Men, countries, continents! The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss. The Mother (New Year message, 1967) Question: Why imperative? The Mother: Because we are at one of those moments Sri Aurobindo calls ‘Hour of God’, and evolution has taken an accelerated and intensified movement. (The Mother, 22.2.1967)
The new cosmology is a revolutionary formulation that could only be accomplished in this 9th Manifestation because it requires the descent of the Solar Line in Earth time to concretise the formulation; the tag of ‘theoretical’ – common to all contemporary scientific cosmologies until proven otherwise – is absent in this applicable cosmology that is perceived and formulated through its own manifestation as it unfolds in Earth time.
At the heart of all cosmology stands Time – and yet it is the cosmic property humanity knows so little of; we experience it only as the various methods of organising our individual and collective lives; or else as the drainer of the energy we accumulate from birth onward, until at the mid-point of our lives reversal takes place and we start unwinding. Then Time becomes the implacable consumer of the energy we had spent the first half accumulating. To date nothing has been able to conclusively arrest this irreversible process of Life leading to Death, increase then decrease, expansion then contraction.
Don Juan, the Nagual Teacher of Carlos Castaneda’s experience, described the phenomenon as an Eagle voraciously consuming the energy that human beings release at death. The process he set before himself and his pupils was to ‘cheat the Eagle’ by not becoming his ‘food’. It was what might be called a ‘conscious death’. His teaching was remarkably accurate for the individual; he never applied it to the entire cosmic manifestation, much less to the existence of the Earth and the evolutionary process she houses. (See The Fire From Within, Carlos Castaneda, 1984.)
The New Way, on the other hand, recognises the published works on don Juan’s teachings as perhaps the most relevant contribution to the transformation in the store of New Age literature; but the only problem is that today systems cannot be satisfying unless they are comprehensive. This, in fact, is the scourge of contemporary society: compartmentalisation accompanied by incompletion. Whatever science has produced is the result of incomplete processes; in such a case a destructive winding down is inevitable. Mind, which is itself divisive, cannot conceive of unity: what is created in such an atmosphere invariably has a downside – nuclear power, for instance.
Salvation today is described by one simple word: completion. This is the grace the new cosmology offers to seekers. It is the only system that is founded precisely on whole processes. In the new cosmology this is expressed by the Solar Line and through their lives it becomes the lived experience for the Earth because they render Time an Ally and no longer the Destroyer that Time must necessarily be if it is to bring in ‘food for the Eagle’.
The descent of the complete Solar Line radically alters beliefs that have imprisoned the human consciousness for the better part of the past 2000 years, and they still cast a gloom over our planet. The problem is that we were always faced with incompletion, particularly glaring in the last century, making it the most dangerous in the current period of recorded history. The danger became acute during the very last stage of the supramental process. This was the process of carrying the Transcendent to the Immanence of himself in 1963. For this reason the Mother stated that the most difficult years were 1963 and 1964, (The Mother’s Agenda, 1961) and if we could get past that the victory was assured. The reason for this categorical statement is because the final descent to complete the Line had to be without severing the thread of Time over that very period. The 9th Avatar’s most important labour was the 9th becoming the 10th in an unbroken line of time. In the Rig Veda it is noted that this passage is difficult; and if we consider the One Circle as described in the Veda covering twelve stages/signs/ages/manifestations, the 9th does indeed stand before the 10th opening to the last of the four quarters, which until now could only be accessed through death.
The Rishis certainly bridged the abyss to Swar in their individual yogas, but did that have an effect on the rest of society? Insofar as it might have, this will help us understand why its hymns are not understood by scholars and yogic practitioners alike. Our contemporary society is truly a world apart. If we could be transported back in time to the Vedic Age, it would certainly be like visiting another planet in another solar system.
Since this passage, 9 to 10, has been successfully accomplished, this is what establishes the inevitability of the Supramental Manifestation: it is based on the oneness of Transcendent and Immanent, the passage from the highest heights of the Supramental Plane and the compression of that vastness into the Seed of Itself. This functions then as a magnetic centre that irrevocably draws that future closer because of attraction based on the affinity of oneness, given the proper alignment, like magnets of north and south poles. In the Gnostic Circle there is a visual image of that north/south polarity in the connection between the 0/9 Point/Orbit and its opposite the 4.5 Orbit of the Asteroid Belt because of the continuity in time. Is this the power that caused the shattering in the orbit between Mars and Jupiter with its massive attractive force? Or the impact of the reverse, repulsion that could pull things apart before a certain maturity had been reached in the evolving system or planet or process – much the same as what the evolution of consciousness on Earth passes through when faced with the inability to withstand pressure. This is the difficulty of the 9 becoming the 10 expressed in the Rig Veda; without the completed process, the individual or society that seeks to move ahead boldly and cross the threshold to materialise ‘heaven on Earth’, forces collapse (due to an inadequate balance) and the Eagle of Death receives his food; we fall back into the 8th sign, Scorpio, known as the sign of Death in the zodiac and our journey in Earth time ends there: we never move into the last quarter of the 12.
Naturally nothing of this is acceptable to contemporary science (or spirituality) because it is an entirely new understanding of the evolutionary process, at least within the present precessional cycle of 25,920 years; we have no previous models to turn to. But if there is a disruption in the operation before establishing a balance or new alignment, then the magnetism is so overpowering that there is a risk of collapse into a black hole, as it were; or conversely, a shattering due to an opposite polarity. What is described is an aspect of Time entirely ignored by both science and spirituality, hence the Mother advocated the Third Thing beyond them both (1962). And this came to be known as the New Way with its revolutionising language and cosmology.
It was in 1963 that the Transcendent entered Earth time as the Immanent Seed – that is, as the infinitesimal magnetic point lodged in the centre of the circle’s centre, to describe it geometrically. The danger arises in that when this occurs the process is complete and can then never be reversed. What this indicates for the mentally-poised civilisation of today is that there is now only one possible pathway to the Future; and that Future is the blueprint Sri Aurobindo mapped out in his Yoga, by which means the Transcendent draws the Present to itself irresistibly. Nothing can stand in its way. The necessity for his re-entry in Earth time via a connected thread was the only way to secure that the new future would be indelibly stamped or imprinted in the evolutionary matrix, with the required magnetism to draw that future into manifestation in our material plane.
Cosmologists like Stephan Hawking realise the perilous moment we have reached, perhaps due to the destructive weaponry we are stock-piling coupled with the deterioration of the environment. His solution was migration to Mars (as if the transported mental human being would not wreck havoc there as well!). However, as erudite as they may be, physicists and cosmologists ignore the true reality of creation and can assess the future only on the basis of incomplete paradigms. But just as the old creation is doomed and resistances are swept away, so too is the inevitability of the new world a reality – in fact, it is the only reality. It can be said that anything born within the framework of incompletion (everything we have known during our period of recorded history) is unreal. Therefore, only those phantom formations are doomed. Ultimately, the Eagle is going to be cheated as never before, and not just by an individual or a select group, as in don Juan’s school. ****
Over the decades of involvement with this Work, one thing has become very clear: unless a process of yoga includes four stages, it cannot be Supramental; hence Sri Aurobindo stated that the Square was the geometric symbol of the Supermind. What Supermind adds to the symbolism is application through the executing agency of Time. This was made clear in March of 1976 when I was able to integrate the 4th Power; or better, to unveil it. Until then the work I had produced was certainly new, but it was not the full manifestation. This is illustrated by my published works – fortunately I have a record of the progress by the content of the publications, each one of which reveals where the Yoga stood at that point in time. The breakthrough in 1976 established the full operational extent of Supermind’s organisation for Earth use.
In 1976 I had no clear idea of what that unveiling meant because I was only focussed on the Mother’s chamber; everything was centred on that, and that alone – and rightfully because whatever discoveries I might make could be found or verified in the chamber’s plan and measurements. By early 1976 I had written and published The Gnostic Circle after dividing the book into four sections – 9, 6 3, 0. The telling part was the 0. There was no 1, which would have meant the integration of the fourth (9/6/3/0-1). That had not happened in 1974-5, and this was disclosed in the 0 section by mention of the ‘cradle’: it was, as it were, empty[1]. Only in March of 1976 would the cradle be filled with the One. Yet the third section does mention the Birth as well as the Child and connected to the Earth’s realisation; indeed, the cradle’s filling was through the Third [2]. And even in the Puranas it is stated that the fourth planet Mars was formed from the sweat generated by the Earth during her tapasya. As for the Solar Line, the knowledge was always complete; it just had to unfold organically in Earth time. Therefore I refer to it as an unveiling rather than a discovery. This was all planned and documented carefully so that we could receive the help required, when required, and were able to move ahead consciously. For finally, that is the goal: to be conscious instruments by evolving in Earth time what is involved and compacted in the Seed.
I have stated many times that the Gnostic Circle is the alphabet with which we could construct the new language (of the New Way); or to formulate a new synthetic language based on the Sacred Formula as the vowels of the alphabet, it could be said. The New Way would never have been seen and formulated without the Gnostic Circle alphabet, much less without the integrating power of the Fourth Principle; the latter supramentalised the entire process by its fourfoldness. In The Gnostic Circle it is very clear: we move inward to the Point, the seed of compacted Transcendence. The entire key to supramentalisation lies in that compaction and the birth of the One who fills the Void, individually and collectively: the Circle is one for all.
At this stage it all becomes very interesting because we can fill in the blanks. The 11th August last, leading up to Sri Aurobindo’s 143rd birth anniversary, was truly an inspiring moment. I saw something and could formulate it more concretely because it was unfolding in Earth time: the real value of the Transcendent’s contribution, carrying me deeper into its mysteries; for none can dispute that in almost all theological schools the greatest mystery is the seeming paradox of Transcendence and Immanence, in a sense similar to the paradox of the wave and the point of quantum physics. In this excerpt Sri Aurobindo is expressing the role his Solar Line has played.
The time has come at last to unveil the mysteries, whether Vedic, Orphic, Alchemical or [Christian] and to recover the truth of the Spirit. The ascent of man into heaven is not the key but rather the descent of the Spirit into his normal humanity and the transformation of his earthly nature. For that and not some post mortem salvation is the real new birth for which humanity awaits. Sri Aurobindo
Of course the Transcendent Principle was not new to me, nor its number-power 9 as part of the descending formula. What happened was a deeper understanding of the nature of the 9’s factual contribution, and how immensely important it has been. Sri Aurobindo is the Avatar, as Sri Ram and Sri Krishna were, of Vishnu’s Line of Ten. The difference between his appearance and the 7th and 8th before him is that there was no question of Supermind then: it was Mind (7th) and Overmind (8th); thereafter, as he explained, the 9th following the 7th and 8th, is logically the Supramental Avatar.
Some believe he never stated he was an avatar. Well, if not him who then? Who else had even conceived of the supramental Truth-Consciousness? In his published Letters on Yoga, Section VII entitled ‘The Purpose of Avatarhood’, he explains not only avatarhood in general, but his own role, while clarifying many misgivings. And this draws me back to my seeing on August 11th. For the first time I really understood the imperative necessity of the Avatar heading the rest of his Line, and to bring about the conclusive victory all four stages have to have yogic representations with Earth time correspondences. Sri Aurobindo’s time correspondence was the Future (Transcendence); the Mother’s was the Past (Cosmic); the Third’s is the Present (Soul). The 6 and 3 are responsible for constructing the Bridge across the cosmic planes and to the Earth as a joint labour. However, they would have nothing with which to construct, but for what the 9 supplies. In other words, thefuture is the first imprinting; thereafter follow the stages that bring the New Heaven (the new future) to the Earth plane.
It is the new future Sri Aurobindo mapped out in all his works, the outcome of his colossal Yoga. The central focus was, as we know, to bring about the shift so that the ‘easy way out’ could be blocked; this finds leverage in a tendency in the human consciousness which had to be dealt with. When that work is done less effort is needed to resist the tendency because that ‘escape route’ would be sealed for good; the tendency would then clearly be seen as a relic of a former immature stage in evolution on the road to maturity. However, alone he could not complete the task, as he well understood.
Sri Aurobindo as the Transcendent (9) established a new future for us, as if it were a blueprint, on the basis of which we build that vision by and through the reversed direction. Thus, the Mother dealt with the cosmic planes by putting order therein, which centrally means that she got rid of accumulated debris floating about in those planes as carry-overs from the Past, each item still seeking fulfilment. This is the baggage we carry, slowing down our progress; it is described by one word: Inertia [3]. It is what I call the cosmic waste bin, which translates into the clutter of the Known that drains the present of the energy needed to scale new heights; this drainage of energy does not permit the new blueprint to become established. In order for that to happen a passageway had to be created through those planes to create a channel, as it were, for the magnetic pull between Future and Present to be safely executed. This is the theme of Volume 3 of TNW, which is valid for the individual as well as for the entire species in evolution.
Consequently, the Mother stated that the Chamber of her vision in the Solar World was not for meditation but to learn concentration. In the actual human species power is never concentrated – rather, the atavistic drive is used to drain energy out of the system, thereby keeping the species imprisoned in the fortress of the Known to further Nature’s status quo.
In the Overmental creation you have the clutter of every possibility – the 8th Avatar’s term. The Mahabharata War gives a perfect example of the waste – so much destruction, unavoidable given the stage of evolution. At the end of the day we wonder if anything at all was gained. Was there truly a victor?
We have to ask ourselves the same question as we view the stockpiled weapons of mass destruction: they have indeed served as deterrent because those holding their finger on the trigger are rational beings who know that utilising those weapons would send us all down a slippery slope that no one can stop. But as things stand today, with these weapons in the hands of groups that value martyrdom and heaven as the be-all-end-all of life, for how long can common sense and reason prevail? Given the otherworldly goal of all religious and spiritual paths, we are engaged in the fulfilment of a collective death wish. One wonders if psychologists have taken into account the baggage we carry from the Piscean Age, in their deliberations on the imprints they uncovered in the collective subconscious.
This is where the Yoga of the Third enters. At that level the Void is closed, the hole is sealed for ever. Nothing of the sort would have been possible without the pioneering Yogas of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. He mapped out the new Future, all the details of which can be read in his major works. It stands as the blueprint, but only that; without that New Heaven (for this is what the prophecy means: the Transcendent Father facing the Earth, not looking the other way [4]), there would have been nothing for the Mother to work with. She had to draw that vastness through the planes cluttered with the debris of Overmind, the thousands of possibilities or potentials seeking expression in Matter – i.e. solidity and permanency: each one seeking to create a world in its image with permanency given to incomplete systems, contrary to the goal of Vishnu’s Emanations. Without the New Future Sri Aurobindo supplied, the Mother would have been doomed to labour within a closed circuit (the restricted circuitry of Nature, requiring millennia to reach a higher stage). This would be expressed in the Ouroborus symbol, the serpent biting its tail. It is valid to indicate the unity of 0 and 9 of the number scale where mouth and tail meet, and the circularity of the eternal rather than linearity. But it is closed and does not indicate the threefold gunas of the Shakti. It is a masculine symbol of the Mental Plane where the Feminine is absent. …‘All these [other paths of yoga] could not be taken as they were, for the integral yoga needs to develop its own forms and processes’ (Letters on Yoga, Section II, Integral Yoga and other Paths).
The greater possibility is indicated in the Rig Veda verses regarding that One Circle by mention of thethree hubs. This is perfectly expressed in the static form of the Mother’s symbol above: but those three hubs, when set in motion by the spiralling dynamism of the Becoming (Time as the executing force), are the means of escape from the closed circuit of the Past. For this the integration of the Feminine stands beyond question. The Mother’s Yoga helped us to travel lightly and actually allows for the present acceleration. Her dynamism drew the Transcendent from a static Peace into the dynamism of Itself and cleared the way through the debris of the Overmental planes for an open pathway down upon which the things of the New Heaven could reach the Earth when the Third completed her construction process by making Time an Ally and no longer the Destroyer. These are facts not fiction; this is the New Way, non-speculative, documented – and, above all, it is its own authority. It does not rely on any imprimatur from either pundits or priests of the old ways; or else from the new high priests of science and their incomplete paradigms.
The birth of the One is fundamental, not only to render the Yoga supramental but more especially for the victory he symbolises, that the debris of the cosmic planes has been successfully minimalised. Therefore in the new cosmology his contribution in the Gnostic Circle opposite the 0/9, is the 4.5 Orbit precisely where baggage is meant to be shed if the initiate can successfully scale the heights that lie ahead. Until the descent of the complete Solar Line, covering all the planes, that area, the pit of the circle, was the escape route because the old structure, individual and collective, could not withstand the pressure and contain the new energies of higher frequencies from the solar realm, hitherto closed to humanity – i.e. the hole in the old structure that had to be plugged, sealed up forever. Only then can the new creation establish firm roots here. Only then can the destiny of the Earth’s evolving species be realised in Time and thereby enjoy permanency. The danger lies in an imbalance – moving too fast or too slow. The Solar Line holds the safeguarding regulator of Time as ally.
The Fourth is known as the War God (Mars) in the myths, as the redeemer in other legends; but always it is this fourth. Simply put, he is the symbol of the victory of the two Goddesses, Demeter and Kore; he is their Triptolemos, the victor of ‘the three wars’. The shaft of wheat Demeter carries is the prophecy of the redemption of the Earth, of the abundance the Great Mother can bestow.
The birth of the Son, the Male Child of many traditions, has survived across the ages in the deepest recesses of the soul. In Ancient Greece it was re-energised time and again in all who participated in the annual Eleusinian Mystery rites. That grand celebration of the Fourth, open to all, was brought to an end in the 4th century by the Church Fathers, the objective of which was to eliminate a sacred rite centred on the Goddesses, only to carry it over to the birth of the Son Jesus – alas, crucified, unlike the victorious Triptolemos; with the Goddesses eliminated, crucifixion was the unavoidable finale.
There is a charming story from the Puranas regarding the two sons of Shiva and Parvati, Ganesh and Kartikeya. It calls up the image of the Fourth moving victoriously through the cosmos amidst the clutter that exists. Kartikeya is the 4th Principle, the Son victorious; his vahana (mount) is the Peacock, India’s national bird, precisely the symbol of victory. The story goes that there was a competition between the two sons: who could traverse the universe the fastest. Kartikeya set out on his vahana, sure of success, but when he had completed the round and returned to his divine Parent’s abode, he found Ganesh there already! The clever Ganesh had simply gone around his Parents seated in their thrones, reasoning that because they embody all that is he had actually covered the whole universe. Kartikeya was so incensed by this ‘trickery’ that he left their northern abode and went to the hills in the South – where indeed he is the favoured deity.
A curious contemporary detail to add is that the Peacock was declared the national bird in 1963 – unknowingly celebrating Sri Aurobindo’s own victory in that year as the Fourth, Kartikeya’s own principle in the descending formula. We have then two pertinent dates in the nation’s calendar that indirectly celebrate the 9th Avatar’s mission: Independence Day, 15th August (his birthday); the declaration of the Peacock as national bird in the very year that he did complete his mission involving the fourth victorious War God, Mars. But more astonishingly in what concerns his return as that Son of the formula is the date of the nation’s constitution: it is the very day of the 365 of our Earth year of that return. To add another detail, which encourages us to take a fresh look at the Puranas as repositories of more than just myths but are actually accurate prophecies of things to come, in the Shiva Purana section on the birth of Skanda-Kartikeya there are even certain prominent details of the horoscope of that birth centuries into the future.
This is how myths are born and how they record recurrent history read in the cosmic harmonies, regardless of the views of our contemporary historians. They are etched in the soul of each individual and in the collective soul. Naturally it would be difficult, if not impossible, for historians to understand how this display of harmony cutting across time and space is achieved; and failing to understand, academia dismisses it all as ‘coincidence’. In my world of Seeing this is a clear example of the action of the Supramental Shakti and her command over Simultaneous Time in a present that always IS.
To save our planet the contribution of the Goddesses is essential. While we cling to the old world and its imprisoning patriarchies, we simply continue to orbit that closed circuit of the past with no opening to the new future. Nothing can arrest the descent of the New Heaven, but the resistance of the old can result in a massive destruction – which, however, is entirely avoidable. The 4.5 Orbit is intrinsically connected to nuclear energy, to date the most destructive weaponry known to humankind. The Mother gave a warning and a hope:
The future of the Earth depends on a change of consciousness. The only hope for the future is in a change of man’s consciousness and the change is bound to come. But it is left to men to decide if they will collaborate for this change or if it will have to be enforced upon them by the power of crashing circumstances. So, wake up and collaborate!
The Mother, August 1964
Sri Aurobindo’s mission was incomplete without his return as the Immanence of his former Transcendence. As the Fourth Power he became the magnetic point drawing the things of the present forward irresistibly, compellingly. Clinging to the old, with its escapisms, compels the newly-energised magnetism to draw the Earth as if into a black hole by the massive baggage brought down the pathway through the cosmic planes, adding to the gravitational contraction and forcing collapse. This involves the energy the Russian physicist Kosyrev found to be locked in Time, the most powerful of all energy sources, he claimed. In the New Way cosmology once the Void is filled and no energy is drained from the system, centering and the new alignment allow for a single-bodied pathway to the Future that exists. It is that existing Future (the blueprint, somewhat on the order of a morphogenetic field as postulated by Rupert Sheldrake) that draws the Present to itself. This is the basis of all creation in matter: the magnetic point (the centre of the Centre itself) is compelled to reach that future regardless of what might stand in its way, similar to the action of two powerful magnets irresistibly drawn to each other. They will join and whatever lies between will be crushed, just as the Mother stated. The Future mapped out by the Avatar exists within the mysteries of simultaneous time, and that is the power compelling us to be the instruments for its manifestation on this material plane.
We are at one of these ‘Hours of God’, when the old bases get shaken, and there is great confusion; but it is a wonderful opportunity for those who want to leap forward, the possibility of progress is exceptional.
Will you be one of those who take advantage of it?
The Mother (ibid)
Summary
We start with the fact that very little is known of the true structure of human consciousness – or of consciousness itself. Most scientists still refuse to accept that such a thing exists. That structure houses four broad planes of consciousness: physical, vital, mental, and finally the fourth and most rarified, which, after completion of the combined yogas of the Solar Line, is known as Supramental rather than Spiritual. This quarter of the circle below is, in fact, where the full impact of the transformation is felt in our 9th Manifestation (see Keys of Knowledge, The 12 Manifestations).
The tropical zodiac & the same Vedic One Circle divided into four quarters
As of 234 BCE, we are passing through that final section hitherto considered beyond the material world and accessible only through death – i.e., once the physical had been shed and fed to the Eagle.
The Solar Line’s primary objective has been to open the last quarter to the evolving species that until now has been limping along on three legs rather than four – that is, only now do we have all four integrated to constitute wholeness and the stability of complete processes. Only then can Time cease to be the mystery that harvests food for the Eagle; rather, it is Time itself that experiences a higher function, a reversal to be the ally of the species.
Wholeness, integration of the sort described above creates numerous difficulties because of its newness. For example, our Map of the 12 Manifestations is an updating of the Hindu formula of four major Yugas or Ages – Satya, Treta, Dwapara, and finally our own, Kali Yuga or the Dark Age. The Kali Yuga is stated to have begun in 3102 BCE at the demise of the 8th Avatar in the 8th Manifestation prior to ours and to last for a blessed 432,000 years thereafter (the traditional time measure given for Kali Yuga). In other words, we have approximately 427,663 years ahead of us of the deep ignorance for which Kaliyuga is known.
This conceptualisation was a product of the Dark Age during passage through Pisces in the precession of the equinoxes, from which we are now emerging. I have treated the subject in The Gnostic Circle, Chapter 6, ‘The Indian Yugas’; it need not detain us here. My point is only to use this as an example of the enormous shift the lived experience of wholeness can signify for both individuals and the civilisations we create. In the light of completion when the full circle stands open to our lived experience, the old formulas become obsolete. Moreover, the real danger lies in seeking solutions in paradigms of the past based on conceptualisations that were accommodations required by a three-legged lameness; indeed, often the four yugas are described as four legs of the Cow. When a new light dawns, only that can dispel the darkness and carry us to embrace wholeness: The sacred Cow today stands firmly on four legs.
The critical problem Hindus face with regard to the Yugas is the weight of the Known; anything that presents a challenge to that fortress is either distorted or dismissed a priori for lack of an ‘authoritative’ support in the Scriptures – somewhat incongruous because being new where can we look for that authority? It must necessarily be above all other systems, and therefore obliged to be its own authority. This describes the current impasse: the old paradigms and beliefs can no longer be accommodated, try as we might, but we cannot seem to let them go.
Given this state of affairs, it is evident that only pioneering spirits can face the challenges before us; those with ‘the soul of a hero’, as the Mother stated in 1972. The situation is especially problematic in traditional societies like the Indian; or in facing the new orthodoxies of contemporary science. ___________________________Endnotes: 1. The 0/4th section: The Centre, the womb, the cradle, the upholder. 2. The 3rd section: The Individual, the Child, the birth, the Earth’s realisation. 3. There are Akashic Records that can be ‘read’, as the psychic Edgar Cayce had done. This would be the debris. Those unfulfilled fragments he and other psychics ‘saw’ can be valid in the Old Creation, before the Mother’s act of ordering and clearing the cosmic planes of floating elements (of the past). The cosmic womb contains that past. This is where prophets of the old creation pluck their visions; and this is why when Supermind manifests they may no longer be reliable. In the old creation any one of those fragments could materialise – or none; it all depends on the availability of receptive vessels on Earth. The precision of the New Way was lacking. In fact, it was never demanded of a spirituality that had no use for the things of this world. 4. ‘Father, why hast thou forsaken me?’
Afterwards came the night and a temporary end of all political initiative and creation. The lifeless attempt of the last generation to imitate and reproduce with a servile fidelity the ideals and forms of the West has been no true indication of the political mind and genius of the Indian people.’ Sri Aurobindo, ‘The Foundations of India Culture’, p. 380-1.
Prominent thinkers throughout the world realise that the old order has come to an end. We witness the crumbling of iron barriers between nations, hitherto believed to be unshakeable and resistant to any attempt at change. However, the question remains, What is to emerge in place of the old?
In a number of my published works, I have shown in detail how the Measure of 9 with its intrinsic formula, 9/6/3/0-1, has been active in the Indian subcontinent. But in India too, in spite of this remarkable display of the power of Time, the old order persists and we find no spirit in the nation bold enough to introduce the new. Consequently, we hear unending laments from the political opposition about the ‘dynastic rule’ of the Nehru family. I, for one, have often referred to the need to modify the actual parliamentary system of governance precisely because its continued use OBLIGES this dynasty to perpetuate itself. But the Opposition (as well as the ruling party) silences or disregards any voice that calls for a change in the system, often to the extent of accusing the innovator of wishing to introduce a dictatorship via, for example, the adoption of a presidential form of government. (How a presidential system can be equated with dictatorship is difficult to understand.) The result is that due to this resistance an inadequate political structure must somehow serve as the vehicle for the Measure of 9 to hold the nation together.
India inherited its present system from the British. Many of the ills the nation suffers from can be traced to this factor: a ‘foreign’ system has been imposed upon a country that has not been allowed to breathe its independent breath and follow its own rhythms and expressions. This is easily appreciated in an assessment of the Indian model of parliamentary democracy compared to the British image of which it is meant to be a somewhat modified reflection.
To begin, in Great Britain we have a true dynasty, a real and healthy monarchy. The monarch in England is not elected of course; he or she is a part of a lineage that cuts through time and is therefore independent of the uncertainties of political fortunes. Consequently, the enviable qualities of stability and continuity arise. They are not fictitious; they are real components of the national heritage.
However, this is not the Indian reality. Every effort has been made to create this situation in India via the office of President, which is meant to provide the same qualities of stability and continuity by being out of the political struggle of the various parties, whose members are elected to parliament approximately every five years on a representative basis. In this way the President stands outside of the political arena; and this, coupled with the fact that his election to office by members of Parliament ordinarily follows a different cycle than the parliamentary polls, is meant to provide that stability and continuity which the British system enjoys via its monarch.
We know that this is not the case. The British monarch and the Indian president have little in common because the former is not a construed but a real component based on a quasi-organic, evolutionary fact. In contrast, the office of the Indian president is imposed in an effort to mimic the British system by introducing a form of government that is supposed to produce the same results, but without those legitimate components underlying the arrangement. Continuity and stability are characteristics that cannot be imagined or mentally devised. They arise due to a series of circumstances that organically confer these conditions in a process of natural development. They are not accommodations but come into being in harmony with certain essential ingredients found in the national psyche. When these conditions exist then stability and continuity become pillars for nation building.
Since this has been lacking in India the line of prime ministers – contrary to Great Britain – has had to serve as the element of continuity. Indeed, the most politically uncertain period India has known since independence was certainly the two and a half years of Opposition rule, from 1977 to end 1979, when there was no member of the ‘Nehru Dynasty’ in office.
Thus, in opposing change to some other form of government, which would better accommodate this legitimate need for a vehicle capable of providing continuity and stability, the Opposition is condemning itself to continuous defeat at the polls, inasmuch as the Nehru Line is the means to hold the country together, given the inadequate system India has adopted for her political expression. This is an example of the failure to recognise and appreciate the true character of a nation and the measure of its individual pulsation.
A development of this nature was seen as inevitable from the cosmological point of view. The most revealing hint was the date of Independence itself. Though significantly falling on Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, I have often pointed out that the number-power of the day was 8, just one short of the complete cycle. This fact reveals that full independence from the British had not been attained on some levels. More was yet to come to bring the movement to the 9, or the completed process. Sri Aurobindo himself, in his message to the nation at the time of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, commented on this very fact: Independence had occurred on his birthday and was a confirmation of his work, but the partitioned condition of the nation had to be healed to make the movement worthy of his highest aims.
The prominent position of the 8 also reveals that there is a residue of a sort that does not easily allow the movement to complete itself. This is explicitly the problem India now faces.
We see that British rule left this residue in the new Indian nation in the form of a political and administrative system that has, in its general character, no real connection with the national spirit. It was an imposition from outside, the result of colonial rule. The bureaucracy, for example, was devised to serve that rule rather than self-rule. Out of this, bearing no harmony with the true pulse of the civilisation, laws and methods of governing were imposed which to this day hinder rather than further the free and forward-moving thrust the country needs to faithfully fulfil its noble destiny along the lines arising from its own individual web of destiny. One specific aspect of this residue is the increasing chasm between the bureaucracy and the public, as if the public were the enemy of the administration rather than the elements to be served. The explanation for this lamentable situation is simply the fact that indeed the ‘natives’ were the enemy of the Raj and the administration was arranged in such a way as to permit that native populace to be effectively ruled by suppression of its any aspiration and effort at upliftment. The situation in India today, with the almost complete lack of openness (at a time when even the Soviet Union has opened its society) and the nefarious secrecy which characterises the Indian system, are the inevitable outcome of the residue the country inherited and which it refuses to shake off.
However, this situation in a very profound sense mirrors the condition of our entire civilisation – east and west. The new must arise amidst the old; but for the true new way, it must somehow come into being uncontaminated by the old. Throughout the world nations and individuals face the same dilemma. We are born into a particular structure or environment. We must evolve within that, bearing the limitations that our heritage may foist upon us. Yet in the midst of these very fields, and no other, new structures must nonetheless arise.
India is no exception. Indeed, her task is perhaps more complex than that of any other nation. But in spite of this limitation she has played out for over a century the patterns of her higher destiny which the new cosmology describes so thoroughly, regardless of any existing limitation. Nonetheless, it is precisely these limitations, this residue that is burdening the nation at this critical crossroads of her destiny.
Essence and Form: the integral paradigm
We do not place in doubt that India’s higher destiny is being fulfilled despite the inadequacy of the system within which this superior pattern must draw its lines. We cannot doubt insofar as the facts prove the victorious existence of this higher pattern which, like it or not, has been the pattern the nation has been made to adhere to. However, the 8 makes its presence felt constantly by a certain ‘baggage’ that the country totes on its back. Thus that extraneous element acts as a corrosive agent. It contaminates everything. It is like a parasite draining the host tree of its most vital substance. And as the tree grows, so does the parasite grow. Until a threshold is reached. Then either the tree develops sufficient strength to throw off the parasite, or the latter succeeds in destroying the tree that permitted its growth in the first place.
By examining certain original components such as the health and the condition of the soil and other environmental factors, the emergence of a parasite can more or less be pre-dicted. Thus, given the conditions prevailing at the time of the independence movement the growth of this parasite was easily predicted. Its forecasting required no special occult powers or clairvoyant capacities.
India stands at a crossroads of her destiny. The parasite this nation/tree bears is flourishing and threatens to destroy its host altogether. Indeed, the stronger the host grows, the more nourishment and vital sap are made available to the parasitic appendages. At some point a drastic measure must be taken, for when the critical threshold is reached, to continue feeding the host tree simply means giving more and more power to the parasite to destroy the host or the element that sustains it and gives it its life. This becomes a self-defeating exercise. In the day-to-day functioning of a nation, a development of this sort is perceived in a number of ways, but the common characteristic of them all is the constant presence of a sense of waste, of pouring resources into what appears to be a black hole in the national field of consciousness-being, a bottomless pit, as it were. Over-population, of course, is an easy tool for this insatiable and destructive drainage. But there are many more, over-population being simply the most obvious.
This is a mathematical occurrence. The development follows organic lines, albeit of an order which the ordinary intelligence cannot perceive or accept. Because these laws involve a play of forces, or energies which constitute the body of a nation – any nation. Physical, to be sure, but a body also animated by a vital force and held together by a purpose which is lodged deep within the nation’s innermost psychic essence. A leader can be considered outstanding to the extent to which he or she is able to reach and draw out the nectar of that purpose from the deep recesses of the nation’s soul.
Considering this play of forces – a unique combination for each nation – the pattern of India’s higher destiny has evolved. And according to this pattern, and no other, the nation’s political life has taken shape, particularly in these first decades of its independent life. But the structure within which this superior model has had to express itself has been inadequate.
Put more simply, there is an essence and a form to all things in this material universe. In a world of disharmony such as ours, ruled by the Ignorance and the Falsehood (and I purposefully use these terms capitalised to lay emphasis on their cosmic origin and hence the evolutionary limitations imposed upon a species that must grow according to a certain cosmic tempo and a largely predetermined pattern), a cleavage exists between the two. Essence is always pure and true, but in a material universe, that same essence must be provided with the proper FORMS to express itself uncontaminated, undistorted and, above all else, not subjected to any imposition from external quarters that bear scant relation to that unique essence of being. Indeed, the singlemost indicative factor that allows us to identify the consciousness that reigns on Earth as one of Ignorance and Falsehood is that to one who sees, to one who has the capacity to penetrate beneath outer layers and see the soul-essence, it is apparent that along its evolutionary way, in the course of the development of these ‘limbs’ or forms, externals have oppressed that essence and it therefore does not find any fitting vehicle to express itself according to the truth of its essential being.
The Original ‘Seeds’
When we say that the nation has lost its dharma, or that we must ‘reestablish’ this dharma, we mean something quite different than the spiritual leaders who, by the dozens, repeat ad nauseam this call. The point is precisely this: these fervent and well-meaning pleas receive no response, particularly from those quarters that appear to bear the greater responsibility for the decay, for the decline of the Dharma. Indeed, they are crusted over so to speak. They are impenetrable. Thus, no amount of preaching will render them pliable, plastic and open to the light of the true Dharma.
The problem is, once again, mathematical. There is a cleavage, a chasm between the psychic essence of the nation – or the seat of its inherent Dharma – and the external dimensions where the forms to express that Dharma in a material universe must evolve. The origin or the seeds for this cleavage date back hundreds of years, millennia in fact. To be precise, they initially surfaced about the time of Gautam the Buddha, over 2500 years ago. It was approximately then that the seeds were planted in the spiritual consciousness of the civilisation to undermine that Dharma. Over the ages those ‘seeds’, similar to the parasite in our analogy, have borne their entirely predictable fruit.
But who in the nation can see the connection? Who can travel back through the corridors of Time and ferret out those turning points when the environment and the terrain were fertile for the insemination of these nefarious seeds of undermining that were destined to foist upon the nation, two thousand years into the far future, the contaminated forms of a political system which is clearly and unmistakably the result of those ancient seeds?
Sri Aurobindo has stated that Kalki must come to correct the error of the Buddha. Yet none, even his closest disciples, know with the exactitude demanded of the Supramental Manifestation that he heralded, just what his words meant. They too are the victims of the great Undermining, similar to the consciousness of the entire nation with its manifold avenues of expression – political, cultural, social, economic, and above all, spiritual.
But the undermining was clear; it was unmistakable. And the results were predictable. The seeds of otherworldliness were sown over 2000 years ago. This simple fact, a ‘truth’ totally alien to the Vedic spirit and soul, produced a schism in the energy field of the nation. The energies within that field then gradually became ranged on either side of the ever-widening chasm: Spirit and Matter. Simultaneously, an indelible line was drawn between Essence and Form. The two went off in tangents and apparently, at this stage of the development, they shall never again be able to meet.
Once more I must ask, Who in the nation can perceive this development with courage and boldness of spirit and can trace it to its origin back through the thick folds of Time? For even those who might perceive have not the impulse or the intrepidity to formulate their perceptions boldly and to help the nation heal the chasm once and for all.
We witness the result of the incapacity: the spiritual leader’s voice becomes weaker and weaker and evermore distanced from the field in which this play of energies evolves. While that field becomes evermore choked by the rapidly increasing encumbrances of the parasites which this abandonment produced: the most vigorous and creative energies of the nation have been posited ‘elsewhere’, in a beyond which now, on an increasing scale, has become defined as some far away paradise, a heaven or a plane of consciousness entirely apart and separate from this ailing planet Earth. Yet who then, or which energies are to renew the national environment and restore its health if not those which are more finely tuned?
This is what is meant by reestablishing the Dharma. It has little or nothing to do with moralistic notions, all of which are leaves and branches on the parasitic appendages and have no essential relation to the Tree. The Dharma responds to mathematics not sentiment.
The Parasite becomes the Tree The cleavage between essence and form plagues the entire world. A simple and rather obvious example is the campaign the Prince of Wales has felt himself obliged to carry on in the field of architecture, where his complaints tally with ours regarding essence and form, albeit his are concerned more with function and aesthetics. The questions are nonetheless related as he seeks to impress upon the community of architects that a form must not only be functional but it must also be in harmony with the total environment and aesthetically proper.
The human being sees only the dense physical. One’s vision is closed to the deeper strata and the more subtle play of energies in dimensions hidden from the physical eye. This is precisely the result of the cleavage, the predictable effects of those seeds of undermining sown 2000 years ago.
The confusion and unknowing are great indeed. The ‘crusts’ provided by the folds of Time make the truth almost impossible to expose. Especially when the parasitic appendage has grown hardy and agile in its ability to survive the attempts by the host subject to cast off its draining serpentine form. The only way to illumine this condition thoroughly is to make the connections outlined here, from the distant past to this chaotic present; and thereby to see clearly the root of the problem. A fearless penetration which alone can uproot the parasite. And to perceive how all structures (forms) which we rely upon to express essence – any essence – are distortions or products of those original undermining seeds that have the power to thwart the expression of the pure and full Dharma.
This is the situation prevailing in the political structure (form) of the nation. But the hidden pattern of India’s destiny has survived via the factual and undeniable existence of the Solar and Lunar Lines, the helical arrangement by which the nation is held together in spite of any attempts to undermine its essential unity.
However, and this is the most important point to highlight, the consequences of that undermining and the form it has foisted upon the nation are apparent to all and daily the corrosive power extracts its pound of flesh. The obvious effects are a prevailing, increasing chaos and insatiable voracity of a corrupted ‘system’, which is the most visible and effective tool of those original seeds of undermining. At this point the separation between Essence (the Dharma) and Form (the system) is complete. The latter IS India now – or at least this is the appearance; and indeed, it is the tactic or finality of the agents of the Falsehood: to strengthen and foster the growth of the parasite to such a degree that its ‘form’ (the system) appears to be the tree itself. That is, one has so completely overtaken the other (while draining it of its sap of life and revitalising power) that none can see the original form which still hosts the parasite, or supports and fosters its growth.
This is the graphic image of the destruction of the Dharma, and how, at the very same time, it is the Dharma itself that supports the degenerative form. The latter feeds off the Dharma, making the distortion all the more difficult to detect, for indeed, who knows where to look for the origin of the decay? The Tree is covered entirely and stands totally occulted. At the same time, when the critical threshold is reached this intertwined existence serves to render correction of the problem impossible – for to attack the parasite that has so completely overtaken the host body would mean to destroy the Tree itself. This is the compulsion behind drastic revolutions – especially those which turn violent, ruthless and bloody. The Chinese revolution, for example, brought a thorough and drastic cut with the past: China of ancient times is gone; the present China is something of a soulless structure wherein ‘form’ has become top-heavy as it were, and has smothered the soul of the nation to a large degree.
India has not reached that point yet. Indeed, the cosmological model arranged for the nation is the only thing that has prevented such a drastic occurrence. But again it must be stated, a crossroads has been reached. Clear seeing based on real knowledge, the knowledge of these eternal truths, must be allowed to evolve new forms to express the soul of the nation without permitting that parasite to stamp out the civilisation’s psychic imprints that have survived in its cultural body through unimaginably powerful onslaughts, which would surely have destroyed the psychic fibre of a nation with a less potent force of destiny.
It is naïve to believe that having survived this long the nation is out of danger. The truth is another: the time has come for bold measures to be taken in order to remake those inherited structures, the result of those ancient seeds of undermining, and to thus reestablish the Dharma on the basis of outer forms which are in harmony with the inner essence.
Today there is no such harmony, hence the system is thoroughly corrupted, contaminated, corroded – the system which is supposed to be the very tool for implementation of essence, of policy and programmes, and so on; as well as the corrective mechanism to lop off any growth on the tree of Essence that might threaten its healthy and uncontaminated survival. When such a point arrives it is the signal that a major crossroads stands before us. The time for change – deep and thorough – has come. ‘But amid all the mist of confusion there is still the possibility of a new twilight, not of an evening but a morning yuga-sandhya. India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples.’ – Sri Aurobindo, ibid. Endemic Corruption We are saddled with false conceptions often dating back thousands of years. One is that the spiritual truth is untouched by the corrosive substances of a material world – to the extent that that world became known as maya and equated with ‘illusion’. Sri Aurobindo consistently pointed out the fallacy in this concept and sought to redeem maya by revealing its ancient Vedic sense to the world: measure, knowledge, the formative power of the Absolute. I have carried this work forward and ‘materialised’ this effort somewhat by providing the seeker with the actual Divine Maya or Measure – the Golden Rod of ancient traditions whereby enlightened ‘measure’ comes into being that eliminates distortions or the disfiguring veils dividing Essence and Form. The illusion of Maya is that abysmal chasm with its exuding toxic fumes and not the material universe. Therein obscuring waves arise which cast the two worlds farther and farther apart, to the point where there seems to be no meeting ground at all, no possibility of the emergence of a connecting bridge, – the effects of which are a totally separative existence and the loss of a ‘one world’ perception, the plague of our times. Pursuits of the spirit become one thing, the material another. The inadequate tools for governing which India is saddled with are the direct result of that abysmal chasm. In practical terms, what does this mean? How does it become reflected in the life of a nation? In India this has resulted in a totally egocentric, egoistic consciousness that replaced the wide and all-embracing vision of ancient times, those prior to the schism. The individual is out for his own personal gains; the state or the community mean nothing to him at all. Increasingly we witness that corrosive elements cannot be corrected or eliminated. They are a ‘world unto themselves’. They abide in their own ‘universe’ or ‘space’. They are out of the reach of the usual channels (unaccountable is the common term), because they are the channels: the parasite has finally become the tree. New channels are sought to rectify the position; but they too arise from within the ranks of the already contaminated body/system, hence they themselves bear the corrosive seeds within and become additional means to further the contamination they are supposed to eradicate. We attempt to reform, we seek to introduce a new ‘raj’ in which local bodies are given more power, closer to the people and therefore more directly accountable to them. But the people respond with indifference and wisely point out that these bodies are also limbs of that parasite-ridden tree, parts of that ‘system’, the whole of which is contaminated, saddled with inadequate forms. Thus the well-intentioned move has no guarantee of success or that it will alter matters in any significant way. On the contrary. Many believe it will only spread the rot more deeply down and into the system and reach those (grass)roots of the Tree more easily. In other words, it is not truth or rightness that is spread through the system but rather the corrosive seeds. It is then that whatever slogan is adopted rings hollow. The ‘form’ is devoid of any resounding essence. This is again mathematical. Inadequate forms will invariably, inevitably, predictably distort or corrode even the finest essence (intention). Thus, to bring about any real change and consequent benefit to the people, one must go to the source; or rather, construct that ‘bridge’ and heal this age-old, slowly but steadily growing chasm. This can be done only by persons of Knowledge. ‘And that which we must seek now to awake is not an anglicised oriental people, docile pupil of the West and doomed to repeat the cycle of the occident’s success and failure, but still the ancient immemorable Shakti recovering her deepest self, lifting her head higher towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to discover the complete meaning and a vaster form of her Dharma.’ Sri Aurobindo, ibid. The Golden Age
‘…A new spiritual awakening must arise from the depths of this vast life that shall this time more successfully include in its scope the great problems of earthly life as well as those of the soul and its transmundane destinies, an awakening that shall ally itself closely with the renascent spiritual seeking of the West and with its yearning for the perfection of the human race. This third and as yet unknown quantity is indeed the force needed throughout the East. For at present we have only two extremes of a conservative immobility and incompetence imprisoned in the shell of past conventions and a progressive force hardly less blind and ineffectual because second-hand and merely imitative of nineteenth-century Europe, with a vague floating mass of uncertainty in between…’.
Sri Aurobindo CE, Volume 16, page 327
Civilisations evolve religions out of a perception of a certain metaphysical or cosmic order. Or else, the cosmos acts as a screen onto which an order is projected that has evolved out of the religious experience. This, in turn, finds itself reflected in different forms of government, more or less faithful images of that higher perception. Though we may seek to disconnect models of government from the religious experience, in an age which appears to have exceeded the boundaries of old and in the effort to secularise society, a deeper study of the matter does reveal the connection.
To illustrate, Semitic religions, whose influence has spread across the entire globe largely through colonial conquests, have a monotheistic conceptual basis. This ONE GOD then evolved into the monarch and later the president. Below this single Godhead there are the angels in Middle Eastern religions, and the pattern extends to governing bodies via the prime minister, ministers of state, and so forth, – executors of the commands of an all-powerful divine General.
A hardening of the structure has often come about. Fascist and communist regimes of the 20th Century are examples of this degeneration, for in the monotheistic model there are no attenuating, harmonising and balancing forces. The divine General lacks the other two aspects of the trinity, as equal powers, which do indeed prevent the degeneration of a process which bears a respect for the cosmic triune play of energy: CREATION, PRESERVATION and DESTRUCTION. This triadic compound is the true reality of the cosmos, describing the macrocosmos as well as the microcosmos. Upon this play of energy the whole of creation is balanced.
Two of these interacting forces are feminine in quality. In pre-Christian times this fact was expressed in the Greek myth of Demeter, the Divine Mother, and her daughter, Persephone. Joining them in the action was Pluto, thus completing the triune expression of positive and negative interacting and mutually sustaining forces. When these balancing, attenuating forces are eliminated from the pantheon, and this is carried over to governing bodies, it is understandable that a brittleness sets in and despotism of various degrees is the outcome. The dictator is the result of a monotheistic religious model which leaves salvation in the hands of a one God, masculine, wrathful, almighty, and a jealous guard of his all-inclusive rule.
In our 20th Century, secularism evolved when finally the hold of religion began to give way and society sought to disconnect it entirely from the processes of government. Indeed, the religious experience was seen to be unable to inspire the correct order which could accommodate and express a truth that harmonises. Thus, to all appearances, the West and all the governments it has provided models for across the globe, staunchly uphold the division of State and Religion. But a more penetrating observation discloses that the separation is in name only, and perhaps in law: the essence of government and the forms it produces are direct products of a metaphysical perception.
There are examples of the link between government and religion even today in the ‘secular’ West. Switzerland, to name one country, has only very recently granted women the right to vote, having withheld this right on the basis of its Calvinistic interpretation of the Bible, with certain cantons still adamantly refusing to concede what the courts are now seeking to impose.
Indeed, a force moves across the globe urging a release of those long pent-up feminine energies. This is primarily reflected in feminist campaigns for the liberation and uplift of women, similar to the Swiss development; or else there are the environmentalist movements, the save-the-Earth drives which receive more energy and commitment daily. The world is now being forced to accept the existence of these powers and to integrate them somehow into the existing order. But the governing bodies of Semitic inspiration are not reflective of this triune play of energy, hence we observe a state of flux and sometimes collapse when the resulting brittleness reaches an extreme. Or else these drives create a greater resistance and consequently a more intensive effort at suppression of feminine powers. In the sphere of religion itself, fundamentalist responses are always a reaction to the urge for change and the experience of integration and wholeness.
In the Middle East, cradle of the monotheistic tradition, this development has reached an extreme in certain quasi theocratic regimes where women are excluded from any form of effective participation in government. In Pakistan this is now a dominant issue insofar as the Sharia Law is about to be adopted, accompanied by a specific injunction barring women from the right to occupy the highest offices of government, being considered unfit to rule according to the scriptures. These regimes, through fundamentalist, proselytising agencies, seek to foist their divisive framework onto societies whose foundational perceptions are entirely different from the Semitic. Whenever these agents have been successful, we witness a schism: models of government out of tune with the nation’s cultural foundation. A prime example is India.
Rigid fundamentalist responses to change are simply indications that indeed the old order is collapsing. Throughout the world the call is for a new order, and none can now silence this fervent appeal. At the same time, societies are in a state of turmoil precisely because the lines of this Order are unknown; or else the imposition of an order alien to the indigenous soul persists, though colonial rule has ceased to hold sway, through patterns of thought perpetuated by an intelligentsia held prisoner of this bygone rule, acting as agent for a system totally alien to the national soul, the finer points of which these intellectuals themselves ignore.
To a certain extent the United States of America presents a divergence to the rule of a progressively hardening structure degenerating into despotic rule, simply because it has a specific role to play in this 9th Manifestation. America’s essential truth of being is a binary expression, perhaps the purest model to be found on the globe today. Its religious experience of a Semitic origin is expressed in the office of president very faithfully, but the more important feature is the binary party system which has its roots in a stark divide in the early perception of reality, positioning God on one side of the cosmic fence and Satan on the other, in eternal confrontation and struggle for supremacy. In other words, they stand as two basic forces in ceaseless opposition and mutual antagonism. In spite of numerous efforts to break this pattern and to introduce a third or more parties, these have never been successful. The USA has remained thoroughly entrenched in its binary system because indeed it represents the truth of the national soul and its contribution to the global harmony. At the same time, in this epoch, when a force of unity and integration is moving across the globe, we witness stresses on that system with the Republican Party virtually gaining a monopoly through successive re-elections with apparently no breakthrough in sight for the Democrats. Nonetheless, in Congress and the Senate the binary party system continues to function with an admirable degree of proficiency.
Yet, what might be true for one nation may not hold for another. The legacies of colonial rule are in evidence in most nations in the world. As in the case of India, they bear little relation to the soul of the nations colonised. They were imported models forcibly imposed, covertly or overtly. For this reason we see the world in the process of regurgitating all the concepts on which those governments had been based. The outcome of this worldwide movement is certain to be a new world order for there are breakdowns, stresses, pressures for change felt everywhere.
We are interested in the nature, the texture of that emerging Order because the New Way is a heralding voice of that superior expression. It has provided a model of a new order taken from the cosmic harmony which is its inspiration. Its order is hence of universal relevance and not in the least sectarian and divisive. Its essence is triune, or the harmonious balance of the triune powers of creation. Thus, using the formulas of the new way Cosmology, in this essay we shall present an example of 1) India’s higher seeing and the features which distinguish it from the Semitic model; 2) how this seeing has played itself out in India in the political sphere, though ostensibly the nation has adopted the Semitic model in contrast to the ancient Hindu formula; and 3) how 20th Century secularism impedes a competent resolution of the problems the Semitic model created in the nation, to the point where the entire edifice of modern India stands on the brink of a catastrophic collapse.
The long slumber of the soul of India
If the West evolved its political framework out of its perception of ‘heaven’ – often a euphemism for the cosmos divested of the sacredness of the Divine Mother once she had been relegated to the inferno of man’s suppressed desires and libido – the East has equally produced its contemporary order. But here we encounter an interesting phenomenon. India has never really displayed this order in the more recent historic period, having been saddled with foreign rule for the past thousand and more years. Nonetheless, Hindu civilisation has nurtured this order and kept it alive in subterranean levels of the consciousness of its people. This is because, come what may and in spite of innumerable fierce attempts to destroy its vision of wholeness, it has been maintained by the nation’s obsession with the cosmic harmony. Even today, western rationalism and Bible-thumping zealots notwithstanding, great store is placed in the validity of certain minor aspects of cosmic harmonies, namely astrology and other forecasting arts. In addition, India has used these harmonies to record its history in a language which evolved for that purpose. The Puranas, for example, express this cosmic truth. These ‘myths’ serve a purpose which has not been fully appreciated in modern India: they preserve the Cosmic Truth which is the basis of the new world order. While the West and the Middle East experienced the destruction of a unified perception and consciousness, which relegated the Divine Mother to the position of an Eve, evil temptress and responsible for all mankind’s woes, and in the process eliminated the Feminine Principle entirely from its civilisational expressions, so too India experienced the same severance – or at least a nearly successful attempt to split asunder the consciousness of unity which has always characterised the Indian spiritual genius. Indeed, the philosophical fragmentation has been reflected in the violation of the wholeness of the geographical body of Mother India. Thus, if Partition can be taken as a pointer, the attempt appears to have succeeded, and on a certain level of physical existence we are forced to admit that this splitting apart has taken its toll and appears now irreversible. But, is this entirely true?
To arrive at certain conclusions we must analyse the present position in the light of developments in this century which involve the political and spiritual manifestations of that cosmic harmony. At the outset one factor becomes clear: India had been suppressed by extraneous foreign and colonial rule only until the time when this superior pattern, this cosmic truth of her higher destiny had begun to play itself out. This means that for many centuries, indeed for several millennia, nothing of this cosmic truth escaped an imprisonment Time had demanded and maintained. However, the general lines of this pattern were preserved intact in the Puranas.
We are discussing the flow of Time over millennia. At the same time, we have narrowed our vision like a microscope and zeroed into this century where, in a nuclear time-space, physical and temporal, we observe that sacred Secret playing itself out. We see the truth of the Puranas cast into the political/spiritual pattern upon which the new India has been moulded. More astoundingly, we see it clearly and unmistakably reflected in the very geography of the subcontinental land-mass.
The discernible play-out began in 1857 with the Sepoy Rebellion or India’s first war of independence from colonial rule. Ninety years later, in 1947, that independence from the colonial power would become an historical fact. But ‘independence’ reflected the unconsciousness of the process: India’s physically dismembered condition is simply an expression of a process not whole, involving much unconsciousness in the executing instruments and an ‘order’ imposed upon the new India which does not bear a direct relation to that cosmic Harmony.
We can appreciate the gravity of the situation when we understand that the political order of the West reflects that civilisation’s religious perception. We know that the Indian perception is markedly different from the Western, of Middle-Eastern origin. Yet India has adopted a political system which is an import from that world very far removed from her reality. What, precisely, is left out? It is that very mother, – yet we go on invoking Bharatmata, or Mother India. Thus, we are not surprised to observe that the physical body of the ‘new’ India presents a dismembering of the Mother. The geographical condition simply describes the condition of India’s contemporary political and social order.
At the same time, in a paradoxical manner so much in keeping with the abounding paradoxes one is faced with daily in the Indian subcontinent, the awakened consciousness of the Indian spirit which we may call the Hindu Soul, for want of a better expression, has already revealed itself faithful to the unified perception of that ancient Vision. It has been the reflection of the Puranic cosmic truth in spite of surface appearances; or rather, that Truth has played itself out negatively though with immaculate precision.
The structure of the collection of Puranas provides the key, which none suspect exists and which has therefore served as its means of protection and preservation. Thus the Puranas have a triune structure: 18 books divided into 3 groups of 6. Each 6-section belongs to a particular aspect of the essential Trinity – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, or Creation, Preservation and Destruct ion. This same triadic play is more pointedly connected to the Mother through the gunas (energy flows) of the Tradition: Rajas, Sattwa and Tamas – again, Creation, Preservation and Destruction. This very same trinity forms the basis of astrology as it is practised throughout the world.
These triune groupings are the woof and warp of Hindu philosophies and systems of yoga. They are also the woof and warp of India’s political order via the Nehru Lunar Line of three (plus a fourth ‘one’). The accurateness of this pattern is empirically verifiable. The birthdates of the members of this Line provide the harmonic key: 9 and 6 and 3: the Trinity manifest. (See The New Way, Volume l; TVN 0/1) The cosmic harmony of our solar system given exquisitely faithful reproduction on Earth.
Nonetheless, the situation is problematic. The imported political structure bears little relation to that harmony ‘up above’. It does not describe a triune conglomerate of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, but harkens rather to a Semitic monolithic Godhead, a one God and no other, to the point where it denies the manifold expressions of the Divine Mother as reflected explicitly in its condemnation of ‘idol worship’. Contemporary India followed suit. Thus, we have witnessed the rise of organisations such as the Arya Samaj, a clear example of the subjugation of the Hindu perception of the cosmic Truth in its integral form to the imported religious experience of the Middle East and Western nations with their insistence on a stark monolithic truth, at war with the many-faceted reality of the Divine Mother’s vast Being.
Predictably, this exclusiveness and damning of the multiplicity of creation was inflicted upon the planet itself in an on-going war with Mother Nature, or the ecological collapse of our planet Earth.
Vedic India knew no such war. It expressed the integral realisation, – a harmony of God, Nature and the human being, or the Transcendent, the Cosmic and the Individual Divine. This was its foundational seeing; this remains the basis of the Hindu perception of reality. But where is the political order to express this indigenous seeing?
Over the centuries India has experienced continuous attacks on this original Vision – a vision that must form the recognised foundation upon which the new India is built, as well as the anticipated new order that is global. But, let us be clear, it is not HINDUISM that becomes that global order. It is the cosmic truth. Whoever has not realised that Truth cannot comprehend the universal character of Hinduism and its destiny of world affirmation. This affirmation will not be labelled ‘Hindu’. It will be simply that Truth, that impersonal face of the cosmic harmony manifesting in each nation in a progressive unfolding according to the ever-widening eye of its collective perception. This ‘infiltration’ by the Cosmic Truth – which began with the accelerated spread of the Indian spiritual vision throughout the world in the 1960s – brought about a gradual undermining of those old structures based on divisiveness and a separative perception of reality. Creation is seen as a wholeness of the triune manifestation, as the One and the Many, as a superb unity in diversity. The destiny of India is to spread the vision of this truth-seeing, not under the label of Hinduism but as the Cosmic Truth, a perception which then pierces the veils that hold back the energies concentrated in the Vision and these then find manifold avenues and patterns of eternally-renewing expressions.
Indeed the old order is crumbling. But it is merely the beginning. At present we are simply witnessing the collapse of very basic elements which in their continued existence will not permit the ‘infiltration’ of the Cosmic Truth. We have yet to witness overtly the formulas themselves which will evolve in those nations once the transitional period has been successfully surpassed and the channels of expression of that Truth begin to manifest.
Similarly, there is a crumbling of inadequate structures in India. Indeed, the nation seems to be disintegrating. It was predictable. It is inevitable. The existing order is inadequate to express the Vedic Seeing. It served its noble purpose during India’s transitional phase, but its limits have now been reached, in time and in the lived experience of India society. The time has indeed come for the true new order to be unveiled.
We emphasis unveiled, because like Shiva’s mighty and invincible Son, Guha, the Hidden One, the superlative Secret of the most profound secrets of Hinduism, the new order already exists in India. The travails of the present are simply experiences in this act of unveiling, in becoming conscious and whole, in granting to that Cosmic Vision a manifest vehicle of Truth which is able to unify the formidable diversity that is India.
The Vision that Illumines
The world order which was established at the close of the Second World War is crumbling, in India and beyond. The central focus of that order was the threat of communism and political systems in a number of countries were a reactionary response to that threat. Hence these systems were externally imposed. One very clear example is Italy. Having as it does a special relationship with India in esoteric tradition, Italy’s case history is particularly relevant. For we note that a crossroads has been reached there as well. Apart from revealing a chronic instability – the rise and fall of no less than fifty governments since the end of the War – Italy’s north now seeks to establish a certain independence from the south. The outcome of this movement and its effects on the newly-united Italian nation promise to be significant. As has been rightfully pointed out by political analysts, the demise of communism had a particularly hard effect on Italian politics, given the fact that the constitution and political structure adopted at the fall of Fascist Italy, bore this focus foremost: the threat of communism and its containment. Now that this threat has dissolved, the entire structure upon which it stood is threatened with collapse.
This is the situation we encounter throughout the world, and it is this circumstance which is the cause for the present strife and turmoil: artificial structures were adopted, systems which bore scant relation to the soul of the nations. India’s condition is not an isolated one. We may cite any number of similar situations where national ‘orders’ were the outcome of external conditions and not true and free internal movements and expressions. Constitutions and socio-political systems were devised in reaction to those externals almost exclusively. Even the national borders were determined by extraneous considerations. Such has been the legacy of colonialism throughout the world; and in this assessment we include the special brand of colonialism of both the USSR in Eastern Europe, and the USA in Latin America.
It is now openly accepted and stated in India that ‘something else’ must evolve to replace the constitution and parliamentary democracy which the nation adopted almost in its entirety from Great Britain. The loud invective is heard, COMMUNAL!, for any attempt to unveil another order, more attuned to the national soul. The death of secularism is bemoaned and the attempt to establish a ‘Hindu Rastra’ is frantically opposed and labelled retrograde.
The reply to these castigations and lamentations must necessarily be that the affairs of the nation have been in the hands of those ‘secular forces’ for decades. Independent India has never experienced anything else. Therefore, if the country is today faced with communalism, desecularisation, disintegration, and the opposite of any true integration, it is this secular mindset that must be held responsible. We must therefore question its efficacy and legitimacy and cease avoiding this badly needed introspection.
However, an introspection of the sort required at present is not advisable when it is a speculative, intellectual exercise – those which continue to abound. That is, analysts turn round and round on a wheel of nothingness with a void as its hub. These attempts to probe the failures of the system are thus always negative. It is similar to dissecting a corpse rather than the examination of a living body. We may uncover the reason for a fatal disease in dissecting the corpse, but we cannot pretend that this will replace a vision of its living truth. The implication is that introspection must have a centre, a focus – indeed, a vision. It is that vision which illumines our penetration. Without the light of this vision we simply engage in endless speculative gyrations in a mind-boggling labyrinth, apportioning the blame here or there. Introspection can only be a valid exercise when a clear focus exists. That focus in this case is the living pulse of the soul of India, with its mathematical avenues of expression, as the light which illuminates the causes for the failure of the old order. Without that we simply construct another model as a result of our introspection which will once again bear a central void in place of the living and pulsating soul of Bharat Mata. Because of this it has been stated time and again that the new world order can only arise on the basis of knowledge, the fruit of a very precise ACT OF SEEING, by persons of Knowledge.
Aids are provided for this purpose, born in the midst of intensely concentrated states of higher awareness. These revelations act as Philosopher’s Stones in our introspection. They reveal that India, unlike any other nation in the world, is not only a consciousness of the Divine Mother on Earth, but her very PHYSICAL being, her geography, proves that she is the earthly representative of that Mother. The key of Knowledge for this higher perception is the Capricorn hieroglyph (ruler of India) superimposed on the map of her integral Body. We may use this in our present analysis as we have done on numerous occasions in the past, this key being a ceaseless self-replenishing source, and we shall see that even in her disintegration there is a control that is a superb reflection of the Cosmic Truth. This superior tool of perception can, by consequence, reveal the path we must take toemerge from the present prison of unknowing.
Disintegration shows the way
Wholeness, an integration of a trifold manifestation is the way. But what are we faced with today? We have anything but wholeness. We have a truncated physical nation – but that is not enough. The subtle energy sheath of Bharat Mata is riddled with holes and in parts devastatingly dismembered. Massive portions have been severed from the Body, torn out of the sheath at crucial points. This is also the result of the external system imposed upon the civilisation. The results are mathematical. One clear example may suffice because it is of such crucial importance at present.
The inadequate brand of Gandhian non-violence permitted the body of Bharat Mata to be torn asunder at the time of Partition, and, lamentably, its effects continue to be felt in the nation. India, because of this inadequate perception, became a victim of an emasculated energy base. In terms of its ancient heritage, this meant that the concept of non-violence struck a critical, almost fatal blow at the Kshatriya (warrior/ruler) segment of Indian civilisation. This having been the case, what are the results today? We have the ‘defenders of the Dharma’, as the Sikhs have been traditionally called, not exerting themselves in the defence of this Dharma in the direction it should go, but twisted, turned back upon itself. This question of energies turning back upon themselves is the mathematical part of the process. We shall now explore it in depth.
Originally Sikhism arose not as a religion, let us be clear, but as an organisation within the Kshatriya caste for the defence of the Dharma in the wake of relentless onslaughts from the North West of forces seeking to implant in India a foreign culture and faith. The Sikhs stood at the frontier of Bharat Mata, face to face with that invading and corrosive element, at the point where it had entered. On the Symbol-Map, this would be in the Rajas portion of the subtle energy sheath (see page 10). They still occupy that same physical position, pushed back to the new frontier at the time of Partition. But what transpired after that initial moment of truthfulness, of faithfulness to their inherent dharma and the blessed expression of that Kshatriya energy?
With the completion of the Line of Ten Gurus, we see those corrosive invading seeds taking their toll and the Sikh religion came formally into being, separate from the cultural identity of the greater body. This crystallised as a reaction to that invading ideology rather than a true expression of the Kshatriya soul (numerous elements of its belief system and ritual attest to this fact). We are justified in asking how this came to pass. The answer is given in the sacred Symbol-Map of a united subcontinent and its projection of wholeness and integrated, integral seeing.
Thus, on the basis of the Symbol-Map, we note that at the other end, the North East, another corrosive substance had entered, through the Tamas portion of the subtle energy sheath. The British came originally through what is now Calcutta, and this invasion through the Tamas section forced the Hindu Soul more cunningly than ever into the cramped space of the religious consciousness. Its effects have been more devastating than the Islamic attack on the wellspring of Warrior energies. The Sikhs were caught in this crunch when the inadequate brand of non-violence was imposed upon the nation and the Sikh Dharma had no proper outlet of expression, or felt itself a victim of an inexpressible undermining.
Partition reflected the same turning back upon itself of that energy. The forces which might have been directed toward the colonial aggressor were blocked, suppressed, emasculated. The mathematical effect was a collapse of energies. That is, those frontier pillars of strength fell into the central void of where the Dharma is ‘preserved’. The impact of this collapse of energies in the subtle sheath of the nation brought a convulsive turn of Indian upon Indian rather than a concentrated, unified thrust of a county whole and integral in its energy body to oust the invading virus. It is similar to a disease attacking the immune system – indeed, AIDS is the utterly perfect symbol. The body of Bharat Mata lost its defences. Those ‘warrior cells’ were undermined throughout the breadth of the land, just as the immune system is undermined in AIDS. The Body from that time onwards succumbed to one disease after another. Continuing into the present, at both ends of the nation there are seepages of energy, escapes which at the same time permit entries of new viral hordes. These, it must be emphasised, enter and attack the health of the Body because of internal causes. The system breaks down, caves in upon itself, immunity fails from causes inherent in the body itself. The result is compulsive auto-destruction.
The suppression at the time it was most needed of these ‘warrior cells’ forced them to turn back upon the system – i,e., the main body – for they had no other legitimate outlet. The bloodshed of Partition was one such expression, but only the first in a long series of energy collapses. The process is mathematical, I hasten to repeat. Thus, the Sikh revolt of today, ostensibly for economic and political grievances, is a predictable development, the result of a denial of the truth of the Kshatriya dharma in the fourfold division of the civilisation’s consciousness-being, a division taken directly from the cosmic harmony, an expression, faithful and pure, of the Cosmic Truth. A denial of this sort perforce affects the entire nation since the Body and its presiding consciousness-force is an integral whole.
Sri Aurobindo once remarked that Gandhi was a Christian soul in an Indian body. Gandhi represented the prevailing conditions at the time of British rule, when the nation had failed to recognise and respond to the Supramental Avatar and aligned itself solely with the agents of the Lunar Line; it was thus a partial expression of the greater vision.
Gandhi, like the Sikhs in reaction to Islam, evolved a formula for the independence struggle which was primarily Christian in its flavour – ethical and moral (its main ingredient was a Christian-inspired manipulation of guilt) – but bearing no essential connection to the soul of the new India because the ancient foundation had long since been corroded upon which the new was to arise. The infiltration and its consequences on the national psyche became reflected in the physical Body, resulting in a dismembering entirely representative of this disintegration in the energy sheath.
This sheath is threefold and fourfold in its structure. It has ever been the basis of the Hindu Dharma. The Kshatriya element of the fourfold energy body bears a connection to the sexual expression of a civilisation or an individual. Thus, in the Rajas portion of Bharat Mata we encounter a very virile force, not merely in evidence in the North-western male, but in the female as well. Indeed we see the symbol materialised with an astounding accuracy when we note that while Gandhi attacked the Kshatriya segment of the energy sheath through his policy of non-violence, throughout his entire adult life until the time of his demise, he grappled with this unruly energy within his own being. He admitted that he had not succeeded in his self-styled methods to dominate his sexual nature, while he also seems to have stated that had he done so he would have succeeded single-handed in ousting the British.
The connection Gandhi made was valid, but his ignorance of the Integral Yoga and the work of the Supramental Avatar, while nonetheless finding himself at the helm of the movement, has left the nation with this shadowy legacy of incompletion and half truths. At this point the Government of India is expected to deal with that ‘unruly energy’ in its collective expression (one of which is terrorism, we may add), in such a manner that its policies will integrate it into the larger body of Bharat Mata and in that integration allow it its correct expression. But failing to appreciate and discuss the real flaws, how can a solution come about?
The Kshatriya element, like all the other segments of the fourfold sheath of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, must be allowed to express legitimately its dharma: the protection of Bharat Mata, similar to a healthy immune system in a body invaded by a virus. Instead, this ancient tradition must surely have felt itself undermined and relegated to an inferior status, for it is only such a deep-rooted frustration, impossible to express in the context of present-day secular India, that can account for the ferocity of the Sikh uprising and the determination to secede of a portion of the community’s members – precisely its virile youth – rather than the ‘grievances’ which appear on the surface to have caused the degenerated expression of that vir dharma.
The Government must act in this unclear atmosphere – unclear about the REAL causes of the disease; and similar to the administration of antibiotics, a violent suppression of the immune system of this order results in an enhancement of the invading virus by INCREASING the resistance of the body to the medicine. Thus, every remedy applied of this inadequate sort, based on retrogressive methods and not enlightened approaches to health and well-being, simply serves to fortify the resistance, or drive it to lower layers of the collective subconscious where it accumulates power (toxins) and returns at a later period to disrupt the Body’s harmony once more. None can deny that the nation faces precisely this unfortunate situation: whatever measures are taken merely enhance resistance and increase the efficacy of the destructive power.
Thus, in the subtle body of Bharat Mata these warrior cells were suppressed and controlled artificially by the imposition of a will acting in opposition to the inherent Cosmic Truth, with the predictable result that they now attack the central Body rather than the invading viruses on the frontier; indeed, equally predictably, the rebel cells align themselves with the invaders to add vigour to the viral attack. The Body no longer has the capacity to fight off invasions of this sort; it can only turn back upon itself and eat itself away. The result is collapse, collapse, collapse in an unending inward convulsion.
Interestingly, these two northern segments of the nation, ruled by Rajas and Tamas gunas, are important sources of economic support for the main Body. The Punjab stands in the forefront of the nation’s agricultural production, while Assam contributes considerably to the production of oil and the benefits accrued in terms of foreign exchange which its tea industry provides. Secessionist movements in these areas thus have the potential of striking deadly blows at the economy of the country, and it stands to reason that the inputs from those segments, Rajas and Tamas, will be critically affected as the collapse of energies quickens.
The Birth of the Cosmic Ignorance
In spite of these undeniable facts based on an integral perception of the Indian Reality, we are faced with a society which persists in denying its own soul-truth. The ‘Hindu Dharma’ is simply an expression, in its integral form, of the Cosmic Truth. But due to the inadequacies mentioned above which permitted the invasion of viruses, that Cosmic Truth became the shadow of itself – i.e., the Cosmic Ignorance. Indeed, the ancient Vedic Knowledge in its practical application was lost, and the keys which allowed this truth to provide the formulas for management of the civilisation along those higher lines became buried beneath a thick crust of ignorance. This was a process slow in developing, straddling many centuries. The first symptoms of the disease could be detected at the time of Gautam the Buddha, the ‘ruse of the Supreme’, the underminer of the Dharma (see Part I of this series, TVN 5/6). The Buddha played a pivotal role in the collapse of energies we witness today. This original undermining brought about a gradual disintegration in the spiritual dimension of Bharat Mata: energies began to collapse into a Nirvanic Void. They were thrust into the cosmic waste bin or ‘black hole’, and the nation was thus deprived of the only energy which could counteract the future invasion of ‘foreign bodies’. By the early centuries of the Christian era – the ‘Dark Ages’ – this withering away of spiritual force, this emasculation of the spiritual consciousness brought the same results as the emasculation of the Kshatriya element in contemporary Indian society. Consequently, it is not surprising that the Supramental Avatar was born into a Kshatriya family rather than a Brahmin. To arrest the decline in the realm of the Spirit, no less than in the more material realms, only those warrior energies will suffice.
We have thus far discussed the collapse due to faults in the Rajas and Tamas sections of the subcontinental Symbol-Map. We have not yet dealt with the central guna, Sattwa, or Preservation, though in this area of our discussion we are confronted with an equally important ‘symbol’, as irrefutable in its connections as the former two. For where have those viral seeds the Buddha planted some 2000 years ago settled? They were collected centuries ago in an especially significant location in the Symbol-Map: the lowermost tip of the descending ‘V’. Thus there too – indeed, most important of all in the esoteric sense – we encounter a gap, a point of seepage in the pocket of energy-mass we know today as Sri Lanka.
The drainage is thus at all three points of the Guna-Map of Rajas, Sattwa, and Tamas: the North West, the North East, and the deep, deep South…where the Dharma is ‘preserved’.
In Tamil Nadu the effects of this drainage are almost physically palpable, as if a deadly corrosive element were eating away at the bowels of the Body. Indeed, its effects upon the system are predictable. From time to time poisonous fumes emanate from this deepest-most pocket. They cloud the atmosphere periodically and on an increasing scale. These toxic fumes arise from this deep pit and infiltrate the entire Body with devastating results.
The central portion of Bharat Mata is ruled by the guna of Preservation, Sattwa. But preservation of what? The Hindu Dharma, of course, – or the Cosmic Truth. What is the channel or instrument of expression on Earth, in a physical embodiment, of that cosmic Truth? It is the Soul, the Atman. The power of Mahakal, the Time-Spirit operates through the psychic construct of the individual and collectivity to establish its heaven (the Cosmic Truth) upon this planet Earth. The secret goal of our Age is the ‘marriage’ of that Heaven and this Earth. But, as the ancient Veda prescribes…a new heaven and a new earth.
The Buddhist realisation, at a predictable moment in the evolution of the species, cast the first effective undermining seeds into the Body of Bharat Mata. It attacked precisely this channel: it denied the individual soul.
This is the poison that lodged itself in the pit of the Body, at the deepest heart of the Preservation Guna. Without this formidable happening some 2000 years ago, the North-Western and North-Eastern infiltrations could never have taken place. The foundations of the civilisation had to be undermined, which in the Symbol-Map are located in the deepest portion of the ‘V’, those energies which alone can preserve the Dharma. The other, uppermost portions of the Body which sustain themselves on these support pillars can suffer collapse only after the Preservation Guna is attacked and not before.
It was thus in this deepest southern Sattwa region that the great defender of the Dharma arose, Shankara. But what was his ‘defence’, at a time when the shadowy mantle of the Dark Ages had already settled over the soul of the nation? Shankara merely ‘integrated’ the Buddhist realisation of the Void into the Hindu Dharma; and while not its complete abrogation, the soul was relegated to an entirely inferior status in the spiritual echelon. Shankara carried those seeds, impeccable instrument that he was, from the deep south to the four corners of the Body. The result was the first clear and unmistakable sign of the loss of the Cosmic Truth. It was then that the nation became the representative on Earth of the Cosmic Ignorance and no longer the higher Vedic reality. Thus the Divine Maya of the ancient Veda became Shankara’s ‘Maya’, or Illusion, devoid of any divine attributes. For all practical purposes, she became the temptress Eve, the weaver of the veils of illusion and the cunning power which binds the human being to this woeful evolution, prisoner of his atavistic drives in the fruitless cycles of birth and rebirth. The cleavage in the energy body of the civilisation was complete: on the one side was ranged the Spirit, on the other Matter. And the toxic fumes from the chasm in between never cease to emit their corrosive substances to cloud perception of the higher Truth.
Shankara, like all superior souls, could not fail to be faithful to the Time-Spirit: he could ‘see’ only what the divine Power permitted, in an Age characterised by a dimming of the light, a first perceptible decline in the Dharma.
Thus, in present-day Tamil Nadu we observe a situation similar in some ways to the North. We witness the largely Hindu Tamils at the frontier, standing in opposition to the Buddhist Sinhalese. To appearances the struggle is ethnic, social and political. But this is simply because the channel provided for the struggle is the external political dimension. The spiritual channel to deal with the true issue is closed – or rather, hidden.
The ‘Bottomless Pit’
The base for the Supramental Avatar was carefully selected. It lay in the southern sector of Bharat Mata – in order to deal with those toxic fumes which no politician can possibly detect much less understand. That ‘sattwic’ portion of the Body requires a YOGIC defence, hidden from the eye of the uninitiated. Therefore Tamil Nadu preserves the nation’s most important, most meaningful and determining worship for the new India – that of Murugan or Kartikeya, or Guha, the Hidden One. His work is symbolised by the description of the 10th Evolutionary Avatar, Kalki, with sword in hand and mounted on a white steed: Kshatriya symbols. Indeed, all the prominent players mentioned were Kshatriyas. The Buddha belonged to this caste also, who had usurped the place of the true 9th Avatar, Sri Aurobindo, himself a Kshatriya. But in the yogic experience of higher expressions of energy interaction, how is that warrior force to be exercised? In the case in reference we have Sri Aurobindo’s explanation of the method as well as the struggle, recorded in his most autobiographical poem, ‘A God’s Labour’. Here are some of its verses:
All around is darkness and strife;
For the lamps that men call suns
Are but half way gleams on this stumbling life
Cast by the Undying Ones.
Man lights his little torches of hope
That lead to a failing edge;
A fragment of Truth is his widest scope,
An inn his pilgrimage.
The Truth of truths men fear and deny,
The Light of lights they refuse;
To ignorant gods they lift their cry
Or a demon altar choose.
All that was found must again be sought,
Each enemy slain revives,
Each battle for ever is fought and refought
Through vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and one
And the Titan kings assail,
But I cannot rest till my task is done
And wrought the eternal will.
How they mock and sneer, both devils and men!
‘Thy hope is Chimera’s head
Painting the sky with its fiery stain;
Thou shalt fail and thy words lie dead.
‘Who art thou that babblest of heavenly ease
And joy and golden room
To us who are waifs on inconscient seas
And bound to life’s iron doom?
‘This earth is ours, a field of Night
For our petty flickering fires.
How shall it brook the sacred Light
Or suffer a god’s desires?
‘Come, let us slay him and end his course!
Then shall our hearts have release
From the burden and call of his glory and force
And the curb of his wide white peace.’
But the god is there in my mortal breast
Who wrestles with error and fate
And tramples a road through mire and waste
For the nameless Immaculate.
A voice cried, ‘Go where none have gone!
Dig deeper, deeper yet
Till thou reach the grim foundation stone
And knock at the keyless gate.’
I saw that a falsehood was planted deep
At the very root of things
Where the grey Sphinx guards God’s riddle sleep
On the Dragon’s outspread wings.
I left the surface gods of mind
And life’s unsatisfied seas
And plunged through the body’s alleys blind
To the nether mysteries.
I have delved through the dumb Earth’s dreadful heart
And heard her black mass’ bell
I have seen the source whence her agonies part
And the inner reason of hell.
Above me the dragon murmurs moan
And the goblin voices flit;
I have pierced the Void where Thought was born,
I have walked in the bottomless pit…
Sri Aurobindo writes of the ‘bottomless pit’. In the occult Body of the nation, it is precisely where he established his counterattack, his yogic realisation, together with the Mother’s. The first trinity of his Line set about their work in this lowermost area and injected an antidote into the bowels of Bharat Mata – into the ‘bottomless pit’ where the Void had consolidated its seeping stronghold in the body of the Dharma.
Yet all is still very much hidden. Thus this play-out continues to be a reflection of the Cosmic Ignorance and not the Cosmic Truth, and it is composed of suffering, bloodshed, schism, disintegration – all the trappings of that Ignorance.
To counteract this the Kshatriya element is needed not merely in the physical realm proper but in the spiritual. Mind is the bane of the human being. The Void is the experience of a species balanced on a precarious binary structure where Mind is the regent and the soul is denied…in Sri Aurobindo’s words, ‘the Void where Thought was born’. The Supramental Avatar, 9th in the Line of the ten, came to dislodge the usurper and to re-establish the Dharma in the only way that it could be done: to undermine the Void itself. And the location for this exercise was the South in the Preservation/Sattwa guna, right where the original invading virus had been collected and firmly lodged.
Courage is needed in this exercise – the courage of the Divine Warrior. To see what is, to express that profound Seeing fearlessly, and to refashion the new India on this foundation of Cosmic Truth.
The play is no longer quite so hidden, however. The Act of Seeing has lifted many veils from the Hidden One, exposing in greater measure the divine Truth. It is seen increasingly to shape even the most material and apparently insignificant aspects of daily life. To illustrate, a massive statue of the Buddha sinks to the bottom of the sea in Andhra Pradesh in 1990, while the Chief Minister of the state had previously declared that the project of installing the statue, inherited from his predecessor, would ‘sink the economy of the State’, – almost as if his words became a spell and played itself out most physically, driving the statue to its watery grave. People justifiably question how so noble a project could display such a merciless lack of divine blessings. In the light of what is written in this essay, one must question the wisdom of such projects being left to the discretion of secular leaders who have no deeper understanding of the hidden reverberations of such acts. Are they, we must question, in tune with the real Dharma of the nation? Or might these be further acts in this centuries-old process of undermining, unconscious no doubt but nonetheless exacting their toll?
The Dharma is an integral truth. The three Gunas are an harmonious whole, each completing the other. The Cosmic Truth describes this integral play of the Divine Shakti, resulting in both individual and collective integrality. Unless this is perceived and the truth is exposed in its totality, no integration can come about. For to integrate implies first to know what the equation is, what energies stand to be integrated, what the total alchemy consists of. Right now we have a truncated energy base: some portions of the subtle body are denied, others upheld, while the foundations are corroded.
The Buddha was a native of Bharat, it must be remembered, while Christianity and Islam came from outside. The element that the Buddha introduced was a work exclusive to India, a work which only India could do, or rather undo. The establishing of the Dharma is thus the undoing of that illusory substance, the unmasking of the cosmic Lie and the re-establishing of the light of the soul in its eternal truth of being.
Secularism’s Irrelevancy
Illusion – in the planetary harmony Neptune is its representative. Thus those ‘veiling fumes’ which arose from the nation’s deepest South are, astrologically speaking, ruled by Neptune. Being essentially an illusion, cinema also comes under Neptune’s rule in astrology. We cannot help but see the parallel, for which State can lay claim to a more consistent involvement with Neptune/Cinema than Tamil Nadu – ruled for decades by prominent figures from the world of Tamil films? How perfect therefore is this consonance with the Cosmic Truth. Similarly, how understandable is the rabid anti-Brahminical campaign which has struck blow upon blow in that segment of the civilisation whose duty it has always been to preserve the Dharma, to perceive, to experience, to foster the higher truths?
For several decades predominantly secularly oriented governments have ruled Tamil Nadu and have engaged in this campaign. They have justified their attacks by citing the age-old dominance of this highest caste, in detriment to the rise of the lower. In addition, justification is sought by citing the ancient Rig Veda, foremost pillar of Hindu civilisation, to establish an ‘historic’ precedent for a congenital North/South divide, thereby fanning the fires of the Dravidian movement. I have demolished this ‘historic’ interpretation of the Rig Veda elsewhere and need not present the evidence again. Suffice to say that without precise knowledge of cosmic harmonies erroneous and misleading interpretations are inevitable. Particularly nefarious is the persistent intrusion of the ‘secular’ viewpoint into a domain that is the product of a vision in which this contemporary framework is not only irrelevant but at times wickedly falsifying.
In the 18th and 19th Centuries – that is, with the entry of European invaders carrying the banner of Judeo-Christianity – the perversion was complete. The seeds of undermining were thrust right into the core of the Dharma by casting a secular, historic coating over the Veda; or else, in an even more perverse exercise, a mantle of paganism and nature worship.
The results of that invasion were particularly devastating in the Tamilian/Dravidian area of the Symbol-Map. The Rig Veda could thus be interpreted historically to prove an inherent division and by consequence the dominance of the Brahmin who then had to be neutralised. This development, however, is entirely understandable if we realise that geographically the south of India is the destined Preserver of the Dharma, while the north is the Defender, and the North East stands as the Dissolver of the old forms, casting the energy that emerges from that breakdown back into the central Body in a perfect containment of energies in a balanced play.
We live in a ‘secular world, hence these are perceptions not permitted to colour our policies or help us to identify the forces at play and their objective. Yet the Indian reality, I repeat, is a faithful expression of the Cosmic Truth, one element of which is the Symbol-Map which reveals with impressive precision this triune play of energy in the subcontinent.
Secularism is a necessary evil in a world dominated as it is by divisive and fanatical religions. But what has this to do with the Hindu Dharma whose foundation is unity and oneness? And if this appears not to be so it is precisely because these constricting formulas will not allow the real Hindu soul to arise and shape the future of India. This has plunged the nation into a very great inertia; and the elements most responsible for this degeneration of the Tamas Guna are the invaders into and through the Tamas segment – that is, the proponents of western secularism. At the same time, the awakening periodically comes from that very segment with Bengal playing this noble role.
In terms of this impersonal, objective assessment, the limitations of a secular, democratic system of government are obvious. It does not permit an analysis of this order because it appears that we are ‘mixing religion with politics’, insofar as the language I am employing happens to be the fundaments of the Hindu perception of reality and part of its ancient philosophical base. Yet none can deny that the revelation of the Capricorn hieroglyph superimposed on the map of India, whole and integral, does indeed explain the course of events and the policies which have shaped India since Independence.
How could we, for example, explain why anti-Brahminism ‘happened’ to arise in Tamil Nadu and no where else in the nation to the same degree – that is, as a consistent platform of the political parties that have held a monopoly over the State government for almost half a century?
The Symbol-Map informs us that such a development and these behavioural trends are compulsive. They also serve a purpose, but unfortunately this purpose at present does not contribute to the integration of Bharat Mata but rather to her disintegration. Consequently, we also understand why the Dravidian movement fostered secessionism, since the breaking up of the energy structure of the triune Map must inevitably become expressed at later stages as actual physical divides – witness the Partition at Independence.
We do not find the Kshatriya element hounded in South India as a policy, only the Brahmin. This is simply because the guna that governs this portion of the geography is Sattwa/Preservation, to which the Brahmin feels affinity. Whereas in the North, the pursuance of non-violence took its toll where the Symbol-Map indicated that it would: in the Rajas portion which bears an affinity with the Kshatriya. Similar to Tamil Nadu, we observe that the movement to restore something of the dharma in that area has resulted in a call for independence from ‘Delhi Rule’ because secessionism is the inevitable outcome when those seeking redress from wrongs which they cannot even formulate since they are related to deeply esoteric principles, become victims of the secular imprint which bars them from a vision of wholeness and integrality, whereby they would not seek to secede but demand to be integrated.
Christianity is a religion which holds Death central to its vision. One need only enter a Christian church or home with the image of a crucified Christ hanging on the wall to realise that this is so. Notwithstanding the Resurrection, which cannot compete with the Crucifixion in terms of a predominance of the symbol in the focus of ritual and worship, we must concede that Death via the Crucifixion does occupy a pre-eminent place. Consequently, the Christian invasion occurred in the Tamas portion of the Symbol-Map, a guna which bears an affinity with Death insofar as it is the agent of breakdown, destruction, dissolution, and so forth. In this case that affinity acted as a magnet and drew the British into the nation precisely through that segment, entirely in keeping with the Christian perception of reality.
These are facts of history which none can deny. However, to express them in the way I have done invites attacks from secularists who cannot go beyond the limited consciousness they possess and see Hindu civilisation and culture as a phenomenon completely distinct from all organised religions, in India and in the world. The Hindu Dharma founds itself on a COSMIC pattern – ideally on the threefold/fourfold pillars of the Cosmic Truth. This is as distinct from religions as day is from the night. Yet the secular model of independent India has trapped the nation in this false assessment with the result that all policies and even the political, judicial and social structures themselves are products of an essentially flawed perception. The question then remains, How can these structures be undone or otherwise permit the real soul of the civilisation to flourish?
The Divine Shakti presides over the evolution of the world and the evolution of Indian civilisation. As time moves on we witness that the flawed system is strangling itself, as if a malefic parasite were eating into the nation’s viscera, causing breakdowns in almost every aspect of collective life. This too was predictable, given the fact that the Cosmic Truth had degenerated into the Cosmic Ignorance centuries ago.
At this point, if at all we have the good of the nation at heart – and this too we must question given the patently self-destruct policies which are often adopted – we must accept what this cosmic-truth foundation of Hindu culture has to tell us regarding the true and real foundations of this civilisation. And we must accept that the principle of secularism, as it has evolved and the bizarre interpretations given to it by all and sundry, are simply clever ‘ruses’, tactics of hostile forces bent upon carrying Bharat Mata to a complete and total disintegration, for the only way to preserve her integrity is via the Hindu model.
The cleverest aspect of the ruse has been the constraints people of Knowledge have been subjected to when attempts have been made to cast aside these debilitating formulas and found the new India on real foundations, those in harmony with the nation’s ancient soul. Indeed, we are witnessing at present a formidable upsurge of forces intrinsically hostile to that Hindu psyche and who, by clutching the sinking raft of secularism, seek to suppress and eventually eliminate any elements in society who can vigorously champion the cause of Bharat Mata and rid her of these age-old viruses. They are in her body, physically; but more painfully, they are eating away at her psychic being because none have laid hands on the real roots of the problem – the perversion in the spiritual domain. None except the real 9th Avatar of this 9th Manifestation.
Insofar as the nation is at a perilous crossroads and in this situation the people of India must now elect a new government, it is understandable that all politicians proclaim that their party alone can provide the stability which India so badly needs in these disquieting times of collapse. But the analysis provided in these pages, I believe has exposed the vacuity of these claims: Stability of any sort is impossible unless the nation accepts the only real basis for that stability – the cultural and civilisational truth of India divested of these external models and ideologies which bear no relation to the soul of the nation, and incorporates this truth as a determining power. This does not mean that India must eject from her body whatever cannot honestly feel at ease with this ancient expression. It simply means that this is her central truth. All else is peripheral and can no longer be permitted, by underdog or top dog tactics, to mould the polity of the nation. Or if this continues to be the case, the mechanism I have described will continue to function with impeccable faithfulness to the formula, and the extremities of the Body will go on experiencing corrosion, decay, disintegration until they fall away at an ever accelerated pace from the central trunk. While that trunk itself, divested of its ‘arms’, or its shakti or power, will cave in upon itself in a sombre pralayic convulsion until another Age, until another line of Ten Avatars begins its cyclic work through the eternal meanderings of Time.
March 1991
*
Just before printing the above, there has been further evidence of the efficacy of the new way cosmology in its ability to cast light on happenings which, without this guideline, might fail to enlarge our vision and widen our perspectives. I refer to the cyclone which struck Bangladesh just after midnight on 30 April 1991 – thus pushing it over and into a day of 9 number-power (3+0+4+1+9+9+1=9). Insofar as Bangladesh is an integral part of the Symbol-Map analysed at length in this essay, a tragic happening of such colossal proportions striking at this ‘armpit’, must capture our attention. Indeed, on numerous occasions in the past I have written about the special characteristics of Bangladesh, since it occupies a very critical position in the Body (see page 10). It is located in the Tamas segment which does indeed account for these periodic visitations of Nature in her full fury. But of all the Indian states which occupy the same segment, why is Bangladesh targeted more than the others for this on-going devastation?
The answer lies in the new way geography whereby the Gnostic Circle is laid across the globe, its 360 degrees, comprised of the 12 signs of the zodiac, thus covering the entire planet. With this superimposition we can ‘read’ the various characteristics of certain geographical locations by the sign under which they fall (see The New Way, Vol. 2, Chapter 9). Bangladesh, for example, lies at exactly the transition from Capricorn to Sagittarius; that is, from a sign ruled by the Rajas Guna (Capricorn) to one ruled by Tamas (Sagittarius). Given this correspondence, it is understandable that the Tamas character is fortified. Particularly relevant is the location of the mouth of Ganga at this 90-degree longitude point.
In The New Way, Volume 2, page 355, I had written the following in January of 1978:
‘One of the most crucial areas of her Body is the armpit of the left arm, Bangladesh, because this area stands at the point of transition from Capricorn to Sagittarius and coincides with the mouth of the Ganges. The energy change there is from rajas…to tamas… It is a tremendously potent point – hence even nature manifests there in her full power when cyclones rage into this armpit with a force only occasionally felt elsewhere on the globe… Life can only be tumultuous in that area until the essence of this ‘armpit’ is understood and its true place taken in the destiny of a united India.’
The point of the above was to highlight the fact that a break-up in the geography of the triadic Symbol-Map results in ‘cracks’ in the system whereby no attenuating force can ease the impact of such furies and come to the aid of that segregated area. This type of assessment will certainly be ridiculed by the secularists and pragmatists, but I am confident that the evidence provided by the new way cosmology and the light it throws on what may be called, esoteric geography, will silence these criticisms. Indeed, almost on a daily basis, happenings across the globe do offer continual confirmation of the precision of this Seeing. Unfortunately, Bangladesh also furnishes us with a confirmation, a poignant and tragic reminder of the relentless drive of the Shakti to force the artificial barriers which separate the ‘nations’ of the subcontinent to give way and unity to be restored.
More recently, in the December 1988 issue of VISHAAL (TVN 3/5), in the article entitled, ‘The New Dawn of 1989’, I had again referred to Bangladesh and the tribulations it would undergo due to its severance from the main Body:
‘On the basis of the knowledge provided by the new cosmology, we see that it is the existence and reliance on just one of the energy flows that will provide the means to bring about unification in the subcontinent. Bangladesh, for example, cannot survive the constant onslaught of Mother nature in her Tamas energy flow as an independent nation. The natural calamities and the constant destruction which the area experiences can only be overcome successfully if that ‘armpit’ is an integral part of India; however, an India strong enough in her economy and political organisation to be able to absorb those disasters with relative ease. On its own Bangladesh will face ultimate disintegration under the weight of its isolated energy experience. The Shakti, using the tool of her destructive Tamas guna in continuous natural calamities, will undermine the economy of the State to such an extent that Bangladesh will either join India in the unification of the subcontinent or find itself overwhelmed by debts and thus left vulnerable to a host of aggressive forces because of the fragility of its political and economic structure. (p. 41)
Lamentably, this latest calamity, by its severity and fidelity to the above, has revealed that Bangladesh, similar to India, has reached the critical threshold. Henceforth, each such calamity – and they are already an annual occurrence, be these either floods or cyclones or tornadoes – will serve to push the State deeper and deeper into an abyss. To exit from that black hole, the only solution is Bangladesh’s re-entry into the main Body. If such were the case, given the restitution of the threefold harmony and balance of energy, these natural calamities would begin to lessen until the point is reached where this destructive force could no longer act in the area with its present ferocity, – destruction would be transformed into dissolution.
A statement of this nature cannot be accepted unless the Earth is seen and experienced as a consciousness-being of the Divine. India, better than any other nation, has the capacity – and indeed the duty – to reveal this Truth-Seeing to the world. This is her destiny, her dharma, her truth of being. In this analysis we have discussed the trifold nature of that Dharma. In the final part of this series, I shall concentrate on the fourfold harmony and a focus on the Chaturvarna, the ancient caste system, companion of the above, We shall explore its cosmic nature, and, by consequence, its place within the vision of the Cosmic Truth.
(to be continued)
PNB May of 1991 Aeon Centre of Cosmology at Skambha
‘My soul is the captive of God, taken by Him in battle; it still remembers the war, though so far from it, with delight and alarm and wonder.’
Sri Aurobindo
A turning point in Hindu civilisation has been reached. The choice is as clear as the indications given by the conditions surrounding this formidable moment.
In previous articles and in my books, I have discussed this question of choosing – or, as I call it, the act of choosing. It is an essential ingredient at the turning point because the mechanics of the act involve a release of energy. Indeed, the act of choosing is simply for the purpose of carrying out this release. The energy that ‘escapes’ is the new addition which alters the alchemy of forces in turbulent interaction. But in reality there is no choice as such; the entire mechanism is artificial when seen from a higher plane of perception. This becomes obvious when the ‘right’ choice is made and miraculously a shift occurs transforming the entire panorama, in some cases instantly. Yet at a lower level, or rather on the plane where the issue is being played out, the choice is not at all fictitious. Hard facts accompany our act of choosing – deaths, bloodshed, nations disintegrating amidst turmoil and confusion. These are the realities we live with today, at this momentous time of choosing. Nonetheless, they are not real issues and we are therefore permitted to call them fictitious in that the real exists only in the heart of the process. From there waves are thrown up and out which create a ‘field’, and it is in this field that most of the issues apparently of central importance can be located. Their function in the process is quite other than what is imagined and is important in its own ways which this article will attempt to clarify.
When a turning point is reached circumstances conspire to create conditions which force us into a position demanding an act of choosing; in other words, which force us to release energy. This is what is now demanded in India: an act of choosing for the purpose of releasing energy. When it is an unconscious act, it will be accompanied by destructive manifestations proportionate to the degree of unconsciousness prevailing. When awareness of the real issues is present, the process is one of dissolution and not destruction. That is, outer sheaths where the energy had become compacted into hardened masses are dissolved, dissipated. In unconsciousness entailing destruction, blows are inflicted on the sheath to force a breakthrough. This is transposed onto the human stage as acts of violence, bloodshed, death. Or else, in the economic sphere we may witness the collapse of economies, or in politics the complete collapse of systems or, in more extreme cases, revolutions with their attending turmoil, agitation and death.
India has reached such a turning point. But the sheath to be dissolved is a residue accumulated over 2500 years. Ignorance of this fact is what encourages a focus on issues which are irrelevant at worst and peripheral at best. In other words, we must view the state of a civilisation as a growth of many layers; these are indeed sheaths – but formed of TIME ENERGY. This process is the experience of individuals as well as groupings of collective consciousness – for example the Hindu civilisation. The more mature a civilisation, the easier it is to perceive the process, or the more starkly defined its turning points.
Thus we perceive a residue accumulated in the sheath surrounding the core of Hinduism. The truth-essence of that core is the Sanatan Dharma, the eternal truth or law. But being eternal does not mean fixity of form which implies fossilisation. Indeed, this lies at the heart of the issue and is the crux of the turning point. Eternal in time (and there can be no concept of eternity which does not include time) implies a ceaseless flow; that is, a truth which evolves NEW forms in a process that is entirely true to the essence. In Hinduism this is very clear, unlike what we encounter in religions. The Sanatan Dharma contains an in-built system of renewal unique on this Earth in that it forms the undisputed core of the Dharma or the backbone of the structure. This is the Line of Ten Avatars.
Hinduism’s Alliance with Time
The Line refers to an evolutionary mechanism which USES Time for the action of evolving new forms around a truth-core. The Avatar’s purpose is exclusively this: he or she takes birth under certain time conditions which allow the Avatar to evolve, by the aid of Time in the evolutionary process, these new involucrums. In the process and if there are hardened crusts of impacted residue, this Agent of Time must undo those crusts.
Two factors may complicate the matter. One is when the Avatar is not recognised and society opposes his evolutionary/revolutionary work; the other is when very special conditions prevail which result in unusually hard crusts, or extreme masses of compacted energy residue. Both these situations describe the happenings surrounding the work of the present Avatar in this 9th Manifestation.
The second of the two is worth elucidating: the Line consists of ten, it is known. But what is not known is that they are a string of births stretched over many millennia but nonetheless thoroughly linked through the substance of the missions to be accomplished. The Avatars’ work, though spread out over vast aeons, is one process with one finality: the establishment of the reign of Truth, or the Golden Age. In Hinduism it is known as the Satya Yuga.
Thus, and this is fundamental, the movement works through the Line toward a culmination. This is supremely clear if we know the heart of evolution’s purpose. We observe then how each Avatar has added a portion to the mosaic. Sri Aurobindo has carefully explained this in his writings on the Ten Avatars. However, he dwelt primarily on the specific contributions of the 7th and 8th Avatars – Sri Ram and Sri Krishna. Interestingly, he had less to say about the 9th, except to state that Kalki would come ‘to correct the error of the Buddha’. On the other hand, we have the Puranas which refer to this 9th Avatar Buddha as the ‘ruse of the Supreme’, meant to ‘mislead the asura-seekers’.
These references have been made use of to support the contention that Buddhism was a persecuted faith in India and pursued by the Brahminical caste to its final ejection from the country. It is a debate which has surfaced forcefully in this decade due to two factors: one is the Ayodhya Temple episode with the intelligentsia seeking to convince the nation, for its own designs, that the mosque occupying the site was built over the ruins of a Buddhist shrine which had been destroyed to give way to a Hindu temple; that is, that the Hindus had been the first to destroy and build; and second, the caste debate which has been brought to a tragic extreme by the policies of the former prime minister, V.P. Singh.
Regarding the first, certain points need to be clarified. It is doubtful that a Buddhist shrine occupied the site where the mosque now stands, but what might be the deeper purpose in casting this contention into the cauldron already replete with contentious forces? The purpose is to add substance to the theory of Brahminical intolerance and persecution of Buddhism out of a desire to maintain a hold over the out-caste masses as well as the lower echelons within the system. However, it has to be pointed out that if this desire of subjugation truly existed, Hinduism would not have evolved as it did over these past ten thousand years. It would have provided for itself the proper tools for suppression and dominance such as we find in religions. In Hinduism it is true that a degeneration set in, but this has little to do with Brahminical despotism as it has been elaborated by historians.
In the Dark Ages, the priests and men and women of Knowledge in Hindu civilisation knew that the Buddha was ‘the ruse of the Supreme’ and that though circumstances forced his insertion in the Line as the 9th Avatar, he was nothing of the sort. But exactly what his role might be was not understood, though it was clear that he was indeed connected to the Line in a most essential manner. Clarity could not prevail simply because this discovery involved the deepest essence of the true 9th Avatar’s mission, Sri Aurobindo, whose appearance was due many centuries into the future.
According to the cosmic harmonies, which provide the ‘credentials’ for the Line of Ten, the 9th could not have appeared at the time of the Buddha: time would not have permitted it. The Avatar appears in the portion of each Manifestation (consisting of 6480 years each) which belongs to Vishnu [see The Gnostic Circle]. Thus they are known as ‘Incarnations of Vishnu.’ This description is misleading unless one knows the fundaments of these harmonies.
Suffice to say, those persons of Knowledge who described the Buddha as the ruse of the Supreme were not far from the truth – however, it was a truth which would take over 1500 years to be clarified and proven. Those ‘Brahmins’, often a euphemism for realised souls or persons of Knowledge, were not persecutors of Buddhists; they were simply preceptors of something of the Cosmic Truth and the deeper workings of the Time-spirit. At the same time, the entry of an erroneous incarnation as the 9th created its own problems. To put it succinctly, in itself this act became the reason why the perception of the Cosmic Truth and its issuing harmonies was lost. The vision became clouded to the point where decisive links were missed, great chunks were subtracted from the greater mosaic that is Hinduism. Certain essential portions remained, indeed a CORE, but the veils began to collect around this core becoming denser as the Manifestation’s clock ticked away in its relentless and irreversible march into the Age of Vishnu, the period of culmination in this 9th Manifestation and the real time of appearance of the 9th Avatar. To be precise, Vishnu’s period in this 9th Manifestation began in 1926. His period prior to this was more than 6000 years ago. Thus, 6480 years separate the appearances of each Avatar in the Line. At about the midway point between the birth of the 8th, Sri Krishna, and the 9th, Sri Aurobindo, the ‘ruse of the Supreme’ appeared as a ‘shadow’ cast before the figure of the real 9th. This Shadow describes the residue. In that tenebrous sheath energies are accumulated which demand to be dissolved if at all the core-truth is to survive and continue propelled through the aeons by the Time-Spirit.
Questioning the Unquestionable
Yet there is far more to the matter and it will reveal just why a situation such as a ‘strategy of ruse’ arose in the course of the Line of Ten. That is, tradition does not refer to any other incarnation in this rather shocking fashion; or if it had proven necessary as a tactic, it is baffling that this should have centred on an incarnation of the spiritual status of the Buddha. This fact has left Hindu culture quite vulnerable in the face of attacks from a number of luminaries in different intellectual disciplines. There have been Asuras along the way, Rakshasas, and all sorts of embodiments of evil whom the Avatars have had to battle in the course of their missions. But there has never been a ‘ruse’ – that is, a truly SPIRITUAL figure of superior accomplishments as a false avatar yet universally accepted by Hindus themselves as one whose position as the 9th stands unquestioned. Indeed, to do so might appear as blasphemy to many, such has been the ingenuity of the ruse. But this questioning is part and parcel of the work of the true 9th. None before him, or indeed before he had victoriously accomplished his work, could hope to unravel the mystery or even realise and accept its existence.
At this stage, there is hardly a person in India who dares question this fundamental proposition: Gautam the Buddha was not the 9th Avatar and his insertion in the Line did indeed constitute a ruse, – or better said, a strategy.
The point is the Buddha was essential to the process described in the beginning of this discussion. He planted seeds in the collective consciousness of a movement which would result in the hardening of the crust, or the amassing of residue in the time-energy sheath of Hindu civilisation, destined to reach its maximum degree of density at the time of the appearance of the last Avatar in the Line.
The Satya Yuga is expressed by the 10th. Everything before that is a temporary circumstance to aid in the arrival of the Age of Truth. But let us be more specific.
Like the gestation of a cow, or a human being, 9 is the measure. Similarly, the Line of Ten follows the same measure: at the 9ththe birth occurs. This means that everything or everyone prior to this 9th was simply a ‘month’ of the gestation (or stage in the evolution of consciousness on Earth). When we reach the 7th and 8th ‘months’ (Avatars), the foetus is quite well-formed – but it is still a foetus, ergo, unborn; nonetheless, it begins to reveal a character, it is able to house a soul and to serve as a form-vehicle at the time of birth. Well-formed though it may be at the 7th and 8th stages of the gestation, it is nonetheless a foetus. Time must fulfil itself and the gestation must be completed. Nine is the measure and sacred is the cow because she parallels the process: the progressive densification of the Light (‘go’ in Sanskrit, or ray). Furthermore, nothing can truly be known of the ‘body’ or the individualised attributes of the new-born until the actual birth. The time of this birth, gestated for a period of approximately 51,840 years, was the present period of Vishnu which started in 1926.
As pre-eminent instruments of the Time-Spirit, it is only in Vishnu’s periods that the Avatars can appear, for these are the Ages of Preservation. This particular and special Manifestation – the 9th of this Manifestation, was struck in 1926. It was the year Sri Aurobindo formally initiated his work: he withdrew to his room in that year and for 24 thereafter did a yoga of supreme concentration in order to see the ‘birth’ through successfully. The period of the true 9th had dawned upon India as the new Age had dawned on the cosmic horizon. This means that what Sri Aurobindo’s coming signified was the birth of the true and only real form of Hinduism. Or else, after his coming and this successful passage, his mission would produce an India that would be able to ‘see with NEW EYES’, for that is the meaning of the Coming.
The Birth of Guha, or the New Way
As time fulfils itself the involucrum surrounding the foetus begins to exert pressure; the waters press upon the foetus from all sides, contractions begin at a predetermined time and the ‘child’ comes forth. This Child is the 10th in the Line, the male-child Kartikeya, or Kalki. He comes as the War God, or with sword in hand, because the condition of the sheath requires this extreme power. The conditions accompanying his arrival are such that the crust is hardened to its maximum point of destiny. That point is reached in the second half of this century, culminating in the last three decades of the millennium, particularly in the 1990s. Only the power of the Sword will break the sac and permit the Birth. It is a cosmic process, a cosmological phenomenon. What this means is simply that the Age of Truth, the Satya Yuga, is ushered in by the Warrior of the Sanatan Dharma.
The reasons are obvious, the circumstances surrounding the Birth explain the position well; they do not lie. But the point is that when Knowledge does not illumine the path a stillborn creature may emerge due to the intensity of the force employed, in keeping with the cosmic process. In other words, the baby may be thrown out with the bath water. This, above all else, has to be avoided, for it is another ‘tactic’ in the strategy of the agents of Darkness: if the victory cannot be theirs, success will nonetheless attend their efforts by provoking a holocaust which will reduce Hindu civilisation to a shadow of itself, if it will survive at all. This can only be averted when the true and full process is known, which in turn informs us of the identity of these forces and how they operate.
Indeed, this is the key feature of the Satya Yuga: it is no longer a reign of ignorance, falsehood and half-light. Knowledge, the supreme Gnosis prevails, triumphs, forms the basis of the new order. Thus, to pretend to be instruments for this Birth without the mind and heart illumined by this truth-seeing is to delude ourselves pathetically. Our unknowing will simply prolong the reign of Ignorance and falsehood and may even be used to hasten the final collapse.
These are the veils that are pierced by the Sword of Truth which Kalki wields. Kalki is the symbol of the victorious Birth. The ‘ruse of the Supreme’ clouded this cosmic process in veils – protecting it as a foetus is protected by the maternal sac until its moment of birth arrives. At the same time, the veils themselves are the focus of an ever-increasing residue which must now be dissolved.
But is it to be done by DISSOLUTION or DESTRUCTION? This is the only question we may legitimately ask. Because the victorious birth has already taken place. Therefore it is no longer appropriate to question if the Child will be live or stillborn because Sri Aurobindo has already successfully accomplished his mission. The only ‘unknown’ at present is what means must be employed to allow for that Child, and no other, to emerge from behind the veils which continue to cover him in his form of Guha, the Hidden One.
Darkness before the Dawn
At a certain point in the evolution of Hindu society the correct deciphering of the cosmic script was lost. The result was adoption of a system of calendrical reckoning which threw the civilisation’s time measure off substantially. Hinduism could no longer locate the periods of Vishnu and by consequence determine the exact time of the appearance of the Avatar. It is safe to assume that the adoption of this inaccurate astronomical formula occurred around 300 AD. It is also safe to assume that this adoption was accompanied by the insertion of Gautam the Buddha into the Line of Ten: ‘ruse’ and miscalculation of time go hand-in-hand.
The time residue began to accumulate from that point onward; in the West during the same period, or 396 AD to be precise, there was a symbol-reflection of this lost measure in the cessation that year of the celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries in praise of the Divine Mother and her daughter, the Kore (a counterpart of the Hindu Kumari).
The adoption of this inaccurate cosmic reckoning, accompanied by the insertion of a false Avatar in the Line, had the desired effect of weakening the foundations of Hinduism. Soon after invasions began in a civilisation weakened from within; Hinduism no longer had the power to ward off these forces since its binding energy had been dissipated. India was a united civilisation in the cosmic dimension of its collective expression and experience long before it became a united nation during the British Raj. And this unity resided in Hinduism and its oneness with the Cosmic Truth. But having lost that connection, the pillars of both the civilisation and the physical nation were attacked and the momentum increases, just as the wrong measure permits a time residue to accumulate with each passing year.
Thus we note that by this wrong formula India marks its cosmic age at an interval of 1656 years behind the rest of the world. In other words, according to these calculations with respect to the true cosmic dial, India’s reckoning became frozen in the year 270 AD. The measure is a colossal 1656 years off the mark, into the past. It is during this span of more than 1500 years that the Hindu civilisation has been experiencing a slow and steady decline, with no hope of immediate reprieve since the period of Vishnu is not expected to dawn until the fourth millennium of our era!
Throughout these centuries Hinduism has not been able to express new forms of itself and make use of its in-built mechanism for change. Until, that is, the arrival of the true 9th Avatar and his mission as Mahakala began in the early part of this century. His foremost aim was to set on its way the process of ‘correcting the error’. However, correction is not simple insofar as the wrong formula affects the passage of the cosmic year as well as the Solar/Earth year. For example, this dislocation is an annual feature of Hindu celebrations, one of the main ones being the Makar Sankranti, or the Sun’s entry into India’s ruling sign, Capricorn. This is celebrated on 15 January, or 23 days late. In such an atmosphere of confusion the really inspiring fact is that Hinduism has managed to survive for as long as it has under these conditions which affect the very heart and soul of her culture – that is, the cosmic harmonies which form the indisputable basis of the civilisation.
The formula is precise: when the Shadow’s arena is the play-out destruction is the method. In terms of the cosmic process, that Shadow means the past. In view of the above discussion of the lost time-measure, it can be appreciated that at the heart of today’s struggle lies an attempt to draw the hands of the cosmic timepiece to their correct position in the Time-Spirit’s clock of the passage of the Earth’s Ages and bring about a perfect harmony of time and space, or the experience of the Satya Yuga. This can only be done through the knowledge provided by the Avataric Line.
Thus, the turning point of our times – today, not tomorrow, urgently upon us in these very days – is the choice: destruction or dissolution as the way. Must the Sword be used to cut the sheath vehemently, violently and perhaps fatally; or is it to be used simply to pierce the veils which hide Guha and through this opening to allow an infiltration of his Light to dissolve the shadow in the tenebrous corridors of Time’s residue.
It is clear that the necessity to use a symbol of the past as the rallying point for the reestablishment of the Dharma indicates a regression. Time moves on. Ram was the 7th Avatar. His mission was fulfilled many hundreds of years ago – nay, thousands, in the 7th Manifestation. Therefore, to speak of or fight for a ‘Ram Rajya’ is a contradiction in terms. It can never come to pass. It is not destined to come to pass. The Time-Spirit will simply not permit it.
But the Time-Spirit may use the symbol to AWAKEN SLEEPING ENERGIES. This has indeed transpired. However, it is at this point that the dramatic moment of choosing is revealed in its true light or purpose: focus on a symbol of the past within the context of Hinduism is, lamentably, a denial of the core of the Sanatan Dharma. It indicates that the ‘ruse’ was successful and still holds sway.
The Line of Ten means precisely a forward march, always stabilised on this Truth-Core, an experience of immobility in the midst of the hurrying pace of Time’s formidably accelerated mobility, as the years unwind and the millennium nears its end. That is, with a firm foundation upholding the progression which provides the mechanism of renewal for the harmonious experience of stability and change. It is a process which alone produces harmonisation and integration required for unity in diversity.
The Ayodhya issue may be a rallying point; it may serve to awaken energies dormant for the past 2000 years; it may even help us to focus our attention on the most vital feature of Hinduism: the Line of Ten Avatars. It may serve to revitalise the Hindu spirit and soul now weighed down by the thick layers cast upon it by invading ideologies far removed from its own truth-core. And this may instill the courage needed to cast those crusts aside definitively. But it cannot be the finality, the goal. It is merely a tool, the result of a totality of prevailing conditions which imposed this regression into the past.
If the Time-Spirit were to permit a plunge into the cosmic residue of frozen energies, Hinduism would not be the Sanatan Dharma. It would be a religion and hence entirely time-bound, with no inbuilt mechanism for renewal. Religions have no such mechanism for authentic change which respects the original substance – especially those that uphold their God as the one and only. Thus they must invariably experience fundamentalist upsurges which are the only possible responses to the pressure for change and progress in the absence of a cosmic mechanism. Similar to all religions, under those shadowy conditions Hinduism would be subject to fossilisation if it sought to preserve its truth-core.
With the exception of the evolutionary process itself, Hinduism is one of the rare expressions on Earth of a progressively unfolding cosmic Truth. Indeed, because its soul is that very Cosmic Truth, it is one with the deepest purpose of the planetary evolution. Hinduism can therefore be identified as the vahana (vehicle) of the Earth’s own soul, a truth exquisitely conveyed in the ancient Vedic symbol of the white steed, Agni, carrying Usha, the divine Dawn, across the horizon of the Earth’s awakening cosmic day.
What is transpiring in India today is not a sudden development catching us unaware. The cosmic harmonies have been indicating the arrival of this turning point in the present decade. These harmonies go very deep in their indications, deeper than is hinted at in the surface happenings. That is, they illumine our understanding to the degree that we see a nation caught up in peripheral struggles. Even the present disintegration of India is peripheral insofar as it is simply a reflection of a missing link between the nation’s outer political, social and economic forms of expression and the innermost truth-core of Hindu civilisation. The absence of that link is the sole cause for the present turmoil and permits the periphery to spin off in every direction. It is not held together by the power of the Core.
Similarly, the questions being asked by intellectuals in many different disciplines and by people in all walks of life concerning secularism, minorityism, majorityism, democracy, communalism, fundamentalism, or national integration, caste and all the rest, are simply further ‘ruses’. The choice before India is only one: the past or the present, the old or the new. The 9th and 10th Avatars hold the key to the new future of Hinduism, as the Line of Ten has always held the key to the reestablishment of the Dharma.
IN Message 2, I mentioned the central focus of the ancient Egyptian civilisation with respect to the Indian and the line both civilisations had been pursuing from ancient times. I have developed the theme elsewhere in depth. The Egyptian was spatial, I wrote, while India’s task involved the temporal. Hence the importance a discussion such as this assumes. Researchers have been intrigued by certain enigmatic monuments Egypt has bequeathed to us, to the extent that for a very long time the existence on Earth of such phenomenal engineering displays was played down – for some reason it was embarrassing to admit that there had been ancient cultures capable of what we cannot repeat today. For instance, school children are taught even today that the Great Pyramid at Giza was built by slave labour as a tomb to satisfy a megalomaniac ruler. It did not matter that this slave-driven feat could not have been executed anywhere on Earth at the time the Pyramid began to occupy our attention, somewhere in the 19th Century. The tale was told and re-told until finally no further questions were asked. This situation prevailed until well into the 20th Century. When it was accepted that our technology had not reached the point where a colossus of that nature could be built by us, in spite of our advanced equipment, questions began to be asked and a number of theories emerged: the Great Pyramid began to reveal its secrets – some of them, but not all. As for the theory that the ancient Initiates of Egypt could somehow manipulate molecules to disassemble and re-assemble the Pyramid’s humongous stone blocks in order to set them in place at the height of a 40-story building, evidence to suggest that this is possible emerged not in conventional halls of science but by the humble and largely unpublicised accomplishment of a man on the fringe of engineering, Ed Leedskalnin and his Coral Castle. For those interested, the evidence of his astonishing feat can be viewed over the Internet. While acknowledging a number of discoveries by the unorthodox, my curiosity led me to question why it would have been necessary to build such a massive structure. I understood what impelled the Egyptians to expend so much time and energy in the construction of a colossus like the Great Pyramid when I discovered Egypt’s connection to India. It was the Sphinx that confirmed my assessment, I might add. What I discovered would obviously not be on the order of Einstein’s time-space relativity theory but something entirely different. It formed part of that ‘third thing’ the Mother described in the early 1960s, beyond both science and spirituality as they are experienced by us today. Briefly, the contribution of Egypt was more than clear. In Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, I discussed in detail my perceptions in Update 1 of the series (see www.matacom.com). For the first time I presented what I considered to be the Pyramid’s function within the context of ancient Egypt’s contribution to a process that had already become clear to me but which required to be ‘fleshed out’, so to speak: its involvement with the conquest of Space. The idea I presented would seem outlandish on the surface, that a re-setting was in order similar to India’s objective, but involving one of the two ‘belts’ encircling the Earth – the space ‘belt’ covering the physical globe, it is important to note. Interestingly, shortly after developing this aspect of the Pyramid’s contribution, a scientific discovery came to light that in large part substantiates my position. The scientist in question confirms that mass of a certain proportion near the Equator can affect the Earth’s alignment. The news item in question appeared in The Hindu, 27 May 2004, entitled ‘Why the Earth Wobbles’. I wrote in Chronicles, Update 1, …This report from scientists at the University of Nevada adds considerable weight to the assessment put forth in these Chronicles…regarding the function of the Great Pyramid. The ‘wobble’ referred to in the newspaper report is what creates the Precession of the Equinoxes. Catching up with ancient traditions the world over, science now knows that it takes approximately 26,000 years of the Precession for one gyration to be completed, but more importantly it is now theorising that a shift in mass on the surface of the Earth can alter that rhythm. According to Geoff Blewitt, by using a global positioning system over the past decade and measuring changes in the shape of the Earth, the conclusion his team has arrived at is that ‘…the earth is wobbling while its shape is changing…It bulges at the equator as it’s spinning. If the position and height of that bulge changes slightly – we can pick it up’. This shift in mass changes the wobble and, by consequence, the rhythm of the Precession must change. The builders of the Great Pyramid possessed a technology very far in advance of our own. On this point there can be no dispute. However, what is still being questioned – or rather ignored because there seems to be no ‘reasonable’ answer – is what the purpose of such a massive structure might have been….The Great Pyramid and its companions had a specific role to play – and incredibly this role embraced the destiny of the entire Earth. The Initiates of those times dealt with the Solar System as if it were a great Clock, and they left us this evidence of their startling ability to re-set this cosmic timepiece. What has not been addressed, though we continue to give so much thought to HOW the pre-Pharaonic Egyptians carried out the construction, is why such massive stones were required. We seek to understand how they were set in place, realising that today we cannot duplicate such a formidable feat; but no one questions why they needed such enormous blocks to begin with. Considering their very advanced technological capacity, the Pyramids could have been made hollow, if only the shape was required – for whatever purpose. This was not the case. Great effort was put into securing a certain tightly fitted mass. It seems clear enough that this mass is the key issue. Contemporary science is now edging closer to the discovery of just what a given mass might have been needed for, though it does not apply these discoveries to the Great Pyramid; after all, our text books continue to propagate the misinformation that we are the apex of evolution! How can science now introduce anything that might contradict this dogma? As stated in these Chronicles and in other publications, a ‘shifting of the poles’ was required in order to bring about a convergence of the two circles, equatorial and sidereal, in 234 BCE. This was to assure that the Age of Aquarius would begin in 1926. According to the newspaper report, ‘…Large amounts of mass need to be moved from one place to another so that the Earth is “off balance” to make the Earth wobble, according to Blewitt, who said the North Pole then adjusts to a new position to compensate.’ (Emphasis ours) With the Great Pyramid constructed at very precise longitude and latitude coordinates and at a specific Age in the Precessional unfolding, with an orientation to the Poles added to the equation of a precision that engineers can hardly repeat today, the size and weight of its enormous stone blocks does not seem to have been purposeless. If it had been, why was so much energy expended in their transport from a far away location to the site, especially if we go along with the conventional theory that it was merely a tomb built long before ‘civilisation’ had reached the shores of the Nile?1The Egyptian re-alignment and re-setting would have taken place in the Age of Leo some 12,000 years ago – once again contradicting conventional theories. While the date for the Pyramid has not been conclusively proven, it is now widely accepted that the Sphinx was constructed during that same Age, confirmed by geologists when observing its weathering patterns with an open mind. The geological evidence proves that the Sphinx had to have been sculpted during a period of significant rainfall. This last occurred during the 7th Manifestation and the time of the appearance of Vishnu’s 7th Avatar, Sri Ram – approximately within the specified geological framework as supported by the new cosmology. We find further confirmation in the details of the Sphinx symbolism from the zodiac itself – half Lion, or the Age of Leo; the other Man-half points to our present 9th Manifestation and the appearance of Vishnu’s 9th Avatar in the Age of the Friend/Man, which in the zodiac is Aquarius. In the Rig Veda verses precisely to Vishnu, this symbolism is referred to specifically as the Friend (‘Mitra’), the last ‘step’ of Vishnu while measuring the universe. This is the applicable interpretation based on the cosmic harmony, while the orthodox version is not: 1. Of Vishnu now I declare the mighty works, who has measured out the earthly worlds and that higher seat of our self-accomplishing he supports, he the wide-moving, in the threefold steps of his universal movement. 2. That Vishnu affirms on high by his mightiness and he is like a terrible Lion that ranges in the difficult places, yea, his lair is on the mountain-tops, he in whose three wide movements all the worlds find their dwelling-place. 3. Let our strength and our thought go forward to Vishnu the all-pervading, the wide-moving Bull whose dwelling- place is on the mountain, he who being One has measured all this long and far-extending seat of our self-accomplishing by only three of his strides. 4. He whose three steps are full of the honey- wine and they perish not but have ecstasy by the self-harmony of their nature; yea, he being One holds the triple principle and earth and heaven also, even all the worlds. 5. May I attain to and enjoy that goal of his movement, the Delight, where souls that seek the godhead have the rapture; for there in that highest step of the wide-movingVishnu is that Friend of men who is the fount of the sweetness. 6. Those are the dwellings-places of ye twain which we desire as the goal of our journey, where the many-horned herds of Light go travelling; the highest step of wide-moving Vishnu shines down on us here in its manifold vastness. (Rig Veda 1.154) Thus we have an axis formed in the Sphinx, whose secret is revealed by the Precession of the Equinoxes linking the two Manifestations, the 7th and the 9th, and the Ages of Leo and Aquarius, as my Map of the 12 Manifestations demonstrates. (For further details see the series Secrets of the Earth, questions and answers on ‘The Line of Ten Avatars of Vedic Tradition’, Aeon Books, 2009.)
The Gnostic Circle (1975) and The New Way (1981)Aeon Books The Ages of Preservation (Vishnu’s period of appearance) have been preserved in the Sphinx symbolism taken directly from the zodiac – Leo (Lion) and Aquarius (Man/Friend), the first and last of Vishnu’s three strides. In between is Taurus the Bull, Krishnavatar’s appearance in the 8th Manifestation, as the Map indicates. When the Precession of the Equinox is employed correctly, we learn that the Man/Friend is Aquarius, our very own Age, and that it began in 1926. On the other hand, if we go by the Nirayana system, we have to wait perhaps 500 years for India to catch up! When the correct cosmic key is unveiled enigmas no longer remain and speculation is silenced. The problem is the usual one: vested interests. Added to the Nirayana pundits we have the entire scientific community intent on securing that the ‘enigma’ remains in place. There are so many ways to pin a civilisation down. But it has to be borne in mind that what is being written in these Messages refers to a collective realisation. Throughout India we find individual yogis even today who have realised the cosmic truth; many at the Mahakumbh itself, no doubt. It is what has kept the ‘thread’ intact over the millennia. What is required at this crossroads of destiny is an enlightened calendar that can incorporate the mass engendered by the energies of 80% of 1.2 billion people. This is the call of the hour, not for herself but for the entire world. And this is the purpose of a calendar to govern the extended body of a civilisation which is not expected to have a realisation for which an entire life has to be dedicated: it can be embodied in a calendar, as it had been across the millennia prior to the Age of Pisces. For centuries upon centuries the ‘thread’ could be carried on by those individual realisations; but the events of the last Age have forced the issue now and more is required – collectively. Astronomers insist that only the sidereal circle of the constellations is of value, with its shifting zodiac, whereas the Tropical and the Sidereal are of equal importance but they serve different functions. In other words, with Mahasaraswati’s grace we are simply putting each thing in its place and drawing the benefits thereof. For instance, the Map above is based on the Precessional movement and the extension of the equinoctial plane the Earth’s wobble traces in the sky within the same measure of 12. If we believe astronomers that it is the physical circle of the constellations, we are falling into the trap of relativism: the 0 starting point can be anywhere. Moreover, the physical constellations refuse to oblige and to adhere to the measure of 12 (360 ÷ 30); some are far smaller, some far larger. In addition, if we are unable to connect correctly those 25,920 years of the Precessional Great Year to the calendar we use, it is of no use and serves, as stated, to drag us off track – in India’s case by half a millennium! The ‘weight’ of that error has accumulated to the point where correction is now imperative. Most readers will require some form of confirmation from the scriptures for the above to be accepted – i.e. the measure of 12 of the 360-degree circle, Precessional or Tropical. I can do so by quoting the pertinent verses of the Rig Veda itself which describe in detail the very diagram I presented in 1973 before coming upon these verses: Twelve spokes, one wheel, navels three. Who can comprehend this? On it are placed together Three hundred and sixty like pegs. They shake not in the least. (Rig Veda 1.154.48) There are 12 ‘spokes’ within the one wheel which consists of 360 ‘pegs’. This cannot be denied. The intriguing part is the Rishi’s mention of ‘navels three’. Rightly he asks, Who can comprehend this? The Map of 12 Manifestations answers the question because it contains indeed three hubs in its static form. But when dynamism is added by the impulsion of Time, they become spirals just as the above diagram describes, all within ONE WHEEL. There is no ambiguity, no fumbling or fudging. The verses are clear – or they are rendered clear when the Cosmic Truth is seen. However, the most important line of all is the last, ‘They shake not in the least’. Or else as stated in the Atharva Veda: they are firmly riveted. These verses alone should be sufficient grounds to dismiss the current Nirayana system which SHAKES; and within the sidereal sphere which it employs at the behest of scientists NOTHING CAN BE RIVETED because it is constantly shifting. It is perforce relative, lacking in any objectivity, in contrast to the Tropical Zodiac that NEVER SHAKES. If scriptural approval is required, with these verses who can continue to doubt and raise objections? The mystery is finally solved by Time, but not according to the flawed dictates of astronomers, those in India and abroad. It is rather an appreciation of the Cosmic Harmony as revealed by the sages of old and open to all who approach the matter in the correct poise of consciousness. And true to the message of the Sphinx, the obligation of time conquest – the theme of this Message – is India’s duty, destined to be fulfilled during the current Age of Aquarius, or the period when the Vishnu Avatar makes his appearance to ‘re-set the cosmic clock’. It is obvious that in order to have any convincing value a certain coherency has to be present to lend credence to an assertion such as I am making. In 1977, I gave the key to the methodology when I wrote in The New Way, Vol. 2, Chapter 9, page 369-70, The Ganges, on the other hand, does not move against the current of her inherent nature and essence. Therefore she is eternal, and she carries the seeds of an undying Truth through the body of India. Her Truth is indeed elusive, as is the nature of Time and the essence of the Spirit, and there are no concrete or solidified monuments representing this Truth, which can bear testimony to it through the long corridors of Time and withstand its ravages. The Truth of the Ganges is one of Consciousness, and it is this that is preserved throughout the ages. This Truth can be ‘measured’, and in this way it is brought down into the Earth dimension to a greater degree… India has always been the cradle of the Spirit. This destiny can endure through time because it is the very power of Time that sustains the destiny’s fulfilment. But it is a destiny which expresses itself through Consciousness. For this reason India is the cradle of the new race… Now that the moment has come in the harmony of the Earth’s Time for the new to arise, India can fulfil her destiny in perfect attunement with her inherent dharma. Now we come to the core of the movement in Earth-Time where the beginnings of the new world and race arise. And so we have reached the moment when the jungle of human consciousness that has hidden the truth of Ganga throughout the ages can be cut away and the sacred River Goddess can stand [exposed] before our eyes. She unveils herself – the womb that carries Shiva’s seed. In The New Way, Vol.2, I noted the role of Ganga and the Kumbh Mela in the cosmic harmony, and that it is India’s people, the ‘energy’ of consciousness contained in her human population – in contrast to the material mass of the Great Pyramid – that is the mass needed today for the Time Axis of the planet to be ‘re-set’ or brought into a new alignment. In other words, via the time-honoured realisations of her sages across the ages, but extended to the population at large through an enlightened calendar for the purpose. For as I wrote in Message 2, given the volume of the destructive (‘stockpiled’) power the Earth is saddled with, a proportionate ‘mass’ of India’s (over)population is also a necessary though temporary factor in the equation; that proportionate ‘mass’ of human consciousness is the element that can ‘tilt’ the scales in favour of the Earth’s salvation with respect to the conquest that makes of Time an ‘ally’. India has to shift the Earth’s subtle and elusive time axis to fulfil this task by a conscious, knowledgeable action. However, it is not just any human mass that suffices, because in that case China could lay claim to the task rather than India. This mass has to be supported by a cosmology that in an unbroken line is maintained yuge-yuge, or through the periods of the 7th, 8th, and 9th Avatars. China cannot lay claim to Centreship because of its ‘mass’ alone, proportionate though this may be. It lacks that Vedic ‘thread’ – and especially the backbone provided to the civilisation by the periodic appearances of the Vishnu Dasavataras, known significantly as offspring of the Time-Spirit. With the understanding that India’s role is universal and at the service of the entire Earth and not just her own people, every attempt would be made to give whatever assistance possible to facilitate her fulfilment. But if we cling to the old binary formula, as all nations are doing, with its demand for the axial balance ‘superpowers’ provide, then China’s struggle to be first makes sense. It ‘makes sense’ but only in a linear world, not the sphericality that Time demands (see diagram above). The struggle for supremacy in a dying world may tilt the scales with losers on all sides. Hence the need for India to unveil her Centreship at the earliest so that she can ‘hold’, and in the process deflect what appears to be an unavoidable calamity ahead. This is the essence of the new way that puts each thing in its place in a new order for the world.
There is another point to make regarding the contentious issue of what exactly the ancients knew or did not know. It is not surprising that the scriptures give details of flying machines, extra-terrestrial travel, and so forth. Clearly these descriptions pertained to a very ancient past that is carried over in myth – which we arrogantly label fiction. But the fact is the human species is much older than assumed; in fact, the date of human appearance is continuously being pushed back. In the new cosmology we see that our 9th Manifestation is the concluding round of 25,920 years in a cycle covering 77,760 years. Therefore, it is quite possible that this knowledge was known in those very remote times and handed down in myths and epics – because that is their purpose: to record recurring history. The interesting part is that there are extant examples of just how advanced past civilisations were, provided we examine the evidence with a view to honour truth.
The Great Pyramid at Giza is one proof: the very ancient Egyptian civilisation that built the colossus was far in advance of our own. Countless experiments have been done to find out just how the pyramid could have been built. Of course our children are taught in school that construction was done by slaves at the behest of a megalomaniac Pharaoh – clearly an absurdity, as finally admitted by knowledgeable sources. Let us bear in mind that until the Eiffel Tower was built, the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world. But somehow we cannot admit that the ancients had technologies superior to ours; for indeed, that is the result of these more recent tests. They prove that even with our modern technology we could not construct a similar monument. Nor do we understand why it was built in the first place. An example of the technology that might have been used to build the Great Pyramid can be found in the work of Ed Leedskalnin on Anti-Gravity at his Coral Castle in Florida, USA; details can be found on the Internet.
However, for the purposes of this study the Sphinx, also located at Giza, is of more relevant importance. The date given for its construction is now disregarded by geologists who have pushed it back because of the weathering it has undergone, leaving irrefutable signs that the Sphinx could only have been built during an era of heavy rainfall; this places the date around 12,000 BCE. This tallies perfectly with my assessment based on the zodiacal content of the monument, published in 1974 well before the latest findings. In my assessment it would have been built in the Age of Leo within the same time-frame geologists have now proven. But there is something of greater interest to note which takes us back to the Vedic Age, also much earlier than currently estimated. The evidence is found explicitly related to the zodiac in the Vishnu verses of the Veda.
The monument consists of two zodiacal signs, Man/Aquarius (head) and Lion/Leo (its body); or the Ages of Aquarius and Leo respectively; these signs stand face to face in the circle. Aquarius is our present astrological age. The message of the Sphinx, designed to last for eons, is that the colossus forms an axis between the signs Leo and Aquarius; the former was the astrological age of its construction in Egypt, which now receives confirmation by geologists; the latter is the present age of fulfilment, Aquarius. This becomes clear if we examine the evidence found in the Vishnu Trivikrama verses of the Rig Veda. Apart from being the earliest reference to the Dasavataras, they refer to two of Vishnu’s famous strides, the 1st and the 3rd. The signs are Leo, the Lion, and Aquarius the Man, known in astrological tradition as the sign of Friend, Mitra of the Veda. I quote here only the verses pertaining to these steps:
…. That Vishnu affirms on high by his mightiness and he is like a terrible LION that ranges in the difficult places, yea, his lair is on the mountain-tops, he in whose three wide movements all the worlds find their dwelling-place.
…. May I attain to and enjoy that goal of his movements, the Delight, where souls that seek the godhead have the rapture; for there in that highest step of the wide-moving Vishnu is that FRIEND of men who is the fount of sweetness….(RV, I, 154, Sri Aurobindo’s translation)
More conclusively, the Sphinx was finally uncovered from desert sands in 1926, the very year the Aquarian Age began, the year when the 9th Avatar went into complete seclusion to bring down the new Power, the Supermind, which is transforming life on Earth. This example should suffice to prove the relevance of the universal Language that is the zodiac, a carry-over from the Vedic Age of far earlier prominence than is assumed.
From my point of view, the outstanding part is that the Great Pyramid had to be of such colossal proportions that this proof of a superior knowledge in the ancient world would survive down the line of time almost intact, and stand before us as evidence of what we refuse to see right before our eyes. Therefore, with this proof, is it so farfetched to believe that air and space travel were known in very ancient India? Certainly the Symbol-Map tells a similar story if we cease placing the origin of the zodiac in Mesopotamia, and accept that it has existed from time immemorial and could very well have had its origin in India, if we consider the importance given to the signs and symbols, as proven by the geo-cosmological evidence presented, as well as the Vishnu Trivikrama verses.
Capricorn-Makar, the sign in question, just happens to be the most important of the 12 in the culture of Bharat. Foremost of all, it is the sign/month of the victory of the Aryan Warrior in his/her journey to Swar – for indeed, this sign provides us entry to Swar if we make use of the portal the Makar Sankranti opens before us on the Solstice of 21-22 December each year, the day when Makar is celebrated in all ancient and new traditions across the globe – except in India where the Sankranti is celebrated 23 days after the Makar portal actually opens to inhabitants of Earth, thereby losing the possibility of entering Swar while in the material dimension and not through death.
Therefore the Rishis are called the Immortal Ones because they had this key that would allow them to ‘cheat Death’, as it were. This is what the Makar Sankranti signifies when it coincides with the shortest day of the year – meaning the day when the portal to that Immortality is reached. Significantly, it was this very day that Bhisma chose for his departure. Being India’s ruling astrological sign and of such profound significance, its celebration has been preserved from very ancient times and could continue to retain the same importance, provided it is timed to coincide with the actual physical shortest day when the light of Surya begins its increase – and only then, 23 days earlier than the current timing.
It is in this manner that the ancient knowledge is effectively lost, when astronomers appropriate to themselves the right to dictate terms to astrologers, claiming the sole right to precision and scientific accuracy. Due to the interference of astronomers in the sacred sciences, India has lost the connection to the cosmic harmony as presented in these pages and cannot apply the ancient Arts as suitable in the contemporary setting.
I believe the ancient way will impose itself to some extent over the date provided by the new India’s Independence because of all the nations in the world India is the only one where the thread of the Sanatana Dharma has been maintained and carried over to our times. The new cosmology establishes what Indians feel in their hearts, but in this age of the truth-conscious Supermind that Sri Aurobindo has introduced, we must present the evidence of what has been stated above in a manner commensurate with our times. Therefore, since experience has proven that Supermind creates the conditions for its own emergence and establishment, we can use the circumstances it creates, and within which we must evolve, to explain and clarify the conundrum; especially because through Mahakala’s power there is a precise and measurable control over the play of circumstances that helps us establish the new Indocentric cosmology as the provider of insights into destiny unlike all the predictive arts known to humankind.
The problem India faces is precisely this dual position between which a choice must be made – ancient or new; the two do not seem to be able to co-exist. However, unique among nations Bharat strives to maintain her ancient foundation intact, upon which she builds the new. The new cosmology can be a formidable assistance in this almost impossible enterprise, certainly a balancing act that none of the ancient civilisations have succeeded in accomplishing. All have perished along the way – all except the Sanatana Dharma that India has been entrusted to carry forward.
In the birth of the new India the Time-Spirit has provided the nation with a clear directive to indicate the way ancient and new have been used by Supermind to create the conditions for its manifestation; furthermore, to reveal its precise control over the unfolding. The date 15 August 1947, though its total digits equal 8 and therefore point to a certain inconclusiveness, confirms 1) the necessity of an axis between the USA and India, as I have been pointing out since 1974; and 2) how a conjoint analysis of their dates is the conclusive proof that ancient and new combine to cement the knowledge.
Their years of Independence provide the indication of the number-power both resonate to, the 3; but we must now add the actual day of America’s independence, July 4th. This draws into play India’s ancient ruler Makar, because July 4th falls in the sign Cancer, directly opposite on that Vedic one circle to India’s ancient ruler Capricorn as the axial-shaft in the diagram indicates, confirmed by the sign’s hieroglyph on the geography of India. Without this added to the mix, there could be no understanding of the necessity of the Axis at all – which, it must be added, is further confirmed by the position of both countries on the physical globe itself – that is, they stand back-to-back. Therefore, in this simple manner we encounter again a marriage of a new Heaven and a new Earth as the scriptures prophesied.
Finally, the Vishnu Line of Ten is further confirmed as the backbone of the Sanatana Dharma through India’s full date of Independence. To be consistent we must incorporate the day and month of India’s independence as we have done regarding the USA July 4th birth. In doing so this composite analysis confirms the prime role in the culture of the Vishnu Line of Ten by the fact that August 15 is the birth date of his own 9th Emanation. Thus, through this composite analysis, all contained within the Vedic one circle, many aspects of the civilisation’s destiny are revealed – as well as the sublime control of Mahakala over all things relevant to the preservation of the Dharma. The Vishnu Trivikrama verses also confirm the universal character of the Circle since they prove that the Dasavataras are of Vedic origin and not of the much later Puranic Age. This is the value of having the clue of the ‘one wheel’ from the Rig Veda itself, by which we are assisted in reaching the consciousness of Unity and Oneness enjoyed by the Rishis through the vision of interconnectedness that the Circle offers. This is a unique circumstance on the planet today, in our world where the separative consciousness reigns supreme.
It goes without saying that there are ‘armies’, as it were, set upon impeding this ‘balance of powers’ – old and new. Who their commanding officers are need not be enumerated, they are well known; above all, we must recognise that they are not restricted to ‘outside forces’: they are in our very midst and are recognised by being in a bubble of ‘frozen time’, as I call it. The purpose of this essay is to strengthen from within the elements that can escape this nefarious entrapment and have been called upon to carry the civilisation through to re-establishment of the Dharma via the in-built mechanism that was provided in an Age now lost in the mists of time.
The commonality between the two nations via the 3 number-power that falls in the Vaishya quarter of the Vedic Circle is a penchant for commerce; it has always been the overall driving force behind American policy, though not necessarily the Indian until recent times. For America it is not territorial hegemony but economic – witness the activities of the United Fruit Company in Central America in the last century that helped the nation earn the label ‘the Ugly American’. Fast forward to the 21st century and business once again comes to the fore and finds a decided resonance via the number 3 with the new India.
As illustrated, through the diagrams I demonstrated how the caste structure is cosmic, making it therefore an organisation of society that is ever-present worldwide. As long as the cosmos lives, so long will this fourfold division of society endure in spite of the brittleness that occurs when aspects of the ancient tradition become trapped in ‘frozen time’.
We know that the Sanatana Dharma is able to re-make itself precisely because of its cosmic connection that reveals the way to change within the stability the structure of the solar system itself provides – i.e. the unchanging equinoxes and solstices. These structural balancing pillars provide the coveted Immobile within the Mobile, or Agni of the Veda, the truth-foundation that permits – nay, demands – periodic renewal when that brittleness must be broken up if the Dharma is to survive and not join the fate of all ancient civilisations that were not invested with the duty to ensure survival and reach the point made in this series: transformation of the Cosmic Ignorance (subjected to frozen time) into Cosmic Truth via the intervention of Vishnu’s 9th Avatar whose very birth date sets the renewal mechanism on its way, precisely the task before each of the ten evolutionary Avatars. I demonstrated through the diagram how caste persists throughout the world, though named differently. We see therefore that the second quarter, where the number 3 falls, refers precisely to the business class, economics, suppliers of society, as well as energy sources, and so forth. It cannot be denied that the same holds today and this can be illustrated through India’s struggle for independence. The man who took hold of the movement and carried it through resonated with that number power through his Gujarati birth. Today we have Prime Minister Modi taking the nation forward with emphasis precisely on all aspects of the second quarter of the Circle; and he too is Gujarati as was the Mahatma. Taking advantage of this commonality, we see a rapprochement between America and India prominent on this government’s agenda.
To summarise, across the ages select civilisations have been given specific tasks for the preservation of the perennial Knowledge, which in India we call the Sanatana Dharma, I have written extensively on this fascinating subject because in many cases archaeology and historical research confirm my findings, based on the keys the zodiac provides. In my major work, The New Way 1-3, I use the linkage across time and space that the Sphinx provides to reveal the connection between these two great civilisations, Egyptian and Indian; ancient Egypt of her extant monuments that are testimony to the attempt to preserve this Knowledge, no longer exists. But India thrives, in spite of all attempts to sever the thread to that ancient past.
One of the tasks allotted to ancient Egypt was, as I noted, to conquer space. This is made evident in the colossi still standing, the only evidence of that ancient past, wherein the Knowledge was indeed preserved. Constructions such as the Great Pyramid truly conquered space in that this particular pyramid has remained standing on Earth across many thousands of years; it served the Knowledge well by being proof that a race with superior technological expertise – if nothing else – once flourished, with the understanding that not only was the structure meant to preserve this testimony of a superior technology, but, more importantly, the underlying focus – or purpose – of the civilisation was that this monument would preserve for generations far into the future that the focus of the entire population was on nothing but this perennial Knowledge: the vision of the Cosmic Truth. This is what we find today in the Great Pyramid.
However, lest the message be missed in a world closed to the language of the zodiac– the Cosmic Truth – in front of the Great Pyramid is the Sphinx revealing the eternal relevance of the cosmic script even more explicitly; the purpose of the Great Pyramid was functional; the Sphinx conveys the Cosmic Truth. As pointed out, similar to the Rig Veda hymns to Vishnu, the Preserver, the Sphinx contains two signs of the 12, Leo and Aquarius. The age of its construction some 12,000 years ago, and the age of its revelation – the completion of the task – Aquarius, the Friend Mitra of the Vedic verses, our current astrological age. More conclusively, the Sphinx was completely uncovered from desert sands precisely in 1926, the very year the cosmic clock turned to Aquarius (the Friend Mitra), and the 9th Avatar of Vishnu went into complete seclusion to carry out the task allotted to him for the preservation of the Dharma, after a passage of almost 6000 years from Sri Krishna’s time.
India does not preserve the Dharma as it was done in Egypt – that is, spatial conquest, or the ability to manipulate material elements for the express purpose of surviving the ravages of time. She reserves in her store of Myths, starting with the Rig Veda and the valuable Vishnu Hymns in complete consonance with the message of the Sphinx. The strides taken by Vishnu move across the astrological ages of his own signs of Preservation – Leo, Taurus, Aquarius, the ages in which the 7th, 8th, and 9th of his sacred Line have graced the Earth with their healing presence to keep the Sanatana Dharma alive.
India houses a Mythic Society, and this can never be changed, regardless of the relentless attempts to extirpate this unique component of the nation’s cultural expressions because this is the task allotted to India: conquest of Time which is only accomplished through the human incarnation, through the long line of Rishis, preservers of the Dharma and in particular the Vishnu Dasavataras; they appear during Ages of Preservation to re-set the cosmic clock. Egypt accomplished this task with the Great Pyramid; India requires the Avatar because the Cosmic Truth resides in the soul of the human being, and Time is the vahana of the soul.
Where does the re-setting stand today; the cosmic clock is 23 days off the true zero-point. The equinoxes and solstices hold the key to the correct alignment – Mahavishuva on 21-22 March each year, without change, and thereafter Makar Sankranti on the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, again without the need of any humanly devised ‘correction’. The cosmos holds its own truth if the mechanism handed down through the ages is respected. The divisions of the circle, as given in the Rig Veda verses quoted earlier in this series, are precise: The One wheel…shakes not in the least. It is unchanging and as eternal as the Dharma.
It is so simple. And yet the wise Rishi questions, ‘Who can understand it?’
The past holds such a fascination for all of us that we are unable to see the same thread of an ancient knowledge weaving its way across the ages into the present. We search for the hidden, the arcane and esoteric, and therefore we often miss the forest for the trees, preferring to concentrate on discovering in our long lost past the answer to who we are, where we came from and where we are going. Atlantis, legendary or real, holds the answers we seek if we could just locate its ruins. Or else it is Lemuria, Mu, the prehistoric Maya or Vedic India of many thousands of years ago. Given the lamentable state of our contemporary civilisation, the present does not seem to be much help in discovering what was of real and lasting value to the ancients and which we intuit may show us the way out of our present unenlightened condition. There is indeed evidence of advanced civilisations having populated the Earth in ages gone by, and a history that extends into a past far more distant than any contemporary academic would allow us to believe. But surely the question to ask is why we permitted this ‘sleep’, as I call it, to overtake us so thoroughly as to cause us to forget who we are. How did it come about, what were its causes? Above all, why do we refuse to awaken even when faced with undeniable evidence of what was called in the Vedic Age the ‘lost sun’? Compared to the accomplishments of those former times it is obvious that we are primitives seeking the light. For instance, the Great Pyramid at Giza stands right before us and displays a technology so far in advance of our own wonders of this 21st century that we do not need to search any further. It has been preserved with meticulous care and concern – with the obvious intent of leaving clues to help us in our search when darkness would descend. The Great Pyramid tells us what we need to know but not about its ancient builders, – aliens from afar or otherwise. Rather, it provides an unmistakable pointer to the path we must follow today in order to find our connection with the solar system we inhabit; as the ancients had done so long ago, permitting the creation of such monuments. Measure, alignment, precision – these were and remain the keynotes of our quest. But the problem is that for the past several thousand years we have been afflicted with a spirituality which has undermined the foundation that gave meaning to these words. Not so in the age of the Great Pyramid; or in ancient Vedic India. The undermining began at a later date. It remains the scourge of our times and it is the reason why technology and science are impotent to provide us with a direction to our quest that can give us a sense of purpose and connectedness with the cosmic surround. A number of centuries ago a great sleep descended on humanity across the entire globe. It overtook the East as well as the West. If there were wise men and women who understood the danger, they also knew that the scourge was inevitable. And the wise of a much more ancient vintage foresaw the inevitable, and thus the Great Pyramid was born. In India the Ancient Ones also realised that a very deep sleep would overtake the civilisation, and these wise souls did whatever was in their power to preserve the Word. And thus was born the compilation known as the Veda, – Rig, Saman, Yarur and Atharva. In Egypt, for reasons we will explore further on, the preservation was in stone; in ancient India it was through the human channel by virtue of an unbroken line of Seers who had REALISED the truth of the way through the yogic process described in those preserved documents, as well as in the Great Pyramid itself. Indeed, the very same process. These Vedic texts have come to us only as fragments of the ancient knowledge, whereas the Great Pyramid was designed to defy intact the ravages of time and humanity’s destructive tendencies when faced with what it cannot understand and must therefore destroy. The primitive state of humanity at the end of the Pyramid age was such that it would not be in a position to demolish the evidence this colossus would preserve for many thousands of years up to our very own times, this blessed Age of Aquarius, the period of revelation and completion. Egypt of the Pyramid age and even of the Pharaonic period is lost to us as a civilisation, thanks to the great Sleep that allowed shadows to edge out the light of the deep wisdom preserved in those timeless monuments. We note though that the mysterious Sphinx was installed as a companion to the mighty Pyramid; for one, because it was necessary to leave a sample of the language of celestial harmonies, but above all to demonstrate that it is eternal, truly the language of the Gods. And as long as our solar system continues to journey through space and time, so long will that celestial language live. However, to lose that knowledge only a simple technique was required: an undermining of the foundation that was indispensable to make any sense at all of what stands before our eyes. That foundation is our planet Earth. In denying to measure, precision, alignment any ‘spiritual’ substance, we deny the truth and purpose of our planetary home in the higher scheme of things. Thus, the sleep that fell upon us permitted a chasm to arise in our collective consciousness, affecting the course our evolution would take. The result has been an abysmal split that was entirely unknown in ancient times – the divide between spirit and matter. As time moved on and ‘science’ became the exclusive preserve of the materialist, men and women of the spirit increasingly took refuge in the quest for a ‘beyond’, precisely because the Earth as base was as if covered in a thick mist due to the constant undermining from within the ranks of the spirit itself. The critical crossroads we have reached is expressed simply as an imperative need to heal this divide, to bridge the chasm, to restore a consciousness of unity wherein such a split is unthinkable. However, this is no simple task primarily because we do not have the right tools to help us make the discoveries needed to construct the bridge. We turn to spirituality of various hues for answers, little realising that all the paths we know today are a product of the great Sleep. All of them drive us farther and farther away from the goal we must seek. Thus, we may make astonishing discoveries regarding the technology used to build the Great Pyramid, exposing in the process the pathetic state of scientific orthodoxy of our times which tries to hide the truth; but these discoveries take us no closer to understanding WHY that great civilisation laboured to leave this monument on Earth for a future age. For example, we marvel at the precision of alignment of this enormous construction; we focus on the tools, techniques, technology to achieve this because that is the way our 21st century minds work. We do not ask the obvious: Why was alignment so important? What message is that preserving for us today? Since spirituality cannot provide the answer because it has denied any truth to matter, precision and measure – the things of our Earth earthly – and embraced instead the Beyond and the after-death state for the light of salvation, we turn to Science, entirely convinced that if we pursue scientific methods to their logical conclusion we will ultimately find all the answers we seek. But even the most recalcitrant materialist has to admit that the more science uncovers, the greater the danger of self-annihilation, be it either through physics, chemistry, or now biology which presents the threat of a genetic manipulation that may ultimately destroy the human race as we know it. Our moral codes are breaking down; religions hold no power to help us control our destructive impulses; while our spirituality continues to undermine the reality of this material base we call home. And so the destruction continues unabated. Nonetheless, the mysterious Sphinx broadcasts the message not only of the age in which it was built but also that in the present Aquarian Age the destined time has come to uncover a third way. The Rig Veda interestingly tells us the very same thing. Yet both remain enigmas, inscrutable mysteries – the Rig Veda no less than the Sphinx. Both have survived because of an abiding respect for the demands of our material base: precision, measure, alignment. Both preserve the truth of the Third Way – and for us today, a new way. Indeed, this is a new discovery, and it forms the core of this essay. If we respect the demand of our planetary home for precision, measure, time and space – unlike all the spirituality and religions we know, in spite of their protestations to the contrary – then we learn the method to heal the divide and bridge the chasm. We are guided to the true unitary consciousness that was the natural state of at least an elite in ancient times. While our technologists must admit that the Great Pyramid could not be built today to equal its precision, and that a missing link exists in the evolution of culture which left a huge gap in our understanding of past accomplishments on this planet, there is no such admission in India regarding the very same knowledge preserved in the Rig Veda. While there appears to be an unbroken thread in Hinduism from the Vedic Age right into the present, the yogic realisation is lacking today that could permit a real and not an imaginary continuity with the line established by the Seers of those former times. That realisation was the bedrock or the ‘fulcrum’, as one Sanskrit scholar has called it, of the Vedic way; yet it does not figure in the vast collection of minutely documented paths of Indian yogas of any school after the Vedic Age. And, lamentably, India moves farther and farther away from attaining that lost realisation with each passing day. This is more than a deep sleep; it is denial, while at the same time we hear the constant refrain, ‘We are truly Vedic!’ All these remains of the ancient civilisations we are discussing give us the same message. Not that this was their intention – though certainly the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx were constructed with a mind to preserve the Knowledge for our times. The message was and remains simple: themeasure of the year, and the cardinal point alignment that forms a part of this sacred measure. It is the Earth’s contribution to the solar system – her own harmony, the means by which the planet can contribute her ‘note’ to the cosmic symphony. It is what the Earth adds to the overall scheme, with the other planets similarly offering their own measure. And thus the Music of the Spheres arises. From the time the great Sleep began to overtake humanity, right up to Isaac Newton himself, the keys to this ‘music’ have been sought. It was the primary focus of all ancient civilisations, if the extant clues they have left are to be believed. But all the academics who study the matter fail to discover the obvious. They invariably focus their search on the constellations and various stars therein; but the Earth’s own measure in the ecliptic of her home base is disregarded. Yet we are aware of the Great Pyramid’s near perfect alignment to the ecliptic’s four cardinal points and not to the constellations beyond our system. But we do not carry the discovery forward to answer the real question: Why was orientation so important, and what is it that was actually being aligned? Primarily it was the Earth’s place and alignment on the ecliptic within our solar system; and only secondarily, and as a result of the former it must be noted, a measure involving the constellations. Orientation was of central importance in the Vedic Age as well. The complex geometry of the vedi – simple brick structures based on sacred geometry where the homam or sacrifice was carried out – honoured before all else this same alignment. It was the basis for everything that followed in the rituals and offerings. In contemporary Hindu society a pundit will commence construction of a temple or an individual dwelling by first establishing true North and aligning the building to as near perfect a degree as possible with the four quarters of the ecliptic. What the pundit does is to recreate a horoscope on the ground, just as we do when we draw up a chart for an individual. It is called Vastu Purush, the cosmic Man. In other words, the cosmic surround based on the ecliptic alignment is transferred from the heavens to the site and construction begins once that transposition is accomplished according to processes established for the purpose. Up to that point all is in order. But when time is added to the process everything collapses in the current scheme of things. The pundit or priest, similar to the scholar, seeks the right time measure in the constellations rather than through the Earth’s own harmony, a point I will elaborate further on to reveal that Hindu civilisation is, unfortunately, a far cry from its Vedic ancestor. The Earth in toto is floundering, East no less than West. Advances are being made in science that seem to border on the miraculous. But there does not appear to be any focus to these advancements, contrary to the ancient way. Yes, there is undeniable evidence that the builders of the Great Pyramid possessed a superior technology; but it was not technology for its own sake, as ours is today, – an end in itself without a connected purpose drawing together the efforts of many different branches of science, all supportive of a central purpose. Yet when we observe with an Initiate’s eye the monuments and documents of old, we perceive immediately that however formidable the technology and science, they were a servant to something greater, something all-encompassing, something that gave a deep and abiding logic to everything that emerged out of the collective efforts of those civilisations. It is when such a consciousness arises that the Theory of Everything (TOE), as it is called in scientific circles, will be discovered. First a vision of unity has to be established in the consciousness of the observer by which he becomes one with the thing observed; and then a unified theory emerges out of that consciousness. This perception of unity and oneness was a global phenomenon in very ancient times. We marvel today at the fact that civilisations across the globe, apparently disconnected from one another, reveal an underlying affinity. This is precisely the point that needs to be made: they were all aware of the means to speak in one voice – the voice of the Cosmic Truth. And they all made use of the same tool: the circle of 360 degrees divided into four, – i.e., the days and nights of equal measure, and the shortest and longest days of the year, or our seasonal rhythm due to the tilt of our planet’s axis with respect to the ecliptic. That is the magical circle which provides us with the knowledge we need to transform the dross that we are into pure gold. It is not that there was a mysterious connection between these remote civilisations; or that aliens were visiting our planet and planting the same message here and there. This may well have been the case, but it is immaterial to our present problem which is that we have no such knowledge today binding our endeavours around a single purpose. And that purpose is to find the sense in the Earth’s place in the system and her special contribution to the music of the spheres. We are not even aware that such ‘music’ exists, much less that we can ‘hear’ its sounds; and far less that this sacred music can provide the means to create harmony where now only cacophony exists. We inhabit the third planet from the Sun in the third orbit; and it is a third way which we are in the process of unveiling as an element that can make cosmic sense of our existence. Currently the belief prevails that we could be anywhere and it would all be the same since in any case it is all just ‘coincidence’. This belief alone reveals that we were wrenched from our planetary roots, just as we were cut off from our ancient past when the great Sleep overcame us as a planetary society. In fact, this sleep too is recorded in the ‘script’ the ancients left for us: the zodiac, the language the ecliptic uses through our annual orbit of the Sun to speak to us of things abiding and eternal.
PART II
The knowledge the ancients preserved is eternal in the sense that the same truths of old can be discovered today. On that basis we learn who we are and where we are headed as a civilisation. We know our past, present and future. If the Great Pyramid preserves the message of alignment to the four cardinal points, it is clear that in the ecliptic which is marked off by these points we can begin to find the clues required. But a primary ingredient in the discovery is the measure the Earth provides. Without this ingredient that circle tells us nothing. We need the correct Zero Point. With that we can always find our place in the cosmic harmony; and finding our place tells us who we are eternally. That is, we can understand what the Earth’s purpose is and why she alone in the System houses a species capable of conscious awareness. Above all, why evolution is the bedrock of her planetary purpose. Most ancient scriptures, including the Bible, describe the evolution of the species quite openly. Genesis for one is a perfect example. The text reveals a continuous fragmentation of an original ‘cell’, similar to the multiplication an organic cell undergoes as it grows to produce a mature form. But orthodoxy has concealed this self-evident message in the text, since most interpreters have lost the ability to decipher the language of Symbols. Even in India, where knowledge, or veda, is supposed to be present in its original form in an unbroken line, we must state that around the time of the Cosmic Dawn – that is, when there was a convergence between the Zero Point of the Precession of the Equinoxes and the equatorial zero point of the ecliptic, 0 degrees Aries – this line was if not completely broken at least severely damaged. It was by then, in the third century BCE, continuously under attack, for that was the period when the great Sleep reached its deepest level. Contrary to popular belief, it overtook India no less than the rest of the world. In the west it was the abolition of Goddess worship and the ancient Mystery Schools, which were finally replaced by orthodox religions from the Middle East. In India the Goddess survived but yogis succumbed to an focus on otherworldliness in contrast to the Vedic Way which was entirely Earth-oriented. The Precession of the Equinoxes is produced by a slow gyration the Earth makes like a spinning top, because of which her equatorial plane (hence a precession of the equinoxes) traces a complete circle in space. It takes 25,920 years for this movement to be completed, or for this circle to close and return to the starting point. This greater circle is also divided into twelve zodiacal sections of 30 degrees each, just like our ecliptic. And similarly, the Precession is of no value without the correct zero point, the start of the wheel from where we begin the count. We must also appreciate that, contrary to the accepted notion, this cosmic rhythm originates on Earth as the result of her own unique axial tilt whose slow gyration is the architect of the larger zodiac projected onto the constellations. Out there, there is nothing; out there we seek only one thing: a marker, a location in the vast beyond that can serve as a sort of docking station when the two zero points must converge. Once again it must be emphasised that the zodiac is the key, the language that allows the Precession to speak to us and show us our place in the cosmic harmony. However, Hindu tradition provided clues to help resuscitate the knowledge when the Precession would reach the Age of Aquarius, our own times. One such important clue is the Hindu Line of Ten Avatars. Sri Aurobindo has rightfully called this Line a ‘parable of evolution’. Indeed, it does describe an evolutionary process very specifically, beginning with the ‘Fish Avatar’, an obvious reference to the origins of biological species, and then on through the Line until the human creation emerges. With the help of the Precession of the Equinoxes, coupled with the yearly journey of the Earth around the Sun as the planet marks off the cardinal points of equinoxes and solstices, we can read all the details of that evolution we are a part of and which Hindu tradition has preserved, though in its own place of birth that knowledge was later sent underground. The ‘parable of evolution’ gives us the details of that retreat as well. The key issue is the correct Zero Point. As this study progresses and we uncover more and more layers until the full knowledge is revealed, we will understand why that sacred Point was essential to know. Losing that, the Earth and her civilisations would be swimming in a vast cosmic ocean without a goal in sight, and without a lighthouse to lead the way. But we need not project our vision out to the constellation-circle which the Precession deals with as it covers a round of that larger projection of the zodiac approximately every 26,000 years. We experience the very same journey here on Earth in our annual orbit of the Sun in twelve stages – the twelve months of the year which the Veda sustain are the doors we must pass through for access to the supreme Light. The smaller (in time and space) and the larger speak in one voice: the stages of zodiacal progression in a measure of twelve. They both describe the evolutionary process; but while the equinoxes and solstices mark off the yearly orbit – the Earth’s sacred measure – the Precession of the Equinoxes allows for that annual Aries Zero Point to be inserted into the larger cycle and by this link up to provide us with the greater patterns of evolution. Through this means we can insert ourselves into the flux and flow of the vast cosmic sea while yet remaining anchored to the Earth’s zero point in time and her measure of twelve; and thus to remainconnected to the planet we inhabit and not to seek a purpose for existence in a beyond that bears no connection with our home base. The Hindu line of Ten Avatars deals exclusively with the larger cycle of twelve traced by the Precession. Of particular relevance – from the time the great Sleep took effect – are the last three stages covering approximately 12,000 years, or the appearance of the last three Avatars, bringing the Line to a close with Kalki. It was during the last round of the Precession that the Earth was approaching a do-or-die crossroads. The Great Pyramid arose during that round of 26,000 years and has stood as a silent witness waiting for the moment when its own purpose would be unveiled. The Sphinx indicates that this would be in the present Aquarian Age. She provides this information by virtue of the zodiacal symbols of her form: Lion and Man. The former indicates the Age of Leo as the time of construction of both the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid, – now confirmed by geologists; and the Man portion refers to the time of revelation, the Man sign, or Aquarius, known in Vedic India as the Friend, Mitra. (Similar to the Sphinx, the Rig Veda also points to our Aquarian Age as a culmination, though this is ignored in India today because the true Zero Point is unknown.) With the correct zero point we discover when that Age would begin: 1926 CE; coincidentally, the same year that the Sphinx herself was finally uncovered in the vast sands of the Egyptian desert. Obviously it becomes important to have the correct insight into the Precession time-frame in combination with the yearly rhythms; otherwise we risk missing the moment, – as India is doing because of miscalculations. The interesting factor concerning India is that Hindu civilisation even today professes an abiding faith and adherence to the cosmic harmonies. All of its culture, including music, dance, drama, temple art and architecture arose on the basis of a cosmic perception of life and the organisation of society according to the rhythms etched out by the cosmic harmonies. It was a civilisation in the Vedic Age that understood the Earth’s position in time and space, vast and small. Out of that understanding came the outflow of a culture unparalleled today. But unfortunately the essential item that made this grandeur possible – the Zero Point – was lost, incredible as this may seem in the land that gave the concept of zero to the world. Since then, close to three thousand years ago, there has been a steady decline. Today, as if to stress the point, there are perhaps a dozen ayanamshas, as the zero point is called in Sanskrit, in the different almanacs and ephemeredes employed to regulate all individual and collective celebrations by Hindu society. None of the pundits can agree on when the yearly orbit of the Sun truly begins, much less on the beginning point of the larger cycles of the Precession. The result is that the Aries starting point of the zodiacal year is celebrated 23 days late. Aries is believed to begin on 14-15 April, and not on the March Equinox. One thing must be stated, however: India does at least honour that Zero Point, giving it its due place of reverence in the Hindu calendar, though the date is alarmingly incorrect. I call this period of 23 days, the measure of the Hindu civilisation’s ‘sleep’. What do the Veda say? And the Great Pyramid? The emphasis in both remains the balancing points of the yearly equinoxes and solstices. That is, the same message the Great Pyramid preserves in its immaculate alignment to the four quarters is also central to all ancient Vedic Scriptures on the subject. The alignment, so carefully calculated in the Great Pyramid, was not to some elusive point in the far-off constellations as post-Vedic Hindu pundits have determined. While a constellation or sidereal alignment does exist for the Great Pyramid to Orion’s Belt, it was meant to record the time of construction – approximately 12,000 years ago. But by its ecliptic alignment the Great Pyramid preserves the Earth’s eternal contribution to the cosmic harmony. And on that basis we can discover the very same knowledge the ancients had and finally we can learn to live in the same consciousness they enjoyed.
While the Great Pyramid records in stone the importance of the Earth’s alignment to the four quarters of the ecliptic and the equinoxes and solstices, Vedic texts have also laid stress on the same harmony – the Earth’s sacred measure and her contribution to the combined harmony of the 9 planets in orbit of the Sun in a twelve-stage progression through the zodiac. Each planet offers its own ‘note’ to make up the cosmic symphony of our solar system; but of special significance is the ‘note’ our own planet contributes. All ancient traditions have honoured this knowledge. It is only our technological age that finds itself completely cut off from the sense and purpose of these rhythms of the universe. Never before have societies the world over been so utterly disconnected from the planetary family of our solar system. The Earth in this situation is similar to an orphaned child. This may well be the prophetic meaning in the tale describing the abduction of Persephone by Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. Her imprisonment in the region of the Dark God mirrors the dark consciousness of our 21st century civilisation. But this myth also gives us a clue to the zodiacal mystery since Persephone, we are told, is allowed to spend one third of the year with her Divine Mother in Elysium (from where she was abducted); the remaining portion of the year she must spend ruling over the Underworld with Pluto. If we divide the ecliptic in three parts, two-thirds (the period in the Underworld) takes us to the zodiacal Scorpio; the remaining one-third begins in Sagittarius and closes the wheel with Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. Indeed, Scorpio is Pluto’s realm, the region of death and the dead. In Hindu tradition the 8th in the series is Martanda, 8th of the divine mother Aditi’s twelve sons. He is the progenitor of our mortal human race and his name means, appropriately, dead egg. However, to explain more fully the meaning of Scorpio, it is the sign of the deep Sleep, which may be more easily comprehended today if it is known as Inertia. Death, as the mortal species experiences, is the individual’s inability to break through the stranglehold of the Scorpio inertia. Truly there is no ‘death’; there is no ‘end’. Death is merely a transition. However, for us in our present stage of evolution, it is indeed an end because of the deep sleep we experience and the plunge into complete unconsciousness and oblivion that this brings about. Many myths of the ancient world preserve the same knowledge. However, more significantly than myths, it is only the zodiac that can bring these tales into our dynamic experience because it connects the twelve-stage journey to time. Thus, as the Rig Veda informs us, it is the months of the year that hold us back or else that allow us access to Knowledge. When we see the zodiac as the map of evolution, we understand that it contains a knowledge unlimited by temporal and spatial boundaries. What it conveys is eternally valid at whatever stage the human species may be in its evolution – provided, however, that we have the correct zero point and can find our location in the cycles the zodiac describes. The 8th month is therefore the stage where an irresistible inertia overtakes the voyager; and this iron hold can come about because of the ‘sleep that is death’. The ‘sleep’ must occur for Inertia to succeed in holding the traveller back from completing the journey on Earth as a continued process. In other words, we can succumb to sleep and inertia and experience the remaining one-third ‘in heaven’; or we can use the key the zodiac provides to unlock the doors to the secret chamber where the Knowledge is held of our true immortal condition. Mortal creation, the present state of the species, is one possibility. It is the stamp in our cells by choice, as molecular biology is now discovering. However, until this 9th Manifestation there was really no ‘choice’ since as a species we were never born. We were unaware of the higher potential which is also our birthright – if we exert our right to choose. For humanity at this 9th stage of its evolution the choice means to be a passive victim of Inertia and to continue arresting the journey at the 8th stage of Scorpio, or to realise the higher potential, as the Ancient Ones have done, and experience immortality. That is, the transmutation of the Scorpion into the Eagle. The 8th sign was always known in ancient traditions as the Eagle. St. John’s Revelation confirms this. In Chapter IV the visionary describes the ecliptic as a ‘rainbow about the throne [the Sun] in sight like unto an emerald’ (3). And further on in verse 6, even more clearly the ecliptic is described as ‘a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind’. These four are then given the same symbol-forms as the four signs of Preservation, Vishnu’s signs, the zodiacal Fixed cross of lion, calf, man and eagle (see the Map of the 12 Manifestations*). In an even more remote age, the Vedic Rishi used the very same symbols precisely in praise of Vishnu the Preserver: lion, bull, man. The Seer sees Vishnu taking three strides (not the full four). It is as if he stands with Vishnu in the 8th position which we know of as Scorpio; and from there Vishnu begins to measure the universe, moving as the Precession of the Equinox does in a clockwise fashion. But from where he stands, according to the Scriptures, the 8th sign is his own vahana or carrier – the Eagle Garuda. The knowledge is preserved impeccably from an age countless centuries before St John penned his equally famous verses; and both concur exactly to confirm the ancient knowledge. Most Christians would not accept this unmistakable zodiacal content of The Revelation; but neither would Hindus, historians, or pundits accept that the Rishi preserved the knowledge by way of the very same zodiac we use today throughout the world. This is lamentable because that was the basis of all belief systems and cults in those former times before the onslaught of orthodox exclusivist religions. Only in our times has the universal language been discarded in favour of beliefs and dogmas that cut one off from one’s fellow creatures and from the cosmic vastness, – this great Clock whose cogs and wheels we help to perpetuate. We have made neat compartments and missed entirely the underlying script that provides a purpose to our sojourn on Earth. This universal script is so accurate that it also speaks of the great Sleep that was to overtake humanity as a whole, and exactly when. With the Precession of the Equinoxes we can locate the moment in evolution when the Sleep began and engulfed the world, west as well as east, if India’s famous epic, the Mahabharat, is to be believed. It too accurately informs us of the wave that overtook the orient at the same time western cultures succumbed. Indeed, it is via a combination of the Hindu epics and Vishnu’s famed three strides to measure the universe that we learn what happened to the Earth; and, above all, where we are meant to go in this collective experience once we fully awaken from the Sleep. It all centres on Scorpio, the 8th sign, and the transmutation of Scorpion to Eagle. It is the story of the choice humanity can make in order to escape the hold of Inertia.
PART III
We know that the ancients had the key to transmutation because closer to the Great Pyramid age, or the Ramayana and Mahabharat epochs, the zodiacal Scorpio was universally known as the Eagle, a symbolism which indicates this transmutation. Today no one knows the 8th sign by that name. However, we do have a significant clue to the state of consciousness and being of those sages of old in the remains found in Egypt of the Pharaonic age. Indeed, the tombs and mummies archaeologists have unearthed are our best guide. With these remains we can unravel the enigma, though this may not concur with the theories prevalent today. First of all, we must accept that there is no connection between the Great Pyramid and the pyramid-tombs of the Pharaohs. But what these structures in combination do reveal is that a huge gap exists in our analysing process based on the extant ruins of both periods. If we step out of the cage in which scientific orthodoxy is trapped, we are forced to acknowledge that a period of perhaps several thousand years separates one from the other. Darkness engulfs those astrological ages until a thread is taken up once again as the Precession of the Equinox ‘clock’ seems to be set ticking once again. In the ensuing period, the 8th Manifestation, the pyramid-tombs began to emerge and we find ourselves in the full-blown era of the Pharaohs. Meanwhile, contemporaneously in Vedic India the same gap was closed when the Mahabharat was connected to the Ramayana of the previous 7th Manifestation– equally via the Precessional ‘clock’. The reason for this gap is clearly established by Vedic tradition in that it is always in an Age of Preservation – Vishnu’s mode of manifestation – that the ‘ticking’ is set loud enough for us to hear. For this reason a later text like The Revelation also mentions only Vishnu’s four Fixed signs of Preservation out of the twelve. They are the symbols of most of extant sphinxes (see the crosswise section of the Map of 12 Manifestations). Indeed, preservation seems to have been an obsession, if you will, of Pharaonic Egypt. The latter’s obsession was not the thread of the Precession as it was in Vedic India, which was lost in Egypt. Rather, it was the actual mortal remains of the Pharaoh. This development does indeed reveal the consciousness of the ancients more conclusively than anything we could hope to uncover in our own peculiar obsession with tomb hunting. The Egypt of the Pharaohs bears no resemblance to the Egypt of the builders of the Great Pyramid. The only connection is that pyramids continued to be built, but nothing more. However, they were significantly different from the early specimens, not only in technological expertise for their construction but above all in their explicit ‘purpose’. In the Great Pyramid there is no evidence whatsoever that it was a tomb, the dogmas of scientific orthodoxy notwithstanding. Yet because the pyramids of the 8th Manifestation reveal beyond any doubt their funerary intent, it is assumed that the Great Pyramid must have served a similar purpose – if we could only find the evidence, now lost, robbed, ravaged, disintegrated in the structure or elsewhere to confirm the hypotheses. Nothing having been discovered so far, we are forced to conclude that this is, indeed, nothing but a hypothesis not at all substantiated. The evidence has never come to light. Instead the two remnants, side by side, tell their own tale unmistakably: there is a gap, a black hole plaguing our awareness of continuity. The gap has never been closed. However, if we look at what IS, quite simply, dropping all the dogmas science and scholarship have foisted on us over the past few centuries – indeed, even from Herodotus, the noted Greek historian – we see the obvious: Immortality was the issue. And this simple ‘obsession’ discloses that in some manner it was a physical immortality. More than that we cannot extract from Pharaonic Egypt because the knowledge of this superior state was long lost to these ‘descendants of the Sun’. It was indeed a physical state of immortality that was achieved; but similar to Vedic India this was a ‘heaven on Earth’, if it may be so described. That is, the alignment message of the Great Pyramid, as well as the Rig Vedic text, are absolutely clear on this point. After the ‘sleep’ set in, this Earth orientation and a birthright of immortality could only be interpreted as a transmutation centred on the physical body itself. The point was entirely missed though generations of Pharaonic ‘descendants from the Sun’ continued to persevere in this ephemeral quest, with the results we see today: meaningless tombs cluttered with inconsequential artefacts which scientific orthodoxy can utilise to prove that 1) all the extant tombs, including the Great Pyramid and its two companions, were tombs to house a megalomaniac Pharaoh, and that 2) this reveals the superstition and ignorance of former civilisations, however impressive their cultural achievements. This line of reasoning only served to lead away from the true path of discovery. But it did serve to convince us that our present civilisation is the apex of the evolutionary scale, and that everything before us, be it in the west or the east or midway between, was a long and dark age redeemed only by science and technology. To sustain this belief, it has been imperative to hide the truth of the technology employed to build the Great Pyramid. Similarly, theories had to be made into dogma regarding India’s hoary past to spread the belief that nothing existed in the subcontinent before 1500 BCE, when pagan-worshipping hoards from the north descended on a land devoid of any significant civilisation and culture. Both orthodoxies have served the same purpose: our contemporary civilisation has been brainwashed to believe that it is the fruit of millions of years of evolution and represents the highest level attained so far in the evolution from ape to man. But let us explore another premise that is more in harmony with the ground reality, and that answers question the above theory cannot. At the same time, this premise does not diminish our present status but rather helps us to regain a knowledge of ourselves and of the world that has been long lost.
The Egyptian obsession with the preservation of the physical body after death stems from the remembrance of things long past, the memory of Immortality and the period when the Gods walked the Earth. Whenever we find a culture with a similar obsession – such as the ancient Inca of pre-Colombian America – we know that it is the same memory of a lost state enjoyed on Earth that still haunts them. In the Rig Veda we discover the very same ‘obsession’, which none who have studied the text can deny. But this was not carried over to the physical in the Egyptian manner; and through this we discover the difference in the way the decline set in both in Egypt and India. For Egypt it was focussed entirely on the physical, and hence the art of mummification was developed to a remarkable degree. It came to influence even the development of an exquisite and unparalleled art in an effort to preserve the physical features of the deceased who was somehow to realise the same immortality of old, if the right rules were followed. But what were those ‘rules’? The chasm was too complete. It proved impossible to bridge and the anticipated transformation never materialised in spite of trial after trial which the extant new pyramids and the relics they contain demonstrate. Nor did those ancient Gods reappear who could guide the Pharaoh through the labyrinthine mysteries of the afterlife journey. That much is indeed recorded in an age closer to ours: the deceased was expected to meet his Guide and be ferried to the shore of the Immortals in his very own physical body, similar to the earlier Gods. Being ‘Descendants of the Sun’ they were expected to attain that same state – i.e., physical immortality. Important to note is that in Egypt it was all centred on the physical body, not a state of consciousness as we find in India. The reason is that there was no such chasm, a stark before and after, as we can clearly perceive in the Egyptian progression. The Great Pyramid and the more recent imitative structures of Pharaonic Egypt indicate this complete severance, which we do not detect in India and which the Rig Veda confirms; a point we will develop further on. Perhaps Egypt experienced the Great Flood recorded in a number of myths and scriptures of that area. Certainly passage over the first cardinal point in the Precession of the Equinoxes, 0 degrees Cancer, around 8000 BCE, could provide the answer we seek. And being the point of Cosmic Midnight, and a sign of the water element in fact, it would have presaged this plunge into the oblivion that the great Sleep induced and which is so clearly demonstrated in the before and after that we find today in Egypt. The accompanying diagram can make this clear. The Precessional period we are discussing stands at the end of the Age of Cancer (where the arrow points), moving backwards through the signs or in a clockwise movement. The deep night of Cancer was the signal that darkness was soon to descend. But in India the decline was gradual. It was a slow and steady deviation, as if one had introduced a gradual change in direction and the space ship of consciousness was imperceptibly steered toward a different location, a far-off horizon in the Beyond, an otherworldliness that could perhaps grant the nectar of Immortality, – Soma, as it is called in the Veda, which tradition tells us is found on the Moon. Immortality for the yogi of the Vedic Age was a matter of an attainment of a state of consciousness, first and foremost, though Vedic tradition does preserve stories of physical survival after death and in numerous instances of a conscious passage to the other world, whatever that might be. Tradition in India records that many Rishis had the ability to leave their bodies at will. It is a tradition carried right into the present; there are cases recorded today of a form of conscious transition. Since there is an unbroken thread to the ancient way in India, the result is that the state of Immortality of the Gods developed into a state of consciousness exclusively, due to the slow and largely imperceptible change in the direction of the quest over several thousands of years, allowing the yogi to believe that he was still on course, as it were. The Rishis who penned the Rig Veda knew better, however. The text very clearly indicates that there was something missing – and these sages were fully aware of the fact. The final verses of the famous Nasadiya–Sukta, (RV X, 129), known popularly as the Vedic Hymn of Creation, states,
Who really knows it? Who can presume to tell it? Whence was it born? Whence issued this creation? Even the Gods came after its emergence. Then who can tell from whence it came to be?
That out of which creation has arisen, Whether it held it firm or it did not, He who surveys it in the highest heaven, He surely knows it – or maybe he does not!
(Translation: Raimundo Panikkar, The Vedic Experience, All India Books)
Time after time we encounter this sort of questioning (‘Who truly knows?’) to indicate a lost knowledge that must be retrieved, the ‘lost sun’; and finally a perplexing exclamation at the end of a profound revelation. Since there was no dramatic severance with the former culture, unlike in Egypt, the great Sleep affected the ‘fulcrum’ of the ancient Vedic path which was the very first step on the way to the full realisation of Immortality. This fulcrum was hailed as Skambha, the cosmic pillar, centre of the world and upholder of the realisation. With the removal of Skambha the integral realisation became impossible, covering all the planes down to the physical. Dislodging the essential Cosmic Pillar resulted in what we have today: a civilisation that calls itself ‘vedic’ and believes itself to be what it was of old, but which preserves that condition only in the four Vedas. It is not found on the ground today. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, ‘The letter lived on when the spirit was forgotten; the symbol, the body of the doctrine, remained but the soul of knowledge had fled from its coverings.’ (The Secret of the Veda.) If we wish to piece together history before the great Sleep, this is the method: we look deeply at what IS, like the Rig Veda encourages the Aryan Warrior to do. For us today this means that we must have the courage to dismiss the many falsehoods that orthodoxy of all types has saddled us with over the centuries, all of which can be proven to be coloured by motives incompatible with the pursuit of truth. What such a penetration reveals is an Egypt where the great Sleep resulted in an entirely physical memory, and consequently an obsession with the preservation of corpses because Egypt did not experience continuity through the human channel of yogic realisation. It woke up one day and found the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx before its bewildered collective eye. From that point onward its wisemen began piecing together the tradition of old with whatever tools it could find amidst the ruins at its disposal. It is as if the great Flood had submerged the continent – indeed as the Bible states – destroying everything but the Great Pyramid with its two companion pyramids and the Sphinx, all of which were very consciously built to survive the holocaust because the Precession of the Equinoxes would have foretold what lay ahead. Thereafter, no trace was found of the state of consciousness of the ancient builders, the Gods who walked the Earth in a physical embodiment, only the distant memory of things now lost. From that point onward, when the Precessional clock began ticking loudly once more at the onset of the Age of Taurus, or Vishnu’s sign of Preservation in the 8th Manifestation, an awakening from this induced stupor began. The magnificent civilisation of Pharaonic Egypt did the best that it could under the circumstances to attain the same height of the former age of glory, copy-cat fashion. And thus countless imitative pyramids arose to somehow bring the mummified corpse to the promised shores where the Gods could be seen. To sum up, the point to be made is that, as the Precession indicates, passage over the cardinal point of 0 degree Cancer, the Cosmic Midnight of the zodiac, brought a complete dislocation with the former 7th Manifestation when the Gods seemed to have walked the Earth. In the next Manifestation, the 8th, the great Sleep (or Flood) in the case of Egypt, whose destiny was centred on space and on the physical, would result in an obsessive striving to regain that former state as a reality of the Earth, and not a heaven beyond – though ultimately, as the distance increased from the age of the Gods, so to speak, the Earth orientation began to take on the appearance of a location beyond our solar system and into perhaps other galaxies. In India, whose destiny was determined to be a voyage of Consciousness before all else from the beginning of this last round of the Precession (approximately 20,000 years ago), the unbroken thread with the age in question resulted in the preservation of a text that fully indicates the lost knowledge; ‘the lost Sun’, as it is called in the Veda. The object of the quest described in the text is the retrieval of that lost Sun. There can be no mistake that a deviation set in because the Veda itself records this happening. In exploring the verses to Skambha from the Atharva Veda, we will see not only that the lost state was known then to the Rishi, but also exactly what that loss would indicate for the subcontinent in ages to come; and, with great precision, the area that would be afflicted most by the loss, resulting in a society believing itself to be Vedic but having lost its Vedic essence simply because the Cosmic Pillar had been dislodged. In the Chandogya Upanishad, penned in an age closer to the Vedic than the later Upanishads, we read in III, 12, 2-9:
‘What the Gayatri is, that indeed the earth is also, for it is on the earth that this whole universe is established; it does not extend beyond. What the earth is, that indeed the body in man is also, for on it these vital breaths are established; they do not extend beyond it. What the body in man is, that indeed the heart within man is also, for on it these vital breaths are established; they do not extend beyond it. The Gayatri has four feet and is sixfold. About this a verse of the Rig Veda says: ‘Such is the measure of his greatness, but greater still is the Man (RV X, 90).’ All beings form a quarter of him, three quarters, the immortal in the sky. What is called Brahman, that indeed the space outside a man is also; what the space outside a man is, that indeed the space within a man is also; what the space within a man is, that indeed the space within the heart is also. That is the full, the unchanging. Whoever knows this obtains good fortune, full and unchanging.’ (Translation: Raimundo Panikkar, ibid.)
Notwithstanding the above and to demonstrate the logical finality of a quest centred on the Beyond and the extra-cosmic, preservation of the corpse has not at all been a part of civilisation on the subcontinent – right into our own times. The body of the deceased is cremated – an adequate symbol of its ultimate fate of impermanence and inevitable dissolution, and a return to the elements from whence it arose. In other words, a complete contrast to Pharaonic Egypt. Cremation is utterly in keeping with the emphasis on a swar –as the goal is called in the Veda – beyond physicality. It is, however, a symbol-end contradicting everything that is stated in the Chandogya Upanishad quoted above and in countless other scriptures, the direction having changed by 180 degrees, pointing away from the Earth entirely. What else does this ‘symbol’ tell us? For there is far more to discover regarding the course both civilisations etched out for themselves over the centuries on the fabric of time and space. There is the question of continuity, for example. Why did every civilisation in Egypt result in a cul-de-sac? The Pyramid Age left nothing but a few structures behind to mark its passage; Gods or aliens, humans or divine beings disappeared entirely leaving no trace other than these colossi. And as for Pharaonic Egypt, after the turmoil and upheaval that befell the land when the Pharaohs disappeared, Islam soon stepped in and once again no traces are to be found of the magnificent civilisations of old. Egypt today bears no similarity to anything of its great past. And yet those cultures attained levels which may never be reached again. But Egypt was not obsessed with time. India always has been, even in the most ancient Vedic Age. Consequently India could never experience a total disconnection from any experience it met along the way. It could only embrace the new and absorb it into its being because of the spherical properties of Time itself, in contrast to the linearity of Space of the Egyptian obsession, resulting later in temples of massive size perhaps in an effort the recapture the lost glories of the Pyramid Age. Furthermore, India’s perennial relationship with Mahakal¸ the Great God of Time as Shiva is known, condemned it to a slow and steady evolution. For it is in evolution that we find the secret to her continuity. In Egypt we note something of an intrusion. The Great Pyramid is somehow out of place in time. It is disconnected from the race that later came to inhabit the area, and from everything else evolution seems to have attained up to that age. This can never happen in India. There can be no such intrusion of anything disconnected from the whole. All must evolve organically in a process where Time is the great and immortal presiding deity because the essence of Skambha is time itself. And on this cosmic pillar the entire civilisation, from beginning to end, reposes. But the deviation took its toll and the yogic realisation of Skambha was lost; with it came the loss of the sacred measure of the Earth that lies at the heart of the process of evolution, confirmed in so many of the civilisation’s ancient scriptures. However, the multitude of scriptures which form the most impressive array of yogic documentation the Earth has ever known are meaningless without the realisation of Skambha, fulcrum for all the rest. Continuity hinging on the human channel across the ages, it is logical that in India time and evolution should be the civilisation’s instruments in a continuous flow without any drastic break in the thread time and circumstance weave through the larger or smaller cyclic movements. Nothing confirms this assessment as well as the Puranic Line of Ten Avatars, from the Fish Avatar through to the tenth of the present Age of Vishnu, our current Age of Aquarius.
PART IV
In the 26 May 2004 issue of The Hindu, an article appeared that is relevant to this discussion, entitled ‘Skeletons, inscriptions found at ancient burial sites in Tamil Nadu’. The report carries details of the very latest findings of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) at Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu. Over a dozen burial urns were found containing human skeletons, dating to pre-Megalithic times; that is prior to the 3rd century BCE.
‘…The skeletons found in two or three urns show that prior to the Megalithic period, these people used to enter the dead in urns along with the items they had used. Early Tamil Sangam works contained elaborate description of the urn-burial custom.’
The report further states that the urns were found in layers of soil which indicate a possible dating of the 7th or 8th century BCE, a number of centuries earlier than the original estimates. For the ASI the main interest is that inscriptions were found on the urns in early Tamil Brahmi script, previously considered to have come into usage at a much later date. But considering our topic, of significance is the fact that interment, of whatever form, seems to have been practiced perhaps up to the Buddhist era, – at least in South India. It appears that some time thereafter cremation became the means to dispose of corpses. It was also thereafter that to take birth at all came to be regarded as a ‘fall’, even though this was not explicitly stated until a later date. For the Buddhist, nirvana was a means to rid oneself of the bondage samskaras create, pinning one down to endless rebirths which are intended to finally liberate the individual from this incarceration. The Buddha was not as much concerned with the illusion or reality of material creation as with liberation from the suffering such bondage engendered. But in denying the soul any reality in the equation because it was tied to everything that appears to be impermanent, it was just one small step to Advaita and Mayavada which sustain that this material creation is an ‘illusion’ engendered by maya. The latter was no longer perceived as in Vedic times, a divine power, but rather something similar to Eve of Judeo-Christian tradition: a temptress, a beguiler and certainly disconnected from the higher strata of the Spirit. Therein the only permanent reality is the Self, extra-cosmic, transcendent. By that time cremation would have been the proper ‘symbol’ for a cultural shift of this order from the Vedic perception. Material substance was then awarded its just due by complete dissolution; no importance at all was attached to that ‘sheath’ of little or no value, since transcendence was the true goal. By the time cremation became the norm, the split between matter and spirit was complete. Though we like to believe that such a split is a Western affliction and finds no place in the Eastern perception of reality, in the practicalapplication of the different yogas, this split exists, just as it does in the West. The wave that clouded the evolving human consciousness was global. While all forms of pagan worship were targeted in occidental cultures, and came to be replaced by the exclusivist religions arising in the Middle East, in the orient it was, simply put, otherworldliness. But the result was the same, East and West: a total divide between matters of the spirit and of the flesh. For this reason, since such a division was not engrained in Hinduism with its roots in the Veda, it has been more difficult for India to cope with the demands a divisive postulation of this nature imposes, as we find in western cultures where no such foundation exists. Therefore we witness a notable material decline in the East and a rise of the West. India could not operate in a world where matter was somehow separated from spirit due to a conflict caused by this divisive perception because of the Vedic realisation of wholeness and integrality which lay at the root of its origin. The result was a weakening of the inner fibre of the society due to a diminished ‘fuel’ that was required to keep the spaceship of consciousness directed toward the Earth. This ‘fuel’ is released and made available only through processes of yoga and founded on the realisation of Skambha, the ‘support’ of all the worlds, the Point that fills the void and provides an anchor, a stability amidst change, a centre that holds. Without this nurturing fuel finally invasions took their toll bringing with them a relentless denial of the earlier wisdom, similar to what was transpiring in the rest of the world. And India, like many societies where paganism was uprooted, succumbed to colonial rule, which not only depleted the nation of its riches and skills and a loss of its self-respect, but also permitted a tactical undermining of the youth through educational institutions which are entirely based on Western religious/cultural perceptions far removed from the civilisation’s Vedic roots. Now the ancient hallowed Vedic texts are simply repeated like slogans. Today they cannot inspire the youth in a world where material accomplishments are the ultimate one can aspire for; they have no power to guide the nation to the discovery of a third way wherein the Veda themselves again become the foundation on which that new world can be built. We have these important archaeological discoveries coming to light precisely while we are pondering over the way human remains were treated in ancient times in Egypt and Vedic India. This is an example in itself of the play of circumstances becoming integrated right in the preparation of this essay, ‘supporting’ our endeavour as ‘Skambha’, the anchor for that play, is wont to do. Thus these archaeological discoveries confirm our deduction that cremation was post-Vedic and is an appropriate symbol of the different orientation of the quest and a fixation on the Beyond rather than an apotheosis on Earth as we find in the Rig Veda. Cremation in lieu of interment simply reinforces the post-Vedic changed direction. This is not to suggest that cremation is somehow less desirable and Hindu India should return to the former ‘symbol’ (burying the dead), to honour the physical body as one’s vahana (carrier) during sojourn on Earth. It is simply a question of unveiling the inner ‘eye’ to then perceive these symbols within an entirely new framework. In the third way it is not a question of a symbol representing something else but BEING THAT VERY THING. The symbol is the very thing symbolized, be this cow or horse, rising Sun or nighttime sky illumined by a resplendent Moon. In a context of the symbol being the thing symbolized, the introduction of cremation, now the universal Hindu custom, means exactly what it is: dissolution (nirvana) of the physical just as the seeker is encouraged to dissolve all threads of consciousness binding one to the physicality of an Earth-rooted consciousness. In ancient Vedic times the quality of life was different because the goal of the quest was different. Immortality was sought but not by denying or undermining the base of our quest, the Earth, as we do today however camouflaged.
The point to be made is that arcane, hidden formulas comprehensible only to sages are not required at this stage of evolution to understand where we are and how and why we got there in this long and steady process of decline. All we need to do is observe what is; but only if we reacquire the ability to observe the world we live in through a re-made ‘lens’. We need to bring into focus the reality before our eyes so that this material world will no longer be seen as separate from its inner essence. And it is that inner essence that must be allowed to speak to us once again through all the elements of a world in time and space. The focusing required allows us to apply the yoga of ancient times within our contemporary society and to perceive that same Truth in this 21st Century. When the Becoming is integrated solutions manifest. It is this, the play of circumstances, that must provide the harmonious way which alone can integrate the total reality. Then there is no choosing, as such, no exertion or imposition of the individual will. In the true sense of the word we are conscious instruments for the Divine Will to manifest, through the instruments that we have become, and to thus express Itself in material creation. This is our ‘purpose’, our sacred birthright. If we realise this condition we do not need to flee the world, to seek nirvana or samadhi or any other strategy to disassociate ourselves from a world in constant movement. By this accomplishment, our birth on Earth is not at all a bane as religions and spirituality encourage us to believe; because it is only in a material creation that this integral realisation can be experienced. Thus, it is only in a body devised for the purpose that the Absolute can BE and MANIFEST. This is a radical departure from all the former paths. Indeed, it is only a radical solution that can bring back the divine Purpose into our lives and allow us to accept birth on Earth for what it is: a sacred playing field where the human species manifests increasingly the higher truth, the one relevant truth – not a single Prophet or Saviour, or a one God, all of which becomes irrelevant in this context – but the truth of what we are, of a creation in matter which exists so that the Absolute can manifest unceasingly. And since the play is infinite and eternal, so are the myriad possibilities of manifestation open to the human species until all is the Divine.
1 Age (1 sign) = 2160 years 1 Manifestations (3 signs) = 6480 years 1 Round (12 signs) = 25,920 years 1 Great Circle (12 Manifestations) = 77,760 years 1 Greater Circle (4 Great Circles, or 144 signs) = 311,040 years
From: Symbols and the Question of Unity, The Gnostic Circle, The New Way, Aeon Books (1974, 1975, 1981)
‘…the disputed site is the birthplace of Lord Ram. Place of birth is a juristic person and is a deity. It is personified as the spirit of [the] divine worshipped as birthplace of Lord Ram as a child. [The] Spirit of [the] divine ever remains present everywhere at all times for anyone to invoke in any shape and form in accordance with his own aspirations, and it can be shapeless and formless also…’ [Italics mine] Justice D.V. Sharma, The Ayodhya Verdict 30 September 2010
*
‘The Indian judicial system treats deities as legal entities who could have a legal representation in courts through trustees or an in-charge of the temple in which they are worshipped…’. Harshvir Pratap Sharma Supreme Court lawyer ‘The Hindu’, 2.10.2010
*
The long-awaited judgement of the Allahabad High Court at Lucknow has come, a landmark in the history of modern India. Just the fact that a judgement was passed after 60 years was in itself commendable given the sensitive nature of the issue and the accretions this case has experienced during the interim. It is a process that spans all the founding years of the new Indian Republic, having begun just one month after the signing of the Constitution. Therefore, we may state that Ram the Child witnessed the establishment of the foundations of nationhood, biding his time patiently until the moment when from his vantage-point the full implications could be revealed. That time has come. After the doors to his abode were locked by a court order immediately following the Appearance, the Child matured in solitude for 36 years. But, it must be stated before all else, that every detail surrounding his historical contribution has been noted and tested, and its disclosure at this time is in the just order of things given the maturity reached. This is what I propose to discuss. To carry out this analysis in an orderly manner given the complexities inherent in the Ayodhya issue, I will provide a graphic image as the basis for the entire presentation – the circle. In this geometric symbol the reader will find the history of Independent India contained; we will trace that history through the symbol right up to the present and the judgement passed on 30 September last by the three honourable judges of the High Court in Lucknow. In the language of symbols the circle does not exactly represent unity as one might expect. More interesting for our analysis, it is a unified diversity. As such it stands for the collectivity – but a unified collective unlike what exists today, for reasons I will explain. To visualise unity alone in symbol form we need to add another element to the geometric construction – the Point, because all forms arise out of the plenum that is the Point, including all creation and all geometric forms. If we combine the two in one symbol the result is the astronomical/astrological symbol of the Sun of our solar system. This is the graphic image of unity (point) and diversity (circle).
If we carry the matter even further ahead, this Sun-Symbol is the graphic image of every Hindu Temple, from ancient times into the present. At Ayodhya, now legally established by the High Court judgement, the Deity has been duly apportioned his correct place in the proposed allotment by having been granted the space under the area where the dome of the mosque once stood – that is, the centre of the complex. Ramlala therefore becomes the plenum-point of the Sun-symbol and the circle surrounding the Deity is the protective womb, the garbha griha.1 But this will remain in the realm of metaphors and symbols if we do not use the key Ramlala gave us when he made his appearance during the night of 22-23 December 1949. That moment was the beginning of the process of integration that would span the next 60 years and beyond, with Ramlala as a silent witness while Time unfolded the most meaningful period in contemporary Indian history. However, the need of the hour is to make the above statement factual. This can be done, I repeat, if we use the key the Deity has provided by his appearance at a very specific point in time. Factuality is then added by Time itself. The Circle allows us to actualise the statement when we understand that it is also the symbol of the Earth Year of 365 days. Thus, the date of the Appearance can be located through the Circle in the calendar year and thereby applied to the whole nation through its official calendar. But to be allowed ‘access’ to that year we need a key, or the correct 0 Point; if not we find ourselves meandering about as if in a labyrinth. Things just ‘happen’, but never as a connected whole which the Circle signifies. And this is what Ramlala has provided by his appearance exactly at the December Solstice and entry into zodiacal Capricorn/ Makar. His coming at this very important time in the history of Independent India serves as an anchor of sorts, to keep the ship of the civilisation on course. Coincidence? In the course of this analysis a number of such ‘coincidences’ will emerge, until finally we surrender our scepticism and accept the impeccable controlling power of Mahakala, the Great God of Time, just as the sages had done in the remote history of Bharat.
Thus the story begins with Ramlala’s appearance in the former mosque on the night of 22-23 December 1949, the Solstice. We will consider only this date as the starting point of the dispute because in fact it was. Regardless of what history textbooks may contend, this is the point of departure for the Hindu Samaj’s contemporary connection with the Child-Warrior. That connection may stretch back thousands of years, as indeed it does and the nation’s Epic affirms; but this is immaterial to the present case, both legal and societal. Moreover, it is Ramlala himself who has indicated this date as the zero-point of what can best be termed the re-establishment of the Dharma. 2 This is what Ramlala is bringing about in no uncertain terms, and here too we need to be factual. To back up this statement, I must lay a certain foundation for the discussion, using precisely the Circle for this purpose. We must accept veda as the basis for any treatment involving the Epic Heroes, and especially those whom we know to be the emanations of Vishnu, his avatars. I have called them Evolutionary Avatars for specific reasons. Just as we use the Circle to define the 365-days of our calendar year, so too we can extend the diagram almost infinitely, adding spiral upon spiral until we move back in time (or forward) and locate the astrological age of Ramavatar’s original appearance. I call them Evolutionary Avatars to highlight their contribution to the evolutionary process and to distinguish them from the abounding number of ‘avatars’ who do not possess the necessary cosmic credentials for the task, which I can indeed provide for Lord Ram and his companions in the Line of Ten. Second, it is precisely those credentials that allow us to read the message of the Appearance at Ayodhya in 1949. With this act Ramavatar has updated the older tradition by revealing his own science (of Time) which factualises what might otherwise remain elusive, certainly one of the most marvellous displays of renewal and re-establishment that has ever been witnessed in Vedic civilisation’s long trajectory. True, we have the Epics at our disposal to know of the exploits of earlier times; but they now fall into the category of Myth and can therefore be easily dismissed by modern scholarship. What is needed in this hour is certainly Myth, but understood as ‘recurring history’ through endless cycles. However, in this age of rationalism we demand more, and this has been provided by the Appearance and its connection to Time, the science Ramlala reveals. We are blessed to be living in an era when we can be witnesses to this unique unfolding. Admittedly I am presenting a very different view-point from all previous treatments of the Ayodhya issue. As a cosmologist I naturally tend to view life within a cosmic framework because cosmology is the study of the harmony of the spheres but centred on Earth; therefore her living creatures cannot be excluded, unlike in scientific cosmology. That is the vantage point we find in the Rig Veda, or in the Hindu temple, or even in the classical music of India. We cannot separate ourselves from the cosmic surround no matter how strong our urge may be to do so. The slogan is All is One. But the problem is that it has become just that: a slogan; and now repeated even by material scientists. Ramlala appeared on the scene in contemporary society precisely for the purpose of restoring the ancient truths that made Vedic civilisation indestructible. Many will agree with this statement but their agreement would be from a rather superficial layer – the resurgence of Hinduism based on worship of one of its many gods and goddesses. However, I wish to carry this analysis of Ayodhya in the contemporary context to a deeper level that will take us to an ancient past but which miraculously still survives only in India. Nonetheless, the stresses and pressures of contemporary society are taking their toll on the Tradition, to the point where it faces extinction even in this single surviving location. Ramlal has appeared to save the Tradition by a process of updating.
The Deity chose to appear as a mere child. There are various tales in the Tradition of child-warriors who come on the scene to save the Earth from being overtaken by hostile forces. Kartikeya, Siva’s divine Son, comes to mind, who single-handedly conquers the mightiest asura of all, Tarak. But Ram’s contemporary child-appearance is even more dramatic since this time around the Earth indeed faces extinction, as in the ancient myths, because of the lethal weapons with which science has filled our arsenals. We may brush aside the tales we have been told down the ages, or even their portrayal in temple sculpture and architecture as just ‘myths’ – that is, not factual and certainly not ‘history’, and therefore of no substantial value in a court of law. But what of the contemporary Appearance? This cannot be brushed aside because of its historical and factual content. We shall examine that content but on the basis of an applied cosmology. In this analysis the Child-Warrior does indeed stand before the mightiest asuric power of all times; and what is more, as a mere ‘child’ – he conquers. This is the way to appreciate how the tales of old can actually be recurring history. By this contemporary experience we understand how the Myth came about. The idol for all practical purposes is the Child-Warrior who stands in the middle of the battlefield: that is, he is the point of convergence of formidable contending forces; this would be India today in conflict with her ancient past, while seeking to accommodate cultures essentially at variance with her Vedic tradition that lives on into the present – foremost of which concerns Ramlala most specifically. The issue at hand is precisely that of the Idol, a concept which is vehemently rejected by imported orthodox faiths. The High Court has now confirmed this basic tenet of Hinduism regarding the status of the Deity, in this case the Idol standing at present-day Ayodhya. The point is that there is no difference between the Deity in the ancient tale and Ramlala today in terms of essence-spirit and current idol-form in the Tradition. The myth may appear fantastic in a modern context – Can it be credulous that a mere ‘child’ conquers the mightiest asura Tarak? But if we use the current Ayodhya denouement the myth becomes the reality of our contemporary history – Ramlala being precisely the point of convergence, or the centre of the battlefield amidst ‘forces’ bent on destroying the soul of the civilisation which he represents as Evolutionary Avatar. He wages war against the most destructive forces the Earth has ever known centred on India. In our diagram, this is Ramlala, the central Point of the Circle: itsholding power. Around him the armies wage war in the subtle planes but with their representative forces in the physical. Years from now, perhaps in another Age, another Manifestation, another Yuga, the tale may be told of this very Ram as Child-Conqueror to add to his thousand exploits. Who will believe that it was history and not just a fantastic story conjured up in the mind of a dreamy visionary of epics? Cosmology of the Vedic order will uphold the reality, just as it does today while the tale unfolds before the eyes of those of us who are privileged to witness the exploits of the Deity, while history is being made by and through him. He is real, the battle he fights is real. And so is the victory. Mercifully wisdom has prevailed in the recent High Court judgement, and the honourable judges have taken Tradition into account. It is difficult to understand how in an ancient civilisation such as the Indian, tradition can sought to be dismissed when adjudication is required. Of course every attempt is being made to eradicate that Tradition and to build the new India on entirely different foundations. Some lament that this attempt has not been successful and that through a judgement like the court delivered in the Ayodhya case, India has ‘regressed’ and slipped into a past many would like to forget. However, like it or not Ramlala forces us to rethink the question of tradition and myth in a civilisation born of veda. He certainly has other ideas, foremost of which is to make that Tradition relevant today; and, I must add, factual. This is what his appearance accomplished on the night of 22-23 December 1949. He updated the Tradition, he re-established the value of Myth in Indian society, he drew together myth and history as a seamless whole in a manner acceptable to contemporary society – indeed, a manner that can be appreciated only by a modern-day society with ancient Vedic roots. This is nothing to be ashamed of; rather we should take pride in the fact that India is the only surviving nation where that Tradition still exists and is being updated to make it acceptable to modern exigencies. Above all, his appearance on that very special date is the key for the entire Hindu Samaj to re-establish the eternal Dharma. The Evolutionary Avatars have this specific task: to re-establish the Dharma according to the demands of the era in which they must appear. And it is this ‘mechanism’, may we call it, which alone can combat fossilisation, fundamentalism with its attending brittleness, leading to ultimate collapse. Fortunately, the Avatar has other ‘plans’ for this society, unique on Earth. The time is ripe to discuss just what those plans might be within the terms he has set out of his ‘programme’.This is not a question of belief or faith – far less superstition. Belief is not the Vedic Way. The Avatar is a realiser not a preacher or a priest or even a saint. Hence, all Vishnu’s Line have been of the Kshatriya caste: warriors by inherent dharma because they do indeed conquer even on the Battlefield when required to combat the forces of Ignorance. But there is science involved, a precise method to the madness. This may not be of the contemporary brand, but science it is nonetheless: this applied cosmology is just as exacting and demanding. And we apply to it the demand for evidence even when dealing with Ramlala, though we cannot foist upon him the parameters of a science that is foreign to the knowledge he brings to the enquiry. What I intend to reveal cannot be brushed aside as ‘coincidence’, often the escape route when science is faced with mysteries it cannot explain.
(To be continued)
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1 (Author’s note) At the time of printing, a comprehensive and extensive article has appeared in The New Indian Express, dated 8.10.20100 by A. Surya Prakash on the question of the structure beneath the Babri Masjid discovered by the Archaeological Survey of India in 2003 after extensive investigation of the ruins. Not only is there conclusive evidence of a prior Hindu Temple which was demolished for the mosque to come up – perhaps the most important piece of evidence for the present judgement – for the purposes of my presentation as Ramlala central Point and the garbha griha its circular enclosure, the survey, as reported in the newspaper concludes that the erstwhile temple was a circular shrine: ‘…Thus on stylistic grounds, the present circular shrine can be dated to the tenth century AD…They possibly brought the tradition of stone circular temples transformed into brick in the Ganga-Yamuna valley.’ Though I proceeded on the basis of higher knowledge of symbols in my presentation, this has been attested to by the facts on the ground. (9.10.2010)
2 In the wake of the Ayodhya judgement a furore has erupted among rationalists and liberal-Marxists regarding the affirmation by all three sitting justices that the site in question is the birthplace of Ramavatar. Rationalists sustain that based on Hindu scriptures themselves Ram belonged to Treta Yuga which covered a period of 1,296,000 years of the ancient past. Therefore, they sustain, how can we know where his birth actually took place? However, the mistake being made is to take the Yugas at face value and consider them Earth years, when the figures are actually seconds of degrees of celestial longitude. Thus, a Kaliyuga measured 432,000 would not be years – an absurdity and completely lacking pragmatism, a hallmark of the Rishis – but rather when converted into years would cover four astrological ages as measured by the Precession of the Equinox. The Treta Yuga would be, as the name suggests, three times 432,000. (See The Gnostic Circle, Chapter 6, ‘The Indian Yugas’, page 61.)
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