Vedic Symbol of the Universe – Part 3.3

The Horse as an example in the Gnostic Circle application

        ‘The three powers which present themselves

to our life as the three keys to its mystery are the

individual, the cosmic entity and the Reality present

in both and beyond them. These three mysteries of

existence would find in the life of the supramental

being a united fulfilment of their harmony…’

Sri Aurobindo

 The Life Divine

 

 In a cosmological process bearing an impact on the evolution of consciousness on this planet, affecting its higher species in a significant way, there are two aspects to the formation of the mechanism that is able to bring this about. We have first the formation of a ‘centre’ on the basis of a harmony of a threefold nature: the OM of the mechanism, to borrow the Vedic terminology. Three energy modes must be compressed into the Zero for a centre to come into being. This action is on the order of a contracting movement or direction. Pressure is thus exerted in order for this Zero/Centre to emerge.

 In a given situation for a ‘cosmos’ in formation, there is a particular boundary to be respected. Within that a certain quantity of energy is contained. In the early stages of the process those energies come to bear a pressure on the components of the nucleus so that it is purged of any contamination which would impede the future manifestation of the inner truth of that ‘seed’. Thus, for a given period until maturity is reached, or a critical threshold is crossed in time, the element or elements to be involved or compressed in the Zero are the target of the pressure for the purpose of extirpating any impurities which the ego inflicts, given its binary and not unitary condition.

We are describing here the method placed at the disposal of seekers to affect a real and not illusory transformation of society, based on a principle which applies to the individual as well as to the collectivity as a whole. This method is devised to bring about a shift from the actual binary status of the human race to a unitary structure which then alters entirely the conditions of collective living on Earth.

The first major effect of such a shift is the factor of a spherical as opposed to a linear progression. And the immediate change this brings into our affairs is that we can no long speak of evolution to describe this progression. When the shift is made the growth process undergoes a notable change: it is then a flowering from a central ‘seed’ in all directions simultaneously. In the old creation the movement has been linear. This means that one sets out from one point to reach another, in a linear direction rather than spherical. In such a condition nothing can be ‘predicted’. We are in a relative world of probables, only because anywhere along the trajectory ‘possibilities’ which are ‘unpredictable’ can enter or penetrate the environment of the system, introducing an indeterminate equation.

In a spherical growth process this is not possible since the movement is from the centre outward, – a movement of expansion from a central point. That is, what is contained in that seed is impelled from within by the power of time to develop its inherent potential or character into a predetermined element. Conditions encountered in the course of that manifestation can play upon that seed/centre, but not significantly enough to alter entirely its essential content, for reasons I will discuss anon.

Indeed, this describes only a part of the process – the emergence of a centre disconnected from the circle’s periphery; or the field in which the manifestation arises. In the last instalment of our Horse Saga, I discussed at length the Mother’s narration of her penetration into a centre, a compaction of time and space BEFORE the critical threshold had been crossed to bring into being extension or expansion of what had been compacted. Therefore there was no ‘goal’, no ‘purpose’, to quote the Mother. Indeed, no movement essential for these components to express themselves. What I am describing in these pages is precisely the next stage after compaction. While describing the creation of a centre (which the Mother explored), I am also carrying the discussion further to the creation of a new cosmos, the extension of that centre/seed. This would be the method that ensures us of a means to utilise this initial experiment for the transformation of society. In these pages I am able to offer a very minute, detailed description and analysis of the process which will be the model for a new world to come into being.

Thus, in a spherical progression there is a notable difference with the linear evolution of the old creation. In the first place, the question of ‘improbables’ and ‘unpredictabilities’ ceases to pertain. Indeed, if we penetrate into that seed/space we will be able to foresee the precise lines of development because we know that out of the seed of a tree we cannot expect a rose to emerge. The question would then be, How to penetrate this recondite space from where the lines of destiny are drawn?

But this too is only the first step. It involves the formation of a centre. Thereafter, a further stage presents the necessity to organise the field wherein this seed-essence is to take shape. The necessity for this further stage is obvious in that the periphery, or the field, can distort or influence negatively the contents of the seed unless a method arises which ensures it a terrain congenial to its innermost truth.

 

Definition of an Axis and the functions of a Field

 

There are two functions of the field. One is to create pressure so that the centre in formation is purified of all ego elements, – i.e., the characteristics of the binary creation; and this is an action of compression, a pressing in upon the centre from all sides, as it were; and second, when that centre is finally forged an AXIS arises based on the harmonisation of the two converging directions, contraction and expansion. The axis then allows for the real and true transformation of that particular field. Without the axis no such transformation is possible since the centre holds the periphery to itself by virtue of the converging lines which arise from itself, the extension of which is an axis. The axis is then steadied by this centrality. Energy wraps around itself due to a reversal brought about by the power of time, a turning around itself as it were. And this is the definition of an axis in the new cosmology. Its composition, measurement, the extension of its ‘influence’, or holding power, and its power to organise, are determined by the centre itself and the spherical boundaries of which it lies at the heart. The axis will be proportionate to this measurement. An individual’s soul-power, in common parlance, would determine the measure of one’s axis and consequent ‘influence’. In the terms of this new cosmology we refer to it as ‘mass’.

In the second phase, once the centre has been forged on the basis of pressures on an uncontaminated balance of triune energies, the field can be dealt with and transformed. Until that time there is no question of a transformation of the field. And yet the field is an integral part of the cosmos and is utilised in full for its processes. Before the centre is forged, however, the field is utilised only to create conditions whereby the centre is purified and the harmony of its parts comes into being. That is, the question of its own purification or transformation does not arise. Hence we say that in this stage of the process both POSITIVE and NEGATIVE serve the purposes of the One.

The service rendered by the energies of the field, or the periphery, is invaluable in this early stage. Without those energies organised to create conditions for purification and emergence of a true centre, nothing could be accomplished. The very notion of a centre itself arises from the compression of the Transcendent Divine into the immanence of Itself. It is this ‘seed’ that lies at the root of all Being. On this basis, the divine Purpose, or the One, attracts to itself the energies or elements necessary for its emergence at the heart of a nucleus formed of the triune energies which are its vehicle of extension or expression in a material creation. In this early stage the centre has only sufficient ‘mass’ to attract or contract upon itself the energies within the boundary of the emerging cosmos; and these are utilised to bring about the proper alignment WITHIN THE CENTRE so that its future manifestation is secured on the basis of a superior cosmic harmony. It is only when this alignment of energies is complete within itself that the compression becomes inverted, as it were, and the reversal brings into existence an axis. Thus the first step is the creation of a true centre at the heart of the emerging cosmos of an as yet untransformed field.

However, if we leave the field to the Ignorance indefinitely, or to its ineluctable fate of collapse, there would be no means to transform conditions on Earth so that a new creation can replace the old. The present impasse is an evolution caving in on itself. Destruction is overpowering and threatens to engulf the creative energies and bring about a cataclysmic pralaya, to use the Vedic terminology. When we state that it is growth of the light in the Core which dispels the darkness and conquers more and more of the field now under the rule of the Lord of Ignorance and Falsehood, we mean that after reversal the axis comes into being which can then bring order into the periphery for its purification. It too must be brought into the Harmony as an integral part, an integrated part of the full transformation.

To provide an example, Eve’s latest accident, timed to halt before she had even begun any participation in the summer season of racing under the banner of Gog’s stable, was the latest in a series of pressures exerted by the play of circumstances proper to the action of the field. These pressures converge on the elements of the nucleus given its restricted ‘mass’ to bring about the correct alignment and balance of its energies. Whatever is not properly aligned must be pressured, by the compulsions of the nucleus in formation, to re-align and form a true and pure and integrated component of the central harmony of the Seed.

In the last issue, I reproduced a chapter from Sri Aurobindo’s collection of essays entitled, The Mother. The process of purification and correct alignment he describes therein refers to the individual’s poise vis-à-vis the Divine Mother. He did not describe the next stage when the individual must become integrated into a supramental process or yoga for the harmony of the One and the Many, or the Being and the Becoming. This latter has become possible only after the Supramental Manifestation of 1956, and the accelerated movement of the process from 1971 to the present. Nonetheless, the lines of the yoga Sri Aurobindo enumerates, the stages in the individual transformation are the same for the collective experience. The centre/axis is the same. Indeed, when an individual accomplishes this transformation, he/she can then serve as a spark around which another cosmos is formed and the process is extended into ever wider spheres, or draws into its circumference more and more energies to be realigned.

With this understanding of the larger lines of the Yoga, we can analyse the particulars of this Horse Saga, dramatic as they often have been, in the light of these larger questions of the cosmos in formation which are sought to be elaborated in this analysis. All the elements of the tri-part nucleus were under relentless pressure engendered by the play of energies in the field to bring them into alignment for the establishment of a nucleus, out of which the whole experience would then evolve as an intrinsic component for the wider transformation. Eve’s accident at the very start of the race, – nay, before even the race had begun – made riding for Gog impossible in that new summer season, due to a carefully controlled happening, unpleasant as it was, in order to exert pressure on the consciousness of this particular element to bring it into a proper alignment. But this was only the first in a series of unusual and unexpected happenings, all ‘serving the purposes of the One’.

 

Precision of the Triads

 

As students of the New Way know, I have allotted the action of reversal to the 4.5 Orbit in the Gnostic Circle. The reasons for this are obvious, given that it marks the mid-point in the circles of 9 and 12 which constitute this design. I have also connected the One, or the birth of the Son, fourth in the line, to that same location, the 4.5 Orbit. Indeed, the reversal is what allows the immanent Transcendent to cross the Zero threshold, after compression, and enter the material universe as the Point, or the One, fulfilling thereby the formula 9/6/3/0-1. The essence of that Point, or the One, is what I have called the divine Purpose. In other words, this ‘principle’, or first Cause, lies at the heart of everything we can perceive in this material creation, since from that Origin in the One the universe had its being.

But the multiplication of that Seed, so to speak, depends upon the power of time in space, and hence movement which is regulated by time. The Horse as symbol of this movement is therefore known as a form of Agni, first of the Gods in the Vedic pantheon, and carrier or vahana of Usha, the divine Dawn. It is this symbol that becomes the thing symbolised in our saga as the vehicle of that One, or that divine Purpose. As stated, this emergence is the product of passage over the 4.5 Orbit. In other words, once the midway mark is crossed, the higher hemisphere of the circle is entered on the basis of a new principle of fullness due to the birth of the One which has filled the zero-void.

This was the first condition in the ancient Vedic realisation of Immortality. In our saga the translation of that condition is as mathematical and exact as everything else has been in the fulfilment of the divine Purpose we are called upon to carry forward.

To illustrate, there is a lower and a higher hemisphere, each composed of six signs of the zodiac. In turn, these signs correspond to one of the three energy flows, rajas, sattva, tamas; or, cardinal, fixed, and mutable, as these ‘qualities’ are known in  astrology. The signs of the higher hemisphere which begin right at the 4.5 Orbit of the Asteroid Belt, or the 7th zodiacal sign, Libra, is illustrated below:

 

 

I had pointed out earlier that the fillies by their dates of birth covered the three energy flows: F1 as rajas or cardinal; F2 as tamas or mutable; and F3 as sattva or fixed. Their positions are indicated in the above illustration. Left out, it can be noted, are the remaining three signs of the higher hemisphere, Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Capricorn. Interestingly, and true to the exactitude of this new cosmology, owner, trainer and jockey, by their birthdates, do indeed complete this zodiacal/Gnostic Circle mosaic with trainer born in Scorpio, jockey in Sagittarius, and owner in Capricorn. Therefore, these six elements cover the entire higher hemisphere, entered into after passage over the 4.5 Orbit, in this precise manner.

It would have been quite possible and not so extraordinary a circumstance for the fillies to cover the three energy modes since most Thoroughbred births occur in the early  months of the year. Covering of broodmares is done to ensure birth as close to the start of the year as possible in order to have the advantage of a few months of extra growth with respect to the other equine competitors who might have been born later in the year. Mares are not covered before mid-February and after mid-July, at the latest. The gestation period of the foal being eleven months, this late covering would mean birth in June, perhaps 5 months later than the early foals and hence place the new-born at a disadvantage for racing.

If F1 had not been ‘unplanned’ and her birth ‘unexpected’, she might have easily fulfilled the triune formula by birth in January, let us say, under the sign Capricorn which is also Rajas or cardinal, similar to her actual birth sign, Libra. But had that been the case, we would have had a doubling of Capricorn and the design, covering the entire higher hemisphere, would have been disturbed. Libra would have been missing.

It is needless to point out that considerable ‘strategy’ and ‘pre-planning’ was required for the successful composition of this mosaic, involving births strung out over numerous decades of this century, starting in 1938, up to 1992 and the birth of F3. Within these 54 years, or 6 x 9, six births took place, all connected, all destined to converge at a given moment in time to fulfil the commands of the Supramental Shakti in the predetermined roles she had devised for each one in this new cosmic process.

But the ‘coincidences’ do not stop there. F3 was indeed the third in the line of fillies, and her birth took place precisely in a year of 3 number-power, 1992(=3). With that, the 54 year cycle of 6 x 9 passages through the Gnostic Circle was completed. But then there came a 4th in 1993, or a year of 4 number-power. The birth of this colt, fourth in the line, fulfilled the formula of 9/6/3/0-1, with the birth of the One as the ‘son’, after the compression of the three components of the Zero. And this did indeed take place in the 55th year from 1938, or the 1 after 54. The details of his participation, as well as that of his sister before him, await the fulfilment of time’s mysterious ‘purpose’.

 

Precision of Time and Number: the Supramental Manifestation

 

We learn by this divergence into these cosmic patterns on the backdrop of the Gnostic Circle, that the destiny ties of all the protagonists of this saga were decreed and simply awaited a ripening of Time to unfold. We learn also that there is a controlling Power operating in the universe to fulfil this destiny-pattern and arrange circumstances to allow these patterns to play themselves out. Further, we learn that the basic formula of our cosmology, 9/6/3/0-1, is a solid foundation of the new gnosis Sri Aurobindo prophesied would descend, and that ever so many aspects of this emerging cosmos are bound to the lines of this formula and harmony in time. To explain why this is so I will reproduce a narration of the Mother, recorded on 5 February 1969, in which she describes the exact, unmistakable formula of the new cosmology which was only to be revealed several years after her ‘seeing’, in 1971, to be precise. She describes the existence of the two ‘lines’ of our cosmology, their composition and intrinsic qualities, essence and function. She describes the principles to which they apply. She speaks of the role of ‘planets’, or ‘number’, all with her usual impeccable clairvoyance, – nay, her power of revelation. More than that, for the operation she describes was not simply a seeing of the lines of a new cosmic formula, she insists that these ‘numbers’ and the patterns which she arranged or organised, had POWER, a power of realisation and actualisation. (Translated from the French, L’Agenda de Mere, Volume 10, first published 1981):

 

…I remember a vision I had during the night where I was doing a work with numbers, and I was putting them – the numbers and groups of numbers – I was putting them in a certain position…

It is associated with groups of people everywhere, groups of people who are spread throughout the world and in connection with…which planet? Planets? I don’t know. And I remember that I told myself (all of this during the night, not in the waking state), I told myself while I was making this arrangement…I still see the arrangement of numbers that I was doing, which were entirely living – the numbers were living things – these groups of numbers that I was arranging like this…(the Mother seems to be moving pieces in a puzzle). You were there and I was telling you that when it is like this (the Mother indicates a certain arrangement) it expressed a certain thing, and when it was like that (another arrangement of the puzzle) it expressed something else. And at the same time I was saying: ‘It not only expresses, it has the power to realise that thing.’

All of that (the Mother makes a gesture behind her head, as if to indicate a memory behind)…it is there somewhere. And it was in connection with groups of people in different parts of the world.

And it was…Yes,…it was the expression ‘in numbers’ of the application to life in a coming realisation: a future life, but not too far ahead; for example, in the approaching centenary (Sri Aurobindo’s centenary, 1971-72) which is starting now.

 

The Mother’s vision was so exact that not only was she able to describe the role of Number in the ‘realisation to come’, she even gave the correct time frame. That is, 1971, or the beginning of Sri Aurobindo’s centenary year, for that was precisely when the Formula based on this mysterious ‘arrangement of numbers’ was revealed. The Mother continues:

 

     So, it was probably that that stayed in my memory and which left the impression that I had to tell you something. But the arrangement of numbers, I still see it. I spent a long time – long, arranging these numbers, long.

A truer application, more universal, and with a spiritual knowledge: the principle of the position and utilisation of individuals on Earth. I don’t know why, this interested you. You were with me, with that arrangement of numbers, and I was showing you (the same gesture of moving pieces of a puzzle)…Two columns here and a column there. But living columns: it was not on paper – not on paper but in the air. I don’t know how to explain that, it was in the air and I was arranging, I was moving these numbers about like this (same gesture). And these were LIVING numbers, not writing on paper.

There were groups of numbers (the Mother tries to remember). Yes, there were two groups of numbers: one was blue, dark blue, and the other was golden yellow, and (How to say?) it was not masculine-feminine, but it was the two principles – the principle…not of the creation but of the conception (gesture of a descent from above) and the principle of realisation.

 

Students of the New Way and this new cosmology can recognise instantly that the Mother was describing the Solar and Lunar Lines, the former of the colour of the Sun, golden yellow, and the latter the colour of night, dark blue. She also specifies the function of these Lines, or ‘columns of numbers’, as she describes them, in that to one she attributes conception, and to the other realisation. I have often referred to the ‘inspirational’ quality of the Solar Line and which is indeed a ‘descent’, as the Mother indicated by her gesture in this regard; while the Lunar Line was the actualising power. This was made evident in the details provided in The New Way of the application of this new number-power with the Solar Line, starting with Sri Aurobindo, as the creative principle inspiring and initiating a certain action which the Lunar Line of the Nehru-Gandhi family actualised on the political stage of India. But this ‘formula’, as we have seen in this Horse Saga, is found present or repeated in any process where that same supramental action is to be found. Or, as I have described it, where a new cosmos must come into being, based on which the transformation can take place.

In addition, the Mother’s knowledge of what was to be revealed in great detail within a very short time of her vision was so remarkable that she specified the nature of ‘principles’ these Lines encompassed, and that it was not ‘feminine-masculine’, but ‘conception’ and ‘realisation’. The point to be noted here is that since it is a question of TWO lines, the usual description would be in terms of masculine and feminine, since this is the manner in which a dual system is always defined, – for example, Yin and Yang of the Chinese tradition, or Purush and Prakriti of the Indian. But this definition does not hold in the new Gnosis. Something entirely different is in the process of becoming established. The Mother made this clear when she clarified what ‘principles’ these ‘columns of numbers’ corresponded to. It is the little details, the elusive nuances such as these in the Mother’s narration of her experiences, which place them out of the category of ordinary mystical and spiritual perceptions and realisations, and into a dimension far beyond anything we have come to understand as ‘higher knowledge’. What the Mother is here describing is the foundation of the new supramental Gnosis. The proof is that this ‘arrangement’ is found again and again in this cosmic process out of which the new creation arises.

 

I am totally conscious when I do that. It is not a dream (I do not sleep in the normal sense, I am as if asleep, but I am not sleeping); and I do not ‘dream’. I DO, I ACT, I am fully conscious, the same as in the waking state – not dreaming…I was explaining to you how all those numbers were organised and that they determined future happenings.

 

I have often referred to the Supramental Shakti as the ‘power’ organising the often spectacular and even the sometimes unpleasant details of our saga, with a perfection of detail and a uniqueness of imagination and ‘strategy’ not encountered in ordinary mental processes and actualisations. The Mother is revealing her role in this arrangement in that she specifically states that she DOES, she ACTS, in the subtle realm where these ‘arrangements’ are brought about. It is this power of the Mother that I have been referring to; and indeed, she does use ‘number’, as measured in our calendar time with its related number-power, to express and REALISE that harmony of a higher order which we are privileged to witness and be a part of. Further on, we shall see how very accurate her utilisation of number through time has been, when the saga reaches a culmination in which number-power was central.

 

      When I wake up, rather when I get up and start my activities, it goes, – it ‘goes’, not that it stops: it stays in its world. And it is only now, because you are present, that it comes into contact with my memory.

This lasted several hours. It was not the ‘conception of a work’. It was the work itself…as if there were knobs and things which one moves, and this made it start working (the Mother indicates a large control board). Something like that, but not that at all! It was the organisation of those groups of numbers which determined events and the ORDER of events (above all the order of the events) and the location on Earth…

 

In this manner the Mother expresses the relation to Time of this formula, or ‘arrangement of numbers’. She is quite specific: it is the ORDER of the events that this ‘organisation’ set in motion which was of prime importance. Coupled with the location on Earth. This is the harmonisation of time and space in the new cosmology.

 

     I do not sleep but I am active, absolutely active in the… (the Mother tries to situate the zone of her activity)…what is being prepared to manifest on Earth. I do not know if it should be called the ‘subtle physical’, or…It is the creative zone of the physical. That is it. And then, since I cannot move about from one place to another, what I do is connected to numbers like that – living numbers.

 

In other words, the Mother is explaining the role of what I call number-power; that is, numbers become vahanas, or carriers of force with the special quality of order added.

 

     …Living numbers: I organise them, I group them together; and I remember what I did the night before, and then I say, ‘No, yesterday it was like that, now it must be like this.’ And with the knowledge that tomorrow another change must be made. And that is what determines the events. But the consciousness (the waking consciousness, or the ordinary consciousness) must not know what is decided there. It must only know a small portion, what is necessary for the execution. For this reason there is a break: it continues to live there (gesture behind her head) but it doesn’t pass through.

 

This is an interesting point the Mother makes because it has often perplexed disciples that she appeared not to know what was to take place, when they expected her to be omniscient of every circumstance. In our work as well, there has often been what seemed to be a deliberate, willed, and sometimes exasperating ‘silence’, or ‘veil’ hanging over the events. One felt them there, just behind the veil; and that everything was controlled and prearranged, and therefore should easily be perceived or foreseen. But this unknowing, it has since been revealed, and confirmed by the Mother herself, is an intrinsic part of the unfolding insofar as spontaneity and plasticity are key elements of this supramental process.

 

      It is only because I had taken the decision to tell you about it that I could recall it. Though I see, now I see the numbers and therefore I can describe them, they have no meaning for me. And I am not sure if they are numbers or letters…It was numbers, I know they are numbers: there were golden and blue numbers (but not our material colours; they were neither of our substance nor of our material colours). And I was always arranging them, one group like this, another like that; and I was choosing. It is curious. I must have been very big because the numbers were big, and I was taking them and placing them on this large surface. As they were placed this made a communication and it organised events in the immediate future.

I know I do this every night, but this night there was a sort of aspiration in the body to know what the functioning, the action of the Superman Consciousness would be. It is not enough to have this Consciousness around one like a rampart; it is necessary to know what the changes will be in the body’s functioning and in the work, in the way it works.

Then this experience with numbers came as a response to teach me somewhat how it will be. But it is curious, I was doing this just like they do with those big electrical machines with all sorts of knobs…I moved them around…Only I think I must have been a bit bigger than I am, I don’t know. In any case, I was placing these objects…They weren’t objects, they were something…But it was something fixed in form – it was fixed – and there was like a reserve not a store room (I don’t know what to call it), a reserve where I placed these things, then I put them, arranged them like that. And there was an arrangement which was continuous in the whole but with changes in the details.

 

At this point, the disciple interrupts to speak of his idea of the ‘downfall of science’, as he perceives it, missing the point entirely, it would appear, of what the Mother was explaining so carefully. He continues pressing his point about the ‘downfall of science’ without realising (or hearing) that the Mother was not describing a collapse but rather a creative process of something essential to Sri Aurobindo’s work. Indeed, in a footnote to his interjections, he even refers to his book, The Mind of the Cells (1980) which he considers to be the answer to the ‘problem’. Though I have not seen the publication, I feel certain that nothing of this experience of the Mother’s with Number found its way into his book, though from this narration it appears that she was seeking to guide him on the correct path of discovery. (It was this same disciple who failed as well to understand the implications of the plan the Mother gave him of the inner chamber of her Temple, with all its consequences.)

The point to be made is that few among the Mother’s disciples were able to appreciate that the new cosmology was an exact formulation of this ‘functioning of the Superman Consciousness’, just as she has described it. Moreover, and no doubt this is what made the disciple take her experience lightly and press his own point, he undoubtedly considered that what she was describing was ‘symbolic’ and therefore ‘up there’ and could be transcribed here below in a language and form more suited to his mentality, and indeed to the reigning perception of spirituality where symbols are abstracts and relative and therefore of little value in the true experience. The Mother returns to the narration of her own experience, determined, it would seem, to convey the message.

 

      It must be an activity of that Consciousness (of the Superman) because it is not something I have been doing for long. Last night I knew I was doing it regularly, every night, but not as of a long time. It must have come with the arrival of that Consciousness (1.1.1969).

I should also say that yesterday (when I was in the ordinary consciousness) there were two things: I thought of you and I said to myself, there was something that wanted me to know how that Force (of the Superman) works on you; it was in reply to this that I saw you last night and I was explaining the way it functions; and you were participating consciously; that is, you understood perfectly well what I was doing. You were consciously participating.

 

(The disciple): But it is strange, it is not at all ‘me’: it is really as if I am being pushed toward this problem, the solution of this problem (the downfall of science). Why? I do not know.

 

Yes, that vision was like the application of scientific methods but totally different. It was based only on…Not thought, not reasoning, nothing of that. It was a FORCE which did this (gesture of a descent imposing itself), as it always is, and it CAUSED action. I was looking; I was seeing, I knew what had to be done, and I wasn’t thinking at all but I could explain why. That is, I could say in advance that this was for such and such a thing.

It was the combination of the two colours of numbers (perhaps this was the translation in my mind…anyway), the blue numbers and the golden numbers. The priority for action was always with the golden, and the blue were there as if to fill in a hole…

But it has a strong action; that is, it COMMANDS action on Earth, but not in a submissive way, connected to something below which holds it. It is like this (gesture of a descent imposing itself). And it constantly receives the WILL or the POWER of action from above. Not ‘from above’. It is not ‘above’. It is… (the Mother makes a sort of gesture signifying that it is ‘inside everywhere’). ‘Superior’ in the true sense of the word.

And the body RECEIVES these things…Suddenly it felt the need to know how the functioning of this Consciousness would be. And then for you I thought, ‘When and how does this atmosphere work?’ And that is why I had this experience…it was to draw my attention to the fact that I needed to know. Strange…

 

Clearly the need to have this experience recorded corresponded to the necessity to leave a record of the ‘unorthodox’ workings of the Supramental Shakti. To date disciples have not accepted the Mother’s unusual experience as just what she declared it to be: the functioning of the Supramental Consciousness, working through two ‘lines’, Solar and Lunar, or golden and dark blue in colour; and that these ‘lines’ worked through number as POWER, revealed in the formula 9/6/3/0-1. Moreover, this number-power created a superior ORDER, and it was responsible for future events based on this characteristic ORDER.

This indeed has been the case. In the Horse Saga we are revealing the precision with which this Consciousness can express the intricate details of this formula in the midst of an ordinary and unknowing field of activity, very far removed, it would appear, from the world of the Spirit. For if the descent of a power has been prophesied which would transform life on Earth, and that this power is unlike anything known in spirituality to date for its perfection of detail and therefore the ability to alter conditions even in the most material dimension, on the way to a total transformation of the physical itself, then the Power itself must arrange for a means to establish the proof of its activity within the boundaries of the Knowledge it has consolidated for this purpose. This proof has come through the unexpected and unorthodox field of Thoroughbred horse racing. Certainly a most unlikely ‘field’ for the revelations of the Supramental Shakti.

Nonetheless, unorthodox or not, this has been the prearranged laboratory of our work in this most important ennead of the century, and perhaps of the millennium itself: 1989-98.

 

Pressures with a ‘purpose’

                                    

The news of Eve’s accident reached me just before my return to India. When I arrived in Madras in the very early hours of the 20th May, I set out from the airport for Bangalore to see for myself what the situation was for both Eve and the three fillies. The news I was receiving abroad was not good. Eve’s accident was the last in a series which caused me concern about the future of our racing experience, not to speak of the cosmological process. The idea that by virtue of the ‘contract’ Eve would finally be based in Bangalore with all her material needs taken care of and thus be in a position to exercise and race my horses had, at least for the summer season, proved to be a chimera. Indeed, her accident confirmed certain misgivings I had about this seemingly fortuitous turn of events: we had, as I had perceived, taken into the heart of our endeavour energies which perhaps we were not in a position to handle adequately, given our own unstable condition.

Once in Bangalore I realised just how unstable our nuclear base was, and how far we were from any real consolidation of our team. Eve, though sporting a cast and unable to ride, was nonetheless complying with the terms of her contract which included supervision of the shoeing of Gog’s horses, insofar as his trainer was not proficient in this aspect of equine care, similar to almost all trainers. Eve, on the other hand, was an expert in this matter, having had to attend to the shoeing of her own horses for many years. But this was clearly overstepping the normal duties of a jockey. The trainer considered this an infringement of his position and resented it deeply. There was, in addition, the resentment of the stable’s veterinarian to contend with, who, for his own reasons, disapproved of Eve’s presence in their midst and not restricted to the track. Gog expected Eve to sort out these problems, or at least to keep him informed of what was transpiring in his stables.

This produced an untenable situation. Apart from the unusual nature of the demands for a jockey, lowest in the rung of the racing hierarchy, there was the fact that this was a woman seeking to carry out these unconventional duties; and that brought its own measure of resentment.

Thus, when I reached Bangalore I found Eve completely swamped by these concerns, with no ‘space’ left for our work together. Her contract still prevailed; it had been agreed upon for a year, – i.e., until March of 1995. Therefore she had no major material worries. But the negative happenings in her new environment served to involve her even more in the polluted atmosphere of Gog’s operations. She was carrying this atmosphere with her constantly and spoke of little else, even though the accident kept her from her main duty as a jockey.

To compound the difficulties, the word was going around that she was ‘accident prone’. Certainly this did not seem to be an exaggeration given the fact that she had had two accidents within a brief 7½ months of each other, and all within the space of her very first year in racing. Gog was as convinced of this propensity as everyone else and seems to have consulted his astrologer on the matter. Perhaps it was on his advice that no sooner had Eve been put out of action than it came to light Gog had secretly contracted to bring another jockey from abroad to ride his horses. Eve was thus relegated to second place, when she would be able to ride again, though the terms of her contract were otherwise. On my part, just before her first accident in Mysore on September 22, 1993 (see TVN, 8/5, December 1993), I suddenly and for no apparent reason became curious about Eve’s horoscope. What I saw did indeed indicate accidents (and had she already not had numerous  while riding her own horses over the years?). However, together with this difficult planetary configuration there were several other exceptional aspects indicating a divine protection over her. As well, knowing the Power guiding our affairs and the supramental ‘control’ over everything connected to our cosmological experience together, I felt confident that the positive would override the negative. With Gog advising Eve to ‘consult an astrologer’, it seemed, however, that we were headed for a battle of the Stars!

Certainly to all appearances Gog’s astrologer was the one to follow; and Eve would have to live with the situation of having exercised his horses for two months in preparation for the new season, only to have ‘fate’ intervene and see another jockey step in and reap the benefits of what she had laboriously sown.

But the accident also served to keep Eve off my own fillies. This may have been a blessing in disguise since the negative atmosphere she was carrying with her at all times due to her involvement with Gog’s problems would not have helped our own endeavour.

As for Adam, who had moved to Bangalore exactly at the 4.5 passage of his 3l.5th year, nothing in his comportment gave me hope that our team was taking shape as anticipated. We were indeed gathered together in one spot physically, but not in spirit. Each one seemed wrapped in a sort of cocoon; the isolation was palpable. Added to the focus on egocentric concerns, heightened by the general insecurity of the situation, there was the factor of a strengthening of the binary polarity they brought to the affair, almost as a protective device. I found this polarity far more entrenched on my return than ever before. There was only one area which offered some solace: with Eve based in Bangalore I at least had a source of information regarding the condition and care of the fillies.

Indeed, this was the area of greatest shock on my return. F3 was in a deteriorated state. She had been put on a diet in order to reduce her size, which was enormous for a 2-year old, by any standards. Her feed ration had been reduced even before I left for my trip. Sensing the filly’s resentment over this fact, coupled with the aggravation of finding herself stabled for at least 20 hours of the day when at Skambha she enjoyed many hours of free roaming in the paddock, I ordered an increase in her feed and a constant supply of freshly cut Lucerne (alfalfa). Eve was to call in at the stables, next to Gog’s for convenience sake, to assure that this increase was maintained while I was away. I could not rely on the new trainer since he absented himself continuously from Bangalore and left the care of all his horses to an assistant. In addition, this was summer in the subcontinent. The heat of Bangalore was another shock to F3’s system; in particular the dust on the track was a problem insofar as rains would come only at the end of May to relieve the condition. This had produced a chronic cough which made it necessary to keep her confined and which, in turn, aggravated her boredom and despair over this ‘boarding school’ she had been sent to. She made her disapproval known to me every time I visited her. Being an excellent eater, the worst ‘punishment’, as far as she was concerned, was the decrease in food.

On the other hand, F1 and F2 had spent the time I was abroad at Skambha and when back at the track they were in far better shape than their sister. F2 had benefited the most since this was her first ‘return to the source’ from the beginning of her training in July of 1992. It served to change her outlook entirely. She was, as I have written earlier, a transformed creature. An impressive one-pointed determination, which was her main feature from the beginning of her career and characterised her input to our endeavour, was reinforced. If there was any hope of success it seemed to be centred on her. But there was still her physical condition to contend with, and this left a question mark over her future as a race horse. Her lung bleeding had been treated at Skambha and she had been given workouts up and down the mountains to strengthen her cardiovascular system. But we were not sure yet if the bleeding would return once she was put into fast work on the track. The new trainer and I decided to proceed slowly, not pressing her more than we felt she could sustain for the time being.

Adam, for whom I had arranged a place in the new trainer’s stable and whom I hoped would take a keen interest in the fillies, was closed in a strange dimension of himself. He had brought with him only one horse from his stables in Madras, his favourite gelding who was given permission to ride in the summer season in Bangalore and who had been entered in a forthcoming sweepstakes for sprinters. All this attention was thus centred on the preparation of this horse for that race, to be held on June 5th.

It turned out that both my fillies, F1 And F2, had been entered in the same race, as well as another sweepstakes further ahead in the season. In view of the negative experience I had had in this regard with the previous trainer, I had given instructions from abroad that F2 should be entered, but when I reached Bangalore I found that F1 had also been entered for this and another sweepstakes race. This was due to a new regulation which had come into effect that out-station horses could participate in the summer season only if they were entered in at least two sweepstakes. Thus the trainer entered F1 along with F2 in these sweepstakes races, one in June and the other in July.

According to my understanding, F1 did not qualify to be entered since being of ‘unknown pedigree’, she was restricted to handicap races only. The fact that her entrance fee had been accepted, gave me hope that perhaps the rule had been changed. I did not expect her to do much without Eve riding her in these races, but I intended to leave her in just to set a precedent for the future.

As for F2, having just come down to the plains from the mountains and given her re-charged body and spirit, I felt that with proper care she could do well in this sprint race. If she were even to place, that was sufficient and would bring us better returns than an ordinary handicap race.

Adam’s disbelief in the capabilities of my fillies surfaced in full at this time. In addition, there was now a conflict of interests since his favourite gelding was entered in the same race and was the centre of his world. This disinterest was a great stumbling block since then I had no ally to support my position. It may be recalled that I took my horses away from the last trainer in March in part because he had not followed instructions and had failed to enter F2 in a sweepstakes race. Now, because of the new regulations, the trainer was obliged to do so and I was thus assured that the entries were done, but it was evident that neither he nor Adam were convinced about the matter and cooperative, – Adam because of self-interests and disbelief, and the new trainer who was allowing Adam to use his stables and facilities, because of his evaluation of my horses. He did not consider them of a quality which could allow them to compete in such races.

Eve, on her part, was entirely engrossed in Gog’s world and out of service as a jockey in the bargain. I was thus left with the dismal truth that we were completely without allies ‘out there’, on the battlefield. By then this was more than a sports arena: it was decidedly a field where a very great contest was in progress, calling up the more combative, warlike spirit of Mars, rather than its characteristic of planet involved with sports. This initial assessment of the situation upon my return was compounded with each trip I made to Bangalore thereafter.

Indeed, the next two months saw me totally immersed in this problem with no respite, dividing my time almost equally between Skambha and the track in Bangalore. Never had I spent so much time there. Never before had I felt the need to do so, since it was by then clear that without a centred power right there, our endeavour would come to grief.

The first clear sign that this was truer than what I wished to believe was fast in coming. Races for the fillies wee being scheduled, all of little consequence since the available jockeys did not seem capable of bringing out their best. By this time F2 was running for the 14th time of her career on 29th May; her recent passage over the Gnostic Circle’s 4.5 Orbit (13th to 14th race) did indeed bring its own measure of ‘scattering’ and ‘stripping away’ in that she was in the care of a new trainer. F1 soon thereafter would see her 35th run. For F2’s races we had agreed upon a particular jockey who seemed capable of handling front-runners like herself. But F1 posed the more serious problem not only for this race but in the daily workouts as well, since Eve was nursing her broken arm and would not be riding for the rest of the season. Therefore, the usual rider conundrum presented itself with even greater force, just when I had felt it would be resolved.

But the real blow came when I received a telephone call from Eve informing me that both the fillies had been scratched from the sweepstakes I believed they were being prepared for, without any prior approval on my part. The new trainer felt they could not compete in such a race and took the decision on his own. Within me I was convinced that his unconventional behaviour, contradicting the norms of traditional protocol between owner and trainer, was due in part to Adam’s open stand that F2 should not be left in a race with horses of Class 1 calibre, such as his own which was indeed in Class 1. We had had an open confrontation on this very point, therefore my suspicions were well-founded. But whatever or whoever was responsible for this turn of events, the fact remained that nothing had changed with the arrival on the scene of these two essential components of the nucleus. We were farther away from the goal than ever. Experience had already proven that a horse will perform as good or as badly as the trainer believes his potential to be. What I was hoping for was that somehow, in spite of this entrenched disbelief, the fillies would reveal the potential I still believed them to possess.

But I knew, and this was being confirmed daily, that a process such as we were carrying out could not succeed if there were contaminating agents bought into the tri-part centre. In my assessment, both Eve and Adam were by then in a state of total egocentrism, each one centred not on any common endeavour but on their own self-interests. It might appear that at least where Adam was concerned this was not so: ostensibly he had agreed to move to Bangalore at my behest. But it was more likely that he was simply following the movements of his ‘rib’: where ‘it’ went, he was obliged to follow. All of this would have to be dealt with in the coming months. Nothing positive would surface until these isolating interests were removed.

In fact, I was convinced by then that we would not be allowed to continue in such a condition. Eve’s accident was already an ominous signal that a power was at work to secure a true and properly poised nucleus at the heart of our racing experience. Eve was also aware that a ruthless NO seemed to lie at the root of her latest accident. She felt it to be entirely different than the last, since she now believed she was fulfilling the commitment made to give priority to my horses. But she could not see herself and the condition of her consciousness which was ego-centred to a greater degree than ever, especially since this new professional achievement had given a formidable boost to her self-confidence and self-esteem, which, more often than not, fortifies and strengthens the sense of an isolated and self-fulfilling ‘purpose’.

An entry in my journal on 25th May, upon returning to Skambha after being abroad and then in Bangalore, reveals the apprehensions I felt, given the poise of consciousness of the components of our ‘team’.

 

       I see clearly the problem. The latest injury is (Gog’s) karma. She has taken on his karma, not this Purpose. All because of refusal to belong, to be a conscious, committed part of this affair. And why? What is gained, what greater joy and ‘fun’ than this?

So, the work gets done, but at what cost? And now we have no jockey…Can we expect the Force to be with us over these next days and throughout this season? Can we hope for Grace?

…The heartache, the impotent feeling. Lord, is it time to pull out? Let me do it NOW if there no further purpose in continuing. Now I am even doubting that there is anything like a ‘Yoga of the Horse’. Perhaps it was an illusion, a concoction of my own…After all, it is just a case of interpretation. What else is ‘seeing’? One has to translate the thing seen. It goes through one’s consciousness like a filter…

…If I should pull out, make this absolutely clear. If not, if there is that PURPOSE and for that reason we are in this, then make THAT absolutely clear, – for such being the case the hardships can be tolerated.

 

And the next evening I wrote on in this vein when I realised that again I was faced with the usual trainer disbelief from Adam as well, and therefore that encouraging him to move to Bangalore and apply for a licence to train there, seemed to have no meaning at all. Who else to turn to then, who else to rely on?

 

…What am I to do now? How am I to go there? If and when I do it has to be to remove the horses, otherwise even that goes, – one’s ‘self-respect’. Nor can I pray for guidance – that CONTROL. What control can there be if there is no purpose. Control presupposes a Purpose.

Suddenly I begin to feel that a force is taking over our operation, a sinister force. I believe what I ‘saw’ earlier was very true: I am drawing that dark force into the heart of the yoga. Not I. It is through Eve. Since this happened things have gone worse and worse. On the one hand we labour and this bears fruit. But there is no outlet. And Adam is possessed by that force. Possessed. He has lost all contact with what is true, what we were doing and going to do. Everything indeed stands shattered. While at the centre of it all there are the Three: 3 forces, Rajas, Sattva, and Tamas. But we cannot get this to produce a CREATION, an immortal and invincible creation. All stands shattered like the Asteroid Belt.

It needs to be mentioned that this period of the year, from about 18 to 26 May, would be the 4.5 Orbit, or halfway mark of the first nine months of the year, the period of ‘gestation’ of the Seed of the new year. This period of May seems always to offer a sort of crisis to be met and overcome. It is on the order of a catalytic point.

 

Balance, Harmony, Centering

 

But what is the real purpose of this sort of constant pressure applied to the components of a nucleus in formation? I have written at length about the poise of the individual vis-à-vis the Divine. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother formulated the integral yoga for this purpose. But there were necessarily restrictions by way of the limitations of the field. With the laboratory they were provided, just so much could be achieved; that is, the method for aligning the disciple with the Divine Consciousness as an inner condition, with elements in the field utilised to bring this inner condition into being. This could not be integrated into the larger field, which in any case did not exist then, because for such an extension to come about an ordering of a special type was required. This could only be done once the formula was complete by way of incarnated powers: 9/6/3/0-1. On this basis the laws operating in the new creation could be formulated and the field of the yoga extended accordingly. The signal that this was done came when the Mother began talking of a ‘township’. She wanted to construct this special place precisely as an extension of the laboratory.

But the fate of that particular experiment gives us an indication of the conditions that need to be transformed. Just the fact that her own explicit plan of the heart of the project, the temple, was dismantled item by item within 18 days of its revelation – indeed, at the hands of the very disciple she informs us was ‘consciously’ organising the future events with her in her 5 February 1969 narration – reveals the true state of affairs and what we have to contend with: the world is indeed under the entrenched rule of the Ignorance and the Falsehood.

The Ignorance is largely an unconscious force; while Falsehood is a more conscious device to disfigure and thereby usurp. In a situation where Ignorance is prominent we have a degenerate tamas guna in evidence; that is, passivity, inertia, a caving in or collapse, which allow for the corruption. But where the Falsehood is prominent, disfiguring is done through an unregenerate rajas. In other words, an active force rather than passive. The distinction is important to make at this juncture because our Horse Saga has been revealed to centre on the play of the trigunas, or the three ‘qualities’ of astrology, Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable. As we have seen, this trifold play or utilisation of energy has been repeated twice, in the human and animal triads. The presence of such a neat ‘order’ in the midst of our story is a clear indication of the focus of the sadhana in this extended phase.

The distortions that found their way into the Temple at the heart of the Mother’s project when she herself was overseeing the work, indicates the obstacles and difficulties we have to expect. That knowledge and light were not able to transform that field and undo the Falsehood, or arouse the Ignorance from its passive and inert slumber, reveals the true conditions of the work. In our saga, the deeper we went the more evident it became that we would have to take on a work never before completed successfully insofar as the same powers of Ignorance and Falsehood were as entrenched in the larger field as they had been in the smaller. Indeed, it was made evident that the work at hand was to utilise this new field as a laboratory for putting into effect the lines and laws of a new supramental yoga where the harmonisation and integration of the Being and the Becoming could ensue.

The individual is always central in any such transformation, since ultimately it is a question of a consciousness of enhanced capacity and awareness replacing the old binary poise; and therefore the nexus of awareness in an individualised consciousness must be the channel for the enhancement.

Thus, to return to our saga, the pressures applied on the nuclear components had the specific purpose of aligning them in such a way as to allow for a COMPLETE process of this sort to take shape. For this the base of foundation had to be pure and uncontaminated. Indeed, this too requires a certain elaboration. What do we mean by ‘purity’ in the context of the New Way?

In this question of ‘purity’ or no contamination, the gunas are the focus. When we write of contamination, it refers precisely to an imbalance and hence a distortion in the play of the trifold energies. In the individual this manifests directly in his or her capacity to serve as an instrument in such a process. The ways in which contamination or distortion are introduced are many. But the first item to be dealt with is the question of separation, division, and finally disunity. In an individualised consciousness and a process centred on one element, for the purpose of bringing about such a harmony or balance, it is a question of union with the inner Divine. Consciousness and surrender to that Power. The surrender, however, cannot be passive, or a distortion of tamas, last of the gunas. In such a case we have resignation as a result. This implies a will-lessness where rajas is depressed. The movement is overtaken by tamas degenerate and the surrender is in a state of ignorance. This is one of the main distortions of the tamas guna: ignorance.

On the other hand, rajas unregenerated sins by excessive will, a consciousness constantly imposing ITS ways and demands and haste. In this case the sense of being the doer is always prominent and is the most difficult part of the yoga, requiring a constant vigilance to subdue and restrain impulses which can derail the sadhana entirely.

There is no question of a spiritual realisation based on or using primarily these gunas. Rather, they are considered the cause of a tilt toward materialism in the individual’s temperament. Thus, to be ‘spiritual’ has always implied a positioning of the consciousness in the sattva guna, the middle poise which after the degeneration and the split between spirit and matter became elevated to first place, and the only guna worth the trouble to cultivate. Rajas and tamas were thrust in the cosmic waste bin along with the whole question of movement of energy of any sort.

The problem lies in the difficulty in achieving the balance I write of. For the fact is unless this comes to pass we cannot speak of a supramental realisation. This Horse Saga, for example, can be described as a supramental process or experience involving the question of integration and harmonisation of the Being and the Becoming. But the participants in this process cannot be considered supramentally-realised beings. They are the instruments for THAT to take place. Through them IT is being done. The question of supramentalisation arises when there is a conscious awareness based on the truth-consciousness, or the supramental Gnosis. Then we can consider ourselves transformed in that gnostic way.

In this transitional stage the difficulty lies in identifying the areas which leave openings for the old responses or the old habits to remain entrenched. These are so ingrained now that a complete re-conditioning has to take place, a new seeing must replace the old. This pertains to spirituality first and foremost, where any mention of the gunas other than sattva brings an immediate recoil.

Our Horse Saga is not centred on an individual but a group of individuals. The Mother refers to this arrangement in her talk on 5 February 1969 reproduced above. What she describes there is precisely the pattern for a transformation, and she specifically connects it to the functioning of the new gnostic consciousness. Her role as the Supramental Shakti is also made evident.

The Mother does mention that the form the vision took might be her transcription and in this sense somewhat subjective, for indeed the experience seemed highly fanciful, what with electronic control boards, knobs, and so forth. Yet the purity of the Mother’s consciousness is revealed in precisely the accuracy of the transcription, fanciful as it may have seemed, since it was entirely faithful to the future unfolding on the physical plane. Indeed, she even specifies that this ‘work’ was in the creative zone of the physical and that the future events in a given ORDER were arranged therein to later manifest on Earth.

There is an important element in her narration which might have escaped our attention had we not had the Horse Saga to help us understand. When the Mother dwells at length and throughout the narration on the fact that the disciple was with her in that control room and ‘participating consciously’ in this unusual work, she is informing us of the goal to be attained, for she states throughout her description that this is the ‘functioning of the Superman Consciousness’.

For the fact is that without a CONSCIOUS participation we are indeed far removed from the goal. The disciple could have had all the experiences in the world but if he was not able to construct that ‘bridge’ which would permit him that ‘conscious participation’, there is little to be expected of his sadhana.

This is why a transformation of the gunas is essential. Degenerated tamas implies ignorance, darkness, inertia. It is responsible for our unconsciousness, our slumber, our failure to SEE. In such a state we find disciples hiding behind the protection that sleep and inertia provide. We hear the old response, ‘We cannot know, only the Mother can know’. Or else the tamasic surrender which is content to avoid responsibility for one’s actions by taking shelter in the cave of ignorance and darkness and a passive surrender. The unregenerated rajas guna, for its part, is combative and refuses to let go of the notion that one is the doer and ‘in control’.

Both these conditions create disturbances in the field which impede a smooth and accelerated unfolding of events with no wastage of energy. And even when there is an aspiration to attain the right poise, often this takes the form of the old conditioned responses and in its own way represents a wastage or poor utilisation of the available energy. This is seen in an indulgence in remorse, or guilt, or of course self-pity; often these are the outcome of the sadhak’s realisation of his or her failure to be a proper instrument and the sense of defeat this engenders.

The Horse Saga has proven, and this will become even clearer in the course of this analysis, that there is an impeccable control over the events or circumstances falling within the orbit of the process, within the boundaries of the emerging cosmos. Such being the case, the participant cannot be justified in giving in to these negative, depleting feelings since they imply that the instrument has the power to control events and his or her responses can introduce an unforeseen element beyond the purview of the control we know to be one of the principle characteristics of a supramental process. This is, in its own inverted way, an indulgence of the ego which persists in seeing itself as the doer and impervious to the controlling power of the Supramental Shakti. This indicates separateness not oneness, the main scourge of egocentredness.

The problem is difficult enough when one individual is the target. It is significantly compounded when involving a group, since not only must each component be brought into a certain alignment within himself, there must as well be a mutually compatible alignment of the parts within the whole, offering a collective or group alignment by which means the Supramental Shakti can carry out her plans for the transformation we desire.

This sort of alignment cannot be done in ignorance, in darkness. There must be a ‘seeing eye’ central to the operation since this is what distinguishes our work from the old ways, as spiritually enlightened as they may have been. Hence it was that the Mother, while disclosing for the first time the remarkable details of the way the new Consciousness would function, pressed the point that the disciple was there ‘in that zone’ with her, participating consciously. What this revelation should have inspired was a sincere and relentless pursuit of a sadhana for the purpose of filling in the gaps in his consciousness, or constructing that ‘bridge’, as I have called it, whereby the area of tamasic darkness could be illuminated and that conscious participation made a fact in this physical dimension.

The work has matured considerably since the Mother’s first momentous revelation in 1969. The Bridge is constructed and that functioning she described then has been witnessed on Earth in the precise order and pattern she indicated in her revelation. The focus of our present endeavour is to present the details of just how the Supramental Shakti brings an individual alignment into a collective harmony in the form of a tri-part nucleus or centre for the purpose of effecting a decisive transformation of the microscopic field of which it stands as hub. Everything the Mother described in her admirable experience has taken shape in this Horse Saga as a collective experience, and before that in the descent of the Solar Line and its horizontal extension in the form of a Lunar Line. The formula 9/6/3/0-1 has been prominent in each.

 

Contraction pressing the Centre into being

 

To return to the details of our saga, the entries in my journal throughout the 2½ months of the summer season of racing reveal the emphasis on the question of attaining the proper alignment and harmony between the components of the Centre in formation. The first indication was Eve’s accident, ruthless in its message that no contamination of the nucleus would be allowed. I witnessed during those two months a meticulous guidance, or, as the Mother described it, a power imposing itself on these components so that in spite of themselves the work would get done.

The next indication of that ‘imposition’ was felt by Adam. The pressure was clearly to bring him into the nucleus centred on that one Purpose, similar to Eve whose accident was the first sign of a pressure to disengage her from everything that was not central to our common goal. Adam, it may be recalled, was focussing his attention on his favourite gelding, disregarding the care of the fillies who were the key elements in the tri-part foundation of the Core, almost as a sort of protest or display of independence, similar to Eve. To begin disengaging him from this focus which symbolised in full his separateness, the sweepstakes race he entered the horse in was the occasion for the first revelation that Adam, no less than Eve, was the target for alignment according to the dictates of that ‘imposing power’. The gelding sustained an injury in the race, not serious but sufficient to impede him from placing and thus to fulfil Adam’s hopes of establishing his reputation in Bangalore as a competent trainer through this horse. With the outcome of this race, it was clear that given the month or more for healing, this channel would be closed for the fulfilment of his isolated ‘purpose’. Adam was left with little choice but to give more attention to the fillies. In addition, it must be recalled that he had supported, if only tacitly, the scratching of F2 from that very race, sustaining that she could not compete with the superior horses who were entered, among which was Adam’s own.

All during this bleak and extremely taxing period I was fully conscious of the need to bring everyone into proper alignment and that the ruthlessness of the Power was for this purpose. I collaborated equally consciously in this process of alignment by constantly attacking those elements which were the points of refuge or where one could take refuge from the pressure. In this case it was largely in the comforts and securities a binary relationship provides, where the dual subjects are reinforced by a mutually supportive system. Thus the focus was constantly on an un-gluing, if it can be so called: one had to dismantle, to the degree possible, the binary poise of these two components so that a balance of three energies in equal proportion and relation to each other could come into being. Without that there was no true centre to speak of, and there would thus be no question of the true potential of the fillies coming to the surface or the inner truth of the nucleus manifesting.

Together with this work there was another. It involved knowledge and the yoga to attain or to bring into the process the illumination sufficient to dispel the darkness and thereby qualify our endeavour as a supramental one, but yet not a complete removal of the veils which would eliminate the necessary ingredient of unknowing which the Mother indicated was indispensable in the functioning of the supramental consciousness at this stage of its manifestation. It will be shown in the course of this analysis that before any breakthrough was made there was a yoga prior to the happening which made it conscious and luminous. Knowledge was always the gateway through which we had to pass at each successive stage. Entries from my journal of the time will be reproduced to illustrate the point.

 

The Formula of Time and Number

 

The roles of each component of the nucleus were clearly defined. They were defined by the formula of the new cosmology and reproduced with precision. I have pointed out that all six – three humans and three animals – cover the six signs of the upper hemisphere of the Zodiac. In calendar time this would be from the September to the March Equinox. In terms of the Gnostic Circle’s measure, while starting with 0 degree Libra, moving through the wheel to 0 degree Aries, indeed Equinox to Equinox, in its measure of the 9 the movement is from the 4.5 (Asteroid Belt) to the 9 (Pluto). That is, 4½ stages in the cosmic process measured in orbits. We shall see further on how this measure brought the much attended breakthrough.

At the same time, these two triads comprising six zodiacal signs of birth, offer two triads of energy flows – rajas, sattva, tamas, or Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable qualities. But there is more involved, still using the triadic flow of the new formula for expression. This is in relation to the original Solar Line, first to establish this formula or imprint it in the evolution via time and hence destiny. Thus, we have a reproduction of the year powers of the three members of the Solar Line in our trinity of trainer, jockey, and owner. In the Solar Line the formula took shape in the following manner:

 

       Sri Aurobindo – 1872 = 9

The Mother     –  1878 = 6

The Third       –   1938 = 3

In the racing triad the very same equations were reproduced:

 

       Trainer               – 1962 = 9

       Jockey                – 1959 = 6

       Owner                – 1938 = 3

 

The pattern is reproduced but not involving the respective years of birth only: there is also a pattern of masculine and feminine with respect to the gunas. Sri Aurobindo, the 9 of the Solar Line, is sattva (Leo), or Fixed quality, and he is the only male in the Line. This is matched by the trainer in the racing experience, again the only male, also born in a 9-power year and sattva (Scorpio), or Fixed.

The Mother, female, is the 6 and tamas (Pisces), or Mutable, similar to the jockey (Sagittarius), also female, and tamas/Mutable. Then there is the Third who transports that third element of rajas/Cardinal (Capricorn) from the Solar Line into the Yoga of the Horse. We have thus a perfect reproduction or transposition of the original formula 9/6/3/0-1 in this Horse Saga, with the horses as the 1.

This arrangement of 1+2 derives from the creative process itself. It is not a question of social or religious equations in which women may be considered somehow incomplete or inferior to the male of the species and therefore two are required to equal that one. Rather, the line of 9/6/3, last two of which are feminine, refers to the nature of Reality and the creative process. These numbers correspond to the essential Trinity: Transcendent/Cosmic/Individual soul; or God, Nature and human being. The 6 and 3 are the emergent Powers active in the material dimension, when energy is to be differentiated and formative action is required. Indeed, when MOVEMENT begins. Traditionally, because it has been based on a deep insight into the creative process, India has ‘seen’ these formative powers as feminine expressions, – i.e., the Divine Maya of the Vedic exposition, and the numerous Goddesses, all of whom refer to manifest Powers in the denser planes of material creation.

This essential reality can also be intuited spontaneously and in the midst of a society in large part alien to any such concept. To illustrate, in the late 1950s, I was engaged in the art of sculpture. One of the last pieces I did while living in South America was a triangular composition of three figures: one male and two female. This was done at a time when I had no conscious understanding of cosmology of any tradition, much less the Eastern. Nonetheless, deep reflection produced this piece. It is clear that some dimension of the soul was explored and the result was an exact construction in sculpture of what would later, more than a decade in fact, become the most important feature of my destiny and work. Not only did I portray the two feminine forms joined to the male, but the figure was given a triangular shape; and years later I began referring to the formula as ‘the Sacred Triangle’. It became the first foundation of the Gnostic Circle.

In addition to the above, there is the direction of the movement of the figures, clearly indicated as clockwise. This is precisely the feature of the Descent which moves VERTICALLY and in the Gnostic Circle is described as 9 to 6 to 3 in this clockwise fashion to distinguish it from the linear or horizontal movement of the progression of numbers from 0 to 1 to 2, and so on. The Gnostic Circle’s harmony and balance rest on these mutually-supporting three powers in the exact arrangement detailed in my sculpture years before its discovery. Therefore it can be appreciated that the formula is a property of the soul. Tapping that source, probing into its innermost recesses, anyone can come upon the same truth. Reproduced here are photographs of the sculpture together with the Gnostic Circle diagram.

 

 

It must also be borne in mind that the formula 1+2 in this fashion is the structure of the individual soul and therefore each of us bears this harmony within which is actualised in the world in the form or rhythm of the three gunas. Male or female, our individualised souls are of the essence of this Trinity compressed to a Point. From that, when we evolve past the critical threshold of our destiny, the One can be born. Consequently, many traditions throughout the world speak of the sacred birth of this male Child in one form or another. It may take the form of a Messiah, the birth or the return of the Christ, and so forth. We do not find a female birth in this context in any tradition, to my knowledge. But in India there is great emphasis on the descent of the Goddess, corresponding to the Daughter Principle, or the 3. But her action is largely connected to the vital plane, a ‘sorting out’ of energies therein, close to the physical, precisely in order for the Birth of the One to occur.

Returning to our racing saga, the first two of this metamorphosed cosmic formula were, as I have written, targets of the pressure to relinquish egocentric concerns and become integrated, harmonised and balanced within the trifold nucleus as equal parts with well-defined duties. Having named these participants Adam and Eve, the point was thereby to illustrate their binary status, and as such their connection with the old creation, – precisely the pattern we seek to overcome via this Yoga of the Horse. Interestingly, I have often written about the same constraints Sri Aurobindo and the Mother experienced, not by their poise of consciousness, to be sure, but by the parameters of the work they were entrusted to carry out during their lifetimes which was firmly controlled by the Time-Spirit. The ‘boundaries’ of the work are precisely time rhythms and relations, just as the axis in the Mother’s temple (as well as in the transformed individual) is the measure of the year. That is, time is that axis, just as time is the boundary of the cosmos. This is possible by the Transcendent’s inversion or immanence: the Point and the Periphery, the Being and the Becoming. The essence or substance is the same: Time contracted, Time extended or expanded.

Thus, time confined Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to the limits of the old creation, – i.e., before the ‘bridge’ was constructed joining the Point to the Periphery, or ‘bridging time’, as it were. And they too are the 9 and the 6 in the Solar Line, just as Adam and Eve in our saga are the 9 and the 6.

In western civilisation as it stands today, the binary creation is parented by Adam and Eve. In India we have the old creation parented or described by Purush and Prakriti; or else Shiva and Shakti, until Parvati came along and through her the Fourth was born, the divine Son. The myth thus prophesied passage to the new creation from the old in precise detail.

Thus, it is arrival of the Third on the scene that sets time moving in a different gear, shall we say. Parvati indeed is renowned for having drawn Shiva out of absorption in his tapasya; since failing to do so and failing to produce the divine Son, the myth tells us, the world could not be saved from the powers of Ignorance and Falsehood.

Shiva, prior to Parvati, stands for the old creation in his own right. That is, he represents the old spirituality which is part and parcel of the old creation – indeed, it was its inspiring principle. An indrawn, self-absorbed, transcendentally-poised Shiva, closed to the turmoils and ecstasies of the world, distant, in the static heights of samadhi like a Himalayan peak, removed from the hustle and bustle of life, gave us the heights and depths of the old creation: its glories and its tragedies. Shiva is, after all, the third in the creative trinity of Creation, Preservation and Destruction of the Hindu Pantheon, corresponding to rajas, sattva, tamas. To transform that principle of Destruction the ‘Parvati factor’ had to appear on the scene.

Sri Aurobindo was aware of this when he stated that but for the Mother his realisation would have remained ‘above’ and his yoga would not have become rooted in material creation. But one feminine power is not sufficient to do the job, insofar as the rooting process has to move through the cosmic dimension before it can reach the dense plane of the physical in this material universe of 9. When that cosmic plane is engaged, then the Bridge must come into being, connecting the Transcendent (Shiva) to the Immanence of himself (the Fourth, the Son, or the Point). And this passage describes the very essence of ‘the bridge’.

The Third therefore brings into being the Centre or Point. This was exactly what happened in the Horse Saga; for while Adam and Eve were pressured by the contracting action of the play of energies in the field, this same pressure was felt by the third of the triad precisely to forge the Centre. It was not a question of relinquishing ego concerns since these did not exist. All the focus was on that Divine Purpose from the beginning and the alignment of consciousness was constantly monitored to assure that there was no ‘tilt’ of any sort. The actual bringing into existence, or the act of birth, as it had been experienced in the solar Line was the same in this Yoga of the Horse. While the 9 and the 6, in this case Adam and Eve, stood poised as if in the old creation, the 3 had to engage those powers for the construction while ensuring that no contamination would abort the process or produce a disfigured ‘child’. This required a careful, meticulous and relentless work to secure the cooperation of these two representatives of the old creation; and to avoid contamination, that collaboration had to be ego-less, howsoever that could be achieved. The two participants had their respective ‘knots’ to contend with, each of his or her own individualised brand, while the third participant had to construct the bridge from within this old-ness to the new. The third element actually ‘gives birth’ to that Centre. And being a birth process similar to the human, contraction, like the contractions of labour, is the direction of the pressure.

But while the work of trainer (9) and jockey (6) was clearly defined and was evident in their respective inputs in the racing experience, the owner (3) had a more recondite ‘duty’, of greater importance than the outer at this stage of the process. For the only means to bring into existence a true centre in the supramental sense, is through Gnosis. The new creation is distinguished from the old by this factor: knowledge must replace ignorance. That is, for the Third in both processes, the question of ‘contamination’ means ignorance, darkness, like stains on the Sun of Truth-Consciousness, marring its purity and hence diminishing the light and power of the nucleus. For finally, when the axis arises out of such a nucleus or centre, its tilt is determined by the degree of contamination. When we speak of a gnostic or supramental consciousness, we mean, to quote the Mother, a consciousness which ‘casts no shadows’. This means an axis identical to the ray or shaft of sunlight in the Mother’s Chamber, falling on the Core in perfect alignment so that the Globe (centre) it illumines or plays upon indeed does not cast shadows.

This process was respected implicitly in the Yoga of the Horse. Together with the pressure to realign trainer and jockey, the owner, in this case the Third, underwent contraction of the consciousness in a very carefully controlled and guided experience using Knowledge, whose aim was to bring into existence a centre on the basis of the trifold energies available for the purpose. The first clear indication of this operation having begun came during this period, as early as June 5th, when I realised the difficult times that lay ahead in order to realign energies. However, on that date I felt a tremendous ‘descent’: energy flowing in through the top of my cranium. This type of ‘descent’ was not unknown to me. It always preceded an influx of Knowledge and was often the signal that I would soon be engaged in formulating that Knowledge as a result of that descending force.

But this time there was another quality to the descent. It was a determined power of acceleration. Or, as I wrote of it, ‘going into high gear’. I was in Bangalore at the time, and I remember telling Eve and then Adam when it happened that this was my impression of the experience, It was too powerful and emphatic to be ignored.

Of course, our work at that time was anything but giving evidence of that ‘high gear’. Rather, we were stagnating and bogged down in the mire of the ego’s shadow-play. Nonetheless, I had ‘felt’ this shift and I knew better than to disbelieve. Sooner or later it would take shape in the circumstances of our work. And indeed, shortly thereafter the intense movements of the Yoga of the Horse began, which resulted in the creation of a true centre at the heart of our racing experience.

 

The Enneads revisited

 

It was on the 16th of June that I began recording in my journal details of the shape the movement of yoga was taking which proved later to be the manner in which the centre was brought into being. In the beginning, however, I started reviewing the work accomplished in the past using the same process. That is, using the Gnostic Circle as a backdrop to understand the yoga, as well as to be able to predict the outcome of the process, as it would be played out in the future on the basis of this key of knowledge.

As I have pointed out in past articles, the Gnostic Circle is not a tool of prediction in the way astrology is used today. The emphasis is on transformation, and that too of a very specific order, the order the Mother detailed in her 5 February 1969 narration. But when certain ingredients are known and the movement of yoga can be measured with knowledge of the Zero Point – that is, WHEN to commence monitoring – then we can be reasonably certain of the outcome; and in this sense prediction is possible. However, the small details of the future event may not be known; again, it will be all that is relevant to the completion of the task at hand in accordance with the ‘boundaries’ of the cosmos in question, – i.e., the particular ‘system’ that is involved in the process.

When reviewing the enneads prior to the present one, what was more than clear was the role of the third power in the yoga of transformation. Each ennead presented the same pattern: bringing into existence the One, giving birth to that One who fills the Void. Succinctly, this is the purpose of existence of the Third Power. And in this lies the newness of our yoga, insofar as there has not been a record of this process except in myth, such as the tale of Shiva and Parvati and the birth of Skanda, the divine warrior Son. However, this is not entirely true. There has been a very detailed description of the process of ‘filling the Void’ and the birth of the divine Son. This we find in what is called the Creation Hymn of the Rigveda. Presently, I will explain this in detail, quoting extracts from my journal in order to reveal that that Hymn provides us with important evidence to support my contention that the ‘creation’ of a cosmos is not simply restricted to the Origin of our universe but can be repeated endlessly wherever and whenever that same ‘centre’ has to be forged as the basis of a ‘new creation’. Thus, on 16 June I began writing in greater detail of this act of ‘filling the Void’ of our actual ennead and how it was always the same ‘force’ that had to be conquered.

 

 …My feeling is that in these three decades I am given the exact means to conquer that force. The first decade (1971-80) was the base IN KNOWLEDGE; the 80s was the base in the Yoga, or APPLIED knowledge or cosmology; the third decade, our own, is the affirmation, the knowledge and yoga as instruments for the conclusive Victory, central to which is perforce the Temple since that is my ‘field’. And that victory automatically opens the portals of the City as ‘field’ for the yoga of the 4th.

 But right now we seem to be receding not progressing – in some ways – i.e., the inability of the horses to win, to affirm their true potential. On the other hand, the three are forming the nucleus of the Zero and they offer the three energies. They open the way for the 4th, and he carries us across the threshold of the Age degree, and the millennium.

 It is not correct to view this activity as useless inasmuch as it is the activity itself which will open the way to victory, to affirmation of this Truth.

  And what is that Truth? It is exactly the opposite of what is THERE, in the shadow-temple. That is, fullness and not emptiness. I must focus always on that: filling the void. We have not done that yet. We are in the process of doing that by filling the Bangalore void. We have progressed enormously. We have only a small way to go. No doubt that final crossing, or ‘filling’, will be indicated by Eve’s return to the saddle. After all, that is the signal, when the jockey RIDES AGAIN.

  I believe Eve was knocked out of the saddle to keep in tune with THIS rhythm. She is not there to bring Gog wins, as she would have done. She is there to help fill the void, to be a part of this triune nucleus. Indeed, the three of us are also the three energies, with the two females as Rajas and Tamas, and the male as Sattva, just like Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and me.

  I can see quite clearly that the Yoga of the Chamber signified first the filling of the Void; and all during that time the ‘centre’ in the shadow-temple was indeed a hole. That Yoga meant simply the installation of the Centre. It is similar to the installation of the deity, the first element in a temple.

The Yoga of the Chamber, concluded successfully in the 1980s, was simply the ‘construction’ IN YOGA of the Mother’s Chamber according to the original plan she gave, which became a sort of map or blueprint for the process. The ‘hole’ referred to was the fact that the architect of the shadow-temple had indeed left the centre of the room he was constructing VOID: it was a three-metre circle left ‘void’ during the entire construction period. My feeling from the beginning was that this ‘hole’, this void in the shadow-temple, provided me with the ‘field’ for ‘filling the void’. If that had not existed, I might not have needed to do this Yoga. The process I am describing involving the Horse was exactly the same as the one for filling the void of the temple, with all that that signifies in the larger context of the work.

 

      When that ‘centre’ came into being, Skambha followed: my ‘place’, my physical ‘space’. But that was not AFFIRMATION. Yet once the centre existed at Skambha, right then the elements were being drawn in to provide a field of yoga for Affirmation. This started in 1986 and went on until the next 3 year, 1992 (and 1993) brought the same victory. 1982-3 allowed for the Centre; this 3-4 year allowed for the Affirmation. In the 1980s, notwithstanding the accomplishment of 1983-4, it was not until end 1985 that Skambha surfaced, though directly the result of that Yoga…

That period would correspond in this ennead to 1994, the last three months. In what way will the victories of 1992-3 translate themselves into some specific accomplishment?

The Horse is central to all this, as is Skambha. But can we separate the Horse from Skambha? Or from the process pertinent to both? No, we cannot. Thus both will figure in what is to come in barely 3 to 6 months. Something is imminent and no doubt the experience I had in Bangalore on 5 June of going into ‘high gear’ is connected to what is to come.

Therefore in this new field where the question of Affirmation is to be settled, we are SETTING IN MOTION EVENTS, and not vice-versa. We are not reactive but active. The rest hinges on us, on this happening. The reason is that only this harbours the true Centre. The rest do not. They are all peripheral. So, when something occurs IN THAT CENTRE, then it must affect everything in the immediate periphery, just like in 1983-4 the Yoga brought an end to the binary system and immediately the results were felt in the international system.

Nationally there were effects too. The Ram Temple saga began then. But it was clearly just the beginning, being made ready for the 1989 ennead. By end 1992, that 3 year, the walls came tumbling down.

Where to now with all of that… But the Yoga of the Horse goes on. The Girls’ (meaning the fillies who were always referred to as ‘the girls’) first victories were precisely in 1993, at the 4.5 Orbit of the year, of a 4 year, companion to the 3. But what now? Still central to it all is the Horse. 1985-6 brought Skambha, home of the Horse (and the Cow). But that was the first base for the Births, our own products out there AFFIRMING.

Interesting, 1995 embraces the letters-numbers of THEA. F3 will be debuting. She and the 4th AFFIRM. But the 1 and 2 must also make their mark as first-class horses. And they will. When they retire they must be known as the best in their calibre. They have to fulfil their potential because only that allows the 3 and the 4 to perform. Perhaps this is why F3 is so backward. She is waiting for that INPUT from Rajas and Tamas. She needs those releases as fuel for ACTION. Therefore the true Sattva can never stand alone. She has to be fuelled by the flanking energies. Thus India (also formed of the three gunas) is destined to depend on those flanking energies (Pakistan and Bangladesh); and since it cannot be positive and collaborative, it has to be negative and combative.

F3 feeds on the flanks, on what she receives from them. She can only find impulse when they are releasing. This means that while they were out of the field, on the farm, she could not function. And she did not. Only when they returned to the centre/field did she truly start. She could easily have stayed home till then. The field must be congenial, conducive – proper to the experience.

 

17.6.1994

 

It would seem that F3 is totally dependent on F1 and F2. Whatever they RELEASE she utilises in the Zero. If they do poorly – i.e., release little – she will perform in equal measure. Thus, the higher they go in harmony with Gnostic Time, the better she does.

It will not be long and I shall be able to prove this theory – one way or another. If they perform really well next week, then according to this theory she too should perform well. If there is a win, for example, F3 should make a tremendous progress almost immediately. Let us see.

But if not, if their performances continue to be mediocre, it seems she is destined to this mediocrity, to working with inferior or insufficient ‘fuel’.

Is this meant to be? Is this the way the destiny of the Zero goes? If I use the Solar Line as an example, what do we conclude about the Horse Crossing?

I have been the outcome of the yogas of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Whatever they have accomplished, I, as the third, have realised. But we cannot gauge the success or failure of the theory by material gains. What I receive (in energy) is Knowledge, fruit of the supramental yoga. And that has been formidable. Nothing like it. A full-fledged Classic winner!

F3 is also the third in the Horse Line. Therefore she too is the fruit of the yoga of 1 and 2. But their participation is still going on. But it seems clear that she can do only what they permit.

However, I see that their input will be absorbed by F3 in terms of the Zero-training. They opened the way for that. Their distilled experiences have fed the Zero to make it ripe for the new training. F3 in this sense is nurtured by them. Whatever of the new is incorporated by F1 and F2, the better it is for F3…

Two days later, 19.6.1994, the entry I made was truly of prime importance. What I wrote was in a sense seminal: a full six months would be required before its import would be fully understood. It did not have a direct bearing on the creation of the Zero-Centre, as such, and was connected instead to the stage we would enter once that Centre was fully established. But the fact that I had to understand something of the future stage even before the present one was concluded indicates that for a proper understanding of the experience of today, we must have a general knowledge of the larger sphere encircling the actual experience. I had to step into that as a previsionary experience, in order to RELEASE ENERGY there, as it were, in the womb of the future, so that it could feed the process and draw it into that future by way of this release.

Though this ‘seeing’ became relevant only later, as I have written, I am including this entry because it highlights the difference between the Zero-Centre and the Axis, something which I alluded to in the beginning pages of this essay:

 

      It would seem that creation of the centre is only the first step. Important is the axis. It is the axis that indicates a cosmos, elements IN ORBIT of the Centre. The axis is what brings a harmony of the One and the Many.

Skanda (the divine Son of Shiva) holds the axis. This is his Vel (lance). I was entirely correct in deducing that the Vel is the axis of the Earth – but it is not just that Earth. It is any cosmos. The axis indicates movement in harmony, a particular rate of movement and tilt. The tilt is the alignment vis-a-vis the Sun of Truth. That depends on the seed-centre. Thus, if it is a seed of Truth, the resultant axis must be positioned so as to cast no shadows. If off-centre, then shadows exist but nonetheless they must be harmonised. They must equally contribute as a part of the harmony of the cosmos.

Without the axis we have no harmonisation between the One and the Many. The axis extends out from the centre, like the diameter of the circle. The periphery is involved in the harmony through the axis and alignment. Without the axis the centre is barren, the ‘tree’ has not sprouted.

Skambha as ‘pillar’ represents that. The 4th born of the 3rd is precisely that – hence his symbol is the Vel. And he is indeed Leader of the Hosts. His field is the City, meaning the collective organisation around and from the centre-temple.

The important thing in the Chamber is its faithful reproduction so that Truth without mixture is the quality of the Supramental Seed. If that comes into being then the right axis arises which holds the energies to itself in the mode of Truth. The absence of shadow in the central axis/core simply means that the zero-seed-core is PURE, uncontaminated. This is the most important thing. How to achieve that?

Our racing experience is at the stage of the Zero. The energies were located in the first years, but now they are brought into the Zero to form the nucleus, hopefully uncontaminated. This is the point. How to be sure?

Instinctively I feel Gog brings contamination…as such he will not be a part of the nucleus, only an element in the periphery. The nucleus is us and the new training is its ‘axis’. What we draw in depends on the quality of the Zero.

                                    

As one went deeper and deeper into the structure of the Yoga, based on past experiences in the field proper to those experiences and in the harmony of Gnostic Time, a new mood was setting in. I have always held that the Mother’s original plan of her Chamber is the blueprint of the supramental yoga in this transitional period. The fact that at each stage I am able to refer to it for confirmation or indication of the work at hand, and that this then becomes integrated into the experience with concrete results, is ample proof that this is so. On the basis of that blueprint, the Yoga of the Horse developed, reproducing the same cosmic design or lines of the blueprint once again. This clear perception was the means for a greater conviction that ‘the work is done’:

 

      …Just felt the need to record the wave of hopefulness that came over me a moment ago and still lingers. I felt/feel that a very bright future awaits us, that the horse training/zero formation is on its way and very soon will produce the results we desire and require for the Victory.

I cannot say what it is exactly but there is an immensely hopeful wave and feeling in the air. A period of ‘high gear’ I believe is upon us. Perhaps in my next trip to Bangalore this will be clear. Perhaps by the time I get there it will already be in motion.

…My fervent prayer is that both these splendid creatures reach their maximum potential and that that be as I see it to be: Class 1.

But the facts reveal what is. If they are Class 1 horses they must perform like Class 1 horses. Let us see what this next week brings…

 

The Yoga of the Rigveda actualised

                                  

The next entry was made in Bangalore on 27 June 1994. It marked the definitive turning point in the Yoga of the Horse, a before and after, as it were. The movement of yoga that started then, just after midnight, was caused by the blockage we were experiencing. Though Adam was by then in full charge of the three fillies, who were improving under his care day by day, there were no results on the turf. F2, on her part, was in top form, but she was still unable to win a race. She would place often enough, usually second. She had just run her 15th race on the 11th of June, in the hands of the same jockey of her previous race. She placed third. But for some reason that last effort would not be made and she could not cross the winning post first. Each time one could almost sense an exasperation in the public, because in Adam’s care when F2 would enter the paddock for the pre-race parade, she looked by far the better horse in the field. Adam’s participation was indeed improving their condition, but the gap in our team was clearly the jockey. While Eve was unable to ride, it seemed obvious that we would not succeed, regardless of the superior training and care they were receiving. We were blocked at five wins, three for F1, and two for F2.

There were other difficulties surfacing in full at this time. Adam was working with the fillies out of the new trainer’s stable. All racing was done in the latter’s name since Adam had not yet been granted a licence to train in Bangalore. To apply he had to have ten Bangalore-based horses in his care. During this time he was assiduously engaged in trying to gather the prerequisite number and thereby to be able to present his application for a licence. This was fraught with difficulties and created in him a sense of insecurity. It also brought its own contamination into the nucleus because his energies were dispersed in this endeavour. He had his own ‘purpose’, as it were. And this was to secure his place in the new club, with all that this signified in terms of an isolation rather than a consolidation.

The pressures we were all subjected to were intense. On my part, there was the financing of the operation to attend to. Never brilliant in the best of times, during this period finances were especially scarce, creating its own pressures on me and the entire situation.

As for Eve, she was still totally immersed in the atmosphere and problems of Gog’s stables, still under contract with him, still sporting a cast and thereby unable to ride. In all ways she was absent and in a position to contribute very little to our endeavour.

It was in the midst of this situation that I began seriously questioning within not only where we were going in our work but, more importantly, how could I gauge the progress, if any at all. We were physically in the same locale but not yet joined as a nucleus. The jockey, third element of the team-centre, was lacking. My question on the night of the 27th, after another just-missed win, was precisely what the signal would be that the process was moving forward on its prearranged course as it should, and what the nature of the ‘victory’ might be, if there was to be a victory. In other words, how could we know, non-speculatively, that a breakthrough had occurred? Was winning a legitimate aspiration under the circumstances, or was it simply a matter of gathering all the energies together to form a centre of this emerging cosmos. But if that were the case, then why was Thoroughbred racing the chosen arena of the new yoga? In this ‘field’ victories are plain and simple: whoever gets past the winning post first. The bringing together of the three elements had to make some impact.

With the horses as the One emerging from the compressed 9/6/3 in the Zero, their performance would have to reveal much about the condition of the work. To me it seemed evident that these creatures were mirroring the progress of formation of the nucleus. While we were not together, consolidated, with all our energies centred on the One, the fillies would do no better than they were right then doing. Thus, just after midnight of the 27th June, I wrote,

 

       Racing is for winning. How else to gauge the ‘success’ or failure of the work; like politics. Finally it is the win that counts. But I am going backward. Race after race we go nowhere. If there are no wins, how can I be still ‘in the fray’? Je ne comprends pas…

 Is all this just to get Adam and Eve here? Surely not. All that had ‘a purpose’ and still seems central to the exercise. But for that to continue and make sense, the girls HAVE TO PERFORM. They are not at all performing. And if it all awaits Adam, then why bother?

 The suggestion seems to be still, do nothing until then. So, after this next weekend, that is just what I am going to do till Eve is back in the saddle again. And when will that be? …At the same time, one does feel that some ‘higher power’ has its eye on the right timing of things…

 

I then began feeling the weight of the moment. That is, how much longer could I wait? For how long could I carry the burden of this experience forward in terms of financing the operation when we were earning so little? But I also realised that the pressure the lack of money was creating had its own ‘purpose’.

 

      I need a win, or good stake money. Then I can AFFORD to retreat. Right now I have to keep trying in order to earn the money we badly need. If I had money who would bother. But is that the way the Zero is formed? Pressure is needed. In this case it seems lack of money is one of the pressures. The whole situation is a pressure, a weight indeed on all sides. Can the Zero/One be ‘born’ in another way? What of the Transcendent? Is IT ‘born’ differently; or else, what would be the ‘pressure’ for the transcendent? The Mother. But what gets HER going to PRESS in? Where is/was she at that time? Indeed, the sages knew the difficulty. ‘Who’ was there, if there was no one? It is not NOTHING, but NO ONE. No  ONE. The One means the ‘thing’ IS. Without the One NOTHING IS. This is why they became fixated with Nothingness – because the One not BEING, nothing is. So, ‘the only security lies in nothingness’, said Mr K.

In the time of the Buddha the coming of the 9 was imminent, but it had not happened; hence the Nothingness must have been prominent in the spiritual firmament. So, what I am doing in ‘filling the void’ is tremendous. Tremendous.                

There is an interesting aside to this introspection. Just as I was leaving Skambha for Bangalore, I was gathering some papers together to take with me for editing during my stay. In the process of packing, I noticed that on the reverse side of the drafts I had typed out there was the Creation Hymn of the Rigveda. Because of this I had three translations of the text with me. I felt that I might be making use of that text during my trip in some way. Indeed, the yogic movement that had begun was taking the shape of precisely what is recorded in that Hymn but which is not currently understood or incorporated in a yogic process of any sort today.

 

Who exerts pressure for the 9? Or what? By SELF-LAW. Mon Dieu, the sages SAW. How extraordinary. Self-law. It had to be. But what is that?

Yes, desire, will = self-law. IT wills itself into ‘existence’. But who/what wills? …‘Even he does not know’… The most profound Scripture in the world. This country is the greatest in the world because none have SEEN like India has seen.

Perhaps the problem lies in beginning and ending. This is what makes it impossible for us to know ‘who’ or ‘what’. Simultaneous. All IS. We are all within THAT. And THAT is unknowable because it is EVERYTHING. One can only know it by KNOWING EVERYTHING. But our consciousness does not permit this…Perhaps indeed the Trinity is the answer = perfect balance. 3 to 4.

This describes the birth: triangle to square. So simple.

 SKAMBHA – the most profound concept of all times. I am pretending to do THAT: to actualise THAT. Mon Dieu…

                              

The intensity of the experience began to increase at this point. For a while I was still able to jot down what I was distilling as the pressure to plunge inward increased. Later, it would be impossible. What was becoming clearer by the minute was that this was the same experience the Rishi, or Rishis had had when [had when?] the so-called Creation Hymn was composed thousands of years ago. Indeed, it was the same experience of the Transcendent on the way to Immanence – the birth of the One. This experience lies at the root of all creation.

 

      My Lord, in this moment I am almost THERE. Almost got it: compression, concentration, tapasya, power. All this is like combustion engendering movement. WITH MOVEMENT COMES KNOWING. Because you need distance, some separation. To deny time and space is indeed to deny the Supreme the act of knowing Itself. That is what we exist for. My Lord, so that you may KNOW and not just BE.

They came upon a stone wall in their quest and called it the Void, Nothingness. They knew: it cannot be ‘known’.

I think the key lies is something so simple as ing.

            See/ing   Be/ing   Know/ing

‘Sat’=BE/’Chid’=KNOW/’Ananda’=DELIGHT

            Be/ing   Know/ing   Delight/ing

The ‘ing’ is the Becoming. This moves IT so it can ‘ing’.

 

Then the power of the Rigveda began to resound forcefully, and I went deeper and deeper into the experience that brought forth the recollection of those verses:

      In the ‘beginning’ there was that of which breath is – nothing else: One breathed without breath by its own self-law. So, only the law of the gunas was at the origin: ‘without breath’ it breathed. The gunas were. This is what constitutes that ‘own impulse’, or ‘self-law’. The action was – not the breath that fills. Rajas/inhalation – Sattva/suspension – Tamas/exhalation…the nadir is the 4.5 mystery, or the mysterious fourth, the suspension before inhalation begins again. Sattva is on top of the breath. What lies below? Emptiness, fulness is above, THAT full of Itself. The 4.5 emptied.

Who fills that breath (Rajas)? What is that inhalation? It draws from where that which is inhaled? Exhalation is releasing that inhalation – one is full of breath and that is exhaled. But ‘below’ emptied of that, what fills it again? What is that essence of breath? Where does it come from?

So, ‘one breathed without breath’ is a very pregnant phrase…‘by its own impulse or self-law’…

So, the ‘emptiness’ is filled with a pulsation and that describes Self-Law, – own impulse. Other than that there was nothing. Pulsation.

India (the land) is the breath of God. For sure. The south is the Sattva/suspension. The Void is above, opposite peak = Kashmir. Inverted triangle:

That line, a ‘crosswise’ bar they spoke of. It indeed divides Being from Non-Being. But also Fulness from Emptiness. The ‘Eye of Shiva’ is that ‘WILL ABOVE’. The pulse is there – ‘seeds below’. India is a perfect description, even as the Gnostic Circle is the perfect description. The gunas are the breath, or the action of breathing: Self-LAW. But what is breath itself?

Indeed, it is easier, far easier to know the Unknowable than it is to get my horses to win. That is the joke of it.

 

Several hours passed in this state, always going deeper into the ‘centre’, compressed to a point. For that was the story of our endeavour: to create that ‘centre’, the nucleus. And it was being done in this ancient yogic way. As the night passed in the magnificence of this Seeing, something gave way, or opened within. I felt I had reached a depth never before penetrated, at least not in this conscious way, with almost every movement ‘known’ or ‘seen’ as the experience progressed deeper into itself. And when I fell off to sleep several hours later, it was not a true sleep. It was something else. I had penetrated the soul’s chamber, which in the Gnostic Circle is described as the 3 Point. In that ‘space’ one comes into contact with the deepest essence of oneself. Strangely, this brought me to the Spirit of the Horse.

 

 

 

 

January of 1995

Aeon Centre of Cosmology

at Skambha

 

 

      The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a rough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers of darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we have to take it as it is and find out – if we reject the way out of the old sages – the way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all a wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting into it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power to conquer.

 

 

                                    *

 

      No, the Supramental has not descended into the body or into Matter – it is only at the point where such a descent has become not only possible but inevitable; I am speaking, of course, of my experience. But as my experience is the centre and condition of all the rest, that is sufficient for the promise.

My difficulty is that you all seem to expect a kind of miraculous fairy-tale change and do not realise that it is a rapid and concentrated evolution which is the aim of my sadhana and that there must be a process for it, a working of the higher in the lower and a dealing with all the necessary intervals – not a sudden feat of creation by which everything is done on a given date. It is a supramental but not an irrational process. What is to be done will happen – perhaps with a rush even – but in a workmanlike way and not according to Faerie.

 

                                                Sri Aurobindo

1933

           

 

 

                                   

           

 

 

 

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