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 9th 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 8th 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 9th 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 8th 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 7th 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 20th 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.
