Planet Earth, in the Age of Aquarius

Part One

September 1974:  Thea is winding up Section Three of her book, The Gnostic Circle  (image right) and she opens Ch 18 with this statement, ‘The Earth is in a depressed condition at present… it is an infected organ…’ She uses the analogy of the Earth as a tumorous cancer to help the student understand not only the seriousness of the Earth’s condition but also, the cause: ‘…a group of cells breaks away from the central rule to set up its own autonomous one. They carry the body toward disintegration and death because they have lost all contact with the centering light’. (The Gnostic Circle, 4th ed, 2019, p. 304).

     

Without this ‘centering light’  the Earth does not know that she has a means to renew herself; with the ‘loss of the consciousness of immortality’, Thea writes, ‘Death has become the Sovereign Lord’.

Even worse, humanity has adjusted itself to this state; ‘theories of reality’ or ‘falsehoods’ were constructed to further convince ‘the patient’ of the need to abandon the planet and its cancer; ‘to look elsewhere for a Redeemer to save it’.  Thea sums it up with this chilling statement:

Death then became the reality of life, the only certainty in this uncertain existence, the Dark King reigned and Earth became his Underworld, whereupon he imprisoned the Soul-Spark Daughter of the Divine Mother…

‘…unable any longer to perceive the oneness of itself with Perfection, it (the Earth) passed into a torpid, chilling sleep, the unconscious slumber and the loss of the light and knowledge of the truth of things.

‘And so it glorified Death and erected numerous schools of thought around a mere Phantom.’ (ibid)

It is time for the ‘ignorance’ to be exposed, for our Earth to see the ‘phantoms’ of suffering and illness for what they are. And it is time, Thea continues, to expose the illusion of Death which has been like a tumour eating away at the planet. It is time for each person to awaken and realise his/her soul, and ‘return to the rule of the Central Being’. This is the only cure for the ‘cancer’ that afflicts our Earth (ibid, 308). 

Part Two

‘Earth Rise’ – a Vision of Oneness

20 July 1969, ‘Earth Rise’ – first photo of the Earth, taken from the Moon

At the same time as our Earth seems to succumb to her ‘sickly state’, she is being pushed, by the endless cycles of time toward recovery and growth. Thea cites an event that evoked a world-wide response: seeing our planet as one whole earth, from the photograph taken on the Moon, on 20 July 1969, filled the planet and its people with awe (image left). A  vision of unity rose up from the depth of humankind and made them dissatisfied with their  isolation,  ignorance and   sickly condition. However long it takes before this yearning is actualized, we do not know, Thea writes: but it is inevitable that there will be no peace until that vision of ‘One Earth’  becomes realised on this planet. (Thea, The New Way, The Rise and Establishment  of a Gnostic Society, Volume 1, p. 6)

There are other events that have become ‘symbols’ of the Earth’s evolving destiny, there have been tremendous breakthroughs in Science.  But without an inner penetrating light into the reason why our Earth was created, and its unique purpose among the nine in our Solar System, Science may lead us into ‘a black hole’ of destruction. And Science  is not assisted by Spirituality; on the contrary we find around the globe examples of divisiveness and chaos, caused by monotheistic ideologies.

So where does humanity turn?

Thea introduces the concept of  The Gnostic Society, a time on Earth when ‘higher laws were known to determine the ways of the planet’s societies’. The idea of such a time or group is not new, occult traditions speak of past evolutionary cycles known as  ‘a Golden Age’ or ‘the Satya Yuga’. Such groups of enlightened people today would be most likely rejected, states Thea (ibid, p. 18).

For as long as our earth is ‘sickly’ and asleep, ignorant of her inner soul potentialities and unable to cooperate with Mother Nature, the evolution of consciousness  does not occur by a natural process of undoing or ‘dissolution’. Rather she must ruthlessly make use of the process of ‘destruction’.  She makes use of ‘large scale wars’ and/or other acts of violence to advance her evolutionary goals because during  these spans of time, humanity awakens from its sleep  and nature makes use of those energies for a certain progress and expansion.

Mother Nature has other tools of destruction that work in a more subtle way,  she attacks the well springs of collective life to bring about ‘a quicker death of the old earth’ (ibid, p. 24). Drugs, passive absorption in entertainment (movies and TV), uncontrolled indulgence and massive greed – all contribute by exerting a pressure  to hasten the  collapse of the old. Because, as Thea writes, a new manifestation, ‘the cell of a new Earth’ cannot be built on the old creation:

The reality of a higher light is manifesting on Earth – a creation that exists in the subtle plane of Truth, that is already, and that only asks to be allowed to take shape in this world of ours…

‘There is no pressure exerted from outside… Shakti’s method today is to allow for the very light at the root of the deepest darkness to awaken and come forth, and from within it must influence and finally cause the collapse of the outer veils that hide the seed of light…

All is the Divine (action) … to give shape to the Ideal in the material world that will be the cell of a new Earth.’ (ibid, p. 30 – 31).

As of 1956, when the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry announced, ‘the time has come,’ the Supramental force became an active part of Earth evolution. Thea writes this event radically altered every structure of the old earth, causing a self-generated process of caving in of the old powers. As this Supramental ‘seed of truth’ grows, that seed itself generates a force or a power (‘a tiny seed-flame’) which is able  to pierce  down to the farthest layers of darkness and ignorance , the ‘inconscient’, and start our earth on ‘the great rise upward’. (ibid, p. 33).

The Mother, of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry

During this time of transition to a new creation, the Earth  makes use of all these discarded energies; she casts both the dark and the light into a large cauldron where a mighty brewing process takes place. Thea emphasizes that the power working is not ‘occult‘, it is a force unknown on Earth before this time, a  Supramental force

‘which is a combined action of a rise from below, out of the hidden depths of the matter of each created thing, and a descent from the supreme heights of the Spirit. It is an irresistible power because it is the truth-core of all that is…’ (ibid p. 38).

The secret key to this renewal is a ‘precise control’, governed by the power of Time.  In  the very depth of the Earth herself is hidden the original seed, the Divine Transcendent. Through the evolutionary cycles of Time, The Transcendent One takes form, and keeps manifesting in an unending display of forms in Nature. As Thea describes it, the whole of our Earth’s manifestation is Prakriti’s (Nature) offering of love to her  Lord (Purusha).

Evolution on this Earth is for the purpose of refining the species, continuously creating a more and more perfect form for the indwelling seed. The many forms of creation are the extension of that ‘original seed’;  each is equal to it in every way, from the most etherial to the most material, all are one, the Brahman (Ibid p. 47). Our mental human race is the highest evolutionary form so far.

But it is a fact: our human body as it is now, will not be adequate to house this new seed;  a great pressure will be exerted to transform the physical body  for the growth of that ‘original seed’. It is only natural that now, in this present limited condition, we accept the condition of mortality, that our human journey ends at death.  But when humanity is able to widen and deepen and heighten their consciousness,  when they can begin to live in a consciousness of the One and the Many – to live their simultaneity – they will be approaching the condition of immortal being, not only spiritual but physical as well.

Part Three

The Magical Carousel, ’a new myth for a new age’

Witnessing the destruction of the old earth during this time of radical transformation can be painful to those who do not understand that the degeneration of the old way and the rise of the new Supramental seed is being guided by an absolute precision and control. For the student new to the study of cosmic harmonies, Thea explains the evolutionary journey, in story form , likening the progressive movements  of Earth to a spinning  Magical Carousel. (The Magical Carousel & Commentaries, 2nd ed. 2018,  See End Note 1)

Using a series of symbols Thea conveys a whole body of knowledge about how our Earth is evolving and why the transformation is now taking place with such an acceleration. Her primary theme is that creation and destruction are a simultaneous process, i.e., as the flame of the new Supramental Truth-consciousness arises on our Earth, it sets in motion a ‘caving-in’ (a dissolution) of the old world.

The two children, Val and Pom-pom,  represent the spirit of the planet as it evolves in consciousness.  It is the stuff of which myths are made, but with new insights: these children soar to a new stage of evolution. In fact, as the journey opens in ARIESLAND they are told:  ’you are about to begin a journey much grander than any Earth being has ever known’.

Chapter 11, titled Aquariusland, describes our present stage of evolution: based on the precession of the Equinoxes, our Earth, entered the Age of Aquarius in 1926 (see Map of the 12 Manifestations, Theme One). Using the three energy modes, or Gunas of Indian tradition, Rajas (creation), Sattwa (preservation) and Tamas (dissolution), Aquarius falls into the middle energy mode of Preservation (Sattwa) – asphere of higher consciousness towering far above the ordinary level of human awareness’. In traditional astrology, Aquarius, is known as the sign of brotherhood, of universality.

Val and Pom-pom, are precocious children, they have already travelled through all the obstacles of the first stages of their journey and were fully ‘initiated’ in Capricorn, the tenth sign/stage. They are the forerunners of ‘the new way’, people who have access to a new consciousness, a ‘future light that awaits the world’ as the new race begins to rise (ibid, p. 254).   Now, in the last stages of their travels, they are  swept up and suspended within a furious whipping tornado (image left). They look around with wonder: ‘it looks as though the ferocious tornado has destroyed the entire land it passed through. From where has the force arisen, and where is it taking them?’

As the cyclone stills, they find themselves being pulled downward, and sucked into a large jug-like container. Coming from all sides they hear a  ‘whining pitiful drone’ and realise it is the desperate cries of all humanity who have been destroyed and swept away. They pull themselves up to the top of the jug, and pull out one of the big keys they have been given. Opening the lid, they climb out and emerge into a ‘huge vault of spaces… a kind of a cosmic hippodrome’.

Mahakala... and the source

‘Thea explores the meaning of her symbolism in the Commentaries to The Magical Carousel. The iridescent tornado, whipping and swirling around like a serpent, has been considered to be, by some readers, she writes, ‘the same energy as the Kundalini Energy, but in Cosmic proportions – the drive of evolution. Often this power is associated with Mahakali of Hindu tradition, Goddess of both death and destruction’ (Thea, The Magical Carousel and Commentaries, p. 253).

Thea agrees that the symbol of the tornado is Mahakali, but not because it represents her power of destruction. Rather she explains, it is the Goddess whose power ‘carries the world forward with mighty strides and destroys only because there is resistance and the evolutionary movement cannot be allowed to stagnate’ (ibid).

Although  Val and Pom-pom are saddened as they hear the wailing sounds of humanity all around them, they realise that the collapse of the old consciousness is inevitable, they can’t help this dying civilization caught up in its own darkness of the past. They cannot change the destiny of this Earth (image right).

The Jug symbolizes the Earth-womb;  all the wornout, discarded energies of the past are thrown into this vessel, where a big cosmic  brewing takes place.  This stew is allowed to settle and then the sediment is used in forming the new creation. Thea explains that our ‘cosmic manifestation is a perpetual re-allocation of energies. (ibid, p. 255). Through a sorting out process – an interplay of the old and new energies –  the knots of the old creation are undone; and so a way is cleared for the new. The wailing and clash of energies in the jug is a sign that the new realization is on its way, and people feel frightened and helpless.

The music Val and Pom-pom hear as they enter Aquariusland is filtering down  from the subtle plane above them, from the harmony of the spheres. Upon these melodies the new society must be built,  upon these laws of cosmic existence, the new ‘brotherhood’ must  reproduce itself. Val and Pom-pom enter this land to learn about these harmonies,  to transform every part of themselves,  to undo the knots in the old consciousness.

The children are guided to understand the evolutionary process by ‘The Speaker’ who ushers them into Aquariusland: ‘Here are two new arrivals… who have come here to join the brotherhood and work for a universal cause!’ He shows them the various workshops  where the cosmic currents are assembled and brewed, then left to age, ‘til the time is ripe’ when they will be poured from their jugs into the ethers, targeting  the very people or institutions whom they were meant to transform. It could be our religious, political or educational sectors of civilisation, he explains; some of the currents are specific toward revolutionizing medicine, or art and music.

Even the weather and Earth’s atmosphere can be affected by The Speaker’s ’recipes’ when it is useful ‘for bringing about upheavels necessary for the evolution of humanity’. They eventually arrive at a workshop, with a sign: WATER CARRIER.  In this very different looking space, the Sacred Server pours out on mankind, the nourishing waters of life. He represents the quality of detached and true service to humanity, a person who sacrifices self interest for the good of the collective endeavor and the goal to be achieved.

Before Val and PomPom leave –  for they must complete, on time  their 12 stage  journey in Piscesland,  – they too are given  a thorough treatment of magnetic waves, shaking them to their very core. 

The Speaker, standing in the centre of the cosmic vault in Aquariusland is illuminated from within by an intense light. He represents the Transcendent Godhead,  who is both the ‘original seed’ of all creation, as well as ‘the vast’ or the cosmic manifestation in Nature. It is the last quarter of the journey through the zodiac – Cosmic Midday; and the travelers are in the realm of unity, where the answers to all paradoxes may be found.  He has prepared Val and Pom-pom to re-enter Earth with a new and firm foundation, and now sends them on their way, for ‘the time is ripe’.       

Part Four

‘THE NEW ERA HAS Dawned!’

                                             ‘Flow, waters of the spirit, flow through                                               the ether to our brothers of the universe,
awaken the hearts of mankind, for the
NEW ERA has Dawned!’

With this chant, the resounding voice of the Water Carrier sends Val and Pom- pom out of Aquariusland (Thea, The Magical Carousel & Commentaries, Ch 11, p. 100). They will  complete their ‘odyssey’ in Piscesland – in the waters of the Divine Mother’s ‘Cosmic womb’ –  and return to Earth to take up their unique missions: to become active members in the evolution of a new creation.

Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet) - early photo, 1974

Students of The New Way cosmology know these children as the third and fourth members of Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric Line. Throughout the story, which Thea has called ‘the new myth for a new Age, she refers to its autobiographical nature (image left). The events in Aquariusland correspond to her early  years in India (ibid, p. 270),  specifically  1974, 1975 and 1976 at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry.  

 

The Ashram  was the home of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as they labored in the first stage of their joint yoga ‘to reverse the “otherworldy consciousness” which had been laid down from the time of Gautam the Buddha in 500 BCE through to the present era’. The disciples who joined them  were the ‘field’  for working out the  broad lines of the Integral Yoga.  But with the  monumental event in 1956 of the descent of the Supramental,  a more expanded field was required to root the new Truth-Consciousness into the Earth itself. ‘The trenches had been dug’, but more was needed (Thea, The Vedic Altar Updated, Introduction, 2013). 

By the early 1960’s the Mother had withdrawn and she began ‘building’  in consciousness the new and expanded field;  and as Thea explains, her labour did result in something new, ‘a third thing’. In the dialogue below the  Mother  describes her experience to a disciple as ‘an expression yet to come’:  

‘It is something we are searching for. Perhaps not merely searching for, but building.

We are being used so that we may participate in the manifestation of that which is as yet inconceivable for everyone, because it is not yet there, it is an expression that is yet to come. That is all I can say.  (Silence)

 ‘These positions, the spiritualist and the materialist, if one may call it so, that are believed to be exclusive…are insufficient, not only because they do not admit each other, but because even admitting the two and uniting the two does not suffice to solve the problem. There is something else – a third thing which is not the result of these two but something that is to be discovered, which will probably open the door to the total Knowledge.

 ‘The formula will come, I know. But it will come in a series of lived experiences that I have not had yet.’ (24 May, 1962)

‘The formula’, the lived experience did come. In The Tenth Day of Victory (Volume One, 2003), Thea describes ‘an initiation’ with the Mother beginning January 1971, while she was still living and working in Rome. By September of that year she found herself in Pondicherry at the Mother’s feet. The auspicious details of her entry to India on 29 September, the day the nation was celebrating Vijaya Dasami, or the Tenth Day of Victory, can be found in The New Way, Volume 1:

‘In 1971 the Daughter, the third of the solar family, returned to her abode with the Son, who is Shiva in the form of World Conqueror, in his aspect of Victory God. As usual the day was celebrated in the entire nation…

On the ninth night – the actual moment when the Asuric power is vanquished by the Goddess – the Daughter touched the soil of India. This was 28 September. It was the Son’s seventh year, thus reversing the pattern of his last life, when as the Father, he left India in his seventh year, in l879-80. On the next day, the Day of Victory, he came with his mother to his own abode, at sunset, the very time when the celebration reaches its climactic end.’ (The New Way, Volume One, pp. 162 – 3)

          From that time through the Mother’s passing on 17 November 1973,  Thea received from her  certain ‘keys’ that allowed ‘the formula’ to come. She called this body of knowledge, The New Way, an applied cosmology  which primarily uses Time and Number to explain how the new seed of Truth Consciousness would grow and establish itself in the decades to come. By 1974, a part of this ‘new seeing’ was completed; two years later, Thea realised the fourfold Solar Line and  a  clear direction began to emerge in her writing for the new creation (Theme Two). It was obvious she had parted ways with the existing organisations in Pondicherry and Auroville.  

Thea explains that although the Mother announced in 1956 that  ‘the time has come’  and the flood of Supramental energies poured into our Earth, it was not until January 1970 that she ‘saw’ the vision of the Chamber of her Temple. It was to be still another year before construction  began in 1971 on the Chamber itself,  making significant these 15 years–between 1956 and 1971- in the Chamber’s measurements. There were 15 steps in the Mother’s original vision!

To enter the Chamber, the seeker would ascend these 15 steps through an opening in the floor (image right). Fifteen represents a combination of the number powers of the first two stages of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s Yoga: the Transcendent Divine (the 9) and the Cosmic (the 6). These first two Powers were needed to accomplish ‘the working out’ process, done in the subtle plane, and it was entirely successful, Thea explains.

But there was a void on ‘this side’, the most material dimension or physical plane of consciousness, i.e., the ‘bridge’ from the subtle plane to the physical was incomplete. It was not until 1971, that the third and fourth stages of Sri Aurobindo’s  Yoga would begin and the consequences of this’ gap’ were to have immediate consequences (ibid).  

By the time that Thea came upon the Mother’s original plans in May of 1974, when the architect brought them to her, not only were the 15 steps leading up to the Temple obliterated, the entire vision was met with rejection. Neither disciple nor architects could understand the profundity, or symbolism,  of the measurements. All is symbolic, the Mother insisted; every form, every measure was to be  ‘a symbol of the Future Realisation’.  The temple standing in Auroville, constructed in cement and steel,  is but a ‘shadow of the Mother’s original.’ (Thea, The Vedic Altar Updated, op cit)

Thea explains that the ‘third thing’ the Mother was building, or ‘searching for’ (dialogue above, 24 May 1962 ) became a ‘lived experience’ in the Temple building episode. That is, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were the first and second ‘Fields’ (of consciousness), and Thea, as the third Field actually  constructed her Chamber  in consciousness to allow ‘a true centre to come into being’ (see Theme 8). In Thea’s words:  

‘…Each field was born of the particular number-power that would complete the sacred Formula enshrined in Sri Aurobindo’s lotus-symbol: 9/6/3 (image left). The first field partook of his number power 9 (1926=9); the second of the Mother’s 6 (1968=6), and the last was the 3 (1983=3) to complete the formula the Mother anticipated of that ‘third thing’.  Ibid)

Each thing is in its place’ Thea concludes,  even though the physical construction of the Temple did not take place according to the Mother’s original vision. The ignorance and rejection served as a ‘goading factor’  to bring down the descent of a new body of Supramental knowledge, affirming  the main aphorism of the Third field: Positive AND negative serve the purposes of the One’. (ibid)

Throughout all her writings, Thea presents the ‘cosmic credentials’ of the Father’s return as the Son or Sri Aurobindo’s return as the 4th in the Solar Line (Theme 2 this website).  In an essay written to introduce the monograph, The Vedic Altar Updated, she focuses on the purpose for his withdrawal in 1950 from this Earth to return in 1963: his prophecy had to be fulfilled –  ‘the 10th Avatar comes ‘to rectify the error of the Buddha’. This process was just as ‘immensely dangerous’ as the passage that the Goddess Savitri undertook to ‘conquer Death’  in order to bring the soul of Satyavan back to Earth (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book Nine).

Similarly, in the Vedic Journey of twelve months; the most difficult stage was the passage from the 9th through the 10th month; the Aryan warrior who could endure the journey through the 10th month could achieve  victory (ibid).  Thea explains that Sri Aurobindo carries out the ‘same immensely dangerous process’ as Savitri, or the Aryan Warrior,

‘when in 1950 he left his body, fashioned as it had been to labour within the confines of the Old Creation – and as he wrote in A God’s Labour to describe his return from the abyss, ‘He who I am was with me still’.

He (Sri Aurobindo) returned this time as a part of the New Creation, as the Immanent One of his former Transcendence, the minute and precise details of which were recorded in the measurements of the Inner Chamber by the Mother – a feat never before achieved, thus earning the qualification of being “the first cultural expression of the supramental Truth-Consciousness”…’(ibid, p.7).

Thea indicates that Sri Aurobindo himself provides the clues for this difficult passage. In The Secret of the Veda (chapter 17). he writes he is ‘unraveling the knot of this Vedic Journey’ and  posits that although the  Rishis may have some difficulty in the 9th month of the journey, those who can increase their powers and endure through the 10th month,  do achieve the victory. As proof he cites Ayasya, their companion on the journey, who did bring into being the four-fold world, ‘which must be the supramental…’ (End Note 2).

Thea likewise unravels the mysteries of the 9th who becomes the 10th: :

‘On the heels of Vishnu’s 9th appearance and in an unbroken line of Time, Sri Aurobindo’s prophecy was fulfilled:

‘The 10th indeed comes “to rectify the effort of the Buddha”, to finally and conclusively cement the reversed direction to the Earth and no longer to the beyond when the formula is fulfilled and the 9 becomes the 10’ (ibid).   

Thea’s ‘seeing’ of the four-fold descent of Vishnu’s Avatar in this Age of Aquarius and her description of each of the four  stages of that descent is at the centre of  her new Indocentric cosmology. She acknowledges that certain demands are placed upon the reader: ‘it carries its own science with its own language’, just as any field of science does. It carries its own formulations and operational methodology…’resulting ultimately in a new paradigm’. (Thea, Those Unsettling New Paradigms, 2015).

              The mission stands completed, and covers all bases, she writes, including that of the Third in the Solar Line, which is ‘perhaps the most significant for Hindus today’. Referring to her own incarnation, she writes the Third takes birth ‘to re-establish the tropical zodiac as the foundational language of the Tradition…’  (ibid).  

The importance of this statement can be missed if one is not familiar with her new ‘Science of the Sacred’. During the Vedic era, the Tropical Zodiac was a familiar script,  it was the guide to their yearly ‘journey’, with the sacred mountain of Capricorn, Mount Meru, as the focus of the celebration. This was still   prominent in mythology and in temples across India in the Puranic era. (see Theme 9). But by the Dark Ages, Thea laments, a different formulation had replaced that based on the Tropical Zodiac:

‘Another zodiac was introduced. It (was) based on the imaginative animal figures made up of the fixed stars in the sidereal sphere, called Nakshatras. In the traditioinal astrology practiced outside of India they are known as the Mansions of the Moon and were brought from India by Al Biruni, the Arab scholar-traveller who in the 12th century planted damaging seeds that later flowered into the full-blown Nirayana system of astrological computations and ritual timings in use today.’ (ibid)

Thea explains to ‘misguided reformists,’ that they are measuring in the wrong circle . Note in Thea’s image (right), there is no Cardinal Cross of the Solstices and Equinoxes in the Sidereal (or Constellational) system of the fixed stars beyond our solar system; these only exist in our Tropical Zodiac in the ecliptic around our Earth. (see End Note 3)

Unfortunately,  the  Nirayanis have convinced the Hindu community that a correction is needed, and they shifted the  most important festival of celebration, the Makar Sankranti,  from the December Solstice to January 14-15. They have  wiped out the fourfold cosmic pillars of the Dharma from the ‘cultural fabric’ of the nation, Thea laments; for all practical purposes ‘it exists only in the updated Indo-centric cosmology of The New Way’ (ibid).

Moreover, this superb act of undermining by the Nirayanis posits dozens of ‘ayanamshas’ as the starting point for timing of events, furthering chaos and disunity in the Hindu community. It is only in the Tropical Zodiac with its equinoxes and solstices that we can read the cosmic credentials of the Vishnu Avatar and his line in this 9th Manifestation. ‘They label me anti-Hindu’, she writes. It becomes impossible for them  (theHindu Samaj) to accept Thea’s Map of the Evolutionary Avatars  which contains the dates of their appearance on Earth (Theme 1).

 ‘… the Sanatana Dharma hinges on this recognition of the true emanation of Vishnu because yuge-yuge he comes to re-establish order, first and foremost, the cosmic order.‘ (ibid)

Summary

The Destiny of Earth – in the Age of Aquarius

Aquarius is traditionally known as the ’sign of the friend, of brotherhood’;  it is expected that Earth and her inhabitants are to undergo a ‘universal transformation’  during this Aquarian Age in which we now live. For Thea this means that our planet, perhaps for the very first time in recorded history, would be seen as a ‘conscious entity’  among the nine; Earth’s  unique and full contribution to the planetary society would be unveiled (Thea, The New Way 1, op cit, p. 88).

In the past, our Earth was treated as ’an outcast’ in the planetary system, Thea explains; this was a result of partial and ineffective spiritual visions over thousands of years.  The destiny of our Earth has been totally misunderstood (Thea, The Emerging Cosmos, The Vishaal Newsletter, May 1987). In both East and West, seekers  were encouraged to deny life on their own home planet: Western spirituality encouraged believers to accept suffering as a way to attain a reward in a heaven beyond this life. Earth was considered a prison, a ‘fall from grace’.  

Similarly, Thea adds, a variety of Eastern philosophical systems  also negated life on this planet: ‘…in a quest for otherworldliness,…all creation in matter was an “illusion”, a deceptive veil that seekers of Truth must tear through in order to reach the immutable, immobile, transcosmic and static Brahman…’ (ibid).

 This denial of our planet’s own truth of being and purpose as the home of an evolving species, resulted in a pattern that has conditioned  our whole way of life, both individually and collectively. Sri Aurobindo’s stirring words in the last pages of his opus, The Life Divine (Chapter XXIII) opens Thea’s essay, which describes our ‘Human Condition’:  

‘At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which  is concealed a choice of its destiny…

She asks the reader to clearly assess the prevailing conditions of our Earth: the only conclusion we can come to is that this ‘crisis’ is the outcome of past spiritual  and religious theories. None could offer a more enlightened understanding of the evolutionary process (ibid). It is self evident that our present stage of evolution is a step along the way and we are a species in transition from the mental  to the Supramental. Humankind is in the process of evolving an instrument that will be able to

 ‘sustain the greater cosmic forces…on this planet, without experiencing destructive collapse of energies or succumbing to the old ways of escape through outdated solutions and methods this world has known until now’. (ibid)

 As Val and Pom-pom whirled through the Aquarian tornado, they knew that nothing could stop the wailing cries all round them of a helpless dying humanity (part three); Shiva’s cosmic dance had already set the destruction in motion. Their task was to return to Earth and take up the revolutionary work of this Aquarian Age:  to root the Truth-Consciousness of the Supramental into our Earth.

Our Solar System itself  is leading the way, having extended its boundaries by a triad (Uranus, 1781, Neptune 1846 and Pluto, 1930) – a critical threshold has been reached. We must go beyond our present human structure which cannot sustain  the great influx of energies which is  being forced upon us with the descent of the Supramental (Thea, When the Measure Reaches 9, 2 May 2015 – see End Note 4).

Specifically, this all points toward the need to accept the new paradigm at the heart of the unfolding Indocentric cosmology: India is the cosmological centre of the Earth, her dharma is eternal. The line of evolutionary avatars is the ’inbuilt mechanism’ that allows the nation to continuously update  her Vedic truth and guide the nations of the world toward  true internationalism.

Building on the ‘blueprint’ given by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Thea’s ‘applied cosmology’ shows how this majestic goal for our Earth and her people will unfold.  Earth is limited  now by the darkness and confusion of ‘Diti’, but the ‘realm of Aditi – the ‘Mother of Unity’ –  beckons to us. (Thea, Contours of the Binary Creation,  2015).

Thea explains that in the planetary society there is no hierarchical system; nothing superior or inferior, nothing need be discarded (i.e. destroyed). Rather, all find their rightful place in the harmonious  circle of One. But we must be mindful of Aditi’s full circle, all 12 stages. In Thea’s image (right) she posits the first six stages through the Physical and  Vital quarters of the circle as ‘the lower hemisphere’, whose regent is Diti.

We must acknowledge there are another six stages, two more quarters, which Thea designates as the ‘higher hemisphere’ made up of the Mental and Supramental quarters, ruled by  Aditi (ibid). To know the fullness of Aditi, which is the goal of our Aquarian journey,  is to move consciously inward, away from the ego which now  functions as the pivot of our daily existence, and unveil ‘a true unitary centre’ – a ‘soul’.

Note in Thea’s image that Capricorn opens the final quarter of the higher hemisphere.   Before entering Aquariusland, Val and Pom-pom, of The Magical Carousel story,  had  gone through a special realization in  this tenth sign/stage of their journey; it is here they entered the ‘chamber of self-discovery and soul realisation’ – they found their ‘dharma’. It is here that our society must also journey so that it can enter Aquarius with  boundaries extended.

Each person must be ready to move beyond the individual toward a cosmic consciousness –  a  universality that is demanded of us in the Aquarian Age,  so that the descent of the Supramental Truth-Consciousness,  may take place. Thea cautions to watch out for two adversaries which go hand in hand:  Inertia and Incompletion.  We become distracted by the binary concerns of life; then death comes and cuts short the journey – our mental species cannot reach the Solar World (ibid).

The Aquarian task  is to open the ‘field’ wider  and embrace the full four quarters/ worlds of the circle (diagram above). Like the Aryan warriors, it is a cosmological process we are living through (see Theme Twelve); we must realise what a tremendous privilege  it is to take birth on Earth at this time with all four stages of the 9th Avataric descent now completed. (Also see Thea, Fission and Fusion, The Vishaal Newsletter, Volume 4, no. 2, June 1989). 

Thea explains it will be an enlightened collectivity that makes that contact with their centre (image  left) and  allows the ‘soul’  to unveil itself. It will be a Gnostic Society who sees clearly the destiny of our planet in our system of nine; they will assist our Earth to manifest her own inherent Light and Harmony. Their  purpose for incarnating on Earth will be to offer  themselves as a ‘channel for the rise and establishment of a new and gnostic way of being’ (Thea, The New Way 1 & 2, op cit, chapter 7 ).

End Note 1:

In 1970, while Thea was living in Rome and charting  horoscopes for people who worked in cinema, she became aware there was far more to the traditional meaning of astrology than simply a tool for prediction. She saw the zodiac as a living being; each sign was inter-related and connected, forming a cosmic script that had been in the heavens since the beginning of time; they told the story of the evolution of consciousness of our Earth.

Based on this seeing, she  wrote The Magical Carousel;  it was the gift she gave to the Mother when she found herself at the Mother’s feet upon her arrival in Pondicherry on 29 September, 1971.  Nine years later, while living in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, she added Part Two, Commentaries and she tells the reader that it was after she had met the Mother she began to realise the prophetic nature of all she had written in 1970, prior to coming to Pondicherry. ‘It is my story, autobiographical’ she said, ‘and also the story of opening the new path for all souls’.

The Magical Carousel is called a children’s story, but it may be more accurate to say that Thea uses a story-form to tell a perennial tale, to describe ’a new myth for a new age’. In her words:

‘It is the contemporary myth of the Supramental Manifestation… it is not based on older myths as (Sri Aurobindo’s ) Savitri was; it arises in the new creation and voices the Soul’s aspiration and light where it stands today; it answers those questions or conditions which we encounter today.’

 Val and Pom-pom initially embark to Saturn, but  their rocket is detoured to the Sun instead. Upon arrival they find a set of 12 keys to open each door of Zodiacland, and are given one directive, ‘Follow the Sun’. And so it is the four stages of Cosmic TIME that are the real protagonist  of the myth. It is these four ‘faces’ of Earth which she shows to the Sun as she journeys annually round ‘her Lord’. Thea calls these phases, Cosmic Dawn,  Cosmic Midnight,  Cosmic Sunset and Cosmic Midday.

The people they meet, as well as the obstacles that try to delay or halt their movements toward the Sun, all  describe the process of discovering one’s soul and securing the victory over death.

End Note 2:

See The New Way, volume 2, chapter 10, pp. 409-413 for graphics

Sri Aurobindo acknowledges traditional thought  regarding the seven Sages, i.e., there is  the ‘separate existence of two classes of Angirasa Rishis, the one Navagwas  who sacrificed for nine months,  the other Dashagwas whose sessions of sacrifice endured for ten (Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, volume 15, p. 176 – 177).  However he posits that instead of two different classes of Sages, this verse refers to ‘two different powers of Angirasahood and in that case the Navagwas might become the Dashagwas by extending the period of sacrifice to ten months.’

    The expression ‘dasa maso ataran’  indicates, for Sri Aurobindo, that the Angirasa Seers might have some difficulty to get through this extra time/month and to increase their powers, because the Sons of Darkness also had powers and were very likely to use them to assault the Sages  or actually stop the sacrifice, the journey. But Ayasya, companion to the Navagwas did become universal, did embrace the births in all the worlds. Ayasya ’…brought into being this fourth world  or four-fold world, which must be the supramental beyond the three lower sessions…’ (Ibid).  Sri Aurobindo concludes, ‘We begin now to unravel the knot of this Vedic journey’.

End Note 3:

In 2015, in an article titled, Those Unsettling New Paradigms,  ‘Thea explains  Al Biruni’s undermining of the Vedas:

‘…Al Biruni’s Mansions of the Moon divides the zodiac circle into 27 parts based on the mean daily motion of the Moon which is 13.20 degrees. Moving through the circle cumulatively, from 0 degree through to the 360th, each point where this measure falls is called a ‘critical degree’. Any competent astrologer knows that when a planet is located on one of those degrees, whatever that planet represents will play a prominent role in the individual’s life.

Unfortunately Nirayanis, who call themselves by the misnomer Vedic Astrologers, carried the matter further – because there is a secret agenda behind this rise of thought in India. Muslim invaders, their own history records, destroyed thousands of temples across the land because of the role temples stepped in to play during the Puranic Age to preserve the Veda. But there was a far more insidious attack in the wings, with the potential of bringing the Sanatana Dharma to an end as it was known in the Vedic Age.

The simple yet potent device was 1) to do away with the Veda’s foundational language of the zodiac itself, whether  tropical or sidereal, and pari passu 2) to destroy the cosmic connection India had enjoyed from time immemorial (see the Capricorn symbol-map); indeed, to disengage the cosmic wheel from the true Zero Point (ayanamsha), the start of the ‘journey’, as it was called in the Rig Veda, on the Aries equinox of 21 March each year.

This was cleverly done by insisting on measuring in the wrong circle, and claiming, as Al Biruni had advocated centuries earlier and the Nirayanis continue to proclaim: Aries has shifted, it has moved on; it is no longer there (at the March equinoctial point). ‘The solstice has kept its place but the constellations have migrated, just the very opposite of what Vahara has fancied,’ he wrote (India, II, p.7). With this Al Biruni plants the undermining seed of a shifting zodiac, erroneously equated with and measured in the sidereal sphere.

There is what is called the Cardinal Cross in the tropical zodiac. It is composed of four signs, Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. They are the equinoxes and solstices. Therefore an intrinsic part of the constitution of Aries is the thrust of energy as in the gunaic mode of Rajas, or Creation of the fundamental trinity Creation, Preservation, Dissolution. Actually Aries does not ‘exist’ disconnected from the March equinox; similarly with the others on the Rajas/Creation cross. So, to claim, as Al Biruni did, that while the solstice remained in place the constellations (zodiac) have moved away from the zodiacal connection with the Cardinal Cross, reveals a basic ignorance of the cosmic harmony. What is extraordinary is that no pundit, to my knowledge, rose up and refuted his claim. This is the crux of the Nirayana system Hindus follow, this claim that a ‘shift’ has taken place and therefore periodic ‘corrections’ must be made to accommodate it…’

End Note 4:

‘… The outer three planets describe the pressures we are experiencing and their necessity. Clearly a new order is in the making; but the most difficult moment is the one we are passing through right now – the transition stage. We look over our shoulders at what is collapsing behind us, but there is as yet no clear vision of what lies ahead, and how to get there. The outer planets are opened to our perception precisely in order to serve as signposts or torches lighting the path ahead.

In a perception based on Oneness, our contemporary travails would make little sense without the extension or expansion of our solar system to the eye of humankind. It is important to note that until the last planet, Pluto, came into view the Hindu astrologer was correct in refusing to entertain the notion of restructuring a system that was until then serving him well. As I wrote in Beyond Contemporary Scientific Paradigms, the process of creation – or what must be described as a manifestation from ‘the other side’ and into the materiality of this universe of 9 – is precisely a triadic enfolding. The compaction then begins to expand or evolve on this side in quanta of 3s. Until the full triad is known – i.e. discovered, sighted, ‘seen’ – it is of little use and can be set aside in attendance on a further development to complete the triadic pattern.

We see this triadic process expressed not only in Number but also in the manner in which we record time – as in the current universal calendar. I present below a chart with the time of discovery and the respective positions in the tropical zodiac of the triad in question. A pattern emerges that in itself becomes proof of what I sustain regarding not only the triadic necessity, but how the entire process can be understood/ revealed only with the addition of the last item of the equation. When that takes place we know that the time has come for integration to be possible.

We also know that the wholeness of the trinity demands a certain expansion of consciousness if we are to benefit from the new energies that are released into our system; hence the need for a certain pressure  to discard what cannot be accommodated in the new Order to make room for the often unexpected twists and turns that are sure to be experienced during the transition phase…’

From: Symbols and the Question of Unity (1974, 2020, 2nd ed) and The Gnostic Circle 1975, 2019 4th ed.)

See References for full article: Thea, When the Measure Reaches 9: Updating by Triads, May/June 2013

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Related Books: Planet Earth, in the Age of Aquarius

References: Planet Earth, in the Age of Aquarius

About Skambha

Aeon Centre of Cosmology (ACC), (situated on the land known as Skambha,) was established in 1986 near Perumalmalai in the Palani Hills of Tamil Nadu, South India, by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea). The Centre ‒ 18 km below the tourist area of Kodaikanal ‒ stretches across acres

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