirety the full face of the Cosmic Truth. With the coming of the 9th Avatar, Sri Aurobindo and his return as the 10th, Kalki, we can now follow the evolution through its incarnational stages of becoming to its final apotheosis of a Supramental Species and a Life Divine. For those who see, there can be simply no question of who Sri Aurobindo describes in his epic poemSavitri, book Two, Canto Six, when he writes: ‘She has lured the Eternal into the arms of time, caught the boundless in a net of birth, cast the spirit into physical form and [lent] speech and thought to the Ineffable’. Through Thea’s unique recognition of the Vishnu verses and the passages from the Atharvaveda as Keys to the Cosmic Order, we no longer need to simply believe in the Divine but we can See and Know and Marvel at the perfection of which we are a part.
* I had previously written that Thea had arrived at the exact date of the beginning of the age of Aquarius through a process of prayer. I stand corrected that her realization of the correct date of the beginning of the age was the product of certain yogic realizations which, ‘…opened up new vistas and permitted a higher light to illumine the regions obscured by the passage of time’. This led Thea to a process of careful mathematic calculations that revealed the exact date of 1926 as the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. An example of her notes and calculations may be found illustrated on p. 319 of The Tenth Day of Victory, Vol. 2 Book One.
‘Either do not give the name of knowledge to your beliefs only, and of error, ignorance or charlatanism to the beliefs of others; or do not rail at the dogmas of the sects and their intolerance. ‘Science talks and behaves as if it had conquered all knowledge. Wisdom, as she walks, hears her solitary tread echoing on the margin of immeasurable Oceans.’ Sri Aurobindo
Thoughts and Aphorisms
With the dawn of the age of electronic communications the interesting circumstance has arisen that the almost instant and universal access to information creates the impression of true knowledge available to everyone. One knows because one has limitless access to facts.
Of course, in terms of real Knowledge, as it has been understood not only in ancient times but also in the present by realised souls, this information, this accumulation of facts has little to do with higher knowledge. And yogic techniques produce this higher perception in any field onto which the gaze of the seer is turned. But this requires a certain clarification because it is not that the sage knows everything, or can know everything, or desires to know everything. He or she knows what the Supreme Consciousness wishes to reveal through that particular instrument at any given time. Thus, the only prerequisite in order to attain higher knowledge of the order detailed in these pages is the practise of a special yoga which can create conditions within the seeker that will allow the Supramental Shakti to unveil hitherto hidden dimensions of the issue in question. Similarly, it is not merely facts which constitute this body of knowledge; rather it is a condition of lived perception, the lived experience which carries one to the heart of the issue and discloses aspects of the subject not perceived by the ordinary methods. The poise to attain is one of contained power, of concentration of energy, of mobile immobility. Succinctly, it is the formation of a properly aligned axis within one’s consciousness-being.
In the previous issue I pointed out that when the Mother remarked that the Globe and Pedestal of her temple-chamber, receiving the Sun’s ray in a special arrangement of measurements (’very precise’), was the symbol of the future realisation, she was bequeathing to humanity the very exact description of the new consciousness, both individual and collective. The ray of the Sun falling on the translucent globe, held at a particular height by the solid and unshakeable stone pedestal, presents the seeker with the visual symbol of that Consciousness, as well as the means or process required to attain that superior realisation.
The Ray is equivalent to the axis in one’s consciousness-being. It must strike the globe (soul) in a direct alignment which ‘casts no shadows’. That is, the Ray is equal to the Sun’s high noon position – or the 15th degree of Capricorn. It is this time-space positioning that unveils the Core of our innermost Self, the soul with its centremost Point lodged within one’s being; similar to the deity of a Hindu temple located at the centre of the edifice and in perfect alignment with the ‘mountain’ that arises above this special sacred object. And thus, with this alignment realised, Agni, the One, the Son, is born in us.
The Core of the Mother’s vision is the structure of our truth-conscious seed of being. The contours of that model provide us with all that we need to know of the new consciousness and the creation it gives rise to. When this is established in a significant number of individuals on the basis of a conscious choice and awareness, then the true new world order will manifest. Presently, we are engaged in the formation of a nucleus and cellular mass which, because of the precision that characterises the process of its formation, is able to position itself in time and space in such a way as to offer two essential ingredients to the transformation. One is centrality; the other is growth from within. Centrality is the spatial point; growth from that centre is the action of time. On this basis, with the power of Gnostic Time as its impelling force of actualisation, the new creation is assured an uninterrupted growth from the centre, gradually displacing the old until the shadow will be completely dissolved and the whole Earth will be the ‘globe of light’.
The centremost Core of the Mother’s chamber with its axis of light informs us that before all else this axial alignment based on a new precision, as the Mother described it, must come into being individually and collectively for anything significant of the new world to emerge or be unveiled. This is the first step on the way to the supramental creation Sri Aurobindo announced as the next level of evolution for the species. It is an entirely organic process, similar – indeed identical – to any biological system. First the seed, then the process of flowering, of growth. But in the supramental yoga the important factor is to establish the right nature and quality of that seed. It must indeed be a work of precision, as the Mother foresaw. And just as her own original vision of that perfectly aligned, balanced, harmonious Core underwent a complete distortion in the temple which arises in her name in Auroville, so too the seeker is faced with pitfalls, chasms, dangerous abysses on the path to attain that shadowless poise. Therefore, the Supramental Shakti arranged the manifestation in such a manner that sincere seekers would have not only her original symbol/model to serve as an infallible guide. She allowed its shadow to arise in order to provide a more complete vision, unmistakeable in its definitive statement of just what the sincere aspirant must avoid, or what must be eliminated in order to forge that axis of light. With the two, the Light and the Shadow, we are given a guidance in the form of sacred architecture and geometry rarely experienced on Earth prior to the Mother’s impeccable act of seeing.
There is another perhaps more important reason for allowing the shadow-temple to arise. In principle, it concerns the necessity to collect energies in one central experiment, to have a focus as it were for the collective Yoga. This aspect of her work has been discussed in previous issues in detail. However, there are other facets of this process which need to be highlighted insofar as they reveal those crucial distinctions between a creation of light and one of darkness. At the same time, this discussion will enable the seeker to understand something more essential of the complex nature of a creation in matter and the laws which govern our dimension of universal existence and which cannot be superseded even by the Divine Shakti herself. Rather, she must mould the process to suit and to accommodate those laws and thereby ensure a continuity, an organic growth and evolution, similar to the entire universal manifestation.
One means to achieve this objective, and moreover to accelerate the growth and not supersede the process, has been the development of the temple pari passu with the descent of the Knowledge which was contained in the Mother’s original vision and architectural plan. Thus, the seed of that process was her act of Seeing. It was a creation of Light, and indeed it gave forth an unending stream of gnostic light with the march of time from the first moment her luminous consciousness released the energy contained in the vision and drew the chamber into the Earth atmosphere.
Since we are dealing with the physical dimension and solid objects occupying specific points in space, there is one field open to us, the densest plane of the 9 in terms of the Gnostic Circle’s scale of creation from 0 to 9, or spirit to matter. In that plane the Mother selected the 12th degree of northern latitude as the position on the globe for the experiment, for reasons which I have discussed at length in The New Way, Volume 2, Chapter 9. The reason for this selection can only be properly understood with the help of the Gnostic Circle because it is not only a space positioning but a time placement as well. And this is what the Gnostic Circle indicates. Without it we would be hard put to find anything especially significant in the selection of that particular area for the location of the temple. I will deal with this Gnostic Circle correlation further on.
First we must understand the need for a physical location as centre of the transformational process. Why not simply a consciousness, an area or condition of existence once removed from the physical and therefore easier to manipulate and mould? Indeed, this was the case in the early stages of the Yoga when Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were engaged in refining the Integral Yoga as an individual experiment. That is, the Integral Yoga provides the seeker with a means to align his or her consciousness with the inner Divine and the preliminary lines are drawn whereby the sadhak is able to establish a new axis and alignment in his or her consciousness-being, or in one’s private cosmos. The Integral Yoga is the first part of the transformation – but only the first. Its aim is to prepare the sadhak for an extension of the boundaries of consciousness so that the Supramental Yoga can begin. Without this preliminary alignment provided by the Integral Yoga, the further stages cannot be established. At the same time, arresting the yoga at this first stage places the subject in an awkward position: one is neither here nor there, – in limbo, as it were.
The Integral Yoga was never an end in itself. Sri Aurobindo made this abundantly clear when he wrote of the state of his yoga during the last decades of his life which indicated he had not completed the process he knew would be needed for the full expression of the supramental truth. What he described of that final phase before his passing unmistakably pointed to the Supramental Yoga which has taken shape since then, greatly aided by the temple episode under discussion. Indeed, the sole purpose for the establishment of ‘the city’ in the 1960s by the Mother was in answer to the imperative for a new laboratory, an extended field which could serve as a vessel to contain the increase of energies which such an extension or expansion would entail. We may believe that his Pondicherry ashram with its numerous sadhaks and all the activities engendered by this collective grouping was sufficient to provide a proper field for this extension. However, this was not the case. It is not a question of quantity but rather of methodology. The temple-vision had to be the ‘seed’ for the extension; the movement had to expand from a centre. Whereas in the Ashram, in those early stages of the work, the centre was the combined consciousness of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The physical dimension had not yet been touched.
This digging into the depths, as it were, took root after Sri Aurobindo’s passing, set in motion precisely by his activity during that critical period of withdrawal. More particularly, in 1971 the connecting bridge to the physical was firmly established. This coincided with the beginning of the temple construction. The new Power became rooted in the Earth.
Sri Aurobindo’s evolving symbol: a marriage of Heaven and Earth
The yogas are not done in a void, especially the supramental yoga. For both, a physical embodiment is demanded. But while the integral yoga requires an embodiment sufficient to contain energies in transformation centred on an individual consciousness, the supramental yoga requires that, and something else. It requires a laboratory where integration can be achieved of the One and the Many. The supramental yoga can never be done individually, – that is, restricted to a single entity. Regardless what the sadhak believes he has attained in his individual capacity, it is never that next stage unless he experiences this process of integration. It is always limited to a field of the One and unable to make a higher, enlightened contact and integration with the Multiple.
The history of Sri Aurobindo’s manifestation provides ample proof of this arrangement. During his embodiment he was engaged in establishing a laboratory where the integral yoga could express itself. Similarly, he required a certain number in his entourage whose combined energies could consolidate that field. His own symbol gives us the information we need to understand that phase of the work. Its two intersecting triangles represent the call from below (the ascending triangle) and the descent from above (the descending triangle); or else, the union of ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’. At the intersection of the two stands the Square which Sri Aurobindo called the symbol of the Supermind. And within that square there is the Lotus of the Avatar – significantly formed of 9, 6, and 3 petals, to highlight the exact pattern of the avataric descent with its messengers incarnating in harmony with those special number relations, as well as the role gnostic time would play in the supramental transformation. The Lotus rests on seven waves which are the seven planes of existence from subtle to dense matter. The finality of his yoga is to construct a bridge linking all these planes precisely by the aid of gnostic time and the formula 9/6/3, just as the Lotus reveals. In this way, with this accomplished, the prophesied descent of a ‘new Heaven’ established in the soil of a new and transformed Earth is fulfilled. Sri Aurobindo’s symbol explains this prophesy in minute detail.
Ultimately, the individual is the sole and unique beneficiary of the transformation. But his or her new consciousness is intended to give rise to a new world. The new collectivity is formed of these individual energies. However, they are reformed, organised anew on the basis of a special realignment around a new axis represented in the Mother’s vision of the Chamber as the descending Ray whose light is captured in the luminous translucent globe, held in position at a very exact location in (in time and space) by the stone pedestal.
To further consolidate the symbolism, the pedestal is a square, symbol of the Supermind, and it consists of Sri Aurobindo’s triangular symbol, four in number, upright, carved in solid stone. But the important feature of this sacred object is the action of the light within the square receptacle, hidden from view. For at the exact crossing of its diagonals the Supreme Power Point comes into being. This is the fount of an ever-replenishing source of energy beyond our physical dimension but connected to it through the newly-constructed bridge, access to which is through the core of one’s innermost being. It carries the seeker to the realm of immortality.
Again we may refer to the historical data of the supramental manifestation through the lives and word of the Avatars and we find confirmation for the statement I have made regarding the extended field the supramental creation demands for its expression. This confirmation comes through a careful scrutiny of certain developments precisely involving Sri Aurobindo’s symbol after his passing in December of 1950.
From the early days of their joint mission, Sri Aurobindo’s triangular symbol was formed of two equilateral triangles. These had to accommodate the central square and lotus and therefore they had to be pulled apart somewhat. Inserted in a circle on this basis, only the upper and lower tips of the triangles would touch its periphery. It is safe to state that the first symbol, here reproduced, described the purpose and methodology of the integral yoga – i.e., a yoga devised to connect the sadhak to the Divine in his or her consciousness-being. It was a process limited to this individual vessel which the earlier symbol represents. At the same time, it describes an ascent and descent, a movement involving the vertical dimension or cosmic direction. This is the first manifestation of the supramental avataric descent. The ‘field’ required for that phase is a laboratory confined to the individual consciousness. It is not concerned with an extended field. That was to come later; and indeed Sri Aurobindo’s symbol underwent a metamorphosis precisely after he had attained a realisation for the Earth whereby a connection was forged with a newly-released source of energy. The Mother would indicate this attainment ‘on the other side’ by designing the pedestal in her chamber’s core in stone and concealing therein a transmutation of energy which Sri Aurobindo had accomplished in those hidden dimensions after he left his body in 1950. The precise timing of the operation is written into that stone pedestal when the ‘new precision’ is honoured, – that is, in the twelfth year after his passing.
The Initiatic Language of Symbols
There are not many who understand the language of symbols. And practically none appreciate the manner in which the Mother used symbols to explain the process of supramental transformation, as for example the original plan of her temple; or else, how she utilised modifications in certain key symbols to announce breakthroughs or major shifts in the work. Most consider such developments ‘coincidental’ or else unimportant. All ignore the power of gnostic time in these happenings and how unusually tuned the Mother was to that power.
To illustrate, in May of 1964, the Mother revised Sri Aurobindo’s symbol. The modifications she introduced, to one versed in this special hieratic language, were fundamental and decisive. They revealed that something formidable had occurred directly involving Sri Aurobindo’s personal manifestation, and through that the areas of the work connected in a special way to his appearance on Earth. But while this may be readily accepted by disciples and devotees and might not require any particular insight to grasp, most would find it impossible to believe that had the Mother not modified his symbol when and how it was done, she could not have seen the temple’s chamber six years later. The revised symbol provided the occult structural form or skeleton of that temple. Without that the Mother could not have given the proper measurements for the chamber lodged within the outer form of that temple which would make it a womb of gnostic time, or the abode of the Time-Spirit.
We have here something on the order of, What came first, the chicken or the egg? The Mother seems to have provided the answer: A specific happening in the subtle physical dimension permits the ‘egg’ to manifest. Ironically, we are indeed dealing with an ‘egg’, the Shalagram wherein Sri Aurobindo’s symbol arises to become the structural skeleton of the chamber. The Shalagram/Symbol is the womb. The Chamber provides the channel of birth.
This is one part of the process. The main feature is what a revision of that symbol revealed of Sri Aurobindo’s work ‘on the other side’, so to speak. For the fact that the Mother was able to reshape this all-important element meant that something fundamental had occurred whose content the former symbol could not capture and convey. In the language of symbols it meant that a new form had come into being, or that Sri Aurobindo had accomplished by his passing something which the revised symbol had to indicate if it was to be a faithful element in the symbol representation of his work.
With the rise of organised religions in middle-eastern and western culture, the hieratic language of symbols gradually lost its living channels of expression. This was especially due to the condemnation of idol representation which in its higher form we find in India even today, and the rejection of the feminine power as a central feature of mystical experience. For it is only in a practice which accepts this Power that we find a proper use made of symbols. Tantra in the Indian tradition is one such path. The language of symbols in Tantra is unparalleled anywhere in the world. However, with the dawn of the new age and especially due to the expansion of the measure of our solar system from six to nine planets in orbit of the Sun, a renewal is demanded in this particular area of higher knowledge. Tantric symbolism was an especially suited channel for renewal insofar as the 9 was already enshrined as the supreme number-power of the Shakti. Indeed, Vedic Dharma in general was able to serve as a foundation for renewal because Hinduism has always sustained that there are 9 ‘planets’, – the 6 of the ancient school and the Sun, plus Rahu and Ketu, the lunar nodes. What this reveals is that from ancient times Indian wisemen have understood that what is important in astrological formulation and horoscopic readings is not the ‘influence of the planet’ as such. The inclusion of Rahu and Ketu in the measure to reach the sacred number 9 of the Divine Mother meant that they knew the key feature of cosmic harmonies was the question of orbits and not planetary influence as astrologers believe today. For the lunar nodes are indeed simply the two points where the orbits of the Earth and Moon intersect. They are not planetary bodies; and yet they were included in the list of ‘planets’, or rather items to be considered as relevant in astrological formulation.
However, in this new age of the Supermind another adjustment is demanded. It is that now the Zero must be accommodated in the cosmic harmony. While Rahu and Ketu provided the scale of 9, the full transition or adjustment must now be made in order to definitively reproduce the true cosmic harmony as it actually is. That is, the Sun must no longer figure as the One, and one among equals, or the first ‘planet’ of the scheme, as in former times. It must find its central position and be unveiled as the Zero in terms of number-power. Thereafter, each planet can find its own proper location once this centrality is established, faithful to the real character of our solar system.
If the Hermetic dictum, ‘as above, so below’, has any value, then of foremost importance must be the faithful reproduction of that ‘above’, if at all we are to find its true reflection or transposition here ‘below’.
In the last issue of VISHAAL, I described the importance of the Indian discovery of the Zero and that it pointed to a breakthrough in a sage’s yoga more than two millennia ago. There was first the breakthrough as described in the Creation Hymn of the Rigveda, which I reproduced as Appendix 2 in that issue. Then followed the formulation of a new scale, 0 to 9. The 12 scale could no longer suffice. The ‘field’ opened up by yoga required an expansion and jolts were felt thereafter until our time when the 9th Avatar took birth to resettle the terrain of yoga in a new form grounded in the ancient foundation. This newness, incorporating the old as foundation, is beautifully conveyed in the Gnostic Circle with its vertical time direction of the 9 circle, rooted in the horizontal space direction of the 12 circle.
Thus, the evolution of the symbols of the Supramental Manifestation indicates that something similar had occurred in the early 1960s to encourage and permit the Mother to revise Sri Aurobindo’s own symbol. The unusual part of the exercise is that the Mother carried out the revision when Sri Aurobindo was no longer embodied. Certainly this ought to have alerted disciples to the fact that something involving his supramental transformation had occurred, and that this process not only had not been interrupted by his passing but in some mysterious way was furthered and/or accelerated by that ‘death’. I am stating therefore that it was not a mental decision based on aesthetic considerations or geometric values isolated from the sacred which inspired the Mother. This revolutionary occurrence reflected Sri Aurobindo’s new form. She could carry out this revision only after Sri Aurobindo had indeed acquired a new form. And this occurred 6 months before the revision, in late 1963. Having successfully accomplished this passage, with all that it signified in the context of the Supramental Manifestation, the Mother then ‘saw’, and the outcome was the revision of the symbol.
Thus, the true seeker of knowledge can easily understand through this analysis of the historical details of the Mother’s work that a happening of this order is not arbitrary. Indeed, as the diagrams I am presenting here reveal, the revised symbol ‘fits’ into the Shalagram form (figure A) which was meant to contain the original chamber the Mother had ‘seen’ in early 1970, – that is, 6 years after the symbol was revised.
Again, we are faced with a rhythm of 6, recalling the powerful harmony of 6 which exists between the Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s birthdays, – day, month and year. Had that revision not occurred, the Shalagram could not have served as this sacred vessel. In addition, because the Mother revised Sri Aurobindo’s symbol in 1964, she could ‘see’ not only the true and entire form of the chamber but more importantly, she could provide us with its precise measurements. For only on the basis of these accurate measurements is Sri Aurobindo’s symbol unveiled in the Shalagram as here indicated to form the occult skeleton of the chamber and temple (figure B).
‘Death’ or the Act of Withdrawal
One of the more fascinating aspects of the Mother’s spontaneous revision of Sri Aurobindo’s symbol involves the quality of the triangles, for the new design required a shift from equilateral to isosceles triangles. This in itself provides certain important clues as to the nature of Sri Aurobindo’s transformation; in particular, the new triangles indicate that he had finally completed his mission as the 9th, though this occurred ‘on the other side’. But this fact in itself should make us ponder deeply over what actually did transpire in that realm beyond.
Disciples and students of Sri Aurobindo’s life and works are aware that his ‘death’ was no ordinary death but rather a voluntary withdrawal. He was declared by the attending doctors to have entered a coma brought on by a case of uraemia. However, these same attendants related that periodically Sri Aurobindo came out of the ‘coma’ to enquire what the time was! When the appointed hour arrived, he made his final withdrawal.
From this we can learn two things. One, Sri Aurobindo’s passing was a willed act and no an ordinary death brought on by an illness; and second, that he was intent on taking his final departure at a particular time, respecting some mysterious ‘schedule’ or design.
The Mother spoke to a disciple on 19 October, 1960 about Sri Aurobindo’s ‘death’, confirming much of what I have written here:
Yes, it is just this extraordinary thing that Sri Aurobindo had. He didn’t make any effort…But he did not do it for himself.
For human beings this has been UNTHINKABLE.
He wanted to leave. He had decided to leave, hadn’t he? He didn’t want us to know that he was doing it intentionally because he knew that if, for a moment, I would come to know he was doing it purposely, I would have reacted so violently that I would not have let him go.
He did this…he bore all of that as if it were unconsciousness, an ordinary illness, simply in order not to let us know – and he left at the moment he had to leave. But…
I couldn’t believe that he had left when he did, there in front of me, it was all so far away…And then after, when coming out of his body he came into me, I understood it all…It was fantastic!
It is…It is absolutely superhuman. There is not one human being who would have been capable of doing such a thing. And what a control over his body – absolute, absolute! But in giving to others…he took away your illnesses like that… (The Mother gestures as if calmly catching the illness with her fingertips and taking it out of the body.) This happened to you once, didn’t it? You said I had done this for you – but it wasn’t me; he had done it…. He used to give one silence of the mind like that (The Mother makes a gesture of lightly brushing her hand across her forehead). It is that his actions were absolutely…. On people it had all the characteristics of a complete control…. Absolutely superhuman.
One day he will tell you all this himself. Now I know. It is for-mi-da-ble…
I would like to task you something: Why did he have to leave?
Ah, that, one cannot speak of that.
(Long silence)
One can say, but in a completely superficial way…It was because for him to do IMMEDIATELY what he had to do, without leaving his body, well…
(Silence)
One can speak of it in this way: the world was not ready. But to say the truth, it was the whole of things around him that were not ready. And so, he SAW that (this is something I understood later), he saw that it would go infinitely faster if he were not there, and he was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, it was the truth.
When I saw that I accepted it. It was when I saw that, when he made me understand this that I accepted, otherwise…
There was a difficult period.
(Silence)
It wasn’t long, but it was difficult.
I said twelve days when he left, twelve days. Actually I gave twelve days for the entire Work, to know if… Outwardly I said: after twelve days I will say whether the Ashram (the Ashram was naturally only a symbol) would continue or not, whether or not it was finished.
And after (I don’t know, it did not take twelve days: I said this on 9 December, and on the 12th it was all decided, clear, seen, understood); on the 12th I received people, met with others. All the activities were taken up again after twelve days starting from 5 December. But on the 12th it was decided.
Everything was like that, suspended, until the time when he made me understand the complete thing, all of it…But that is for later.
It is he himself who will tell it, it is true, later.
(The Mother’s Agenda, 1960.)
Sri Aurobindo was the 9th Avatar of Vishnu. His number-power in the gnostic time scale was 9, drawn from his year of birth, 1872. (The exact time of his departure was, coincidentally, 1:26 AM, equalling 9.) Consequently, the 9 provides a fundamental key to the entire Supramental Manifestation. It sets the tone, as it were, for the ensuing harmony, a rhythm expressed in the evolution of the solar Line from that year onward, especially pertinent to the time factor captured in the measurements the Mother gave for the Chamber.
Thus, in 1964 the revision of the symbol was in preparation of the Mother’s future vision. Moreover, the geometric details of the shift from equilateral to isosceles triangles confirms the 9 factor of Sri Aurobindo’s first appearance as the 9th Avatar of Vishnu, as well as his number-power in the solar Line’s descending scale of 9, 6, and 3. The base angles of the isosceles triangles measure 51˚, – i.e., 9˚ less than the angles of his former symbol. The apex measures 78˚ – or his age at the time of withdrawal. The 18˚ accumulated from the changed degrees of the base angles, are added to the apex to give 78. There are thus 18 crucial degrees which alter the shape of the triangles to allow Sri Aurobindo’s symbol to serve as the occult structural support of the Mother’s temple. As the incarnation of Mahakal, the great Time-Spirit, Sri Aurobindo demonstrated in his life and mission and final transformation that the rhythm of 9 was essential and that his appearance on Earth set this rhythm on its way as a central element in the Supramental Descent. And this is fully conveyed in the gnostic content of the Mother’s temple, for when the original plan is respected and the construction is carried out in accordance with that revised symbol, 21 diameters of the globe of 70cms fit into the central shaft of light in a chain. And when converted to the measure of our time, those 70 are equivalent to 18 days, recalling thus the 18˚of the base angles of Sri Aurobindo’s revised symbol. Indeed, his new symbol holds the key to the incomparable harmony of gnostic time in the Mother’s original plan of her temple. This harmony has of course been lost in the actual construction in Auroville, for indeed Sri Aurobindo’s ‘new form’ finds no place therein, where the law of usurpation rules.
In view of these relationships, it is quite possible to deduce that without a revision of the symbol in 1964, there could have been no ‘seeing’ of its detailed application 6 years later, in 1970, when the Mother ‘saw’ the chamber. Conversely, there could have been no revision unless Sri Aurobindo had fulfilled his mission as the 9th by a PHYSICAL transformation, albeit in the subtle physical very close to the Earth’s material plane. Indeed, in the realm of higher knowledge the use of symbols in this advanced manner is intended to remove speculation from perception and to provide seekers with a thoroughly applicable model for the yoga. The Avatar’s mission and realisation is never abstract and speculative – and we have the history of Sri Ram and Sri Krishna as examples, where they have left their stamp on the Hindu psyche in such a manner as to erase the line between history and myth. Nor is there any question of faith involved, similar to what Christianity holds as an indispensable ingredient in the appreciation of the Christ’s mission. Regarding the latter, we are also faced with a fundamental achievement ‘on the other side’. For the crucifixion, we are told, resulted in redemption of humanity’s sins, and the final resurrection of Jesus and his ascent into heaven. This glorious achievement does not unfold or come accompanied by an entire body of higher Knowledge, objective and not demanding of the faith of the devotee.
Indeed, this is what distinguishes a supramental manifestation from the common religious experience. In the former we demand objective knowledge which is perforce the very nature of gnosis. As indeed it has been the key ingredient in all true paths of Indian yoga and spirituality. Similar to the Mother’s revelation of this gnostic content of the temple, and its measurable quality, all Hindu temples can trace their origins to a yogic act in ancient times. The only difference between the two is that the Mother’s temple describes the great expansion the Earth is experiencing and the new measure of our solar system, as well as providing a working, applicable model of the Zero as womb of gnostic time, number-power of the Sun, symbol of the Supermind, as even it was for the ancient Rishis.
This is the true hieratic language and purpose of symbols. It is not found anywhere on Earth in this living, dynamic form. What we find everywhere is a mental formulation lacking power and a basis in the reality of the lived experience. Above all, when it is the true process, based on a yoga where the Shakti is central – and in this case we are dealing with the incarnation of that Power herself – there is nothing speculative involved. The meaning of the form is plain and simple. There is no abstraction. There is Truth, irrefutable and absolute. No ‘interpretations’ are possible in this realm of knowledge. And when the time comes for the full manifestation of the Supramental Shakti, then this language acquires even greater clarity and imperative and indisputable stamp of Truth.
Thus, the new form of Sri Aurobindo’s symbol revealed the new form of himself, exactly in synchronisation with his new appearance. This may be denied and disputed by the profane, but the initiate versed in this language of the Gods cannot deny what the direct experience and seeing and its consequent knowledge reveal.
The eternal Language of the Zodiac
Apart from this decisive act, so important for the future course of their work, the Mother also disclosed the same revolutionary happening using other images and branches of the Knowledge. To illustrate, on 16 December, 1967, the Mother entered into a long contemplation for over a half an hour. Coming out of this state, she then spoke to her secretary/disciple, Satprem, of the details of a vision she had had just then, while sitting with him in her room. Strangely enough, though she always spoke to him in French, this time it was in English. I reproduce her own words as they have been transcribed in The Mother’s Agenda, Volume 8, p. 438-39:
I saw a strange being who came from there like that, (The Mother indicates her left side) made a round around you and went away. It was a horse with a lion’s head.
Beautiful beast! It was a lion, the head like that, the front form was a lion and behind it was a horse. And it was the symbol of…a symbolical animal of something. At the moment, I understood perfectly well, I said Ah! and…
Very dignified. Came from there (same gesture on the left) like that, made a round around you and went away. It was for you. Lion is power, and horse…
And like that, it seems silly, but he was very beautiful, and of a beautiful colour. And very dignified.
Tiens!… (The Mother realises she was speaking in English. The conversation resumes in French, which I translate into English.)
It was Sri Aurobindo who said all that to you (In English). It is odd how it comes like that.
It was something that had come to announce something to you. It was a being, but a being…There must be beings like that. It was all in light, and it was something…it was to announce something to you. But so real!
In this case the Mother again describes in very precise detail Sri Aurobindo’s two forms and the months of birth when these would appear on Earth. On this occasion she used the timeless cosmic script for the purpose, seeing the two zodiacal signs under which he would take birth for these two appearances, the Lion and the Horse, or Leo and Sagittarius. Not only did she see the two accurately, she also saw the correct sequence of the two appearances, – first Leo and then Sagittarius; and moreover, that they were connected, as one body, so to speak. This is perhaps the most important aspect of her impeccable clairvoyance: the images reveal more than just one fact – his rebirth. They reveal subtle features of the Knowledge which are fundamental to understand if this rebirth is to make any sense in the overall context of the Supramental Manifestation. The single-bodied imagery combining two animal forms is a formidable clue to the precise yoga Sri Aurobindo undertook ‘on the other side’ after his passing, which permitted the new form and symbol to emerge on the cosmic screen of time and space. This was the technique employed in the Sphinx at Giza where human head and lion body refer to the axis of the zodiacal signs, Leo and Aquarius, the first being the Age of creation of the colossus, while the latter, the Age of Aquarius, our present Age, is the time when its mysteries are revealed.
Regarding the Mother’s Lion and Horse vision and the ‘announcement’ Sri Aurobindo was making, again we must consider that none, much less the disciple Satprem, grasped the message. Yet it is evident that Sri Aurobindo was making determined efforts after 1963 to convey to those involved in his work that the ‘new form’ had come into being. These messages were always given in ways that would accurately inform his entourage of the supramental process successfully completed, with its attending gnosis. Lamentably, none were receptive enough to appreciate the momentous turning point he sought to convey.
There was a precise plan involved in this sequence of events. The revised symbol would become the occult skeletal structure of the temple within a short time, as I have pointed out. Resistance to the Mother’s enlightened Seeing would be formidable, as we have been able to confirm. But the knowledge content, or gnosis, of her original plan had to survive, precisely because a choice would be offered as an intrinsic part of the evolution of Sri Aurobindo’s work on Earth. This or that, – i.e., the temple of Light or Darkness: Knowledge or Ignorance, as the ‘centre’ of the new world.
The ‘core’ of the matter
The most important aspect to the revision of Sri Aurobindo’s symbol concerns a key element in the original plan of the chamber, – the Core.
The Pedestal the Mother ‘saw’ when she entered the chamber in the subtle plane consisted of four upright symbols, forming a square, whose angles were touching. This detail of her seeing, specifically mentioned by her to Satprem and thus recorded on tape for posterity, might appear to be an insignificant detail of little consequence. Yet it proves that the Mother saw the revised symbol as the Pedestal and not the pre-1964 form.
Interestingly, the Ashram engineer, Udar Pinto, with whom she drew up the plans that were originally presented to the architects for execution, did not draw the Pedestal on the basis of this revised version. He used the old symbol, obviously because having been a member of her entourage throughout the years that the former symbol was in use – indeed, when Sri Aurobindo was present in his old form – this engineer/disciple spontaneously drew the Pedestal in the manner he was accustomed to and most familiar with. This can be verified by perusing the blueprint of the original plans he drew up on the basis of the Mother’s instructions. In the right-hand upper corner there is a drawing of the Pedestal exactly as it appears below (figure C). To accommodate the separated equilateral triangles within the Pedestal, its height had to be extended. Thus, this disharmonious form emerged. But more important to note is that this construction would not produce a pedestal of four symbols with the angles of the triangles touching, as the Mother stated on the basis of what she ‘saw’. Something was fundamentally wrong, a glaring discrepancy in the design. Or else, the Mother had not ‘seen’ correctly.
Another six years transpired and in 1976 I ‘discovered’ the geometric solution to the Pedestal which would make it a faithful reproduction of the Mother’s original vision (figure D). It was simply the utilisation of the revised symbol for the construction, based on the accurate design and proportions she had given in May of 1964, twelve years earlier. With this official design, and on the basis of the vesica piscis (see The New Way, Volume 3, Chapter 3) drawn according to the given 70cms of the globe, the Pedestal could be designed so that a very great deal of accuracy would be attained and the result would be the angles of the triangles touching, just as the Mother had ‘seen’. The most awesome part of the exercise is the fact that in the 1976 discovery of the correct pedestal/symbol, to faithfully reproduce what the Mother SAW, this fidelity and application brought its special reward instantly: the discovery of his rebirth in the irrefutable language of Gnostic Symbols.
It took twelve years for this ‘message’ to find a receptive instrument. Halfway between the original revision of the symbol and my discovery of the correct Pedestal for the Core of the chamber, there was the Mother’s act of seeing, the magnificent ‘descent of the temple’. The 12-year cycle all disciples of Sri Aurobindo know was another key feature of his appearance as the 9th Avatar. In this case we encounter the same cycle again regarding the temple. It calls to mind the tale of Jesus at 12 years of age, when he was ‘discovered’ in the temple by his parents in spiritual discourse, revealing his true being and divine mission. Similarly, it was when Sri Aurobindo in his new form had attained the age of 12 (1976) that together with the discovery of the correct Pedestal – indeed, hinging precisely on that discovery – his reappearance, again involving a temple, was disclosed. That is, it was confirmed in the design, measurements, and gnostic timing of the descent of the Temple when his first cycle of twelve was completed in his new form.
Sphinx and Pyramid in the hieratic Language of Symbols
In Volume 2 of the New Way, I discuss certain aspects of the Mother’s original plan of the chamber in connection with the Great Pyramid at Giza. Indeed, her revision of Sri Aurobindo’s symbol in 1964 drew this connection 6 years prior to the vision of the temple. The change of triangles from equilateral to isosceles resulted in the fact that a direct link was made with ancient Egypt, in a sense drawing that civilisation through the ages and across the globe and implanting it, via applied gnostic symbolism, in the soil of India of today. A bridge is thus forged between the two civilisations, cutting across time and space by this ‘construction’ in our 20th Century of the Giza Pyramid in the Mother’s temple, through Sri Aurobindo’s revised symbol.
There is a specific reason why at a certain point in the evolution of the Supramental Manifestation the bridge had to be formed. The announcement of this future connection was made millennia ago when the Sphinx which still stands at Giza was seen and then constructed. Similar to the announcement regarding Sri Aurobindo’s rebirth, utilising a ‘sphinx’ formed of Lion and Horse (Leo and Sagittarius), so too the ancient Egyptians constructed a colossus in a sufficiently indestructible manner to endure over many centuries, using the very same cosmic script. In Sri Aurobindo’s case the ‘sphinx’, as witnessed by the Mother, indicated the months/signs of his two connected appearances on Earth, connected in an unbroken line of time, that is. Whereas, in the case of the Egyptian creation the symbols refer to cosmic ‘months’ – i.e., astrological ages.
The Laws of Correspondence are a basic tenet of astrological tradition. Thus, there is only one circle, one ecliptic consisting of the 12 zodiacal signs. These in their annual progression are the twelve months of our calendar year. But the same progression applies to the Precession of the Equinoxes which requires 25,920 years to complete one Round, as I have called it (see, TVN, 8/6, page 11), of those same twelve zodiacal signs. Thus, one cosmic month in this equation is equivalent to 2160 years, or one astrological age.
As we find mentioned in the Atharvaveda concerning this same progression, there are three ‘hubs’ in the wheel, or three such complete Rounds of 25,920 Earth years each, equalling 77,760. These are again divided by twelve, resulting in twelve Manifestations of 6480 Earth years each, wherein the latter are similarly ‘months’, identified by the same 12 signs, though multiplied by time in this fashion.
Thus, permeating this ancient system of knowledge, in Egypt as well as in India, and other places on the globe, is this Law of Correspondence and Equivalency, where time is either expanded or contracted but the circle is ever the same.
As indicated in the Map of 12 Manifestations (see TVN, 8/6, page 11), the four Fixed signs (of Vishnu, the Preserver) form the classic Sphinx, a composite form of Bull (Taurus), Lion (Leo), Eagle (Scorpio), and Man/Woman (Aquarius). The four figure prominently in St John’s Revelation, a rather bizarre lapse of editing insofar as the Church considers astrology a heathen and blasphemous tradition:
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.
2) And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.
3) And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.
4) And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.
5) And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
6) And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto a crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.
7) And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
8) And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come… (The Revelation, Chapter IV, King James Version).
This is unequivocally a description of the zodiac. Interesting to note is the manner in which the signs are divided in two parts, negative and positive, thus making twenty-four ‘elders’. This is further emphasised by the ‘six wings’ of the Beasts, indicating that each one presides over a quarter of the zodiac of three signs divided into two parts, thereby equalling six. The ‘sea of glass’ is the plane of the ecliptic extending out from the Sun (‘the throne’). But what is truly intriguing is that this document, perhaps the most prized by contemporary Christian fundamentalists because of its prophecy not only of the return of the Christ but of the Final Judgement which certain elements of the Church have utilised throughout these many centuries since the penning of this text to keep the faithful in line as it were, clearly describes the cosmic attributes of God, and that his praises are sung through the cosmic harmony. This is a thoroughly ‘pagan’ concept and finds no place in the religions of Middle-Eastern origin. One wonders how this incongruency is dealt with by Christian theologians. For example, how do they reconcile the saint’s description of the seven planets (‘seven lamps of fire burning before the throne’) as ‘seven Spirits of God’?
Be this as it may, the above text furnishes us with further proof that in very ancient and not so ancient times, the cosmic harmony was a firm pillar of all systems of higher knowledge across the globe. The Sphinx at Giza, far older than the Christian Scripture, has taken two of these forms – Lion and Man/Woman, of Leo and Aquarius – in the very same manner as Sri Aurobindo did to announce his rebirth. But in the case of the Egyptian colossus, the announcement meant to reverberate across the ages involved the astrological ‘months’ of Leo and Aquarius, or the Age of Leo and the Age of Aquarius, or present Age. The logical question to ask is what was that announcement, and why was it so important to preserve in a medium that would endure and survive the ravages of time?
In a sense we could say that the mystery of the Giza Sphinx is the redemption of the Sun, or the supramental Gnosis, in a manner reminiscent of the Isis/Osiris myth, where Osiris is dismembered and then reassembled by the Goddess. Savitri, Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem, based on an old Vedic theme, describes a similar redemption, and also by the Goddess.
If the tale is taken as a ‘solar myth’, to use the description of contemporary scholars, Osiris stands for the Supramental Light; the dismembering of that single principle of Light refers to the refracted and therefore relative truths of the Overmind planes. These single rays descending from that original Light can be found in the world’s religions, as an example. They each contain something of that solar essence, but refracted and thus isolated from every other ‘ray’ or religion. Therefore, to campaign for a world religion, or a unity of religions is a naïve prospect doomed to failure. The intrinsic nature of religions precludes any unification and will defy ad infinitum, as it has defied throughout the Age of Pisces and into our own Age, all attempts to bring about an amalgamation, notwithstanding the ecumenical drives of the past few decades. Unity does not lie within the parameters of religions. It lies beyond.
The dismembering and reassembling involves the Sun of Knowledge and points to the great upheaval I described in the last issue in which the Sun is momentarily dislodged from its throne in the 12-scale progression, and then relocated in a central position in the 9-scale circle. This redemption of centrality is the key to the new species. The announcement of the Giza Sphinx is thus the arrival of the new gnosis and the new race when the period of the Man/Woman of its form would arrive, some 10,000 years after its construction. Erected when the cosmic dial of the Manifestations was located at or around the 0 degree of Leo in the Precession of the Equinoxes, approximately 10,000 years would elapse until the dial would reach the last degree of Aquarius, based on the backwards motion of the Precession. At that prescribed point in time its secret would be revealed.
The Age of Aquarius began in 1926. In that very year the sands covering the majestic sphinx were completely removed: her form was finally unveiled in precise synchronisation with the start of the very Age captured in her symbolism. Also in that very year, Sri Aurobindo crossed a momentous threshold in his own yoga for the Earth, and by November of 1926 he and the Mother were in a position to formally commence their joint mission, the aim of which was to establish the foundations for the new gnosis and the new species.
In the interim betweens the Age of Leo and our present Age of Aquarius, a very heavy mantle of darkness has descended over the Earth. The Knowledge was eclipsed, dismembered, scattered abroad in fragments, similar to the body of Osiris. The darkness was deepest in the Age of Pisces before our own when the ancient civilisations would finally succumb to the forces of destruction and each one would pass into oblivion, leaving only traces here and there of a former glory in fragments of stone and marble, or else in unintelligible myths. All ancient civilisations except one, that is: India.
This too was announced by the Sphinx: the golden Sun of Knowledge would resurrect or rise again in the land where continuity was maintained, where the Sphinx would be actualised. That is, where the same connection and continuity would exist, in all that its form of Lion and Man signified, across the astrological ages/months/signs, as announced in Sri Aurobindo’s ‘sphinx’ of Lion and Horse. That is, a direct process of incarnation where the line of Time was not severed. This same continuity, indicated in the Sphinx at Giza, has been nurtured in India in terms of the Knowledge. India alone preserves the ancient meaning of the Cosmic Script because it is only in India that this superior Language has not only been preserved but realised, actualised from age to age through the unbroken line of the Ten Avatars of Vishnu. For Vishnu, godhead of Preservation and hence embodiment of the four Fixed (Preservation) signs of that ancient zodiacal script, is the Supreme Sphinx from whom all others have evolved. His fourfold ‘form’ is described in the Rigveda, the world’s oldest Scripture, where bull, lion, and ‘friend’ (Man) are the attributes sung in praise of this mighty embodiment of the Spirit of Time. In addition, Scorpio is clearly the zodiacal position from where Vishnu sets out to mark his famous ‘three steps’, or to map out the ecliptic for humankind. In these verses, the sequence follows in correct order from there, the sign of the Eagle.
Indeed, left out of the list of attributes is the Eagle, but this was perhaps due to the fact that the Eagle, Garuda, is Vishnu’s very own carrier, or vahana. It is also interesting to note, here and in St John’s Revelation, quoted above, that the eagle is used to indicate the 8th sign, Scorpio, and not the scorpion which is the only figure in use to represent the sign today. There is a specific reason why this is so. Indeed, this particular aspect of the ancient teachings will form the centre of our discussion further on. I quote here the verses from the Rigveda in praise of Vishnu, and, similar to the Christian text, there can be no doubt that what the Rishi is describing is the cosmic script and the heavenly harmony which Vishnu embodies perhaps more than any other of the ancient godheads:
Of Vishnu now I declare the mighty works, who has measured out the earthly worlds and that higher seat of our self-accomplishing he supports, he the wide-moving, in the threefold steps of his universal movement.
That Vishnu affirms on high by his mightiness and he is like a terrible LION that ranges in the difficult places, yea, his lair is on the mountain-tops, he in whose three wide movements all the worlds find their dwelling-place.
Let our strength and our thought go forward to Vishnu the all-pervading, the side-moving BULL whose dwelling-place is on the mountain, he who being One has measured all this long and far-extending seat of our self-accomplishing by only three of his strides.
He whose three steps are full of the honey-wine and they perish not but have ecstasy by the self-harmony of their nature; yea, he being One holds the triple principle and earth and heaven also, even all the worlds.
May I attain to and enjoy that goal of his movements, the Delight, where souls that seek the godhead have the rapture; for there in that highest step of the wide-moving Vishnu is that FRIEND of men who is the fount of sweetness.
Those are the dwelling-places of ye twain which we desire as the goal of our journey, where the many-horned herds of Light go travelling; the highest step of wide-moving Vishnu shines down on us here in its manifold vastness.
(RV. I.154, Sri Aurobindo’s translation)
This is, of course, a remarkable testimony not only to the fact that the cosmic harmony was a firm pillar of the ancient schools in India, and therefore positioned among all the other schools of higher knowledge throughout the world which bear testimony to the same cosmic script, but the verses reveal how much more deeply the teachings had penetrated in India. Here we have a process of yoga described. Throughout the Rigveda the seers sing of the ‘self-accomplishing’, as Sri Aurobindo has translated it; and moreover, these vast movements of Vishnu are not only up above. They are to be realised here. The ‘journey’ the seeker undertakes is on and of this Earth, and the process of yoga integrates in his or her being that wide universal harmony which Vishnu embodies.
Vishnu is described as taking three steps, whereas we are discussing the FOUR fixed signs of Preservation which he embodies. As mentioned, the Eagle or the sign Scorpio is left out. But the important part is the correct sequence of the movement, similar to the Christian text only here the ‘steps’ begin in Leo (the ‘terrible lion’), and from there proceed backwards, as does the Precessional movement, or else my own Map of the 12 Manifestations, until that ‘highest step’ is reached. This in itself indicates that the seer was referring to the zodiac, since that last step is Aquarius, sign precisely of ‘the Friend’ in traditional astrology, and this is the last Fixed sign of the wheel, in the ‘highest heaven’, or the upper hemisphere. The Rishi clearly indicates that attaining this position the journey is completed. Interestingly, it is in this Age of Aquarius that the enigmatic sense and symbolism of the Rigveda are being revealed and the yoga of those former times is bearing fruit for the entire planet. In the period of the 9th and 10th Avatars of Vishnu the complete circle is drawn, forging that link from the distant past to the present, where the chasm between Spirit and Matter is finally bridged. The Rishi refers throughout these hymns to the ‘measuring’ attribute of Vishnu. Indeed, it is in this Age of ours that Maya (‘measure’) is once again divinised and restored to her throne as the great Creatrix of material creation, the Body of the Lord.
The Great Pyramid and the Geo-cosmology of the New Way
In this New Way the Knowledge is being reassembled, its many fragments are being drawn together from all the corners of the globe in this awesome age of resurrection, when the Sun of Gnosis rises again.
Egypt is an especially important piece in the mosaic of Knowledge and must find its place or be reallocated a position in the grand design. And the means to draw that ancient path into the present has been via the Giza Pyramid and the Sphinx, and then Sri Aurobindo’s revised symbol to conform with the Giza Pyramid dimensions, with the Sphinx symbolism to confirm the time period as the Age of Aquarius when that Sun would rise again.
Encompassing these formidable avenues of communication, cutting across time and space and national or ethnic boundaries, is the Mother’s original plan of her temple/chamber. The entire process of integration is centred on that great yogic feat of sacred architecture and geometry. In one decisive move – the revision of the symbol and the shift from equilateral to isosceles triangles – the Mother drew the entire content of ancient Egyptian civilisation within the boundaries of her experience in this Age of Aquarius, just as the Sphinx had been prophesying across the ages. What lies almost beyond comprehension, however, is that her entourage was so thoroughly closed to this happening and actually obstructed her at every step along the way in her efforts to cement this convergence and make of the Temple/City the cradle of all that the past has held highest and most revered. Through this something of the self-importance of the human being stands unmasked; the downright ignorance of contemporary man finds no parallel in ancient times.
At the same time, along with her yoga of the sacred Gnosis, the geo-cosmology of the New Way presents a striking confirmation of the all-pervasiveness of the Knowledge in those former times. I have discussed the question of applying the Gnostic Circle to the Earth’s geography in The New Way, Volume 2, as well as in these pages. I have demonstrated the extraordinary exactitude with which India’s Capricorn essence, if it may be so called, is confirmed beyond doubt by this newly-revealed cosmic yardstick.
Reproduced here is that yardstick: the Gnostic circle’s 360˚ laid counterclockwise across the globe as the zodiac progresses, with its 0˚ at Greenwich, moving eastward from there.
When the Gnostic Circle is laid across the globe as reproduced above, the 30˚ of each zodiacal sign are thus related to 30˚ longitude. Longitude being the Earth’s time measure (vertical), its bands are equal to this cosmic time measure captured in the ecliptic of twelve signs. Astrology of whatever school, it must be remembered, deals with time – giving sense or meaning to Time. It is Time’s own language, the world’s oldest and most universal, in fact. Thus it is not unreasonable or scientifically blasphemous to make a correlation between longitude bands and zodiacal segments. Through their relationship with Time, these apparently unrelated measures are integrated and synchronised.
Where the sign Capricorn is located in this backwards progression of the zodiacal signs through the Earth’s longitudinal bands, India, Capricorn’s purest representative landmass on Earth, begins. This position, 60/61 degrees longitude east is precisely where the Gnostic Circle’s yardstick applied to longitude indicates the start of Capricorn. The whole of India’s central body is covered by this longitude/sign. Indeed, as a further confirmation, the Capricorn hieroglyph traces the exact contours of that landmass.
The intriguing part is that the zodiac hieroglyphs are of very ancient vintage, so ancient that no one knows their country or civilisation of origin. I have proven in these pages that in India’s Vedic Age, much older than what scholars assume, this body of knowledge flourished to such an extent that as a background ideology its all-pervasiveness was an accepted equation in any of the civilisation’s most sacred expressions. This pertains not only to India but to other civilisations of equal antiquity. One encounters this underlying wisdom throughout the Rigveda; and I sustain that not only is the Rigveda the world’s oldest written book, but that the current belief that it was penned around 1500 BC is inaccurate. Time will prove this to be a correct conclusion.
And finally, the document was written long after the hymns were first composed and sung and handed down from teacher to disciple orally, according to the traditional practice in those times in India, or even in her contemporary society. Music is an example where still today there are no annotations and the guru-shishya parampar, or teacher-disciple tradition of oral transmission continues in vogue; notwithstanding the fact that Indian classical music, especially of the South, is a highly complex and sophisticated system which could have been lost at any time during India’s tumultuous experiences in the Piscean Age at the hands of marauders, invaders and conquerors from beyond her borders, unfriendly, to say the least, to her Vedic Dharma on which these multiple cultural expressions were and still are founded.
Therefore, we may safely conclude that not only is the date of original composition of the Rigveda inaccurate, according to contemporary scholarship, but the fact of this long and continuing practice of oral transmission before the written document came into existence would by itself prove the great antiquity of the text, contrary to what Indologists would have us believe.
On the other hand, we have a seemingly new path, this New Way, not only making use of those ancient symbols but in the present application confirming the accuracy of the ancient vision. Not only is the ancient allocation of the Capricorn rulership to India confirmed by the new cosmology via the design of the hieroglyph which neatly and indisputably covers the Indian landmass with great precision, there is also the correlation between the zodiac and longitudinal bands which similarly confirms the very ancient attribution of Capricorn to India, this time by introducing the Gnostic Circle for this purpose as a sacred yardstick, a ‘golden rod’, as it were. Regarding the latter, it is again a seemingly new revelation, a discovery of today and not just something uncovered of the past, a new interpretation of some relic or ancient text. The new cosmology and the New Way are products of our Aquarian Age. And fully in keeping with the announcement of the Sphinx that in this very Age a new gnosis would be revealed – for that is the significance of Aquarius.
But it is more than that: it is a new way, a new yogic path leading to the manifestation of a new world.
Still, our human minds have difficulty embracing great expanses of time and space and integrating those fragments of a seemingly lost knowledge with the discoveries of the present. For again the question needs to be asked: What came first, the chicken or egg? That is, Pyramid or Gnostic Circle? By this I refer to the fact that it is only through application of the Gnostic Circle yardstick with its zodiacal symbols to the Earth’s longitude bands that the truly awesome feature of the Great Pyramid is discovered. (Or, rediscovered?) And in this discovery again the announcement of the Sphinx is confirmed: the Age of Aquarius is the period of the revelation.
To appreciate this, to eliminate that mind-crippling disease of speculation, let me point out as I have done in The New Way, Volume 2, Chapter 9, that exactly where the sign Aquarius begins in the Gnostic Circle yardstick, reproduced above, we find the Pyramid and Sphinx located, when applied to longitudes of the globe. This reveals that the construction of those colossi were the most awesome feats of sacred architecture of the ancient world, so ancient that we have no memory of the method employed to arrive at such an astounding accuracy involving not only the Earth but her circumscribing space as well. This is sacred architecture of the past integrated with geo-cosmology of the present in a form never known before on Earth. To recapitulate what I have earlier written in The New Way and to explain the accomplishment in greater depth, the Sphinx and the Pyramid were constructed on 30°east longitude, as well as 30˚ north latitude – the latter also being correlated to the zodiac through the Gnostic Circle where similarly it figures as Aquarius. Thus, in both directions – vertical and horizontal – there is Aquarius.
Prophecy and the new supramental power of actualisation
The mechanism of prophecy used in the Sphinx was remarkable, for not only was the Age of Aquarius designated in her form as the period of revelation, the colossus herself was uncovered in the very year – 1926 – that the cosmic dial would reach precisely that 30th degree in the Precession of the Equinoxes, equivalent to the 29th/30th degree of Aquarius, or the beginning of this new Age.
In the Earth’s latitudes related to the Gnostic Circle laid out over the globe in a horizontal fashion, Aquarius is ‘measured’ at its 0 or first degree by the Sphinx and Pyramid positioning; in the longitude measure and its vertical bands, it is the last degree of the sign and it is this measure that connects it with great precision to the Precessional movement of the Equinoxes which determined the start of the Aquarian Age in 1926. In other words, 1926 is ‘located’ through the Precessional movement of the cosmic clock at 30/29 degrees Aquarius. This is its gnostic time coordinate; its gnostic space coordinate is located on the globe at 30˚ N latitude.
Since 1926 we have moved through one full degree of Aquarius in this retrograde motion. In 1998 we move from this 30/29 degree into the 28th. That is, it has taken 72 years of the Precession to move through one degree of the sign and thus fully into Aquarius. Indeed, it has been during this very period of 72 years, bringing the millennium to a close, that the supramental Gnosis has descended, the gnostic temple has been revealed, the foundations of the supramental yoga for the world has been laid. These 72 have, in a very profound sense, been the time of seeding.
This is factual not abstract and speculative proof of the existence of a single body of Knowledge handed down through the Ages in an unbroken line across the globe. It is not the ‘one truth’ of the world’s religions for they are mere ‘rays’ of that supreme Light and in their isolated and fragmented condition have lost touch with that which truly connects them and which links them with that luminous Source. At the same time, this Knowledge is not dogma. It is a recurring revelation, adding by the aid of Time new wings to the original edifice. There is one base, one foundation. Upon that the edifice arises and endures through the ages, each astrological age adding its part according to its intrinsic truth. It is this Cosmic Script that Sri Aurobindo refers to in Savitri when he enumerates the attributes of the ‘…hidden chamber closed and mute…’, accessible only through yoga and reserved for the initiate of its highest Truth.
But a civilisation such as the ancient Egyptian is not justified in pouring untold energies and resources into the construction of a sphinx and pyramid such as we find at Giza, unless there was a very important sense and purpose involved. Indeed, Egypt, like Vedic India, finds its fulfilment in the Mother’s temple of today, thousands of years into the future of those civilisations, where space and time are unified in a new Science beyond the known disciplines covering both the spiritual and the material.
We have entered the age of the Truth-Consciousness, or Supermind. What the Vedic Rishis saw as ‘self-accomplishment’ for the Aryan voyager to the mountain Summit (Capricorn) is extended through the special properties of the supramental Gnosis to encompass now both individual realiser and the collectivity, the one and the many in a grand synthesis hitherto unknown to the civilisations of planet Earth. This achievement was only partially possible in those former times; and indeed, even in that reduced capacity the Egyptian and Vedic civilisations offered channels in their societies for the cosmic harmony to express itself unparalleled since then. Yet, something more was needed in order to make the Earth the planetary home where the Hierogamas of Heaven and Earth, or spirit and matter, could take place as an everlasting condition. For this the Sun was dislodged and its fragments cast abroad to become embedded in matter, thereby assuring that when awakened below they would ascend and be joined by the descent from above of that same Light, that same immortal Source, to thus illumine the intermediate planes from where waves of darkness, of unconsciousness, periodically arise to obfuscate the light of that highest Truth.
The builders of the Sphinx and Pyramid saw thousands of years into the future what the builders of the Mother’s temple/chamber in Auroville failed to see right before their eyes, though unveiled to them by the Goddess herself.
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