Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director
Aeon Centre of Cosmology
South India, 29.9.2014
Those who have followed my work in India since 1971 through a number of published books, and more recently also through blogs, articles and videos online, can join with me in acknowledging that the Indo-American tie-up has been long overdue. I described its inevitability via perceptions gleaned on the basis of a new paradigm offered to the people of India and the world. For the first time we have at our disposal an Indo-centric applied cosmology as the background for our analyses that provides a very different understanding of world affairs, insofar as they were always viewed through the Euro-centric prism; but there are certain aspects to the current rapprochement that enhance our earlier perceptions. In this paradigm one of its outstanding features is the manner in which America is shown to form an axis with India in both time and space. To present factual examples of the applicability of the new cosmology, in Chapter 15 of The Gnostic Circle, entitled ‘The United States of America and India’, in 1974 I wrote the following, revealing far deeper commonalities between the two than simply the largest and oldest democracies:
The United States of America is of course a very important element in the Earth’s evolution at present. Together with India it forms the evolutionary axis of Cancer and Capricorn that has often been referred to in this text. Capricorn [Makar] is India’s occult sign, and Cancer is the Sun sign of the United States [based on its July 4th independence date]; these together represent the axis of Spirit and Matter which is now carrying the evolution. It is around these two nations that the future of humanity’s growth into a more divine species largely depends. Both must pass through ‘labour pains’ as described for Tibet. India must become ‘materialised’ and the United States must awaken to the Spirit. If neither of these fulfils its destiny there is no possibility of a transformation on Earth. It is also essential that the two nations realise their union and come to the point where they shall work in harmony with one another in order that the new reign upon Earth can become established, for it is no coincidence that Columbus in 1492 thought he had reached India in his travels and called the natives of the land Indians… (p.181)
Following the publication of The Gnostic Circle in 1975 this theme has run through all the discoveries I have made since then; there was nothing to change that perception – rather, it has been enhanced over the years. I had even written to leading politicians of the day in the same vein, notwithstanding the compunctions of the Cold War and the fact that Richard Nixon had just a few years earlier sent the 7th Fleet into the Bay of Bengal in support of Pakistan in its war against India and the rebellion of its then eastern wing.
…I spoke to you of the necessity of India and the USA coming closer. The reason for making such a statement is not some sentimental fantasy on my part, rather it corresponds to a cosmic working which, when realised, would signify the ultimate victory of Truth. To explain briefly: India and USA form a ‘pole’, occultly, cosmically and physically. This is the pole of Spirit and Matter, respectively. To those who have an inner vision of things this is obvious, but I must point out that this Pole is a world reality as well. India is of the sign Capricorn; the USA is of the sign Cancer. These are opposite signs and this would make them complements in this ‘occult’ pole. Yet this Pole is what I have called the ‘Axis of Evolution’, for it is also the very axis of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. In July, the month of Cancer, the Earth moves farthest away from the Sun. In January (Capricorn) it is closest, and this becomes then the physical axis of the orbit and hence of the evolution. We see that even in the development of our 20th Century civilisation this has been the case. USA is the prime representative of the materialistic consciousness, of Science, of Matter. India is the prime representative, as she has been for aeons, of the Spiritual Reality, and this has been her major contribution to the world. But we must understand that Spirit and Matter are one, and it is the discovery of this oneness that the world is now experiencing. If these two countries would somehow come together in this understanding, support each other, and work in harmony and unity, it would mean that the Earth would be able to live through these trying moments and come to the true spiritual age that is before us. I must point out also that these two nations are also ends of the Pole that pierces the very planet we inhabit. They stand back to back on the globe; we could say, it is a question that now they must stand ‘face to face’ rather. USA must come ultimately to recognise the value of India and that only by giving it full support can anything truly great for the Earth be accomplished.
The Mother has arranged things in a perfect fashion, for all the events help to bring this about. I feel that the fall of South East Asia will inevitably bring USA to reconsider its position with regard to India; it will be obliged to ‘court her’…otherwise…China? (Private correspondence dated 18.4.1975, published in Tenth Day of Victory, Volume 2, Book One, Aeon Books, 2014.)
It is one thing to jump on the bandwagon today when the efforts of past labours are bearing overt results. The most difficult part of the labour was completed long before India and the world realised what was being done, for it is not limited to India. It is important to review those efforts because they began in the late 19th Century and continued through the 20th, unbeknown to even close observers of the political or spiritual scenes, and have finally culminated in this 21st Century as it transpires before our eyes in India and before the eyes of the world.
To illustrate, it was the labour of Vishnu’s 9th Avatar, Sri Aurobindo, that made it possible for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare that ‘India would be clean by 2019’, in his recent public appearances precisely in the USA. He referred to Mahatma Gandhi in the context of his championing the cause of cleanliness – a clean India which we all deeply desire on more levels than one. However, Gandhi was in a sense jumping the gun because he did not go to the root of the problem – he could not, because it was not his dharma to do so. In his day the cleanliness situation was bad enough; therefore, he himself took on tasks traditionally reserved for certain sections of the society so as to convey the message forcefully. With the increase in population since then, the lack of sanitation and hygiene has become overwhelming. But it must be noted that while these efforts were necessary they could not bear results unless the root cause of the filth that India has become was addressed.
I have written extensively on this ‘original cause’, and since that was dealt with successfully over the past century and into this 21st without interruption, one can rejoice today when Prime Minister Modi lauds Mahatma Gandhi and declares that he will take up the baton of cleanliness and sanitation, no doubt believing that it all started with Gandhi’s campaign.
What was the original cause? If we follow the thread we will see that it was cemented in the spiritual consciousness of the civilisation over 2000 years ago; moreover, it lay at the basis of every successful invasion and colonisation ever since. This understanding is reached today only if we manage to enlarge our view of evolution to include matters of the spirit as well as material. Both evolve, pari passu in fact. The evolution of the Spirit is the driving force of the material. Without it we would, as an evolving world, collapse into the ‘nothingness’ Science and even certain spiritual greats cherish dearly.
This first cause was a pernicious undermining in the spiritual domain that began approximately around the time the world entered the 9th Manifestation in 234 BCE, marking a stark departure from the realisations of the Rishis in the Vedic Age. The arrival of Vishnu’s 9th Avatar was due on the scene some 2100 years thereafter, during Vishnu’s gunaic/zodiacal period of Sattva/Preservation; more particularly, when the cosmic clock marked arrival at the borderline between the Age of Pisces and into our current Aquarian Age in 1926. From that point onward the stage was set on the subcontinent for all the elements to be put in place for India to play her destined role as centre of the 9th Manifestation comprising 6480 years – a duty for which she is eminently prepared: India is required to work out the dark patches in the collective consciousness of the subcontinent which are representative of the energy knots in the global consciousness, or in the aura of the Earth herself, if you will.
What was the original cause that finally, after two millennia, has come to be reflected in the filth that none have wished to see or to acknowledge as Prime Minister Modi has done, an individual aptly suited to the task, being born in the zodiacal sign of Virgo (see Chapter 6, The Magical Carousel, PNB, Aeon Books, where the characteristics of Virgo are embodied in none other than Miss Lily Spotless!)? The cause lay in the direction yogic and philosophic systems cemented in the spiritual consciousness of the civilisation as the be-all and end-all of every quest from the time of Gautam the Buddha. Simply put, it was Otherworldliness.1 A ‘seed’ was planted that undermined the Earth-centred quest of the Vedic Age as described in the Rig Veda, the world’s oldest scripture and the bedrock of the civilisation even today, though it has moved so far away from that Earth-centred direction to find itself unable even to satisfactorily decipher the treasure left to us by the Rishis. The good news is that this decline, this degeneration that has become so evident in the physical through the filth that we cannot ignore and that welcomes every visitor to India today, is part of the system of renewal and re-establishment of the eternal Dharma. And it is eternal only because of this in-built method of renewal, because only by renewal has it escaped fossilisation.
In a nutshell, this is the task of the Vishnu Avatars. The national Epics describe the life and times of the 7th and 8th in the Line of Ten. Today we have the grace to be born during the period of Vishnu’s 9th, Sri Aurobindo, some 6000 years after the last. The soil for his appearance was prepared by two spiritual giants of Bengal, just prior to his 1872 birth, Sri Ramakrishna (1836) and Swami Vivekananda (1863). In The Gnostic Circle I drew the connection more emphatically, in the process revealing the remarkable consistency in these matters Vedic:
…In the lives of these three there are significant dates which show us the important role they play. Ramakrishna was born with the Sun in Aquarius, in opposition to India’s new birth sign, Leo, and he left his body on August 16th, just an hour or so after the date of India’s independence, August 15.2
Vivekananda was born with the Sun in Capricorn, in opposition to the sign of America, Cancer, and he left his body on July 4th, the date of the American Independence … Ramakrishna’s incarnation was necessary for India’s spiritual awakening, and Vivekananda brought the word to America and planted the seeds of Vedanta in that country. (Ibid, p.182.)
Only those who have experienced at close hand the labour of reversal, as I have called it, can understand what a colossal task this has been. It entailed reversing an otherworldly goal and positing that as the ultimate attainment of any spiritual quest, because that created a split in an area that had never suffered a severance of this order. The Vedic Age was characterised by a seamless unity between Spirit and Matter. There was recognition of the various planes of consciousness, or sheaths that constitute both the individual and collective consciousness-being, but never a linear, polar positioning. It is to be noted that this linearity has plagued not only the subcontinent but the entire world. Those ancient civilisations that shared the unity poise in time and space, all succumbed to the same undermining in the Age of Pisces as India has; none survived, none were able to fend off the onslaught of Otherworldliness until finally this projection culminated in some of the major religions of the world, all of which arose in the past Age of Pisces, all of which enjoin their followers to aspire for salvation and ultimate fulfilment in heaven after death. In other words, this planet can never provide that fulfilment.
Bharat did survive and in spite of the degeneration could keep the thread more or less intact because of a system that allowed India to do so over vast evolutionary cycles of time – the Vishnu Line of Ten, backbone of Hinduism.
Conditions for dealing with what I have called a tendency in the human constitution were in place by entry into the Aquarian Age in 1926 – and this includes Partition, the contours of which began to take shape around that time. These conditions allowed for the 9th to begin the task of uprooting the cause of the decline. The task set before him was to reverse that trend and ultimately to extirpate the tendency of escape to realms beyond, entirely due to the state of incompletion of the human species. Therefore, together with reversal he had to establish in the evolutionary matrix what was lacking to cause the problem in the first place.
This was the truth-conscious Supermind, the next level in human evolution. Each of Vishnu’s emanations has had a similar task – that is, the cementing of a particular feature of the human species in an ascending order, because of which Sri Aurobindo called the Line of Ten a parable of evolution. The consequence in India of the tendency to focus on the Beyond away from our planetary base, and thereby bringing about a de facto split between Spirit and Matter, was that the energies of hundreds, if not thousands of realised beings upon which the transformation of the human species depends, were withdrawn from the evolutionary drive. Eventually this withdrawal percolated through all the planes of consciousness down to the physical, the abandonment of which resulted in what we see today.
The new, post-Vedic postulation was, simply put, all that is in motion – ergo, the material universe – is mere illusion. Up there in the Self, in the Spirit lies the only reality – a proposition significantly boosted by contemporary particle physics. Bharat thus lost a grip on the physical dimension. It was just a question of time before that physical would be abused to the intolerable level we witness today. Is it not incongruous that the nation acknowledged to have reached spiritual peaks as no other should also hold the distinction of today being the filthiest? India’s ruling zodiacal sign can perhaps give us the answer in its mystic imagery. Capricorn is depicted as the mountain goat with the tail of a fish. This image conveys the connected heights and depths. The time has come to reach a deeper understanding of the symbol when we learn that Capricorn is the sign of the Earth’s soul.
No one now sees the filth; it is just the way things are because it has been a slow and steady decline over centuries. Another aspect of the abuse is corruption, perhaps worst of all; it too is now just the way things are. For there is no store of those finer spiritual energies available, accompanied by the purposefulness required to eliminate the evidence of this abandonment. It is as if a gap exists in the human constitution through which energies are seeped away. This has allowed the physical body of Bharat Mata to display the problem for all those who have the courage to search beneath the surface debacle and reach what Sri Aurobindo called, a falsehood planted…at the very root of things, in his poem, ‘A God’s Labour’,
…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…
By undoing that knot the rest could then find its place. Well meaning souls could shout till the proverbial cows come home, but until the labour of the 9th was completed, no efforts could bring concrete results.
This work is done; the reversal stands cemented in the evolutionary matrix. In February of 2014 the final ingredient was added to the alchemy and the sacred labour was completed. A Zero-Seed was planted within the prescribed harmony of Time and Space so that, through the Vedic laws of equivalency and correspondence the poisons in the Earth sheath of the past 300 years, further compacted into 30 years, to be further condensed, by the same laws, into 3 years, and finally 3 months (February to May) – were at last extirpated from the body of the Mother that is Bharat.
The external evidence was that for the first time since 1984 – precisely 30 years ago – majority rule resulted from the electoral process on May 26, 2014, a majority none expected. This was the signal of a job well done behind the scenes, so to speak; the surface, in a connected, seamless consciousness, displayed this accomplishment, to remind us once again of that underlying drive with a purpose. This is not an unconscious, mindless creation and evolutionary process: there is a divine Purpose at the root of everything material and spiritual. Thus, that compacted Vedic Zero-Seed planted at a specially selected geographic position, directly aligned with the physical source of Ganga, was a womb which, like the poison accumulated in Shiva’s throat at the great Churning, served to gather within itself the compacted poison of centuries and, once and for all, cast it out of the body of the Mother, rendering it truly sacred again.
These are facts not theories or idealistic imaginings. When the Avatar’s labour covers all four dimensions – spiritual, mental, vital, physical – only then can we proclaim the work to be done, the direction to be reversed irrevocably; and the actors are now in place who can carry the fruit of that hidden labour into the dimension that people the world over can relate to: the material plane of the physical consciousness.
This is India’s response to the Aquarian wave that has swept across the globe awakening the masses to their rightful place beneath the Aquarian Sun. It is a revolution Indian-style. In this context, the coming together of America and India is not left to governments alone. The driving force in response to the Aquarian ideal is the people of both nations, and all nations. This was amply displayed in Madison Square Garden on 28 September 2014, a drive that extends well beyond the confabulations of the governments of the day.
Exactly 43 years ago on this very date the final ingredients were drawn into India to assure this great victory of the people of both continents as an inevitable consequence the gnostic wheel of Time sets in motion when its divine purpose is accepted as a legitimate part of the Earth’s fulfilment. Today one leader plays the role the Divine Shakti commands, tomorrow it will be another. Her will prevails and we are blessed to participate in the manifestation of her Power that we have just seen Indian-Americans display in the United States of America.
_____________________________
1 Most would find it hard to accept that the origin of the need for a cleanliness drive could be connected to the concept of Nothingness, a quotient of the Nirvana realisation of over two millennia ago; or to what Sri Aurobindo wrote in the first half of the last century that the task of Kalki, tenth in the Vishnu Line, would be precisely ‘to correct that error’. The bedrock of Fullness was slowly displaced when Otherworldliness became the goal over two millennia ago, thus leaving the work incomplete, or only ‘halfway there’, in his view.
2 Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, 15.8.1872.