‘The more complete your faith, sincerity and
surrender, the more will grace and protection be
with you. And when the grace and protection of the
Divine Mother are with you, what is there that can
touch you or whom need you fear?’
Sri Aurobindo
The Mother
‘A centre precludes any other possibility,
but its own central divine Purpose.’ (1.8.1994)
It is necessary to regress in time in order to provide a background for the contents of the experience I had after the intense act of compressing the consciousness to a point which I described in the concluding part of the last issue, with its attendant passage into the sacred chamber of the soul. The following involves indeed a horse, the first to become incorporated in the Yoga. It was in 1982. I named him Swati because of his cloud-like whiteness, since the Sanskrit root of the word means white. But at the time of naming him I did not realise that Swati is also the name of one of the 27 nakshatras of Hindu astrology. The year is divided into 27 segments in addition to the 12 months. Interestingly, while I called this gift-horse, first Thoroughbred racehorse (retired) in our midst, Swati because of his whiteness, he did indeed come to me during the nakshatra Swati. Its period embraces the sign Libra and the 4.5 Orbit of the Gnostic Circle.
Swati led me on the path of the new yoga. With him I was able to draw the first lines of the yoga of balancing and centering. I have written something of this elsewhere, and also the unusual circumstances of his death (see ‘Animals in the Emerging Cosmos’ TVN 3/4 and 3/5). But what I did not relate then were the experiences I had in the days following his abrupt departure on 24 July, 1984.
Several days after his death, Swati’s consciousness flooded my being and he ‘spoke’ to me from deep within. He promised his ‘return’. I asked in what form. He replied, ‘As a horse, I will always be a horse and I will always be with you.’
I understood from this deep inner contact that it meant the spirit of the Horse, and this is the way I described the matter to those who were studying with me at the time. Moreover, this contact convinced me that not only would another horse come soon but that there were likely to be many! It must be noted that at the time of this experience Skambha did not exist in the panorama of our work and therefore the likelihood of having ‘many’ animals of any sort seemed absurd. Yet the impression left of this encounter and message was so strong that I felt no compunction in announcing this absurdity to others. And indeed, within a matter of days of this communication and shortly after an intensely emotional meeting with Swati on the subtle plane, the means for these ‘many horses’ to come began to take shape when I was offered a Thoroughbred mare for riding by the same stud farm that had gifted me Swati. I was then convinced that Swati would indeed return, possibly through this gift-broodmare.
The meeting with Swati on the subtle plane was filled with emotion. It proved to be a final farewell (in that form). The experience was so intense, so real, vivid, lived, that for days thereafter it lingered on and I was in a highly emotional state, as if the vital being was queered to a pitch of intense vibration.
Thus, Swati had promised his ‘return’ at some indefinite point of time, and I felt it to be more a question of the Spirit of the Horse. It need also be mentioned that by then, after the yogic process of realignment, balancing and centering that this exceptional creature had guided me through, I was well aware of the role of the Horse in the work of the Third Power, and hence of the Vedic wisdom in singing praises to Agni in the form of a White Horse, vahana sacred and supreme of the divine Dawn of the Earth, Usha. For Usha is the Vedic equivalent of the Third Power in the supramental Descent.
The question of vahana or carrier of the Gods and Goddesses is a most important feature in Hindu tradition. In contemporary times we encounter a similar concept in the teachings of the Toltec Master, Don Juan, and the role animals have played in his work with students. The point is that when one touches the extreme innermost depths of the soul, there can be an opening to that essential Energy which feeds one’s being and with which we can scale the summit in the drive to develop our truest and fullest inner truth and inherent potential. In some cases this can reveal itself as a vahana like the horse. To understand this it is required that we understand what the Horse embodiment truly signifies. For example, Sri Aurobindo described this creature as the prototype of the supramental form.
A contemporary ‘Ashwamedha’, or Horse Sacrifice
In these pages I am revealing the singular and precise manner in which the Horse does indeed stand central to a supramental process. Only this animal, as the materialised differentiated Energy (in contrast to the Cow as the undifferentiated Light-Consciousness) can serve us in this manner. In addition, this saga can throw light, in a non-speculative manner, on the countless spiritual insights which for thousands of years shaped themselves in some way around the figure of the Horse. It is because we have moved so very far away from the poise of consciousness of the ancient Rishis that we fail not only to understand their cryptic verses but in our present poise we cannot repeat the same yoga that inspired their hymns.
In the evolution of Hinduism this is particularly clear. Since the advent of realisers who sought to and succeeded in drawing seekers along avenues of a different mystical and spiritual experience than the early Rishis and thereby introducing a cleavage between Spirit and Matter, the capacity to SEE in this essential way, on the basis of the truth-conscious Light, was lost. But, as I have written time and again, this Light and Truth was preserved most faithfully in Myth. Regaining this poise even today, in the midst of a society seemingly alien to the ways and values of old, is possible. The horse can, once again and together with other sacred symbols, become the living embodiment of that highest truth, a truth which caused the ancient Rishi to see the entire universe precisely in the form of a Horse (see the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad).
With this new cosmology and its sacred formula, it is a simple matter to dissect that Seeing and to follow the Rishi step by step in a movement of yoga which caused the sage to see the universe in this form. In so doing, we realise how accurate his yoga was and that it was true and faithful to the highest revelations of the Supreme Consciousness. For if, as I have recorded in these pages, the consciousness of the experiencer is aligned in a certain manner, the circumscribing energies of which the seeker stands central, press in spherically, not allowing the realiser any avenue of escape via the expanding movement of consciousness which results in dissolution, nirvana, and similar realisations. Their aim is precisely to disengage the seeker from this pressure of a circumscribing network closing in and from which no escape is possible in a process of yoga based on a harmony of the Being and the Becoming as equally valid constituents of reality. The only direction allowed is inward, with the consciousness-being of the yogi compressed to a Point.
It is this Point that contains the essence of what the Horse symbolises. When Sri Aurobindo explained the Mother’s passage to the highest realms, and her encounter at the ‘borderline’ with a stallion as the ‘prototype of the supramental form’, in his own way he was repeating the Rishi’s seeing when he too came upon the essence of the universe and saw it as a Horse. The reason is simply what I have stated time and again: the innermost, sacred-most Point, reached by the realiser through compression of the consciousness, forcing a plunge into that Point via the chamber of the individualised Soul, can be ‘seen’ as the Horse because this animal represents the embodiment of that primordial, pure Energy, and therefore the base (Skambha) of our material world. In other words, while the physicist and the scientific cosmologist search for the truth of our origin in a Big Bang and similar theories, the Rishi of old and the contemporary realiser of a supramental yoga will search for the truth of that same Origin through the yogic experience; and this, if indeed it is of a supramental order, will perforce reveal the Point, or the One, as the foundation and first Cause of our existence in this material creation of 9.
But this 9 is the densest form of the 0 essence. Therefore it is a movement from the outer circle of 9, through the 6, and then to the 3; and finally the centre point, or the 0. Plunging into that sacred compact Fulness, or the innermost chamber within the soul, the reversal of consciousness causes the compression or contraction to produce a reversal. Thus the One is ‘born’ of the Zero.
In ancient times the Horse was a living symbol of this truth. The Vedic Ashwamedha was a ‘sacrifice’ similar to our Thoroughbred racing saga of today. That is, the Horse was the One then, as now, and by means of which the field (of the kingdom as symbol) was ordered. Similarly, our racing saga has reached the point where the Horse is the central protagonist of the Sacrifice for the purpose of putting order in the field. This means that from Skambha, where the centre was established through the Yoga of the Chamber and via the collaboration of Swati, these horses, identical to their ancient counterparts in the Ashwamedha, are sent abroad to the outskirts of the ‘kingdom’ (the periphery of the circle, central to which stands Skambha) so that a similar process of ‘conquering’ (read ‘ordering’) can ensue. The student can appreciate by this that it is not an impossible task to transpose the very same experiences of old into modern times with considerable success. Indeed, given the accumulative action of time over the intervening centuries and millennia, the experience today is richer and more promising given its global potential. That is, while in ancient times the field was limited to the known parameters of a particular kingdom, or the ‘field of consciousness’ central to which stood the Rishi, today that ‘field’ has been expanded to embrace the entire planet. We can, given the new cosmology, conceive of a global transformation by which the whole Earth becomes ultimately the one Field.
We may go further in this act of dissection of the ancient experience and by the aid of the new cosmology applied to our Horse Saga, we can understand more of the former symbols without ambiguity. For example, the Vedic image of the Goddess Usha, the Dawn, being ‘carried’ by Agni as a white Steed is a beautifully inspired vision of the direct relationship between the Earth (Usha in her most resplendent and pregnant aspect), or the third planet from the Sun and hence the Third Power, with the Fourth, as the One. And this expresses itself through the form of the Horse. For Agni, according to the ancients, is associated with the planet Mars, and he is also the divine Son. He is, moreover, leader of the hosts and first of the Gods. All these designations are perfectly clear, perfectly true. They speak of the same attributes of the Fourth Power in the supramental Descent, as the One, the Son, the FIRST after the Reversal, which therefore places him in the position of ‘leader of the hosts’ to follow in a horizontal movement after the vertical Descent. These are no longer arcane mysteries when we have a new key of Knowledge such as the Gnostic Circle and the formulas of the new cosmology which we can apply to our contemporary experience and verify in our own society, ostensibly very far removed from the civilisations which produced these ‘symbols’. They are as pertinent today as ever they were in the past. Indeed, our present application is far more all-inclusive and ‘scientific’ (meaning open to scrutiny by all and not reserved for a spiritual elite) since we can relate the formula to the passage of time via the calendar, or the ‘order of events’ as described by the Mother in her 5.2.1969 narration (see TVN 9/6, February 1995).
There is thus no need for recourse to now outdated systems of knowledge based on partial spiritual experiences whose exclusivity perforce created a distorted view of creation – indeed, denying creation any right to a place under God’s truth-conscious Sun at all. Anything but the supramental Gnosis stands exposed today as a partial seeing and realisation. But the old paradigms and habits are difficult to transcend nonetheless, the reason being that to do so requires a genuine effort and sincerity of purpose on the part of the seeker. One must not be satisfied with anything less than the fullest revelation today, if we are to bring about that life divine on this planet which Sri Aurobindo has promised as a thing inevitable in the destiny of the Earth.
‘Savitri’ revisited and the yystery of Release
If we would appreciate the place of the Horse in our discoveries, we must accept the position and role of the Third Power in the supramental Descent. That is, the individual soul and its sublime ‘purpose’ in the scheme of creation. For the Horse as an embodiment of the One is nothing other than that Purpose. Thus it is said that the Third gives birth to the One who in turn is the Fourth. Or, as Sri Aurobindo so magnificently described in the final book of his epic poem Savitri, the Goddess carries back to Earth the soul of Satyavan, or the divine Son, and in her descent takes refuge in a ‘mother’s breast’. Sri Aurobindo explicitly describes the Third in those lines, who is Savitri after her sojourn in realms beyond and who takes birth, carrying the soul of Satyavan within and back with her to take birth on Earth. There are two phases to the mission of this figure in the epic. The first is her sojourn on Earth as consort, or her union with Satyavan; and then her pursuit of Death into those realms beyond, being warned by the Dark Lord that she cannot return from there with her mortal form. And the second thereafter is her return to Earth holding within the soul of Satyavan retrieved from Death now conquered by her power, her subsequent ‘descent’ into ‘a mother’s breast’ and assumption of a new form through which Satyavan, also in a new human form, may be reborn.
These are not enigmatic passages or obscure prophecies which may be interpreted one way or another in order to suit subjective needs of the moment with little basis in the true Seeing and realisation. Once the formulas are known and time has fulfilled itself and those realisations have occurred, the explicit significance of Sri Aurobindo’s words require no contorted interpretation: exactly what he described has come to pass in the precise manner foreseen by him in the first half of this century. But if we refuse to accept the terms of the Descent and insist that only two powers are sufficient for a full transformation, then we are blinded by our intransigence and obscurantism and forfeit our right to ‘see along with the Supreme’ while the supramental creation takes shape in our midst.
In the sculpture I discussed in the last issue, reproduced here once again, the roles of the 6 and the 3 are made clear. The 6 (the Mother) is reposing on the 9 (Sri Aurobindo). These two figures are directly connected, as indeed the 9 and 6 were during their sojourn on Earth in the fulfilment of their joint mission. In addition, the 9 supports the 6. This detail of the sculpture is especially accurate in describing the quality of the Mother’s incarnation and yoga. As the 6 and born under the sign Pisces, she embodied the last of the gunas, Tamas, whose special attribute and contribution in the scheme of creation is a total and most perfect surrender. The whole of the Mother’s life and work, especially noted in her Agenda, published in large part posthumously, bear testimony to this unique attribute, so clearly detailed in the sculpture when studied on the backdrop of the Gnostic Circle’s sacred triangle.
On the other hand there is the 3, behind both 6 and 9, in a sense alone in her representation. Yet while not being directly involved in the play between the 9 and 6, her role is seen to offer as well a support. This time to the 9. Indeed, the sculpture reveals that the 3 sustains the 9; her position behind his figure indicates the unknown element, the hidden support of the 3. The 9 rests on this support. At the same time, the triangular shape of the interplay of these three figures reveals the mutually-supportive roles they play, where eliminating any one would cause the form to collapse.
Regarding Sri Aurobindo’s epic Savitri, the 6, reposing on the frontal plane of the 9, participated with him in the overt joint mission. The 3, the overlapping second portion of the manifestation of that Power, comes from behind, the other side of the boundary of life and death. This is most clearly revealed in the pertinent verses from the epic.
When Savitri follows Death into his kingdom, into the beyond, and must take birth again after that experience, it is difficult to understand how these specific details can be overlooked or interpreted differently, if indeed we consider Sri Aurobindo to have had a superior visionary power and that his epic is the work of that superior act of revelation and consequent prophecy. In point of fact, his vision was the true Seeing, and events have taken shape exactly as he had foreseen. Sri Aurobindo’s epic was faithful to the highest truth of the Supermind. He saw ‘what none have eyes to see’, for he saw the Third, the second overlapping feminine power, carrying that One, or the Fourth Power, within her and back to Earth through the channel of her own physical birth. He ‘saw’ the two, 6 and 3, as channels for the return. To that effect, Sri Aurobindo records the ‘fall’ to Earth for rebirth in the following memorable passages of the 11th Book:
Amidst the headlong rapture of her fall
Held like a bird in a child’s satisfied hands,
In an enamoured grasp her spirit strove
Admitting no release till Time should end.
And, as the fruit of the mysterious joy,
She kept within her strong embosoming soul
Like a flower hidden in the heart of spring
The soul of Satyavan drawn down by her
Inextricably in that mighty lapse.
Invisible heavens in a thronging flight
Soared past her as she fell. Then all the blind
And near attraction of the earth compelled
Fearful rapidities of downward bliss.
Lost in the giddy proneness of that speed,
Whirling, sinking, overcome she disappeared
Like a leaf spinning from the tree of heaven,
In a broad unconsciousness as in a pool;
A hospitable softness drew her in
Into a wonder of miraculous depths,
Above her closed a darkness of great wings
And she was buried in a mother’s breast…
Thus, as embodiment of that Third Power, it is understandable that plunging within according to the ancient Vedic creative process, or indeed as Sri Aurobindo has described above, would have triggered an ‘encounter’ with what that Third holds most dearly and closely within: the Fourth Power, the One, and hence the Horse (for this ‘return’ of Satyavan, it must be remembered, did indeed occur during the zodiacal month of the Horse). Swati, the white Horse, symbol of that Spirit, had thus ‘returned’. In other words, like Satyavan, like Sri Aurobindo himself, such a contraction (of death) must produce a RELEASE of that compressed power.
Death is a force of extreme contraction. It is because the binary poise of the human being cannot sustain that contracting pressure in the present physical structure that one succumbs to a loss of conscious awareness and continuity in time and space that we enjoy before death sets in, or presses in. Changing that poise, re-structuring the consciousness is the way to conquer Death. With this done, with the centering and realignment I am describing in these pages, this spherical pressure can be withstood without escape – through a central void – simply because the void has been filled through birth of the One. This is what it means to ‘conquer death’. The intense contraction in a binary poise cannot be sustained; the pressure must produce collapse upon itself because a binary structure implies a central void. Thus, collapse into that Black Hole at the centre of our consciousness is inevitable. This, succinctly, is the description of a mortal species.
On the other hand, with centering and realignment the centre is no longer a void but is filled by Skambha, the support of the worlds, the One, the sacred male Child. The release of energy, or contact with an immortal and everlasting Source, is what the Horse symbolises. Hence Sri Aurobindo was accurate in describing the stallion at the borderline of the Mother’s experience as the prototype of the supramental form.
This is all a play of Energy. A void means a vacuum, a hole, an empty space, – i.e., without the support of that ‘release’. The ‘pillar’ or Skambha we write of is simply aligned energy resulting from a perfect intersection of cosmic directions on the basis of a true centre. This is the Axis, the Pillar of the universe, indeed – axis mundi. All of this is captured in the Vedic references to Agni, as the One, as pillar, as navel of the world.
And when that ‘release’ comes about causing a ‘return’, as in the case of Savitri and Satyavan, or in this Horse Saga and the return of Swati as the Spirit of the Horse, meaning a particular distillation of that supreme energy the horse embodies, the inevitable outcome is a pouring forth of the light of Gnosis. Thus, immediately after this meeting with Swati on the subtle plane during the early hours of the morning, at 9 AM I began recording in my journal the results of the new ‘birth’. From this point onward I will let this and further entries carry our story forward.
Swati, you HAVE come back! My Lord, how you cried at having been away. And then I ‘saw’ your human form – tall, handsome, athletic and muscular – but kind. It is so hard to remember, there was so very much going on – after 2 AM, after the ‘creation’ probe. I ‘opened’ something. This is the way in this yoga – no forcing but probing, asking, attentive to the answer, the unfolding answer. While I am here I will do this. Then maybe when I return we can start something. It has to go slowly though. This week I will work it out – for I must REMEMBER everything that happens.
The Horse with me the whole time in one way or another – there – the girls…Something big is happening. Let us see.
Why Skambha? Because this helps us to understand the nature of that Point: upheld, propped up but by what? Whom? This is the point. It is suspended. Something sustains it. What is that? According to me it is the forces, directions, pressing in, pushing out. Those (Rigveda) lines about…‘bearers of seeds there were and mighty forces thrust from below and forward movement above…’ This indicates those forces and their interplay which sustains, upholds the Point. But we think of it as linear. Instead it is spherical. But how to convey a spherical point being upheld from all sides? The pillar is the metaphor.
‘Bearers of seeds’ = the WOMB IMPREGNATED
‘Impregnators’ = indeed, impregnating the womb, meaning filling, pressing in.
‘Thrust from below and forward movement above’ = clearly
meaning CONTRACTION AND EXPANSION; forward movement is expansionUpward (from below) is contraction
That lay concealed by endless fragmentation means the Transcendent
undifferentiated – SPREAD OUT.‘Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness,
And all was water indiscriminate. Then that which was hidden by
the Void, the One, emerging.
Striving through power of ardour, came to be’This power of ardour (tapas) is that compression leading to combustion.
It is COMBUSTION, and this only comes TO BE when there is compression.
If there is breath that goes nowhere then that creates combustion,
like holding one’s breath, one bursts. That ‘breath’ held in. It is the opposite
of the 9/apex, its shadow, its void where breath is compressed and bursts.
This is the beauty of the Gnostic Circle. One can SEE this.
The reversal is where the change comes from exhalation to inhalation. The apex/9 is the suspension between: it rises to a peak, plateaus and then slowly releases. But at the 4.5 there is something else. Yes, one is a movement in FULNESS; the other is void, EMPTYING. Hence, if Buddhism stopped at the 4.5 it would end on that note of SHUNYA, the Zero depleted of its fullness. But the movements start at the apex, not the 4.5. That is only halfway in the movement of the Fulness.
Thus indeed the key lies in what happens DOWN THERE, in the bowels. For the human being it is the sex centre and below – the lower chakras in general, from the navel and below.
I know the alchemists and the hatha yogis had this = it is pressing the breath DOWN. I remember something of that: pressing the breath down at exhalation.
I think that the pressing down, moving the breath inside itself as it were, makes in-roads into that emptiness and releases ‘something else’. There is something hidden IN THERE – it has to be released. I have done this by the pressure of circumstances caving in from all sides and then pressing into existence that Point pilloried up – something then presses out in COMPACTNESS. From a sort of COMPACT FULNESS. It is as if the 4.5 is not really an emptying but a compression of the fullness. This is where they made the mistake. Breath appears to empty out leaving a void. But this seems to be only when you start with a void. An empty vessel as it were. Here we are dealing with a womb, a fulness in itself. We want to MOVE that in a trifold rhythm and compress THAT, not empty it.
It becomes clear if we just realise that the womb is of the same essence as that which moves. In other words, the equality of Being and Becoming. It is only when we separate the two that the difficulty arises. Then it is a vessel filled and emptied. But what holds that movement?
The realisers then became fixated on that empty vessel within which the gunas were played out. Since the vessel was empty and extra-cosmic, that was the reality to fixate on. The movement inside the vessel was impermanent, changing, finite. It is sometimes full, sometimes empty. One could disregard it entirely.
But if one SEES that it is fulness by self-law, the power of Ardour, which moves itself in the Becoming without separation, then we realise that the 4.5 is only the point of compression, of compactness of the Fulness which then, by compression (tapas) releases energy. Fulness is transmuted, alchemised to create compactness and then release.
Like breath. One has to press down at the 4.5 of breath. Then the capacity to rise above should be more. This is the principle of interval training – building on that. So true.
10 AM
I have got it. That upholder of Sound (and Silence) is what BECOMES. It is that Transcendent and then upholding as a vessel (…‘darkness wrapped in darkness’…‘indiscriminate’) becomes the substance in the vessel. ITSELF pressed through to the Point, the immanent One.
9/6/3/0-1. This is the supreme Formula. It starts with the all-encompassing, appears to empty out, but really it is compaction – only in this way does the Zero come into BEING. Being has to be related to that Point, not the indiscriminate Vastness. The hymn tells us this: In the beginning there was neither Being nor Non-Being. The whole point of CREATION is the coming into existence = BEING. This is the truth of our material universe which as a vessel houses this eternal process.
The void indeed HIDES Guha and the One. In that ‘void’ one finds the One. If one stops at its portals and does not PRESS IN, one misses the Point. But the only way to get beyond that is by compression inward. This is what none want to do for one has to pass through that zone where one is cut off, like the Hymn tells us…One has to be ALONE. Difficult.
Perhaps this is the fate of the 3. To do her job, to give birth to that Point she has to be ALONE. She cannot be accompanied by the 9 and 6. Alone.
What of F3? Alone somehow, giving birth to the process for the One. She was alone in the beginning indeed. But it seems to have created a bad imprint, that is all.
Clearly this process of an ancient and now forgotten Yoga was a turning point in our racing experience. I returned to Skambha thereafter and continued recording in my journal:
5.7.1994 – 11 AM
It seems to be a mess, all is crumbling. But now back at Skambha a very solid mass is felt inside at the heart centre. Firm. The vital is quiet, calm, determined
I believe firmly that my seeing is true, right, just. I hold to that. If this experiment is meant to succeed, then all will fit in place RIGHT ON TIME. If not, all disintegrates equally right on time.We have indeed reached that momentous time of SHIFTS. Either all falls in place, or it does not, it falls apart. It falls IN PLACE, or it falls APART. I know that my role is simply to hold firm. This ‘holding’ is what assures that the thing does not fall apart. It is this YOGA that assures us of success. This is all one has to do. HOLD FIRM.
Once all the energies are gathered together – meaning in the centre of the field appropriate for the yoga, in this case Bangalore – then holding firm becomes not only essential but it is the only time any holding can be done. That is why everything is surfacing only now. So, the key is to hold firm.
I do not know what ‘success’ means, but I do know that I will be successful, I AM succeeding right now because what I am called upon to do I am doing. If one does what has to be done for the process at every step of the way, then success is assured. Therefore it is important to have someone at the centre who SEES, meaning who knows what to do by knowing at what stage a process is.
I pray for health, happiness, victorious racing for my girls. I pray that no harm comes to them at all in this difficult passage.
12:45 PM
Skambha gives clarity.
Calmness has returned. All is well. Confidently we go ahead.
11.7.1994 – 2 PM
It does indeed seem as if we are in the midst of some converging. Something is shaping up to shift in place ‘right on time’. Or out of place? And it seems a part of the convergence is Eve’s removal of her cast. Or is it when she rides again?
…Perhaps before the end of the season. We shall see.
2:45 PM
Time and space are indispensable for KNOWING. Being does not permit knowing. Hence it is that we state: To become is the purpose of our existence.
Without movement/becoming there is no distance; and it is only distance that permits us to know THAT.
The ‘purpose’ of the material manifestation is for THAT to know Itself. Therefore Time and Space are the great tools of Knowledge which make of the human being God’s image. As humans we have the capacity to be CONSCIOUS channels for the act of Knowing. Through us the Supreme knows Itself. That is, there has to be a certain threshold in the emergence and evolution of a species where this self-knowledge becomes possible.
Thus, if we talk of evolving animals to a higher level, it is foolish when we know that anything higher would require self-knowing. Rather, as we move up we permit animals to experience wider levels of their own species and purpose. This is proven by the horse saga. Their purpose is not to be conscious but simply to be clear channels, indeed VAHANAS, for this act of knowing which the self-conscious species can do.
But Supriya (the dam of the fillies) ‘knew’. She knew me… Yet that was out of the body. Only then could she experience back to herself that knowing.
So, Time and Space are the channels. And it is precisely the ‘substance’ of the Zero = compressed essence of the Transcendent which when it is pressed into our dimension extends, moves as time and space. It is all in the ‘seed’.
The 0 is not a number, properly speaking. It does not define quantity. It cannot be divided or used to divide. It is whole in itself. It is never diminished or increased. It is a CONCEPT. Being beyond the threshold, or the ‘event horizon’, it can be ‘known’ here only by its extensions, by that to which it gives birth. The 0 is the womb-upholder.
In the Gnostic Circle the 0 has no place in the circular progression of numbers from the Apex. It is the Centre. That is its position. The whole of the Gnostic Circle is the extension of the 0. The Apex is often noted as 0/9 – but in effect the 9 takes the place of the 0 in the material universe. On this side of the event horizon we ‘know’ the 0 by its whole extension which is the 9. Hence the 9 is defined as creation in matter by the Mother. Stressing it as a ‘creation in matter’ implies that there may be another ‘creation’ not material. This means the 0 on the other side of the event horizon, before birth of the One. It is the same action of creation; only deprived of a material ‘body’, a universe of time and space.
The greatest aberration of spirituality was the designation of ‘illusion’ or maya to all that moves. The Supreme Consciousness, the Transcendent must KNOW Itself through the becoming which is the extension of Itself in its fullest vibratory essence of 9.
The 0 can never be shunya, emptiness. That is the next aberration. The ‘concept’ can only have arisen in a civilisation which was founded on Fulness – i.e, the Vedic. A Buddhist civilisation could never produce the concept of 0 since the existence of the concept alone negates all nihilistic philosophies and spiritual experiences of the Void and Nothingness. The 0 cannot be equated with Nothingness since it IS. It can never be divided. We cannot know it by its ‘parts’. We can only know it by the extension of itself which is our universe, whole and entire. Each ‘part’ of itself beyond the event horizon is thus the whole 0. Never divided. Always the complete seed-essence of the Transcendent. This is the meaning of centering and sphericality.
Things fall apart…
It was just a matter of days before the above entries were proven true, and with an impeccable ruthlessness so characteristic of the Power guiding our affairs. The sequence of things ‘falling apart’ began with the publication of a letter in a prominent Thoroughbred racing magazine. The genesis of that letter was F1’s last race in Madras in February (see TVN, 9/5, December 1994). The student who accompanied me to that race was so disturbed by what she saw that she wrote a letter to the Stewards of the Club, complaining about the conduct of the race and the over-ruling of the objection raised by Eve. It was a very strong critique of the entire set-up, the jockeys’ behaviour on the track, the administration of the Club, and the general condition of racing at that centre. This letter then found its way to the magazine. It appeared five months later on Derby Day in Bangalore.
The news of the famous letter spread like wildfire throughout the racing establishment. Its contents were not a surprise since everyone knew the position there well. What was shocking beyond belief was the audacity to write this out and brave the consequences. Since that racing establishment was the domain of Magog, and the horses involved in the critique were his, the letter’s publication appeared to be a direct attack on him, though his name was not mentioned. His fury knew no bounds. And since Eve was the jockey in question and had obtained a licence to race from that very club, he seemed bent on revenge. Moreover, he was convinced that she had engineered its composition as well as its publication. He was therefore determined to bring her racing career to an end.
In actual fact, Eve had nothing to do with the letter and never knew of its existence. She was as surprised as everyone else at its publication. But the TIMING of its appearance was the key to the entire drama. In the extracts from my journal quoted above, I had written that I felt things were going to ‘fall into place’, – or indeed ‘apart’ – very soon, and that this would be ‘right on time’. The letter had been sent in February to the stewards; but its publication took almost five months. The issue appeared in mid-July. Very shortly thereafter Eve was to have her cast removed. She would then be in a position at least to start exercising horses on the track though not yet to race for the remainder of the summer season which was nearing its end. But Magog had other ideas.
A campaign was mounted against Eve. A number of jockeys joined in unison to demand her expulsion from racing. Dire threats were heard from different quarters, among which was the threat to her life on the track. Those who felt a certain compassion for her plight over this gang-up advised her to quit racing at once; they sought to convince her that she would never be allowed to succeed, and that even her life was in danger. Was it worth it at her age?
At the centre of the storm was, of course, the famous race and the catalytic input of F1. The video tape of the race was available but it was purported to hold the proof that the person who wrote the letter was an ‘amateur’, and knew nothing about racing. Even with visual evidence the truth of her complaint was sought to be denied. Moreover, this companion of mine to the race that day was proclaimed a fictitious entity. The word was circulated that Eve and I had written the letter and that this mysterious person whose name was used did not really exist.
As fortune would have it and for no apparent reason, without knowing anything of what was transpiring in Bangalore, I invited that same person to accompany me once again for F2’s 17th race which was to be run on the 17th of July, that is, just a few days after the letter appeared. We reached Bangalore on the 16th. The fictitious Madam X was therefore on the scene in the midst of the explosion her letter had caused and able to prove her existence. Once everyone was convinced that she did indeed exist, and once she circulated a statement that she was ready to be questioned further on the race, the steam went out of the threats to sue and all guns were again turned fully on Eve.
At the root of the overreaction of many of the jockeys was Eve’s retainer as main rider in Gog’s stable. Indeed, from the first day her appointment was made known she became the target of jealousy, mostly from the younger jockeys. But even some senior jockeys were upset that a newcomer like Eve should be given a position which would normally go only to a top experienced and seasoned rider. Making confusion worse confounded was the fact that this was the only woman rider in their midst. Hence the ‘affront’ was especially intolerable. The gang-up Eve was subjected to, fuelled by Magog and his men, was in large part due to this smouldering resentment on the part of many of her companions on the track. In the bargain, the time had come for Eve’s cast to be removed, which meant that she would soon have to take up exercising Gog’s horses during the morning workouts, though not permitted to ride in a race until the surgeon had issued a fitness certificate. She would therefore be thrust up against their antagonism daily.
When I arrived in Bangalore, knowing nothing of what had erupted just a few days before, I found Eve without her cast, much to our mutual joy, but in an evident state of emotional distress. When questioned, the first announcement she made was that Gog had fired her the very day her cast had been removed, – 15th July, a day of 9 number-power. This needs to be mentioned because hereinafter the power of 9 continuously came to the fore.
Magog had secured his ‘pound of flesh’. He had not succeeded in getting the Club to revoke her secondary licence which permitted her to ride in Bangalore, but Gog had succumbed to intense pressure and fearing to make an enemy of Magog, all-powerful as he was, he obliged and broke his contract with Eve. Having done so on his own – claiming that she was ‘too controversial’ due to her association with me – created the situation that he would have to honour the terms of the contract until its expiry in March of 1995. That is, while removing the transport facility he had provided for Eve for her use, he would nonetheless be obliged to continue paying the monthly rent as well as the monthly retainer fee. In this sense, nothing at all had changed.
But Eve was visibly distraught. I sensed immediately that she had been put through a very taxing few days and that she was nearly collapsing under the weight of it all. But more distressing for her than all the animosity, it seemed to me, was the loss of her job. She had become greatly attached to her new experience and the importance it gave her on the track, especially since it was proof of her talent as a rider as well as a means to maintain her ‘independence’. In spite of her cast she had been regularly visiting Gog’s stables, trying to sort out his problems there. But the opposition of his trainer had finally made her daily appearances impossible. She was therefore giving more time to observing the training of my fillies since there was little else for her to do under the circumstances. When her cast would be taken off she would, of course, start riding Gog’s horses again, as well as mine. It was a mystery to all of us, however, how this would work out given the unwillingness of the trainer to accept her presence. Gog was insistent though that she should continue. But when the ‘scandal’ broke out the opportunity was seized by the trainer as well as the jockeys to mount a campaign, fuelled by Magog and his men, and Gog submitted to the pressure and fired her.
At the same time, the campaign continued to have her removed entirely from the racing scene. Gog’s failure to support her in her moment of need exposed his own failings. Indeed, at moments of truth such as these, everything and everyone stands exposed in the naked truth of one’s being. Each day that passed brought further exposures. Magog was like a raging lion and the whole racing establishment trembled with every roar. We had suddenly become pariahs since association with us might induce another great roar. Adam too felt the fall-out. The offer of a horse to help make up his count of ten for a licence was withdrawn, with the owner unabashedly stating his need to ‘survive’ as the reason. We had, without a doubt, rushed in like the proverbial fools where none were daring to tread.
The result of this untimely explosion could not be overlooked in the context of the formation of our team-centre: Eve lost her ‘independence’ and found herself thrust back into the centre, her rightful ‘place’.
Things fall into place…
It had never been my intention to deal with the force Magog represented directly, largely because I did not feel any direct confrontation would be necessary since his operation was not based in Bangalore. Indeed, it was this very fact that gave me a measure of confidence that nothing untoward would happen to any of us. This confidence was born largely of cosmological considerations, a question of ‘strategy’ and the nature of a centre, both in the deeper sense of the yoga as well as the more surface meaning. Magog was not on his ‘home turf’, as it were. But I was on mine, and with me stood my team. I felt confident that he was weakened by this ‘off-centredness’ and that our Club would not wish to fight his battles for him by obliging to remove Eve from its list of jockeys.
Moreover, I had already done considerable spade work in this regard. Our position vis-à-vis the parent club was gradually being harmonised, in particular after the dreadful experience of seeing the catalytic F1 whipped mercilessly in her March 18th race because of a clever manoeuvre to keep Eve off her in that race. I had mounted a campaign threatening the Club with exposure since these accumulated actions to impede Eve from riding, particularly her restriction to a ten-horse field, could be interpreted as gender discrimination. They were thus unwilling to add another issue to the list of my complaints.
Over the days I spent in Bangalore while the storm was raging and the campaign against Eve was gaining momentum, my only question was her assessment of the behaviour of the stewards in her regard. As suspected, she replied that they seemed quite normal and unperturbed by the matter. Thus, my assessment appeared correct: Magog was out of his centre and his powers were thereby greatly diminished. But his horses were among the very best in the country and his breeding/racing operation was one of the biggest and most successful, not to speak of his prominence in many other areas. In other words, weakened or not by being ‘off-centre’, his was a considerable force to reckon with. Moreover, his reputation was of devastating ruthlessness where racing was concerned; hence the fear he engendered by the pressure he was able to apply was well-founded. Magog could stand as the prototype of the Toltec master don Juan’s petty tyrant with unlimited power.
It was also not exactly a surprise that the third element of our team, the jockey, was under severe attack just when she would soon be riding again. The precise timing of this latest episode, just when her cast came off, convinced me that there was far more to the matter than appeared on the surface. I sensed the Power in full ‘control’ of each and every detail of this drama. The very fact that the letter had mysteriously surfaced five months after it was written and its publication coincided with the removal of Eve’s cast, left me no doubt but that something was brewing. The ‘falling apart’ might take an unexpected turn at any moment. Furthermore, the presence of the 9 number-power in the midst of it all added to my confidence of a ‘happy ending’.
But I could not ignore the human element. Eve was visibly miserable at having lost her job, and there was no denying that I and my group might be held somehow responsible for the infamous publication. Nonetheless, she valiantly braved the storm since by that time, given the pressures and ‘controlled blows’ she had already received, she too sought to understand the strategy beneath the appearances and not resist the inevitable. She was not able to ride in a race since a fitness certificate had yet to be issued by the attending doctor, but she still went about exercising my horses assiduously in morning workouts. The two jockeys who had been mentioned in the published letter were also exercising Magog’s horses which were based in Bangalore, since there was no racing in Madras. And they were determined to make Eve’s life a misery under any possible pretext by lodging complaints with the stewards for any lapse she might make, real or invented.
Since we had reached the point of a final consolidation of our team-centre, it seemed as if a host of forces were being unleashed, on the order of a final gasp before death. It seemed quite certain that racing promised to be a transformed sport once such a nucleus of truth would stand in its midst. This would be the surface assessment; it involved the ‘sport’ of Thoroughbred racing. But there was a deeper level to assess, the fact that such a nucleus would perforce have an impact on the macrocosm the nucleus was central to. The impact would ultimately be felt throughout this larger ‘system’. Thus, that such a virulent upsurge of opposition and unleashing of destructive forces surfaced right then was understandable given the structures of various hues and dimensions which might be threatened by our consolidated presence. In the final analysis, the jockey is the most vulnerable component of the triad, on the ‘battlefield’, so to speak, given his/her prominent position and the fact that everything is decided in the race on the basis of the performance of jockey and horse. At the same time, in the social ladder of the racing hierarchy, the jockey stands at the lowest rung. A strong-willed confidence and upright stance at this lowest position is the gravest affront to the powers-that-be. All of this played upon the situation throughout the remainder of the summer season, with no respite even for a minute. Indeed, its repercussions would be felt perhaps for the remainder of our racing experience.
The very next problem to surface concerned the catalytic F1 directly. The time had come for her second sweepstakes race. It may be remembered that a new regulation had come into effect, stipulating that out-station horses could participate in Bangalore racing only if they were entered in at least two sweepstakes races. F1, in my understanding, did not qualify for any race other than handicaps, given her unknown pedigree status. Be that as it way, both her entry fees had been accepted and not contested by anyone. She was thus taking part in the season’s races as she had always done. But without Eve exercising and riding her, she had not accomplished much at all in the two or three races she had already run.
It may also be remembered that the date of the first sweepstakes had already come up, but the new trainer had scratched her, as well as F2, considering them ‘unable to compete’. Therefore, F1’s participation in such a race had not been challenged. On 23rd July the second sweepstakes was to be held for which her entry fee had been accepted with no objections from the stewards. The new trainer again felt that F2 ‘could not compete’ with the superior Class 1 horses and should be scratched (she had been entered in the same race), but he agreed to let F1 participate in order to set the precedent I was interested in establishing given her unknown pedigree status and the limitations this engendered. Thus, her name was left in.
There was another point in addition to the above: I had been obliged to pay heavy entry fees for these sweepstakes for both the fillies, yet each time they were scratched these fees were lost without my horses having the opportunity at least to place in the race and thereby cover those high costs. I was determined not to let this happen again. If at the last minute objections would surface, the fact that the entry fee had already been accepted without objection would oblige the Club to reimburse the entry fee in full.
The storm was still raging as the day of the race approached. I was uneasy because F1 was not in her best condition and certainly did not stand a chance against the calibre of horses she would meet in the race. It was important to set a precedent, but I feared that the strain might cause her an injury or some other untoward experience. Thus, on 20th July, just before the last date for scratching, I wrote in my journal,
9:15 AM
What a mess – mainly the sweepstakes. With F2 it was not too bad. With F1 it could be a disaster. I pray for help to force me to do what is right, best, true, wise for her, no other consideration. I have no illusions about placing. I only want her to do a good race FOR HER. But if even this is not possible, then help me to withdraw her by arranging things to happen that way. I am not going to withdraw her on my own because I just do not know what to do. If in light of the above she should not be in that race, then do the needful through the stewards or whoever (just spare harm to her…). I am helpless.
Help us, all of us, animals and humans involved in this experience, fighting for the good and the true, struggling to forge the nucleus. I have seen more clearly than ever the truth of this process and how important it is to leave EGO out of that inner space. It is hard and it is easy. All one has to do is centre oneself in the Divine Purpose, on that something outside oneself, bigger than one’s small self and one’s isolated, petty concerns. In Eve’s case it was so very clear. Her involvement with Gog was HER thing, her separate world, her anchor OUT THERE, out side of the nucleus. That simply had to go, and she would never have done it on her own. It had to be ruthless. She would not have resigned, always using money as the excuse. It had to be DONE, and right on time.
I must centre myself. I must hold firm. I must realise that all this is happening just to get Eve out of Gog’s world and centred in the process, the three elements in the nucleus. All the threats, all the fall-out, court cases, deaths, etc., are nowhere in the picture. It will fizzle out if I do not feed it. I am convinced of it because there is no question of transforming (Magog). I knew better than anyone else that you do not change that force by a frontal attack. You change him by rendering him irrelevant. This the Force can do once the nucleus at the centre is in place.
I see it now. I must hold to this seeing. No feeding the monster because it is not a question of truth or falsehood winning or losing. It is just a function to get Eve into the nucleus. Once this is done the rest is superfluous. One does not attack a Magog type head on. One renders him irrelevant. And this is happening now. This is his despair. The centre he controls entirely is irrelevant. But he cannot get out of the bind. Let him be. He will scream, howl, threaten – only because he knows he can do nothing. If he really wanted to finish us off he would DO it, not SAY it…
…Now, all energies must be directed toward the forging of the nucleus.
6:05 PM
At least if the Power would collaborate once for a spectacular fairy tale race, the kind in kids’ books, the magic of a rank outsider winning! Forget placing. Winning! Mon Dieu, what a dream come true…
But I suppose just the fact that I ask this means that I have not understood why we are here. For, after all, are we meant to win or place in a sweepstakes? Is that part of the ‘plan’, or the process? Surely not. We are here just to consolidate a nucleus with a centre that HOLDS. We are here to transmute those Mars energies and resuscitate India in the process. We are here to redeem the energy in money and release that power. But it seems none of this has anything to do with winning much less a sweepstakes. Or does it?
How are we to gauge the process? All gathered together? That is just one part. There is the training, and what is training for? It is to extract the most of a horse – meaning to win. But for that she has to be in her true class for her true potential. I have always felt that her true class was 1. Perhaps now we shall see…
21.7.1994 – Noon
…I pray with all my heart that nothing untoward happens to F1, or any of the horses. But if these ‘sacrifices’ have happened before , why not now? Before they were to protect me, but now?
Perhaps there is no logic in a ‘sacrifice’ now. Perhaps we are not in physical danger. Surely (the control over) Eve’s accidents seems to indicate that we should be confident, trusting. Have I brought these horses here to have them harmed or killed? Have I got Eve into this to have her ‘finished off’? Surely this cannot be. As I see it we need these elements to form that nucleus – 3+3, insofar as they are the triune powers. What is the point in breaking that up?
22.7.1994 – 8:10 AM
What seems incredible to me is that all this might end in a splitting up of the nucleus rather than a consolidation. But is that what has been planned? I had seen that Eve would not ride for Gog and that he was just used to get her here. This being so, everything happening now is consistent with that seeing. The only problem is the danger…But is that ‘gathering together’…I do not believe we have come this far, against all odds, just to fail. We are meant to succeed, and any of us (the girls included) who are eliminated from the nucleus means failure. Since this is not to be, then somehow we will get through.
I succeeded in the Skambha consolidation when everything was against me. Everything and everyone. Once that was over we could seriously begin the work here. This is simply an extension of that. Clearly this was not possible until that consolidation had occurred.
If the method works and the formula holds, then it means that the centre of this affair is a very solid SKAMBHA (pillar). This is unshakeable. It means all I have to do is HOLD FIRM. Then ALL this serves the purposes of the One. It means that whatever peripheral agitation there may be, it will always end in serving our purposes.
At Skambha we were similarly in the eye of a storm. Everything ‘they’ did, once out in the open, turned against them. And when in the open it went faster. This must pertain here. We are all in the middle of danger. But surely these characters are not meant to succeed in finishing off the nucleus. So, it means that ALL their attacks must serve to expose them more and more. If I hold firm we are saved. Me. Anyone central.
On the morning of F1’s race I went to the track. There I saw in the race book that though her name was listed along with the other horses, she had not been allotted a starting number or a gate position. Something had happened, she had been disqualified. I then learned of the shower of protests over her entry, an ‘unknown’ in a sweepstakes race. These protests had apparently come mainly from Magog’s corner. Indeed, a prized filly of his was entered and favoured to win. And so, once more Magog had made his power felt.
But what none knew was that this protest had served out purposes well. F1, as I wrote above, was in no condition to take on such competition without Eve in the saddle. Therefore I was greatly relieved that she had been disqualified. While still at the track I was given a letter from the Club. A mistake had been made, her entry should not have been allowed, therefore the fee was being returned in full. All was as it should be.
I returned to Skambha leaving behind a situation which continued to cause deep concern. Since Magog had not succeeded in getting Eve out of racing, nor was the threat to sue a real alternative, what was left was the direct threat to the jockey on the track. At the same time, I was concerned that we were not yet in the right harmony and interrelation as a nuclear compound in order for a certain protection to be active and permanent. The attacks Eve was subjected to in a sense served to fortify the binary polarity she shared with Adam. This was not conducive to the smooth action of the Supramental Shakti; nor was it wise under the circumstances when only something of a higher power could provide real security via a vast and wide ‘seeing eye’, as it were.
It was all too clear that a proper alignment in the nucleus, formed as it must be of three elements, is difficult to achieve when two of these are mutually supportive of each other. In a situation of this order, the ‘purpose’ which binds the nuclear elements together from its centrepoint is undermined. It cannot serve as pillar, as ‘support’ in such a process. Instead of turning to that Support, the binary elements lean toward each other thereby creating an imbalance, an undesirable tilt.
Thus, during this period I found myself in the unpleasant position of having to focus my attention on disengaging the energies caught in this binary polarity so that the required harmony could ensue. It is for this reason that in normal circumstances a process of this nature cannot succeed when a strong emotional bond exists between any of the nuclear components. At the same time, the task at hand was to extend the consolidated Skambha ‘centre’ into the world by stages. That is, the 3- and 9-part symbol of the Third Power, which I reproduced in the October (TVN 9/4) issue, had to be forged out there, as an extension of the periphery of the original circle. Thus, elements out there were required. They could not be yogis, or recluses, since the method for this activity involved a lived experience in life and in the midst of the old which we seek to transform. The question is logically, What does such a transformation mean?
For a supramental transformation to succeed in this transitional stage the key to success lies in obliging the energies in the extended field to serve the purposes of the One, even while remaining totally unaware that any such process is transpiring and that they are participants. This is required because ‘serving the One’ means that a COSMOS has come into being, a movement out of Chaos. This is the first definition of a higher process and a true new world order on Earth.
In this type of establishment, success can be gauged in a sense when a certain threshold is reached and in rapid succession ‘things fall into place’. What this means is that the nuclear components lock into ‘orbit’ as it were, binded by the Centre which ‘holds’; and this permits a series of engagements, of interconnections to precipitate.
I realised that the drama we were living through, particularly Eve’s distressful experiences on the track, were engineered to thrust us back upon ourselves, riveted to that central divine Purpose, eliminating all that might stand in the way such as Eve’s attachment to her independence and therefore to her position as Gog’s jockey. But I was also aware that this sort of extreme insecurity generated for the purpose of disengaging energies, for those who are unfamiliar with systems of self-perfectioning such as the Integral Yoga, tends to call forth a contrary response. Thus it was clear that the binary polarity was being strengthened, since to expect participants of this unorthodox team to understand and to accept the Divine as sole companion and support of one’s life is perhaps too much to ask. Yet it was clear that without the proper poise between us and then to that central Purpose, we would fail in our endeavour.
There was, however, one key which was at out disposal, one item which served to bind us on the human level. This was our common love for horses, and in this particular case, the near devotion we all felt toward these fillies who were indeed the embodiments of something quite unique and compelling. This love outside ourselves and the dedication it commanded was a powerful component of our unusual enterprise. It signified, for one, that our approach to Thoroughbred racing had as its central motivation this love above and beyond all else. And in my case, I could not fail to stand in awe before these creatures who were constantly revealing themselves as vessels of a power and light that moved in them and through them with a purity rarely seen elsewhere. At every moment they were limpid channels of the Supramental Force, and as such the yoga could be learned through them, as indeed through Swati earlier on. The question was, How to carry this purity over to the rest of the protagonists so that no contamination would undermine out work which was clearly poised to cross a formidable threshold?
Thus, back at Skambha I was absorbed by the problem of having to use instruments who were ‘of the world’, as it were, and yet respect the demands of the process and its stress on a central purity and turn to the Divine. On 25 July, I wrote in my journal,
I remember how my vital was tamed. It too was like an obstinate horse. Not wild but centred on its own ‘purpose’, not integrated, not the vahana along with the physical. All that changed in Rome in just a matter of months. Since then this vital has always been given to the Divine. Even in situations where one could say it was drawn out to the fulfilment of its own purposes, it was never ‘out of my control’. Never. Always the Divine Purpose was central and finally determined my choices. But they were no choices really. That original surrender never budged.
I was ‘tamed’ by the Presence, the power of the Supramental Shakti. In Eve’s case I pretend to do the same thing human to human. It seems impossible. Yet I am given help by the force of circumstances. They work for me in the taming process. I also remember how everything had to be knocked out to give that complete surrender, make the full turn to the Divine. Or rather, the whole being centred on That, not the human.
This is why I attack the Adam connection so persistently. It is because while it is central to her involvement, the other can only be peripheral. If involvement from the beginning was because of him, as it seems, then is there any hope of succeeding?
Now I really do not know what to expect. It seems that will not change. I have no power to change it. And if not, this will reflect on the Process. This means a central contamination. Yet I am helpless. I can only bring pressure to bear and pray that this is sufficient to get the right thing done. What I do not want is any interference from my likes and dislikes. It is unthinkable that any such ‘contamination’ would exist. I refuse it.
What was present in my yoga and helped me through was the Power of Love. Perhaps I should make use of it more. But if it is not psychic then there are even bigger problems. It has to be centred there, not elsewhere. Then it conquers.
30.7.1994 – 9:25 AM
Everything is so blocked, and continuously. The adversaries are exalting – or are they? Clearly they have got what they plotted for: Eve off the course through trying to pin the letter on her. Now they can only try to trip her up at every step of the way. And she does not help by her foolishness…
…The fact is that with Adam there and me, it is hard to get Eve. She is supported in and by the trinity. Therefore these powers attempt by all means to shatter the nucleus before it becomes consolidated; for once that happens we cannot be harmed or dislodged. Obviously they will try to impede Adam from getting a licence, but that too will fail.
Interesting how Gog was not permitted to be a part of this process. When the crunch came, the time to forge the nucleus with Adam at Bangalore, Gog was pushed out… He could not be there to give ‘support’ because the only support for this nucleus lies in the power of the One. The nucleus generates its own power of protection from WITHIN ITSELF. As before, so now. We are vulnerable, fighting a formidable gang-up of forces, just like before. The only support then was in holding firm to THAT, that Axis of Light.
Now it must be the same thing. We are not going to have support in anything but THAT, the power of Truth. Somehow circumstances will have to arrange themselves to permit this Power to do its job. It is a VICTORIOUS power, it knows not defeat. Delay perhaps, retreat perhaps – but not defeat. We will conquer. We ARE conquering right now…
…It has to be a consolidation of the nucleus and [with?] no support from outside.
Yoga in the Core of Simultaneous Time
Things at the track took a rather bizarre turn at this point. The antagonistic jockeys who were trying to get Eve’s licence to ride withdrawn, made a serious attempt one morning to engage the help of the stewards in their nefarious machinations. They did not succeed, of course, but this latest attack served to fortify or consolidate within Eve a determination to succeed and to overcome all adversities. What was needed was clearly a means or a ‘strategy’ to bring out a certain fierce determination FROM WITHIN herself. An inner strength of this sort, indispensable for her as a jockey in a high risk sport, apart from all other considerations, could not be planted in her from outside. It had to be instigated, driven out from the deepest part of herself. This was achieved by the latest attack, proving in the process that all, negative as well as positive, was indeed serving the purposes of the One.
On my part, my own participation had reached a critical turning point. The probing I was engaged in, the questioning, the awareness of the levels where real success could be attained, was becoming clearer by the minute. Thus, at the very time Eve was being put through her most taxing test in Bangalore, perhaps the moment of her definitive breakthrough to another category as a professional, I was engaged in what later was revealed to be the decisive movement of Yoga which carried us across the threshold and reversed our miseries into moments of supreme joy and fulfilment. Our darkest hour was transformed into our moments of most resplendent Light.
On the first day of the month of August, I began recording certain movements of yoga in my journal, starting at the surface and then moving deeper and deeper into the heart of our ‘purpose’. The discoveries I made then, though not new as such, were seen in such a new light that a formidable power was released; and this power became the fuel, as it were, for our subsequent crossing. Though I was aware of the difficulties Eve was facing, at a certain point communication between us was cut off and I had no direct news. But in the subtle atmosphere that surrounded our mutual participation, she ‘received’ this force and it served to help her forge that determination which was vital to our endeavour.
The position of the racing experience was that Eve was exercising the horses, but nothing else. She was still to receive a fitness clearance and the end of the season was approaching. F2 had been entered in an important race for the last day. Subsequent to that, in the hands of the jockey all had hoped would bring about a win, she continued to fail in the last 200 metres. Eve, as well as I, explained to him what was needed for her to win. But he seemed incapable of understanding, though he was an experienced rider with many wins to his credit. Eve wanted him to give the filly a ‘breather’ after the steep rise for which Bangalore track is notorious, and then ask her to kick off again in the final stretch. Eve was certain that the filly would respond. She knew her well. She had brought her her first win. But time and again the jockey would fail to execute the strategy.
F2’s races followed a consistent pattern. She would be the first out of the starting gates and immediately take the lead, setting a gruelling pace for the other horses. Her initial speed was becoming legendary and none, even the best, could keep pace with her. But such speed cannot be kept up relentlessly; there was to be somewhat of a pause, especially after the steep incline of that particular turf. But with such a lead this would normally not pose any problem. However, the jockey seemed unable to contain his anxiety, relax the filly and allow her to replenish her breath.
Finally she was once again the favourite, and when his failure to listen to these simple instructions brought the same results, we decided that in her last race of the season, another jockey should be called in. F2 was in the best condition of her career; it was pathetic to see this wonderful creature mishandled. She had finally been promoted to Class III, but not through a win. Rather, her handicap had increased with each second and third place, until finally she found herself at the top of the scale; with her latest second, she was promoted. In other words, she seemed incapable of actually winning a race in that lower class and had to reach Class II in this unspectacular fashion.
Eve, of course, could not take her in the race as yet. In the meantime, she was being attacked severely by the two jockeys who were determined to see her off the course. Meanwhile, at Skambha I began the decisive movement of yoga:
1.8.1994 – 1:15 AM
It seems we are really in need of help. Out there it is tough. It looks like we are going to collapse under the weight of this. There are so many dangers lurking everywhere to humans, horses. I call for your protection. At every moment the Divine Grace must be with us, overseeing everything. I call upon You to be with these people and animals who are up front.
We are so vulnerable. Anything could happen. Our enemies are so, so powerful…How can I succeed with such vulnerability? It is only possible if the holding firm is a fact and is sufficient to keep us rooted in the process and by this centrality the attacks pass us by without harming us, any of us.
But with such viciousness out there someone will have to absorb that. In the past the animals did. Will it have to happen again? Does it mean that we have made no progress at all?
Surely if the work at Skambha succeeded then the transposing to Bangalore is as controlled as this, a mere extension. It means that there is only one centre and that lies here and in me. It means that it is this holding together. The work of centering is done. Bangalore is possible only because of that accomplishment. Indeed, everyone was being made ready to then converge in Bangalore.
When I look back it is clear that all this was planned long back. It means that success at Skambha was certain, therefore all of them were being readied – horses and people. And when that was over and done, they were drawn to Bangalore. But they were waiting in the wings as it were. Ready and waiting.
This therefore will not fail. If failure was a ‘possibility’ then there would not have been the ability TO HOLD. The centre would not have been forged. I see this clearly now: a centre precludes any other possibility but its own central divine Purpose.
This is an amazing discovery. How is it that I never came upon it before: the coming into being of a centre means that there is only one truth central to the cosmos, and it is only this that can evolve in that cosmos.
So, we seem so vulnerable and foolhardy. The reason is that only we are protected by the nature of the cosmos which is not accessible to the attackers. Rather, it is foolish of me to doubt because there can be no doubt once the centre has come into being, once the centre IS. This is why TRUST IN ME was always the message. It cannot be otherwise. That is, the control over every detail in the cosmos is ineluctable once centrality exists, is. Only then is EVERYTHING at the service of the One.
I know this was DONE. Because it was, we are engaged in the present war. Therefore we will win because we have already won. The central Purpose IS. In that sense it is BEYOND time and space because it is in the centre of simultaneous time. It does not require time or space TO WORK OUT its truth. That truth IS. Time and space are then needed TO MANIFEST that truth – not to work it out susceptible to many possibilities.
Therefore the outcome of such an uncentred experience has to be unpredictable. The only time prediction is possible is when the person by the force of circumstances happens to become aligned with his innermost central truth. This is not often but it does happen in the course of one’s life.
I feel replenished now, able to do my job. I only wonder why this had no effect on the temple episode. I could never bring the victory THERE. But who knows, maybe there is more to that. All may not be said and done.
1 PM
The more news that comes in the more inspired I get to pursue the matter to the finish. Who is going to be finished off? The more powerful the opponent, the greater the meaning and impact of his defeat…
…But I am now fully inclined to believe that all this has been meticulously arranged to provide me the circumstances to conquer. That is the point. The control over the circumstances is in order to arrange the field, the periphery so that it is the proper container or arena for the Purpose to manifest. NOT FOR ANYTHING ELSE.
That is why this seemingly horrible stuff, beginning with the letter, happened. The letter was the catalyst to start arranging the circumstances in Bangalore for the Victory. Nothing else. The timing was perfect. They do have power, but that is part of it: Ilvala (a mythological titan) has to release it, hand it over to the Goddess Saraswati (the sage Agastya, see TVN 9/3, August 1994). A weak opponent is meaningless. That is why Durga takes on Tarak, mightiest Asura of them all. When she conquers, his power goes to her…
Now it is Magog. ‘Before him all trembled…’ Well, I cannot back off now. I can only go forward. But I do so now greatly replenished in strength and conviction. I see clearly now that the mechanism is holding. That the timing and control are perfect. This means that all that is arranged in order to give us the field exactly right for the Victory. The problem concerns India. It is indeed Mars and the Kshatriya caste…All this has to be redeemed. And it will be so. It will be so simply because IT IS SO.
This is the beauty of simultaneous time. When one sees into that core, like a crystal ball indeed, there is great power. The Power of Truth is this knowledge into the Divine Purpose. If one SEES that divine One, that Child, then one moves along very confidently. One knows WHAT IS. Then the circumstances can only arrange themselves to allow that to manifest.
Negative and positive are used. Eve no less than all of us. The stakes are big, tremendous. But the winner has already won!
Firm as a rock. I feel my whole being firm as the rock of the Skambha Falls. This is all these people need. If I hold FIRM like this, they need nothing else, no other help. And it is done.
It was at the time I was living these experiences that Eve was right then being subjected to untold misery on the track by the gang-up of jockeys hostile to her, and our endeavour in general. But it soon became very clear that this too was part of the ‘control’ over the periphery. Indeed, it was this final gang-up, with the jockeys insisting that she be allowed to trot horses in the school only and not gallop them on the track, for which she was, in their view, incompetent, that finally instigated her to forge that inner determination and strength she needed to graduate to another class as a jockey. All sentimentality, timidity and a certain common female desire to be liked and accepted, in this case to be one of the group vanished. The experiences I was having, the act of ‘holding firm’ which I felt was the only means to instil the strength in the instruments up front was immediately felt by her. She later reported that indeed new strength filled her being and she was able to deal with the situation in a way she could never have done before. As far as the actual racing was concerned, this was the final ingredient needed. The rest followed suit and all the pieces began falling into place in rapid succession. But at Skambha I had no news of the details of what was transpiring in Bangalore. Meanwhile, I continued the entries in my journal that evening:
7:30 PM
The fact that we call it centering is what means no possibilities – only the One, the Divine Purpose. It is because we think LINEARLY that we cannot understand a spheric process. Spheric means a centre exists like the core of the Sun. Then it means that there is only one POINT from which the involved manifests. A centre indeed precludes failure of the Purpose, failure to hold.
When people refer to evolution, or even ‘working out’, it is always an unknown. Anything is possible because linear processes are susceptible to OUTSIDE forces. A centred process is susceptible only to its own compulsions. A truth of this nature MANIFESTS, not evolves.
The new prediction is not what will happen alone but the process to that. In this one can predict very accurately. Vulnerability of the Warriors is what draws the opponents out, this is what EXPOSES. And exposure is important because it weakens the opponent. But it can only be done when they attack a void. Otherwise we could not hold firm, be still, and let it all happen. As they plot, rant, rage, they are serving the Purpose, they are creating the proper conditions for this VICTORY – because the Victory already IS, in simultaneous time.
The SEED. It is all in that. Eve could know her participation by the seed. All that has to come out. But the important thing is a CENTRE THAT HOLDS. This is the very most important thing.
(I do not know what is going on out there. And indeed, we are kept incommunicado.)
The key is growth, or manifestation from within. A child grows from a sperm and egg. But when it is born its environment plays upon its evolution, its growth. The food it eats, the air it breathes, etc. But that child does not have CONTROL over its ‘field’ of life. Whereas, the gnostic being, because it is born differently, can arrange those circumstances so that his/her inner Truth manifests.
In the Supramental Creation the One and the Many must be harmonised and integrated. The reason is that without that there is no possibility for the inner Truth to manifest. It would get deformed by the play in the periphery.
The shadow-temple’s walls show the way. Since they cut into the space of the room, the distortion of the inner truth was inevitable.
A new world, so true. We cannot conceive of this possibility: a creation which arranges its own circumstances of manifestation. NO SEPARATION. These words are so misunderstood, misinterpreted. No one has any idea what these words truly mean. It is always subjective, never objective.
This is why, while there is growth of the seed, at the same time we work to PREPARE the field. In the Gnostic Circle it is the three months before the 9.
8:15 PM
It is clear that these are things I should not speak about, at least not here. Now these days are a time of HOLDING, not speaking, explaining. Perhaps there is much more coming, more to see, understand. Then I can speak. Perhaps by the time I go to Bangalore. Perhaps that is where I have to speak. Not here…
Even I am cut off from Bangalore. It means that it is a time simply to hold, to concentrate the power. This is clearly what is needed now.
…I was held back this evening from throwing out ‘pearls’. The wisdom stays in here. Concentrated. It has a power. To see what IS, into the core, is like releasing the power in Time. Time’s energy is the becoming of itself, the energy of manifestation. Seeing THAT means tapping that source.
…I feel there is more in these days to see, to understand. And this is perhaps because the process there is reaching a culmination. Time approaches, therefore I am called upon to inject the fuel of seeing.
No, we will not fail. We conquer, right now…But what does ‘conquer’ mean?
For me, for the process it means the consolidation of the nucleus. Perhaps there will be a consolidation simultaneously – that is, Eve racing again and Adam getting his licence. But how is this going to take shape?
We stand alone. Naturally. We are in another dimension and there are no people there. Everyone is in the old. That is surely true…
For F2’s important last race of the season, no acceptable jockey could be found. Eve was thus forced to press for a fitness certificate earlier than planned; and it was granted. Reluctant as she was to race so soon after removing her cast and not being able to consult me on the matter, she had no choice but to agree to ride F2 in her 18th race. When I reached Bangalore before the day of the race, she presented me with this ‘surprise’. It did not escape any of us that this would be the last racing day of the summer season, while on the very first day she had been ruthlessly removed from competition at the starting gates before the race had even begun and before she had had a chance to ride for Gog. It also did not escape my notice that this 18th race, or the second multiple of 9, would fall on a day of 9 number-power: 5.8.1994 (=9).
Once upon a time…
The fairy tale began to unfold and the fullest power of the 9 and the Supramental Shakti were displayed in a grandiose culmination which began that last racing day of the season. But it was only the beginning. A series of races were to follow, all held within the magical embrace of the Power as in race after race F2, with Eve steering her, climbed to the top displaying that superior potential I had known to exist from when she was a foal.
With this culmination a subtle shift was felt in the rhythm we had been following from the beginning of our racing experience. All along I had been monitoring the passage through the Gnostic Circle on the basis of races. For example, F2 was entering her 18th and therefore at the 9 point of the Circle. But I realised that there was another rhythm displacing the former. It was not a question of WINS. We had been halted at 5 wins: 3 for F1, and 2 for F2. Somehow, we could not gather enough force to complete the circle; there seemed to be insufficient FUEL to carry us to the apex of the wheel. We were bogged down at the nadir. But no sooner had Eve taken F2 in her 18th race, precisely opening the way to the final quarter of the Gnostic Circle by way of wins to the culmination of the process, that the effects of the consolidation of the nucleus were confirmed: a formidable RELEASE of energy occurred signalling a convergence of Time. F2 seemed to translate that release into her performance on the track. She appeared to house a boundless source of energy. And Eve seemed to be the only rider able to tap that source.
Adam’s training produced a filly in exceptionally good condition for Eve to ride that first 9-power day of August and the last day of the summer racing season. When she entered the paddock before the race she was singled out as the best by the connoisseurs. However, the betting public at large could not imagine that Eve would be able to produce a win with the filly, when the more experienced jockeys had failed time and again. In addition, this was Eve’s first ride after a long gap and her first in Bangalore after the letter scandal and the loss of her job with Gog. She was the underdog, to say the least. Not many expected anything different from F2’s performance than what had already been seen. Moreover, in the field there were exceptional horses. One in particular, the favourite, was an extremely well-bred, high-priced, three-year old filly from Bombay, where India’s best horses compete, prepared by the country’s top trainer. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this filly would win, followed in the line-up by several other three-year olds of equally good breeding and proven performance. In addition, they were ridden by jockeys with far more experience than Eve.
On my part, however, after the experiences I had been having and the inner breakthroughs which I knew had taken place, I was confident that Eve would do well and would possibly win. Upon my arrival I had read out to her the above extracts from my journal, since I felt they were relevant to what she was experiencing. The fact that as a trifold nucleus we were functioning at the centre of our endeavour meant more to me than what the record books had to say of all the competing horses. But even this confidence did not match what transpired in that race. Eve and F2 made history that wonderful 9-power day.
As usual, F2 was the first out of the gate. Her pace was so fast that she easily reached the front and established a good lead. The favourite from Bombay was being ridden by India’s champion jockey. He felt confident that he could stay in third or fourth place until after the steep incline at the 600 mark, and then, when F2 faded as was her habit, he could begin pressing his mount to come up forcefully and pass F2 as well as the rest of the pack.
But in the hands of Eve who knew just what F2 required to make her hold her pace throughout, with some reserve for the end, nothing of this transpired. After the rise Eve was seen to relax the reins as we had discussed time and again, she let the filly catch her breath without pressing her to continue at that gruelling pace. This allowed the other horses to approach, but with one signal-stroke of the whip the filly responded with a kick-off that left the rest of the horses trailing behind by several lengths. At that point, the champion jockey on his champion filly realised that he would have an impossible task to overtake Eve. He did his utmost but finished behind by two lengths, while Eve carried F2 across the finishing line to the roaring cheers of the crowd. It was finally the fairy tale come true.
F2 with Eve astride, Mysore, 22 September 1994
There was so much packed into the 1.12.9 minutes of F2’s timing which turned the tide of our racing experience exactly when the Centre was made whole by a balance of its trifold energies. It was not just a race won but the nature of its attendant accumulative circumstances from, we could say, the very beginning of the process in 1989. It must be recalled that a key feature of this New Way is the establishment of a life divine on this Earth in accordance with Sri Aurobindo’s prophecies regarding the inevitable manifestation of a gnostic principle to allow for a new and superior species to replace the old. We are interested, therefore, in knowing in what manner this species will differ from the actual highest specimen our evolution has thus far allowed.
To begin, and this has been the main focus of our work so far, a means must evolve in order to allow the individual’s innermost truth to express itself in life. One’s fullest and truest potential must come forth; whereas until now this involved condition of the human being has not been able to break through the crusts which time and circumstance have imposed. It is as if the seed of the species has never been able to overcome the obstacles and impediments which it has been facing while it strives to rise in the ladder of creation to something substantially improved and fulfilled.
And if we write of a seed and a growth from within, we understand that a new and gnostic being must respect this question of centrality and extract from within anything higher to replace the old. In other words, nothing comes from outside – as the fanciful science fiction writers might have us believe. For the Earth, whatever of a more enlightened nature that must take its place in the evolution of the species has to do so by the principle of the manifestation of an inherent truth, or of involution of that truth and its consequent evolution. It must, therefore, follow the principle laid down in these pages of a centre out of which emerges an axis and a consequent ability to control the energies in the field in which that ‘seed’ has been sown.
Thus, regarding this racing experience, the important question from the beginning was the expression of that inherent potential. To allow this to come to pass certain elements had to be drawn together, take their proper and predestined places in the scheme of things, and once that was done, and only then, that potential would be able to express itself. More than that, it would be a mathematical certainty.
F2 demonstrated the exactitude of this new applied cosmology when she revealed her full potential that August afternoon, on that 9-power day. We would not have appreciated the depth and breadth of her potential had this culminating achievement not taken place after a series of ‘just misses’. In this way two points were made. One was that such a culmination could only come to pass when the full components of the nucleus were in place, harmonised, and balanced around the central divine Purpose rather than egocentric interests; and second, that the movement is spherical, a circular convergence in time. This means that the control I am describing works on all things simultaneously, each point in the circumference of the emerging cosmos. When this tilling of the soil reaches a maturing point, a critical threshold so to speak, the seed-centre, as if with the greatest ease, pushes through the now loosened crust of earth and begins its upward march and to reveal itself in its nascent and naked truth of being.
For this reason we witnessed a series of ‘just misses’ before the fairy tale could play itself out, with each and every jockey unable (or unwilling) to bring out the best in F2. The nucleus had to complete itself; then the rest was a mathematical certitude. In the meantime, while F2 was struggling with the limitations of the field and the lack of components by which means she could succeed in drawing to the surface her inherent potential, jockey, trainer and owner, or the triadic powers of the Centre, were being moulded into a harmonious whole in the effort to bring into being a centre. For that, elements in the field were utilised with meticulous care, – the Gogs and Magogs, jockeys, stewards, and so forth. Each played his or her role to perfection. Meaning, in this case, to serve as powers of contraction creating circumstances which would press in upon the central components from all sides thereby causing a predetermined balance of powers to become established.
With this accomplished time locks into another gear, a ‘high gear’ indeed, and the operation seems to move forward at great speed and effortlessly, just as F2’s race displayed. If I felt certain that the condition or performances of the horses in this process would give us an indication of the stage and work accomplished, that race fully revealed the exact ‘mathematics’ I have described. In the process, F2 surpassed the best and set herself up as a force to contend with. She not only beat several Derby contenders, foremost of which was the filly from Bombay who entered the race with an already awesome track record, she just fractionally missed breaking the season’s record for the 1200 metres. It stood at 1.12.8, whereas her timing in this race was 1.12.9. Had Eve not eased her up over the last 20 metres or so, F2 would have effortlessly broken the record which had been set earlier in the season by India’s proven top sprinter.
At the same time, she did prove in that one race to be the better sprinter in Bangalore since in another Class 1 for sprinters (hers was Class III) over the same distance that same day, won by the proclaimed best sprinter of the Club, the latter’s timing was 1.13.6. Considering the lower weight F2 was carrying, it was calculated nonetheless, kilo for distance and timing, that F2 would still come out ahead.
As for Eve, this was indeed the fairy tale of racing. She was besieged from all sides, a woman alone in a man’s domain, and one where machismo is especially prized. Magog was set on finishing off her racing career. She had been sacked by her owner who ought to have stood by her in her moment of need, especially in view of the special circumstances in which he had hired her in the first place. It may be recalled that hiring Eve was Gog’s ‘statement’, his protest against the misdeeds or mishandling of his horses by the then retained top jockey. In the present circumstances, Magog’s riders were being accused of equally dubious practices, thus to support him in any way was a contradiction of that earlier ‘statement’. Eve was not in the centre of a storm for misdeeds as a jockey. Just the contrary. She was seen as the victim of such practices which Gog was ostensibly protesting against. In fact, she had not even ridden one horse of his in a race, therefore her record as his jockey was unblemished as she left his stables. Ironically she was sacked because of her reputation of being ‘controversial’, which meant honest and straightforward. Gog came out of the affair in the poorest light, while Eve, especially with her fairy tale win, ended the season fully vindicated as a professional while exposing the questionable handling of F2 by some of the best. The public was well aware of the fact that this was a newcomer, and a woman, able to ‘deliver the goods’ where all others had failed, leaving a great question mark over F2’s former races, especially those in which she had been the betting public’s favourite. In the bargain, the Bombay filly was ridden by India’s champion jockey. Thus, Eve’s ability as an athlete now stood beyond dispute. First woman rider in Bangalore, she was now the first to win.
As for F2, the type of race she ran would become a hallmark in the Club’s plethora of sprint races, and indeed throughout the country: a formidable unbeatable initial speed over the first 600 metres, thus driving the front-runners into fatigue, followed by a final kick-off in the last 400 metres, decisively burying any remaining competition. Such a style of running is the ideal for the sprinter, but it is difficult to come by.
F2 had displayed precisely the mathematical equation of a release of energy when a centre comes into being. It means contact is made with a replenishable source of energy of a superior quality. Its superiority lies in the nature of our cosmological process: no violence is done, – that is, no imposition from outside. The contact with the source is the direct outcome of the ‘birth that fills the void’. In other words, the draining ‘hole’ or ‘void’ at the centre is ‘plugged up’, as it were. There is no collapse. An infinite source of energy lies at the disposal of the instrument as a natural, organic consequence of growth and flowering from within.
In Thoroughbred racing as it is practised today, this is a potent, and threatening, statement to make on the turf. That is, nearly all horses today, in some form or other, participate through a violence done to their inherent potential. Race training relies almost entirely on drugs or enhancers. Without these substances trainers believe they cannot compete. Thus, the horse is pumped with these drugs and does indeed produce wins as a result. But there is an imbalance created by this artificial imposition. It is not an organic process, extracting the horse’s potential in a measured way based on a progressive loading in the training. The horse is literally forced into a performance that it may not be ready for, even though the capacity to win may be inherent in that animal. The result is that breakdowns occur more regularly today. We see horses competing beyond their preparation and inherent capacity, and then collapsing. Especially when, for reasons of detection, the drug has to be withdrawn sufficient time before the race. Such horses are like inflated balloons collapsing the minute air is released.
Thus, F2’s performance posed a threat on many fronts. There was the threat to the big breeders who demand increasingly high prices for their yearlings and who feel free to do so when such high-priced animals do indeed ‘deliver the goods’. When an upstart like F2 beats the very best, with a good but not fashionable pedigree, meaning an imported sire who commands formidable covering fees while standing at the fashionable stud farms, then breeders will begin to feel threatened. Racing is an industry where millions are invested. In the case of our fillies, we were dealing with pets, bred privately, with no investment at all other than their upkeep.
Trainers felt especially threatened by Adam’s obviously superior talents, demonstrated in a startling manner from the day he took charge of F2. Though raced under the new trainer’s name, since Adam did not have a licence in Bangalore as yet, all knew the training was his. Similarly, trainers were aware that drugs were taboo in our operation based on a mutual understanding between trainer and owner. Thus, if this filly of not-so-special breeding could win so effortlessly and without illegal substances, the threat to the entire foundation of present-day training was serious indeed.
And finally there was the threat to jockeys, for Eve’s handling was not only of the best quality, her honesty stood as a solitary star in the dim night of the racing firmament. Thus in one brilliant performance F2 had set the stage and established the conditions for our process thereafter.
The Fairy Tale endures
For a number of days after F2’s race there was talk of little else at the track. A better set of circumstances could not have been arranged to put F2 and Eve in the forefront. Above all, the talk was generated by the calibre of horses in the race, most of whom were up-coming 3-year olds from the best stables; whereas F2 was a 4-year old with already a year and a half of racing of little consequence behind her. Officially in the record books she had been categorised as potentially a top racehorse when she arrived for training. But until that 5th August race she had failed to live up to these official estimates of her capacity. All of that was now a thing of the past. She had solidly beaten one of the best fillies in the country who was expected to breeze through the race to a comfortable win, so much better was she considered than the rest.
But in racing memories are short. It is said a horse is only as good as his last race. This is, in fact, its value as a field of yoga, especially of this New Way, since one is never allowed to stagnate or bathe in the glory of a breakthrough or a win, as in this case, regardless of how spectacular or fairy-tale like it may be. One has to start preparation for the next race immediately after, and the one after that. Quite often horses perform well in one or two races, only to fade out and into oblivion thereafter. For example, it was thought that F2 had ‘peaked’ and that therefore this win was a result of a combination that would not in all likelihood be repeated. In addition, she was carrying a rather low handicap (51.5kgs.). The jockey who had failed with her in her last race, feeling the brunt of the affront Eve’s easy win caused him by way of comparison, defended himself by claiming that ‘the filly cannot carry weight’ (He had ridden her in his last race carrying a 59-kilo handicap). Very few were prepared to accept that Eve’s riding was the reason for F2’s spectacular success. I repeat, there are races won, many in fact, but some are especially significant in the career of a racehorse given the particulars of the race in question, the calibre of the competitors, the weight carried, previous performances and the nature of the win itself such as distance and timing. On all these counts this proved to be a landmark for F2.
In terms of our process, what happened that day had even more spectacular and far-reaching implications. In particular, this was due to the yoga performed leading up to the race and therefore the mathematical precision involved. Given a certain input and certain conditions fulfilled, there could only be one result: a formidable RELEASE of energy. That was the key feature of the ‘fairy tale’. It did indeed reward the instruments in the front line-up, but it did so only when the conditions on the deeper levels were met. In this case the fairy-tale win served as a confirmation that the nucleus had been formed by a correct poise and mutually supportive balance of the three central components; and that given this fact the Horse, or the One, could not fail to respond accordingly.
F2 continued in her daily workouts and general condition to reflect the harmony that had been attained. She improved by the day; and when she appeared in the paddock before the next race, she was the talk of the establishment. Jockeys considered, as one rider put it, that she was a ‘transformed filly’. On their part, trainers were determined to find out what Adam was doing or giving the horse, that he was ‘on to something’ none knew about, some special feed, special nutrient, special training. For even the steroids and other drugs commonly used on tracks throughout the world would not have the effect witnessed in F2’s physical condition. They wanted to know the ‘secret’.
It was true that Adam had been perfecting his contribution to our team during the months leading to this breakthrough. Nutrition-wise his programme was also the best among all the trainers. The shoeing of the horse was not matched by any; and the exercise programme, though still in the process of working out the details, was nonetheless better than what most horses were receiving, with little concern for the scientific knowledge we were in the process of collecting and implementing in our work with these horses. All this played upon the success obtained.
But these conditions were present already before Eve took F2 in that race. It was clear that the final component, the jockey, had to be ‘put in place’ before these ingredients – the yoga included – could bear fruit. What this revealed was the simultaneous convergence of the SPHERICAL nature of the process we were engaged in: all things brought into orbit and harmonised in a circular, converging development. It proved as well that the energies in the periphery were used to create a contracting action whereby the inner components would simultaneously find themselves in the correct poise to allow Time to do its work. All of this converged on the Horse, causing a release of energy.
The summer season closed that day and racing shifted to the neighbouring city, Mysore. It was the scene of Eve’s first ‘accident’, when F2 was instrumental in removing her from racing for several months, given precisely the lack of correct poise and the extreme egocentrism of all the parts concerned. Needless to say, there was a certain trepidation in returning to the scene of that dramatic event. The date for the race was 16th August and it was not this time a 9-power day. One wondered what the outcome would be.
By that time, F2’s fame had begun to spread far as the vanquisher of the Bombay filly. But the sceptics still abounded. Moreover, there was her former jockey’s statement (‘that filly cannot carry weight’), and since she entered the race with the highest handicap, many believed she would be unable to register another consecutive win. This was a Class III race which, if won, would thrust her immediately into Class II.
The strategy for the race was the same, since F2 had a style of running that left little room for manoeuvre. In fact, it ought to be explained that she was a carefully chosen instrument for this phase of the process in that, it may be recalled, Magog’s men were constantly harassing Eve. His two jockeys, whose behaviour had been vigorously criticised in the July publication, were still set on proving a point by constant threats in one form or another. Therefore, it was worrying to see Eve enter a race and be ostensibly at their mercy. Race riding is both difficult and dangerous. It is a simple matter to create obstructions to other runners, especially if more than one jockey in a particular race has orders to do so. Not only can they successfully restrain a horse from winning, they can also cause damage to both horse and rider. There have been cases where deaths or serious injuries have occurred on the track due to this sort of premeditated interference, an outcome of a desire for revenge precisely of the sort Eve was being subjected to. But F2 was the ideal ride under the circumstances. Her jump out of the gate was such that none could catch up with her. She was in front of the other horses before they could even realise that the race had started. F2 was thus protected by her inherent talent which became even more pronounced with Eve’s gentle handling and sensitive riding.
Thus with ease and majesty F2 won her second consecutive cup race, with Eve steering her again as she gave the final kick-off in the last stretch and cruised past the winning post three lengths ahead of the other horses while the public roared and cheered. The commentator bellowed out, ‘She is simply trouncing the opposition!’ The lie was thus given to the contention that ‘she could not carry weight’, and this accomplishment brought F2 into Class II, just below the top where I felt she belonged from the beginning.
Her next race was scheduled for September 22nd, the Equinox, and a 9-power day. I must stress that I never planned these synchronisations and number harmonies. Indeed, it would have been difficult to do so since only a limited number of races were available for her distance and class. The task of selecting or suggesting was left to the trainer in large measure. I was intrigued by this particular selection since it seemed significant in more ways than one. It would, in fact, mark the first anniversary of Eve’s ‘accident’ occasioned by F2 the year before at the same venue. This would be a difficult race with increasingly stiffer competition. We were therefore somewhat apprehensive about the results.
Mysore racing had been in large part dominated by trainers and their horses from Madras since the season there would be resumed only in late October. Thus, each race saw several of Magog’s horses competing. For F2’s third attempt at a cup-race win,from his stables there was an especially good filly entered from his stables, of F2’s same age-group. She had, in addition, won Classic races; therefore Magog certainly expected her to win. Apart from the fact that we were beginning to pose a serious threat to breeders and trainers alike in that this ‘pet’, privately bred, was ‘trouncing’ some of the best horses in India, there was the threat of facing one or more of Magog’s men in a race. His filly was also known for her initial speed as a front-runner; clearly the race would be between Magog’s Classic winner and F2. And he was more than ever determined to win and put both Eve and F2 in their rightful place, – i.e., behind his horse.
By then the potential of horses was being assessed with respect to their performance in F2’s races. The filly from Bombay, for example, had been assessed the favourite to win the Derby insofar as she had been beaten by F2 who in turn went on to win her next race. This was thought to increase the chances of the Bombay filly winning the Derby, since F2 had proved her superior quality. Coming second to F2 was no mean achievement. Magog, together with other breeders, owners and trainers, was not taking these matters lightly. I sensed that there was a considerable line-up of ‘forces’ determined to put a stop to this winning streak, insofar as we had now entered the highest class. Beyond Class III, the mid-point, the horses we would meet could be high-priced Classic winners; all had won at least three races to reach anything beyond this mid-point. There was no sign though that there was a horse capable of coping with F2’s style of running. Up front in all her races, and not fading in the hands of Eve, no obstruction tactics would be possible: there was no horse in evidence who could match her initial speed to do the obstructing!
To protect the turf, all clubs install false railings during the season. This practice increases the distance of races, especially difficult for sprinters. In this Equinox race there were 5 metres of false rails, a significant addition. But I was confident that F2 could cope with this increase since she had almost won a 1400-metre race in Bangalore at one stage of her career. But when I instructed Eve to ‘go for timing’ in this particular race, since she had already proven herself capable of beating the best and in that regard there was little left to prove, I did not realise the toll this would take on the filly, in particular given Magog’s entry and strategy.
The worse part was the condition of the track itself. There had been no rains and therefore the ground was hard. The Mysore track is notorious for its bend which slopes to the outside, causing high-speed runners to drift out at this bend. The horse has to make a supreme effort to keep its position close to the rails. The toll on its left fore is hard. Ignorant of this fact, the advice to Eve to ‘go for timing’ was foolish. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that Eve could have done other than what she did. Magog’s jockey left her little choice.
Magog’s filly was also known for a fast jump out of the gate and an unmatched initial speed. Thus, both F2 and Magog’s filly went to the front immediately. As luck would have it, riding Magog’s entry was one of the two jockeys mentioned in the infamous letter, and one who had been known to threaten Eve in the past. He was especially keen on overtaking Eve and setting a pace which he felt F2 could not sustain. But contrary to his expectations, F2 did not allow his mount to pass. She kept the lead and the two pulled in front and away from the rest of the pack by a distance. The pace set was blistering, never before seen on that track, according to reports after the race. In the true spirit of a superior athlete that she is, F2 did not falter until Magog’s filly was driven to exhaustion. Not satisfied, after the usual breather and with several hundred metres left, Eve signalled to F2 who kicked off again, leaving the horses four lengths behind as she passed the winning post to the resounding cheers of the crowd. Eve, for the betting public, had become their darling since she was continuously carrying their favourite to a win. Magog’s filly, on the other hand, ‘finished in the rut’, as the commentator announced, – that is, driven to fatigue, she had finished last.
Fairy Tale gives way to Myth
There may be good sprinters with initial speed, especially fillies. But it is rare to come across one such as F2, who is able to set a pace none can match in the first half of the race and still have fire power left to accelerate toward the end, after fatigue has set in and overtaken the other runners. Thus, gradually F2 was gaining the reputation of being one of the best sprinters in the country, and certainly the best in Bangalore. She had beaten top horses. She had set good timings. She had won three cup races in a row, the last being a gold cup. And she had not so far let any horse pass her in these three races. She was a force to contend with. Indeed, F2 with Eve guiding her seemed unbeatable, – and hence a real threat to the numerous vested interests which abound in the ‘sport’ of racing. At the same time, contrary to what one sees in horses fed all sorts of unhealthy and often illegal substances, transgressing standards and regulations, F2 was improving with each race. Her condition, already impressive when Eve first mounted her in the paddock on 5th August, was now improved beyond belief. To witness her entry into the paddock for the pre-race parade, was thrilling as well as inspiring. Beyond any doubt, she was every bit the Class I horse I had assessed her to be.
But handicap races are one thing, with horses moving up the ladder from Class V to Class I, as the case may be. It is another thing to win sweepstakes terms races in which the handicaps are allotted according to the age and stake money of races won. That is, in this category of race one meets not just Class I horses but the very best of that highest category, those which have won and placed not only in sweepstakes but possibly in the Classics as well, another category entirely.
Such a race was approaching. It was scheduled for October 8th, 1994, there in Mysore. I was determined to enter F2 in that race, and this time, who would dare object?
But there were certain constraints. The first was that F2 had not been entered in this sweepstakes on the due date, given the reluctance of the trainers to oblige. Therefore, she would only be eligible if I paid ten times the fee in what is called a ‘final entry’. To begin, a sweepstakes entry in India costs approximately ten times the amount of a handicap race; in this case, a final entry would require an additional ten times the normal sweepstakes fee. But since she had won three races in a row, there were sufficient funds from her own earnings to handle the high cost; but in the event of losing, all profits from these wins would be lost.
Apart from this consideration there was the more serious problem that F2 had slightly injured her left fore and shoulder, given the vigour of the race and the hard ground she had to cover. The Mysore season, I had been warned, sees many horses break down. I was able to prove this with my own fillies, but in the case of F2 the problem was not serious enough to stop her from her daily exercise programme. It was just enough to make the filly hold back from giving her best in the effort to protect herself from further damage. More often than not, especially when a horse reaches the top echelons, one has to contend with some problem or other, and racing goes on nonetheless. However, care has to be taken and the judgement of the trainer has to be honed to know just how far he can press the horse and what he can expect.
Thus, the question of whether or not to enter her in this special race and to continue proving that my horses could compete with the best hinged on the condition of the filly. A final entry fee was a risk to run, even in the best of circumstances, with a horse in top condition. Regarding our filly there was a definite problem. With Adam in charge and Eve riding her, I was fully confident that the right decision would be made. Moreover, F2’s performance in those last three races was so superior to all the other horses that it seemed she could handle the competition even if not in top form. The important thing to bear in mind is that though still in condition to race, when a horse has a problem, small as it may seem, the strain of the race can cause a greater injury of more far-reaching consequences. With any other jockey riding her I could not have considered taking the risk. But with Eve it was different. She was too sensitive and balanced a rider to press the filly to the point of causing further damage. If entered, I felt certain that F2 would come out of the race in the same condition she entered, not worse. But still we had to be reasonably certain that she would be in sufficiently good condition to merit the high cost of the final entry fee. And there were but two weeks between the races to prepare her, while the final entry due date was a week before the race.
We had entered a different category in our racing experience for all concerned. For me as breeder/owner, it meant, as stated earlier, that a threat was being posed to the vested interests of the breeding industry, as well as to the owners who were spending millions of rupees on horses and in many cases were not reaping the benefits such huge sums promised. Regarding Adam, he was now poised to enter the category of a trainer able to prepare horses not just for handicap races, but for sweepstakes as well, if not the Classics yet. His reputation as a first-rate trainer was growing with every performance of F2. Her ‘transformation’, as it was called, was the best advertisement for his talent.
In this area also it seemed clear that just as the horse was responding to the consolidation of the nucleus, so too would the human elements involved. Each one seemed to be able to demonstrate or draw forth the best from within. Both Adam and Eve, as professionals, were making significant improvements. I knew this would increase; and certainly, preparing F2 for this particular sweepstakes race, given the pressures of costs and condition of the filly, would test this premise to the utmost. If indeed I would enter F2 in the race, this would create a pressure on both trainer and jockey never before experienced by them. It remained to be seen whether or not they could sustain it.
Magog cannot have been pleased with the performance of his champion filly and the results of the Equinox race. While the Classic horses of other owner/breeders were being vanquished by F2, it was still tolerable. But with the defeat of his best sprinter, who had even won Classics, one sensed that an unspecified certain limit or border had been transgressed. On my part, I felt an upsurge of forces of a subtle order, pernicious and determined. It remained to be seen in what way these forces would operate to halt us on our way.
I had my own method of assessing the wisdom of entering F2 in this special race. I realised that she stood before her 21st run and that the three wins in a row, two of which were on 9-power days, covered the last quarter of the Gnostic Circle, by way of races won. Exactly in accordance with the dictates of the Circle, the release made itself felt at the 6 Point and the 6th win. That is where increased fuel is needed in order to move through the sign Scorpio and into Sagittarius and there extend boundaries. The reversal at the 4.5 Orbit creates combustion. This is then channelled in a particular direction: into the cosmos rather than dissolved in the Beyond, as in death. The result is an increase, a widening, an extension of the limits of destiny. To be more specific, it is a certain hitherto unexplored or untapped layer of energy in the folds of one’s destiny which permits a deeper expression of an inherent potential. Under normal conditions one may never tap this potential.
When there is a void central to one’s consciousness-being, there is a seepage of energy. One cannot concentrate enough power to bring about this increase. Indeed, to sustain the pressure whereby the direction inward is maintained. One escapes the pressure by dissipating the energy. Or else, as when Death presses in, one collapses given the binary structure of the species. On this basis the theories evolved of salvation in a beyond and outside the cosmic dimension. That is, one is contracted to extinction from this material dimension.
On the other hand, when the Void has been filled as in this case by the consolidation of the tri-part, properly poised nucleus, this seepage is arrested. The released fuel is then utilised in a new way: for increase, for extending the boundaries of one’s destiny proportionate to the compact essence of the Seed.
F2 demonstrated this correct utilisation exactly in accordance with the Gnostic Circle process. The consolidation took place just as she stood poised to enter her 18th race for the 6 Point win at the portals of the sign Sagittarius. The results were immediate and decisive. Thereafter, the 19th demonstrated that extension in that she carried the victory to another racing venue, conquering that field as well. Finally there was the 20th, the 8 win of the equinox race on another 9-power day, which completed the rise to the summit of the wheel, but did not close the Circle as yet. That is, the 8th closes one cycle and opens a new one. She was swept to the top of the wheel in this fashion, on the basis of the potent nuclear release at the 5 Point (Jupiter), which was sufficient to carry her through the remaining signs and orbits with the greatest ease. Indeed, the ease with which she scored her wins indicates the power generated in proportion to the quality of the Seed. The One in such a process is a mathematical result of the quality of the trifold energy base in the nucleus.
Thus, I realised the 8th win (5+3) left matters incomplete. One more of the sequence was required. I felt this would have to be the sweepstakes, the last for her of the season which would close on 21st October, a 9-power day. I felt confident that true to her capacity to draw in the elements required for fulfilment, F2 would ‘arrange’ the circumstances to permit her to play whatever role intended by the release.
With extreme care, Adam was monitoring her condition daily. Both he and Eve finally came to the conclusion just before the closing date for the entry that she could race. In effect, even if she placed second all the costs would be covered with something of a profit. Thus, F2 was entered, sending out the signal to all by investing this large amount that I was confident of another consecutive win. It remained to be seen whether my confidence in the abilities of the members of our team, equine and human, would be rewarded.
Throughout this discussion it may be noted that I have preferred to describe the tri-part components – both human and equine – as 9, 6, and 3 – while they are the first, second and third in the progression. The reason for doing so is that with 9-6-3, participation can be related to the Gnostic Circle. This then tells us in great detail and with accuracy what the true input will be of each component. So far we have been following the racing careers of two horses, which would be the 9 and the 6, or the first and second fillies. Indeed, when related to the Circle, we find these creatures fulfilling their roles of 9 and 6 to perfection. And we learn that the circumstances for their participation have always served to assist them in realising their contributions of 9 and 6.
For example, F1 as the first, or the 9, always demonstrated an aloofness which seemed to reflect the transcendent quality of the 9. Indeed, in the trinity the 9 corresponds to the Transcendent Divine. Regarding the Solar Line, a similar descending order of manifestation, the 9 was Sri Aurobindo. His ‘aloofness’ is now legendary, though in yoga we would call it detachment to the results of one’s efforts, or equanimity. This was also noted in that he remained withdrawn for the better part of his yogic life and mission. Sri Aurobindo stayed self-confined to his room for the last 24 years of his life, while the Mother, the 6, carried forward the work of the Ashram and established its character and ‘boundaries’; very true to her contribution as the 6.
In our equine ‘descent’, we have F2, the 6, playing a similar role. On the basis of her contribution the parameters of our racing experience have become established. She evolved our boundaries by her performance and revealed our limits, whatever these may be. The Mother, for example, not only set up the Ashram as the field of their yoga, she also extended that field for a new boundary toward the end of her life.
Both our equine participants have displayed similar characteristics when related to the Solar Line. F1’s aloofness and her capacity to transcend the field of her input entirely by closing it out, turning in on herself, may have been a protective device engendered by early mishandling, but nonetheless it served to assist the filly in remaining true to her 9 function without overstepping the boundaries inherent in this descending order. Given this circumstance, it was left to F2 to ‘hold the fort’, as it were. She had to keep the experience grounded and centred, very similar to the Mother’s function in the Ashram to accommodate Sri Aurobindo’s withdrawal, like F1 withdrawing into herself and detaching from the field of her experience. These characteristics could not be appreciated without the Gnostic Circle and the knowledge it provides of the Sacred Triangle, its angles of 9, 6, 3 and their special attributes and functions.
If we move up the ladder from 1 to 2 to 3, or down the scale from 9 to 6 to 3, we note that something interesting happens at the third level. The two directions converge at the 3 Point. Whether in the upward movement or the descending motion, the 3 Point is where the two converge. This indicates that the 3 is indeed the ‘bridge’ linking the two planes and is therefore the position which promises the true fulfilment of the seed-potential in that the 3 is self-contained and less dependent on the play of circumstances for fulfilment. The 3 is in a better position to create NEW conditions.
But this discussion is carrying us beyond the parameters of our saga to date. What interests us most for the present is the assessment of F2’s contribution in that at last something of the true seed-potential had succeeded in coming to the fore. But this bore certain limitations consonant with F2’s role as the 6. The highest she could go in the display of her talents would be sweepstakes races. The Classics were closed to her. For F1 the limitation was due to her unknown pedigree because of which she was restricted to handicap races exclusively. This was the limitation imposed upon her from outside, so to speak, before birth, in the ‘beyond’, – i.e., the ‘transgressions’ of her sire and dam. This lay beyond her control or beyond even the qualities she expressed as a racehorse in a race. No matter how well she performed, or how high in the scale she went, under whatever circumstances her destiny would present during the course of her career, she could never surmount this in-born ‘handicap’. The conditions of her birth automatically precluded any expression of her true potential which surpassed even F2’s in fact. The ‘field’ could in no way accommodate or mould itself to her inherent potential, thereby fortifying her ‘closed in’ condition. Everything remained locked within and there seemed little point in opening it up insofar as being of Classic potential, or at least a winner of sweepstakes races, she was out of harmony with that seed-potential by way of her 9 status. At her level we stand far from any such harmonisation of the Point and the Circumference, or the Being and the Becoming. And it may be recalled that disciples of Sri Aurobindo anticipated his ‘return to the world’ once his yoga was finished, a promise he never fulfilled in his lifetime in that form, thereby leaving this world with his fullest potential veiled until another appearance.
Our saga is a manifestation in stages, each one building upon the others. Similarly, had Sri Aurobindo as the 9 stood alone in his mission, nothing of the supramental would have descended. He required the 6, and ultimately the 3 to root this new principle in matter.
With F2 we note something of this order transpiring. Her limitation was not by birth. She was a duly registered Thoroughbred racehorse and thus the full range of races was open to her in principle. Her limitation was met in the course of her contribution by the incompleteness of the base and the demands put upon her to draw elements together for the fulfilment of her destiny as 6: that much more rooted than F1 before her. These constrictions expressed themselves as a sort of self-imposition due to an inherent potential, – i.e., a capacity for sprint distances and not for Classics which require more staying power to cover at least eight furlongs. And then by her age. When finally she had succeeded in drawing in the nuclear components needed to permit her seed-potential to flower, she was beyond the age limits for anything other than sweepstakes and terms races of this order. The Classics were not open to her when that work was done.
But we see here at least the beginning of a harmony between the Point and the Periphery, the centre and the field. Something was indeed made ready by her input, but not the fullest as yet.
It is at the level of the 6, the Cosmic Divine of the trinity, that the forces operating in the universe enter the picture. Here good and evil as opposing forces begin their play, in the great act of division and separation that a creation in matter engenders, on the road to unity of the Being and the Becoming. These forces struggle for supremacy, both in one’s being and in the world at large. Here we meet the demons and the titans, as well as the gods. Herein lies the origin of Myth.
Durga contemporises Myth
The atmosphere surrounding our work was becoming thick with the play of ‘forces’, some creating obstructions while others were felt to ease the way and remove obstacles. The contest we had become engaged in, while ostensibly centred on a racing experience, seemed rather to embrace a larger sphere, an activity or action of a subtle order, a confrontation of forces of division as opposed to those striving to bring about unity and harmony.
On the human plane we were indeed engaged in a struggle to establish a new boundary which seemed to hold the promise of the fulfilment of our long labour of striving to set our team in a field largely inimical to the appearance in its midst of anything that might threaten the existing order in a significant way. As reported, our successes automatically endangered the ‘sport’ as it is being practised. To begin, and apart from any arcane consideration, our success meant a great boost for racing precisely in the area of sport. We were possibly the only team of the three essential components – owner, trainer and jockey – which truly dealt with racing as a sport, striving for excellence in a competitive endeavour where money and the easiest way to secure it was the main consideration. There was nothing else binding us together. None of us gambled, none were especially ambitious and desirous of success, of fame and wealth, except to the extent necessary to sustain the effort required in our enterprise in order to succeed in a sporting endeavour of high competitive energy.
The surcharged atmosphere was also the result of the increased pressure due to the elevated entry fee and the consequent risk involved, especially in view of F2’s physical condition. Right after the entry had been made she gave increased signs of a nagging problem. Regardless of the final entry having been paid, it would still be possible to withdraw her two days before the race. But the assessment of her physical condition did not merit a withdrawal. Nonetheless, it was clear that she needed more time than we were in a position to give her to recover to the extent that a win would be more likely. As it stood, we were not quite convinced that she could handle a race of that calibre.
She would be competing with the best sprinters Bangalore had to offer, particularly one whose style of running was similar to F2’s. The only difference lay in their respective timings. This was the filly who had raced on 5th August, the day of F2’s first win with Eve when together they vanquished the Bombay filly, among others of repute, with F2 setting a timing that day that only fractionally missed breaking the season record for that distance. The filly she would be meeting in this race never matched F2’s timing that day over the same distance, or ever. At this level of competition, the records give a clear indication of what to expect. And as far as the track records went, I expected F2 to win. There was, of course, her ‘problem’ to consider.
After the Equinox race, when the hard ground had provoked the stress which caused her physical problem one of the conditions I had set for entering her in the following sweepstakes was rain. If the ground was not softened before the 30th September, the date of the final entry, there was no question of exposing her to the same hard track and the likelihood of a more serious injury. The Bombay filly she beat on the 5th of August had, in fact, sustained a similar injury to her shoulder in the Derby she won in Mysore on 9 September, the same day that F1 had injured herself in a race there in which she finished third. The Bombay filly was yet to recover and would not be racing for a considerable time to come, similar to F1.
But the Gods seemed to be rooting for us and our cause, when almost the day after the Equinox race rains began on a regular basis over the entire area, right up to Bangalore, where the fillies were stabled and trained, and then transported to Mysore the day before their races. By the date of the entry the ground was softened to the precise degree required. Thus, one of the main ‘conditions’ had been fulfilled. This, with other ‘signs’, encouraged me to pursue the matter regardless of the financial risk involved.
With each race run and won by F2 there seemed to be a tightening movement, as if we were being drawn deeper into a spheric convergence, as if spiralling inward to a central point. In a sense this could be explained by the tightening of competition: each race won eliminated that many more contenders to the throne of best sprinter. Reaching Class I in itself meant that dozens of horses had been successfully eliminated as real challengers. But in this race there was our main competition who had been reigning over the sprint class from almost the beginning of her career. She had been in Class I for close to a year. But in 1993, F1 had challenged her in a Class III race when she introduced Eve to Bangalore racing. She came second to this filly in what was perhaps one of the better races of her career.
Now it was her sister’s turn and this time the stakes were high indeed. None of us, owner, trainer and jockey, would have felt any anxiety but for the filly’s condition which kept us in a state of unknowing and concern throughout. What indeed would her performance be like in such circumstances?
I felt that the experience was an excellent training and testing ground for both Eve and Adam, especially the latter. In this case, it was the trainer’s task to draw upon his best resources to help the filly reach the racing venue in a position to sustain the rigours of such a race in spite of her ‘problem’, and to stand a reasonable chance of winning. Under normal conditions, an owner relies on the competence of the trainer to make such decisions as the one required for this sweepstakes, where considerable money is invested precisely on the basis of the trainer’s advice. Thus, Adam had the additional pressure of a final entry fee to contend with. It had been agreed beforehand that in the event of the filly’s deterioration just before the race, when still there was time to pull out though the fee had already been paid, he was free to do so even if it meant losing the entire amount. Of course, feeling the responsibility of his position, I knew he would exert himself to the maximum in order to avoid this recourse. It was a test of his talents and stamina and a means to draw out of him what I knew he had within: a trainer of superior potential and dedication. Indeed, he lived up to these high expectations and did not disintegrate under the weight of these pressures considering his limited experience.
The day of the race was upon us. Adam was lamenting that more time was needed for the filly to fully recover, at least to the point of having a real chance of success. But there was nothing to be done. Her condition did not warrant withdrawing her, but a few days more would have been ideal. There was, however, nothing we could do to accommodate this need but cope with the serious handicap of too little time between races.
In the midst of this intense activity, all of India was experiencing a progressive ‘loading’ or stocking up of energy, if it may be so called. This occurs each year during a particularly powerful cultural festival: the yearly Navaratri, or Nine Nights. This is the 9-night festival of the Goddess Durga, Shiva’s consort and the divine Daughter who is as revered in Hindu tradition as the divine Son, perhaps more so in fact. This worship is especially intense in Bengal, Sri Aurobindo’s birthplace; and it was celebrated in his Ashram each year. Indeed, the freedom movement which was fuelled in large part by the Bengali contribution, and in particular Sri Aurobindo’s, centred on this particular aspect of the Divine Mother. Bande Mataram, or ‘Victory to the Mother’ was the theme song that came out of Bengal during the freedom movement, a poem set to inspiring music extolling the country as the body of the Mother herself, victorious over all adversity and adversaries. Even today it is sung throughout the land and some believe it to be the true national anthem because of its role then.
Indeed, Durga as Goddess who single-handedly vanquishes the mightiest asura, or titan, Tarak, stands for that supremely victorious Energy, the energy that conquers and saves. Durga was sent to the Earth by Brahma when the Gods rushed to him, imploring that he intervene to save the Earth from Tarakasura who was threatening to engulf the entire planet. Brahma, moved by their plight, conceded and commissioned a particular aspect of the Divine Mother to conquer Tarak. This form was Durga, renown for her devastating power to conquer as well as to protect. She is an especially forceful aspect of the divine Daughter, Parvati, and is by far the aspect most revered throughout India.
Apart from Bengal there is another place where this worship is especially intense. This is Mysore, precisely the venue of our racing experience. Indeed, the sweepstakes race we were preparing for would be held on 8 October which in 1994 was the 4th day of the Festival. That is, it was its 4.5 passage, or the midpoint of the 9 Nights.
Given the prominence of the 9 in this new cosmology, its primary number-key in fact, it is not surprising that the Navaratri or Nine Nights of Durga should have held a special place in my yoga and work from the very beginning. I have documented this fact in an autobiographical study, The Tenth Day of Victory, which refers to this celebration based on the measure of 9. The 10th day is the close of the festival, or Victory Day, when the Goddess returns to her parent’s abode after her victorious conquest during the previous nine nights, the last of which saw the complete vanquishing of Tarak, mightiest titan of them all.
The dates of this festival change each year since the start is fixed by the new Moon in a certain nakshatra of Hindu astrology. Nine days thereafter the Moon enters Capricorn and culminates in the Goddess’s victory, being precisely the zodiacal sign of the Divine Mother’s victory. In the Capricorn chapter of The Magical Carousel, I have portrayed this Power, Omanisol, seated on a mountain peak, presiding over all of creation laying at her feet and extending wide in all directions.
This circumstance seemed to be reproduced quite accurately in our racing experience in Mysore, for the race course lies precisely at the feet of the Goddess Chamundeswari, a name of Durga, the daughter aspect of the Divine Mother, or Omanisol of The Magical Carousel. From the track one can see the temple of Chamundeswari atop a nearby hillock, indeed overseeing all that transpires below, presiding over the whole area extending in a vast plane on all sides of this especially sacred hill which is her abode.
Mysore is a cultural centre of renown. Its history is replete with cultural contributions of a superior order, particularly in the field of classical music. Some of the most illustrious exponents of South Indian, or Carnatic, music have come from Mysore; or else they have studied and perfected their art in the court of the Maharajas who ruled over the state for centuries. Since Independence and the abolition of the princely states, Mysore has experienced a certain decline unfortunately, but something of its former glory does indeed surface each year during the especially meaningful Navaratri, pregnant with the power of Chamundeswari, Mysore’s reigning deity. The festival is celebrated each year with cultural programmes every night in the palace which are open to the public free of cost, in the tradition of old. In this way the entire population can enjoy the performances of the best musicians and vocalists of Carnatic music. Or else there is the elaborate procession with numerous caparisoned elephants, camels, and the like, and other sumptuous regalia. It is held on a certain day of the festival when the Maharaja would be carried atop one of the elaborately decorated elephants to the temple to pay homage to Chamundeswari, along with all his court. It is only at this time of the year that one can experience the splendour of the palace, alit with thousands of tiny lights, entirely outlining its exquisite architecture. This would be fairyland, if ever there was one.
I was especially excited over the idea of at last visiting Mysore during this special festival for which it was renowned. There would be scores of people from all parts of the country; but the really large influx was likely to take place further on in the festival when the culmination would be reached from the 6th to the 9th nights. Throughout there would be recitations by the pundits of the Devi Mahatmaya, the ancient verses detailing the Goddess’s fierce battles with the asuric powers, leading up to her great victory over Tarak on the 9th night. Indeed, throughout India, if one is sensitive to these subtle movements of energy, the progressive increase of ‘combustible’ force is palpable.
I was therefore especially pleased that the race was scheduled during the Navaratri, which would give me the opportunity to see Mysore at its best. In addition, and this was certainly of greater significance, 8 Ocotober happened to be the anniversary of my first meeting in India with the Mother, twenty-three years earlier, after a process straddling 9 months, each of which seemed to encompass one of the 9 nights of the festival. The 9th month of the year, September, found me whisked away from Rome, where this ‘initiation’ was taking place in the true tradition, to India. And in the 10th month, October, similar to the 10th day of the festival, I knelt before the Divine Mother, the ‘daughter’ returning ‘home’ after a victorious conquest on the occult planes of the forces opposing the power of the Goddess.
Indeed, it needs to be emphasised that Myth, and in particular of this order, involving the Third Power, or the Daughter Principle, is played out on the subtle planes. The Durga Myth is especially connected to the vital plane. It is there that the Daughter conquers the forces of destruction. Thereafter that victory bears fruit on the physical plane. The birth of the divine Son is a result of that victorious achievement in the vital dimension of being. The Third Power is entrusted with the task of ‘putting order’ in that subtle dimension. The main weapon she uses in this conquest is the Trident, given to her by Lord Shiva. Its trifold form is significant of her position as third in the Trinity, which the trident itself symbolises. Moreover, and this is especially important to note, Durga or Chamundeswari is depicted in Hindu iconography as holding this sacred weapon over the head of the Asura in a descending, downward direction. This refers to her role and the others of the Trinity, the 9, and 6, descending, contracting and compacted into the Zero for the birth of the One, the Son.
On the other hand, the mythic equivalent of that One, Skanda or Murugan, the divine Son of Shiva and Parvati (Durga), holds a single-bodied weapon with which he too conquers. In the iconography he is depicted holding the Vel, or sacred Lance, pointing upward not downward. As I have indicated time and again, this refers to the Axis which evolves precisely out of the perfect tri-part Centre, of which Durga is the Third Power. These iconographical details are exact representations of the highest Knowledge, and they are corroborated by the lived experience today of this new and applied cosmology.
Thus, the atmosphere throughout the country and especially in the area of our racing experience was being charged by the onset of the Navaratri, increasing with each night that passed. From Bangalore we set out for Mysore by car in the afternoon of the 7th, several hours after the horse float had left, carrying F2 and five other horses being transported to Mysore for their respective races the next day. However, there was great agitation in the air, we soon discovered. The atmosphere was not only charged with the fervour of the approaching culmination of the Durga Festival, but also because of tension created on the political level. Protests had been going on because of a certain policy recently implemented to transmit news over national television in Urdu, the language of Muslims in the subcontinent. Without going into the pros and cons of these developments, suffice to say that when I reached Bangalore one wondered whether races would be held or cancelled, given the tension prevailing throughout the area. Only under the most unavoidable circumstances will races be cancelled or postponed; schedules are set long in advance and the racing dates are published before the season starts. Threats and counter-threats were heard each day, each side seeking to force the Government to cancel or to maintain the transmission, as the case may be.
But the races were not cancelled and we set out for Mysore that afternoon by car; owner, trainer and jockey, following F2 who was not yet up to par in her preparation for this most important race of her career to date. The city was in the grip of a mounting tension, similar to the growing tension or accumulation of force on the vital plane due to the Navaratri, then in its third day. As we proceeded toward the road leading out of Bangalore to Mysore, we were stopped by youths running toward our car, signalling us to go no further. We continued, only to encounter more such groups fleeing in different directions. The air was charged with the atmosphere of riots. We began to see signs everywhere of the anger of the protesting mobs: buses were being burnt, cars and transport vehicles had their windows smashed, people were rushing everywhere. We were forced to stop, turn back, as right in front of us the windows of a bus were being smashed by a frenzied group of youths; even private vehicles were not being spared.
Our car made its way safely through this mayhem in a maze of side- streets where we came upon several horse floats from the Club, stationed by the side of the road. Their windows had been smashed and the drivers were forced to turn back and take refuge in these residential areas off the main roads. The horses being transported for their races in Mysore were still inside; they had been in there since early morning. The grooms and handlers could do nothing for them other than provide water and feed. There was no question of unloading them in the middle of this tension and agitation, though there had even been threats of burning the floats with the horses inside.
It was a dreadful situation. The three of us were overcome with anxiety about the fate of F2’s float. The drivers of the floats we met had no idea what had happened to the others which had left the Club somewhat later.
We hastened to find a telephone and found one in a more secluded area, a shop which luckily had not downed its shutters at the onset of the riots as almost all others had done. Contacting the Club, we were informed that F2’s float had returned safely hours earlier. Having left somewhat later than the others, this convoy was able to gauge the situation and turn back in time, before finding itself in the thick of the trouble, unable to go forward or turn back safely like the vehicles we had encountered. Others found themselves out of the city and on the highway to Mysore when the situation went completely out of control. One such was the float carrying F2’s main competitor. The astute driver, instead of proceeding and risking damage or being burnt, took refuge in the premises of a nearby biscuit factory where he had to wait until nightfall before returning to the Club. The horses were enclosed inside the float for perhaps 12 hours, a significant stress on these performing athletes, charged for a race.
F2 had escaped these hardships. For her the only confusion was that she had been loaded in the float, signalling to her that she was being sent out for a race, only to find herself within a short time unloaded and back home!
But for us this tragedy, in which dozens of people were killed and countless injured, was a bizarre blessing. The race was called off. But since F2’s sweepstakes race was a sponsored event with the highest prize money in that category for the season, it was unlikely that the card for that day would be cancelled entirely. In the meantime, we had a grace period of several days until a new date was set. No one was sure when that would be and various possibilities were mooted. But there was a 9-power day approaching, – the 12th of October. I sensed that this would be the day. Moreover, I announced that if indeed the race was re-scheduled for that day, F2 would win. There was no doubt about it, she would win. It was not because this dramatic turn of events had given us a few more days to prepare the filly, who was badly in need of more time, that I made this categorical statement. Rather, it was the power of the 9 that encouraged me to believe we were in the midst of one of those rare and decisive ‘convergences’ of time and circumstances, and that a Power was ‘in control’ of events beyond the scope and wisdom of mere mortals, and that we were in the protective embrace of Durga/Chamundeswari whose conquering force was moving all things and all beings according to her divine plan. A new date set on a 9-power day was her signature.
This, of course, is not a simple matter to discuss or seek to explain ‘rationally’. In the first place, are we justified in being so arrogant and hardhearted as to believe that the Divine Mother had instigated an agitation in all of Bangalore, but especially right on the road to Mysore, the hub of the agitation, just to give us more time to heal and prepare F2 for her up-coming race? Is it proper to hold such beliefs which might, in fact, be deemed fanatical, or even dangerous? At the same time, these unexpected events did occur in the order I have described, and they did contribute to providing those few extra days we were desperately in need of. Indeed, it was this turn of events that gave not only our team but astute observers of the racing scene a greater confidence in the performance of F2. Trainers who were seeing her condition and observing Adam trying to do his best to get the filly in shape for the race, were all aware that the Gods were smiling on him and had blessed his dedication and determination by this fateful happening.
It would be too simplistic to attribute all this to a response of the Supramental Shakti to our prayers, or a reward for our dedication or honesty or truth, or whatever of the moral attributes which the faithful believe causes the Divine to respond. This may be sufficient to satisfy the religiously fervent, but not a student of this New Way. Rather, the answer lies in a more mathematical accuracy which may or may not satisfy the emotional nature of the devout. And yet in this supramental work the emotional content, the bhakti or devotional, mystical part is not made to suffer or be impoverished in the effort to lay a more scientific foundation for our work. On the contrary, these aspects of the quest and parts of the being are often raised to the highest level of mystical, devotional fervour, while at the same time answering the needs of level-headed, grounded ‘science’. Indeed, this was the case when in the midst of the upsurge of violent, destructive forces one took refuge in the warm and protective embrace of the divine Durga, with the certainty that all was ‘under control’ and that everything, positive or negative, would serve the purposes of the One.
That ‘one’ held the key to the entire affair. At the centre of this newly-formed convergence of three powers, 9/6/3 of rajas, sattva, tamas, stood the Horse. The RELEASE occasioned by this compaction and the consolidation thereby of the Zero-nucleus was such that it could hold in the midst of the greatest agitation and turmoil. It was its own protection by virtue of this centering which placed it in another dimension, governed by other laws, where destructive forces such as those unleashed throughout the city could not impinge. It is not that the riots came because F2 needed more time before her race, and that this was the answer to our prayers. It was that F2’s poise and the existence of a Centre MADE USE of all converging and circumscribing circumstances to further its purposes. It is a question of the Centre able to organise circumstances for its expression, in this case the conditions to allow F2 to release that new-found energy.
Above all, it must be borne in mind that the work at this stage of the Descent, involving this question of centering and realignment, deals with the vital plane in large measure. Right now there is a tremendous re-ordering transpiring on that plane, in close proximity with the physical. This is the definition of the ‘bridge’ I have referred to time and again, which the Third contributes to the Work. The ‘order’ established in the vital plane, the ‘field’ of the Third, is that Bridge. It allows the new world to be born which is characterised by a self-engendered protection due to its centrality which places it in a dimension beyond the play of forces inimical to its existence in the physical dimension. The laws by which it is governed place it beyond the reach of the old creation. Indeed, the existence of such a centre in its midst is the signal that the old is destined to be transformed by a process which, under the circumstances, it cannot avoid. The forces of the old creation are doomed to play the role of ‘serving the One’, – whether this be positive or negative, as in the case of the riots which served F2 in her hour of need.
To perceive the workings of the Supramental Shakti requires a consciousness that is all-encompassing and untouched by the limitations a sentimental viewpoint imposes. A reading of the Devi Mahatmaya, with the details of the exploits of Durga in her 9-night siege of Tarak, is sufficient to establish this premise. We are dealing with powerful energies in these matters. Hence the wisdom of the Vedic tradition lies in its formulation of the Vir Marg, or Path of the Hero. Only a warrior of the Divine Mother can withstand the impact her sometimes ruthless actions provoke without flinching. And yet compassion must reign supreme, for this very Mother, ruthless at times and devastating in her use of force, is also the giver of the greatest boons. We were soon to appreciate this benign attribute as the newly-scheduled day for the race approached: 12 October. Indeed, a 9-power day as I had anticipated. The victory, as far as I was concerned, was thus certain.
At the Feet of Sri Chamundeswari
During the two months from F2’s sensational triumph on 5th August, I noticed persistent, annoying interferences whenever I would set out to attend her races. This was seen to increase with each win, almost as if there were forces, energies, even little ‘beings’ deputed to place obstacles in the way. An example might be a punctured tire, or some other annoying situation intended to delay arrival. The matter was especially made evident when we left Bangalore for Mysore the very morning of the Equinox race. A punctured tire almost made it necessary to locate another vehicle in which Eve might continue the journey (Adam was already there) so as to reach the race on time. Fortunately the matter did not reach this extreme.
Thus, there seemed to be an increase in such ‘tactics’ the higher up in the scale F2 went. For this sweepstakes the whole area was ablaze, as if a gigantic culmination had been reached and powerful combustible energy had been set off. The intensity and suddenness of the eruption seemed disproportionate to the issue. And because of continuing violence especially along the route to Mysore, the day after F2’s postponed race the floats and trainers had to travel in a convoy with police escort. But by the 12th everything had settled down and calm returned. There was a card scheduled for that day with a race in which Adam’s favourite gelding had been entered. To accommodate F2’s sponsored sweepstakes, that entire card was cancelled and all the races scheduled to be held on October 8th were shifted to the 12th. Adam targeted another race for his gelding: the last day of the season, 21 October.
In the meantime, I had returned to Skambha only to receive the news on arrival that F2’s race had finally been re-scheduled. I therefore set out for Mysore directly from Skambha, together with two other members of our Centre. We reached Mysore in the evening of the 11th, the 6th day of the festival and the beginning of its culmination. We were treated to an exotic display of India at her very best, because Mysore was a delight to behold and fulfilled any expectations we might have had.
We discovered when we arrived that there was to be a veena concert at the palace, open to the public. The veena, an ancient stringed instrument, is the most cherished instrument in South India, revered in fact because it is the sacred object of Mahasaraswati. In Hindu iconography, the Goddess is depicted seated on a lotus, holding this instrument in her lap. Approaching the venue, it was difficult to imagine a more elaborate setting for a concert. At one point, while engrossed in the inspired music, we were stunned by the appearance behind the dais where the musicians sat of a procession of elephants, camels, and even cows, all decorated tastefully, accompanied by nagaswaram players (a type of long-necked oboe, especially played on such occasions), drummers, and the like. Temple bells resounded through the air, but the veena concert went on in the midst of it all! The procession was winding its way beneath the arches of the interior of the palace, moving behind the dais and then out into the grounds in front. It was more than fairyland. This was the India of legend come alive before our eyes, as it was perhaps thousands of years ago. The palace itself was not as ancient as the rituals, but its Mysore-style architecture was lit up with thousands of tiny lights outlining its entire body against the deep night. The vast expanse filled with this ‘palace of light’ was awesome.
The setting seemed to enhance the magical atmosphere which had come to characterise our racing experience from the time Eve began to ride again, completing the tri-part nucleus and releasing that precious fuel which F2 seemed especially adept an instrument at utilising. It remained to be seen whether or not her physical condition would permit a fourth consecutive win. She was not the favourite this time. Rather, it was her main competitor who, in addition, was to be ridden by a top jockey. The filly having already won a number of races of this calibre, the public had more confidence in his mount, and this showed in the betting.
The next day, after that magical night in the palace, moved to the core by the sounds of the Goddess Saraswati’s sacred instrument, and in that special setting, the time of the race approached. When F2 entered the paddock, once again she was the object of everyone’s admiration, – public, trainers, officials. After three hard races, reaching the top class, there were no signs of deterioration at all. On the contrary, she continued to improve with each run. But this time we did not know what to expect. The four extra days had indeed been a great boon and were well utilised. She was that much better as a result. But her jump out of the gate was not as clean and as fluid as her other races, indicating a certain reluctance or reticence, and a desire perhaps to protect her left shoulder. Nonetheless, she was able to position herself in front and set her usual fast pace.
Her main competitor, the favourite, was in the hands of an experienced and talented jockey. He knew better than to challenge F2 for the lead at that pace, since his mount could not match F2’s initial speed. Instead he stayed just behind her in second or third position throughout, waiting for the pace to slow down. F2 kept the lead, but in the final stretch one could see that she was not going to relax and then kick off again, picking up speed. Eve rode her out but did not push her in excess. She kept herself still, steady, so as not to unbalance the filly, at a fast pace but without any noticeable acceleration. Yet that seemed enough. The other horses were still unable to reach her. The favourite was just behind in the final 100 metres, but given the pace she could not muster up enough fire power to pass; all her effort had gone to catching up.
Suddenly, with perhaps 50 metres left, another filly came from fourth or fifth position, moving at a terrific pace, gaining speed with each stride, as they all approached the winning post with F2 still leading and the new contender pressing ahead a full force. The crowd began to roar as this filly and F2 were careening neck-and-neck toward the winning post. With F2 barely a head in front and the favourite in third position a length or two behind, what looked like a near-miss turned into a victory. The race had almost been lost, but Eve and F2 had secured a well-deserved fourth consecutive win. The public showed their appreciation as filly and jockey came out of the race to resounding cheers.
It was the type of race that leaves one staggered, drained. By a head it was won, but if there had been a mere 20 metres more to cover, perhaps even less, F2 would have lost. As it was, the distance was not a true 1200 metres. Surprisingly for such a special race, false rails had been set inside the regular rails by 4 metres throughout, thereby increasing the distance accordingly, benefiting those horses who require more distance to catch up with a true sprinter like F2, similar to the filly who almost overtook her at the end of the race.
Eve knew better than to press her mount excessively, given her delicate condition. She rode a masterful race under the circumstances and brought F2 out in just the same condition as she went into the race. She kept her at a fast pace, enough that when fatigue had set in, and with it the real danger of injury, she was well in command and able to guide her steadily to the winning post just that much ahead of all the others to secure a hard-fought win.
In spite of all the obstacles, some covert, which would only come to light later on, F2 had drawn our racing experience into another category. She was not just a Class I horse, – indeed by then at the top of her class. She was a sweepstakes winner. I had always upheld the talents of my fillies, even in the face of their mediocre results and the derision of all. But when F2 steadily moved past the winning post on that 9-power day, not having allowed even one horse to get in front of her in a consecutive four races, along with the rest of her fans I was overcome with admiration and awe. Here was a horse which had been registering meagre results from the beginning. Suddenly, midway through her career and in a brief two months, she was contending the position of top sprinter of the country. In racing, this is indeed the stuff of fairy tale.
F2 exiting her sweepstakes race, Mysore, 12 October 1994
Temple of Goddess Chamundeswari in the background
The next morning we made a pilgrimage to the temple of Chamundeswari at whose feet this entire episode had unfolded, from the time of Eve’s first ‘accident’ on 22 September 1993. En route, there were pujas to the Goddess being celebrated everywhere, throughout the city, in streets, shops, little shrines, even service stations; wherever one went, her worship was going on. We had very special reason to give thanks by making our way to her sacred abode overlooking the race course on the plains below. F2 had caused Eve agony then, and ecstasy now. With this same creature Eve had known the abyss and the heights. We all had much to thank the Goddess for on that 9th day of her festival, its culmination. It was, as well, the day pujas are done to Saraswati, since the last three days are dedicated each to one of the three Goddesses; Lakshmi, Kali and Saraswati.
Our racing cycle was thus closed with these 9 wins, – 3 for F1 and 6 for F2, only to open a new one. But the imprinting was done. The new boundary had been set, the spiralling out at the 9 Point had been masterfully accomplished. The dimensions of our racing endeavour had been enlarged and all was perfectly as it should be within the context of the new cosmos we were establishing. The lived experience followed exactly what had been defined by the supramental process: given certain ingredients, a certain alignment and balance, a particular release of energy must take place. Indeed, the precise quantity to reach the 9 summit.
This describes the path of the gnostic being. He or she must find the way to this release and on that basis the individual and collective boundary of destiny can be enlarged. The final quarter of the Gnostic Circle must be unveiled and integrated into our lived experience on this planet, which defines Sri Aurobindo’s promise of a life divine for this Earth.
The purpose of this saga is to provide a complete example of a supramental process, through to its culmination, – at least one of its culminations. For this does not mean the saga ends here. Not at all, since there are two more stages to cover with the third and fourth equine athletes taking part, and more to come regarding the contributions of F1 and F2. But one thing has been established: the foundation is laid and it is indestructible. This is the goal in our transition to a life divine.
There were certain matters left to complete the operation and make it ready for the next phase. There was Adam’s licence to secure somehow, which, when concluded, promised to open a new chapter. His talents were being widely acclaimed given F2’s spectacular performance. But the filly had run under another trainer’s name, since Adam was yet to receive a formal licence to train in Bangalore. For that he needed to secure ten Bangalore-based horses. In this context there was still one more item to ‘set in place’ in order to make our nucleus fully operational. Adam had to be centred on our work together, above all the rest. And this involved the horses he needed to make up the stipulated ten.
Previously, when based in Madras, he was training exclusively for his brother who had given him 22 horses. But in moving to Bangalore, his brother was reluctant to provide full support, considering perhaps that Adam would not be successful in gaining a licence in a centre coveted by many trainers. There were good grounds for his reluctance in that he knew Magog’s far-reaching power, and it was widely known that he was opposing Adam’s application in whatever way he could. His brother was therefore slow in offering horses. But he had placed four with him, one more than my three in his care.
Nine days after F2’s sweepstakes win, the last day of the season and a 9-power day, right after the races were over and Adam’s favourite gelding, who belonged to his brother, failed to win, Adam was informed that two of these horses were being given to another trainer in Madras. They were to be removed from Adam’s list of ten immediately, since the float was leaving that evening and these horses were included. Among the two was Adam’s favourite. Thus, unexpectedly he was left without the full count of ten and with hardly any time left to secure horses from another owner before his application was to be discussed by the Board. But by far the most difficult part was the sudden loss of his gelding, transported off to the unknown, to the care of someone less sensitive to the needs of this particular horse, to whom Adam had been dedicated for so long.
This was the final ingredient and another ruthless display of the Power. Happening on a 9-power day, and 9 days after F2’s culminating win, I realised that this was indeed the close of the season, as well as the end of a chapter. The logic in this latest move seemed quite clear: our racing experience together had to be completely poised around the tri-part energies offered by the three fillies; all the rest was secondary for the time being. If Adam’s brother was to have four and more horses in his stables, and Adam would present his application for a licence on that basis, with his brother as the main owner, that would not reflect a work balanced around a single point, centred on a unitary principle. There would be two foci and not one. This could not be. In spite of the pain at seeing his favourite gelding depart into the night and handed over to someone less caring and competent, and in spite of the unknowing this produced in the material details of his application for a licence (after all, his future hinged on that application), the Power established the correct basis for our work, seemingly with little care for these mundane details and human concerns.
These are harsh experiences, but in the context of yoga they have great value. They forge an inner strength, a steel-like determination. They thrust us back upon ourselves, because of which we are stimulated to extract a hitherto untapped source of energy and potential. Another value lies in the realisation that there is a Power in control and to which we must offer ourselves in a movement of conscious surrender. This is made simple when we have a gnostic key at our disposal with which we can monitor the often elusive movements of the Supramental Shakti and verify her influence and presence and actions – a key such as the measure of 9 and the Gnostic Circle. In Adam’s case, this Power was especially prominent. Or else, when one undergoes experiences such as Eve’s and the misery of two accidents so minutely controlled that it is impossible not to SEE the Power behind the affair, arranging each small and larger detail, it is impossible to continue viewing oneself as the doer and ‘in control’ of one’s life, or even in control of the losses or wins in a race. One knows oneself to be a mere puppet, when ignorance prevails and gnosis is absent. Otherwise, when there is a certain illumination, one is a CONSCIOUS instrument and possessed of a conscious awareness. In both cases, Eve’s as well as Adam’s, the harshness is compensated for by the accelerated progress and the ecstasy of ‘seeing what none have eyes to see’.
Without this understanding, it would seem that these are insignificant details, too small to be worth the trouble to describe. But in a new world the result of a new Seeing, ‘everything is symbolic’, as the Mother said of her temple. Yet in this saga we are even redefining the word ‘symbol’. It is precisely this new definition that sets certain demands upon our work which formerly were considered insignificant, having no bearing on a spiritual work. We appreciate by this that indeed we are dealing with the Goddess Saraswati, renowned for her perfection of detail, her meticulous talent for ‘putting each thing in its place’. Sri Aurobindo stated that the presiding deity of this Age was Mahasaraswati. His statement is corroborated by this new cosmology. Mahasaraswati does indeed preside over this 9th Manifestation of 6,480 years. Science is her child. Art and music as well. But there is more. She gives us the process of things supramental, the minute control over every little detail so that no contamination is found at the heart and in the seed of our new world.
We have seen this Power in action throughout our Saga. Even to the seemingly insignificant question of the amount given for the final entry fee which occasioned so much additional tension, and yet which followed the pattern of a gnostic formula. The fee was ten times the normal 3000 rupees. In a sweepstakes there is a certain amount guaranteed by the sponsor. In addition, there are the accumulated entry fees of all the participants at 3000 each. But my final fee added 30,000 more. The ‘perfection of detail’ was witnessed in the actual cost of this entry, a ‘harmony’ that was complex to arrange since the total stakes can only be tallied once the horses are all entered. Some are withdrawn before the entire amount is paid. Therefore, one cannot be sure until two days before the race just what the full stake money will be. The winner then receives 60% of that total. 30,000 was my contribution, 60% of which is 18,000 (9); and this would come to me by way of the win, leaving 12,000 (3) in the pool to be distributed to the second, third, and so on. Deducting the normal fee of 3000 which I would have had to pay had we entered F2 on time, this leaves 9000 as the actual amount ‘lost’. Indeed, had F2 lost the race, of course our loss would have been the full 30,000. But given the power of the 9, or the Goddess, clearly this was not meant to be. 9000 was more in harmony with the formula, 9, 6, and 3, as were all the numbers involved.
It is this sort of seemingly insignificant detail that one refuses to accept as relevant in a spiritual endeavour. One labels these details ‘coincidence’. Yet how many such coincidences are required before our scepticism is dissolved and one begins ‘to see in a new way’? In that vision with its compelling breadth and profundity, the mosaic is formed of countless little details of this order, without which our aspiration for a harmony of the One and the Many would not be satisfied. Life in the universe of 9, this material dimension, is a symphony of Number, formed of a thousand million minor and major harmonies, each note of which is related to the whole and consonant with the totality of notes we can ‘hear’ when realigned according to the supramental way. We do not ‘hear’ this harmony because we have no tool to do so. We are closed in our egocentrism and its binary prison, whereby nothing exists that cannot be cramped into the space of our impoverished ‘system’ of meagre energy and dim light. From this prison we view the world and on the basis of which we act, we pretend to evolve and move up the ladder of creation to something more refined and worthy of a species made in ‘God’s image’. But we believe that only OUR will prevails, only OUR mental judgements and mental ideas are valid and real, OUR life as we know it and live it alone is true. The rest is illusion, superstition, even dementia. We cannot perceive the Divine Maya executing the plan of a divine Harmony through us. We cling to our impotent condition because we consider only ourselves the originators of all that we can know with our senses made dull by a constant depletion of energy due to our binary condition.
Instead, the Goddess does it all, arranges each little and large detail. We are privileged to be her instruments in this grand Harmony and to see what none yet have eyes to see, but which Sri Aurobindo has ‘seen’ of Mahasaraswati, recorded in his collection of essays, The Mother. It was to this Goddess, as he has described her, that we paid homage in our pilgrimage to Chamundeswari’s abode the 9th day of the Festival, Mahasaraswati’s day. Thereafter, the victorious ‘daughters’ returned ‘home’.
‘Mahasaraswati is the Mother’s Power of Work and her spirit of perfection and order. The youngest of the four (Mothers), she is the most skilled in executive faculty and the nearest to physical Nature. Maheswari lays down the large lines of the world-forces, Mahakali drives their energy and impetus, Mahalakshmi discovers their rhythms and measures, but Mahasaraswati presides over their detail of organisation and execution, relation of parts and effective combination of forces and unfailing exactitude of result and fulfilment. The science and craft and technique of things are Mahasaraswati’s province. Always she holds in her nature and can give to those whom she has chosen intimate and precise knowledge, the subtlety and patience, the accuracy of intuitive mind and conscious hand and discerning eye of the perfect worker. This Power is the strong, the tireless, the careful and efficient builder, organiser, administrator, technician, artisan and classifier of the worlds. When she takes up the transformation and new-building of the nature, her action is laborious and minute and often seems to our impatience slow and interminable, but it is persistent, integral and flawless. For the will in her works is scrupulous, unsleeping, indefatigable; leaning over us she notes and touches every little detail, finds out every minute defect, gap, twist or incompleteness, considers and weighs accurately all that has been done and all that remains still to be done hereafter. Nothing is too small or apparently trivial for her attention; nothing however impalpable or disguised or latent can escape her. Moulding and re-moulding she 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. Carelessness and negligence and indolence she abhors; all scamped and hasty and shuffling work, all clumsiness and à peu près and misfire, all false adaptation and misuse of instruments and faculties and leaving of things undone or half done is offensive and foreign to her temper. When her work is finished, nothing has been forgotten, no part has been misplaced or omitted or left in a faulty condition; all is solid, accurate, complete, admirable. Nothing short of a perfect perfection satisfies her and she is ready to face an eternity of toil if that is needed for the fullness of her creation. Therefore of all the Mother’s powers she is the most long-suffering with man and his thousand imperfections. Kind, smiling, close and helpful, not easily turned away or discouraged, insistent even after repeated failure, her hand sustains our every step on condition that we are single in our will and straightforward and sincere; for a double mind she will not tolerate and her revealing irony is merciless to drama and histrionics and self-deceit and pretence. A mother to our wants, a friend in our difficulties, a persistent and tranquil counsellor and mentor, chasing away with her radiant smile the clouds of gloom and fretfulness and depression, reminding always of the ever-present help, pointing to the eternal sunshine, she is firm, quiet and persevering in the deep and continuous urge that drives us towards the integrality of the higher nature. All the work of the other Powers leans on her for completeness; for she assures the material foundation, elaborates the stuff of detail and erects and rivets the armour of the structure.’
The Void gives up its Dead
The ‘daughters’ returned home for the 10th Day, when traditionally daughters in Hindu society do return to their parents abode for the Vijaya Dashami, or the 10th Day of Victory, in yearly commemoration of this hallowed myth. It had been played out in full, forces in opposition were conquered, but not for the usual purpose or to serve moralistic needs. This conquering, as Durga achieves over Tarakasura, is also ‘with a purpose’. That is, to serve the One. In the New Way, victory over those hostile powers is achieved when they are made to serve that One: they are organised, ordered, set in place. That is, they are INTEGRATED into the new cosmos. Otherwise, what would be the point?
If this Yoga of the Horse was simply the victory of good over evil, there would be no newness about it. Succinctly, it would mean that there was no birth of the One; or, as in the case of the Parvati/Durga myth, no birth of the divine warrior Son of Shiva. That having happened, the Goddess’s exploits cannot be of the order commonly found in myth. There has to be ‘something else’.
In this Yoga of the Horse, the Point, or the One, exists or came into being: the centre was forged at the heart of which stands that One. This is the ‘core of a divine Purpose’. It alters the entire panorama of our quest. Thereafter, everything has to be set in place, the energies circumscribing that core. This means that the Core does not bring a destruction of hostile powers. For if that were the case, then the method employed would have to be the old one, the one that has spawned a whole creation characterised by mortality, decay and collapse.
On the other hand, we are describing in these pages the new way, the way of harmony and integration. This means that Destruction, the third mode of the trinity, is TRANSFORMED. Dissolution is the new mode. This indicates another mechanism in operation by which energies are unknotted, if it may be so called. They are no longer isolated pockets in orbit of a void and hence able to create havoc, similar to a fragment from the Asteroid Belt without any binding core. Rather, the existence of a centrepoint means that there is a compelling mass which acts like the core of the Sun. And this has the power – i.e., concentration, or mass – to draw into its system or the emerging cosmos, those uncentred pockets of isolated, hardened energy. In the system they are OBLIGED to serve the purposes of that centrepoint; and indeed to further that purpose. We may even go so far as to state that in many cases their ‘service’ is, if not more precious, at least more decisive, since these pockets of hardened energy, which we call ‘hostile powers’, have trapped more energy than the other elements of the cosmos. It is a sort of ‘dark matter’ and this hitherto rebellious energy must be ordered, drawn into orbit of the centre-core and made to release its energy into the system which then accelerates the process, speeds up the manifestation from that Centre.
This is the meaning of Dissolution. What is dissolved is the ego structure which imprisons energy in orbit of a void: purposeless. That is, division, separation – not integration and oneness. The binary structure gives way to the unitary. In such a case, the ego function is superseded. It is no longer the mechanism to further evolution – as, for example, the current method of procreation which the ego structure, or the binary system utilises to facilitate and ensure continuity of the species. This new creation is propelled forward in its growth differently. It manifests from the centre, and from centre to centre. That is, a centre comes into existence, and another, and another. Right within and in the midst of the old. These centres usurp energy for their self-expression. That is, while fed by an ever-replenishing inner source, the cosmos of which they stand as luminous suns draws to itself by attraction those hardened pockets of dark matter ‘out there’ and dismantles the resistance which arises from energies in orbit of a void; and then that RELEASE is utilised to drive the manifestation. Like the recent discoveries regarding gyroscopes which have been discovered recently to propel a mechanism, seeming to contradict the laws of physics, this system is powered by balance and speed and alignment just like the cosmos we inhabit. And this is the way the world is transformed. Our moralistic ideas, or the attainments of the old spirituality, are useless for such a task. There has to be a mathematical, cosmological process to transform the old. Meaning, somehow the old has to ‘give up its dead’, to quote St John’s Revelation.
This is the New Way, the way of Dissolution and no longer Destruction: the truly non-violent way. Its keyword is control, which comes about only when there exists a centre and then an axis. On this basis, as I had explained in the early part of this study, the Supramental Shakti can ‘intervene’ because there is an emerging cosmos and centre-axis through which and by means of which, intervention produces action which is non-violent because it does not destroy or impose itself or force its way from the periphery upon all things in the cosmos.
This is the definition of Harmony: all things held in orbit of the Sun of Truth-Consciousness, to further the purposes of the One. There is no cacophony in such a system. What is being described here is simply the Cosmic Harmony. Can we say that the music of the spheres is a disharmony or a cacophony? The theme is the One, the essential Raga. The improvisation is the contribution of individual souls in orbit of that One, enhancing, embellishing, re-discovering the true divine Theme, expressed in multifarious new ways.
The Saga continues and we move forward in the discovery and establishment of that new supramental way for the world. The entire racing experience hereinafter could be more mathematical – arcane as well as mundane. The reason why it could not be prior to our consolidation was due to ‘gaps’ left in the nuclear structure. This meant imbalance and indeed gaps through which unforeseen elements could enter the system and overturn calculations. There is the esoteric or deeper significance to this, – that is, relating to the cosmos in formation and the mathematical precision with which one can foresee with power the future course. For it is not a question of prediction based on a selection among numerous possibilities which, in this case, must also take into consideration the volatile, impressionable and unpredictable nature of the horse in addition to all the rest. In this New Way there is no such circumstance beyond the ‘control’ of the Centre. Horse included. Indeed, the horse is perhaps the least likely to step out of the harmony or permit an unexpected and unforeseen ‘asteroid’ to create havoc, as when a void lies at the centre.
In future issues, we will go deeply into these ‘mathematics’. I will discuss the workings of simultaneous time, or what Sri Aurobindo refers to as trikaladrishsti (‘three-time vision’) in the final chapter of his Synthesis of Yoga, which he entitled, ‘Towards the Supramental Time Vision’. Not clairvoyance, but by seeing that is power, when time is experienced in the Core. This is the property of a centre with an axis – the theme of our next treatment of the Yoga of the Horse.
February of 1995
Aeon Centre of Cosmology
at Skambha
Sri Aurobindo
‘The Mother’
from Chapter VI
…If you desire this transformation, put yourself in the hands of the Mother and her Powers without cavil or resistance and let her do unhindered her work within you. Three things you must have, consciousness, plasticity, unreserved surrender. For you must be conscious in your mind and soul and heart and life and the very cells of your body, aware of the Mother and her Powers and their working; for although she can and does work in you even in your obscurity and your unconscious parts and moments, it is not the same thing as when you are in an awakened and living communion with her. All your nature must be plastic to her touch, not questioning as the self-sufficient ignorant mind questions and doubts and disputes and is the enemy of its enlightenment and change; not insisting on its own movements as the vital in man insists and persistently opposes its refractory desires and ill-will to every divine influence; not obstructing and entrenched in incapacity, inertia and tamas as man’s physical consciousness obstructs and clinging to its pleasure in smallness and darkness cries out against each touch that disturbs its soulless routine or its dull sloth or its torpid slumber. The unreserved surrender of your inner and outer being will bring this plasticity into all the parts of your nature; consciousness will awaken everywhere in you by constant openness to the Wisdom and Light, the Force, the Harmony and Beauty, the Perfection that come flowing down from above. Even the body will awake and unite at last its consciousness subliminal no longer to the supramental super-conscious Force, feel her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda.
But be on your guard and do not try to understand and judge the Divine Mother by your little earthly mind that loves to subject even the things that are beyond it to its own norms and standards, its narrow reasonings and erring impressions, its bottomless aggressive ignorance and its petty self-confident knowledge. The human mind shut in the prison of its half-lit obscurity cannot follow the many-sided freedom of the steps of the Divine Shakti. The rapidity and complexity of her vision and action outrun its stumbling comprehension; the measures of her movement are not its measures. Bewildered by the swift alteration of her many different personalities, her making of rhythms and her breaking of rhythms, her accelerations of speed and her retardations, her varied ways of dealing with the problem of one and her gathering of them together, it will not recognise the way of the Supreme Power when it is circling and sweeping upwards through the maze of the Ignorance to a supernal Light. Open rather your soul to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature and see her with the psychic vision that alone make a straight response to the Truth. Then the Mother herself will enlighten by their psychic elements your mind and heart and life and physical consciousness and reveal to them too her ways and her nature.
Avoid also the error of the ignorant mind’s demand on the Divine Power, to act always according to our crude surface notions of omniscience and omnipotence. For our mind clamours to be impressed at every turn by miraculous powers and easy success and dazzling splendour; otherwise it cannot believe that here is the Divine. The Mother is dealing with the Ignorance; she has descended there and is not all above. Partly she veils and partly she unveils her knowledge and her power, often holds them back from her instruments and personalities and follows that she may transform them the way of the seeking mind, the way of the aspiring psychic, the way of the battling vital, the way of the imprisoned and suffering physical nature. There are conditions that have been laid down by a Supreme Will, there are many tangled knots that have to be loosened and cannot be cut abruptly asunder. The Asura and the Rakshasa hold this evolving earthly nature and have to be met and conquered on their own terms in their own long-conquered fief and province; the human in us has to be led and prepared to transcend its limits and is too weak and obscure to be lifted up suddenly to a form far beyond it. The Divine Consciousness and Force are there and do at each moment the thing that is needed in the conditions of the labour, take always the step that is decreed and shape in the midst of imperfection the perfection that is to come. But only when the supermind has descended in you can she deal directly as the supramental Shakti with supramental natures. If you follow your mind, it will not recognise the Mother even when she is manifest before you. Follow your soul and not your mind, your soul that answers to the Truth, not your mind that leaps at appearances; trust the Divine Power and she will free the godlike element in you and shape all into an expression of Divine Nature.
The supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not the last summit. But that the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above. The power that mediates between the sanction and the call is the presence and power of the Divine Mother. The Mother’s power and not any human endeavour and tapasya can alone rend the lid and tear the covering and shape the vessel and bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the immortal’s Ananda.
