Patricia Heidt, PhD

‘…Moulding and remoulding (Mahasaraswati) labours each part till it has attained its true form, is put in its exact place in the whole and fulfils its precise purpose. In her constant and diligent arrangement and rearrangement of things her eye is on all needs at once and the way to meet them and her intuition knows what is to be chosen and what rejected and successfully determines the right instrument, the right time, the right conditions and the right process…’.

Sri Aurobindo

‘The Mother’

About this time last year I began writing what I considered would be one of the clearest example for the student of transformational operations involving the Gnostic Circle. The result of that exercise, published in the December 1992 VISHAAL (TVN 7/5), did indeed clarify the Gnostic Circle for many students to a greater degree it seems than any of my previous treatments of the subject.

A full year has passed since that first exposition involving the Horse, and two further cycles in the racing history of our filly, whom we shall give the designation F1 in this study insofar as more equine participants enter the field which will be F2, and so on. Not only has more light been cast on the operations of the Gnostic Circle through these two additional cycles of nine races each, but the unusual or rather astonishing accuracy of the power of the Gnostic Time brought into clearer focus certain perplexing questions which have haunted the mind of humanity for many thousands of years. The developments contained in and described by the Gnostic Circle brought into focus particularly significant aspects of destiny such as free will, predetermination, freedom of choice, and so forth. In all my experience of a lifetime dedicated to these matters, I have rarely encountered a better means to explain these elusive and mysterious aspects of destiny than the description of events involving the Horse in the following pages.

By way of an introduction, it may be interesting for the student to review certain aspects of the Gnostic Circle in the context of the last cycle of nine, as well as the new material. What must be held foremost in mind is the essential function of the Gnostic Circle and the different approach it provides to questions of destiny compared to traditional methods of discovery such as astrology. I have touched upon this subject earlier but with the new developments since then far more has been perceived and though the essence was known even before, the recent happenings offer now the possibility to transmit these essential truths in a manner which ought to silence speculation.

To begin, let us review the main difference between traditional astrology and the Gnostic Circle of the new cosmology. The usual tool for analysis and prediction in the former is the natal horoscope. With that as the basis of enquiry the astrologer proceeds to describe the character and destiny of the individual. The natal chart also serves as the basis for prediction throughout the lifetime of the subject in that for specific details in one’s evolution at any given time, the astrologer progresses that natal configuration of the planets on a yearly basis. Added to this are the actual planetary positions which are said to be in transit over sensitive points in the original natal horoscope.

The art of astrology has evolved over the ages to the point where sometimes a great degree of accuracy is obtained in analysis of the enquirer’s character and destiny. Indeed, the celestial wheel of twelve signs, the basis for the construction, is understood to bear relevance to or to influence a host of mundane affairs, anything ranging from parental influence and interaction with the subject, marriage, the procreative capacity of not only the enquirer but also of his or her spouse. There are segments of the chart which deal with inherent talents as well as the ability to utilise those talents in life, or the obstructions one may encounter in doing so. Thus, the career potential is seen, successes, failures in the fulfilment of ambitions, and so on. Every aspect of life is seen to be covered by the twelve signs of the zodiac and the houses of the chart which form the structure of every horoscope, being as they are the traditional divisions of the celestial wheel which constitutes our planet’s orbit of the Sun.

Earlier on, the focus of the chart must have been different, if we analyse in depth the significance of the twelve hieroglyphs which antiquity has bequeathed to us. It is clear that the symbols enshrine a process of development, of evolution of consciousness above all else. Indeed, the later development was simply a degeneration or a ‘fall’, a lapse into the lesser aspects of the art because its loftier truths had been lost sight of. A simple means to demonstrate this discrepancy regarding the deeper significance of the hieroglyphs is by studying the symbols on the basis of the higher understanding of the zodiac’s function and contrasting that with the contemporary understanding.  The symbol of the fifth sign Leo,  for example, is considered by the contemporary astrologer to represent the tail of the lion. This would seem logical insofar as it is precisely the sign of the Lion. However, it is also the sign of paternity, the Purush, the masculine principle and the creative capacity, among other things. As far as its natural house is concerned, the fifth sign/house is the segment of the chart which, among other things, refers to the birth of children for the subject. Thus, on this basis it should be evident that this  is not really the lion’s tail but rather a male sperm. Similarly, the symbol for the fourth sign Cancer, preceding Leo, depicts the feminine organs of reproduction, as well as the breasts, . We assume that the creators of the twelve hieroglyphs did not possess microscopes and so could not have ‘seen’ the minuscule sperm; therefore we have never ‘seen’ it in the symbol – only the common lion’s tail. Similarly, we assume that the creator of the Capricorn hieroglyph could not have known the configuration of the Indian landmass and therefore it never occurred to us to ‘see’ that land delineated in the hieroglyph, a land Capricorn is said to rule.

Today there are schools which do indeed seek to understand these higher aspects of the art in their respective disciplines on the road to a transformation of consciousness. But to my knowledge none of these attempts have penetrated the fullest dimensions of the art and unravelled its deepest mysteries. This is largely because we stand at the threshold of a very great and revolutionising change in the evolution of the species. Hence everything that seemed to provide the human being with a firm footing in the soil of past ages is unable to serve in the same manner in the new future that awaits us. In our present 9^th Manifestation the birth of the Child has occurred. This means the birth of a new creation, a new species, a new world. We are able to look at our surroundings, even at our circumscribing cosmic space in which the twelve heavenly hieroglyphs are etched, with new eyes, in the act of a new seeing. When truths of this nature are lost, when a degeneration sets in with the flow of time, when disorder ensues, it indicates that a renewal is demanded. Sometimes the consciousness-structure can accompany us in the passage with minor changes introduced here and there. In the case of our present passage, the changes demanded are not minor. They are total.

Thus we seem to be standing on very shaky foundations. It appears that everything we have found adequate to sustain our march into the future is now being ruthlessly attacked and often entirely torn down. This may well be true, but it is also true that the perceptive eye is able to focus on elements of the old creation which are not meant to be destroyed but rather transformed. The human species, for example. They are, as it were, eternal truths. However they too, notwithstanding the eternity of their essence, require a periodic restructuring of the outer forms which encase this essence. The method to bring about this restructuring of the form of things to better express the eternal divine Essence is the subject of the Gnostic Circle. Consequently, the Circle explains the operations of the Becoming in ways never before perceived precisely because we have entered the Age in which a harmonisation must occur between the Being and the Becoming.

Ostensibly the traditional horoscope deals with the Becoming also. Indeed, astrology of whatever school is concerned with Time, and by consequence with the Becoming which is regulated by Time. But there are fundamental differences between the new and the old ways of perceiving destiny. While the horoscope based on the wheel of twelve provides insights into our participation in the Becoming during the course of our lives, the Gnostic Circle is a diagram which though essentially a wheel of time is first and foremost a tool to help us perceive the process involved in the transformation which will permit new forms to evolve adequate to express the new consciousness which has dawned in this new Age of the Supermind.

Thus the Gnostic Circle’s main feature is a means to understand the manner in which aspects of the Becoming are utilised in this act of transformation. In this lies its revolutionising capacity. Indeed, the principal tool at our disposal in any real transformation involving consciousness and form is precisely the act of seeing. The Gnostic Circle refocuses our ‘lens’ of perception so that light from a hitherto untapped source may penetrate areas of our individual and collective consciousness until now closed to this essence due to in-built inadequacies of the perceiving eye, which in turn is conditioned by its ‘encasement’.

It is for this reason that we are unable to describe minute details of the external trappings of destiny of the events being monitored in the Gnostic Circle. Prediction as it is currently understood and practised is not possible with the Gnostic Circle. As the example I will offer in the following pages reveals, at no time were these events foreseen in the shape they took. We are able to predict by the Gnostic Circle the circumstances in which and by which our transformation may occur, and we can only appreciate by its aid the stages of the development and the control existent over that eternal play. Indeed, the Gnostic Circle provides the key to perceive the manner in which the Becoming of any event central to the operation is drawn into the arena and controlled by the central Sun of that particular cosmos in evolution so that all may serve ‘the purposes of the One’.

Process is the keyword. Not prediction. In the first part of this series I discussed an aspect of this particular example which could be applied to any other application of the Gnostic Circle. It was the question of extraction and expression of the true potential of a given subject. Therefore, the selection of horse racing seemed felicitous in that the main objective of the proper training of a racehorse is precisely the development of the equine athlete’s fullest potential. There are various obvious reasons why competitive sport is a good field of observation, and in particular the racing scene. Millions of dollars, pounds, yen, or rupees are involved in the exercise. Given this enormous investment we may assume that everything possible will be done to secure ideal conditions for the extraction of the horse’s fullest potential. On the success or failure of the development hinges the outcome of the expenditure and desired profits.

It may be argued that any athletic endeavour today would serve the same purpose in that most sports now involve as large an investment to develop the human potential as the output for the equine athlete, minus the initial investment in the purchase of the horse, which is usually the largest part of the racing investment. However, the nature of the horse in this instance is more suited to our purposes than the human being given its connection in the first instance with the vital plane and the life force which are directly connected to the play of circumstances of the Becoming. And secondly, because of its structure which permits the force of consciousness to operate in a more direct and undiluted fashion whereby not only is the operation purer, so to speak, but it is more easily perceived due to this uncontaminated condition, unlike with the human being. Indeed the present discussion will reveal just how difficult any real transformation is for the human creature, and by this example involving the horse, exactly what the limitations are that we face as a species in transition to a higher level of evolution. In particular regarding the cycles under observation in this part of the series, we will appreciate the dilemma of women, how they continue to reinforce the shackles which ostensibly they seek to become free of. Horse racing is, it seems, the only major sport where men and women as jockeys participate equally. Hence this too will be featured in our discussion with respect to the evolution of the human race to a more equitable manifestation of the sexes.

The Earth, the Third and the Horse Vahana

The field of our experience is this Earth plane, this particular planet in the third orbit from the Sun. Our location in this solar system indicates the nature of our planetary purpose within the Sun’s family of nine. Through the new cosmology we know that the third orbit in the Gnostic Circle refers to the Individual Divine in the essential trinity which the Sacred Triangle highlights: Transcendent, Cosmic and Individual. It is the planet suited to house a creation in which the soul may govern the evolution; or rather, may use the evolution for its divine Purpose. That is, the fullest expression of the Truth it contains. Therefore, the soul is as it were the vahana or carrier of the Supreme in this material universe to move through the Becoming of Itself, organising the circumstances of its play in creation to better express that Supreme Consciousness in time and space. The soul is thus similar to the horse in relation to man. It is the Supreme’s carrier or vahana just as the horse is the human’s. And insofar as the 3 falls in the section of the Circle covering the vital being, the connection between Horse Symbol and Soul in evolution is clear. In the Rigveda this connection is described accurately in the hymns to Usha, the Divine Dawn, the Earth’s first experience of the Light. Her vahana is the Horse – precisely the One of the divine Purpose: Agni.

The Veda’s prolific contribution of Gods, Goddesses, their carriers, and indeed the rich store of Myth are means to describe this journey of the Supreme in creation through the instrumentation of the Soul, a ‘ray’ of Itself. Thus, to deny the validity and reality of material creation and participation therein, exhorting the seeker to reject this cosmic manifestation by labelling it ‘illusion’, as most spirituality does, is to deny the Supreme Consciousness its medium of self-expression in the creation it gave rise to and continues to support; it is to deny our real birthright as participants in the Earth’s evolution as the third planet in the system.

The nature of the soul is not understood in its fuller dimensions, indeed in its most fascinating and awe-inspiring aspects. This is particularly the case for those who have had the misfortune – or good fortune, when we view the evolution of the species in its most comprehensive arc – to be a part of one or the other of the Earth’s civilisations during the past two thousand years or so. For it was during this period, the entire Age of Pisces, that this understanding was lost. The outer proof is to be found in the rise of religions as organised belief systems, displacing the Vedic injunction of a direct experience of God rather than mere faith; but above all that none have respected or followed the line of development from antiquity which produced Myth.

All civilisations on Earth, products of the Piscean Age, experienced a complete break with tradition in this regard. All, that is, except India. It was in fact during the Age of Pisces that India consolidated its position regarding Myth in the formulation of the divine Reality. Hence it is, truly speaking, only in India that we can find elements of the tradition intact and indeed thriving. This is simply because the Veda continues to occupy centrestage and Myth is still the cultural backdrop of Indian society in spite of invasions from Semitic cultures and the relentless efforts of conquerors to exterminate Myth; and of course, ‘idol worship’ which is its companion. Indeed, the term itself now bears a negative connotation, so powerful has been the rise of a consciousness which represents an antithesis of the ancient tradition. If India had not preserved this tradition, it is unlikely that the experience with the Horse I am describing in this series would have been possible anywhere else. That it transpires in India is an additional proof that the Sanatan Dharma, the eternal truth, is alive and well.

A central part of this age-old tradition is the knowledge of the Ten Avatars. It is interesting to note that the tenth or last in the Line is none other than Kalki, the ‘horse’ Avatar. For not only is the manifestation represented as a man astride a white horse with sword in hand, there are even more powerful depictions where the Avatar himself is the Horse, as the figure following demonstrates. Kalki in fact is an appearance of our very Age. We are in the period of Kalki whose birth sign is precisely Sagittarius, the sign of the Horse.

These revelations arise in the soul. This seeing is only offered to the human creation through that channel – hence I have often written that it is a plunge within which opens these doors of the innermost chamber of being. And there the Gods and Goddesses and their vahanas and all else – indeed, the Supreme Consciousness itself in the form of Skambha – are seen, lived, known.

Given this involvement, or involution, of the Divine Consciousness in creation in this intrinsic way, there is no reason why escape from material, cosmic manifestation is required. Indeed, it is, as stated, a denial or a perversion of our birthright, and as a spiritual experience it certainly marked the nadir of the human quest. But the human being is given a choice. Escape itself is provided as ‘a way out’. If the iron grip of Time is too hard to bear, the seeker may find relief from the pressure by exiting for a time until a solid core is forged which can withstand the contracting power without recoil or collapse. It is clear that in the middle of the last Manifestation, the 8^th, some 5000 years ago, seekers encountered the same difficulty. It is expressed in the Bhagavad Gita, a product of that Manifestation, in the description of the recoil experienced when, after beseeching his Friend and Guide, Krishna, to reveal his true divine form, Arjun then pleads with Krishna to return to the image he can bear, that of his loving mentor and friend. Krishna as the Avatar, emanation of Vishnu, had appeared to him precisely in the form of the Time-Spirit in the process of creating and devouring the worlds in manifestation.

Myth and the Paradox of Compressed Time

This brings us to the main function of the soul in creation, as well as a deeper understanding of time, destiny and circumstance. For the soul is indeed the encasement of the Supreme or Absolute Consciousness. While at the same time it IS that very Consciousness which it envelops. This paradox is beautifully expressed in the ancient Vedic myth concerning the origin of Daksha, progenitor of the Gods and father of Sati, Shiva’s first consort, and his connection at the origin with Aditi, the Divine Mother of creation. For Daksha is both father and son of Aditi. In the words of the Rigveda, ‘…Daksha sprang from Aditi, and Aditi from Daksha.’

Naturally scholars who study these stories with a view to comprehending the ancient spirit and mind of the Indian people, without the soul initiation that opens the innermost chamber of higher knowledge, cannot understand anything of their deeper meaning and cosmic sense, imposing as they must perforce do the limitations of scholastic conditioning on a realm of experience and discovery quite foreign to that world.

But we need not extend our investigation into remote times since we have the new cosmology and the actual experience it describes of the Solar Line to clarify the very same paradox: the 9 of the Line is both father to his ‘daughter’ (the 3), as well as her own son (the 0/1). This is made clear only when we realise that Sri Aurobindo as the Transcendent 9 left this plane and in an unbroken line of time took birth through the Third who is his own ‘daughter’ in the Solar Line. She is ‘daughter’ by way of her FUNCTION in the scale of creation. It is the cosmic principle which we relate to our birth experience on Earth in this way, because she is the distilled essence of the 9 and the Cosmic Mother, the 6. The Daughter Principle is the bridge which the Transcendent 9 crosses in his voyage to Immanence. Through her he takes birth as the compressed SEED of himself, or the Immanent One. Then at this stage there is a ‘reversal’. The other side finds its bridge linking our time and space; the Son is not only a ‘principle’. He takes birth as a physical son as well, for the Physical and Spiritual have been joined.

This profound truth of material creation is found retold time and again in India in all of the different periods of her long and unbroken civilisation. In the Puranic period, after the Vedic, it surfaces in the tale of Shiva, Sati, Parvati, and Kartikeya, Parvati’s son who is ‘Shiva himself’. Thus this re-echoes the tale of Daksha who is son of the divine Aditi while at the same time he is her father. The coherency and consistency of the teaching over such vast movements of time is testimony to the power of the original act of seeing, to the vigour of that eternal truth-seed which is the origin of what we now call Hinduism.

As a similar but contemporary Myth, we have Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem, Savitri. It presents the same truth, perhaps clearer in that his writing has been simultaneous with the myth’s unfolding in time. Thus in Savitri we have the same four components. There is Ashwapathy, Savitri’s father, the Queen Mother, Savitri and finally Satyavan. They very accurately correspond to the 9, 6, 3, and 0-1 of the Solar Line in the new cosmology, as well as the same cosmo-geneology expressed in the tales of Shiva. The contemporary myth is so accurate that Savitri’s father is called Ashwapathy, which means Lord of the Horse.

Disciples are fully aware that Sri Aurobindo identified with Ashwapathy and that his own yoga is described in the epic as Ashwapathy’s experiences. At the same time, disciples believe that Satyavan is truly Sri Aurobindo inasmuch as he is the consort of the divine Savitri, whom they understand to be the Mother. But paradoxically, while Satyavan is the central figure in the story, he is rather obscure, his character is the least defined, he is virtually an unknown quantity and figures only as the main object in Savitri’s quest and ultimate victory over Death when she redeems his soul and brings him back to Earth. Virtually throughout the entire epic Satyavan spends his time in the sleep of death!

Sri Aurobindo, when commenting on the epic’s symbolism, referred to Satyavan as the ‘soul of the Earth’. It is the new cosmic formula that more accurately details the participation and function of each of the four elements. It also casts light on a rather ambiguous aspect of the yoga regarding the nature of the psychic being and the soul. The two are often confused and difficult to define properly. Sri Aurobindo has sought to remove the terminological confusion on a number of occasions. In his letters to disciples he has clarified that the psychic being is on the order of the soul’s personality or encasement when incarnating. The new cosmology would explain it as the Third, and indeed in this sense it is related to the Person; while the fourth, the soul, is that innermost, centremost Point, the Son, the One. In this light, it is entirely true that Satyavan as fourth is the ‘soul of the Earth’.

Returning to our analysis, by including the details of the Solar Line in this regard, the intention is to consolidate or render concrete and substantial a knowledge which is all too often elusive and therefore open to innumerable ‘interpretations’, and hence falsification. The paternity of the Third of the Solar Line lies in the law she embodies and her enactment thereof in this special 9^th Manifestation. She is in this essential way the (9) Father’s ‘daughter’ because in her essential nature she cannot be anything else. At the same time, she gives birth to him as the Son (0/1) because he is as well bound to this channel of manifestation by laws which he embodies. In a word, the Avatar, and in particular the Avatars of this Age of the Supermind, simply re-enact the process of creation in its most essential, psychic features. Not because to do so helps the seeker to understand the phenomenon of which he or she is an unconscious and often blind participant, but because they are simply true to their nature or inherent DHARMA, to the law that drives their Being in this Becoming. And in this manner the Supreme descends, takes birth in time and thus etches this higher Purpose and Function on the canvas of the evolution of consciousness on Earth. But it is not all the Avatars who enact this drama of creation captured in the ancient myths. For it is only in the 9^th Manifestation that the work is done. The full Four Powers incarnate and bring to a close the process described in the Puranic line of the Ten Avatars. They forge the connection between Swar, ‘heaven’ of the Veda, and this physical Earth plane.

Thus the Third is, properly speaking, the SOUL – be it individual or collective. She is the encasement of the Supreme Consciousness just as each human being is and can know him or herself to be. She holds within the seed, the Transcendent 9, compressed by the action of the Mother into that tiny Point: Skambha, the support of the worlds, or the Supreme Principle at the heart of creation.

What we call the Timeless is thus involved, the Transcendent takes birth in time through this medium which is the essence of Itself but simply compressed. The product of that great cosmic act of creation is the Golden Seed or Hiranyaretas: Agni, the cosmic principle of Fire. Science will make this discovery when it is able to step beyond the barriers death imposes which closes out our perception and observation the process of creation on the other side. It is blocked at observation, at scrutiny of the 1, the first point of space, disconnected from the origin of Itself (the 0) which lies in that dimension beyond and from where the material universe has spring. It was no ‘big bang’ as such. It was imply the birth of the One from the fulness of Itself.

The Golden Seed is thus the compressed 9, 6, 3. That is, Future, Past and Present are its essence. In other words, compressed Time. If this were not so, if this compression of the future, for example, did not exist there would be no explanation – nay, occurrence – of the phenomena known as precognition, deja vu, prophecy, prediction, and so forth. One cannot foresee what does not exist somewhere, somehow. Because the Transcendent is compressed into the substance of our individual soul, we are at times able to rend the veil and perceive aspects of our future inasmuch as the Transcendent is the ALL. It is the foundation of being. But it is the future undifferentiated. That is, it has not crossed the bridge provided by the soul, the Third, by which channel order is established. Thus the Third ‘puts order’ into things of this creation. She channels time from the present of itself – for she is indeed the present in the trinity and hence the centre. She is, or gives birth to, the ‘centre that holds’ and without which things ‘fall apart’, time reverts to chaos and not cosmos, collapses, falls back into the Fulness from where it emerged, only to repeat the creative process throughout eternity.

The Third is therefore a sort of regulating apparatus. What she regulates is movement, speed. Thus her vahana is necessarily the Horse; and in this special 9^th Manifestation of the 9^th sign Sagittarius, horse racing is an especially suited endeavour to demonstrate the action as well as to work out certain ‘knots’ which have arisen with the passage of time (‘knots’ precisely of time’s energy) affecting that regulated flow which threatens to drive into disorder the energies operating through the evolution of consciousness and being on Earth. This ‘working out’ is aimed at the vital centre and plane of consciousness; and indeed this is the field of operation of the Third, while for the 6th and the Cosmic Divine it was the mental plane with which the 6 has special affinity. The field of the 9, the father of the Line, is the spiritual plane, while for the 0-1 it is the Physical. The four powers thus gather into themselves all the planes of creation.

Money, the Vital and the Horse

The racing animal is thus a sublime ‘symbol’ of the process which regulates speed (of consciousness), for in the rightful experience of such a process lies the success or failure of the horse to pass the winning post before the other equine competitors.

But there is more involved in the matter, of a perhaps less elusive or esoteric nature. This is money power, plain and simple. This is easily appreciated if we reflect on a simple equation: energy is time is money. With this any businessman or entrepreneur would agree. But there is a cosmic sense to the equation whereby money becomes the outer symbol of that play of energy in its cosmic import. The ‘knots’ I have discussed above are equally the knotted condition of the Earth’s wealth, with money power in the hands of a few, depriving the many of their basic needs and just share. Yet this would not be a problem if the flow were as harmonious as the cosmic order demands. The ‘knots’ in the flow are precisely those transgressions in the vital dimension of being which hamper any real and equitable distribution of this energy/power in such a way as to ensure that it provides for all while at the same time there is no strangulation of the channels which are by destiny meant to draw that energy onto this Earth-plane and place it at the service of humanity at large.

Insofar as we are at the Third’s level in the Supramental Descent, and that to this manifestation is connected the vital and by consequence money power, the stock exchange, for example, is a perfect ‘field’ for a display of the power of the Third by its involvement with money power or the energy it represents or ties up. In ‘knots’ for the most part. Hence Sri Aurobindo wrote of the need to re-conquer this energy for the Divine since it is presently in the hands of the titans, the Asuras:

‘Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose. This is indeed one of the three forces – power, wealth, sex – that have the strongest attraction for the human ego and the Asura and are most generally misheld and misused by those who retain them. The seekers or keepers of wealth are more often possessed rather than its possessors; few escape entirely a certain distorting influence stamped on it by its long seizure and perversion by the Asura. For this reason most spiritual disciplines insist on a complete self-control, detachment and renunciation of all bondage to wealth and of all personal and egoistic desire for its possession. Some even put a ban on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only spiritual condition. But this is an error; it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile forces. To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs and use it divinely for the divine life is the supramental way…’. (The Mother, 1928)

It may be interesting to note that in 1992, when the yoga of the Third reached a major turning point, when the Asura threatened to overtake precisely the source of power which was and remains her symbol-field, the Indian stock exchange went into convulsions. First it soared to unimaginable, delirious heights, then it was plunged into the darkness of ‘scams’ and the like. These are an example of the ‘knots’. That is, pockets of darkness, of twisted energy which, because of their compressed, obscure condition are able to usurp the power. That phase of the yoga accomplished successfully, it produced an inevitable ‘reversal’ in the following year. The effects were felt on our filly, completing the combined work of 1992 and 1993 of the Yoga. Also of note in view of the connection between horse, the vital plane and money power is the fact that India’s experiment with a liberalisation of the economy began when our filly started her racing career.

All the characteristics of the vital are contained in the contemporary phenomenon of the prosaic and utterly mundane stock market, to the extent that when the movement of stocks is described in newspapers, it reads more like a log of a mental patient in an asylum. For indeed ‘all life is yoga’, to borrow Sri Aurobindo’s aphorism once again. We refer to the stock market as ‘buoyant’, ‘excited’, ‘depressed’, – or even more aptly, ‘bullish’, since indeed the zodiacal sign that rules money and thus the stock market is Taurus, sign of the Bull. These are all terms reflective of the vital function in the consciousness-being of the individual and the collectivity. But a field for the play of energy allotted to the vital in the schema of evolution from involution is nowhere more suited to a working-out process than the betting arena of the race course. In this nuclear field we find all the ‘excitement’ and ‘depression’ of the ordinary stock exchange, with the difference that at the centre of the exercise stands not the human being or industry but the Horse, supreme symbol precisely of the Vital. This is therefore the best arena at our disposal to prove the new cosmology’s choicest aphorism, ‘the symbol is the thing symbolised’.

The Present is the time-energy arena of the Third. Horse racing and its betting structure fall in line with this time-boundary in that everything involved plays itself out fully and immediately in the race for which the bets are being taken. Though the stock exchange is also a field of manifestation of the vital plane, the betting arena of racing serves as a more appropriate ‘symbol’ insofar as there is no carry over. The race of the moment is the focus. Bets are placed and either won or lost with the instant outcome. There are no stocks to negotiate and re-negotiate, to hold, to sell, to buy and re-sell. No accumulation, as such. It is all decided by the race of the moment. And the fever at the time punters are placing their bets in the precincts of betting is in no way inferior to the well of the stock exchange building for a physical, visual image of the hysteria, excitement, agitation and rise in the vital temperature the exercise provokes.

But in racing with its mini-stock exchange there are the same ‘knots’ as in its macro model. The flow is disturbed by gaps, seepages, furtive drains, siphoning off energy from the system. It is indeed a perfect symbol of the condition we seek to transform in the evolution of the species so that energy now drained away, usurped, wasted, may go to the Divine, at the service of the process to effect a rise of the species to a higher level of creation on this Earth and for which much larger stores of energy have to be put at the disposal of the human being. The vehicle is the Vital, centre of the combustion of energy. The symbol is the Horse.

It is when the level of the Third is reached in the Supramental Descent that the present of time’s energy becomes the focus. Hence it is, rightfully speaking, only at this, our actual level, that the symbol can become ‘the very thing symbolised’. In the present, distance vanishes, spaces between things, between the observer and the observed. As such what the symbol stands for is the very object of the transformation. In this case, the Horse. It is not ‘up there’ any longer, in the ‘ideal plane’ where ‘symbols’ are born and remain separate from the thing symbolised. It is here, rooted in the NOW. Physical. Measurable. Irrefragable in the truth it conveys, to use the word Sri Aurobindo employed to describe the truth of the supramental Gnosis. Similarly, the Solar Line Transcendent is no longer ‘up there’. He is immanent. He is driven into the compressed Point, first principle of Matter, by the power of the 6 and the 3. Heaven descends upon Earth.

Grappling with the Shadow-Residue

We left off the analysis of F1’s racing experience with the completion of her 9^th race and thus the close of the first ennead and the opening of the second – 9 to 18. It may be recalled that the filly had been turned completely sour by the dubious antics of the jockey who rode her during that first cycle. At this point, it is important to discuss the meaning of the first ennead in any process monitored in the Gnostic Circle; or for that matter, the first ennead of life. In the present example we are concerned with stages of the development signalled by a series of horse races. Whereas for the human being it is a question of time cycles of days/months/years. But the same process or development pertains to both. The essential point to bear in mind is that the first cycle of 9 sets the tone for the further development.

Thus, in the case of F1, it was clear that the negative imprinting she received during passage over the 4.5 Orbit – or between her 4^th and 5^th races, would constitute a formidable ‘handicap’ in the future play-out. It soon became more than clear, as had been earlier foreseen, that the next cycle – 9 to 18 – would be almost entirely focussed on an undoing of that negative imprint, if at all it could be done.

If this occurs in racing, normally the trainer will not waste his time, especially at racing centres where competition is stiff. In the case of fillies this is even more the case because, unlike colts or geldings, the filly’s career though unsatisfactory on the track can be redeemed in breeding. This is especially true when the pedigree is good or above average.

To avoid this situation, F1 was sent to a sensitive and caring woman trainer, the only female in that particular centre and perhaps in all of India. Thus, when F1 returned to the track after her 7^th race which resulted in a three-month rest on the farm where she was bred, she was placed in this young trainer’s yard because it was felt that only in such an environment would the filly encounter the right atmosphere for rehabilitation, if this was at all still possible.

The sojourn on the farm, at the source, as I have explained in the first part of this series, was indeed beneficial. Her sourness disappeared instantly when she reached the farm; returned to the track, she was healthier and happier. Her first race in these new conditions – the 8^th – reflected this changed state of affairs, as I have described in the last article.

Thus, the new cycle opened on this positive note. Racing was shifted to the summer venue, since the season in her base city had come to an end, making of the 9^th truly a new beginning. What transpired thereafter is especially important to note in the context of F1’s particular problem, – that is, her recovery from a sour condition caused by the mixed signals she had received early in her career. In such a case and when opening a new cycle, of special significance is the need not to reinforce the imprint one wishes to dismantle. This is fundamental, otherwise the second ennead will serve only to burden the subject with more negativity. And thus it was, to a certain extent, for our filly.

Her 9^th race, as reported earlier, was successful in that for the first time she seemed to be a willing participant. If she lost that race it was simply due to her heavy handicap (she was almost top weight), and the fact that the winner, carrying 9 kilos less, was clearly of a higher class brought down to Class VA, or the second to the last, which was still the classification of our filly. But from the point of view of the psychological problems of F1 – that is, the need to work out the shadow-residue left by the previous negative imprinting – the race was a definite success. It seemed that she had finally decided to accept the jockey, any jockey, and did not look upon him as an enemy working at cross-purposes with her. However, there was soon to be a set-back in this regard. The filly’s 10^th race proved to be a disaster in terms of the shedding of any negative residue from the first cycle of 9.

For the 10^th race F1 was allotted the same mediocre jockey as before simply for the fact that she had responded to him well, it seemed. Therefore, given her problem with jockeys it was felt that rather than change for a better jockey, more experienced and with a better track record, there should be no change which might upset her again. However, in the interim between her 9^th and 10^th races that jockey had raced and received a suspension of his license for one year for ‘not allowing his mount to run on its merits’; or, put more plainly, for pulling the horse, for holding him back and not allowing him to win. To further secure that he could not encourage his mount as is customary in the last stretch, he made it a point to lose his whip early on. This seemed to cast further doubt on his intentions and was duly noted by the stewards.

The jockey of course denied the charges and appealed the punishment. His suspension was to have started immediately, but given the appeal it was postponed until a particular date when the appeal would be heard. This allowed him to continue riding at that centre until then. If heard and rejected, the jockey would neither be able to ride in that centre where the transgression took place or in any other throughout the world which is connected to the international racing network.

In spite of this situation the trainer retained him for the filly’s 10^th race because of the reasons given above. But this proved to be a misjudgement. Insofar as his permanent suspension was a certainty and that his appeal would be rejected, it seems he became even more reckless. As the video of the race reveals, the jockey fought a constant battle with the filly who wanted only to get in the lead and stay there till the end. He interfered shamelessly with her performance, being seen to yank her head from side to side violently in the struggle to place her in the rear, though she jumped out of the gate and had placed herself first, her preferred position.

The result of his vigorous efforts was that she passed the winning post last – the first time in her career. By the time the horses reached the last stretch and were accelerating toward the post, our filly lost heart and resigned herself to her trailing position where the jockey had succeeded in pinning her down. We were thus faced with potentially a terrible set-back, given the dedication with which all the participants in her career had sought to ease up the burden of her negative imprint. It seemed by this that she would experience a reinforcement of the very thing we strove to dissolve. On his part, the jockey then departed for a racing venue in the Middle East, outside the international network to continue his ‘career’.

The harmony of parts within the whole

At this point it is well to discuss an aspect of the experience which reflects on any situation where teamwork is required. For the purposes of our study – that is, the Gnostic Circle as a tool or guide in the transformation of consciousness – the field under observation is not restricted to sports and the racing endeavour. Though the latter does offer a splendid means for highlighting the difficulty the human being faces when he or she requires a cooperative attitude on behalf of others in order to succeed in life. Indeed, if we consider ourselves isolated and completely auto-dependent during our sojourn on this planet, we are mistaken. The human being is a social creature, for reasons quite cosmic in nature. The collectivity of which he is a part is fundamental to the fulfilment of his destiny. There is what is known as the self-made man or woman. But this is only relative. It may pertain to the development of talents in order to reach a certain self-expression; but the field within which that expression must evolve is populated by other humans without whose collaboration our self-made individual could not succeed.

Yet this ‘collaboration’ need not be positive. At times tension is required when the individual bears a certain character which demands such a ‘stimulus’ in order to achieve a desired end.

It is clear that in a sports enterprise there must be positive collaboration between all the elements involved – i.e., owner, trainer, jockey; and then the stewards and other officials of the turf’s team who are supposed to assure that the highest standards are maintained in a sport where large quantities of public and state money are involved.

By the time the filly had experienced her 10^th (negative) race, an important feature of the experience was beginning to crystallise. It was the lack of cooperation between all the elements involved. It would seem obvious that for a horse to win, trainer, jockey and owner should present a united front and goal – i.e., to win. But often this is not the case. Each one is a separate entity with his or her goals, compulsions, priorities and machinations to achieve them. Moreover, even when the three are working in unison there is the rest of the set-up to contend with: the stewards, the attitude of the other competitors who may be in the game for entirely different reasons and using underhand means to achieve certain ends which are not exactly compatible with honest and fair sport. In other words, the field in which all of this transpires.

Though I was aware of the jockey’s potential to interfere with the attainment of the goal, the filly’s 10^th race brought to the fore the difficulty an owner can face with his or her trainer; or vice-versa, the trainer with the owner. Indeed, many times the trainer prepares the horse for a sure win but the owner enters into a secret agreement with the jockey to see that his own horse loses, while he places his bet elsewhere.

One would expect that faced with such a perverse twist, with such a wicked undermining of one’s hard efforts, the trainer would be inclined to denounce the fraudulent practice before the stewards if the situation had reached the point of an enquiry. But in my experience this was never the case. The trainer invariably stood by the jockey regardless of his dubious, surreptitious machinations which caused the trainer to lose the race and lay waste his efforts. Moreover, as anyone knows who has followed the ‘sport’ for any length of time, jockeys often heed neither trainer nor owner but rather the shadowy injunctions of some bookmaker who has a stake in the horse’s failure to win. Though I am not proficient in this aspect of the ‘sport’ – that is, the gambling, betting part – insofar as my interest lies in the sport for sport’s sake, not to speak of the rigorous demands of the Gnostic Circle, it is clear that betting on a race is an unavoidable part of the enterprise and will not go away. Indeed, it is even an accepted and welcome part of amateur or gymkhana racing. For the purpose of our study and the connection between the Horse and the Vital Plane, and by consequence money power, betting in racing and the mini stock exchange excitement it engenders is a necessary ‘evil’. It creates an atmosphere which is conducive to the sort of experience the horse needs to serve the purpose for which he is drawn into the world of racing. From its higher perspective, it is clear.

Thus gambling on the part of most of the participants in the ‘sport’ creates conditions which would not exist if the practice were banned. And then horse racing would not serve us as it does in this nuclear experience which draws together various dimensions of human activity and planes of consciousness-being.

It needs also to be mentioned that the costs of maintaining a race horse being as high as they are, while the stake money in India is relatively low, owners often have no choice but to engage in betting just to be able to keep the horse in the sport. Without the successful gamble, usually two wins are required in order to meet costs. In addition, horses are rarely trained to race as well and as much as they could, and in which case more money could be earned without betting, given the archaic methods still practiced by almost all trainers. The advances made in training methods of human athletes over the past two decades have not percolated down to the equine athlete as yet.

The outcome of F1’s 10^th race was therefore the realisation that between all the elements ostensibly engaged in the common enterprise of getting this equine athlete to perform at her best and hopefully to win, there was no essential harmony. Indeed, in the racing set-up in general there is little harmony; jockeys often demonstrate disregard for trainer or owner; owners often mistrust them both; between trainer and jockeys and stewards there is a decided we-against-them atmosphere and the latter are seen as ‘enemies’ to be either fooled, cajoled or humoured, if not feared. Indeed, the steward is not only god, he is, like the Semitic deity, a god whom all fear, though often his credentials do not qualify him for the job of either steward or ‘god’.

It does not require much depth of perception to realise that this condition is applicable to almost every aspect of life, every human endeavour. Harmony is not a feature of the human condition except in exceptional situations when it cannot be otherwise; not for harmony’s sake but for survival or other demands of self-interest. Our political systems throughout the world, democracies, for example, thrive on tension and confrontation, even within the parties themselves. The human condition seems to impose an atmosphere where the collectivity works at cross-purposes. Indeed, we shall explore the reasons for this condition in the subsequent pages.

In racing the element tainting everything is of course money. Not unlike politics throughout the world. Lust for more and more – and ‘the easy win’. What this implies is that often a horse of a particular calibre, say the highest Classes I and II, is consistently ‘pulled down’ to find itself in one of the lowest classes, VA or VB. This is done in a host of ways; by getting the horse in poor condition by restricting his diet, or arranging with the jockey to hold him back. Finally, when the desired lower class is reached, his condition is restored and he finds himself out-classing the other competitors. Bets are then placed and the ‘sure win’ in such conditions brings large dividends on the gambling front. None seem to care about the humiliation this signifies for the horse. Indeed, there are times when the animal displays far more sense and decency than humans and simply refuses to go along with the fraud, refuses to ‘cooperate’, turns off, closes up and is then labelled ‘sour’. This is more often than not the equine athlete’s only protective device when faced with insurmountable obstacles – i.e., everybody and everything against the fulfilment of its purpose: display of its maximum potential under optimum conditions in a healthy atmosphere of respect, dignity, understanding and passionate desire to excel. This spirit is found for the most part only in Classic and not handicap races, the category to which our filly was restricted because of her unknown pedigree. But in Classic races, while ‘pulling’ and the like is at a minimum, another problem is found, also connected to the Vital dimension of being. This is lust for power, a perverted desire to reach the top at all costs, by whatever means, not so much for the higher stakes involved, but for prestige.

All of this simply reflects the human condition as it truly is, with no masks. Thoroughbred racing seems to encapsulate it all and thus serves our purpose well as a nuclear field for the transformation.

Another perversion which has to be mentioned is the nasty habit of doping the animals, or else filling them with substances which ‘enhance’ their performance, similar of course to human athletes. Thus if one does not agree to the practice, rarely is one’s animal competing with horses on the basis of their true potential. This sort of violence is done to the animal almost as a regular practice and our fillies have had to face the additional ‘handicap’ of performing on their own merits and not on the basis of artificial substances. Veterinary science has come a long way in this regard. More and more sophisticated techniques have been devised to administer drugs which cannot be detected given the present means of scrutiny available to the race course. Owners and trainers can be assured of the ‘collaboration’ of the vet to fulfil illegitimate and perverse ambitions, often to the physical detriment of the horse, especially stallions and mares.

Be all this as it may and to return to our case under analysis, the 10^th race brought home the fact that we found ourselves decidedly at odds with our environment – both filly and owner. The sort of ‘team spirit’ one had dreamt of was absent. Everyone seemed to be working at cross-purposes and even the honest had no courage and stamina to endure the hardships and difficulties which would perforce accompany any attempt to ‘break the system’.

Cancer and the mechanical response

The filly’s 11^th race, this time with a good and reliable jockey, brought to the fore a certain aspect of this section of the Gnostic Circle – i.e., passage over the first Cardinal Point, Cancer, serves to reinforce mechanical responses. It is in this section that ruts are carved out and one thereafter slips into these grooves in the effort to secure a ‘safe niche’.

The fourth sign Cancer, traditional astrology will affirm, is the sign most expressive of a sense of insecurity. The animal symbol, the Crab is notorious for its instant recoil within its shell at the very first signs of real or imaginary approaching danger. Animals in their instinctive state will of course always react to danger by either flight or attack out of panic, but the Crab is a select symbol in that it carries on its back, as part of its very structure, that item which offers it a secure refuge: its shell. Another point to note is its devious movement in an oblique fashion, to further confound its aggressor.

But all this is simply to emphasise the fact that at this point in the passage one must come to terms with these insecurities and the consequent carving out of what appear to be secure ruts. In a word, the ego is greatly enhanced in this segment insofar as it is the human being’s device or inbuilt mechanism to protect oneself by isolation. The shell of the Crab indicates this self-containment, the element which cuts us off from our surroundings and the experience of oneness and unity with the rest of creation. A binary creature, structured around the ego-axis, cannot experience this oneness and unity with the all, – unless the individual comes upon a method to dislocate him or herself, to detach from creation and the universal manifestation by techniques available in yogas of various sorts. In creation, as an integrated part of the cosmic process and the evolution of the species, it is only a unitary creation, poised around a true centre that can live in this state of oneness.

There are any number of justifications the human being can offer to support the notion that secure ruts, buffers or shields, are the only means to survive in the hostility that surrounds us. In the case of our filly the justification came by way of her previous race in the hands of the suspended jockey, his shameless holding her back and forcing her to trail the field. Needless to say, this confirmed her distrust and fortified her hardening self-centredness.

It is this that needs to be highlighted and was clearly demonstrated in the subsequent behaviour of our filly. Up to that point, that passage over the first Cardinal Point, Cancer, there was still a certain openness which was revealed in her attitude to the jockey during her 9^th race. She cooperated to some degree and was seen to enjoy the effort, though this signified an output of only a fraction of her true potential. Nonetheless it was a positive sign and seemed to be the promise of an even better performance in her next race, in spite of the heavy handicap she was obliged to carry. With relative ease she not only kept pace with the other competitors but managed to hold her own in spite of carrying many more kilos than they.

All the psychological gains of not only that race but the efforts of the new woman trainer to diminish if not eliminate entirely the filly’s former sourness were laid waste by the suspended jockey’s outright efforts to hold the filly back. The effects of this pathetic set-back were that in her next race, the 11^th and her approach to the Cancer segment in the Gnostic Circle, it was clear that she was beginning to forge a protective mechanism around herself. Barriers were being erected in her consciousness to this end. She was closing herself up within her ‘shell’, constructing the edifice that would permit her to behave in a way that would thereinafter be her hallmark. She was withdrawing into her shell. Not sour. Indeed, she seemed totally at ease and appreciative of the loving care the new trainer was lavishing on her, pampering her status of ‘pet’ rather than racing machine. Her sister (F2) had returned from the farm-source with her; and this companionship also contributed to her sense of well-being and contentment. It seems as if she was able to distinguish between things and people in a highly accurate manner. On the one hand there was the trainer, syce and owner – all to her liking. On the other there was the jockey, her arch enemy. Her ire and distrust were saved for the latter. And thus the pattern began to take shape, so true to passage through the Cancer segment of the Circle, which allowed her to enjoy her environment but turn off any form of cooperation in the race.

The clear signs of this were noted in her 11^th race. The newspapers favoured her. They were sure that the able jockey who had agreed to ride her would ‘succeed in raising a gallop’. For by then it was evident to all that any positive performance so far was accomplished virtually at a canter. She was again favoured in the betting arena. But at the 400 mark when the jockey began to ask for a kick off in the final stretch, she closed up and refused. The result was fourth place – on the board but not in any way ‘in the race’. This became thereafter her pattern, her rut, carved out over the Cancer point in order to provide the protection she felt she needed from the onslaught of the jockeys.

Another interesting feature of this development was that from that time onward no one cared to penetrate into the psychological recesses of the filly and discover why and what she was doing. The jockey’s comment after the race was the she ‘blew out’ due to the handicap she was carrying (56 kgs). In his opinion she should be given an allowance rider to counteract the problem. Everyone seemed to forget that just a month earlier she had breezed into second place with 58 kilos on her back, well ahead of her fellow competitors with far less.

The subsequent races proved true to the indications of the Gnostic Circle. She was in a fixed rut and there seemed to be no way to draw her out. Moreover, she was so happy with her situation that one hesitated to disturb her! Time, however, was slipping by and it was clear by her 15^th race that she could go on and on in this same pattern, this same rut. Something else was needed which her environment could not provide. To explain the nature of the ‘jolt’ administered to shake her out of her rut, we must move back in time and discuss parallel developments intended to overcome the impasse brought about by unreliable jockeys, inadequate training, monitoring, controlling and the like. But first a word must be said about the difference between a binary creation, the actual human species, and a unitary creation.

Women and the Power

The Gnostic Circle indicates the method to attain a poise of unity; or how to forge that central axis and so ‘to become the Sun’, as the ancient Veda exhorts. It documents the movement of consciousness in transition to the new state of being, unknown on this planet as a collective experience. In other words, a new species destined to replace the old in the highest echelon of the animal-human kingdom. A being with a unitary axis is ever central to the unfolding of time from the innermost compressed seed lodged in the sacred precincts of the soul. In contrast, a binary creature has no central axis and therefore cannot aspire to that centremost position and the unfolding of destiny from this innermost position. He or she can only aspire to a peripheral location and consequent poise. That is, as a binary subject the only position attainable is akin to a moon of a planet. Direct circumvention of the central Sun is impossible, much less ‘to become the Sun’. There has to be an intermediary agent – in other words, a planet.

Our binary human race is, in effect, nothing more than a satellite in orbit of a planet, which in turn orbits the Sun. This is meant to indicate the poise of the species. There are numerous factors which conspire to impose this condition, not least of which is the actual physical structure of the human being. Our bodies offer just so much leeway in the question of placement within the System. To attain a different poise and position, it is clear that our vahana or carrier – that is, our physical embodiment – must undergo some form of transformation if physically we are indeed intended to accomplish this great crossing.

The role of women in this passage is crucial. Indeed, we are given the indication of this pre-eminent contribution by the status of women in different traditions. The Semitic, for example.

In the Semitic paradigm of creation based on the Old Testament, the genesis of woman demonstrates the fact that in the binary creation which Genesis describes, she is but a rib of the male. She has no individual, intrinsic truth of being. It is Adam who was fashioned first by Yahweh in his image; thereafter, when Adam lamented his solitary condition, God acceded and created the woman by taking a rib from Adam’s side.

Eve thus comes into being, ‘bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh’, – Adams’s, that is – in this once-removed fashion. In essence it means that she has no intrinsic or direct divine likeness but is merely an appendage of Adam who in turn is created in God’s image. The evolution of religions and cultures having Genesis as their foundation have simply materialised in human civilisation throughout the Age of Pisces, when they came into being, this dependent status of the female of the species.

And yet the order described in Genesis – first male, then female out of that male – is contradicted by biological studies. For in terms of the physical components which make up the human being, it is the female who takes shape first. The male evolves at a later stage in the development when a certain chromosome becomes activated to convert the foetus into a male. Without that activation, all creatures born on Earth would be female. Science therefore puts into question the Scriptural belief that Eve, first woman on Earth, was a rib or appendage of Adam.

However, this paradigm has indeed coloured our attitude toward women throughout the past Age of Pisces. An awakening is only beginning now, but just a beginning and nothing more as yet. The notion of appendage status was imported into India through Islamic and later Christian invaders and rulers during that Age and has come to colour heavily even the Indian perception of womanhood. Yet culturally India responds to a completely different perception. This is demonstrated in the Ardhanarisvar image of Shiva/Shakti. That is, the idol consisting of half Shiva, half Parvati, his consort. In other words, a total equality of being. Indeed, though Semitic religions and cultures have obfuscated this perception to a large extent, we are forced to recognise that India is virtually the only country in the world to preserve Goddess worship from antiquity in an unbroken line, and that the Feminine Principle should continue to hold a pre-eminent position in philosophies and yogic systems which inhabit its cultural and spiritual firmament. The attacks on idol worship which Hinduism has had to endure throughout the Age of Pisces were simply attacks on the predominance of the Feminine in the culture, for it is Woman that is connected to form and multiplicity, the essential meaning and purpose of the exuberant proliferation of idols in Vedic tradition.

What, it is legitimate to ask, does this have to do with the Horse, and moreover with Thoroughbred racing in this 20^th Century opening up to the 21^st?

The Shakti is the Divine Energy, consort in equal status of being with the male Godhead. It is she who engenders movement (of energy) and it is movement that binds forms. Speed is a crucial factor in the process of creation of form. Hence in the Rigveda we find innumerable hymns praising speed as a direct attribute and contribution of the Horse to the creative process. I have quoted some verses in the closing portion of Part 1 of this series, those praising Dadhikravan, the Vedic Horse.

…Dadhikravan who is the truth in his running,

 – yea, he gallops and he flies, – brings into being

the impulsion, and the abundant force, the heavenly light.

When he runs, when he speeds in his passage,

as the wing of the Bird is a wind that blows about him

in his greed of the gallop; as the wing that beats about

the breast of the rushing Eagle, so about the breast of

Dadhikravan when he with the Force carries us beyond…

As I mentioned in the introduction, horse racing, where of course speed is everything, is the only major sport where men and women compete equally as jockeys, on equal terms with no concession granted to the female participant. In all other major sports the ‘weaker’ condition of the female is taken into consideration and she is made to compete only with and among other women. Even in tennis, the highly individualised, highly popular, highly lucrative major sport, though attempts have been made to range men against women or otherwise equalise the sport, they have only proven that the present female of the species cannot be pitted against the level of strength and stamina of male competitors.

This is not the case in horse racing. And yet anyone who has ridden a Thoroughbred racehorse realises instantly the tremendous strength required of the jockey to control the animal, as well as to encourage the horse in the last stretch to excel and pass the winning post first. Pushing, as it is sometimes called, in the last stretch requires very great physical exertion as well as stamina. Normally one would expect the female jockey to perform inferior to her male counterpart. But this has not been the case. Indeed, there is an interesting aspect to this dimension of racing: the male generally relies on his physical strength to check the animal’s speed, to control it, as well as to push when required. But the female rider operates differently. She can, if she so desires (and this is an option even for the male jockey), enter into a greater inner communion with the horse and control by virtue of centering. It is only because most, if not all, female jockeys unconsciously operate in this way that they find themselves competing equally in races with males as in no other major sport, – and successfully at that.

In this context, the Mother’s statement that her Force ‘works best through women’ is better understood. She did not elaborate but it is clear that she was referring to a particular inner mechanism or structure which was in a better position to receive the Power without disruption to the instrument and consequent deformation of the force or power of inspiration. Above all, this instrumental capacity is what softens the female’s response to certain situations. Violence, for example. The violent response usually associated with the male of the species (not the animal species) is simply reflective of a breakdown under the impact of vital energies unleashed in given situations. Women respond differently because their natural poise is closer to the centering we are describing in this series. I shall elaborate this point in the course of this analysis.

The question of Control and the illusion of Freedom

There is a misconception regarding a term used frequently when discussing the function of the Gnostic Circle. It concerns the control which is evidenced in operations monitored in the Circle. There is a need to clarify because control is most often confused with the power to determine the course of one’s life and the power to alter one’s destiny. Those on a path of yoga are especially prone to this sort of interpretation. Their understanding is that yoga confers a capacity of control which really means the power to alter what may be for the ordinary mortal a fixed pattern.

In the New Way this is not what the seeker must aspire for. I hope to demonstrate this by the example from racing I am providing. For there was never a question of altering the course of events or even of predicting what would transpire. The exercise was from the outset intended to offer the possibility of attaining a poise of consciousness which facilitates the establishment of a new principle of Gnosis as the governing power on Earth.

Control in this context means a centre that holds. And this too requires some elaboration. The famous line from W. B. Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming, ‘…Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold…’, has been quoted innumerable times, especially in moments of unknowing and global crisis. Things then do appear to be ‘falling apart’, to quote the poet. In my view Yeats was touching upon a visionary capacity in these lines akin to the ability of the ancient Vedic Rishis, inasmuch as not only was he foreseeing future conditions, he was also describing the realisation required to reverse the process.

A centre is indeed crucial in the situation he described in his apocalyptic vision. The lack of one which could provide holding power was the cause of things falling apart. In a word, what Yeats foresaw was a state of chaos in its entirely cosmic sense. What the New Way introduces by way of a ‘centre that holds’ is cosmos.

The essential factor is a knowledge whereby a cosmos comes into being. For that the centre must indeed ‘hold’. When this occurs the control is simply the harmony of all the parts. It is everything that comes within the boundary of a particular cosmos working in unison, in harmony for the fulfilment of the purpose contained in that special ‘centre’ which in turn is a compressed seed of time and hence destiny.

Thus there is no question of struggling with one’s destiny, with forestalling events, changing the apparently inevitable. There is only the attainment of a correct poise vis-à-vis the inner Divine, the centremost ‘point’ of our beings. Once this link is forged there is harmony of consciousness-being. And that is the purpose of life on Earth: an expression of the Supreme’s harmony – and freedom.

It is the latter that draws our attention in the context of this analysis. In the worldly or even yogic sense, to be ‘free’ means to be in a position both to choose, and on the basis of that ‘free choice’, to determine one’s destiny. Predetermination in the conventional perception is non-existent. In particular with the advent of quantum physics, nothing is pre-set but rather the course our lives take is entirely the outcome of that freedom to choose and hence to determine what we believe is one selection among a number of possibilities which constitute our ‘future’.

In such a scenario the human being is all-powerful by virtue of this ‘choice’. He or she determines what will be. That is, the entire process is self-contained and self-determined. In a word, it is the human will which is central to the operation.

The new cosmology and the supramental yoga it describes prove that this ‘freedom’ is an illusion. Everything is not only predetermined but a key feature of the situation is precisely the illusion of auto-determination. Our ability to choose is contained within the larger framework of predetermined destiny. But this is still a superficial or partial view. For finally what is required, or what comes into being with the practice of that yoga is a complete reversal: the problem ceases to exist. Or rather, the concept of freedom as formulated by the human mind undergoes a radical alteration. We are no longer concerned with this question of freedom and the human will because we realise that the only ‘freedom’ available to the human creation is the free choice which one confronts of service to a higher cause, or a lesser. That is, we can choose to serve the Divine or the human. Nothing more.

But this ‘choice’ already indicates a highly evolved individual. For a key feature in this matter is precisely conscious awareness. That is, what contributes to the rise in the echelon is the realisation of the limitations physical embodiment and birth impose; and that to cling to the lower poise represents a choice in favour of the illusion of freedom. On the other hand, the conscious choice produces that condition of centering where the binding mortar of being is laid within and around that Pivot and the individual’s life unfolds like a flower from a seed. The description of that seed is the Divine Will in creation, or Agni of the ancient Vedic tradition. Because of this he is rightfully perceived as the navel of the world, the axis mundi; or in the more accurate terminology of the Veda: SKAMBHA, support of the worlds. In the Vedic perception an essential feature of the operation is explained, for Skambha as support immediately implies a firm base and hence the opposite of emptiness.

The illusion of freedom which sustains the human creation is an outcome of the Cosmic Ignorance which is, in turn, the outcome of the perception of the Void. The Void can persist in our perception and fashion the outlook of an entire species simply because the human being indeed orbits a void. And this is possible only because he or she has not unveiled that Divine Son, the One – or the centremost point of being. In other words, the Void is the ‘centre’ of the binary creation.

Illusion is the prerogative of a consciousness orbiting the Void. Thus, the spiritual attainments of the old yogas which proclaimed creation to be an ‘illusion’ and divorced Maya from her divine essence, compelling her to mother the binary creation of Eve, were simply attempts to overcome the apparently inexorable fate of a creature born into this irredeemable world of chaos. Insofar as the yogis who have dealt with the problem over the past 2000 years in India were not stupid and they realised that fate and a fixed destiny are the unavoidable attendants of human birth, methods were devised to escape the iron clasp of time and destiny. Within the totality of circumstances which constitute the world we live in, the way they discovered to handle the problem was to view that circumscribing space as an illusion at whose heart stands Nothingness. In other words, they did not deal with the problem of fate, free will and/or predetermination at all. They simply dismissed the entire question as unworthy of attention, as ‘beneath’ the true spiritual attainment. They dismissed the entire field within which these strictures operate by labelling it all illusion or maya and hence intrinsically unreal. To do so required a positioning of the consciousness through yogic techniques on the extreme periphery of being, and even beyond by virtue of dissolution. They shot out like rockets into space and beyond the solar system, finally disintegrating in the farthest reaches of outer space, in the most rarefied atmosphere of what appeared to be non-Being.

Thus, all the old yogas were accommodations based on an intrinsically wrong perception. Or we can look at it this way: the perception of Illusion was unalterable given the binary alignment based on a central void.

The revolutionary significance of the new age of the Supermind is that we can now begin to ask the right questions because we are poised properly to do so. We are a centred species, unitary and no longer binary. Therefore an entirely new range of answers are available simply because the right questions are now being asked. We are now in a position to do so, as never before.

Likewise, given the fact that the Yoga of the Chamber has brought into being on a collective scale the Centre – and a key element in that process was precisely the Horse – we are witness to what were believed hitherto to be impossible attainments on the world stage. Knots in international relations are coming undone apparently on their own, or with little or no effort. Or else, the little effort employed today is contrasted with the tremendous efforts of the recent past which seemed to produce no results at all. We seem to have been thrust into an entirely new dimension of collective experience given the collapse of the polarised world of super powers.

Indeed, this is exactly true of the human individual. So willing, he or she can discover that the former boundaries of consciousness to which every human creature was subjected are being superseded, extended. Into this expanded field completely new possibilities have entered the range of our perception. But let us return to the Thoroughbred racing experience under analysis for a very accurate description of the mechanism governing the operation.

In the binary condition one is always a victim of circumstances. This can best be explained by the condition of F1. At the same time, the buffer or shell she had erected around herself made it appear as if she were ‘calling the shots’, as it were. Yet what was truly transpiring was that she had by then constructed around herself a boundary wall which cut her off or closed out elements which could allow her access to that innermost Source which could put her in touch with the ‘centre that holds’. Failing to do so left her in an entirely unfree condition. That is, the energy release, if at all it was released during the second passage over the 4.5 Orbit, went not to thrust her as a booster rocket into those innermost recesses, into that inner universe. Rather, it turned back on itself and was utilised for this fortification, this crust. Thus, the Mother in 1971 lamented that adults were ‘crusted over’ and that only children, some children, were free of those hard crusts. This is another description of the Crab’s shell. A refuge from a hostile world. In this case too the Crab does not find solace and solution in its innermost centre of being. Rather it relies on a hardened outer crust for protection, and not assimilation and oneness.

In The Magical Carousel this reliance on unsound ‘foundations’ is described precisely in the Cancer chapter. It is the area in the zodiacal passage where the ego comes to the rescue, as it were. One believes it to be ‘as solid as a rock’, only to find that, like the ground struck by an unexpected Uranian earthquake, it can crumble beneath us without the least warning. And so, the children in The Magical Carousel odyssey are carried by the Gemini bird in their descent into Cancerland over the surface of water until finally their carrier places them on…

‘…what appears to be a rock slightly protruding above the top of the water. He then takes flight once more and is quickly lost in the ink black above.

‘Only the silvery water and the shiny rock where the children are standing can be seen. Tired now after the long journey and in spite of their fear, they curl up close to each other and fall into a deep sleep, in part brought on by the blackness enveloping them. For a long while they remain like this – who knows how long really – until they are awakened from their slumber by a soft rocking motion, ever so soft.

‘”What?” cries Val, “the rock is moving! We’re moving, Pom-pom. Wake up!”

‘They shake the sleep out of their frail bodies and in no time are wide awake, with eyes enormous and shiny in the pitch darkness, trying to see where they are being taken. After a seemingly endless ride the water becomes less and less deep, more shallow until very soon the rock cautiously emerges from the water and to the amazement, horror, fright and wonder of Val and Pom-pom, they see it is a huge crab they have been sleeping on, an enormous coral-coloured Crab!’ (Aeon Books, 1979, pages 32-33.)

We must contrast this situation with Cancer’s opposite sign, Capricorn, where the same children are thrust into the innermost recesses of the Mountain and there they witness, in the figure of the Time-Spirit, the birth that fills the void and the solidity this engenders.

F1, by her ‘determination’ not to cooperate and her uncanny ability to know when to turn on and off, was simply a victim of circumstance. She was entirely poised on the periphery due to the energies of her being which had gone into the fabrication of that ‘crust’ and hence a reliance on her own determination to withhold cooperation, which in her case meant the non-fulfilment of her inner truth or dharma, – the law of her being.

This is the central point: the purpose of the Horse, and reflected especially well in Thoroughbred breeding and racing, is the attainment of speed, excelling, and the exceeding of limits. Being stuck in the rut carved out by the former negative imprinting, F1 could not express that inner truth or purpose. She could not reach the depths of her being because ‘circumstances’ had pinned her to the periphery or the outer shell she had constructed with energies which should have gone elsewhere. She was locked in that orbit and could not escape, a condition apparently willed. And yet from this analysis we realise that a ‘will’ thus forged is simply a prisoner of circumstance. She had no choice given the hostile conditions of her environment. Thus the terms used to describe her such as ‘strong-willed’, ‘head-strong’, ‘obstinate’, and so forth, were entirely off the mark. What we witness in such cases are attitudes of compromise and accommodation which reflect the inherent weakness of a creation orbiting a void, and thus a victim of the play of circumstances of the periphery. In such a condition there is no possibility at all of self-determination and ‘freedom’. There is an unassailable imprisonment in the rigid orbits we have driven ourselves into by virtue of our inability to hold and thus to draw to ourselves the conditions or elements by which we can be truly free. To understand this we must introduce the second participant in this equine sage, F2, and contrast her racing experience with F1’s. At the same time, we will analyse the means employed to provide F1 with ‘salvation’, an element external to her environment which could be used to ‘carry her beyond’ these constricting limitations.

A race in need of a Saviour

While the Gnostic Circle provides guidelines for the establishment of a gnostic creation on the planet, at the same time it reveals the shortcomings of the present human species. The Circle discloses the flaws which do not permit the human being to effect the crossing which the Aryan warrior of the Rigveda is encouraged to do by the aid of certain cosmic powers. Central to the issue, however, is the quantum of energy available, released at certain specific points in the passage. When that release has occurred and is at the disposal of the traveller through gnostic time, then certain controls must be exerted to regulate that increase so that it is utilised for the crossing and does not fall back, collapse or go to the construction of self-enclosing barriers as F1 had done.

This is usually finalised in the course of the first and second passage through the enneads. F1 failed to experience the release in optimum conditions which would have placed that energy at the service of ‘a higher cause’. Instead, her first passage over the 4.5 Orbit (her 4^th and 5^th races) when the release can take place, witnessed a suppression of the force and hence a turning back upon itself. She had turned ‘sour’ as a result. The second passage went to fortifying buffers or devices to cut her off from her environment. She became a self-enclosed system; not a cosmos which in a sense is self-contained. It is self-contained but ordered, with energies rightly allocated in the service of a central purpose. That purpose is the fulfilment of one’s inner truth, whatever that may be for the individual.

In the case of the racehorse it is the extraction of maximum potential and the utilisation of the force for achievement of the highest goals open to that inherent potential. This is cosmos for the racehorse. F1’s self-centredness was a reaction to an environment she found hostile to that purpose. Therefore a closing up was necessary almost as an attempt to protect that fragile inner space and a tenuous balance on this unsound foundation.

The human being invariably experiences life in this condition. There may be exceptions to the rule but even such cases do not enjoy an integral development and hence a harmony of all parts of the being, including the physical. For in the final analysis, though the higher dimensions may experience a certain harmony, the physical will ultimately impede the exceeding of limits which our Earthly vahanas demand. In the waking consciousness we cannot attain certain higher supramental states and sustain the special play of energy proper to those planes with the present structure. Realignment is required to do so. And this is the objective of the Gnostic Circle.

The critical passage is when one steps into the higher hemisphere. This would be passage above the horizon, so to speak. It takes place between Virgo and Libra in the 12-part division, and at the 4.5 Orbit in the 9-part division of the Gnostic Circle. Diagram A below indicates this special area.

F1 had experienced her 15^th race, at which point it was clear that she would progress no further. Each race in that condition served to fortify the grooves into which she was trapped. Her ‘cosmos’, such as it was, consisted of a limited expanse. It would be equivalent to our solar system with its former measure of 6 planets in orbit of the Sun, rather than the full 9. In other words, this was her ‘measure’ in terms of energy release. A full one-third of the wheel, which indicates the range of energy available to the species, was closed up in her inner recesses.

When one reaches the 6 point, (detailed insert, Diagram B), it is time for a combustion which serves as fuel for the rise. This means extension of one’s boundaries of consciousness-being so that the increase can be accommodated. Insofar as this expansion does not occur in the human being, passage through Scorpio to reach the 6 point and the planet Saturn results in physical death. That increase does not encounter an adequate vessel to contain it. Therefore the species ‘opts’ for death rather than transformation; and continuity is maintained through death and rebirth, or in the fruition of one’s seed, as the Bible indicates. In terms of the spiritual experience, at this point the attitude of otherworldliness triumphs and the accommodation occurs by way of trance or samadhi; be it in death or in trance, one loses touch with the physical plane and this increase and its impact is not felt by a body which is inadequate to sustain the release.

Thus, the important feature of the 6 point is the first stirrings of a cosmic manifestation. Saturn with its notorious reputation in traditional astrology for holding back, limiting, obstructing, stands at the 6^th orbit as a regulator of energy. He may be seen as in the Greek myth to ‘eat his children’ – Uranus, for one and the next in the solar system; or in more appropriate terms, to devour those energies which cannot be accommodated within the existent system or physical structure. One may give birth to such energies, but if the process is not integral, they are thrust into the cosmic waste bin and serve no purpose for the individual’s evolution of consciousness and being.

The impulsion indicated at this point in the Gnostic Circle is proper to Sagittarius, the sign following Scorpio. The speed indicated by Sagittarius is meant to carry one within, into the depths of one’s inner universe. It is the first step in the forging of a centre. The turning inward means a reliance on the inner Divine in the supramental experience. The 6 point is allocated to the Cosmic Divine in the Gnostic Circle’s Sacred Triangle. Hence it is from this point onward that a cosmos or a solar system comes into being, where orbits are defined, arranged around a central Sun. A species that has not attained this condition cannot truly live in the light of that inner Sun. It must seek help and salvation outside itself. This may also take shape as in the Vedantic schools of yoga by a stress on otherworldliness. Or else in religions it is anticipation of a saviour, someone, something from beyond, outside of oneself who comes to save the day, as it were.

In the case of F1 this ‘saviour’ appeared in the shape of a jockey (and trainer) outsider her ‘system’ – that is, the turf club of home base. After her first passage when the results of the 7^th race made clear that the 6^th race left no positive impact, ‘salvation’ was presented in the form of a return to the farm-source, – indeed, beyond her racing base. But this second passage saw the filly once again removed from her base and ‘sent beyond’ for help. In other words, failing to utilise a release of energy for that reversal which brings about the formation of a magnetic centre such as in the core of a sun, there was no such centre in charge of her racing destiny. That meant that she had no power to draw to herself, into her own system, what she required to ‘complete the crossing’. Successful encounter with the 6 point implies that a certain harmony comes into being and cosmos or order is the result.

The 6 point of the Gnostic Circle – the Cosmic Divine – is the great divide whereby the choice appears of opting to be a satellite in orbit of a planet, a planet itself, or else, ‘to become the Sun’. This is the beginning of the order represented by the imposing presence of Saturn at the portals of Sagittarius.

In The Magical Carousel this ‘choice’ is described in the tale by the option offered to attend the Foundation for Higher Knowledge of Heropidus Heronimus. The naughty Centaur, always running off into strange lands in pursuit of adventure, stimulus, excitement, is the classic example of a self-indulgent race, a self-centred humanity whose sole concern is self-gratification.

By an unanticipated turn of events, this Centaur is forced to attend HH’s foundation and so to learn how to make ‘the heart and mind work together’. We shall soon observe how this took shape in the careers of our racing fillies. But as a demonstration of the Gnostic Circle’s capacity to indicate the shape the transformation takes, suffice to say that the act of choosing implicit in Sagittarius brings about a special ordering of energy at one’s command. This is the first step to ‘become the Sun’. That act sets one in orbit. That is, either as a satellite such as the Moon, or a planet such as the Earth; or else the supramental realisation of becoming the Sun, the perfect centre.

F1 could not ‘become the Sun’ given the fact that the energy was used to harden the crusts rather than to propel her inward and to bring about the alignment required to unveil the centre that holds. In the latter we are not dealing with orbits. In the case of the creation of a sun, or a perfect centre, it is a question of cosmic directions: a proper balance between contraction and expansion in such a manner as to bring into being a centre. Then the poise is inner, centred. Whereas for the Moon or a planet, it is a question of orbits being arranged and one’s ‘choice’ thrusts one into that position. The magnetic centre either exists or it does not. In this realm there is no pretence possible. These are in a sense entirely mechanical operations. Regarding our fillies and analysis of their racing experiences in the Gnostic Circle, this mechanism will be more than clear – indeed, ruthlessly clear.

A satellite or a planet requires thus a ‘saviour’, a magnetic centre outside itself to hold it within the system. All organised religions have come into being on this basis; and most even await the return of that Saviour to carry followers through turbulent waters across to the other shore. Or else, there is the Guru in yogic tradition – once again an outer source. The difference between the Guru and the Saviour of religions is that the former is intended to unveil the inner Light in the disciple and cause him or her to realise the Divine according to the chosen path. Religions demand faith and point to a heaven beyond which the Saviour can ensure. The Guru demands a realisation which is itself the salvation, even if that is meant, similar to religions, to carry the disciple to a form of a better Beyond. In both cases nothing is done to transform conditions here; or better said, to place before the human being another possibility. Within the confines of the old creation one can be either a planet or a satellite, but never the Sun. This was not the case in the Vedic Age, if the Rigveda is to be believed. And the fact that its verses are incomprehensible to us today is an indication of how far we have descended from that Vedic pinnacle. The proverbial ‘fall of man’ is a definite fact of the evolution of the species; though it may mean something quite different than the upholders of the Faith believe.

The Fall and the story of Adam and Eve is the truth of the binary creation, a fact of evolution, and as such we may indeed call it divine revelation. But is that the intended or predetermined finality of the race, its highest attainment? Certainly this is the case for the binary creation but not the unitary, born from the soil of the former. For the present species the Gnostic Circle indicates an extension of boundaries from 6 to 9, the final passage through the newly-opened triad of planets encompassing the supramental planes: the human creation thus gives way to the gnostic.

Defining the character of the Old Creation

Eve is the name of the female of the species and she is certainly an appendage of her mate, Adam. Inasmuch as the Mother considered that her force could work best through women, it is not surprising that the jockey-saviour for F1 should indeed have been a woman. Certainly this was an unusual turn of events in the racing scene in India, a country which in its long history of racing has had only one or two female jockeys in contrast to America, for example, with over four hundred.

It happened that after F1’s first passage over the 4.5 Orbit, that is in February of 1992, when I realised the critical role the jockey plays in the equine athlete’s performance, it was clear even at that early and relatively inexperienced stage that success would never come our way given the lack of a trusted and talented jockey. This was difficult enough to secure with the first trainer, but it was even more difficult with the second. Being a young woman trainer with limited means, few horses and none of any great potential, she had even greater difficulty in securing the services of the better jockeys. The affluent and successful trainers retain jockeys who work exclusively for their stables; or else owners with a string of expensive horses may also retain a jockey or two. In such cases the results are invariably better than for the trainer and owner who must search high and low for a jockey at the last moment, never being entirely sure if the right jockey will be free or willing to ride.

The woman trainer had an especially hard time with this problem, often having to wait till right before the deadline to know who would be racing her horse. And the owner was left in this state of suspension, not knowing what to expect of the race. The horse would rarely find himself carrying the same jockey who had been exercising him in the morning workouts. The entire experience was coloured by this uncertainty and the results were predictable: the filly failed to produce a win.

By that time I had begun working on the problem with a very talented and impeccably honest woman rider, unusually in tune with horses and familiar enough with the nature of the transformation being attempted to serve as a proper instrument both as a conventional jockey in a conventional race, as also a jockey ‘with a higher purpose’.

The introduction of a female participant was not without its difficulties. What we were attempting would have been problematic enough with a male jockey; a woman complicated the matter even more. Indeed, the first attempt to secure her a place in the home base of the filly failed. But already at that time it was becoming clear that this new addition to the ‘cosmos’ in formation was bringing an increase in ‘knots’ to be worked out, and that these concerned the status of women – that is, woman for and within herself, as well as in society. The attempt to introduce a woman in a domain reserved until that time for the male of the species, and indeed where women compete on equal terms with their male counterparts, extended the field or laboratory of our experience in a marked way from the very outset. Moreover, this particular participant was evidently handpicked; she brought her own ‘baggage’ into the alchemy and numerous ‘knots’, all of which were representative of her genus.

The intention was to form an alliance between jockey and owner, and hopefully trainer, once resistances were broken down and the female participant was accepted. On this basis, with total trust in the jockey who in the bargain was far more able, even with the little actual racing experience she had, than many male jockeys, we were assured of a more conscious unfolding of the experience. However, as mentioned, the would-be jockey had her own ‘knots’ and these prevented her from responding directly to the force which was guiding the operation. That is, she could not enter the process directly in orbit of the central Sun. She could only do so by linking into the orbit of a male trainer in another racing establishment beyond the confines of our nuclear experiment.

The main feature in that first attempt to overcome the impasse the lack of a trusted and talented jockey produced was the realisation that direct action might not be possible. Moreover, gnostic time was ticking on and hurdles had to be surpassed to keep in tune with the rhythm, on time, as it were. We were not only attempting to introduce a female into a male domain, we had to do so in record time.

The attempt floundered initially. This was during F1’s sojourn on the farm. During that period work was done to prepare the would-be jockey for her profession. Destiny indeed set her on her way to jockeyhood, but this was in orbit of another trainer and not the woman trainer at the centre where our experience was taking place. It was clear that we were in the presence of a certain pattern which may be considered a blessing of nature or a bane. It is the actual condition of women and their mechanical response to a force which seeks to help them transcend the shackles they have constructed around themselves throughout the ages.

The same shackles were constructed around F1 by herself, as a response to a hostile environment. These are security devices and also our means of imprisonment. But the point to note is that a choice exists for the female of the species as well: she can choose to remain in the orbit of another, a satellite and nothing more, receiving a reflected light of the Sun but never becoming the Sun. Or she can choose to ‘become the Sun’ in equal measure as her male counterpart. She can be Eve or Shakti, Adam’s ‘rib’, or Shiva’s other half. Needless to say, the ‘choice’ is invariably for the status quo, largely because women are not aware of the nature of the choice offered. They cannot see their true condition except in the shallow levels of social or psychological subjugation. They cannot dig into the innards of the problem and discover the cosmic knot which lies at the basis of their incomplete status.

Juxtaposing Eve and Shakti in this analysis is not insignificant; nor is it simply ‘symbolic’. In the difference between the two lies the key to the true new world order. This cannot come to pass unless the condition of women in this entirely cosmological/evolutionary sense is transformed. Equality in the deepest sense is conveyed in the Ardhnariswar idol of the Vedic iconography. The lack of such a balance of energies within one figure or being was evident in our woman jockey who revealed herself to be symbolic of the general condition of all women, unable to stand as a body directly in orbit of the central Sun but rather in need of a planet to orbit, in this case the male trainer, a transmitter of the force rather than its direct recipient. In the circumstance, it may be appropriate to refer to her as jockey Eve; not exactly in the sense that ‘eve’ is used in sports reporting in Asia to indicate a woman’s team or female athlete, but more aptly in this wider sense of symbol of the old creation. To further eliminate confusion, we shall call the trainer she partnered, Adam.

Furthermore, it ought to be evident by now that in this nuclear experience with the Horse the equine participants have been and continue to be female. We may consider this an accident of birth on the farm-source which was furnishing the protagonists in the saga. But the truth of the matter is that these fillies are indeed proving true the Mother’s statement that her force works best through women. In racing it is known that fillies are ‘difficult’, ‘unpredictable’, ‘moody’, and generally far more high strung than the male of the species. In my view, it is what allowed them to be the subject of this transformational, representative experience of the Gnostic Circle. They were highly sensitive to the power of the Supramental Shakti which was seen to operate through them in an extremely pure form, with no distortions. And above all, without sentimentality or any recoiling such as the human being experiences when faced with this awesome impact of force. They were and remain impeccable instruments of the Divine Shakti, never failing to carry forward the process of which they were so centrally significant. To the extent that, as if in homage to the Mother, our filly scored a breakthrough in a way that would pay direct homage to the Mother whose force she was embodying so well. But let us proceed step by step.

Beyond or Within: the Act of Choosing

Even in the Rigveda the segment of the Gnostic Circle from Libra to Capricorn is known as critical (see Diagram B, above). It is the passage where the Aryan warrior must face the inertia of death and the antagonism of the hostile powers known as the ‘hoarders’ (of energy). In other words, energy becomes entrapped; but to reach the summit of Being a way must be found to secure its release from the ‘cave of the hoarders’. That one-third until now untapped energy must be released in the human consciousness-being.

This cave is Scorpio. Thus, passage over the 6 point as the diagram indicates, must find the subject with that released energy. Moreover, it must be ordered – that is, brought to serve the traveller for the rise to the summit. A cosmos must thus come into being; and Sagittarius of the 6 point provides the ‘education’ for the purpose. But in the old creation this attainment is not possible given the inadequacies of the species. The human instrument either breaks down under the impact, or the energy is placed on the periphery of consciousness where it serves to fortify isolating barriers, as in F1’s case. In such a situation salvation comes, if at all, from beyond the inner boundaries of the subject. In the case of F1, she had to be sent to another turf club where jockey Eve and trainer Adam were in a better position to understand and cope with her needs, mainly because they believed in her capacity and in their ability to solve the problem. Fundamental to its solution was this positive atmosphere, entirely lacking in her home base. We shall see later on in F2’s case how this same 6 point and Sagittarius presented the other side of the coin, as it were: a thrust within rather than beyond.

In the words of The Magical Carousel, our ‘mythic’ guide to the process, after ‘education’ the Centaur becomes the Saviour of the children, Val and Pom-pom, and carries the tiny travellers on the path of gnostic time to this innermost point:

‘They gallop off at great speed, crossing the violet and fuchsia coloured land, for the Centaur makes every effort to fulfil his mission properly and to bring the children to their destination on time. He travels so swiftly they seem to go even faster than sound and light, and at a certain moment the very space around them disappears, they are almost unaware of moving at all and seem to have entered a point right within themselves.’ (Aeon Books, page 102)

These are the two options facing the subject in the ‘choice’ provided at the 6 point and Sagittarius: beyond or within.

If the latter is the ‘choice’, then a magnetic centre becomes operative which draws to the subject the elements needed in the subsequent unfolding for the fulfilment of the inner and divine Purpose, without any need for extension beyond the boundaries of the field. Salvation in such cases is auto-engendered by a particular release and proper utilisation of energy on the basis of centering of cosmic directions. The key to the establishment of a gnostic species on Earth lies in this attainment.

F1 found herself for her 16^th race (again at the 7 point of the Circle) in congenial circumstances. She was one of the best horses in trainer Adam’s yard and she was treated accordingly. But it may be remembered that at her first passage over this point and her 7^th race, she was returned to the farm-source as a display of the 7 point’s meaning: contact with the Source and the truth of one’s being. This time a similar circumstance presented itself because of the presence of would-be jockey Eve who had linked up with the young and idealistic trainer as partner and who had known and ridden the filly many times precisely at the farm-source. Indeed, it was this familiarity and personal involvement and consequent appreciation of the filly’s talents, together with this indirect connection with the farm-source via the jockey that provided the correct chemistry for healing. Indeed, she had been sent ‘beyond’ precisely as therapy.

Trainer Adam scheduled two races for her, of his own selection. The first, or her 16^th, was to transpire on 12.2.1993, and the second 9 days later. I observed that unwittingly the day he selected was one of 9 number-power, and the second as well. Therefore, I was curious to see what the outcome might be. In my heart I considered that this was F1’s last chance. If this new strategy did not succeed, she would have to be retired to the farm for good, without ever having fulfilled that ‘purpose’; and this non-performance would adversely affect her breeding career – not to speak of the portents for the process monitored in the Gnostic Circle of this failure. If she could not be made to overcome the obstacles brought about by the play of circumstances in a hostile atmosphere, then there seemed little likelihood that the human being subject to similar hostile conditions, as every human being is, could effect a breakthrough. The nuclear experience was directly connected to the larger process. Like F1 each individual is a ‘victim of circumstance’. This is the hallmark of our species and for which reason it is known as mortal and founded on the laws imposed by the Cosmic Ignorance. A binary creation is always a victim of circumstance because it is peripherally and not centrally poised. At the same time, we have to accomplish the crossing to a higher status in these very conditions which Earth evolution provides, if we are to be faithful to the planet’s own purpose in the cosmic harmony which is precisely to house this very process, to provide a field for the transition, and establishment of a gnostic species.

Thus, the fate of F1’s experience was pertinent to the larger development in no uncertain terms in that a means had to be provided for her to overcome the obstacles. She might not be able to draw to herself the elements for the victory because of her failure within the Gnostic Circle’s timing to forge a magnetic centre; but she still had to fulfil her own purpose in the experiment. And this was to open the pathway for others to follow, to work out certain initial ‘knots’. She had to assemble conditions in the periphery in such a way as to drain it of power to halt the operation before it had matured. Therefore, the second passage over this 7 point was crucial. Would it fail or would it succeed?

When I reached the venue for the filly’s 16^th race and visited her in the stables the day before, I realised immediately that exercise in the hands of would-be jockey Eve, known to her from the farm and with whom she had a very special relationship, had produced results. The filly was eager, keen, happy and emanated a sense of power and fulfilment. The young trainer had done his job well in collaboration with the would-be jockey. There remained to be seen whether this enhanced state would help her to forget that jockey Eve would not be the one to take her in the race since she still had no licence to ride other than exercise track work. As it turned out, this presented no obstacle.

The allowance rider who raced her on that 12^th of February of 9 number-power, was not capable of getting her out of the gate quickly. By consequence, she was trailing the field by about six lengths. However, this seemed to make no difference to her, and I could not help recalling her very first race as I watched her perform. The jockey carried her on the outside, she collaborated and moved up and up and up, passing with the utmost ease horse after horse of the 20 horses in the field. She was keen, she was determined to reach the post first. But unfortunately, by the time the jockey had settled her into the race after the poor jump out of the gate and the ground lost there, the distance was too short. The race was only 1000 metres, the shortest possible, and there was simply not enough time. She finished 4^th but was clearly headed for first if she had had even 50 metres more of track, as the jockey declared at the end of the race.

I was elated, relieved, heartened at future prospects. I returned to the home base track for her sister’s second race the next day, the 13^th of February, and announced, ‘She is cured, there is no stopping her now.’

In racing it is the win or nothing. No one considers anything less as a ‘sign’, much less for this filly who had already had 16 races, and in most of them she had also finished on the board. But I knew she was cured. The proof came in her 17^th race at that same neighbouring venue.

The field this time consisted of only 8 horses; she was to carry a crippling 60 kilos handicap, and still in Class VA, second to the lowest. In the 9 days from her last race she had been well tuned by the trainer and would-be jockey Eve in the morning exercises. After a last minute change of jockey, she was handed over to the same allowance rider of her 16^th race, and thus carried 2 ½ kilos less than the prescribed 60. The distance was the same 1000 metres.

This time he brought her out of the gate more confidently. She immediately moved into first place and held this position throughout in a start-to-finish race revealing for the first time something of her true potential. She moved confidently and triumphantly passed the winning post, well in advance of the other competitors carrying much less weight. She had out-classed them all. And this had transpired on the 21^st of February, also a 9-power day, but more significantly, the Mother’s birthday. In this way, by this spontaneous scheduling ‘right on time’, the Mother seemed to be giving the filly and all concerned her blessings and seal and sanction for the victory of Gnostic Time.

The filly then returned to her home base having been promoted to Class IV, to experience her 18^th race and the start of a new ennead. This time, true to the ‘residue-karma’ that had been worked out, she was carrying the lowest weight on promotion. The handicap and new classification reflected the new times. But unfortunately the woman trainer could not provide the same conditions for success as in the neighbouring track and she performed accordingly in the hands of a mediocre jockey, with a perverse liking for the whip. Thus, she finished 4^th. However, in her 19^th she found herself in the hands of the same competent and reliable jockey of her 11^th race. The result was 2^nd place in an exciting photo finish: she lost by a mere half a nostril.

In the meantime, F2 had begun her career proper on January 20, 1993, when she made her debut.

Release and Reversal

From the beginning it was clear that F2’s racing career would be different from her sister’s. Perhaps it was that we were now familiar with the process and the Gnostic Circle relevance and therefore everything was clearer since we knew what to look for. Or else it was the fact that F1 had done some spade work. She had opened the path and prepared the field. This seemed to be the case because certain ‘knots’ appeared loosened in F2’s early races. This pertained mainly to jockeys. While F1 had to contend with mediocre or inexperienced or downright perverse riders, F2’s first and second races brought her the good fortune of two competent and reliable foreign jockeys of considerable repute abroad. She found herself immediately in the hands of able and talented riders and she responded accordingly.

Her woman trainer was known to be slow in preparing youngsters, as the 2- and 3-year olds are called. Thus, when F2 entered her first race she was not ready or tuned for the win. Moreover, being her first she was given an easy ride and the jockey was instructed to let her run without demanding more than she felt she could give. If she went on to win, fine; but if she showed any hesitancy, then he was to respect that and not use the whip to urge her on. Thus she finished 5^th in a field of 8, but showed signs of great promise, given the proper preparation. The foreign jockey was all praises for her after the race and commented that she could do anything one asked of her because she had speed and willingness. She cooperated well and in fact moved through a small gap at one point, which many youngsters are unwilling to do, to take the lead for a short time.

Unlike her sister, F2 was not racing as an Unknown Pedigree. Her birth having been duly registered, she could be entered in all races, even what are known as Classics, and not simply handicap races. She could move along with her age group in ‘terms’ of races, unlike F1 whose birth on 1^st October saddled her with an immediate handicap for being months younger than any of her fellow competitors. In a word, F2 faced none of the initial problems of her sister.

To the more perceptive eye something deeper was involved than a mere accident of birth. The pathway had been opened in the dimensions of gnostic time. F2 was poised differently. She seemed to have the ability to draw to herself the conditions and elements for the fulfilment of  her destiny, rather than any reaching out, stepping out of the boundaries of her chosen field. Thus, even though she was not prepared for these early races, this ability was demonstrated in the jockeys she spontaneously drew to herself of a superior calibre than what her sister had known early on. In the beginning it could be termed coincidence, the jockeys ‘happened’ to be there and available. But as the experience grew it was evident that there was something more than just coincidence at work. This was also reflected in her stabling arrangement. The woman trainer was known for her excellent stable management and the superior condition of her yard. Entering the premises felt like entering an oasis in the middle of a desert. There were plants everywhere and a canopy of creepers covering the entire area, providing protection from dust and heat. And while the woman trainer might be faulted for her slow approach, at the same time this inspired confidence that the fillies would not experience any break down due to excessive haste and demands on the horse, common to many trainers. Thus, from the beginning F2 seemed more favoured by the Gods.

F2’s second race brought her an even more renowned and talented foreign jockey, and with the experience of her first race, she finished in 2^nd place, 1¾ lengths behind the winner, but an easy 3 lengths in front of the horse behind her. With this performance she was beginning to be talked of as one of the better fillies among the youngsters. The trainer had arranged for her to be entered in a number of classic and sweepstake races which would be held in the course of that racing year, 1993. One such race was scheduled for March 20^th. I was very keen to have her compete, but I was also aware that she was not being prepared properly for the distance (1600 metres) and the stiff competition.

By her third race the foreign jockeys had left and we were faced with the same problem of old. The choice the trainer made for this important trial before the big race was unfortunate. Indeed, it was probably that jockey’s most miserable display. On the basis of that race it was not possible for me to instruct the trainer to withdraw her from the sweepstakes race on the basis of her poor performance because it simply reflected the jockey’s mediocrity and not the filly’s.

Thus, on 20^th March, F2 entered the first important race of her career, but with another uninspiring jockey which the trainer had arranged, though she had the opportunity to use a top jockey. In this there was something of self-defeatism beginning to surface which was to be proven true later on. The result was 4^th place in a field of only 6 horses. On the board but in no way demonstrating the potential which she revealed in her first two races. She was clearly slipping backward rather than moving forward in her training. And we were once again bogged down in the same mire having to accept lesser jockeys to handle a filly that clearly required more competent skills.

By the March Equinox, Eve had become a full-fledged jockey in the neighbouring track and was beginning to prove herself a talented rider. Racing for F1 and F2 ended on the 20^th with the close of the winter season at their home base. I had to decide whether they would pass the next two hottest months there, waiting for the new season to start in mid May, and with hardly any training taking place for at least the next few weeks; or else bring them home to the farm to relieve them of the heat. But with the entry on the scene of jockey Eve, another possibility presented itself. My decision therefore to send them to the summer venue of Eve’s turf club where races were soon to begin in the cool of the mountains of South India, was for the fact that this competent jockey would be riding there, and also they would have no interruption in training. I was especially concerned that F2’s training should not be interrupted since she had just begun and her future schedule at the home base was very demanding. A break at this point would make it difficult to retrieve lost ground. Of special concern was the fact that she had not yet vindicated the high expectations everyone had of her capacity to win.

On a deeper level and with the knowledge of F1’s negative imprinting precisely over the first 4.5 passage, where F2 now stood, I understood that she had a far clearer course mapped out and that it was possible, given the timing of things and the conspiracy of circumstances, to kill a number of birds with one stone as it were, by sending both fillies to Adam and Eve. There they would have a cold climate, similar to the farm where they were bred; they would thus escape the heat of the plains and at a time when no racing was being held there; they would not have their training interrupted, as F1 had had hers with a three-month sojourn on the farm; and they might even produce wins in the bargain, as F1 had already done in the hands of the same trainer. But foremost was the fact that F2 demanded a positive imprinting at that first 4.5 passage. I also realised that she had to release energy if at all she was to forge a magnetic centre which F1 lacked.

All of these objectives were accomplished.

The fillies, because of their 15-day break after the winter season and with virtually no exercise, were not in the best shape when they reached the mountain venue by mid April. F1, being older and with more training and racing experience, picked up relatively quickly and was entered in a race for May 1^st. She was being exercised by jockey Eve and relished every minute of it. Meanwhile, F2 was being handled slowly and with care. I was more interested in the positive imprinting I knew the jockey would provide, given their past involvement on the farm, than any race, as such.

Jockey Eve had had many rides and even some wins when the time came for her to mount F1 in the paddock for the 20^th race of the filly’s career on May 1^st. Her surprise when she realised it was actually Eve who had mounted and not the usual male jockey was clearly displayed for any discerning eye to appreciate. And she performed accordingly, almost as if to show her appreciation and approval. It was another start-to-finish race, though she did not exert herself excessively. She did not need to, clearly out-classing all the other horses. She passed the winning post 3½ lengths ahead of the rest in excellent timing, and both filly and rider won accolades from all. Punters who had bet on the filly, not because of her record but rather her looks, were happy since the odds were good; the trainer was pleased with the performance of both filly and jockey; and the owner was more delighted than all to see that the filly had proven her capacity to win in this higher class, and jockey Eve had demonstrated that in able hands this could be done. The race had been a successful challenge for both.

The fillies would soon have to return to their home base to start the new season there on 15^th May. There was therefore barely fifteen days to accomplish whatever more could be done in that cool and beneficent atmosphere – positive in more ways than one. F1 was scheduled therefore for her 21^st race on 9 May, while F2 had been entered for the 5^th race of her career on May 8^th. The jockey would of course be Eve.

On 8 May F2 displayed something of her true potential, even though she was, in the opinion of both jockey and trainer, only 60% fit. Not only did she win in a field of 15 three-year olds, some of more expensive breeding, she did so easily and confidently, and above all, giving that much desired kick off just when the jockey demanded it after moving through a small gap. Again the public and the newspapers were all praises for both filly and rider.

From a deeper level of observation that 5^th race revealed (especially the timely kick off) that the desired release of energy had occurred, so important for passage over the 4.5 Orbit, or between her 4^th and 5^th races. The question now was, how to channel that energy for the rise once she was back in her home base and in different, less favourable conditions?

Moreover, there were certain signals being given by the fillies that all was not exactly as it should be. F2 had, in fact, thrown the jockey in the gate just before start of the race. A dangerous accident was only barely avoided and the jockey remounted to go on and win the race. But the next day the harmony between Jockey Eve and F1 was not as it was for their first ride (and win) together on May 1^st. This time the distance was longer by 200 metres and therefore the jockey calculated that F1 should be kept behind somewhat to save her for the last stretch. The filly’s preference had always been to position herself up front. Failing to attain this position, the tone set was not to her liking. Moreover, she was boxed in at the rails (in the video replay it looks  deliberate) and could not be pulled outside to overtake. She even stumbled badly, having to check her pace so as not to clip the horse in front. Finally, as she passed the post in the middle of the group, she reacted angrily by deliberately throwing the rider off! Though the jockey was again saved from a potentially dreadful accident, the result of the slight injury sustained was that she could not take F1 into her 22^nd race three days later, on May 12^th.

Oblivious to the fact, F1 again rode her start-to-finish race in the hands of the allowance rider of her first win, and easily led the field by several lengths past the winning post. She was then returned with her sister to the home base, having been promoted to Class III. None of the other horses from their home base who had been sent to compete had performed as well as the fillies. Almost all had in fact failed to win, though they were reputed to be superior. Indeed, it was only the fillies who held the banner of the Club high in this neighbouring centre. And yet F1 and F2 gained the reputation by their superior performances of being able to win only outside the home base, that they could not compete with the superior horses of their own centre and that in order to win they had to be sent where, supposedly, competition was less stiff. Their impressive timings and the fact that the other horses from the same centre had failed to win, could not erase this general impression. And the subsequent circumstances did not help.

The fact that F1 had had an extra unplanned race brought her tally to 22. Interestingly, this time passage over that 4 Point (22) brought the much desired release of energy which is demanded at the 4.5 Orbit in ideal conditions, unlike in her previous two passages, her 4^th and 13^th races. While for F2 the release took place in her 5^th race. Thus both wins of the fillies cupped the 4.5 Orbit, the 4 Point win of F1, and the 5 Point win of F2. The significance of this passage is both release and dismantling, usually of an unexpected nature, similar to the shattered particles in the Asteroid Belt which is located at this point in the Gnostic Circle. Indeed, we were soon to experience such happenings. A completely new set of circumstances awaited us all at the home turf.

From a deeper perspective, the fact that jockey Eve had experienced two falls, and both from these fillies, seemed to signal that at some deeper level all was not right, in harmony, in place. Indeed, F2 was the catalyst to ‘put each thing in its rightful place’. This delicate operation began immediately on return to the home centre. It carries us into the most awesome portion of this analysis.

Defining a Centre that holds

The first problem to be met was the search for a new trainer. The woman trainer finally found the pressures and stresses of her profession too difficult to cope with. She decided to discontinue training. In a way this was a relief because something of a negative cloud seemed to hang over the experience which is engendered by a failure to take a major decision in life. Release, and relief, is usually felt as soon as a firm decision puts an end to months of uncertainty.

I was primarily concerned for the well-being of the fillies because I knew they would have difficulty finding an equally good stable management and the loving care of the woman trainer, though their training might be improved elsewhere. There was also the question of the lovely stables which would have to be vacated with her departure. But as it turned out, they stayed where they were. The new trainer was nearby and when he took over their training he left them in these same quarters.

I found the timing of these events noteworthy, especially in connection with F2’s more fluid passage through gnostic time. It seemed that her first passage over the 4.5 Orbit with its successful release of energy demanded a different field insofar as the former conditions seemed inadequate for further development and hence utilisation of that release. It was becoming clear that unlike her sister, F2 was able to draw to herself the conditions she required for the expansion which was to come, based on her inherent potential. Indeed, as a symbol of sorts of this nascent ability there was the fact that a very major shift had taken place in her career and yet she and her sister remained in the woman trainer’s superior stables, as if at the centre of a periphery which was being shaken up – true to the 4.5 Orbit – while leaving them untouched, unmoved, untroubled. The inherent potential of F2 clearly demanded different conditions in that periphery or field for its proper expression. It seemed evident that her win at the 5 Point of Jupiter and the enormous store of energy at her disposal required different conditions. The woman trainer thus seemed to have withdrawn ‘right on time’.

But there was an uneasiness prevailing and this caused a certain fatigue which was destined to increase with the unfolding of events; there was more energy at our disposal than we seemed in a position to utilise efficiently and effectively. The less elusive indication that such was the case was the fact that though the fillies had just come down from a high altitude and should have been raced immediately to benefit by this advantage in fitness and keenness, the new trainer did not oblige for various reasons of his own. It was clear that we had wasted that energy to a certain extent and a good opportunity for the fillies to score wins was missed.

In the meantime, jockey Eve had obtained a licence to ride also in the fillies’ turf club. But this fact produced a certain disturbance in the atmosphere, not just because she was the first woman to race there, but also because the season was still in progress in trainer Adam’s centre. Thus, while the problem of jockey had been solved by Eve’s entry, to ride the fillies she had to disengage herself from her commitments in Adam’s centre; this was done, but it took a certain toll.

On 6 June and her 23^rd race, F1 introduced her favourite jockey to her home base audience. It was an historic ride, the first for a woman jockey at that centre: F1 was proving true to her path-opening destiny. The race was impeccable and impressive for both filly and jockey. F1 placed 2^nd to a 3-year old filly who had not lost any of her previous races and was considered one of the best of the season. While she won by 2 lengths, F1 left the rest of the field behind her by 5½ lengths. This was her first race in Class III after promotion and the competition was tougher than what she had ever known.

A performance such as F1 gave should have silenced her critics who had all along claimed she was ‘no good’. These included foremost the jockeys whose egos she took special delight in demolishing by not cooperating when they had finally wanted her to win. But for some reason F1 always seemed to stir up controversy and intense likes and dislikes.

Her 24^th race was again with jockey Eve. This time the field was larger; 11 horses. She placed 3^rd. But the importance of this race resided in its implications for the Gnostic Circle operation. Sagittarius and the 6 Point require a harmony between rider and horse. This is explained in The Magical Carousel when the Centaur must attend the Foundation for Higher Knowledge so that ‘the mind and heart must learn to work together’. In a race at the 6 Point, the energy released over the preceding 4.5 passage has to witness this favourable coming together or harmonising, if it is to be utilised properly.

Regarding F1 her problem was precisely the fact that she refused any such collaboration. Formerly, before the advent of jockey Eve, she was seen to close herself off not only from the jockey but even the other equine competitors. There was no question of the mind (jockey) and heart (horse and the vital) working in tandem. But with Eve it was different, and in this 6 Point race we were given the proof.

As the horses were powerfully approaching the winning post and competing to pass first, all more or less in a bunch, I saw F1 respond to the jockey’s prompting by a decisive leap forward that served to put her in 3^rd place, just a head in front of the horse beside her. Given her ‘problem’ and given the fact that the 6 Point requires this collaboration and response to a higher centre as it were, the filly’s jump forward at the behest of the jockey, almost imperceptible to anyone who was not looking for such a sign, was far more important than a win. It was a further indication that the therapy had worked and that the harmony of gnostic time was still prevailing.

Differences were beginning to surface with the new trainer. Foremost was the fact that he had an almost instinctive distrust of female jockeys. He seemed to be hand-picked, of the mould that considers two women equal to one man. Try as we might, he was never able to overcome this handicap no matter how well jockey Eve performed; the problem became a troublesome factor soon after, with F2’s first race at the home base. It was clear with that race that F2 was setting the tone of the entire Gnostic Circle experience. She was the instrument, the channel at the centre of the transformational process. The clarity with which this was demonstrated was both awe-inspiring and disturbing. There was a ruthlessness to her actions which was the quality of a true ‘warrior’.

Defining Chaos: energy without an axis

The matter-of-fact manner in which this analysis is being carried out may cause the reader to believe that a similar analysis can be done regarding any racing experience. This may not be the case. Nonetheless, exclusive or not, it must be noted that the elements of each race which allowed it to be located within gnostic time as we are dong, are assessed by hindsight to a large extent. At no time was it possible to interfere in the process or to arrange these elements so as to accommodate the Gnostic Circle’s specific demands. An example to prove this point is F2’s 6^th race. It may be said that the only intervention permitted in such a process is exclusively one of axial alignment.

Favourable imprinting had taken place for F2 exactly when required: passage over the 4.5 Orbit. Release of energy had also occurred in her 5^th race and the orbit of Jupiter, the planet known to be a supreme source of energy, hence its connection in traditional astrology with the Horse and the sign Sagittarius which it rules. The demands of the 6^th race and passage through Sagittarius (see Diagram B), were of a very special order in her case, having experienced these positive developments. But difficulties had surfaced during the last two races of F1 in the hands of the new trainer. His mistrust of and refusal to accept a woman jockey were more than clear. Moreover, jockey Eve herself was having difficulty participating in the experience on the terms set out by the experience itself. Above all, her alignment in keeping with the structure of the binary creation, introduced serious disturbances in the formation of the new cosmos. And this involved very deep levels of being where no pretence exists. One is either aligned in harmony with the new, or one is not; regardless of one’s mental determination and heartfelt sentiment. The Divine is not sentimental and the creation of a cosmos is not a mental operation. It is a state of being dependent on the yoga that can introduce such deep-rooted shifts which touch one’s innermost essence.

The Horse was seen to be a favoured instrument in questions of Being. The reason is that in this third level of the Supramental Descent the symbol is the thing symbolised. And the Horse is the supreme symbol of the movement of gnostic time precisely to effect the crossing to higher states of Being. An enigmatic experience of the Mother in her early yoga and practice of occultism confirms the relevance of the Horse for both the Gnostic Circle symbolism as well as the reason for the prominence it was given in the Vedic Age.

The Mother had come out of her body and passed through numerous planes until she reached the Borderline which humans could not cross. There she met ‘the principle of human form’, to quote her own words. But strangely enough it was a horse… ‘right on the frontier between the world of form and the Formless, and it was like a stallion.’

As if this description in itself were not sufficient confirmation of the importance of the Horse as symbol, the Mother continues to say that years later when she met Sri Aurobindo, she spoke to him about ‘the secret’ she had discovered and which no one seemed to know. To which he replied. ‘It is certainly the prototype of the supramental form’.  (See: The Magical Carousel  ‘Commentaries’, Aeon Books, 1979, page 141)

We are interested in demonstrating in this series the precise manner in which the Horse is the ‘prototype of the supramental form’, mainly because there are peculiar ideas about the nature of the transformation, all of which have very little to do with the real experience. Clearly this does not mean that human beings crossing the ‘borderline’ are going to assume the form of a horse when supramentalised. Then what is the deeper significance?

The answer lies in the PROCESS described in these pages involving the Gnostic Circle; and when the work evolves to the point where ‘the symbol is the thing symbolised’, as it has at present, then the Horse can be directly involved in the transformation and itself ‘carry us across’ that Borderline to ‘realms beyond’. This refers to the quarter of the Circle beyond Sagittarius and the 6 Point. The borderline is the last Cardinal Point, Capricorn. It is reached in life and not through death, by speed of consciousness REDIRECTED. To achieve this ‘mind and heart must work together’. Centres of energy must collaborate, must be harmonised.

This imperative was displayed with exceptional clarity by F2 in her 6^th race with jockey Eve taking her in her first Classic for fillies. Similar to F1’s 24^th (6 Point) race, a harmony between mount and rider was called for, but in this case it failed to materialise as the description of the race will reveal. At the same time, the true ‘mind’ in the operation, the trainer, fell woefully below expectations. Though certainly qualified to prepare a horse for a classic, in this instance F2 was a disturbance. He had two fillies as the focus of all his attention in his stables, both of whom he was  preparing from the beginning of their training with very special dedication for this very race and other classics to come. Insisting that the newcomer, F2, be prepared for the same race provoked a situation between owner and trainer which was anything but harmonious. In addition, there was Eve to contend with. He ‘agreed’ to let F2 run, but he failed to provide the proper training. Moreover, his instructions in the race, coupled with his disregard for the jockey’s protestations that if she carried out those instructions it might prove disastrous, proved to be the proverbial last straw and decided the ultimate close of the relationship. Not too long after this race the fillies were removed from his care.

F2’s 6^th race provides us with all the elements of verification of the Gnostic Circle as a guide to the transformation, to the crossing of the borderline into the supramental world. The jockey was instructed to bring the filly quickly out of the gate and position her in front. Having drawn gate 10, it was clear that this might prove problematic. Both trainer and jockey knew that the keenness of the filly was such that she would do her utmost to reach the front. And so she did.

The jockey managed to keep her in a straight course until she had passed almost all the other horses, but nearing the front the filly pulled into the rails brusquely – a habit of hers which the jockey (and owner) pointed out to the trainer, but which he refused to hear. This habit which other jockeys before Eve had noted, caused the filly to crash into the horse beside her, which happened to be our trainer’s favourite. While Eve warned the rider that her filly was ‘moving in’ and he braced himself, the bump caused the jockey to check his mount somewhat, which in turn, in the tightly packed field, caused the horse behind to be check abruptly, with the result that its jockey fell off in the middle of thundering galloping hoofs at full speed. Miraculously the jockey received no injury.

But this left his mount riderless and leading the pack throughout the entire race. Our filly predictably ‘blew out’ due to the uncontrolled pace she was keeping, but not before jockey Eve had to contend with the riderless horse who was moving from side to side, blocking F2’s smooth and straight course, as well as the other competitors. At one point, the interference of the riderless horse was so bad that the jockey who finally went on to win was seen whipping the weaving filly to get her out of the way. She then positioned herself farther in front and led the entire race – riderless as she was.

Jockey Eve realised that she had been used by the trainer to set the pace for the horses, to blow out given the high speed which no horse could sustain over that distance, 1600 metres; and thereby, in the trainer’s strategy, to tire all the other horses except his own fillies, one of whom he felt certain would win. But she did not. She placed 3^rd while F2, ridden badly, not held in check behind and allowed to quicken only in the final stretch, trailed the field.

This Classic was televised throughout Asia and much was made of the fact that for the first time a woman jockey was participating. Witnessing the race or seeing the video confirmed the inner impression of utter chaos. And it set the tone for chaos in the remainder of the season and well beyond. Jockey Eve was suspended for four racing days for ‘dangerous riding’; she was forbidden to ride in Classics; she was restricted to a field of only ten horses. Needless to say, apart from the suspension the other penalties were entirely arbitrary. The trainer insisted on this punishment, holding Eve responsible for his filly losing the race, but they did not conform to the usual procedure. They were ‘exceptions’, tailored for this specific case. It was also suspected that such measures might not have been imposed had the rider been a male. The trainer was convinced, and possibly convinced others, that the fault lay in Eve’s inability ‘to control’ a horse. There was certainly much truth in this, but of a different order than he could grasp. And finally, it was unfortunate that given his patently wrong instructions for ulterior motives, the trainer received no censures.

From the Gnostic Circle’s perspective, all was as it should be, given the prevailing conditions, – namely, the poise of the jockey and the demands of the 6 Point which could not be met due to those prevailing conditions. The filly had done her part by release of energy at the 4.5 Orbit. The problem was that none of it was utilised according to the demands of the 6 Point. That is, the beginning of ‘putting order’ for the forging of a magnetic centre where that energy must propel one inward, which means centering. On this basis, by this compression through ordering, the centre is forged and can thereafter hold. To achieve this ‘mind and heart’ had to be in harmony, poised around ONE AXIS, as it were – the symbol of the Sagittarian Centaur. Something of this was achieved but with considerable toll for both filly and jockey. The latter saw her professional progress greatly impeded, and the filly experienced a physical breakdown.

At the 6 Point if conditions are not met to contain the increase and channel it properly, the result is an unsustainable impact on the instrument (this is the point of death in traditional astrology). F2 suffered such an mpact because of her early training which did not provide the needed cardiovascular development to permit her to compete according to her inner potential. Sentimental concerns have no place in the training of an athlete. If one considers that it is unreasonable to race horses at a young age, then it is better to withdraw from the profession of trainer, as F2’s first trainer did. For to send them into a race having ‘spared’ them from the work demanded in order to permit them to sustain the rigours of a race, is to cause harm to the animal which one professes to love. The horse is constantly ‘surprised’, asked to do what it has not been prepared for. Breakdown is inevitably the result.

The 6 Point forces the issue. It may be recalled that over this passage F1 suffered a physical problem. She spent three months recuperating. F2 would also require the same period to regain condition. The superficial assessment would be that she was competing with horses far superior and could not withstand the strain. Time would be required to ascertain which assessment was correct, and indeed if any rectification would be possible.

As for Eve, the poise of women in the old creation was displayed in F2’s 6^th race and in all the races to follow until her participation was brought dramatically to a halt. It was evident that she relied on the axis trainer Adam provided and could not sustain any pressure independent of that axis-support, or outside its orbit. Indeed, the first two races she rode in the fillies’ home base were for jockey Eve still within Adam’s orbit, insofar as she was racing his horses, in his centre in the mountains, and was sent down to the plains only to ride F1 and F2 when their races were scheduled. She was, as such, on borrowed time. That is, she was simply extended into this other field, like an asteroid intruding into the orbits of other planets, while never being fully a part of those orbits. Indeed, the result of this situation was a constant sense of uncertainty and unpredictability, similar in fact to the impression of chaos the Asteroid Belt presents (the 4.5 Orbit of the Gnostic Circle).

Indeed. F2’s classic race on 13^th June transpired the day after trainer Adam’s season ended. Jockey Eve was then on her own, orbitless, as it were. Representing women of the old creation, she could not maintain her poise in such a situation and the chaos of that race was akin to a satellite spinning out of orbit, crashing into this object, throwing that other off course, herself swerving here and there due to the filly’s habit and the presence of the riderless horse.

Indeed, the riderless horse provided the key to the deepest significance of this particular 6 Point experience. This was precisely when rider and horse had to fuse, as it were, to harmonise, work together, blend into one as the figure of the Centaur suggests. F2 had no such possibility. She was indeed as riderless as the filly leading the field whose jockey she had contributed to dislodging. And thereafter the public, both present and watching the television transmission, were subjected to the display of this chaotic performance led by a horse with no rider, setting the pace, as it were, totally uncontrolled by any ‘higher centre’.

On her part F1 took due revenge. Her 25^th race consisted of 15 horses, therefore jockey Eve could not ride her. This was to the liking of the then trainer; in fact, the jockey who did agree to ride was precisely the one he considered would have won the previous two races on the filly, rather than Eve. F1 was favoured and the jockey was confident. But she soon demolished his ego, as only she can do. At the 400 mark, coming into the last stretch, she simply refused to oblige when the jockey tried to open her up. His frustration was such that F1 succeeded in adding another jockey to her list of ‘enemies’. The trainer on his part promptly lost interest in the filly. She was too unpredictable. This race was at the 7 Point with its intense pressure for truth.

The fillies continued their career under another trainer. Interestingly, still in their beautiful stables, still drawing to themselves what was required without budging. They seemed to be firmly rooted in an immobile centre at the heart of it all.

Within a few weeks F2 revealed her physical ailment and was rested for a time and then slowly brought back into condition. In the meantime, racing at their turf club came to an end and the club’s next season began in mid August in a neighbouring city. For the entire period the experience was coloured by a state of uncertainty which had extremely negative effects on the fillies, especially F1 who had a specific problem with jockeys. Thus, the fact that we were never certain how many horses were to race on any given day, we could never plan ahead, confident that jockey Eve would be able to ride. The restriction to a field of ten horses proved a terrible set-back; but at the same time it was a faithful symbol of the jockey’s own state. She was never centred and hence this uncertainty was symptomatic of an inner condition.

Trainer Adam had sent four of his horses to this same venue where F1 and F2 were racing, though under another trainer’s care for the several races they were scheduled to run. He was therefore present each time that jockey Eve rode his horses, scheduled to coincide with the fillies’ races. Eve was thus still in orbit of his operation and while he was involved some form of ‘stability’ prevailed amid the uncertainty the prevailing restrictions created. But it was clear that with F2’s 6 Point race a form of ‘choosing’ had been offered: this orbit or that. The ‘choice’ decided the issue and left the system wobbling thereafter. However, F2 was to ‘put each thing in its place’ in the 7^th race. This transpired on the September Equinox. But to appreciate in full the remarkable implications of what transpired then, a certain background must be provided. In addition, we must consider the nature of the world in which we live in greater depth. That is, this perplexing question of predetermination as well as control. The experience I shall relate, exactly as it transpired, will force a review of our firm convictions and ‘scientific’ deductions regarding the nature of reality.

Truth, or each thing in its place: The Anatomy of ‘Accidents’

Something of a preface is required to help the student understand the nature of the 7 point in the Gnostic Circle and its vital importance. It is in this segment that an axis comes into being or becomes established. Thereafter, everything in orbit of this central axis is ‘put in place’. This means that orbital adjustment is determined; as well, there is an action of repelling and attracting the elements which find themselves within the periphery of this particular system. F2’s 7^th race makes the latter quite clear.

This is what is meant by the process – the action whereby cosmos is established and the method to achieve this harmonious condition of being. The reason why it is essential to carry out such a process consciously is for the fact that to graduate to a higher level on the ladder of evolution, conscious awareness is precisely the factor that distinguishes the new level from the old. As a result of this increased capacity of perception attained when frontiers are exceeded and new boundaries come into being (Sagittarius and the 6 point), we are able to understand aspects of the old creation which have eluded us while we have been a part of that system. We have not been able to understand key features of the reality we are a part of because our boundaries of consciousness have not permitted a wider vision. Particularly difficult, given our limited range of perception, is the question of determinism in contrast to freedom or random choice, as it were. It is almost impossible for the human being to comprehend these elusive aspects of life. And yet, if we are to move up the ladder of evolution, and the process demands conscious participation, we have to come to terms with these questions. Failing which we experience recoil at crucial moments when precisely the process demands immobility.

This is the principle upon which the world is founded: the Immobile amidst the Mobile. These words are used in the Rigveda to describe Agni, first of the Vedic Gods and foremost figure of almost all the hymns. The reason is that Agni, as the Son, the One, is the manifestation of that principle. He is the perfect centre, hence he is known as the navel of the world. One of his most renowned forms is the Horse. Let us explore the reasons why. At the same time, deeper levels of reality and life in a physical embodiment will be made somewhat clearer. All these dimensions of the question are captured in F2’s 7^th race.

Skambha (‘pillar’, ‘support’) of the Veda is clearly the Supreme Principle of creation. Yet very little is understood of Skambha. Moreover, it seems no one since the Vedic Age has actually realised Skambha, though its eminence stands beyond doubt. Today we consider the Brahman as the principle of Unity and therefore the Supreme Principle, or the umbrella covering everything else. The goal of all Indian spirituality is to attain that Brahman consciousness; or to dissolve one’s small ‘self’ in that larger Self whose essence is Brahman which transcends the lesser.

Yet Skambha haunts us. The sublime verses of the Atharvaveda (see TVN 7/1, April 1992) leave little doubt that the composer of the hymn had realised Skambha intimately and confirmed it to be the foundation of creation – the ‘fulcrum’, as one researcher has called it.

The new cosmology of the supramental yoga clarifies the matter. Brahman is THAT in its transcendent form (9); Skambha is THIS in its immanent form (0-1). In between stand two powers/principles, 6 and 3. They represent the process whereby THAT becomes THIS.

In ancient times it was known, realised. But at a certain point, when the realisation had become commonplace, shall we say, transformation of THAT into THIS was superseded. The realiser leapt from unity to unity, as it were. As a result, the intermediate passage fell into obscurity and was soon considered irrelevant. The Brahman was known to permeate everything, but how had It become the all was a mystery. The Multiple therefore lost its direct and immediate touch with that Unity and the cleavage between THAT and THIS was complete.

We pick up the threads of this development today, some two thousand years later, and must reconstruct that very process, that very passage if at all we are to understand anything of reality in its true nature and divested of the falsifications brought about by the limitations of our perceptive capacity which suffers from seepage of the energy required to carry out the process. The immediate problem the human being faces in attaining that increased capacity is precisely one of concentration, accumulation of energy to serve as fuel. The transformation of the human species to a higher echelon requires knowledge of the process whereby THAT becomes THIS. Failing which essential features of the experience are not CONSCIOUS; hence no concentration and immobility accompany the action.

The common perception in spirituality today is that it is all ‘one’, all a ‘unity’. But there are different aspects to that ‘one’, that ‘unity’, which we ignore and our ignorance is therefore stamped on everything we do, everything we create, on the whole of our civilisation. A simple means to illustrate, though the connection might appear far-fetched, is cheese. We know the underlying essence of cheese is milk. This is its substance, its foundational base, its unity principle,. But milk (unity) is not cheese. Something else intervenes to alter that essential unity while ever retaining the original substance. That ‘something else’ is the process whereby milk becomes cheese.

Likewise, THAT, the Absolute or Brahman, is the overall Unity. While retaining that essentiality, something occurs to embed that principle, that essence, in creation, for which reason alone the yogi can proclaim that ‘all is one’. Yes, it is one, but THIS is different from THAT. The process is the Becoming. Hence Sri Aurobindo can rightfully state that to become is the highest truth of our existence. We are the process. Material creation is Brahman becoming Skambha, the ‘point’ of Itself. The process is the movement of THAT to transmute it to THIS. Hence the Horse and its speed is the great symbol of this act of Becoming. The Horse is indeed Agni and the first point of space, the coming into being of which requires two cosmic powers: contraction and expansion. And these are in turn the 6 of the new cosmology, who compresses That into a point, or who creates conditions for the compression; while the 3 gives it birth, or creates the bridge from plane to plane for the manifestation of That. The 6 is rightfully speaking the Mother, the Cosmic Womb. She is the great Placenta which feeds the process, whence all energies are drawn. The 3 draws from that Womb and carries out the labour, as it were. In our material creation, in this particular 9^th Manifestation, it is therefore the harmony of 9 that sets the tone, similar to a human gestation.

What had been missed throughout the thousands of years of the Age of Pisces are the details of that operation, that passage. Thus in the final stage of the Supramental Descent it is necessary to live and to explain the process of this Becoming. The Third thus defines and adds precision to the process. She ‘puts each thing in its place’.

F2, at the 7^th stage of the process, did just that – with a ruthlessness characteristic of the Divine Warrior. There was no sentimentality. No recoil. No hesitation. There was, however, an extraordinary control. When the process is integral – that is, covering all the stages and crossing all the planes in a conscious unbroken line, – then this control is evident.

Seeing only the permissible

Some background must be given to appreciate the control of each detail of the experience. At the same time, what I will relate draws into greater focus the question of determinism and certain perplexing aspects of prevision, in particular through dreams, or what are commonly considered to be dreams.

But first, mention must be made of the way in which the experience was rendered conscious, or at least more conscious. This happened on 17^th September, five days before F2’s seventh race. By a certain yogic methodology, I delved deeply into the essence of the 7^th stage and in particular its significance in this racing experience in the light of what had transpired so far, one thing stood out prominently in this probing. I ‘saw’ that the 7^th would produce what I called a ‘crisis of adjustment’. That is, from the experience of the 6^th it was evident that a great store of energy or elements to be integrated populated this nascent ‘cosmos’, but that indeed we had nothing but chaos. The 7 Point was to bring order into that chaos, to define – or better, to put each thing in place. Given the fact that there was a disharmony and some elements were not engaged or aligned properly for the experience, it seemed clear that the adjustment would not be without its toll. This meant that a selective action of attraction and repelling was demanded in order to form this cosmos. In other words, the 7^th stage introduces an axis, the first prerequisite of a cosmic manifestation.

This ought to have begun at the 6 Point and Saturn, but we saw that the axial alignment required, symbolised in the Centaur in whose single body two ‘hemispheres’ are harmonised, did not take place. Arriving at the 7^th stage beyond the ‘borderline’ in such a condition made it evident that a ‘crisis of adjustment’ might take place. The central figure was F2 with her capacity ‘to hold’, to remain ‘immobile’, both features of which are part of the creative, transformative process.

Two days after this ‘seeing’, there was another revelation regarding the 7^th race/stage but which I did not understand at the time for reasons that became clear later on. On 19 September, in the early hours of the morning just before leaving for the racing venue where the filly’s 7^th was to be held on the 22^nd, I had the following dream:

I was with a man and a young woman. We went into a stationary car, a convertible. The top was down. The three of us sat in the back seat, – myself, the gentleman, and the young woman, in this order. I do not know who the driver was to be, he was not present; nor do I recall who these two people were. These details may have been known, but they seem to have been blotted out by the dramatic scene to follow.

When we were seated and ready to set off, a white horse (technically known as a grey) came cantering up to the car from my side, the left. He quickly reached us and instead of stopping, he leapt up into the air above the open-top car, turned on his side and came down on the three of us. I ‘felt’ the impact lightly by his head and shoulders, the portion which came down on me, while the gentleman beside me received the middle portion. But the impact was entirely muted, if I may use the word. It was as if a cloud had come down and not a 600-kilo horse. However, I said to the gentleman seated beside me when we got out of the car that surely the young woman was ‘finished’ since she had received all the impact of the largest portion, the quarters. But in the commotion that ensued, I was told that nothing had happened to her.

Needless to say, such a dream just before leaving for a race seemed ominous. At the same time, I analysed the dream and since I could not recognise any of the participants, above all the horse which was a grey, I concluded that it was ‘symbolic’ and not previsionary. The salient points seemed to be the vulnerability indicated by the open-top car, and no control by any of us; the car was to be driven by a driver though he was not present. But this surely had no bearing on the forthcoming race.

There was a third element injected into the affair. The day before leaving I received a letter from abroad. It informed me that Julie Krone, America’s top female jockey, had had an accident (30 August). Her ankle was smashed. She would be out of racing for a year. My interest in this very fine jockey was stimulated by an article sent to me a month earlier when she won the Belmont Stakes. Hence friends who knew sent me her news. They related only that her ankle was smashed, nothing more.

On 22^nd September, I reached the racing venue just as the race was to begin. I met the trainer and jockey Eve, attired in my racing colours, orange and gold, in the paddock as the horses were being paraded, F2 among them. The trainer gave the jockey instructions in my presence, after which I left the paddock while the jockey was still talking to the trainer. But as I stepped out of the paddock, something made me turn around and walk back in. I went up to the jockey, still with the trainer, and said, ‘I want to see you mount’.

The other jockeys were beginning to mount for the race. Jockey Eve went up to the filly and was given a leg-up. Then the drama began right before me, the stewards and the other officials, and before the public. F2 reared slightly when Eve sat in the saddle. This was not unusual and Eve paid no attention. But the syce became nervous and yanked down on the lead he was holding. As Eve was in the saddle and starting to put her feet in the stirrups, his action caused the filly to rear once more. He yanked again, and again, and again. And with each pull downward the filly reared higher and higher, never touching the ground. But still he did not understand his mistake. The final yank caused the filly to lose balance and keel over, falling on her back. Eve was still on her, crushed beneath.

There was a moment of suspension, it seemed. No one moved, not even the filly who had her four legs in the air and the rider under her! She was clearly trying to figure out how she was going to get up without having to step on the jockey (horses will do their utmost to avoid trampling a person). No one could approach. No one could help. All was in the hands – or rather, hoofs – of F2. And divine Providence.

In such a case, in the excitement of the paddock before a large gathering and the nervous atmosphere that precedes a race, the filly herself ought to have panicked, in which case she would be seen flaying her legs about and thereby keeping all at bay and any help that might be possible. But for some reason she did not panic. She wriggled somewhat and made her move. She threw her legs to one side, Eve underneath her 600 kilos all the time, and pushed herself up. One hoof was planted right on Eve’s chest, right over her heart. The crowd gasped. Everyone thought she was finished.

At that moment I remembered my dream. I said to the trainer, ‘she’ll be all right’. It was clear: the man in my dream was the trainer, the girl was jockey Eve. The stationary car meant an accident before the race.

As soon as the filly was up, officials, doctors, trainers rushed to the jockey, all convinced her vital organs were smashed. It had to be. The filly came down on her chest. How could her ribs withstand the impact?

But no, Eve pulled herself up somewhat and pointed to her ankle. The problem was there, just like Julie Krone.

After ridding herself of Eve in this dramatic fashion, F2 was resaddled; another jockey took over and she placed 4^th. This was her first run after a gap of three months and was meant to be easy to make sure her physical could withstand the rigours of a race.

As for Eve, before long it was known that her injury was minor. It was not her ankle as such that had been fractured. It was only the fibula, sometimes called the useless bone because it bears no weight. Apart from this, there was also a tiny chip on the tibia, so small that not even a screw could be inserted to secure it in place. Nothing more. Even the spot where the hoof had come down bore only the slightest trace of a bruise, almost as if to confirm that indeed a 600kg horse had pulled herself up from the ground with one hoof planted right there; because as far as Eve was concerned, she had not even lost her breath, so light was the pressure. F2 is skittish, similar to many youngsters of her breeding, very finely tuned and somewhat high strung like most Thoroughbreds. Therefore, her sudden composure left us amazed. The injury was not actually caused by the weight falling on Eve, but somehow her leg got twisted when falling, though her feet were not in the stirrups. The ankle was missed by a mere centimetre or two. Otherwise, according to the doctor, her fate would have been similar to Krone’s: many months laid up, perhaps even a year.

But nothing of this transpired. There was, I repeat, a palpable control over every detail of this ‘accident’. The impression it left was as if a very great power of harmony permeated everything. It was more like a dance than an accident. True, my dream had forewarned me that nothing serious would happen, but the problem with accidents and what causes real damage is precisely the panic pervading the atmosphere. This space does not permit a lengthy discussion of the nature of accidents. Suffice to say that if a centre holds the process together, as it were, even a potentially fatal accident such as Eve’s can be ‘harmonised’. While witnessing the scene I realised why I was driven back into the paddock to be close at hand for the event. A conscious poise of immobility is the mechanism which permits the Power of Harmony to operate, to put each thing in its place, but with only minimal damage, if at all it can be called that. Indeed, this is the point we must stress. A centre that ‘holds’ does not produce accidents – a word which is the antithesis of control. Accidents come to pass in a lesser world, within the parameters of the old creation. They do not occur in the new creation.

The difference is between cosmos and chaos. When energies are not centrally held in orbit of an axis, then in that uncontrolled play in the periphery anything is possible at any given moment. But this too has to be clarified. Anything can happen has a specific meaning: any ‘asteroid’ can enter the system and create havoc, – and then exit once more. The point I wish to make is precisely the question of forces operating outside the boundary of that particular destiny and which can find access into the destiny-system (of an individual or a collectivity) because of gaps in the structure due to a lack of integrality or sphericality.

Thus, forces operate from outside, press into, find an opening, and then do their deeds, whatever these may be, positive or negative; in any case, it is all ‘relative’. Whatever the action, it is relative and not absolute, thus even negative or positive in such a world is meaningless. Nothing is in its place because nothing holds the energy to itself. At the centre lies a void, devoid of that crucial axis which permits a centrally-based action. Unlike an asteroid (force) entering the systems of the old creation from beyond, so to speak, and creating havoc in a field characterised by chaos, in the new creation all action is centrally impelled. Thus, if an ‘asteroid’ does gain access, and in the early stages of this transitional period the world is experiencing this is still possible, that force encounters the Power of Harmony attracting and repelling; by which mechanism such forces are ‘put in place’ along with all the rest. Or else rejected, expelled from the System. Whatever the case, the most important aspect to bear in mind is that negative or positive, all serve the purposes of the One, centre of the cosmos, axis mundi in the deepest sense of the term.

To be even more specific, let us juxtapose Eve’s ‘accident’ and Julie Krone’s. But to make the comparison even more convincing, I must mention that shortly after returning to the farm-source when the details of Eve’s convalescence had been worked out, the mail awaiting me contained an article from The New York Times of 21 September, on Julie Krone’s accident. I quote the relevant portion:

Julie Krone can talk about it now, now that the danger has passed from a 1,200-pound horse hitting her directly above the heart, now that she has survived a cardiac contusion through the help of a 2-pound vest.

         ‘It was a breath-taking force,’ she recalled. ‘But at the time, I could feel the vest protecting me.’

            The tough little jockey met the press yesterday for the first time since Aug. 30 when she tumbled off her horse at Saratoga. Dr Frank Ariosta…who put her right ankle together in two complicated operations, has assured her she will ride again…And the two of them agreed that the accident could have been worse, much worse…’

The similarity between the experiences was total. Any qualification such as ‘coincidence’ is futile and simply serves as a distraction. Both were female jockeys; both suffered accidents, and within 22 days of each other; both had right-ankle injuries; both had a horse step on their chests, right over their hearts. The difference lies in the consequences, along with the mechanisms obtaining for each jockey. The anatomy of the two explains in full why Krone is laid up for six months and more, and Eve is right now, after only six weeks, riding again and preparing to return to the track. Krone’s accident was a veritable, authentic accident; while Eve’s was an ‘accident’. That is, it formed a part of a supramental process and as such it was entirely controlled, harmonised, utilised for the purposes of the One.

Even the dream sequence prior to the race was ‘controlled’. None of the figures were recognisable. For had I been able to do so I certainly would have concentrated on the race and taken some decisions according to its portents. But recognition was purposely withheld. This brings to the fore another aspect of destiny: we cannot interfere, rightly speaking, with destiny by way of prevision unless that prevision is a part of the unfolding of that destiny. In other words, I could not have known who the characters in the dream were precisely because had I known I would have interfered. Yet, prevision of the outcome was ‘willed’ and served me well in that crucial moment in the paddock. It helped to ‘hold together’, to create the right atmosphere for the power of harmony to operate. Immobility was essential. No panic. Perfect equanimity. This condition was made possible in large part by the dream.

There is another aspect we must note. Krone’s accident was also ‘held together’, as it were. It also formed a part of a system. But this was individual, limited, contained within the boundaries of her personal destiny disconnected in its essentiality from everything else. If she was saved and did not suffer fatal injuries, the more religious might view the matter as the grace of God: God saved Julie Krone. But to be precise, God did not save Krone. She saved herself. Whereas ‘god’ did indeed ‘save’ Eve.

Within the boundaries of the old creation, with the limited perspective its horizons permit, this may appear blasphemous. We may consider that where chaos is found only the divine Grace can ‘save’. Actually this is a fallacy. Yet religions throughout the Age of Pisces have thrived because of this assumption. We are victims of fate, therefore we must implore the help of God and his intermediaries (the priests) in order to mitigate the blows an unpredictable fate (chaos) must surely offer. However, in such a condition of misalignment there is no possibility of ‘grace’ saving the day, in the sense that we understand the term. The divine Power is limited, entirely constrained by the off-centre alignment of the human instrument. Whatever the case, the individual is crucial. The instrument is the key feature of material creation, or the field wherein the Supreme Principle materialises itself. Everything converges there, on the individual. The Supramental Shakti operates within creation according to laws inherent in the creative process which she herself set in motion and supports in its eternal manifestation. To render these obsolete would mean that there is no sense to a material manifestation, no purpose. Hence, the Mother was emphatic on this point: If there were no determinism in every detail, there would be no ‘sense’ to creation. On 31 January 1970, she discussed the matter with a disciple, having reached this conclusion after years of yoga, realisation. ‘seeing’:

‘You know, my child, more and more and in an absolute way, I see – I see – yes, I see, I feel: everything has been decided.

‘And everything has its reason for existence, which eludes us because our vision is not wide enough.

‘And you understand, life, existence, indeed the world itself would have no sense if it were otherwise.

‘It is a kind of absolute conviction. And I see it. Yes, it is a thing I see.’

The disciple then asks if that Consciousness one can understand might govern the vast and the eternal, ‘but does it govern all in all the small details?’ To this the Mother replies, ‘In the microscopic.’ She continues,

‘…the individual consciousness, even when it is very wide, is not able to realise, that is to say, understand concretely, that it is possible to become conscious of all at the same time. For it is not of that kind. It has just the difficulty of understanding that the Consciousness is conscious of all at the same time, all together, in its totality and in the smallest detail…’ (The Mother’s Agenda, Volume 11, 1970)

In this analysis I wish to clarify the implications of the Mother’s rather startling disclosures, since they appear to contradict the objectives of yoga which are to make one ‘free’, ‘master of one’s fate’, rid of ‘karma’, and so forth. According to the Mother’s experience, the deeper one penetrates the clearer it is that ‘everything has been decided’, even the ‘microscopic details’. We seem to be faced here with another ‘paradox’.

Yet, as explained above, the human creature cannot expect ‘God’ to help. One can only help oneself. Thus, we have stated that the only true and real freedom lies in the freedom to choose to move up the ladder to the new, wider, and conscious condition of being, and thus to allow the Divine to use that instrument for the manifestation of cosmos. Or, we can remain in our present misaligned structure which limits the Power insofar as the instrument cannot withstand the impact, lacking as it does a centred axial structure.

It is only the centred operation that permits the Divine to control, to harmonise, to put each thing in place, to utilise the individual for the expression of the Supreme’s Freedom and Harmony and Truth. Not our own ‘truth’. The Supreme’s, the Absolute’s.

What ‘saved’ Krone were the boundaries of her own destiny and nothing more. Within that there was a ‘weak’ force operating, to borrow the term from physics, which could mitigate only within that limited boundary. There is no contradiction since within that boundary ‘everything is known, determined’ – even in the smallest detail. But only within the periphery of her destiny. Thus, knowing that parameter we could ‘predict’ Krone’s salvation. But with the wider vision we could also declare that nothing was permitted to enter that system, enclosed within itself, centreless, since there was no area of access.

Our universe is a cosmos because the First Cause was a centre, a perfect alignment. The new cosmology seeks to describe the mechanism or process both to bring a centre into being as well as to discover the method whereby each human being can ‘become the Sun’, to borrow the Vedic injunction. Indeed, in the Vedic Age this realisation, mechanism, process, anatomy of creation was known. It was also known that praying to a God outside to act as saviour was an illusion, if at all such a situation was even contemplated (some of our readers may recall that the Toltec master, don Juan, made similar declarations to his pupil, Carlos Castaneda, when he ridiculed the latter’s sentimental attachment to ‘God’, whom don Juan called simply the mould of man). For the Vedic Seer everything was founded on the realisation of Skambha. The journey was undertaken to carry the seeker into those innermost universes where Agni could be established as the purohit, or the priest officiating over the sacrifice. This Purohit was an inner reality. Each one had to become that power, realise or unveil its function; and from this centremost Point move through the corridors of creation in conquest of the Summit, victorious over each and every pani, or hostile force, met along the way.

This same ‘journey’ is now, today, being undertaken not merely by an individual or even a group of individuals. It is the Earth herself who is engaged. Thus it is that we say, a new world is being born, the Earth is giving birth, as in the Puranic myth, to the 4^th, or Mars, or Agni.

Blessed are the Lesser, for they can BE

In this particular experiment animals, particularly the Horse, are used. This is because being creatures of the lower hemisphere, shall we say, they are not disturbed in their instrumentation by the proclivities of a mentally-poised species such as the human. Problems arise when we move up the ladder somewhat, when we begin to experience something of that divine light, but not the fullest Light. Then concepts such as freedom, free will and the like suffer from the limitations such a partial vision imposes. It is only when the time arrives for a progress such as the Earth is experiencing today, in this 9^th Manifestation that we can begin to understand our limitations and shed the baggage accumulated over the ages of wrong perceptions based on this instrumental inadequacy.

The animal is not hampered in this way. His only limitation is due to the position he occupies on the scale of creation which places him under the human. But this describes a linear assessment and not spherical. In the latter there is no question of higher and lower. There is a total equality based on equal participation; or rather, equal instrumentation: everything is the Divine, a channel for the Divine Play in creation. Indeed, the animal is more fortunate. He does not have to grapple with Mind at all. This does not mean he is not ‘intelligent’ – for this notion, in particular regarding the horse, is meaningless. What it means is that the Power works directly through the vital and physical centres without the interference of Mind. Hence the action is as pure as we are describing in these pages regarding F2’s participation and her ‘ruthlessness’. She cast Eve off her back simply because Eve was not properly aligned to serve the purposes of that One which F2 can serve faithfully and inconspicuously, with the least damage and interference.

When it was clear that Eve could not handle the energy release, F2 would not allow her to take her in even one more race. Whereas, she peacefully, obediently allowed the second rider to mount and behaved admirably thereafter, once she had put ‘each thing in its place’. For the fact is that the second rider was not involved in the process like Eve and hence he would not interfere. He was ‘centred’ in his own human way, or like every other human being – that is, there and rooted in the action of the moment. The reason may be banal, mundane – ambition, for example – but he was there. Whereas Eve was elsewhere. She belonged to another ‘system’ and when the linchpin of that system was removed, she was thrown after it! She did not race again at that centre once Adam had stepped out. F2 saw to it that Eve would follow. Such are the actions of the Impeccable Warrior.

The final outcome of this Biblical foray, or the female/male adventure within the contours of the old creation, was loss, waste, – or at least so it would seem in terms of the racing experience. Eve is nursing her wounds, while the fillies, F1 and F2, had to suffer the humiliation of demotion: F1 back to Class IV, and F2 to Class VA. At the same time, both were saddled with top weights in the handicaps of the lower classes in which they found themselves, and the saga goes on. F2 completed the first ennead with a heavy handicap/karma; she would have to work this off somehow during the next round. We would have to make up the lost ground, and for this she would have to draw to herself those elements which might help her to recuperate and to redeem herself. Physically she was nearing a peak. The new trainer was bringing her on slowly and carefully. The results were positive. But there was more to do. A new chapter was opening just as the new ennead had also begun. The fillies were still in their pleasant stables, still rooted in the process and central to it all.

Survival and affirmation in a hostile world

Determinism in every detail was obvious in Eve’s fall and salvation. Without the presence of a centre in the paddock, the centimetre miss which ‘saved’ her ankle, the light pressure of the filly’s hoof which left her heart intact could not have taken place. It would have been a question of ‘destiny’, – i.e., chaos. Julie Krone relied totally on human aids – for example, the jockey’s vest she wore which in her opinion saved her. Entirely true. But even this is significant in terms of our analysis. We do, as humans relying on our own mental devices, require aids for protection. Without that Julie Krone would probably have died. But Eve demonstrated a new power at work.

The Mother spoke of this power toward the end of her life. She was occupied with the problem of protection for the new creation. She knew there would have to be a method to secure its survival while in infancy insofar as there is only one field in which to plant the seed, and that is the soil of the Earth. But this soil is already polluted; or shall we say, the field is occupied and there is no other, no other ‘space’ for the new to arise. Thus, it is obliged to take shape here in the midst of a hostile world, similar to the terrain the Aryan warrior of old had to cross en route to the Mountaintop. Therefore the Mother knew that concurrent with planting that Seed, a ‘power’ would have to manifest to accompany its growth and assure its protection. She located the operation in the vital, truly the energy base of the Warrior, that it was a power manifesting from or in that plane – and she connected it to the Power of Love.

In these pages I have provided details of just how that Power the Mother anticipated operates. I have centred the discussion on the Horse, supreme symbol of the Vital, of the Hero, of Agni, in a further demonstration of the symbol is the thing symbolised.

The key to a supramental creation is freedom, for which reason the present human species in transition to a higher status is so obsessed with the concept and its establishment in society. It is one’s ‘unalienable right’. But I have demonstrated in this analysis that such freedom, any freedom, is an illusion. There is only one true freedom: the Supreme’s.

The significance of the Supreme’s freedom concerns the laws by virtue of which the Divine Shakti can or cannot manifest through the material instrument, or even the vital and the mental in the other intermediate planes of existence. In the human mental creation, as I have explained earlier, there is virtually no freedom for the Consciousness to operate. And this has a specific definition. To be bound by laws means a curtailment in the expression of the Supreme’s spontaneity. The next legitimate question is, What is spontaneity?

We have the two accidents under discussion for elucidation. The order in which they occurred is one important clue. The first, Julie Krone’s, set the broad lines for the second. Krone’s conformed to the laws of the human creation, – i.e., totally bound, unfree. The ‘power’ at work to save or not save was entirely determined by the parameters of Krone’s individual destiny. Hence, a necessary reliance on human aids such as the jockey’s vest. Those aids, the prowess of the other jockeys to avoid the dislodged rider, the horses’ natural instinct to avoid trampling a person, and so forth, are all indications of the episode following the normal laws of the species, without any higher intervention. Knowing those boundaries and that there can be nothing higher introduced makes it possible to predict the outcome of such a happening, provided one has access to certain facts. In many cases the horoscope can provide this information. But only partially. There could be no ‘intervention’ to complicate a reading of that nature because, as I have explained, there was no area of access and the field was too limited. That is, there was no possibility of spontaneity.

Nonetheless, this accident set the lines for the second, 22/23 days later. It also permits us to gauge the greater conscious participation in the second. There were certain key features which would have to be respected – or rather, repeated. These were mainly the right-ankle injury and the hoof on the heart, apart from the fact that both involved female jockeys, in itself an unusual circumstance to duplicate, especially in Asia. To make this nuclear experience valid there had to be the possibility of comparison, as it were. And for this, similarities between the two had to preclude the escape route of ‘coincidence’.

Thus, Krone’s which could not accommodate spontaneity, set the tone for the second from the outset. With these givens the Supramental Shakti had to ‘organise her manifestation’, in Sri Aurobindo’s words. That is, with the existence of a centre in the field of manifestation, the Shakti could have access to the procedure in that no ‘catastrophe’ would result. This merits some clarification before we proceed further.

If the centre does not exist at the heart of the endeavour, then the Divine Consciousness can of course ‘intervene’ – but the problem is that chaos prevails due to the lack of a holding axis. Thus, intervention in such a field would simply agitate those energies even more. More chaos, in other words. Hence clash, conflict, catastrophe. To use the great Puranic myth imagery, it would be as if the churning of the primordial ocean had taken place without Mt Meru as the central axis or ‘churning stick’, around which the churning took place as order, cosmos. If Mt Meru were eliminated, then we would have chaos leading to catastrophe and destruction.

For this reason the Supramental Shakti does not intervene directly in the lower levels of creation where Mind operates as regent or highest principle. To do so would create tremendous disorder. Consequently, the evolution under such conditions is slow and laborious and at times appears to grind to a halt. This is because there are pockets of energy knotted up along the way; and sometimes those ‘knots’ cannot be undone but must be cut out of the system. We witness then great upheavals in the life of society or the individual.

On the other hand, the moment the centre and axis come into being, time is accelerated. This means that what took eight Manifestations of 6480 years each to evolve, can now bear fruit in a matter of decades, unbelievable as it may seem. Time is never superseded, blotted out, eliminated, as many spiritualists and yogis would have us aspire for. It is simply accelerated, which is what the Churning of the Ocean myth foretells. A year becomes a day in the sense that the terrain covered is condensed, the pace is speeded up, as it were.

Thus, we cannot expect interventions before that centre and axis come into being for the sake of the survival of the species. The human consciousness prefers to view this as a divine compassion; but this is simply the human interpretation. There is no question of ‘compassion’ in the sense we mortals understand the term. It is rather self-preservation – but not of the human, rather the Divine. The Supreme Consciousness preserves her creative activity by regulating the Power according to the limits or boundaries of the field of operation. At the most, what can be done is to forge a certain protective shield to keep out interfering forces which may make ‘preservation’ more complex. But to alter the destiny in any substantial way is impossible. Hence the legendary ‘resignation’ of the Hindu. It is a civilisation which has seen and hence cannot act when it knows that action is an illusion. It is a nation nurtured by the words of Sri Krishna to the warrior Arjun, ‘Slay, because your opponents are already slain!’

Science as we know it today is entirely a product of the mental human species; that much is clear. It is bound by the same laws, limited in its perceptions by the same constraints of the instrument. In that arena to declare that the universe is merely a machine and that everything in this universe, including human evolution, is mechanically impelled and hence determined, and that therein ‘consciousness’ plays no part, is entirely true. But it is a ‘relative’ truth – hence Einstein easily revolutionised the world of science with his relativity theories. But that was a world seen through the eyes of the unfree scientist. Science of tomorrow is something else.

In the Rigveda we have an example of a civilisation which made a choice: it could follow the mechanical human path with its resultant ‘progress’, or the path of the Sun, to become the Sun. Clearly the ancient Seers had access to a source of knowledge which could have produced the technological and scientific marvels of our 20^th Century thousands of years ago. But the hymns they left us reveal that the Seers understood the complexities of the problem just as we are analysing them here, and the futility of imprisoning oneself in the lesser, limited range which could never describe the true workings of the Divine Consciousness and hence the correct understanding of the creation, preservation and destruction of the world. To change anything one had to ‘become the Sun’ – ergo, forge a centre/axis. Nothing more.

Achieving that through alignment of the consciousness, the Supramental Shakti was then ‘free’ to use that embodiment as her direct instrument, with no intermediaries from the intervening planes such as the vital and the mental. Rather, that centre/axis would then hold those forces of the intermediate planes to itself in an orderly fashion, similar to a cosmos. And thus the Seer ‘became the Sun’. He was a light unto himself just like the Sun, a self-replenishing source with a generative capacity similar to the operations in the core of a sun.

With this centre/axis established in our nuclear equine experience, there was a channel for the Shakti to ‘organise her manifestation’ on Earth, as Sri Aurobindo had prophesied, and in each ‘microscopic detail’, to quote the Mother. As a further clarification, this equine experience has served to elucidate exactly what Sri Aurobindo meant when he communicated to the Mother after his passing that he would ‘return in a supramental body prepared in a supramental way’.

Since 1950, this statement has engendered unending speculation among disciples. The pathetic part is that none know what to look for, hence the prevalence of spiritually immature speculation and expectations. Indeed, as the equine experience reveals, there were perhaps 1000 witnesses to Eve’s fall on that momentous September Equinox of 1993. Yet none saw. At best some understood that they had witnessed a ‘miraculous escape’. But none knew, none saw the Divine in their midst.

The Supramental Shakti does not perform miracles. She does not need to. The miracle is the manifestation of the Supreme’s freedom and spontaneity. To have direct access to such a happening is the greatest blessing for the human creature today. The very fact that we are able to describe the operation in these analytical, clinical terms, with the precision of the new science, is indication that the work is done. The new world is born.

The field where Eve’s fall took place bore a centre and an axis. Hence the Supramental Shakti could operate through that channel without breaking laws which she herself gave rise to and continues to support. That field then provided a nuclear arena where the Supreme could express spontaneity amid freedom. We witnessed this in the organisation of the episode to fit it into Krone’s accident pattern. It is not that Krone’s determined the other, or that Krone’s was determined by this one. It was simply a spontaneous play of the Supramental Shakti to demonstrate the ‘organisation in every detail’ amid the ‘control’ for which she is renown; but at the same time, to supersede the mechanical character of the former. For this reason one of the principal objectives of the Yoga is plasticity of the being. Where there is rigidity we have a field ideal for the play of Purush and Prakriti and their mechanical displays; but not the Shiva/Shakti Ardhanarisvar which requires freedom and spontaneity.

With this background it becomes clearer why prediction is impossible in the new dispensation. For who could have predicted the delightful exploits of the Shakti on that Equinox day in South India? The human being cannot aspire to know such details. He or she can only align the individual consciousness-being in such a way as to be an instrument through which the Supramental Shakti manifests her Freedom and Spontaneity. F1 could not serve in this way once ‘crusts’ had formed and self-centredness set in, the bane of all humans. F2 was the perfect channel, the impeccable divine Warrior. And we were witness to it all.

We will leave the analysis here for the time being, while our saga of Horse, Woman and Man on the road to Supermanhood continues, ever faithful to Sri Aurobindo’s dictum, ‘All life is yoga’.

                                                                                                                           PN-B

Aeon Centre of Cosmology at Skambha

Deepavali, November of 1993

 ‘…By whatever road we may travel,
That is always the end at which we
arrive and we can only escape it by
refusing to complete the journey.’

Sri Aurobindo
The Life Divine

It may strike the spiritually-oriented student as odd that the Gnostic Circle can be applied to an area of life as prosaic as horse racing. But in effect, the example I am presenting offers perhaps the best means to understand the most essential and profound aspects of the Circle. And in addition, this review will be seen as a most effective method for application in a human situation, more specifically, in the transformation of consciousness.

Perhaps it will not be difficult to understand why I am using the horse and racing as an example when we appreciate the real purpose of the diagram and what it signifies for the individual as a key to yoga and enhancement of one’s consciousness. The idea behind a monitoring of this order is to learn the method for unveiling one’s true potential, or inner truth, or dharma. Indeed, the Gnostic Circle has only one objective: to reveal the process by which a seed is made to flower and maximum growth is achieved. It is a diagram which can be related to the passage of time and its registration by means of the calendar. This monitoring is not fixed. That is, the Circle’s 0 Point at the head of the wheel is not restricted merely to one’s time of birth or even the beginning of the calendar year. As the example I am providing reveals, the 0 Point can pertain to the birth of an experience as well as the birth of an individual or even a civilisation. Above all, we are dealing with compressed energy and its release under certain controlled conditions.

In this light, of foremost importance is a correct assessment of just what that 0 Point might be and when it sets the Gnostic Circle mechanism in motion. For this the discrimination of the user must be honed to the degree that the onset of the process is recognised. Thereafter the Gnostic Circle can be a formidable aid in the process of transformation according to an evolutionary, organic harmony and with the allegiance of Time.

In The Gnostic Circle, Chapter 14, I used the successive incarnations of the Dalai Lamas as stages in the progression through the wheel – from the first to the present one, the 14^th of the line. Thus, each incarnation marked off one of the 9 (planetary) points or orbits – the 9^th bringing the line to the 0 Point where the cycle starts again. However, it is not at all a repetition thereafter. Return to the 0 Point and the 9^th stage, when the movement is still underway, brings to the process the accumulated experience of the previous cycle of 0 to 9. The example I will present, utilising the horse and a series of 9 races, will make this amply clear. Furthermore, it will reveal the role of what I sometimes refer to as ‘the residue’ and the burden this represents in the experience of transformation. In the Thoroughbred example from racing, it is very clearly indicated by the handicap in conjunction with other factors. We may view this as one’s karma, according to the traditional interpretation. But the Gnostic Circle goes beyond this view and serves a different purpose, which I hope will become clear as the study unfolds.

In effect, after time has carried us through the initial 9 stages, return to the topmost 0 Point is actually a spiralling motion, if we wish to apply a visual description to the operation. The movement of consciousness expands on the basis of the prior 9 stages (or years, months, days) of the lived experience. Whatever that has been must determine the nature of the next cycle – from 9 to 18 – in large measure.

Thus it can be appreciated that passage through the first cycle – 0 to 9 – is immensely important for it sets the tone of the entire development. It is said the Jesuits held that if they took up the education of a child from birth to five years old, they could predict the adult character of that individual. This is a valid statement which the Gnostic Circle corroborates, though perhaps extending the period somewhat. Yet even if the period is broadened from 5 to 9, it is evident that by the 5^th year or stage, if certain opportunities had been earlier missed, or if certain actions had misfired, when one reaches the 5 Point in the Circle, the remainder is in large part predictable. This will be made clear in the example I shall present.

Distinguishing Features of Traditional Astrology and the Gnostic Circle

The Gnostic Circle is the combination of two divisions of the 360° circle – into 9 and 12 parts superimposed. The former are the 9 orbits extending from the 0/Sun. The 12-part division is the circle of the ecliptic, or the horizontal base of the 12 zodiacal signs (see diagram below).

The planets orbit the Sun in one direction. As well, they all revolve on their respective axes in the same direction though at different speeds and polar inclinations. Thus there is this harmonious feature of our solar system, the only known exception of which is Triton, a moon of Neptune. What this uniform feature seems to indicate to scientists is that our solar system was formed at one time, as a whole, from a primordial cloud of gases which, when a certain threshold had been reached, experienced collapse and ultimate division into the system of 9 planets in orbit of the Sun as we know it today. On this basis it is entirely correct to view the solar system as a single organism, each planet bearing a pulse which is a product of its connection with the heart of the system, the Sun. From ancient times astrology recognised this relationship and equated the Sun with the heart of the body – be this in the human organism over which it is thought to ‘rule the heart’; or else involving an evolutionary organism – i.e., the human species.

This relationship is retained in the Gnostic Circle but it is given more prominence. The Sun is not merely held as ruler of the 5^th zodiacal sign Leo, sign of the heart. It is placed at the centre of the wheel; and in the number system of 0 to 9, which India bequeathed to the world, the Sun’s allocation is necessarily the 0. From that original Seed the limbs of the organism evolved. A pulsating Breath was the first Cause, flooding the extremities of the organism with particles of itself and in harmony with its own purposeful pulsation.

The essential difference between the Gnostic Circle and traditional astrology is thus the vision of wholeness it inspires. In traditional astrology the signs are taken as separate stages and are usually viewed linearly, or disconnected from each other. There is no real spiralling movement possible, for in a lifetime via the progression of the horoscope, a mere 70 to 90 degrees of the full 360 can be experienced, on the basis of the traditional formula: a day for a year. For the student who is unfamiliar with these terms, this is a method whereby each day after birth is taken as one year of life. A horoscope is thus drawn up by counting ahead in the ephemerides in this manner, – i.e., the 5^th day is equivalent to the 5^th year of the individual’s life, the 6^th day to the 6^th year, and so on. Predictions are made on this basis. This means that in a life span of 70 years, only 70 degrees of the zodiac are open to the individual’s experience.

We know that life is not so limited and that there is an infinite scope for development. Thus, the Gnostic Circle comes to our aid by discarding this method and revealing a diagram whereby in a given cycle of 9 days or 9 months or 9 years, or else 9 stages of any development, the full circle is open to our experience. This indicates that the potential for development or transformation is enhanced to a degree never before experienced in our period of recorded history, by the simple fact that it is now possible to monitor such a process; and this, in turn, is made possible by the fact that our solar system has ‘matured’ as it were. Consisting of 9 planets – where previously we were aware of only 6 – it permits us to harmonise the number system with the planetary body. This, in turn, is applied to the calendar when the need arises. The revelation of the Gnostic Circle thus indicates the degree of evolution of the human species and its mature condition. It also indicates that the individual is ripe for a process which prior to this expansion could not be undertaken.

Thus with the Gnostic Circle it can be seen that we traverse the entire wheel in any cycle of 9; and it is this factor which accelerates our transformation of consciousness by means of this revolutionary key of knowledge.

It is known that the horoscope offers an astrologer a blueprint of the potential of the individual in any given lifetime. It is not merely a pattern of destiny but rather a destiny which is a product of a certain combination of elements, – certain seeds, and a certain soil. But the horoscope in traditional astrology as it is still practised today, does not make use of the cosmic harmony in order to offer the individual a method for extracting that potential and encourage its fullest expression. Indeed, the conventional method is usually not concerned with this development at all, or any such method. Foremost is prediction. The enquirer wants to know ‘what the future holds’ and not what he or she ‘holds’ as a potential in the inner recesses or the core of oneself. On the other hand, the Gnostic Circle is only concerned with that: the method for encouraging the discovery and flowering of one’s inner truth, – or the release of energy from the innermost compressed ‘seed’ in a conscious manner most beneficial to its fullest utilisation and expression.

To this end the Circle provides a framework of points in time which allow for certain aspects of the process to become operative in one’s life. There is no emphasis at all on prediction. Indeed, prediction cannot be carried out by means of the Gnostic Circle, apart from the prognostication of a certain attained (or failed) poise of consciousness by which means the end result in the process can be known in advance. However, the emphasis is always on the method for enhancing one’s consciousness and growth from the ‘seed’, or expressing one’s fullest potential. This encompasses many levels: physical, vital/emotional, mental and spiritual. The ultimate aim is, in fact, an integration of them all.

The Gnostic Circle’s Wholeness

There are certain points in the progression which are especially critical in this regard. But it has to be stated that another essential feature of the Gnostic Circle is that it cannot be dissected and its parts divided from the whole. It offers a vision of unity and a movement in stages but always focusing on the whole, or the underlying unity, which is represented in the system by the central Sun, light of our world. From that Sun the ecliptic extends out and that is the 12 divisions of the Gnostic Circle which acts as a base, a unifying field similar to the drone in a raga – the Silence, eternal upholder of Sound.

The object of the quest in metaphorical terms is ‘to become the Sun’. This means the fullest realisation of the innermost truth of our being. The unified field provided by the luminary of our system, as a sort of backdrop whereupon the experience of life is played out, by its wholeness and unity is intended to function as that unifying element without which this integration cannot come about.

The problem with the human being’s perception is precisely a separative approach. This makes it extremely difficult to appreciate the interconnection of things and then to utilise this vision as a means of extracting one’s fullest potential. The evolution of consciousness is a construction process. One builds with the previous accumulated substance as a sort of mortar in conjunction with the elements life offers. In other words, we enter life with a certain inner substance which is the compressed essence of our previous sojourn in this material universe. This is the ‘seed’ of being. The receptacle of this ‘seed’ is the soul. The latter acts as a bridge to the Infinite and the Eternal. From this centremost point of our being the lines of destiny are drawn. With the first breath we take as individuals at the moment of birth, a web is being woven in time and space. Indeed, that ‘seed’ is compressed time. The aim of our passage on this planet is then to extend that substance, that compressed soul-essence from the Point outward.

The Gnostic Circle can thus be viewed as this web in which and by which the orbit-points of the Circle provide stimulus in order to engender extraction of the maximum potential. It is important to note in this context that we are describing a movement from inside outward; and more especially from a centre to an outer periphery. Therefore, essential in the process is precisely the ability to centre one’s consciousness so that this expansion may take place on the basis of a TRUE CENTRE.

One begins life at the 0 Point of the Gnostic Circle. Each 9 cycle thereafter brings into our orbit the full 12 signs of the zodiac as well as the entire gamut of 9 planetary points. There are a set of circumstances in which we must experience this progression and the purpose of centering, as it is understood in the New Way, is to establish a magnetic mechanism which obliges those circumstances of life ‘to serve the purposes of the One’. That is, be they positive or negative, the conditions of life will always serve the inner being in the development of one’s innermost truth.

The problem faced by almost all humanity is that rarely is one’s fullest potential drawn forth in life. Or else the development is lop-sided. There may be an exaggerated mental development at the cost of a depressed vital/emotional being; or else an emphasis on the spiritual at the expense of a suppressed vital and underdeveloped mental being. This is the hallmark of an immature species such as the binary human creation. The object of centering is to place the individual in a position whereby every aspect is drawn into the process and wholeness and integrality are the result. This cannot come about in a binary structure. Given this limitation, progression through the wheel does not extend from the 0 Point to the 9. Rather, it is aborted prematurely at the 6 Point and the 8^th sign Scorpio, – indeed the sign of death. Thus our human species is a mortal one, indicated in the world’s oldest book, the Rigveda, where the myth describes the eighth child of the Goddess Aditi as ‘Martanda’, the mortal one, who is father of our mortal creation. The ultimate object of a quest with the Gnostic Circle at its base – as indeed it was the object of the Rigvedic yoga – is the realisation of Immortality. This encompasses all four parts of one’s being, not only the physical. In fact, it may further be stated that anything less than this integral realisation would fail to establish this condition of immortality. When the work is completed, the mental and vital substance is also influenced by this experience of immortality. It is carried over from life to life as a part of this wholeness. One then enters each new life with a fuller capacity of experience and not diminished by the slumber which overtakes us at death and for which reason we are stripped of energies and must begin anew on this impoverished basis.

But the realisation of wholeness and integrality is still an experience of the future in terms of any significant collective manifestation. For the present we must focus our attention on the method provided to attain that centering and extraction of our fullest potential in a field of unified being. The just completed cycle of 9 races of the Thoroughbred filly under discussion will help to hone our perception and enhance the Gnostic Circle’s utility in our yoga.

The Horse Symbolism and the Human Being

Our example begins, as all must in the Gnostic Circle, with the start of the process at the 0 Point. This, in terms of the career of a race horse, would be the moment she was sent for training. At least in this particular case, given a prior aptitude for this sort of experience, the question of measuring the development was easily perceived to be that special moment. One of the items which made this filly particularly favourable as an example in the Gnostic Circle was her birth itself. This was unplanned and unexpected. It occurred on 1 October. Thus, she came into this world exactly nine months from the traditional birthdate of all Thoroughbreds in the northern hemisphere, calling attention by this fact to her possible affinity with the 9 cycle. Regardless of their actual date of birth, Thoroughbreds must regard 1^st January each year as their common birthday. This is an interesting convention because being so intimately connected with Time in the language of symbols, that Thoroughbreds should herald in the year by celebration of this common birthday, even though apparently arbitrarily designated, cannot fail to be seen as another example of ‘the symbol being the thing symbolised’.

Thus in the case of this filly, being born on 1^st October meant that by 1^st January, or three months thereafter, she would be considered 1 year old – at least as far as her career in racing was concerned. This meant that from the outset she would bear a sort of natural handicap: she would always be competing against more mature horses, usually 6 to 9 months older though they would all be included in the same age group. Nature had helped to compensate for this by giving the filly a larger and more mature conformation than many of her fellow equine competitors.

Another handicap was that given her unplanned birth, she could not be registered as the Thoroughbred that she is. Rather, she had to be raced as ‘pedigree unknown’. Indeed, it was clear from the beginning that this filly had a somewhat unusual destiny. She appeared to be a path breaker, at least for her sisters who were to follow her in the years to come.

The 0 Point for this filly was thus the moment she began her training. Thereafter, once completed, she would start her racing career. The monitoring in the Gnostic Circle went from race to race, 1 to 9 after the 0 period of training was over. Each race thereafter became an astounding confirmation of the Gnostic Circle’s accuracy in describing a process intended to extract the maximum potential from the object under study, in this case the filly and her racing potential.

I mentioned earlier that using the Horse as an example, especially the racing animal, is not such a wild digression. From very ancient times in India the Horse has been the finest symbol of the universal manifestation. The Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad goes to the extent in its opening verses of describing the universe in the form of a horse. Each part of its physical being is mentioned in connection with the diverse aspects of this material universe; until finally it is stated that ‘Time is the self of the Horse sacrificial’. Indeed, for this very reason, given that the Gnostic Circle’s own self is Time, we have been able to utilise this precious animal in the way we have, for the better understanding of that very material universe in which the realisation of one’s inner truth must come about.

There is another aspect in the traditional use of the Horse in ancient times which I feel must be mentioned. The Veda highlights the function of this animal in the Horse Sacrifice or Ashwamedha. As a part of the Sacrifice, a specially selected animal was let loose and permitted to roam the kingdom. The boundaries were thus established by the area this sacred creature had covered. In my view, given my own experience with certain recondite aspects of the Horse, I believe that there was far more to the Horse Sacrifice than is known today. And indeed, as I shall explain further on, the zodiac confirms the connection between the Horse (the 9^th sign) and the ‘extension of boundaries’. It is my firm belief that similar to the example I am presenting, the Horse held the key to a certain aspect of energy utilisation for the purpose of attaining that state of Immortality, coveted by the ancients at the time of the Rigveda, as well as the practitioners of the supramental yoga introduced by Sri Aurobindo in this century.

Speed is the principal ingredient in the Horse as symbol of the material manifestation. It is this aspect of our universal manifestation which can be said to be responsible for the generation of that special binding energy, without which no forms could evolve and be sustained. Indeed, to halt the movement of the galaxies and solar systems would mean a collapse of our material universe into a colossal Black Hole. The Horse then represents that special quality, – indeed, the ‘self’ of the universe. It is clear in this light that a sport such as racing would require the maximum extraction of that particular essence of which the Horse is the special representative in higher symbolism of the Vedic order.

The Horse is a symbol par excellence of energy (and the vital being in the human species). Contemporary society confirms this by measuring certain forms of kinetic energy in terms of horse power. Thus, our story begins with the training experience for the purpose of extracting the maximum speed from this particular filly. Once the point had been reached and her trainer felt she was ready to race, the filly’s private Gnostic Circle clock began ticking when she experienced her first race.

A Conspiracy of Diminishing

One travels light through stage one and two of the Circle. Especially in the first passage through the wheel, movement is as yet unhampered by a sort of encumbrance or accumulation of ‘karma’ which is often the case in subsequent passages. This is particularly evident in young children, especially up to four or five years old. Until then it is often quite simple to assess what the child has brought into this life as a residue from the past; whereas later this perception is not so easy in view of the accumulation which begins thereafter, as the experience of this life begins to add its own coverings.

Regarding the filly’s first race this unencumbered condition was displayed in the fact of her low handicap – a mere 50 kilos. In addition, she was given a light jockey, young and somewhat inexperienced. The trainer did not believe she stood much of a chance in this first outing, given her natural age handicap with respect to her fellow competitors. Though it was a race for three-year olds, due to her unseasonal birth, she was easily 6 to 9 months younger than her fellow competitors. At that young age this was a marked disadvantage. It was a race for ‘maidens’, or horses who had not yet won a race. Therefore, most of the competitors were already experienced to some degree.

There is a certain characteristic about the start of any cycle or event which we monitor in the Gnostic Circle. The initial experience can reveal much about the subsequent development, or the conditions under which development must occur, the conditions which will hamper or enhance our possibility of most optimum development. The circumstances of this first race, for example, would thus help to understand something of the filly’s essential nature and certain nuances of her destiny; or the elements she draws to herself in this lifetime. That is, she too enters the field with a certain ‘baggage’. She is therefore fashioned in a particular way which acts as a sort of magnet, attracting conditions which will provide a proper ‘field’ for the manifestation of her individual essence and destiny. Because of this, one should always study these beginnings carefully, or one should make every effort to be as attentive as possible to the ‘signs’ nature puts before us in given circumstances.

Regarding this filly, there was not much need of effort: the circumstances her destiny would throw up in the course of her development were made all too evident from the very moment her racing career was set on its way. It is as if one were analysing a soil into which a particular seed was being cast. The composition of that soil indicates the conditions in which the future plant will grow, whether or not it will thrive due to the richness of the soil, or whether it will struggle to reach maturity due to the inherent weakness of the soil-field. In addition, it is possible in the initial stages of the Circle to note something of the true potential of the individual in question. Regarding our filly, it was evident from the beginning that 1) she would have to face very heavy odds throughout her racing career, or at least during passage through the first cycle of 9, and 2) that she had the capacity to cope in spite of the odds against her, brought about by ‘extraneous forces’. In her case, these played an important part in the development. Indeed, they seemed to be essential to the filly’s destiny or ‘purpose’.

The circumscribing conditions of this first race were, to say the least, dramatic. By this very fact they were unmistakable in the events they portended. No sooner had the race prior to the filly’s come to an end with the trailing horse moving past the winning post, than rain set in. It was not just rain. It was a veritable deluge, and it did not cease until her race was over, the last in the day. Normally such appalling conditions would have merited the cancellation of the race. But this happened to be the last leg of the jackpot for bettors. Thus, the show went on regardless, and by 5:00 PM, in the midst of this cataclysmic downpour, the filly began her racing career proper.

The first indication this offered was that in some peculiar and as yet unclear way, the question of unexpected and additional ‘baggage’ thrown at her from outside her orbit, so to speak, would somehow come to weigh this filly down.

By the time the horses jumped out of the gate the ground was nothing but a muddy slush and the downpour continued unabated. The horses were confused to a certain degree and the field looked dispersed. Our filly in question  maintained her composure and managed to keep herself in the race, though positioned in the back. To place at all she would thus have to pass the others in that ‘heavy-going’ terrain, to use the racing jargon. Fortunately her handicap was small, and it was perhaps for this reason that as soon as the first drops began to fall the filly started being favoured by the betting public. This indeed would be another characteristic of her future career, a pattern which held almost throughout the entire cycle of 9 races.

Being ranged toward the end of the field of 9 horses meant not only that the filly’s effort to reach the front would have to be much greater given the slush into which her hooves were sinking, but there was the added misery of  the great quantities of mud being flung into her face by the horses in front.

Mercifully the race was short, – 1200 metres. And in spite of the appalling weather, the slush, the mud, the inexperience, our filly managed to gain ground, come up from behind to finish fourth. Given the weather and her natural age handicap, her performance seemed quite promising. The racing public seemed to concur with this judgement and she began gathering a few betting fans. The date of the race was 30^th June, or the natural 4.5 Orbit of the 12-month year – that is, its exact halfway mark. This too would provide an insight into her future career and ‘purpose’.

The time arrived for her second race. Again the field was rather large, all three-year olds, considerably more developed than her. The jockey was the same and her handicap was still low, a mere 51 kilos. She was thus still ‘travelling light’, as it were. The residue from her last race was therefore not this accumulation or ‘baggage’ of a handicap. It was another external complication and not earned as reward or punishment. Again this point must be noted because it is somewhat characteristic of the 4.5 Orbit in one’s life or monitored experience: an unexpected, external element from outside one’s cosmos or system enters to complicate matters considerably. The date of the filly’s first race having been indicative of this 4.5 quality in some way, caused one to suspect that these unexpecteds might bear a considerable impact on her racing career. At least in this early phase. Subsequent passage through the ‘asteroid belt’ of the 4.5 Orbit would make this clear, – that is, her fourth and fifth races.

But let us not ‘jump the gun’. The second race was a considerable improvement over the first, and the weather was obliging this time. She was moving more fully into and down the circle of 9 but still light enough to breeze along. There was this time only one hitch: the whip. The trainer had instructed the jockey not to use the whip in the first race, fearing that the filly might react negatively and thereafter take a dislike to racing. But in this second race no such instructions were given. The jockey was thus free to use the whip, which he did mercilessly. Having come up so far from behind in her first race, without use of the whip and in appalling weather conditions, certainly gave the impression that she did not need this external stimulus. In the last 200 metres of the race she was whipped perhaps a dozen times. And each time she reacted negatively, pulling her ears back, kicking up, and thus losing precious time with each superfluous movement. Finally, similar to the first race, she landed up fourth past the winning post. Given the filly’s character her reaction to the whip was to a certain degree predictable. A highly intelligent animal, she had been raised as a pet and not simply as a racing machine. She logically balked at the whip, and with each stroke it was evident that she closed up more and more until in the last 100 she was not extended at all but striding short and choppy. All her attention was on that whip and she seemed to be pulling out of the race – but the jockey never stopped, never perceived his error. Under the circumstances, it was surprising that she again placed fourth.

This particular example is being used as a choice means of demonstrating the Gnostic Circle’s ability to monitor the extraction of a certain deep inner essence or potential. In this case, the whole object of the training of a race house is to carry the animal to the point of giving its best. This is no simple matter, as any trainer and jockey can affirm. Each horse is an individual with his or her own special temperament. In addition, there is the question of the inherent potential and just how far the horse can be expected to go, just what his innate capacity might be. In training the equine athlete much of this capacity can be known. But finally it is on the track that the real and true quality of a race horse is exposed. The breeder prepares the animal, builds it up from a foal to a full-grown, finely developed specimen, under conditions which will provide the best environment for the purpose the horse will later serve. Under good conditions and sensitive care, this should bring about a maximum of growth from the original physical and mental potential. Then the horse is given to the trainer who is expected to bring the horse to a similar peak and make of it a first-class athlete. Finally this carefully nurtured product is handed over to the jockey on the day of the race – and fate.

Perhaps one of the greatest demands placed upon the jockey is the sensitivity to know the correct moment for opening up the horse in the last stretch, as well as the signals that particular animal requires to achieve this final extension and supreme exertion. The horse has to cooperate at that moment when the race is either lost or won. Clearly if the whip is producing the opposite result and with each lash the filly closes her strides more and more, throws back her ears and fails to extend, the jockey must on the spot recognise these signals and stop employing the whip. It goes without saying that the trainer must also perceive this essential dislike and instruct the jockey accordingly.

This did not happen however. The filly went into her third race with no instructions given to the jockey (the same one) in this regard. It was a new season and her handicap had decreased somewhat but was still within the weight of the same jockey. It was 48 kilos.

We had reached the 3 Point of the Gnostic Circle. In the normal course of things, this means that the movement is ripe for something of one’s inner truth to manifest. Indeed, in a human being’s life, any passage over the 3 Point, or when one’s age equals 3 by the Mathematics of Unity, allows for a contact to be made with one’s innermost truth, with one’s soul. It is the first stage when something of this inner essence can be known. Likewise in the case under discussion, this could and should have produced the filly’s first win. Considering her young age, she had been rested for the remainder of the previous season and therefore she was somewhat overweight for this new one, though still in very good condition. Indeed by then she was consistently a favourite, given her good looks and condition, regardless of the horses of superior breeding with which she was competing.

This Gnostic Circle 3-point race saw the filly exert her will to a certain extent, because this too is a feature of this segment of the wheel. She did this by demonstrating beyond any further doubt that she would not tolerate excessive use of the whip. To this end, when the filly reached the last stretch of what was again a 1200 metre race, the jockey began his insensitive use of the whip and caused her once more to balk. Her reaction was now more marked, her kicking more aggressive. But the point was finally and conclusively made when at last the jockey took heed and stopped whipping over the last 100 metres. He moved forward to encourage her, as he ought to have done earlier on instead of relying entirely on the whip, and the filly responded by extending somewhat and increasing her speed and indeed by concentrating on the race. It was not a display of her full potential. It was merely a sign of the relief that she was feeling, being then permitted to do what she really wanted to do in the first place: race well and perhaps win, fate and other conditions concurring.

The outcome was second place by a neck. But it was all too clear that had she not been distracted by the whip and had the jockey been sensitive to the precise moment for opening her up and moving forward, encouraging her with just his hands and feet as is the practice under such circumstances, she would have easily won. The winning post was just too close when finally she was left free to extend, given the battle she was subjected to throughout the most crucial stretch. It was decided then that her next race should cover 1400 metres instead of 1200.

The three angles of what I call the Sacred Triangle of the Gnostic Circle, 9, 6 and 3, invariably introduce decisive interventions. Their purpose is both to keep the movement circular, so to speak, and to accelerate or add impulsion. If we take the diagram quite literally or visually, we can see that at these triangle points something must intervene to curve the progression and not permit it to fly off into space as it were, and to maintain a certain momentum. This is very important since each individual bears his or her own particular ‘speed’ in this universal manifestation. The unfolding of destiny hinges in larger part on this factor. It is similar to the different axial rotations of the planets in orbit of the Sun. The progression must be kept within the precise boundaries of the particular ‘cosmos’ being monitored, and at a determined rate of acceleration given this individual characteristic of destiny, the sum total of past experience.

In this case, the intervention was the explicit instruction of the trainer that no whip should thereafter be employed. The inner substance of the animal was then allowed to prevail but not her true dharma as yet, or her fullest potential. The third was the first of her nine races that ought to have been won. And but for the whip, the filly would have responded and fulfilled the purpose for which she was being trained.

It was from this point that her handicap began to be a burden. In the sport of racing the handicap is both reward and punishment. It is a reward because it is increased according to the performance of the horse. The better the animal runs, the higher is the subsequent handicap. Yet it is a punishment because the horse is obliged to bear this additional weight, which, more often than not, causes him to lose the race. Carried over to the human condition, the handicap is one’s karma: the inexorable reaping of reward or punishment.

There are also classes, degrees, levels in the sport. Our filly began her racing career in Class VA, the second to the last category. She was striving to climb the ladder and move higher. Each promotion, decided by the horse’s performance and number of placings or wins, means that in the next higher category the handicap goes down. The horse starts from the back of the class he or she enters. Thereafter, as his performance permits, the handicap once again increases. Thus if our filly had won her third race, in all likelihood she would have been promoted. In which case the reward/penalty would have ceased to operate in her destiny of racing at that point. But as it turned out, having performed well in spite of the jockey’s insensitive handling, but not winning, served only to saddle her with a heavier handicap and decrease her chances in the next outing.

When applied to life and the individual’s progression through the wheel, the same law is seen to operate. The 3 Point often brings something on the order of a divine Grace into one’s life. But the subtle way in which this manifests makes it often undetectable, It is on the order of a ‘small, still voice’, – for indeed the 3 Point is the point of the soul (see Diagram 2). But when that voice is not heeded, the result is a loss which begins to add a residue to life. That is, we are slightly weighed down by our inattentiveness. In a more apt image, it is as if a veil had materialised in our consciousness. What is not seen then serves to cloud our vision by a certain loss of focus. In other words, the 3 Point requires the act of centering, of steadying one’s consciousness on the inner indestructible Point. When this does not occur the sharpness of the vision is made to suffer. There is a dispersal of energy whereby the experience of life is subjected to a certain degree of blurring, as it were. Seeing is not from a centre of being, which is the only poise from where true clarity is possible, or a true perception of the inner dharma. It is subject to a separative perception. In place of the central Point there is a void. And from this void ‘veils’ or ‘fumes’ arise which cloud our vision. This is what is meant by a residue. It is also a misuse of power or energy by which the desired momentum is not maintained.

In a more apt description, the angles of the Sacred Triangle are the points where centering is ensured. If this is not the case due to the failures discussed in our example, then one spins off and elongates the orbit. This occurs because the residue is in the form of a ‘dark sun’, shadow of the true luminous Sun of Truth. We then increase the binary nature of this mortal creation of which we are a part. Yet the experience [purpose?] of life is precisely to step out of that limitation, enlarge the scope by means of a transformation of consciousness and the attainment of the next rung on the ladder, the supramental species. This cannot come about in a creature of binary structure. Therefore, centering in the New Way meaning is essential in order to cease to fortify  the binary system of old.

The act of creation which is enacted in the human being’s experience of life is a vision that unfolds. Creation is simply ‘an act of Seeing’. A veil/residue dilutes that pristine vision. The result is an increasing diminishing of that Power’s ability to influence one’s life. As time moves us forward, we move farther and farther away from the centre and become increasingly more a plaything in the periphery of life. Never are we in its essence or poised in its core.

However, the Gnostic Circle does not end at the point we have reached in our filly’s racing career, and subsequent passage through the wheel is intended to provide the means of rectification.

The Critical 4.5 Orbit: the Asteroid Belt

In the act of centering the angles of what I call the Sacred Triangle are perhaps the most important features of the wheel. This can best be understood by observing that it is only at these angles that the 12-circle division and the 9 join. That is, as Diagram 1, page 3 illustrates, the 0/9 Point coincides with the start of the wheel and the 1^st sign, Aries. Thereafter the two separate and it is only at the following 3 Point that they again converge, or the 5^th sign, Leo. Thereafter once again they separate and come together at the next and last angle of the Sacred Triangle, the 6 Point; the sign is the 9^th, Sagittarius.

Thus these angles are, as it were, stabilising points by this factor of convergence. It is as if they were the points where the cogs of the two superimposed circles join or become engaged, very much like the inner mechanism of a clock. The difference here is that these ‘cogs’ are really orbits within a plane; and the impulsion is Time. The nine orbits are connected to Time and are thus the points of impulsion primarily; or else they can be understood as the pulsations of the mridangam or tabla, the percussion instruments of Indian music. And these are the points which, through the magical properties of our number system, we connect to the calendar, thus converting this renewed body of Vedic knowledge into an applied cosmology. The 9 division with its balancing Sacred Triangle is the vertical dimension and the time key. Its inner pulsation is to the beat of 3. The 12 is the horizontal base, the field. The ‘angles’ of this base are the four Cardinal Points and therefore its pulsation is 4. The only place in the Gnostic Circle where the Cardinal Points meet the orbital angles is at the start of the wheel, the 0/9 Point. Thereafter they separate and the 2^nd Cardinal Point, the zodiacal sign Cancer, stands alone. The 3^rd Cardinal Point, the 7^th sign Libra, is the natural 4.5 Orbit of the 9 circle. The fourth and final one is Capricorn.

Our attention is now focused on the 4.5 Orbit or the ‘space’ enclosed between the 4^th orbit of Mars and the 5^th of Jupiter – that is, the natural midway mark in the 0 to 9 scale. What is fascinating about this area of the wheel is its subtle characteristic of emptiness. Indeed, this is the ‘shadow’ of the 0/9 Point (Diagram 4). We thus have a most critical zone indicated by the reversal action of the 4.5, as well as by the Asteroid Belt. And similar to the Asteroid Belt, it is an ‘orbit’ but there is no crystallised body therein. Only fragments, particles. Consequently, this splintered emptiness is not marked off by an orbit or number in the scale of 0 to 9. It is only emphasised by a number reversal. At the same time, this is another convergence point between 9 and 12. Here we find the 3^rd Cardinal Point Libra, the 7^th zodiacal sign. But the convergence between the two divisions of the circle, 9 and 12, is this void space, which however, by its location (in time) is critical in the unfolding of life and destiny.

To perhaps further  facilitate an understanding of the nature of this ‘emptiness’, we may view it, or hear it, as the location in the raga where the tala or tempo changes, the beat is quickened critically, and this point is the interval in the midst of that reversal.

The Enneagram (Diagram 5) conveys the innermost esoteric essence of the 9-division circle. Here reproduced, it highlights the stress lines, converging onto that ‘emptiness’. There is no other diagram better suited to help the student to understand the crucial nature of this passage through Time. Given this emptiness – that is, a zone exerting a critical influence but not housing an actual planet or crystallised essence or beat/pulsation, and yet converging with the 12 division of Space and the 7^th sign, Libra (see Diagram 1) –, it is perceived as the Shadow, the reflection of the opposite 0/9 Point of the Transcendent.

If we adhere to the gospel of the Void, under whichever of its philosophical, spiritual or religious guises, then this cosmic image is the justification for all schools which propagate the theory of an ‘illusory’ creation, a physical world somehow intrinsically unreal, a maya where the only reality lies beyond this gross dimension and in the Transcendent or Absolute beyond the cosmos. It would appear as the cosmological confirmation of the substanceless nature of the material universe. The 0/9 Transcendent casts its shadow or reflection of Itself, which is then the image of our material creation. In other words, this would justify all the Mayavadist theories, as well as the foundational premises of all religions: salvation comes after death and in a heaven beyond this cosmic manifestation.

This would have to be assumed to be correct, but for one element: Shiva’s Son, the Immanent One.

The exciting news conveyed in the Gnostic Circle is that out of the depths of the apparent void, the One arises, essence of the Transcendent Father compacted into a seed. In this light the beauty of the myth regarding the birth of Kartikeya or Murugan, as he is known in South India, comes fully to the fore. That is, we begin to understand the emphasis in the story on the collection of Shiva’s seed or semen during his loveplay  with Parvati. Legend has it that Shiva did not want to produce an offspring, yet the Gods knew that without the birth of Kartikeya the earth would be lost to the dark forces and would not be able to fulfil her purpose in the creative scheme of things.

The Gods then conspired to steal that precious bija or seed while Shiva lay with Parvati. And of course it is Agni who, in the form of a white dove, comes to the rescue and carries the sacred bija in his beak and deposits it in the Ganga for its gestation. (See The Hidden Manna, Chapter 12, and The New Way, Volume 2, Chapter 9.)

This myth is the most exact explanation of the combined contribution of the 0/9 Point of the Gnostic Circle and the 4.5 Orbit – its opposite in the wheel, or shadow. Were it not for this ‘seed’ dropped to the depths (indeed another name of Kartikeya is Skanda, from the Sanskrit root to fall), the compressed essence of the Transcendent, material creation would not bear this quality of essential PURPOSE and FULNESS. It would indeed be a maya devoid of all divine attributes.

For this act of creation to ensue, a prerequisite is, we may say, the Absolute’s slumber so that the operation may spontaneously evolve. Hence Indian mythology offers another exquisite myth to convey this message. Vishnu, the Lord of Preservation of the universe, sleeps on the serpent Ananta (endlessness or eternity), and when he awakens from his divine slumber the creation begins to unfold.

Another area of Vedic tradition is explained by this diagram when we analyse certain practices in Tantra which often perplex the non-initiate or the secular layman, or even the religious puritan. Tantra understood that the unconsciousness of the sex act was largely responsible for the mortal character of the human condition. And that this was the property of the male of the species. It is by ejaculation that the sperm is released. And this takes place in the moment of orgasm when the subject loses control and is overtaken by the finite ecstasy of the climax. This act then results in that special feature of the human creation (and the animal) whereby loss of consciousness is the mark of its first entry into this material dimension. Or a physical structure fashioned according to this principle of unconsciousness, with all that this entails.

The Tantric then resolved to use that very act and transform it, or utilise the sex act to render that moment CONSCIOUS, or a conscious tool in the manipulation of the creative energy. Instead of release in the midst of that orgiastic loss of control, the practitioner exerted the maximum restraint so that release would occur but on the basis of a conscious process and consequently a reversed direction of the released energy. Upward, not downward.

In the Gnostic Circle we may view the process as a containment whereby the energy is not allowed to escape from the system at the 4.5 Orbit but is rather channelled upward through the remainder of the wheel. Our contemporary model thus conveys the same message as these myths and practices. Indeed the myth, it needs to be stressed, presents this very same truth. The only difference is that the Gnostic Circle is an applied cosmology and mythology. The example we are using from racing is a case in point.

Given the recondite, critical nature of the 4.5 Orbit, we observe that all schools or religions apart from the Vedic have stopped short of a full understanding and posited their goals in a Beyond, precisely because they became enamoured of or beguiled by the Shadow. They did not press on and break through the veils and come to Guha, the hidden One, Shiva’s divine Son. This is the Point, first cause of the universe, Skambha, upholder of the worlds, the cosmic pillar/point, or Agni. And it is Agni in the form of a Horse.

The objective of this divergence has been to draw the student through the Vedic and mythic age to the present via precisely the Horse Symbol, and this racing example of an applied cosmology.

Passage through the Asteroid Belt, or the 4.5 Orbit of the Gnostic Circle, the ‘space’ between the 4^th orbit of Mars and the 5^th of Jupiter, which would be one’s 4.5^th year, or 13.5^th, or 22.5^th, and so on, is often characterised by unexpected happenings, elements injected into the ‘system’ which often alter the process significantly. In other words, they are not self-engendered as such, but are introduced from external quarters. For example, an asteroid wandering into the Earth’s orbit and colliding with the main body. Thus it is difficult to protect oneself from such invasions. But there is a method, and this will be explained by the example I am presenting through the 9-stage development of our racing example.

There are certain cosmic properties of this section of the wheel which merit special attention insofar as they present a formidable hindrance to the human being in not only the realisation of one’s full potential, but in the more sensitive question of direction, or focus of the energy.

This 4.5 (6/7) area is where a major shift occurs. It is, properly speaking, a reversal point. In the multiplication series of 9×1, 9×2, 9×3, and so on, the 4.5 is where the shift occurs from 45 (9×5) to 54 (9×6). That is the quality of reversal is demonstrated by this reversal of numerals, 45 to 54. This is then maintained throughout the remainder of the series: 36 becomes 63, 27 becomes 72, while 18 becomes 81 or 9×9 and closes the circle of 9. (See Diagram 5 above)

This pertains to the Gnostic Circle’s division of 9. As for its division of 12 and the 6/7 passage, though there is no reversal as such, there is an equally important development. This is the passage from the lower hemisphere to the higher. In cosmological studies of this order, the lower and higher dimensions of the zodiacal wheel have always been of foremost importance. In Indian cosmology, the hemispheres are designated dakshinayana and uttarayana, or the southern and northern ‘gateways’. The apex of the former is the sign Cancer, or the second Cardinal Point, and the apex of the latter is Capricorn or the fourth and last Cardinal Point. The solstice times were thus of great meaning because they marked entry into these segments of time through these sacred gateways.

To return to our racing example, on the basis of these considerations, it is clear that the 4^th and 5^th races would be the most critical in the first 9 series. And indeed they were.

Given the filly’s improved performance in her third race, in the fourth she was obliged to carry top weight, 59 kilos. The trainer had a more experienced jockey waiting for the moment when she would cross the 54-kilo mark in her handicap, to permit this particular jockey whose weight was 55 to ride her. He was not inexperienced but an old hand in the trade. But what transpired in this race bore the mark of the unexpected both for the jockey and the trainer, as well as the filly’s owner. Indeed, this race introduced an extraneous element, a complicating, unanticipated asteroid into her career which caused considerable damage to her psyche. It went completely contrary to the very purpose for which she was being trained. That is, to perform at her best and win the race. In this 4^th race the filly was impeded from doing that for which she had been laboriously trained.

There was no whip in this race, its use having been finally prohibited by the trainer, given the fact that she lost the last race because of it. The jockey could thus use only his ‘hands and heels’ to urge her on. But to better appreciate what transpired, it should be explained that a characteristic of this particular equine-athlete is her propensity for jumping out of the starting gate and placing herself in the lead, at the same time setting the pace for the others. Left to herself, this is the pattern she invariably plays out in every race.

Naturally, with a heavy handicap the risk in such a strategy is that the filly might become exhausted halfway through and not have anything in reserve for the crucial last stretch. As often happens in such cases, others come from behind, overtake the horse, open up by the use of the whip and, more often than not, go on to win the race, especially if the weight they are carrying is less. In this case, I repeat, the filly was carrying a top 59 kilos.

Nonetheless, true to her pattern, the filly jumped out and was pressing on to keep the lead. Clearly the other jockeys were keen on letting her wear herself out and fade out of the race in the final stretch. But she seemed determined to win and contradict their designs. She fought her own jockey magnificently since he was clearly not of the same mind as the filly. And he kept fighting her to the very last.

It is not necessary to enter into any elaboration of what transpired in that race. Suffice to say that we were left with the gnawing thought that something was very wrong. Doubts, suspicions abounded, complemented by the body language of the filly as she came off the track. She was angry, full of an unreleased energy – and confused. We noted that an ‘asteroid’ had been thrust into her orbit. And it went right to her heart, for it was in this race that the filly began to demonstrate the very first signs of ‘turning sour’, as it is called in racing. The reason for this was simply the confusion in her mind of trying her utmost to fulfil what she had been trained for – her dharma, quoi – and having to contend with a jockey of a different mind. She had exerted herself in these restricting conditions to reach the winning post first, but the struggle, very obvious to the observer, ended in a win by a mere neck for another filly carrying 5 kilos less than ours. The confusion this produced in her instinctive being was that though ready and eager, she was not permitted to utilise her fuller potential.

This ‘bottling up’ was the first ingredient in the ‘reversal’ whereby the potential or energy released after such laborious preparation on the part of breeder and trainer would begin to turn back on itself – ergo, turn ‘sour’. The filly reacted predictably, mathematically. From that point onward this negative imprint began to crystallise in her consciousness. She began to equate the last stretch either with the whip which she loathed, or else the struggle with a jockey who was, in the words of the newspapers reporting on his riding at the time, ‘…pinching the baby while rocking the cradle’.

Carried over to the human condition, this is wonderfully descriptive of similar afflictions which serve to diminish rather than replenish or release energy. We are studying via this example the optimum conditions of growth from a seed to a full flowering tree, expressing the fullest potential of its inherent worth. Inasmuch as the 4.5 Orbit is connected to the One, or the Immanent Seed, it is directly related to the question of PURPOSE. Thus, this is the area of the development most susceptible to an understanding of purpose. This is achieved by an erosion in the foundations, in the depths of being. In the human species as a whole, it is this area of the cosmic wheel that signifies an erosion of purpose by providing an escape route, a ‘way out’ of the cosmic dimension and material being. In spiritual paths it is the offer of nirvana and similar ‘liberations’, whereby the element which the human being is meant to consolidate or crystallise in his or her lifetime is disintegrated. The consciousness or energy base is inflicted by a realisation or an ‘unexpected’ which serves to disintegrate rather than integrate. This is wonderfully described by the Asteroid Belt, an orbit which consists of nothing but a series of fragmented particles of a once crystallised cosmic body. That this should be the halfway point of our solar system, ought to cause us to ponder on the matter and seriously strive to understand what exactly might that ‘purpose’ be which is so viciously attacked by all and sundry. The racing example I am presenting is one method for providing a simple means to understand this complex cosmic/evolutionary conspiracy and its devastating effects on the human race.

The tool used for this undermining is a corrupting, corrosive element. Equally, it is difficult to perceive given the hidden quality of the 4.5 Orbit. In the case in question, this difficulty was present and the operation was undertaken in such a way as to make detection if not impossible, at least ‘excusable’. Thus, the filly entered her 5^th race, in her passage through the Asteroid Belt, with the same jockey.

Again, given her performance in spite of the heavy handicap, she was once more ‘penalised’ with the top weight. Since the 5 Point is the orbit of Jupiter, this race bore many characteristics of that planet. It was Derby Day and hence there was more pomp to the affair, a Jovian characteristic, as well as a packed stand and an illustrious public. Our filly was judged ‘the Day’s Best’ for bettors and the favourite of the betting crowd. There were even favourable write-ups in the newspapers. All eyes were on her and hopes were high that this time she would conquer.

As it turned out, the jockey contradicted her from the beginning and did not permit her to take the lead at all. The result was that other horses moved in front and constantly blocked her way. No serious effort was made to position her for a win, even when there was an opening, and not only was this the most miserable race of her career until then, but it was equally a miserable display of riding by the jockey. Again, the details are unimportant. It is only important to note that this blatant mis-riding caused a reaction which finally went to liberating the filly from the menace of this manipulation. Thereafter, she would never be ridden by that jockey again and subjected to this humiliation and his penchant for ‘rocking the cradle while pinching the baby’.

But the damage had already been done. She was completely ‘sour’ and would pin her ears back at the least insistence on opening up. When the final stretch approached, she would react by throwing her head to the side or pinning her ears back in protest. There was no exertion, no extension, just this firm NO. And this was carried over to her morning exercise which previously she had fully enjoyed. The energy was completely reversed indeed, but for the purpose of collapse into the void of being and not the ‘rise to the summit’ as the Gnostic Circle indicates for the final goal. In the case of our filly, this would be to win a race and move up the ladder to a higher grade. Nothing of this happened. There was nothing but diminishing, waste, shrinking, and not growth and contact with a plentiful source of energy.

The Residue

This entire discussion, it should be evident by now, is one centred on energy; a conscious utilisation or manipulation of a carefully balanced play of energy. Our experience of life is simply the question of a more and more harmonious utilisation of the energy at our command in order to fulfil our journey and reach the summit of Being. Thus, in the ancient Rigveda that experience was referred to as ‘the journey’, and the summit was the mountaintop. But to attain this destination, this superior goal, a very knowledgeable utilisation of the energy base is demanded. For there are deceiving pitfalls, traps along the way. One especially deceptive point is passage over the 4.5 Orbit because there is the overwhelming temptation in that section of our experience to disregard the indications life provides and find release from any pressure by escaping, by opting for ‘the easy way out’.

In a psychological process this means not using one’s perceptive faculties properly. One adopts a see-no-evil/hear-no-evil attitude. One deludes oneself, fails to face the reality of one’s true condition. The veils which emerge in our consciousness from that point onward, if not ruthlessly dealt with, make it increasingly more difficult to extract from within that inherent compressed potential or essence of being.

In the cosmic process which can be applied both macro- or micro-cosmically, there is the need to avoid a negative crystallisation of energy at this point. Applied to our filly, the ‘sourness’ was simply this negative crystallisation. Energy was not released for winning but turning back, collapsing into a sort of Black Hole. It is a knotting up, as it were. The external signs of this collapse were easily perceivable in her case whenever an opening up was asked for. Since this collapse or knotting up of energy had occurred or become crystallised, it was not possible for her to respond in any other way.

Cosmically, the danger is explained by the Asteroid Belt of our solar system: a planetary body in formation is shattered, splintered. This represents the inability to carry out a cosmic process, to engender the ‘energy that binds’. The utilisation of the horse as an example is quite apt because we are dealing precisely with the question of speed, a certain threshold crossed, an increase and correct utilisation of ‘fuel’ so that this binding energy is generated and the body in formation is held together and does not collapse, as we see in the Asteroid Belt. Properly speaking, there is the danger of a ‘negative copy’ emerging, a shadow of the true thing, a substanceless, centreless Nothingness, glued together by the Shadow. This is when we remain in the system, still engaged in the on-going process. The other possibility at this point is simply a disintegration to such an extent that one steps out of the cosmos entirely, be this individual and microcosmic, or macrocosmic.

In the human being, it is during this passage that careful attention has to be given to ‘shedding baggage’ so that the residue does not become akin to an anchor in one’s being, impeding acceleration and rise to the summit. Or else it may be viewed as a strenuous exertion the final aim of which is minimised by this ‘dead weight’. This is known as karma or samskaras.

Yoga, and especially the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo for reasons which will become obvious as this study progresses, helps to relieve us of these burdens and especially to accelerate our march. For it is obvious that after a certain critical threshold is reached and the mass accumulated is too dense, one lifetime is insufficient to work it out, to dissolve this dense compactness. It is a question of collapse of purpose. The ‘seed’, container of that ‘purpose’, is not organically unfolding by the aid of Time, giving forth always more of its inner essence in a sublime and ceaseless act of creation. Rather, it is being crusted over, covered in veils. The energy utilized for that process is as if dead, lifeless, inert. For this reason the Rigveda considers our mortal race the offspring of the Goddess Aditi’s eighth son, Martanda, whose name in Sanskrit literally means dead egg.

Indeed, it is at the 8^th sign, Scorpio, that this ‘death’ sets in. Clearly the meaning of ‘dead egg’ is an aborted process; not the experience of the full Circle or progression, but truncated prematurely. For that is what death is. In the Gnostic Circle’s superimposed structure, this is the third quarter of the wheel – from the 4.5 Orbit to the 6^th in the 9 circle, or the 7^th sign Libra to the 10^th sign Capricorn in the 12 division.

But Capricorn is that summit. Having failed to release the energy properly, having caused a collapse, this negative crystallisation does not allow us to rise. We can only fall back then, and back, and back, depending on the degree of our burden or ‘handicap’.

Yoga then accelerates the process of seeing, of undoing the ‘knots’, of freeing the Seed and permitting its inner essence to flow freely, creatively. An acceleration of the process is imperative so that in one lifetime the work is done. As one progresses, it is possible to register an acceleration which shortens more and more the periods between collapse and the subsequent undoing, to the extent that action and so-called retribution can follow upon each other almost immediately, thereby never permitting any permanent crystallisation to occur, any hardening which defies dissolution. When such an irreversible hardening does set in, then Death is the inevitable result and only ‘solution’. The burden, the anchor is too great and the pace of the journey is forcibly slowed down until collapse of even the physical being occurs.

But it is not really a new beginning in the real sense of the word. The next life is the result of this unconscious, diminishing process. That is, we re-enter with the same ‘seed’ but bearing encumbrances. The seed-energy is enclosed in a sac, the hardness of which is measured by the veils accumulated in moments when our perception failed us, moments of unconsciousness and lapses into deeper or denser slumber. Until death ends our journey, the soundest and greatest slumber of them all.

The ‘dead-egg’ human race is in its entirety characterised by the unconsciousness that overtakes us and increases in proportion to the accumulation of veils or encrustations.

Of course the filly in our example is not expected to be engaged in yoga or a conscious progression. She is simply playing out a cosmic process for us and demonstrating how certain actions of unconscious or conscious human beings can hinder or enhance that process. She is offering us an example closest to the essential truth of the cosmic manifestation because the Horse is symbol supreme of that universal Energy. Extracting her fullest potential for racing would thus mean the ideal utilisation of energy. In this case, the filly herself was akin to the Seed containing that essential, compressed energy. The arena of breeding, training, racing was the soil in which the seed-filly was planted and expected to flower.

The Cave

The filly’s fifth race, the 5 Point of Jupiter in the Gnostic Circle, carried us to the portals of a most interesting segment of the wheel: Scorpio, or, as it would be known in the Rigvedic myth, the cave of the Panis. This is where the stolen ‘cow’ is hidden by these hostile powers, known also as the hoarders and misers. The Cow is the Vedic symbol of that seed-energy in its potential form, as the Sanskrit word indicates – go or ray of light. The ‘misers’ or ‘hoarders’ are known in the myth for what they are: diminishers, powers which close in, or ‘pen in’, as the myth describes, that precious energy. This is very aptly descriptive of our filly at this point in her career. Her potential, her energy base was boxed up, penned in, hoarded away. The idea is to break through the ‘rock’, according to the myth, and release the cow/energy.

The correspondence with our racing example is obvious. For it was at this point in the first passage through the Circle that serious attempts began to be made to expose the falsehood and to liberate the filly from the clutches of this dark force which had had such devastating effects on her racing spirit by adding more baggage to her already considerable burden.

The jockey began persistently maligning the filly in the effort to cover up his own dubious actions in her regard. This was a simple matter at that point since the filly is what we humans call a ‘dumb’ creature. She could not defend herself. The veils thrust over this seed-energy were these layers of false labels which she was forced to live with. Her reputation was thus destroyed. No really good jockey would accept to ride  her because she was described as ‘mad’, ‘unpredictable’, and therefore a dangerous ride. Interestingly, this filly was perhaps one of the most well behaved on the turf. Her manners were impeccable both at the starting gate and during the race. Her only ‘misbehaviour’ was her unwillingness to open up and her sourness. But to cover up his bad actions the jockey cast the blame on the filly who was then obliged to carry not only the burden of her own inner sourness but this external pollution as well. In other words, inwardly she was weighed down and the external field of her experience was also spoiled.

This describes the outcome when passage through the 4.5 Orbit does not bring about the true release and balance of energy. The remainder of the ‘journey’ is indeed a struggle. The residue is an anchor. Instead of moving from 5^th to 6^th on the wings of an acceleration – for this is what contact with the 5^th planet/orbit, Jupiter, is meant to do – the planet which replaces the Sun, as it were. That is, if still there is a chance of retrieval and creative expansion, the 5^th Point is meant to introduce a ‘bolt out of the blue’ and propel one forward regardless of the encumbrances. In the Rigveda this action is known as Brihaspati’s word, which pierces like a lightning bolt the rock of the cave in Scorpio which stands in front of the 5 Point. Then the ‘ray’ or the ‘penned in’ energy is released.

Jupiter is also the Guru, the spiritual guide or he who enlightens. Thus it is clear that to deal with this darkness, this conspiracy of hostile suggestions and powers ranged against one, the tactic is always that of forcible exposure. Brought to the light their dark substance is dissolved.

After her 5^th humiliating performance, it was clear that a process of cutting through the crusts, loosening the thick layers had begun. The first step was to forbid the trainer to put that jockey on the filly, be it in her morning exercise or, more importantly, in a race. As for the filly herself, she then had to be handled more like an invalid or a psychological casualty of man’s insensitive attitude toward ‘dumb’ creatures. In this case, the gross insensitivity was compounded, or perhaps had its roots, in the element of corruption, the desire for illegitimate gain which so plagues the ‘sport’ of Kings.

Indeed, this is another aspect of Thoroughbred racing which must be discussed. Being the symbol of the vital force is only part of the matter. For it is this same force that is connected to money, or money power. The ‘hoarders’ and the ‘diminishers’ represent the acute selfishness which afflicts a society overridden by corruption. Economics come into his area of the cosmic dispensation as well. It is, once again, a question of the right use of energy (money), its balanced or imbalanced usage. Corruption is the selfishness of the individual who is cut off from the larger body of which he is meant to be a complementary part, a cog in the wheels which makes the collective manifestation a channel for the expression of a supreme Harmony, a divine life on Earth, as Sri Aurobindo has described. The corrupt individual cares only for himself or his immediate circle. Indeed he is a pani or a dasyu, to use the Vedic terms. Energy is penned in, confined to this closed-off circuit and not integrated into the collective pool which can then benefit both the community and the individual.

The Horse thus combines in its representative role this wrong utilisation of energy. Nowhere is this more evident than in the ‘sport’ of racing. The difficulties our filly experienced have to be viewed on this backdrop. This was the condition of the ‘field’ into which she was thrust.

The time came for her 6^th race. We had, by then, a still splendid-looking animal, in good physical condition but entirely disinterested in racing or the question of exertion, of striving for perfection, of reaching the goal – in this case, the winning post. She seemed to be focussed exclusively on herself, on fulfilling her will; and invariably this clashed with that of her rider in the last stretch of the race. The least ‘interference’ by the jockey would cause her to close up and pull out of the race. Thus she had to be allowed to run her own race, as she liked.

An apprentice jockey was put on her, an allowance rider. That is, his inexperience was compensated for by offering the tempting prospect to the trainer of a 5- or 3-kilo reduction of the horse’s handicap. For this race she was carrying 56 kilos, which, with the allowance would come to a mere 51.5. This could be considered on the order of ‘cheating destiny’, or ‘making light of one’s burden’!

The 6 Point and the planet Saturn stands at the threshold of the sign Sagittarius, sign par excellence of the Horse. One begins to emerge from the Scorpio cave, the darkness is somewhat lifted of mystifying, burdening veils, and a great release is felt in the open spaces offered by Sagittarius, after the confinement of Scorpio. This portion of the Circle is on the order of a pleasing interlude, a playful expansion, entirely deceiving however.

In spite of her diminished spirit the filly responded to this atmosphere of lightness in her race. She did this by ignoring the jockey entirely. She ran out front and kept the lead, kept her own pace throughout the entire race. He did not interfere, or rather, he could not. He was too ‘light’ for her, primarily in will. By that time, her will had crystallised negatively. It meant that she was her own boss and was not engaged in a complementary sport with her jockey: two athletes competing together and with a harmony of wills. Hers was inverted, collapsed into a hardened mass.

In this condition of course the ‘light’ jockey could not get her to extend in the final stretch more than she herself seemed to have decided upon. She was seen to race in what was virtually third gear throughout, right up to the end. She never really changed her pace, never really extended and remained disinterested. From time to time her ears would be pinned back to indicate her dislike of the sport. Of course she was sour in the extreme. If she came out of this race in second place, it was largely because she ‘cheated’ by the allowance handicap. Indeed, there is something of this element in the sign Sagittarius. Its lightheartedness often causes it subjects to ‘cheat’ – with a smile. They could be known as the lovable thieves of the zodiac.

Sagittarius is meant to bring the subject to exceed his or her limitations. That is, provided the release has come about and the correct transmutation of the energy. It is then the power which, in this sign of the Horse, does indeed cause one to exceed one’s limits or to extend one’s boundaries (as in the Vedic Horse Sacrifice, or Ashwamedha). It also indicates a period when an expansion of consciousness can occur, so important for the experience of the next and final quarter of the Gnostic Circle and passage through the signs Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. The planetary orbits reached are the 7^th and 8^th, to close the wheel at the 9^th, or Pluto at the farthest reaches of our solar system.

For our filly the only indication of any sort of exceeding was that she was finally free of her suppressor and antagonist, that pani who had caused a ‘penning in’ of her energy. She had a young and enthusiastic jockey whom she could easily ‘make light of’ and virtually ignore. But she was also determined to remain closed in her shell and was beginning to be considered ‘difficult’. Thus in this diminished condition she approached the Circle’s last quarter and faced the ‘Mountain’, the fourth and last Cardinal Point, Capricorn.

Truth is the keyword of this sign. But this word means all things to all men. Indeed, a significant characteristic of our age is the conundrum thrown up when we are faced with absolutes and relatives, in particular in the domain of truth, thus having a bearing on the moral base of contemporary society. Therefore it is necessary to digress somewhat and again move into the world of myth so that a very clear understanding can come about regarding the precise meaning of the word in the context of a process such as we are describing, monitored in the Gnostic Circle.

The Replenishing Source and the Axis of Truth

Indian mythology contains a number of descriptions of the sign Capricorn. The Mountain symbolism is perhaps the most important ingredient in its mythological lexicon. This has been carried over to temple architecture where the myth is rendered in stone and the temple symbolism is that of a mountain. Central to the structure is an axis.

In the most important ‘mountain’ myth, this axis is the navel of the world. It is known as Mount Meru, the churning stick around which the serpent Vasuki is wound. The head and tail of the serpent are held by the Asuras (Titans) and Devas (Gods), respectively. When the primordial ocean is churned by these powers of Dark and Light, various elements of creation are brought up – each one symbolic and pregnant with meaning.

However, there are aspects to this tale which are overlooked, or perhaps have never been appreciated. It is more than a story of creation and the first churning of that Ocean of Life. Indeed, it is the churning of any process which can be monitored in a diagram such as the Gnostic Circle. That is, a formula in which Time is used as an ally, as a collaborator in the progressive transformation or development of consciousness. The Mount Meru tale refers to Time’s action. The axis-symbol is the Golden Rod of ancient traditions, the divine Maya of the Veda. The idea is to establish this axis in one’s being. Around that both dark and light orbit. The absolute Truth is this immobile, central axis. All the rest is ‘relative’.

However, the relative is necessary for the evolution. The only question is that each thing must be in its place. Thereafter harmony ensues, a ‘cosmos’ and not chaos. Thus, this quarter of the Gnostic Circle presents an opportunity to create a cosmos or order out of an essentially chaotic conglomeration of forces. The Mount Meru tale points the way to this ordering process. To be noted is that the power of the Light, the Gods, are not the central axis, as one might be inclined to think. Rather, they are ranged with the dark forces. Something else holds the play of forces together. And it is this something else that is so brilliantly described in the myth and so carefully captured in this segment of the time-wheel.

For our filly the moment of truth had indeed come. She was entering her 7^th race and it would be her last of the winter season. The 7^th planet/orbit Uranus is posited, in this section of the circle, who, in Indian tradition, is Varuna, the God of Truth and the Law.

Her 7^th race brought the truth to the fore. She had another apprentice jockey, also offering an allowance to her top weight handicap, a crippling 60 kilos. This was indeed the truth of her ‘accumulated baggage’ or residue. The allowance brought this down somewhat. But this jockey was inferior to her last and there was none of the playfulness of the sign Sagittarius to breeze her through her trial. She was serious about her sourness and pinned her ears back dramatically at any attempt by the jockey to encourage her to extend. The result was a poor fourth place – on the board as she always was, except for the humiliating race where the ‘baby was pinched while rocking the cradle’. It was clear at that point that there was only one solution: the filly had to leave the track and return to her ‘source’, that is, the farm where she had been bred. Thus, her 7^th race seemed to close a chapter. But in the larger vision of the first completed cycle of 9, this was not exactly a closing of a chapter. It was simply an ordering. It was a return to a source of replenishing, of healing. It was a time to come into contact with her inner being and truthful energy base. Interestingly, this was in the mountains.

The filly responded to the treatment admirably. From the first moment she stepped into the premises she was a different creature. She had been removed from her constricting environment and hence there was an immediate relaxation. There was nothing of her sourness in evidence at all. She was ridden regularly, and apart from a few kicks and initial slight battle of the wills with her rider, she very quickly moved into the spirit of the thing and began to enjoy her rides. There was no evidence at all of the minor displays of boredom and determined opposition which she had been demonstrating toward the end of her period at the track. But her physical condition needed attention. Her hoofs were in very bad shape, almost as a reactive symbol to her unwillingness to race. Had she remained on the course, the condition of her hoofs would have deteriorated even more and would have perhaps become a physical problem forcing her out of racing, or at least impeding her from racing until the problem had healed. But it was clear that under the prevailing circumstances, there would have been no healing. The only place where that could come about was by a return to the farm-source. Her healing was many-dimensional, not only physical. As her psyche healed, her hoofs returned to their original condition.

For everybody involved in this matter it was equally a moment of truth. The filly’s rest period was extended to a full three months. Interestingly, it came to an end on 30 June – or exactly on the first anniversary of her first race. Thus, the 4.5 Orbit was again seen to be operative in her return to the track. In this instance the circumstances surrounding that trip seemed to indicate something of the perilous Asteroid Belt in that she set off on her journey just when a nation-wide truckers’ strike was scheduled. Thus during the entire 15-hour drive the perils of the Asteroid Belt were evident. Lorries which were found plying the roads were stoned and even burned by angry strikers. Our filly, however, seemed to move through the ‘orbit’ of the system where ‘stones’ (asteroids) were flying past helter-skelter from all directions! Anything could have happened, but she and the vehicle in which she was travelling remained unharmed. With her on the trip was her sister and stablemate, with whom she had reestablished a very close bond during her sojourn on the farm. Her sister too was being sent for  training. However, the power of the axis of truth began to emerge in the process. A notable shift was felt in the entire affair. There seemed to be a compelling magnetism operating, obliging all elements to serve ITS purposes.

The first overt manifestation of this compelling magnetism was a change in stables and a new trainer. The presence of the ‘baby-pinching’ jockey in the former stables among other things, made a continued association with the trainer for this particular filly difficult. It was clear that new conditions had to be created. This was not a MENTAL decision. It was a compelling play of circumstances. Given that contact had been established with the ‘source’ and the subsequent forging of the axis of truth around which all the diverse elements of that particular ‘cosmos’ would have to orbit, the environment in which the sourness took shape, manifesting finally in the deterioration of her hoofs, had to undergo a change. Thus there was really no choice as such involved. The newly-forged axis determined or IMPOSED these new conditions. The dangers of the 4.5 Orbit were still clearly in evidence, but they would not be able to impede a determined progress or development.

The meaning of forging an axis of truth in an individual’s development or transformation of consciousness is akin to creating a cosmos out of chaos. That is, the peripheral elements of the system are no longer left free to create havoc, as it were, and to endanger or impede a certain development. Rather, when the axis comes into being even those same negative elements, conditions, situations must serve the purposes of the One – or, the central axis of truth. This may pertain to an individual and one’s inner truth, or a cosmic system. Or else, as in the case under discussion, the career of a Thoroughbred race horse. To further drive home the importance of this axis, in Hindu temple architecture this mountain-axis symbolism is reproduced in stone and serves the community by acting as that compelling axis. Of foremost importance for this to come into being, even in the question of a temple construction intended to capture this power, Time is the essential ingredient, indeed, the essence of that axis. Or, like the Horse symbolism of the Veda, the ‘self’ of that universal consciousness.

Thus, the filly’s sojourn in the mountains, or her return to the source where the truth of her being could be encouraged to manifest, took place exactly in the segment of the Gnostic Circle where this operation can ensue, and only in this segment: Capricorn. This sign is represented by both the mountain symbolism and the Time-Spirit, a combination which fortifies the view that the axis is singularly involved with Time.

The operation of this power-axis in the process did not exactly indicate the start of a new cycle, in spite of the ‘new’ conditions prevailing, as the layman might assess the situation on the basis of the entry of a new trainer, new stables, and so forth. This would indeed have been the case had the progression been aborted at the 6 Point and the sign of Death, Scorpio. Indeed, this is the position where, for the mortal, ‘dead-egg’ human species the ‘journey’ does come to an end. The remainder of the wheel – a full 120 degrees of the total 360 – is either a limbo (Sagittarius) or heaven/hell (Capricorn). In other words, the process is truncated on Earth in a time-continuum. It is effectively aborted as far as extraction of the compressed potential in the ‘seed’ is concerned. The journey can then only be pursued in ‘heaven’. This is the relative ‘truth’ of all religions.

But these postulations came into being during the period of history when our solar system was thought to consist of only 6 planets, very accurately confirming the 6 Point of the Gnostic Circle as the end of the journey for the ‘dead-egg’ human race. Now, however, our cosmic vision has expanded and 9 is the measure. Thus, the Gnostic Circle comes to our aid with its measure of 9 superimposed on the scale of 12, by indicating what is meant to happen in the segment of the wheel previously barred from our experience in a body, on this planet.

This is nowhere more accurately described than in the Rigveda in the passages dealing with Swar, commonly considered the ‘heaven’ of the Veda. That this concept has been distorted over the ages due to the rise and supremacy of religions is not the subject of this study. It has been treated elsewhere in depth. The point I wish to make here is simply that the possibility of our expansion of consciousness, or the extraction of inherent potential, has increased by a measure of three. This means that in one incarnation that much more can be attained, mirrored as well in the prolongation of the average life span of the human being. But to make full use of this enhancement, it is necessary to understand in depth the nature of that newly-opened segment of time-consciousness. Indeed, central to this greater potential is precisely the consciously-lived experience. No longer is it slumber and death but a progression in full or fuller awareness, under the light of the midday Capricorn truth-conscious Sun which casts no shadows.

This is the nature of the ordering process indicated in this segment of the Gnostic Circle. With a central axis, a Mount Meru, both dark and light, or negative and positive, are drawn into orbit in a sort of complementary labour. Similar to the Asuras and the Devas who pull the Serpent of Time wrapped around the churning stick-cum-axis, Mount Meru, in order to extract from the ocean of life the precious treasures hidden in the depths, the individual too draws both negative and positive into his or her ordered cosmos when contact is made with one’s innermost centre and the axis is forged. These powers are then obliged to serve the individual in the process of extraction. The magnetic centre indicates its presence by drawing to it the proper conditions for this orderly and harmonious play. For our filly this was made immediately evident by the changed circumstances of her training. The new trainer, moreover, was young (and a woman), and appeared more suited to the ‘new beginning’.

Thus this was not a 0/9 point or the start of a monitored experience. Contrary to appearances given the new conditions, it was simply the 7 point, part of the fuller scale of 9 stages or progressions. If the measure was 6 it would have been truncated or aborted before the 7. But in a full scale of 9, the meaning of the new conditions is simply the inevitable, predictable result of an ordering process whereby new conditions are introduced which allow for the power of truth to operate with a determined goal in view. For the proper understanding and application of the Gnostic Circle, I repeat, it is essential to know or to recognise the true 0 Points or the start of a process. And thereafter to recognise that when new elements are introduced they are not indicative of a return to the 0 Point but are merely in answer to the imperatives of the Gnostic Circle operations in a full scale of 0 to 9 over a field of 1 to 12.

Dissipation, Dispersal or Dissolution: the 8^th Stage

The filly responded well to her new environment, her trainer, the fact of having her cherished sister with her and a part of her racing experience. Above all, this seemed to convince her that contact with the farm-source had not been broken when she was previously sent for training. The return to the farm seemed to have a relaxing effect also due to this discovery which was further compounded by the companionship of her sister. Her sourness disappeared and the only indication of any difficulty was a tendency to bolt during her morning work-out, but this was more an indication of an energy imbalance rather than a vice as such. She was clearly suffering from a hampered or damaged energy flow, and this was clear both from her bolting as well as her performance in the 8^th race, a month after returning to the track.

Indeed, the 8^th stage is often indicative of a dissipation of energy, a dispersal. In the Gnostic Circle the 8 begins to draw the movement to a  close and will always be the faithful outcome of the previous 7 stages and what passage over these points had produced. For our filly there were various aspects to the problem she faced at the 8 stage, in her 8^th race. The first is that she continued to be saddled with a heavy handicap: 57kgs. She had not performed well enough to seem to merit or attract any of the top jockeys to ride her, though she was still a favourite, and therefore she was obliged to accept the services of a lesser-experienced jockey whose weight was only 49kgs but who offered no allowance. She was therefore carrying 8 kilos of dead weight to reach the prescribed 57. In other words, she was drawing the first round of 9 to an end encumbered by this penalising handicap and still blocked at Class VA.

This merits some elucidation. If the filly had met with ideal conditions in the earlier stages of her experience, passage over points 3 and 6 should have resulted in promotions. Thus, after her first legitimate and merited win in her third race (ideally), she ought to have been promoted to Class IV, the next one up the ladder. At the same time, she would have entered at the bottom of that class and this would have meant a reduction in her handicap – i.e., no accumulation of karma/residue. And even if she had failed to achieve this promotion in her third race (at the 3 Point), there was a second chance to catch up with a legitimate and merited win in her 4^th. But in both these races external factors impeded her from winning. They had nothing to do with her inner worth. Rather, impositions placed on her then served to stifle that potential: the energy turned back on itself.

Consequently, at the most critical 4 Point, opening onto or into the 4.5 Asteroid Belt, the encumbrance or excess baggage should definitely have been shed in order to make passage into the higher hemisphere (the sign Libra), a real promotion. With a lowered handicap in Class IV the filly could have looked forward to a swift passage from the 5^th to the 6^th Point; and the (ideal) win at the 6^th would have brought her another promotion to Class III and once again a reduced handicap. The handicap in such a scenario would never have accumulated to the degree where it was a true penalty which she could not shake off and a decisive conditioning factor in her performance. It served truly to anchor her, to pin her down at the lowest rung. Contact with the two angles, 3 and 6, of the Sacred Triangle should have been points of intervention, of grace whereby accumulation of residue would be impossible. But this would have meant that an ideal balance between release and proper utilisation of the compressed energy had been achieved. Given the circumscribing conditions she met in the field of her experience, this was not the case.

By consequence, the filly performed in her 8^th race as could have been predicted from a perceptive scrutiny of her previous 7 races. She displayed an imbalance – i.e., great initial burst which then was seen to fade out. She failed even to place in that race due to the imbalance and also as a result of her long rest prior to the race. But she did display the effects of that sojourn and her new conditions by her eagerness to race and the complete absence of sourness.

The 8^th stage is a sort of limbo, a suspension before the 9 and the true new beginning. There are no demands or expectations. In this case, something of the residue was dissolved as the 8 does indicate by its connection with the power of dissolution and undoing, in that at least one of the former encrustations was broken down: her sourness. She had attracted to herself the conditions which would serve to undo that formation or imprint or encrustation. But this was only part of the problem, only one aspect, albeit the most serious and obstructive. The harsh conditions of first passage through the wheel left other imprints, reflected in her heavy handicap. And they would all have to be dealt with in the course of the next cycle, 9 to 18.

The 8^th race was akin to a safety valve in a pressure cooker. Steam is released in a controlled manner to avoid disaster, but it is wasteful, purposeless. There was a powerful accumulation due to the rest and return to the farm-source, a great enthusiasm even as witnessed in her bolting during morning work-outs. But none of this could be channelled to the fulfilment of her purpose – that is, to win a race. It was frittered away. Yet this experience was at one and the same time a necessary outlet for pent-up energies and a means to produce a certain balance. Indeed, she settled down thereafter and ceased to bolt. She was then in the right condition for the start of the new cycle and race 9.

In addition to this imbalance and the need for controlled release, there is the question of accumulated residue to note. At the same time, a tool of knowledge such as the Gnostic Circle is meant to indicate when such moments of accumulation (or release) are met and by consequence how they can be dealt with. For the aim of the Gnostic Circle is precisely KNOWLEDGE in contrast to ignorance. It is true that our filly emerged from the first cycle with a sizeable residue reflected accurately in her handicap. At the same time, in view of the fact that the axis of truth was timely bought into being, the indication is that the knowledge gained in the first cycle would be precious nectar extracted from the churning of the Capricorn Mount Meru, and that this would be a valuable aid in the subsequent cycle. However, we cannot escape the fact that mishaps of this nature signify that in the next cycle, 9 to 18, one carries along this shadow residue. Instead of breezing through lightly, it is now an uphill struggle given the weight one is saddled with – ergo, the encrustations which still hamper the free and creative discharge of the compressed inner potential. Indeed, our filly displayed this encumbered condition very faithfully in her 9^th race.

The 9 as the ‘new beginning’ made itself felt by a change of venue. Her 9^th race was in a neighbouring city and the new centre and season meant a reallocation of handicap. She raced with 58 kilos – still one of the highest. The jockey was the same but the result this time was an easy second. Though the race was won by 5 lengths, the winner was carrying a mere 49 kilos, – that is, a full 8 kilos less than the filly. Moreover, it was a horse from a higher class which had been successively demoted to reach VA. She was thus facing considerable competition. Nonetheless, even without exerting herself unduly, she breezed along, showing for the first time enjoyment and willingness and a wonderfully extended gait, even if only for a brief span at the end. There was no major release of energy but she kept ahead of another filly carrying 11 kilos less and who finally went past the winning post 1/2 neck behind our subject.

This 9^th race marked a return in a sense to the starting point and her first race. Indeed, even the weather seemed to corroborate and remind us when just as the race was about to begin, it started to rain. Unlike her first race it was not a deluge; just a reminder. In fact, it was this light rain that served to crystallise the vision and understanding of the first cycle of 9 races as having been faithfully monitored in the Gnostic Circle. I had written in the beginning that it is important to note the circumstances surrounding the first monitored experience for they provide insights which may be valuable in the subsequent denouement. Thus this recurrence of rain served to reveal the inner mechanism operating in the career of this race horse and its potential for application and understanding of the human condition.

With this knowledge it was possible to enter the next round in a healthier, sounder more enlightened condition. The experience gained within this framework in the first round would have to be applied if at all the remaining encumbrances were to be dismantled and the filly’s true potential allowed to surface. Though her psychological state was greatly improved, there were still imprints to deal with – indeed, an uphill task. But that will be the subject of another study, another chapter.

Concluding Summary: A New Poise of Consciousness

The purpose of this study centred on the Horse and racing in a pattern of 9 has been to illustrate certain essential attributes and the mechanism of the Gnostic Circle. Important to note is that we are monitoring a process in this case largely by hindsight. That is, I did not seek to fit the 9 races into the Gnostic Circle framework either by prior manipulation or subsequent adjustment of circumstances or contrived readings of the situation. There was no possible way I could have arranged the circumstances surrounding each race which were clearly uncontrollable by any human being. Countless elements and people entered the design and contributed to the unfolding accuracy of this singular experience, over which no one could claim any control. Therefore, it ought to be immensely interesting for the student and investigator to observe how these elements all played their part and with astounding exactitude of time, place and circumstance.

We have in this study the filly central to a complex play of circumstances. It is as if she were posited in the centre of a circle which we view as a sort of cosmos. In the beginning it is somewhat disconnected or fluid. Then as the movement progressed deeper into the hidden purpose of the exercise, a distinct pattern began to emerge. At the same time, the elements involved were seen ranged on either side of a certain subtle demarcation: negative or positive; or else, elements furthering that central purpose or hindering. By the aid of this key of knowledge, we were in a position to establish on which side of the demarcation the peripheral protagonists are located. This is a unique aid for making the fullest use, conscious use of their participation. For ultimately, once the axis of truth is forged and firmly rooted in the centre of the process, these elements are obliged to serve that central Truth. Their qualification of positive or negative undergoes a certain transformation in our vision.

Thus, this brief first study, only a small portion of which is given here, reveals the unique role of Time and the ineluctable CONTROL prevalent in the operations of our evolution and the universal manifestation as a whole. The axis of truth is the foundation of the cosmos itself, just as it is the foundation of each human being given that everything we know, we are a part of, is soul. That is, this material dimension with everything it contains is simply a jelling or crystallisation of the soul-substance or essence. Given the fact that Time is wedded to the soul in a very special way, it is through Time that the control I refer to is maintained and we have a cosmos in lieu of chaos.

In the early stages of evolution, indeed the point where we find the actual human species, the existence of this control is not easily appreciated. It exists, it is always the foundation of the universal manifestation and is responsible for the order we observe in our cosmic habitat, from macrocosm to microcosm. But it is only when the species crosses a certain threshold, as ours is presently poised to do, that certain veils are drawn aside and one is granted that coveted vision of the Mysteries of old, or the vision of Mahakala, the Great Time, which not even the warrior Arjun on the Kurukshetra battlefield was able to endure of his beloved friend and lord, Krishna, the 8^th Avatar. For indeed, it is the 9^th who incarnates that very Spirit of the Great Time. With his subsequent appearance the threshold is crossed as an evolutionary breakthrough, and not simply a preserve of an elite, and ‘all things are made new’. Then, as a race WE SEE. That is, the human species comes to express certain hitherto hidden qualities or capacities, first sporadically, then consistently.

The threshold when crossed carries the individual, society, civilisation out of the binary structure where mind stands as the highest attainment or reigning principle, and the species moves into the supramental realm and the habitat of the gnostic being. In that domain gnosis or knowledge prevails. But it is not EXTERNALLY engendered or imposed. It arises from within.

To provide an example, the filly was a perfect instrument for demonstrating the poise of consciousness which is ideally suited to an operation involving the power of gnostic time. She was in a sense a passive receptor. She stood at the centre of the movement on to which the peripheral action was aimed. She was, as it were, the nexus. And her non-interfering poise allowed the faithful and accurate evolution of the exercise to unfold. Knowledge in this case was not a tool utilised to influence, or to impose a desired result, or to manipulate events and people. It was simply an aid for SEEING, for PERCEIVING.

This is valuable when the axis is forged at the 7 Point because the key then is a centre that holds. One ‘acts’ simply by HOLDING FIRM, thereby permitting by this immobility the action of ordering to take place. Then everything included or drawn into this orbit of the central sun (the filly in this case), must serve the purposes of that inner truth.

Given the fact that the greatest obstacle the individual must contend with in the transformation is Mind, which operates EXTERNALLY to the central Purpose and therefore does violence to this soul essence, it is understandable that in the initial stages, as my work has revealed, animals are precious helpers in this New Way. Similar, no doubt, to what they were for the ancient Vedic Seers. The Horse is not governed by mind but rather the vital and physical. The power or impulses from strata higher than mind have easier access without this shadow element during the period when Mind is itself in a process of transformation in order to permit it to occupy its rightful place in the echelon of Being. Consequently, given this clear channel we are able to reach depths from which we are barred by mind.

Finally we must return to the original perception regarding the aim of the Gnostic Circle. It is to draw out FROM WITHIN one’s maximum potential. This is lodged in that compressed seed by the process of INVOLUTION. Mind is there, as well as the vital and as well as the supramental. If we write of the gnostic being as the next species, a higher manifestation in the echelon of creation, we want to know where this being is coming from. It is clear that he or she is not going to descend from heaven or from outer space, as some new-age groups contend. For that would again be an imposition external to this planetary evolution and a denial of all that the Earth stands for in this solar system at the third orbit from the Sun. This position implies an evolution FROM WITHIN of the thing that seeks to manifest, an extraction of a compressed essence which involution posited as the seed of our evolving world.

The Gnostic Circle helps us to know how to extract what has been until now hidden, unexplored, untapped source of energy, a layer of creation entirely unknown to us as a species. Its expanded measure, from 6 to 9, allows us to appreciate that a full triad has been added to the cosmos which inscribes that hidden potential. By consequence and given the fact that this single seed is the foundation of all creation, it is clear that the method required for the individual and the species to make that courageous leap forward to a higher rung has to be a system, a method with its key of gnosis which permits us to reach far deeper inner depths and to extract from therein that untapped energy by which we may exceed our limits, our boundaries as a mental binary species.

In the zodiac this exceeding is depicted in precisely the 9^th sign, – inter alia, the sign of our entire 9^th Manifestation of 6480 years starting from 234 BC. And it is precisely the sign of the Horse. In another exercise in seeing ‘the symbol as the thing symbolised’ in this New Way, I have presented an example of the method using precisely a living horse in a lived experience reflecting that inner mechanism of that extraction and exceeding process. All the protagonists in this drama lived the experience with me, the only difference between us being that I have seen it in a different light, from the perspective of the control of gnostic time in orbit of an axis of Truth. It has been an important exercise to demonstrate the responsibility the human being bears toward creatures lower down on the echelon of evolution. Our awareness has to be enhanced so that our relationship with the entire gamut of creation is transformed. Only then can all things be ‘made new’.

Dadikravan [the Vedic Horse] is he of whom now we must

do the work; may all the Dawns speed me on the path!

For the Waters and for the Dawn and the Sun and Brihaspati,

he of the puissance, the Victor.

May this Power of being who seeks the full-bringing

and seeks the Light and who abides in all activity

turn into inspiration the impulsions of the Dawn,

may he abide in their speed that carries us beyond.

– Dadhikravan who is the truth in his running,

yea, he gallops and he flies – brings into being

the impulsion, and the abundant force, the heavenly light.

When he runs, when he speeds in his passage,

as the wing of the Bird is a wind that blows about him

in his greed of the gallop; as the wing that beats about

the breast of the rushing Eagle, so about the breast of

Dadhikravan when he with the Force carries us beyond.

For the abundance of his strength he carries his impellor

beyond, a rein binds his neck and a rein holds him about

the chest and a rein is in his mouth. Dahikravan puts

forth his energy according to the will in the mind

and gallops along the turning of the path….

Rigveda, 40, 1-4

October of 1992

Aeon Centre of Cosmology                                                                             PN-B

at Skambha

One is bewildered by the complex entanglements of the old which we realise cannot change, does not know how to, and is so massive and widespread that we feel the task is impossible. How then is the work to be done, the prophecies to be fulfilled?

The key lies in clear-seeing and knowledge. Knowledge tells us, shows us the roots of the problem and reveals the real mechanism whereby a collective karmic web is sustained. We see that each human being contributes his/her part to keep that web alive and thriving. Therefore we know that nothing of that web will change, because to change one part means to change the entire web, which is impossible since all the constituents are precisely the perpetrators of the web: each supports the other, fortifies the other’s stance, consolidates the hold the web exerts. The constituents form the periphery or the multiple – the millions of points on the circumference. To deal with any one of these points and seek to bring a change therein is ineffective for the creation of a really new world consciousness. The only way this can be done is by dealing with the centre of the web (or circle); because it is the components of the centre that determine in the first place what will subsequently fan out from that central ‘seed’ and will ultimately constitute a civilisation or a species. The centre holds the essential key to the process.

Thus to try to eradicate poverty, or violence, or whatever, is futile if one deals with the matter on the surface level of the periphery. And one always does. A Mother Teresa, for example, so compassionate and indefatigably dedicated to the poor, is really just a part of that web and in her own way sustains it. That is, all her noble work cannot do more than alleviate suffering to some extent. But, at the same time, realising it or not, she supports the old and perhaps even furthers it precisely by this compassionate alleviation. She helps to make it less painful, more comfortable, and at the same time to ease the guilt in people who have in abundance and to whom she turns for charity. This accommodates the malaise deeper into the fabric of the collective karmic web. Yet she can do nothing other than this. It is her dharma, to which she is supremely faithful, unlike many others. But the new creation requires precisely a ‘new dharma’, a new inherent seed of truth.

This is an example of a positive contribution or support to the web of the old collective consciousness, in which we can include all the political and sociological attempts to introduce change, which most of their proponents have felt they were attacking at its roots rather than by cosmetic surface alleviation. But there are the negative contributions also. Yet, in the higher vision this distinction ceases to have any value, because the only factor that emerges clearly in this seeing is that all elements, negative and positive, contribute to consolidate the consciousness-fibre of our decayed civilisation. They unwittingly conspire in this task.

And the difficulty lies precisely in this factor: What is one to do? If all our actions, positive or negative, conspire to sustain the old, how can we contribute to something entirely new that does not belong to this old network of reactionary forces, held together by a play of energies in opposing positive and negative ‘charges’?

Since the old web of civilisation arose from a central ‘seed’, it stands that a new civilisation can only come into being on the basis of the emergence once again of a central seed, but composed of elements that in their reproduction will not constitute a replay, or any fortification of the old. Rather, the seed must provide the central ‘hub’ that holds together a new web, the consciousness of a new society.

But the greatest problem we face, which has never been squarely faced before, is that the new construction must arise amidst the old. And yet, it must remain uncontaminated by the decaying consciousness. How does one shield oneself from the contamination, and at the same time contribute to the creation, the emergence of the new?

This is done first by clear-seeing. That is, to recognise the play, to look fearlessly at all aspects of society, avoiding cynicism above all, and to recognise this conspiratorial contribution in all its facets. This is easily done with regard to negative manifestations, but difficult with the ‘noble’, the ‘good’. For this reason it is an activity that requires courage and fearless devotion to truth.

The next step is to acquire knowledge concerning the elements of the new Seed, the components that form the nucleus of this new Cell, which will eventually reproduce itself and send out new peripheral forms bearing the stamp of this central seed of a new consciousness. To have this knowledge is the most precious aid of all, because it is our best protection against cynicism, despair, fatigue which overtake us when we look at and see the old web; not to be overcome by a sense of helplessness to change it in any way since the proportions are so colossal. It helps us to channel our energies positively, to avoid waste.

All of this proceeds simultaneously: the old crumbles, caves in on itself, in spite of its solid appearance – for are we not all aware that our civilisation is, in most respects, a dying one and set upon a course of self-destruction? And in the midst of this decay and collapse the new arises. At present, concentration is on the emergence of a nuclear seed. But this is now reaching the stage where expansion is possible and the new web of a collective consciousness can begin to manifest.

The most important aid along this new way is therefore a tool by which we can see this new creation arising and distinguish it from the old that is dying. This assures that we remain uncontaminated in our collaboration, that we miraculously extricate ourselves from the conspiring process of support and sustenance of the old, and that we channel all our energies into the creation and the establishment of the new.

Yet very few are capable of this type of vision or are able to discriminate; and on the basis of the knowledge, to join their energies to this endeavour. Most, while expressing a desire to bring about a change and to support the rise of the new, by their inability to recognise that very thing they aspire to, end by giving support once more to the old. It is this factor that makes the work so laborious and retards progress. It stands to reason that the greatest obstacle is thus the well-meaning, yet dated, conspiracy of the forces of good.

Bangalore, 1 January, 1986

. . . In the flow of time through the Gnostic Circle, the second quarter brings to the evolutionary experience the possibility of unveiling the One in the Core. By a lived experience the immobile amidst the mobile is unveiled. Or rather, the power this condition of supreme immobility generates is released. In Volume 1, Chapter 3, a new understanding of non-violence was discussed in detail. With respect to Mahatma Gandhi’s way, the path described in The New Way may not be satisfying to some seekers, insofar as this mechanism views violence as disguised in many attitudes which the public considers to be the epitome of non-violence. But the true essence of the non-violent way is a grand reality entirely involved with Agni, the divine Child. The power that Agni represents is the power that can alter conditions in our society and bring about a control in the sphere of the multiple which gradually establishes a harmony in the periphery and draws all related elements to itself on the basis of their truth-essence. This divine Child is also Kartikeya or Murugan, Shiva’s son. Hence it is written in the Puranas that he conquers when but a mere lad of seven. How are we to understand this mythological image of a child conquering the mightiest of the Titans? The discussion that follows will throw light on the true and deep meaning of the myth. For this purpose, let us use the Rig Vedic myth as our focal point, bearing in mind that Agni and Kartikeya are one and the same Godhead.

In the Rig Veda we find a unique cosmology. The countless hymns which have been orally transmitted from teacher to disciple, and thus handed down through the aeons, describe the same cosmological process detailed in this study. It is the story of the evolution of human consciousness in the context of the entire cosmic manifestation. That is, the hymns describe the Absolute’s process of manifestation in human evolution, or the eye of Consciousness in a progressive state of awakening and affirmation. In the tale this ‘eye’ is represented by the Sun. And the field in which the awakening is achieved, the victory secured, is the Earth.

Thus at the heart of Vedic cosmology stands the Earth. She is central to that most ancient of ways. The Rishis of old left us in these hymns a taste of a perception prior to our historic times which knew the Earth to be an integral part of the divinisation of consciousness. The transformation of humankind into a divine species was intuited by the Rishis to be on this Earth and not elsewhere; and thus this grand cosmology, not denying the planet we inhabit but rather centering the entire process upon it – both the struggle and the ultimate victory, as well as the enjoyment of those boons that hard fought battle could bring – comes to us in images we all know of life as it is experienced daily on Earth.

The initial focal point of the cosmology is thus the experience of Dawn, Usha as she is called, and her white steed. The play involves hence the early rays of a rising Sun. These rays, this light, this ‘cow’ of plenty – giver of the most complete food of our world – are the coveted elements of the cosmology, and the Vedic myth centres on the struggle between the light and the dark ‘forces’ to secure possession of these most precious offspring of the Sun.

After the Dawn and the first manifestation of these splendid Rays, the struggle begins and in the Rig Veda it is presented in the form of the experience we know best, the play of light and darkness, or the experience of day and night. The revolution of the Earth on her axis and around her Sun describes thus a process that is not merely mechanical but is most profoundly psychological. The Rays that are ‘stolen’ by the dark forces, the ‘hoarders of the light’ called the Panis in the myth, are indeed both the solar rays and the more subtle but infinitely more meaningful rays of the truth-consciousness Sun. For the Vedic seer there was no difference between the two: the symbol was the thing symbolised.

‘Being still the symbol to reach through it the thing that symbolises itself, to realise the symbol, is our fulfilment’, Sri Aurobindo has written. And by these words he reveals the poise of the ancient Rishi, in whom symbol and symbolised fused at the culmination of his journey through the Vedic way. This way was the way of the human being on the road to a higher, godlike species. This is the Aryan who journeys to his home at the highest point of the cosmological Mountain, whereto he carries those mighty Rays of the Sun which he has retrieved from the Dasyus, the dark powers who exist apparently to obstruct the Aryan and hold back the progression, the evolution of this elect representative of the human race.

The Aryan, when he has reached his ‘home’ in the tenth month of the odyssey, has indeed ‘realised the symbol’. He has become the Sun. Or better, he has unveiled that Light in the depths of his consciousness-being; he has vanquished in himself the Dasyus, the sons of Diti, that formidable Mother of Darkness and queen of the night. He is thus the child of Earth, this unconquerable Aryan warrior. He is the pioneer of this new way, the way of the Symbol become manifest.

The cosmology presented in The New Way is the same as that of the Rig Veda. The images we use are identical; they concern the experience of the Ray – that offspring of the Sun. Time for us, as for the ancient Rishi, is the womb in which this play takes place. And more, it is the gestator of the entire process. It is the creator and the destroyer, the nourisher and the consumer, the Mother of Light as well as Diti, the womb of a midnight Darkness.

The periods Time marks out on our planet are thus essential to understand in their relationship to the transformation of consciousness and the process of divinisation. And in our new cosmology we have the added factor that by means of the Gnostic Circle time is rendered concrete and far less elusive. It is, moreover, the sustainer of the individual journey as well as that of the collectivity. And thus by understanding Time in the sense revealed in The New Way we are immediately brought to the threshold of a cosmic consciousness, opening up to the realisation of a harmonised One and Many.

There are four major demarcations of the solar experience in the Gnostic Circle. These are the four Cardinal points which correspond to the principal positions of the Earth with respect to the Sun in her daily rotation. They are Dawn, Midday, Sunset and Midnight. They correspond to the Zero degrees of Aries, Capricorn, Libra and Cancer respectively. Each quarter of the wheel we have been discussing thus belongs to one of these four cardinal points and expresses a particular relationship with the Sun. However, the progression is twofold, as has been described in this study. The experience of this solar essence is both involved and evolved. We can best understand this by referring to the focal point of The New Way cosmology, the Solar Line. The Descent is the process of involution of that Solar Ray. In Volume 2 this was related to the Temple and the descending Ray into the globe in the Core which represents the Earth. On the other hand the human being, the Aryan hero, rises into the Chamber from below. But in that sacred cavity of the Temple, in its sanctum sanctorum, his consciousness meets the Divine and the two fuse. The way of evolution joins involution, and thus Agni, the child who is the fruit of this reversal of consciousness and intermingling, becomes the leader of the Aryan hosts. He then, by this power, completes the journey in the evolutionary rise to the Summit.

In The New Way cosmology the experience of the Solar Line moves from Dawn to Midday to Sunset to Midnight. The human being in Earth Time however is plunged immediately into darkness in his experience. After the first rays of the Sun bathe his rising eye of consciousness, rather than follow the path of the Gods he must journey through the dark and labyrinthine corridors of the Titan stronghold, the ‘path of crookedness’ as it is called in the Rig Veda. First he encounters Diti, that mother of the midnight Darkness. This is the Cardinal point of Cancer. In the Vedic symbolism it is the cave/womb that has swallowed the light, the Rays of the Sun. The Earth’s rotation on her axis has produced this terreo-cosmogonical phenomenon. Time has consumed the light; time must also make it manifest once more. Thus the next point is sunset, 0° Libra and the mellow rays are perceivable once again. But at that point the reversal is demanded, whereby the further progression in and of Time transforms that point in the wheel to the experience of Dawn. That is, by giving birth to the divine Agni in the depths of his consciousness, the Libra threshold is transformed from the experience of the setting Sun to that of its rise. Thus the Divine is made manifest on Earth, in the evolving consciousness of the human being and by experiencing this reversal, passage to the fourth Cardinal point is made possible. The journey does not end in Scorpio; Diti does not consume the creature she has formed in her womb of darkness, but rather she allows it to continue the journey and to reach the true Aryan home in Capricorn.

What is the secret of that great Reversal then? How does it become the Dawn and cease to signify the setting Sun, which then makes of the cave of Scorpio the tomb of the light, physical and otherwise?

It is when the plunge into the inner universe is effected and what is without is realised within. The ‘fulfilment’ Sri Aurobindo writes of is thus this colossal experience of the inner universe, whereby the individual creates or unveils in his or her own innermost dimensions what is symbolised outside. The cosmology of The New Way hence details all the stages on the way to this sacred experience. It details the process for the individual no less than for the collectivity. And the language it uses is the same as the Vedic Rishis: the harmony of the cosmos and the progression of Time centred on our planetary home, Earth.

However, to follow this way means to accept and not to reject the Earth. Hence in view of the Earth-centredness of the supramental manifestation, the new way departs from others, precisely because Diti, the queen of night, has lulled the eye of human awareness into so deep a sleep that man cannot see what is closest to him. He cannot see the light of his own planet. He cannot realise that what he searches for in nirvanic voids and transcendent heavens he must know and manifest here. Because as an Earth being, as a child of the Earth, there is nowhere else for him to experience this heaven but here. The Aryan brings about the marriage of Heaven and Earth, on his very own planetary home.

Time thus devours the Light, the rays of the Sun. But it is time itself that forces its re-emergence. Hence we cannot escape Time on this Earth we inhabit and thereby hope to reach the summit. We must use Time for the task. However, this entails a discovery of the means by which what is perishable must be made imperishable. We must experience the alchemy of transformation whereby the Immortal is born in us and redeems our mortality.

Various stages in the core realisation assist in the reversal process. First there is the experience of the Dawn, as it were. It is the early rise of the Dawn Goddess. Rays of light, particles burst forth in a formidable, a dazzling display of energy. These are thrust into the atmosphere of our consciousness. Or rather, by our plunge into the Earth dimension at birth, we become these very particles of consciousness-force. All is, however, a chaotic and riotous burst of the solar essence, the great dance of Shiva. We discover our solar essence; we are the Sun. This is our inner Dawn.

Thereafter, a deeper level in the experience must be reached. This first dazzling chaos, which reveals to us our inner universe and hence our sublime completeness or the wholeness of all our parts, must be made a cosmos. Out of the initial inner explosion the alchemist must commence to create his system, his solar world. It is then that the Core in its fullest dimensions must come into being. The divine Child must be unveiled, for he is the One who binds, the magnetic power that forces the experience of integration of all the parts and obliges them to accept the rhythm of the inner Sun and to experience harmony of the unity and the multiplicity. This in the Gnostic Circle time journey is the realisation of the second quarter and the 3 Point. It is the quarter of the Midnight Darkness, for precisely when one has plunged into the most profound depths of the manifestation one encounters that tiny particle of Light, that luminous Ray coveted by titans and gods which Diti holds in her womb. She is the cave of the Past. She consumes and loathes to release her prize. But the pioneer of the new way will oblige the Mother of Darkness to become transformed into the Goddess of Light.

When the initiate has succeeded in giving birth to Agni in his core, how does this translate itself in the experience of life, as an individual and as a member of society, on Earth, not elsewhere?

The answer to this is the great secret of Salvation – individually and collectively. This realisation discloses the mechanism whereby all elements, those positive as well as negative, are made to serve the purposes of the One, or the new way of the supramental Sun. The structure of the atom reveals the mechanism. When the individual experiences the tiny ‘seed’ in the innermost core of his being, and when this has become an active ingredient in his evolution of consciousness via the attainment of perfect equilibrium, of a perfect balancing of the two universal axes, contraction and expansion, he becomes a whole and complete System. He has unveiled the Gnostic Circle in himself and integrated all its parts. At that point all the particles combine to serve the purposes of the Seed, just as in nuclear physics we see that negative and positive elements do indeed harmonise in that infinitesimal universe and by means of complementation they succeed in recreating in microscopic dimensions what is seen in the macrocosm we inhabit as a superb harmony.

The world in which we live is a world of light and shadow. And we must accept that world as our field of yoga, our very own Kurukshetra – where we fight the battle and where we win and enjoy the victory. Thus all the elements have to be integrated if we accept this field and desire to make of our system in evolution a cosmos and not a chaos.

In the ancient Vedic way the Rishi was precisely engaged in the creation of an inner cosmos, a universe whole and complete. Hence like the new way, which moves along the lines of the supramental yoga, the Rishi evoked the elements of this very cosmos he inhabited. But we are made aware of the extent to which the human being has departed from this Earth-centred vision by the fact that latter-day scholars have unanimously labelled those great initiates ‘nature worshippers’, with the connotation of pagan and of course ‘uncivilised’, or primitive. This was not only the judgement of Western scholarship but Eastern as well, in view of the influence the West exerted on India during the colonial period. However, even prior to this experience, India had lost the key to her ancient way when the cosmos was viewed as a disturbing element in the individual’s quest, when the Mother was seen only in her aspect of darkness and became in the seeker’s consciousness nothing but the shadow of a higher truth that transcended her.

Science worships the Mother. But for science too the worship is blind and ignorant. It has created the whore of Babylon who is none other than Diti of the Vedas, who consumes and smothers, who hoards the light and by the power of inertia accumulated in this stifling embrace pretends thereby to destroy the races of Earth. However, the new way rises. The Aryan warrior is a fact we cannot ignore. Aditi is, and her realm stands above Diti’s. Her point in the Gnostic Circle is Capricorn, in direct opposition to Cancer, the realm of Diti’s midnight
darkness . . .

The Gnostic Circle is not fragmentary, hence Cancer and Capricorn must be seen as complementary poles and Diti and Aditi as two aspects of something in itself whole and complete. This wholeness is reflected in the entire wheel. In the Rig Veda the various segments of the Gnostic Circle are expressed as powers, divine and anti-divine, light and dark, and so forth. The light powers are the Gods, the offspring of Aditi. But these divine elements accomplish their task within the same field that the dark forces carry on their labour of obstruction.

As we are aware, this is exactly the condition of our endeavour. Throughout these volumes the true state of our world has been described, and thereby the initiate is made aware that today, no less than in aeons past, the battle must be waged in the midst of the very conditions we seek to transform but that are the powers of a very great Mother of Inertia. And indeed this must be so, because our world is a paradise of harmony of all the parts. It is hell when vision is fragmentary, when the eye of consciousness sleeps, when light and dark are not known to be complementary powers, each fulfilling the one goal, though one positively and the other negatively, yet still a part of the same labour. Above all our world is a hell when we have not known the womb in which all this has its play. When we have not known Whole Time and the full journey. When our eye of awareness succumbs to inertia and accepts a continued sleep in Diti’s realm of the past, cut off from the whole, living as the living dead in the kingdom of Pluto, an underworld of darkness.

The Whore of Babylon is a formidable reality of our times. She has accumulated such power, such colossal quantities of ‘time energy’, that we stand before her gaping mouth hypnotised by her might and ready to be consumed. The whole of our civilisation is food for her insatiable appetite.

Yet it must be pointed out again that the Whore is not an isolated figure of a play in a private theatre. She is nestled in that same womb of Whole Time. Hence the energy she hoards, more colossal now than ever before, is itself within that total movement of Time. The significance is thus that, by a particular mechanism of which time itself is the creator, the power she has so laboriously accumulated must find its way out of her womb and ultimately serve the new creation of which she is mother no less than Aditi. Indeed the principal characteristic of Diti and her sons is a divisive eye, a fragmented consciousness which does not permit them to see their true role and the service they render to the rise of a new world.

The quantity of energy Diti hoards at present is thus more formidable than ever before. It is such that, by the universal character of the movement the Earth now fosters, it can annihilate the entire planet. But what does this show us? It reveals to one who sees the full scenario and perceives the true roles of all the actors that it is precisely this factor of unprecedented destructive power which indicates, more than any other aspect of our twentieth-century life that the time of the new  way has come. And that the new creation being fostered by all powers – the dark no less than the light – is a child divine, herald of a race of supramental beings. We stand, as a civilisation lost yet hopeful, at the gates of Heaven. . .

The question is, how can we experience the release of power Diti (or the Whore of Babylon) holds in an orderly, controlled fashion, whereby it serves the purposes of the new creation, invincible as it is and therefore immune to the experience of destruction? Moreover, we understand that the energy thus hoarded is indispensable for the rise to the Capricorn summit – nay, it is known to be precisely the power which is used for the accelerated advance of our times. The mechanism reveals that if the experience is complete it is Diti herself who is seen as the favoured instrument of the Supreme in that, by holding back on the basis of inertia and resistance, she nurtures the very energy in her magical accumulator which the children of Aditi may use to reach the summit. And in this action Time is her tool: Time restrains, Time gestates, Time releases.

It is a cosmological phenomenon we are living. The Aryan warrior, male and female, performs this magical alchemy for the Earth in his or her own consciousness-being. The occult physics revealed in The New Way is the method whereby control of all the parts is secured and everything then becomes the instrument for the Birth.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Excerpted from The New Way, Volume 3, Chapter 18

1 – CONVERGENCE

For Vishaal Study Group

6 February 2007

What I intend to write this morning is important. I have been delving into the question of destiny and the choices we make that carry us toward its fulfilment. For the ineluctable fact is that each one does have a particular, specific destiny; this cannot be denied. Usually at certain crossroads in life we are allowed to have a glimpse of the larger plan for ourselves, and we then seem to make more conscious choices. But the moment passes and the veils close in around us again; we are then driven along in total ignorance of where we are headed and, indeed, why we are here at all.

            We accept that our natal horoscopes provide the image of that Plan for us as individuals. But when it is flat and uni-dimensional, then the viewpoint or the reading of the destiny contained in a particular chart is also flat and lacking in depth, breadth and height; what we might call its multi-dimensionality. It would then be a composite reading containing aspects of destiny which are not apparent if the chart is flat. It is still a broad view but with many details lacking which provide the nuances that are necessary in order to bring the destiny of the subject into sharper focus. We zero-in, as it were, to discover other aspects in the reading.

            The horoscope – which is the condition of the heavens converging on an individual born on Earth at a particular isolated moment – is not simply uni-dimensional; that is, a flat horizontal plane like the first floor plan of the Mother’s Chamber (vide www.matacom.com). Contained within that singular moment frozen in time through the infant’s first breath is a vertical dimension. That vertical element is how imprinting is done when it meets the breath of the infant through which it makes contact on the material plane, localised in that frozen moment and stamped on the aether for ever after. Breath is the primary ingredient; therefore it is the first independent breath of the infant that marks the exact time for construction of the horoscope.

            If we use the four plans of the Inner Chamber as our guide in this exploration into the deepest recesses of Destiny, the results are conclusive. The first, from the Transcendent’s poise, demonstrates the uni-dimensional overview, the broad lines of destiny that became imprinted when a fragment of time was captured as if on film by this unique arrangement. It shows us the horizontal which in the case of a horoscope is the stamp of the actual universal convergence on Earth at a particular location. It is physical entirely, but of a special order. The important factor we must note, if we wish to uncover the real nature of Destiny, is this question of convergence. This is the aspect of the operation that is the most essential ingredient for a deeper comprehension of just what a horoscope is. It is the subject’s first in-drawn breath that sets convergence in motion from all sides and breathes life into a particular destiny, or onto the CENTRE which is the individual soul.

            One’s ‘time’ is given its unique pulsating rhythm from that moment of imprinting via the infant’s exhalation, a pulsation that is maintained for the rest of one’s lived experience on Earth. Woven into the inhalation and exhalation process is the pulse of the Sun, like a central Axis around which the individual’s own axis is yoked at the instant of suspension between inhalation and exhalation.

            Sri Aurobindo embodied the Transcendent aspect in the Descent of the Solar Line. His life and works describe very accurately what a vision of transcendence can be. But regarding an individual’s horoscope, the breadth or scope of the vision would be determined entirely by the height from where one perceives. In Sri Aurobindo’s case it goes without question that he has given evidence of a poise so elevated that the diameter of the circle encompassed by the capacity of his seeing Eye was of a vastness that appeared to be limitless.

            Since convergence is the most important aspect of Destiny to understand as it is presented to us in an individual’s horoscope, naturally this is the feature of astrology most hotly criticised by Science: the Earth-centeredness of the chart. But the first of the Inner Chamber’s plans reveals what this means. It is convergence onto the perfect centre (the Globe and the Pedestal) from all twelve sides of the Chamber[1] that takes place with the first in-drawn breath, joining the entire cosmic surround to the central (invisible) axis of that individual’s destiny. The vertical, which we will discuss further on, remains an essential element of one’s destiny but invisible, just as one’s breath is invisible but essential for life. After this imprinting of the converging moment frozen in time, the axial ‘ladder’ remains veiled as it were. To uncover this hidden yet essential aspect of one’s destiny a special process has to be undertaken. A new dimension is then added – the Vertical.

            For most individual’s born on planet Earth that invisible ‘ladder’ just does not exist. Therefore the horoscope can be read as a flat, uni-dimensional chart. The broad lines of destiny are visible in this way and can be seen (the scope of which depends on how high the astrologer’s consciousness is poised), but any question of a ‘higher’ destiny does not exist in the conscious experience of the subject’s trajectory through Earth time. That is, it exists in potential yes, but only in potential. Until the process is experienced in time which causes the existence of the ‘ladder’ to be disclosed, there is, for all practical purposes, no vertical dimension to the horoscope.

            That process is known in the Veda as ‘the 9 becoming the 10.’

2 – ENHANCEMENT

7 February 2007

When the Mother and Sri Aurobindo counselled their disciples that yoga was above astrology and that less importance should be given to the latter and concentration should be rather on tapasya, this was as correct as it was necessary, given the in-bred Indian tendency to believe in and rely on astrology. This belief and reliance would certainly interfere in the processes of sadhana if not brought within certain bounds. However, we must now go deeper into this question of destiny and the role it must play in the new dispensation.

            It is not that destiny as recorded in the sadhak’s natal horoscope ceases to exist. We know from various sources that both the Mother and Sri Aurobindo worked with charts throughout their lives, most of which were drawn up for them by their long-time French disciple, Pavitra. He prepared them according to the so-called western system quite proficiently; that is, his calculations were based on the tropical zodiac and its 12-part divisions resting on Equinoxes and Solstices – what is known as the Sayana system in India, now discarded in favour of the Nirayana method. To further make the point, the Mother gave a plan for the Inner Chamber of her temple that incorporates all the details of horoscopy as we know it, but with the addition of its deeper dimensions, unknown before the New Way came into being.

            It is true that a certain tapasya can make an impact on one’s destiny. This then appears to carry the sadhak out of the confines of that original imprinting as discussed in Part 1. But this would only be a partial understanding. Nothing of that original frozen moment, when Soul and Sun merge, is ever obliterated. It is a permanent imprint like a negative awaiting a developing procedure that takes place as Time is added to the mix and movement  brings to the surface, according to certain rhythms, one or more of its details as destiny begins to unfold.

            Tapasya of a special order, while not erasing the original uni-dimensional print allows something of the vertical to emerge. That is, the scope of the original circle (the natal 12-part chart) is widened; or better, one’s poise of consciousness experiences an elevation and a broader perspective emerges. We are not as yet dealing with the Vertical, properly speaking, the ‘ladder’ I mentioned in Part 1, but just a broadening of the scope through elevation of one’s consciousness which the practice of integral yoga produces. This is often experienced as becoming farther removed from the physical plane and the patterns the natal horoscope determines of one’s destiny. For instance, all horoscopes give a fairly good indication of family conditions at birth and their lasting hold on the individual throughout life. Through an integral sadhana we gradually experience a loosening of those ties. Indeed it is as if one were being raised higher up and in the process the original ties that had so tightly bound us to these human patterns begin to dissolve; or at least their grip is loosened. This encourages the belief that the horoscope no longer exerts any influence and plays no further importance in a sadhak’s life. While this is not so, what then is its value? And how do we reconcile this distancing that every sadhak practising the integral yoga comes to experience with a process that bears an intrinsic respect for the Earth and therefore for the act of birth when the entire cosmos is imprinted on the individual soul? It is the moment when we, each one of us as individuals, become integrated pieces in the grand universal mosaic. This disentanglement would appear then to diminish the importance given to the Earth-oriented goal of the Yoga if we could legitimately and apparently with Divine Sanction so easily transcend those harmonies in which the Earth is central.

            The truth of the matter is quite different. It offers a deeper, wider perspective. There is no question at all of transcending or the dismembering of destiny obligations as originally imprinted on our souls upon entry into this material dimension. Elevation, yes, a broadening of the scope of the Eye that Sees is indeed the fruit of the yoga. More specifically, there is what must be described as an enhancement. Never is it implied as in the old yogas that we obliterate the cosmos by an imaginary dissolution of the hold of the harmonies to which we are bound by birth on Earth. This, if it were indeed real and not an illusory accomplishment as indeed it is, would contradict Sri Aurobindo’s radically new message and the uniqueness of his Avataric mission.

            In this clarifying light we see the importance of acquiring a larger and all-encompassing vision where all aspects of life and yoga can be harmoniously accommodated, where each thing finds its rightful place, as Sri Aurobindo encourages. When we do reach the portals of the Inner Chamber via the required tapasya, then the greater secrets of Destiny can be known; above all, the mechanism by which it comes to be experienced as the fourth and final aid of the Supramental Yoga, without which the Truth-Consciousness cannot be realised.

3 – COMMONALITY

10 February 2007

Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of birth on planet Earth is the fact that each individual is distinct from every other. There are approximately 6 billion human beings who have experienced the same birth process I described in Parts 1 and 2; and yet though the process is identical this factor of uniqueness is stamped on every individual at birth.

            As the third planet from the Sun, the number 3 colours everything of significance that occurs here. It is the number-power of the Individual Divine of the sacred Trinity. Therefore birth on Earth is more than just a cosmic happenstance. This planetary abode is special in the System precisely because it is here that conscious evolving can take place. Various elements join to make that possible. An important element is the infant’s first breath at entry into the Earth’s material dimension to join its evolutionary process.

            That breath contains something special in its own right. It is the condensed or distilled soul-essence of past experiences. Not all are of this Earth. Some may come from different planetary systems, faraway galaxies; even perhaps other universes. But what is important to note is that when Earth birth occurs it is a special grace because it indicates that the time has come to introduce a ‘higher destiny’. This can only occur in a System that has matured to the number 9 such as our own, and on the third planet of that System.

            Our measure of 12 holds another key, as does the crosswise division of Equinoxes and Solstices. To be brief, there are all the ingredients available to Earth beings to live what the Veda describes as ‘the Journey’. It is the process whereby the 9 become the 10, and in so doing a new axial alignment is acquired and ‘all is made new’. We will go into these issues deeply now.

            Billions of people now populate our planet, increasing exponentially each day. Many clamber for a glimpse of something higher, something that will make sense of their lives and why they have taken up station on Earth. For until they do come to understand their destiny and Reality as it truly is and not what Orthodoxy claims, they remain trapped in endless rounds of rebirth until that task is concluded.

            In this light it is understandable that in the dark age we have entered after the Age of Krishna, methods were devised to seek escape from imprisonment on this wheel of death and rebirth. But this escape is imaginary; Destiny cannot be so easily duped. Furthermore, even as the individual born on Earth has the possibility of imprinting a higher destiny pattern, so too does the Earth as a ‘being’ enjoy that same potential at certain special crossroads of her own trajectory through time and space. The Earth Soul is a reality, as real as the most tangible substance we can experience. As with all human beings, the Earth’s soul is of the solar essence; it is what becomes woven into our deepest, innermost recesses of being at that moment of convergence when Sun and Breath join. As for the individual, so for the Earth as embodied being.

            This special moment, when the Earth can experience imprinting or elevation to a higher destiny experience as the birthright of all her creatures hereinafter – or what Sri Aurobindo would describe as the establishment of a life divine on Earth – describes our very own astrological age in this 9^th Manifestation of Sagittarius when boundaries are expanded. And in order for that to occur and for the Earth to realise her highest potential in her family of 9, the Third of the Trinity takes birth and lives the process just as the individual would do for him or herself. Therefore the Veda describe this Journey and the zodiacal progression from 1 to 12, step by step, for the human being and for the Earth herself, as a fully incarnate Being.

            This happens at rare moments in the passage of aeonic time, perhaps only once in hundreds of thousands of years. Therefore we must make every effort to participate as consciously as possible in this unique Journey in which our individual destinies are joined to that of the Earth herself in the act of imprinting a higher destiny, collective and individual.

            In light of the above, we better understand the myths handed down in different cultures throughout the world, especially the Indian. All describe a struggle between Gods and Titans for possession of the Earth whereby one or the other will conquer and establish their supremacy, or stamp their destiny forever after on the evolutionary sequence. In other words, never more would the Earth serve in the Divine Unveiling such as we experience today. She would be trapped forever in an alien world, devoid of purpose, an isolated entity at the service of Nothingness and Emptiness.

                        In our actual stage of development, when the 12 are known and the 9 fully unveiled, the aim of the Titans is clear. Above all else it is to halt the on-going movement at the 8^th stage of Death as symbolised by the Scorpion, with all that this signifies.

            The Gods, on the other hand, seek at all costs to prevent this usurpation and the victory of the Titans by helping the Earth in the release of hidden energies, those that the myth tells us are ‘hoarded away’ by the Asuric forces. Without this release the Aryan Warriors, sons and daughters of the Earth, cannot complete their God-given task: To secure the release of hoarded or blocked energy (by Death) that will permit the Earth to break loose from Inertia’s grip and to complete the Journey. What is described in the Veda and handed down from generation to generation as the individual’s birthright must be understood as the Earth’s own plight as a planetary embodiment in this special Age of Aquarius. It will help us understand better why I have written time and again that we face Creation or Destruction like never before.

4 – UNVEILING

11 February 2007

Our attention must be brought to focus on a singular aspect of our birth in this particular planetary system. Because of the development the Earth herself has experienced, spread over hundreds of thousands of years, the moment has arrived of what I have all along described as the Great Birth. We are in the 9^th Manifestation in a cycle of 311,040 years, each Manifestation of which (6480 years) is equivalent to one month of human gestation repeated four times to cover all four planes of being (4 x 77,760). At this very special crossroads of destiny the Child nurtured for this sacred happening emerges from its protective sac as an independent entity. It too takes its first breath.

            Cosmically this describes the convergence mechanism of the Precessional Zero Point and the constellational in 234 BCE. That event, the great Cosmic Dawn, is akin to the suspension between inhalation and exhalation.

            This momentous occurrence is what has been accelerating since 1970.  It was set in motion when the Mother made the first breakthrough to give impulse to this grand event: the vision of the Chamber. That experience drew into play one of the most unique features of the New Way – the question of simultaneity. In that singular breakthrough, akin to the infant’s first breath, Destiny as written in the Chamber became indelibly etched on the soul of the Earth; or better said, a deeper, perhaps the deepest dimension ever reached was unveiled. The Mother had penetrated regions never before consciously explored in the effort to give geometrical/ architectural shape to the Earth’s soul. And as I have proven over the years, the new Destiny has indeed been recorded in the contours and measurements of that sacred space.

            This is the contemporary Mystery Play when, in the myth upholding the enactment, Demeter so despairs at the loss of her beloved divine Persephone that she almost brings the Earth to her doom by withdrawing her grace. But her ‘search’ is finally rewarded and the Earth is restored to health. Such was the mythic significance of the Mother’s penetration and discovery. It is only natural that the enactment would involve the only Mystery School on the planet today and the first of its kind since the ancient teachings went into oblivion.

            This is the experience of an indelible imprinting, a renewal, properly speaking. On the physical plane something else took shape in its stead in Auroville. But this in no way could cause the original Vision to dissolve. Rather, work on the physical plane became an aid in the labour of the great Birth. It was as if those 36 years since 1970/1971 have been the birth pains covering all four layers of being –  thus, 4 x 9.

            These essays, along with all my writing since the 36 from 1970 were completed, are examples of that ‘independent Breath’ and how its impact is felt. There is a different quality colouring all the work over these last 18 months. But the very special demarcation, or dividing line, was the Yoga of the Chronicles. That was the most dangerous stage of the development when all would be lost or all would be gained. Having succeeded in escaping from the clutches of Inertia in 2004, at the culmination point of the birth experience when the foetus in gestation since 1970 is most threatened with extinction, the Intensive followed and then ‘The Day of the White Peacock’. The latter was akin to a birth announcement to the whole world: the Child was born on such and such day, in such and such year – and all is as it should be. Truly an event worthy of a White Peacock.

            Our Intensive experience marked a major hallmark in the New Way. The 12 + 4 were stamped on the aetheric being of the Earth and its Divine Measure was thus reinforced. This was a renewal, when the Earth formally took her place, or rather unveiled her position in the harmony of 12, as of old. Across the Ages veils have covered her light to the point where it had become totally obscured, as if a great cosmic eclipse had to be endured across centuries of her evolution. That Dark Age after Sri Krishna’s passing was the 8^th month of the great Gestation, the final passage, and the Earth’s darkest night.

            Thus, we have emerged from behind those veils and as the Globe in the Chamber testifies, the Earth, the third planet in the Harmony, reveals her luminous Truth.

It was the hour before the Gods awake.

Across the path of the divine Event

The huge foreboding mind of Night, alone

In her unlit temple of eternity,

Lay stretched immobile upon Silence’ marge.

Almost one felt, opaque, impenetrable,

In the sombre symbol of her eyeless muse

The abysm of the unbodied Infinite;

A fathomless zero occupied the world.

A power of fallen boundless self awake

Between the first and the last Nothingness,

Recalling the tenebrous womb from which it came,

Turned from the insoluble mystery of birth

And the tardy process of mortality

And longed to reach its end in vacant Nought.

As in a dark beginning of all things,

A mute featureless semblance of the Unknown

Repeating for ever the unconscious act,

Prolonging for ever the unseeing will,

Cradled the cosmic drowse of ignorant Force

Whose moved creative slumber kindles the suns

And carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl.

Athwart the vain enormous trance of Space,

Its formless stupor without mind or life,

A shadow spinning through a soulless Void,

Thrown back once more into unthinking dreams,

Earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs

Forgetful of her spirit and her fate…

                                               ‘Savitri’, Book One, The Book of Beginnings

                                                                            The Symbol Dawn

5 – STRUCTURING

12 February 2007

It is time now to zero in on the minutiae of horoscopy, but in an unconventional manner. I will analyse structure, the structure of our solar system as seen from Earth. It is the architecture of the ‘temple’ of which planet Earth is the sanctum sanctorum: the ‘journey’ through the 12 signs/stages is a pilgrimage inward to this sacred Cave. The Mountain Summit, the tenth stage, is the ultimate goal. Therefore all Hindu temples reproduce this very same symbol/architecture.

            Hereafter I will use The Magical Carousel in this pilgrimage; and also Savitri as well as the Rig Veda, when the occasion requires. The first item that draws our attention is indeed from the Veda. These 12 are always referred to in pairs – i.e., the twain. And the listing that has been preserved of the signs as handed down from that remote period of pre-history is, precisely, in pairs: Madhav/Madhu; Shukra/Shuchi; Nabhah/Nabhas, and so forth. In seeking to establish what they consider to be ‘the true Vedic zodiac/calendar’, certain groups like the Hindu Calendar Forum believe that these pairs are to be read in sequence, one after another. But I have a different view because of the verses in the Veda that refer to ‘the twain’ in a manner that suggests another meaning: ‘…Those are the dwelling-places of ye twain which we desire as the goal of our journey…’ Or else from the Atharva Veda there are the unforgettable verses to Skambha:

                                                Take heed, O Savitr. Six are twins;

                                                one is born singly. The Twins desire

                                                to unite with the one that is born alone.

Clearly, the One ‘born alone’ is the Centre. That would point to a converging direction inward to the centre of each of the ‘twins’. It would mean that each pair consists of two signs standing in opposition to each other, drawn inward to the One. The pole/axis that they form together would pass through the centre, the One. But if instead they follow one after another in sequence, emphasis would not be on touching the Centre, though that is the essential meaning of the verse. The ‘twins’ are clearly polar opposites, which is the only way to interpret the similarity in their names through the sequence of 12. This indicates a polarity.

            Such a reading of the structure would be more consistent with the importance given in those remote times to the crosswise division of the wheel. While this demarcation has always held pride of place in astrology with regard to the Cardinal directions in an individual’s horoscope – ascendant, midheaven, descendent and nadir – this same quartering is seen with regard to each of the triadic groupings. Thus, the crosswise division would be, in an empty structure – that is, devoid of the life-giving Breath – simply the Cardinal directions. Another demonstration of the same crosswise division pertains to the Fixed Signs of Vishnu’s preservation mode, what we find captured in Sphinxes down the Ages, as well as in Hindu lore as the strides, precisely, of Vishnu.

            Most impressive of all such methods of preserving the tradition of this crosswise balance of our solar system is the Great Pyramid at Giza where the angles of its base are oriented to the four Cardinal directions with an exactitude that is breathtaking. When this is imprinted by the First Breath simultaneity enters the structure. It is the first note sounded, and it will continue to reverberate throughout the Temple ever after. Or else it is akin to an essential mortar binding the entire structure.

            Unity is the essence of this ‘temple’, and it can never be otherwise. This means that there can never be any other experience of the 12-part zodiac. Each sign is connected to each other without any severance or discontinuity because of this ‘mortar’; and the 12 are seen balanced at the moment of this First Breath on these four Cardinal pillars. It is not that the first pillar comes into being, followed by the second, and then the third, and finally the fourth. Rather, the imprinting is simultaneous.

            This is best explained by the crop circles which mysteriously appear in fields here and there around the globe. They are just THERE in the morning, almost as if they had been stamped on the Earth’s body also by a simultaneous etching experience. It is not that those mysterious designs have been constructed step by step. They are, as it were, stamped¸ in a single manifestation or descent or a single impression; except when parts were added subsequent to the initial form, though they too were single additional impressions. More intriguingly, they are all divisions of the circle in three parts or four as per zodiacal tradition. By providing these simultaneous impressions in our fields of these 3-part or 4-part divisions, the descent of these magnificent designs is another means of re-enforcing or renewing the ‘temple structure’ of our solar system. They encourage human beings to take note of their Birthright.

            On a Sunday afternoon, 7 July 1996, there was proof of my contention. A pilot flew his plane over the Stonehenge area. What followed was supported by ground observation from the ancient monument’s security guard. Nothing was visible in the vast fields around the area. But within just forty-five minutes, as the pilot circled back across the same route, a very intricate fractal pattern was spotted. It has become known as the Julia Set, consisting of ‘…151 circles resulting in the same series of reiterative calculations that produces the Mandelbrot set. 915 feet from top to tail, its spiral sweep was a representation of the “Golden Mean” in sacred geometry…’ (Vital Signs, page 58, Andy Thomas, Frog, Ltd., 1998). Similar experiences have been registered elsewhere over the past several decades but none as inspiring as the July 7^th astonishing display.

            Simultaneity suggests a condition of BEING. But as we know, this Temple that is our solar system owes its very existence to movement, an eternal Becoming. How can the two be reconciled? Being and Becoming, Statics and Dynamics, Rest and Motion?

            Enter the Supramental Gnosis. Enter The Magical Carousel.

6 – ‘AVARYA ASMAN’

14 February 2007

When there is Becoming there is always process. Becoming is movement and movement implies progression toward something, to a goal. The pilgrimage through the 12-stage ecliptic of the tropical zodiac is another revelation of process. We see this captured monumentally in the Rig Veda. We see it in the 12 books of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri; and it is the mainstay of The Magical Carousel. Indeed, all three reveal an identical process in a 12-part development. The Magical Carousel is a contemporary model; but it not only describes the same process that we find in the Rig Veda, its creation itself was Vedic involving Cosmic Energies just as they have been described in the hymns.

            Creation of The Magical Carousel was described in ‘The Tenth Day of Victory’. But accustomed as we are to freezing what we read of the Scriptures into dogmas beyond our reach as living experiences of today, it would not be possible for anyone who reads TMC or TTDV to recognise the very same process that is minutely detailed in the Rig Veda. The experiences of the Ancients cannot be allowed to be drawn into our contemporary life, much less to a creature living in 20^th Century Rome! But because it is my task to reinstate this eternal Script, it does give me pleasure to draw aside the veils one after another that prevent seekers from realising that the Cosmic Energies featured in the Veda are as alive and active today as ever they were centuries ago. It cannot be otherwise since together they form the Music of the Spheres which is an eternal Harmony played again and again as the cosmos circles endlessly through the heavens.

            On 26 November 1915, the Mother, then living in France after returning from India and her first meeting with Sri Aurobindo in 1914, wrote to him describing a profound experience. The full letter can be found in the volume of the Centenary Edition, ‘On Himself and on the Mother’. I mention it for the same reason: Sri Aurobindo understood the Vedic essence of her experience, but stated clearly that others would not. He wrote, ‘The experience you have described is Vedic in the real sense, though not one which would be easily recognised by the modern systems of Yoga which call themselves Yogic.[2] It is the union of the ‘Earth’ of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine.’ (31 December 1915)

            I must confess before all else that I knew nothing of the Veda when I had my ‘strange encounter’ one night with one of its main Godheads; or better, when I experienced that Godhead’s singular attribute. In TTDV, page 28, I wrote about the experience, and though I did not recognise it in Vedic terms, somehow I knew, or at least suspected, that what had occurred was connected to the creation of TMC:

…The region between my eyebrows was the centre of the creative action. Consequently, this brought me to wonder about something that had happened just before this flood of inspiration began [March, 1970]. One night I was suddenly awakened from a deep sleep by an intensely bright light projected before my closed eyes. This light was so bright in the otherwise dark room that it startled me. I looked for its source in front of me when I opened my eyes, but nothing was there. Rather, I found that there was indeed a light pouring into my room, but it came from the full moon outside. Interestingly, there was a slit in the shutters of the window in my studio, and exactly through that tiny crevice an intense ray of moonlight was passing. However, it was not falling on my face and eyes at all. The odd thing was that it was focussed squarely on the crown of my head. The sensation of this ‘ray’ was intensely physical. But the light that I thought was shining into my eyes was in fact falling on the top of my head. This experience left me wondering because I felt that there was a certain ‘power’ in that ray, that it carried something into me…

I went on to discuss a severe sinusitis I came down with soon after, centred on the ‘third eye’ which was precisely the Chakra onto which or in which TMC‘s unfolding was ‘seen’.

            Seen as well as heard. TMC was Vedic in the deepest sense of the word. Two formulas played roles in the process: Drishti and Shruti. The tale was not only seen in the Chakra, it was also heard to the extent that accompanying the writing experience I ‘heard’ its theme music as well which I have never forgotten, so deeply was the music impressed on my subtle senses.

            The value of TTDV’s description of these early experiences is that when I wrote them in 1972, though living in the Ashram in Pondicherry at the time, I still had no knowledge of the Rig Veda. Contact with this hallowed text came several years later, in 1977 to be precise when I was writing The New Way, Volume 2.

            Most of you who read these lines today will immediately recognise that they describe vividly the action of the most important Vedic Godhead, Indra, who casts his Thunderbolt, the sacred avarya asman or ‘heavenly stone’ which carries the power of the Word as it strikes the rock and releases the energies (the waters and the oceans). My skull was as if the rock and indeed the flash of intensely bright light struck the crown of my head like a thunderbolt. I had received Indra’s grace from his station on the Moon where the immortal Soma juice is hidden. Indra is eulogised as the Bull, which is Taurus of the zodiac – precisely the exaltation of the Moon.

‘May those divine waters foster me, the eldest (or greatest) of the ocean from the midst of the moving flood that go purifying, not settling down, which Indra of the thunderbolt, the Bull, clove out. The divine waters that flow whether in channels dug or self-born, whose movement is toward the ocean, – may those divine waters foster me…’ (VII. 49. 1-4)

On page 406, Volume 2 of The New Way, I discuss the nature of Indra. I wrote:

    Indra, along with Agni, is the god most extolled in the hymns. His position is fundamental because it is by means of his Thunderbolt, or ‘heavenly stone’, avarya asman, that he slays the Serpent. Sri Aurobindo calls Indra the representative of the divine or luminous Mind. In our investigations we have seen that Indra is the link between the subtle or supramental heaven and the physical world. It is the brhad dyau or wide heavens or Swar: ‘Human beings slaying the Coverer [Vritra] have crossed beyond both heaven and earth and made the wide world their dwelling place (I, 36.8).’ And Sri Aurobindo comments, ‘- that this supra-celestial wideness, this illimitable light is a supramental heaven, the heaven of the supramental Truth, of the immortal Beatitude, and that the light which is its substance and constituent reality, is the light of Truth.’ (The Secret of the Veda, page 145).

I continue in The New Way, page 406,

Indra has two bright Eyes, which are the eyes of the physical heavens; one shines by day, the other by night. Thus Indra’s eyes are the Sun and the Moon, regents of the heavens, and indeed he is known as the King of Swar, of Heaven. Along with Indra we constantly encounter references to the Soma juice, the immortal nectar; it is said that the Soma juices desire him:

    ‘Come, O Indra, with thy rich lustres, these Soma-juices desire thee; they are purified by the subtle powers and by extension in body.

    ‘Come, O Indra…to my soul-thoughts. I who have poured out the Soma-Juice…

    ‘Come, O Indra, with forceful speed to my soul-thoughts, O lord of the bright horses; hold firm the delight of the Soma-juice.’ (As quoted in The Secret of the Veda, p.81.)

I will proceed to reveal the manner in which Indra’s heavenly Light translated itself into a creation which became the ‘seed’ of everything that followed in my life and yoga. It was a ‘bolt’ that brought a transformative power to ‘make all things new’. Though this was not known to me at the time, nothing would be the same after receiving this stroke of Indra’s Avarya Asman; and in The Magical Carousel I recorded every detail of the action of this new Light that seared onto my inner being the lines of a higher destiny, both for me and for all who seek the immortalising Soma Wine that descended into my consciousness on that beam straight from Indra’s Moon.

7 – NEWNESS

21 February 2007

‘Your two wheels, Surya, the Brahmins know in their measured rounds.

But the one wheel that is hidden, only the inspired know that.’ (RV 10.85-16)

I am not sure that I agree entirely with a prior reading of this verse; nor do I have the original Sanskrit to learn what the word is that has been translated as ‘inspired’. These points need to be made clear. In my view – and I intend to present proof (always within the yogic framework) – this ‘hidden wheel’ is not an obvious rotation such as the Precession. And by that I mean an openly accepted part of the Tradition such as the Precession of the Equinox has always been. Though it is reasonable to interpret the ‘two wheels’ as the diurnal and annual rotations, this reading seems inadequate. I would rather see them as the two ‘years’, smaller and greater. But the third is something else; it is ‘hidden’ and reserved for the Inspired; or perhaps the Initiated, those touched by the ‘heavenly stone’.

            In Leonardo’s masterpiece, The Last Supper, these two movements (the ‘two wheels’) are made clear by the direction the apostles’ hands are given in the composition. That the Precession is indicated from the left is clear since it moves through the signs backwards – that is, assuming the viewer is familiar with the Tradition Leonardo was conveying.[3] The point is, the two years, annual and precessional, were well known and integrated parts of the Tradition for many millennia. But what has truly been hidden is the ‘wheel of initiation’, and this is what can be confirmed by The Magical Carousel.

            When a decisive event transpires in life like the stroke of the Avarya Asman, it is then, truly, that ‘all things are made new’; but we must ask what the nature of that newness is in the context of what has been discussed in this series. Above all, we want to understand in what way this newness can be accommodated within the context of the First Breath imprinting which we surmise is lasting and indelible.

            In addition, in this New Way I have often made mention of a ‘higher’ destiny. How can this too find its place within the context of one’s life playing itself out in Earth time? It is The Magical Carousel that answers these questions, in simple language and without contrivances. For the truth is that when the Thunderbolt strikes the subject is catapulted into that ‘higher’ stratum of Swar – the solar world. Hence the above verses are directed to Surya, lord of the Solar World. That world is the wide heaven so often extolled in the Veda, and it indicates the new spaces of destiny. In terms of the First Breath horoscope, entering the wide heavens is when we step out of the personal boundary and we become identified with THAT, with the entire wheel. We are no longer the person, but the Person. Above all and this is the most important point to note, the portals open before us and one begins the Journey.

            It is then no longer just a process involving one’s personal horoscope. The Journey when ‘all things are made new’ is the ecliptic pathway where the luminous ‘herds of light’ go travelling. We participate in this heavenly movement as one blessed by Glow, the psychic luminescence, on admittance into that Solar World, just as The Magical Carousel describes. This tale is precious for us because it is the evidence we need to demonstrate factually just how all this is ‘made new’ and exactly what that condition implies. It is simply that we embark upon a higher plane of destiny and we join the flow in harmony with the universal Becoming. The Thunderbolt cleaved through the darkness and in one single stroke that opening into new dimensions was made possible: the simultaneous vision is then sealed. It is the moment when the four Cardinal Pillars come into prominence and take their position as our ‘support’ ever after. As written earlier, they cannot be unfolded one after another. They are simultaneously THERE.

            And from that moment a very different power was unleashed in my life, not dependent on the First Breath but on the Grace that lifts us out of our humanity and transports us to the realm of the Gods. Events were set in motion to consolidate what this higher imprinting required for its fulfilment in time. That is, throughout the rest of 1970 after completion of The Magical Carousel in March, a succession of events were set in motion that assured an embarking on the Journey just as it was told in the tale, and also in the Rig Veda for the initiate voyager. The two travellers were the Third and Fourth of the Solar Line. The Becoming, as the tale describes, was the play-out of the higher destiny along the ecliptic Journey, or into and through ‘the hidden wheel’ which one can access only when the grace of the Thunderbolt is received. The Earth is the ‘field’ where the Journey unfolds for the Initiate according to and because of her rhythm of 12 divided by four and three. Birth on this planet offers a choice: One can remain in the surface dimension, or one can opt for the hidden way.

            By this example, which we will discuss in greater depth further on, the most important element to grasp is that we step out of the ‘human’ sphere, the human Fathers of the Veda, and we move into the wider regions of Swar by entering the upper hemisphere or the northern pathway to the Midday Sun, the highest Cardinal Pillar. The importance of this text is that it is factual, providing conclusive proof that the experience of the Rishi is universal and eternal since the fixed ecliptic allows us to experience the same Journey today as the Ancients did so many millennia ago. But we must find access to that higher region; we must go within where the Mountain becomes the fixed Anchor of the inner universe equal to the outer, an inverse image as described in The Magical Carousel, the ‘skambha’ that holds all the worlds and all the planes together in one axial embrace, rooted in the depths of this material creation.

            This magical Journey was made possible because on the first of 1970 the Mother entered the temple’s Inner Chamber in the solar world and thereby allowed what was ‘seen’ and written in its measurements and forms for the Earth to precipitate into this world of our Becoming. This she compounded by the Act of Measuring which followed upon the Act of Seeing. The Mother thus established a new, a higher order by this release, which, once allowed cannot be reversed. The ‘Journey’ that followed consolidated this Order through secret processes of Initiation. The Earth unveiled a higher destiny which made all things new.

[1] ‘…The twelve walls are the months of the year’, the Mother stated in January 1970. See the Matrimandir Talks, www.matacom.com.  

[2]  Could it be that this word should be ‘Vedic’ instead of Yogic? It would make more sense. PNB

[3]  See ‘Patrizia Norelli Bachelet. Explorations into The Leonardo Mystery, Aeon Books, 2005.

As I begin winding up this series, again the difficulty we have in understanding the ancient lore comes to mind. I recall a conversation in the late 1960s with Federico Fellini, a renowned Italian film director at the time. He was then working on a cinema version of 1st Century Petronius Arbiter’s famous novel, Satyricon. Fellini’s problem was how to give a faithful reproduction of a pre-Christian era without shadings from the later period to prejudice the authenticity of his artistic creation, particularly since the novel centres on a homosexual relationship which was frowned upon until only recently, but was a widely accepted practice in the Graeco-Roman cultures. Italian society can be traced to Roman and Etruscan periods which were very different from Italy of today, heavily influenced as it became by Roman Catholicism.

This problem surfaces repeatedly in attempts to translate texts from ancient times with our 21st Century biases; historians and Indologists of the Raj period are examples. However, it can be accurately done if we have before us the perennial foundation on which most ancient civilisations were founded. The difficulty lies in the fact that if we discuss the cosmic backdrop of that foundation, its so-called pagan identity surfaces immediately, which exclusivist religions of the Piscean Age have rejected as somehow evil and ungodly. Or else we have Indian culture which still clings to its pagan moorings but in a distorted fashion because of the loss of the Divine Measure, and overburdened as it is by the weight of an intolerable ignorance. Indeed, at the root of the conundrum lies the Feminine Principle. We may claim to worship the Goddess but our male-dominated contemporary society belies that adoration, even in India where Goddess worship openly prevails. Thus, the final result is the same: a distortion of the cosmic sense and purpose, and finally a loss of the cosmic connection entirely. We end by following the lead of belief systems that evolved out of the dark sea of Pisces where the Veda were effectively submerged and hidden from view.

As stated throughout this series, there was a clearly-defined method to the madness in the effort to keep the Thread intact. To do so a translation of the secret essence had to be carried out so as to use the populace itself for preservation. This meant simplifying the Veda, putting it in a form that could be the vehicle to serve this purpose. It was then a question of exoteric knowledge and esoteric. The latter was for the Initiate or the practitioner of yoga to understand. The former was left for the population at large. But the binding element that provided authenticity and relevance to both was the Divine Measure of the Year. It was essential to maintain the Measure through the tropical ecliptic with its 12 months/doors in tact, if preservation was to be successful. But we note that this was not the case: at some point during the last two centuries that simple, astronomically-provable measure was lost.We note then that the written Veda was a necessary addition to the process. From that point onward initiatic knowledge on the subcontinent took a decisive turn: it effectively went underground. Above the surface stood an exoteric store of Myth which was directly connected to the inner tradition, but its most cherished secrets were preserved for the serious practitioner of yoga. Initially the system worked well enough, but already by the time of Varamihira, author of the ‘Brihad Samhita (6th Century CE), the split between esoteric and exoteric had taken its toll; this is noted by the fact that Knowledge was not conveyed in his text as the focus of the astrological concept – it was prediction, pure and simple. Given this division and the secrecy shrouding the inner tradition, a degeneration set in when the essence of the Veda was posited so far underground that eventually it went into a deep hibernating sleep. What remains is a coating with little inner substance. Predictably, superstition came to replace Knowledge. Today there are few, if any at all, who can reconnect us to the core of the Veda and reconstruct society on its cosmic foundation.The wisdom of the power guiding the evolution of consciousness as mapped out in the zodiac is wise indeed. In point of fact, I have called the zodiac the horoscope of the Divine Mother. At regular intervals the process calls for a universalisation of the deep purpose and sense of the Tradition. But to do so it is required that the teaching be re-lived, re-established within the contemporary setting – hence the need for updating as in Puranic Cosmology. We can no longer hide our unknowing behind a convenient veil of ‘secrecy’, thereby wielding power over the masses and unknowing devotees illegitimately, without the sound foundation of true Knowledge. Nor can we continue to cover our unknowing by the elitist phrase, ‘It cannot be put into words’, a conceit of contemporary times, unvoiced in ancient cultures. The subcontinent today provides ample proof of the catastrophic consequences of this illegitimacy. But the question now is how can the divide between innermost and outer be bridged? To note is that we have evidence of the truth but today it is yet covered in veils; thus, the need of the hour is to remove these veils to allow the eternal truth to emerge into the light of day once more, and thereby to uplift the masses out of the ignorance that engulfs them.

Secrecy was considered vital in times when only fragments of the Eternal Truth were known. In such a situation it was believed that certain aspects of the Knowledge could be misused, and indeed there has been evidence of such misuse over the past 2000 years. However, when knowledge is integral, when a body of higher knowledge descends in its complete form, as we find to be the case in this 9th Manifestation, misuse is impossible. To be precise, this complete system involves or is the gift of the Great God of Time, Mahakala as he is known in the subcontinent. And Time is a ‘tool’ none can misuse; hence, Mahakala is considered the highest of all, the greatest of all the Gods.Cosmology is essentially a study of Time. The new cosmology carries this time perception to greater heights by revealing tools of gnosis by means of which shifts are made in our perceptive capacity which do away with the notion that we are the doers, that we choose, that we create. But the beatific vision of the Great God dismantles these notions: we come to realise that we are simply his pawns – when unconscious; or else his instruments when awareness is increased and the true mechanism of the creative process is understood. The great warrior Arjun was unable to sustain that vision (of the Time-Spirit) because the 8th Manifestation of the Scorpion/Eagle would not permit this highest perception. It is only now, in our very times, that the widest and highest vision of Truth is possible because now the Becoming is integrated with Being, failing which the Great God must remain behind closed doors and reserved for only a very few.

Evidently these highest states of perception cannot be realised by everyone. Nonetheless, a method must exist to draw the masses along with the elite, otherwise the Tradition must reach the Abyss of Time, as we find in India today, and the weight of unconsciousness is such that it exerts a pull of inertia impossible to shake off. When the population crosses a colossal billion surely the burden of Ignorance has increased exponentially to unbearable limits.

Notwithstanding the formidable burden of the Ignorance that India struggles with to continue the evolutionary march forward as demanded of her position of centrality – i.e., leader of the world in this higher process of Becoming – it can be proven with complete certainty that the essence of the Cosmic Truth has been preserved in the subcontinent and serves us well in this new age of universalism. Indeed, we may further state that the Ignorance has been an aide in the act of preservation and unveiling. The secret has thus been preserved for us today; and though distorted, the core is easily discerned by the perceptive observer, and with the right keys of Knowledge its heart of Vedic Fullness can now be disclosed. Had those veils not covered that Core – as in the Piscean/Matsya Ocean – its complete destruction would have occurred as we find in Egypt. The wisdom of the sages in those pre-dynastic times lies in the method they used for preservation which was the construction of massive monuments that could defy the passage of the aeons and the destructive bent of future generations. Ancient Egyptian civilisation’s task, as I have explained in The New Way, in Chronicles of the Inner Chamber and elsewhere, was to conquer Space; hence concentration was on a sanctity given to spatial measures, or the translation of the Cosmic Truth by its geometries into those colossi in order to fulfil the Dharma of the Manifestation during which period this conquest had to be made.

In India, as I have pointed out repeatedly, Time was the issue; by consequence the human being was the focus because consciousness is the instrument of Time. By means of the Geometry of Time the victory of this 9th Manifestation has been secured. And the tool for the operation has been the tropical zodiac, the ecliptic of 12 months, the basis of our Earth year.

This Year is what we find sanctified in the ancient Veda; and in spite of or because of superstition born of the Ignorance, that Vedic Core has been securely embedded and preserved in every temple of the Puranic era and in the myths that surround the temples. Thus, zodiacal lore abounds in Hindu temples, old and new, and is carried on through the popular perception via myth, the language of the soul. However, though the measure of 12 may remain sacrosanct, distortion has rendered that preservation useless for application – unless, of course, the protective veils can be removed.

In a nutshell, this is the Dharma of our current 9th Manifestation. It is the 9th in a long gestational series, but contrary to the human foetus this gestation covers many centuries, many millennia. Nonetheless, the gestation is exactly the same for the Earth and her civilisations as for the human creature. Indeed, on the basis of the Vedic Laws of correspondence and equivalence, we learn that the Earth has been ‘gestating’ for the past 50,000 years, from the 1st Manifestation to our own 9th; during this period we have been foetal in essence. Only now is the Child born.

Contemporary history amply proves the point. For instance, the two world wars of the last century of the last millennium were the contractions for the birth (World War 1 – pre-1926); and then the actual birth and the predictable battle for supremacy (World War 2 – post-1926). The new times commenced amid the detritus the first conflagration had left. Thereafter ‘forces’ arose to slay the Child, or to mould the newborn into a shadow of the true figure of Light which is our birthright; indeed, thereafter distortion became the keyword to usurp whatever that Birth meant for the evolutionary process. Since knowledge would be the hallmark of the new times, centred in India, what would otherwise remain inexplicable without the understanding of this cosmic foundation, Nazism adopted certain occult symbols sacred in India, foremost of which was the Swastika, the symbol of one of Shiva’s sons, Ganesh. A more exact example of usurpation and distortion as in Nazi symbolism cannot be found elsewhere; particularly its use of the Swastika, since it is an embellishment of the astrological symbol of the Earth, the circle divided into four parts and the foundation of the Map of 12 Manifestation wherein we read the destiny of the Earth over the aeons. Since the intention of the Nazi regime was world domination, the symbol was ‘appropriate’. This would be an example of misuse in the effort to appropriate the power of the symbol. The placement of its arms indicates the direction of the movement, clockwise or anti-clockwise. The former direction is the Precessional movement of the astrological ages, and the latter the annual rotation of the Earth around the Sun. (The belief that the Nazis ‘distorted’ the symbol by its clockwise direction is unfounded; both directions are correct.

A. Clockwise – Precessional B. Anti-clockwise, annual.

The way in which symbols are used by the uninitiated reveals their level of accomplishment. How fitting, when we consider that the Second World War was a struggle for the very survival of the Earth as home of the integral evolutionary process, the completion of which would be a golden age. This is the meaning of the Swastika with its fourfold structure and two directions. Naturally forces from the vital plane arose in full strength, because until then in its unborn condition the relativism of the Overmind prevailed, characterised as it is by innumerable possibilities, any one of which could be played out (the unborn foetus). The Overmental’s main characteristic is its poise on the periphery, disconnected from the central Point . The labour (birthing) of the last century was precisely the Act of Centering, or the unveiling of the inner Point, until then existing only in potential but as yet unrealised (unborn). It means that the process must then proceed from the Centre; from there the growth of the Child advances – that is, its existence is governed by laws that the Ignorance cannot impinge upon. It is an irreversible process thereafter, with Time as ally, facilitator, protector.At the very onset of the new Age, the Earth thus became a battleground in the effort to abort the birth process which would signify the demise of the Ignorance as the power ruling over her subjects during this lengthy gestational cycle.This Birth meant a radical shift for the Earth. We may discuss it freely now because as of 1971 the victory in its essence was completed. Since then what remained to be worked into the evolutionary matrix was a revelation of the new Gnosis which would be the ‘laws’ of a higher Purpose governing humanity. Understanding this higher Birth Process can provide answers to the travails the Earth is experiencing. This Gnosis can be seen as the armature of the 4th of the Solar Line who is, according to Tradition, the War God Mars, 4th planet from the Sun. Puranic myth informs us that Mars was formed of the sweat of the Earth from her great labour. And so it did come to pass.Given the Mars factor involved, it is interesting to note that the two world wars surrounded the onset of the new age – the close of the Piscean Age, the birth of the new Aquarian Age. More significantly, it was precisely when in 1938 the Earth was integrated into the threefold harmonic formula that the last great conflagration began (see The New Way, Vol. 3, and The Gnostic Circle, Aeon Books for more details). The wars themselves were a further indication of the times to come, because for the first time they were global involving all the major world players. Thus, the transformation of Mars is the adventure of our times.With this background we realise that history unfolds according to a certain pattern. Like a map it allows the journey ahead to be a conscious one and more easily followed. We do not fumble in the dark in the effort to closet the process into the forms of a past that has little relevance today. I have in mind the much-exploited Maya date 2012, sometimes referred to as the ‘end time’. In my view its significance lies in the fact that finally the Maya civilisation can be laid to rest, its purpose having been fulfilled. The new supramental Gnosis alone is relevant to our civilisation and has the capacity to reveal what has been and what will come to pass. On its foundation we do not predict fragmentarily; the Supermind offers a vision of oneness, of wholeness. And that wholeness is the keynote of our Age.More importantly, the Nazi usurpation of Vedic symbols – even down to the misuse of ‘Aryan’ to designate the rising ‘superior’ race – is the most accurate historical proof that India is the destined centre and soul of the Earth. Out of her womb the Child is born. At all costs that Child of the New Creation was the prize to secure.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director
Aeon Centre of Cosmology

October 2010