Sri Aurobindo and the Condition of Vedic Wisdom in India

In these very first lines of Sri Aurobindo’s overview of the condition of spirituality in contemporary India, he declares in no uncertain terms what I sought to bring  out in certain Vedic Forums:  If we wish to recover the lost Knowledge, Vijnana of the Veda, we must follow the same method as the Rishis did in their discovery. However, these initial paragraphs indicate perhaps the most important ingredient for the re-establishment of the Dharma, what has struck me above all else as requiring an  in-depth assessment. It is the quality of that Vijnana. I am not so sure that the contemporary Indian mind is able to appreciate the quality of the consciousness in which the Rishis lived and the language that the entire population of the Vedic Age was ‘familiar’ with, to use Sri Aurobindo’s description. In the context of modern Indian spirituality the Vedic language, though passing through the lips of Hindus on a daily basis, must be today largely foreign because it is soulless. That is, ‘… the symbol, the body of the doctrine remained, but the soul of knowledge has fled from its covering’, as Sri Aurobindo wrote in his masterful The Secret of the Veda. This is because the realisation that gave rise to that Language is now absent from the subcontinent’s store of yogic methods, none of which equates the Veda with the later peaks attained through other practices and systems of yogic endeavours. In this analysis, Sri  Aurobindo also makes it clear that the later developments introduced by certain prominent yogic luminaries, drew the spiritual quest in a different direction than what we find in the Vedic Age. I have come upon the same conclusions in my own quest, even when following what would seem to be legitimately a ‘foreign’ journey, far removed, it would appear, from contact with Indian culture.

It is interesting to note that for the members of the Solar Line, 9/6/3 in the descending scale, it is the original Veda that has occupied a position of pre-eminence in all our quests and not the spirituality of the Upanishadic and later periods. These original chapters of ‘The Life Divine’, which were never made a part of Sri Aurobindo’s definitive version of the book in Arya, come to us as a sort of distillation of his yogic attainments up to that point in time. It was akin to a platform from where he was launched into his own refining processes to introduce the next development in spirituality, this time requiring a more global language. The distillation, however, drew him right back to the earliest records the world has of what would have been the highest peaks reached by the human spirit in the exploration of Reality. He did not stop in his quest at the Upanishads, grand as he understood them to be. It was the Veda, particularly the Rig Veda that he knew had brought him to the source. Before all else he establishes that this must be ‘the original starting point’ of the true Vedic process if we wish to attain the same luminous consciousness as that of those earliest Realisers.

The language of the Rishis, we have noted, is cosmic. That is, the cosmic harmonies described by the positions and movement of the components of our solar system are the cryptogram Sri Aurobindo considers to be the essential discovery for the re-establishment of the Sanatana Dharma based on what that cryptogram would lead to. His selection of the word to describe what is required is significant given the role it has played in our 21^st Century society – vide Dan Brown’s world-famous novel, The Da Vinci Code. The discovery of the ‘code’ alluded to by the novel’s cryptogram has been explained in my article, ‘The Leonardo Mania’, where I draw seekers to the true code in the quest inspired throughout the world by this simple mystery novel.  And it is the  same ‘code’ that we find in the Rig Veda. Never before on so extensive and global a scale have Church dogmas been questioned as pointedly and irreverently, if you will, as in the worldwide ‘Leonardo Mania’ Brown’s novel gave rise to. In my article I laid bare the real cryptogram which Leonardo used as the foundation of the Knowledge he incorporated in his masterpieces. It is the same that Sri Aurobindo alludes to in his distillation; and the same I discovered in the Rig Veda – precisely aided by Sri Aurobindo’s own earlier work on the Veda.

 I wish to provide a concrete example of the manner in which different paths may be used to reach the heart of the Veda. But these are not at all outside of the Vedic methodology; they fall right within the parameters of its all-encompassing wholeness but which, alas, was lost when spirituality veered onto a very different course after the Vedic Age came to a close. Thus, poised in the Transcendent plane which in the new cosmology is equated with the number 9, Sri Aurobindo’s number-power by the sum of his year digits, his investigations have been entirely coloured by this position. But it would make no sense or impact for the re-establishment that the Dasavatars are called upon to bring about, unless the equation is complete: 9/6/3. In this descending series Sri Aurobindo’s position is the first, considered ‘above’; whereas the 6 and the 3 play different roles, or express a different approach to the Supreme Reality.

For now I will leave aside discussion of the 6 and move on to the 3 which is my own position in the scale. It corresponds to the Individual of the trinity Transcendent (9), Cosmic (6), Individual Soul (3). These are the three components of the Divine Manifestation and the basis of all creation. They form the primary ingredients of Sri Aurobindo’s own teachings, a direct result of his discovery of the ‘cryptogram’, we must assume.

Cosmology comes into being at the third level because in the planetary harmony it is the third planet from the Sun, the Earth. Vedic cosmogony arises from a penetration within, into the deepest recesses of the human soul (3). And there lies the coveted knowledge of the third level. What is written in this secret Cave is the sacred Script that has been with us from time immemorial, in the symbols of the tropical zodiac with its twelve hieroglyphs and animal pictographs. And since it is the treasure within the Cave of one’s innermost being, it is there for all to discover anywhere on the globe, whatever be one’s cultural background. Because it is the ‘cryptogram’ lodged in each individual soul,  eminent psychologists such as Carl Jung have given pride of place to what Jung described as symbols brought up from the ‘collective unconsciousness’ which, he discovered through exchanges with his patients, was universal and cross-cultural in nature. This symbolism runs throughout the Veda.

More specifically, it is from that innermost Point that the cosmic directions of Vertical and Horizontal cross; and thereby the perfect Centre becomes unveiled as the pillar of one’s being. Across the ages this traditional concept has been maintained, though the actual realisation which an alignment of this Vedic order would bring about was lost. Nonetheless, respect for the concept – that is, the Earth-centred poise – has been faithfully maintained, for instance in astrological tradition whenever horoscopes are drawn up. Science criticises astrology for this very concept and practice. It is certainly not that the ancients ignored the actual celestial mechanics  and the fact that the planets revolve around the Sun and not around the Earth,  as the horoscope construction might suggest; rather the Vedic methodology, which we find reflected in astrology, was far superior to any yogic achievement of the centuries that followed because it is Earth-oriented and its entire cosmology arose through an innermost penetration and not an extension of one’s consciousness into the cosmos beyond our system,  with all that this extension  implies in the quest for a Cosmic Truth such as in the Veda.

This is the key to the difference between the Veda and what followed. It is the point Sri Aurobindo makes when he states that dristi, sruti, smriti and ketu formed the foundation of the Vedic experience. These are illuminations that arise solely within  one’s inner being, never through dissolution of the nexus of one’s consciousness by extension to the Beyond. Yet though this Earth-orientation is the primary ingredient in a true Vedic quest, it’s very first premise, it is entirely overlooked today. Indeed, we have the moderator of the Hindu Calendar Forum referring to such intuitive insights as ‘hallucinations’.

Indian spirituality has lost touch with this ancient methodology. It cannot even recognize the need for a reversal of the spiritual direction any longer. This was  made abundantly clear on the Forum when its moderator and members exclaimed that only astronomy and science could lead to the formulation of a proper Vedic Calendar to replace the Hindu calendar currently in use across India, so woefully inadequate. To them only the ‘scientific’ approach could lead to an understanding of what the Rishis sought to convey in their now obscure texts. Yet we have Sri Aurobindo stating exactly the opposite in the Chapter under analysis: ‘…Logical reasoning and scholastic research can only be aids useful for confirming to the intellect what has already been acquired by revelation and spiritual experience. This limitation (and) this necessity are the inexorable results of the very nature of Veda…’. He is emphatic in denouncing any reliance on both ‘metaphysical speculation’ and science or ‘logical reasoning’ as methods appropriate for discovery of the Vedic Truth. That these are the very methods the Hindu Calendar Forum and other similar groups rely on in their quest to decipher the meaning of the Veda and discovery of the current calendrical formula which they sense lies somewhere hidden in the text, their distance from Vedic Wisdom is made abundantly clear. It is also clear that the condition of Indian spirituality has contributed in no small measure to the loss of this ancient wisdom, that must now be recovered.