Q. I have before me a letter written by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1953 to the Calendar Reform Committee. He wrote, ‘Now that we have attained independence, it is obviously desirable that there should be a certain uniformity in the calendar for our civic, social and other purposes and this should be based on a scientific approach to the problem…’ It’s been many years since this message was written, nothing has happened. What is your interest in bringing up this issue again?
A. It is not exactly that nothing happened. That Committee did indeed agree on a calendar for the nation; but in what concerns ‘other purposes’ the result was unfortunate. In the same letter Pandit Nehru remarks that there are some 30 calendars in use and that this causes a certain confusion. It was made worse confounded by the fact that there is no agreement on the actual starting point of the calendar year among Hindus, unlike for civic purposes with the government having adopted the calendar in use throughout the world. Continue reading ‘A Calendar that Unifies – Questions and answers on reforming the Hindu Calendar’
Archive for the 'The Tropical Zodiac' Category
Written for students of the New Cosmology by Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet) Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology January 24, 2009.
Something more must be said of the Earth’s axial tilt at 23.20 degrees since it plays a role in the fantasies, if they may be so called, of many new-age groups. If I am not mistaken, even Edgar Cayce spoke of a future re-alignment of this axis at an unspecified time which would cause wide-spread destruction. Over our recorded period of history this 23 degree tilt has been in place – and certainly for an untold number of years before our times. In my view, the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza reveals that the ancients had the tilt on their minds as well. Continue reading ‘The Question of Alignment and the iconic 2012’
An excerpt taken from Movement of Restoration of Vedic Wisdom:
‘From antiquity the Vedic/Hindu civilization has been founded upon certain eternal truths, forming the basis of the ancient dharma. It is a mythic civilization, rooted in the cosmic harmonies which permeate every facet of its culture, not merely as a passive reflection of a static cosmos, but as an applied dynamic knowledge. With the passage of the Ages, knowledge of these laws and harmonies became clouded over. The ancient Vedic scriptures, repository of these immutable truths, succumbed to interpretations which fragmented their original unity. As a consequence their sublime truths were either misinterpreted or lost. Continue reading ‘More on Makar Sankranti & the Winter Solstice’
Dear Friends, I am happy to announce that the one day Conference on Vedic Calendar at Kumbakonam conducted by Madam Thea on 9th December 2008 ended successfully.
I can feel the immediate effect of the Conference today. A gentle man asked me for the availability of software for writing Horoscopes according to Sayana [Tropical zodiac] system.
[I was recently asked in a study group] to write something about the approaching Winter Solstice celebrated in India as its most important cosmological ritual, the Makar Sankranti. As most of you will know by now, the Solstices and Equinoxes are the balancing points of our journey, both individual and collective, around the Gnostic Circle. Indeed, we reproduce the movement of the Earth in its revolution around the Sun on the basis of the laws of correspondence in which “a day equals a year”. The Solstices and Equinoxes mark off the four divisions of the 24 hour day as Dawn, Noon, Sunset and Midnight. Those of you who have observed your passage through the Circle on the basis of these divisions will appreciate the accuracy of this Cosmic symbolism and also the indispensable need of an accurate measure to insure the correct starting point of your journey. The need of a true measure becomes even more important when applied to collectivities because even a slight inaccuracy can make the difference between Dharma and Adharma, truth or falsehood.
India, as you know, suffers from an adherence to an old and inaccurate system of zodiacal measure known as the Sidereal or Nirayana system which uses the Constellations as the basis of its measure. According to the Nirayana system and its progressed Ayanamsha or Zero point, the Makar Sankranti falls on 14 January, some 23 days/degrees from the actual Winter Solstice, shortest day of the year. The true measure, according to the Vedic sages, is based upon the Tropical or Sayana system which uses the unchanging Ecliptic measure to mark the Sun’s passage from sign to sign and season to season. According to the Sayana system, this year’s Makar Sankranti will occur on 21 December at 5:25 pm. At this very moment the Sun will move into the Cardinal sign Capricorn; the days will begin to lengthen and the light will begin to increase.
As important as the cyclic measure is to our study of the Cosmic Harmonies, there is another, more hidden aspect of the Makar Sankranti which relates to the occult dynamics of Contraction and Expansion or the convergence of directions known as Involution and Evolution. We know for instance that in the months approaching the Winter Solstice, the days grow shorter and there is contraction of the light. We might imagine this contraction as an involutionary pressure compressing things toward a “Point” or Seed which will then evolve after a certain threshold in Time has been crossed. Since the Convergence conference in September and the Autumnal Equinox, we have observed this process of contraction or compression first hand in both the global credit crash as well as the Mumbai attacks. And now, with the approach of the Makar Sankranti, we are nearing that point of reversal and an increase of the light. One can only imagine what events lie just ahead but to me the greatest gift Thea has given us is to be able to SEE whatever happens in the context of these eternal Cosmic Harmonies.
Robert Wilkinson
9 December 2008
. . . no real understanding of the zodiac is possible without a perception of its unity. The zodiac is a symbol, in its complete form, of the human consciousness. But as this is equal to the All, made in God’s image so to speak, we also find in the zodiac the answer to many enigmas about our universe. These, as well as the mysteries of human consciousness, can only be unraveled on the basis of a unity of vision, of a sense of wholeness, of integrality. – Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, The Magical Carousel, Commentaries, p. 84 Continue reading ‘The Zodiac & the Perception of Unity – an Introduction to the 12 Signs of the Zodiac’
The Zodiac is a belt of 9° on either side of the ecliptic of the Sun, not to be confused with the Constellation of similar names. The Zodiac is always the same, that is, it always begins at the vernal equinox with 0° Aries, when the Sun’s path along the ecliptic crosses the equator about March 21st each year, coinciding with the Constellations every 25,920 years, approximately. The word Zodiac derives from the Greek work zoe, meaning life, or zoion, living being. Continue reading ‘The Zodiac: Aries, Taurus & Gemini – a Summary from ‘The Magical Carousel’’
Chapter VII – Libra
Libra is an Air sign, of Cardinal Energy Quality, masculine and ruled by the feminine planet Venus. In the signs of the first half of the wheel, those masculine are ruled by masculine planets and feminine, by feminine planets. Now a reversal takes place and there is a greater interplay and exchange occurring, the meanings become more intricate, more subtle, the individual must make, he must strive to awaken his consciousness and seek his divine origin, no longer remaining a dumb pawn in the compelling play of Nature. Continue reading ‘The Zodiac: Libra, Scorpio & Sagittarius – a Summary from ‘The Magical Carousel’’
Capricorn is an Earth sign, of Cardinal energy quality, feminine, ruled by Saturn and co-ruled by the new planet Pluto. It is Cosmic Midday, the Sun’s highest point, visible throughout the lands, the Divine bathing creation in his glorious light.
It can be said that the whole Zodiac is the horoscope of the Divine Mother, or the map of the evolution of manifested divinity in time and space. Continue reading ‘The Zodiac: Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces – a Summary from ‘The Magical Carousel’’
What role does the Makar Sankranti play both for the individual and the entire [Hindu] Samaj?
First of all it needs to be stressed that the process is both individual and collective simultaneously; even as it is unity and diversity simultaneously. This integral approach is the very first shift that has to take place in our consciousness if we wish to understand the Veda. It comes about when we reverse the direction of our quest to plunge into that innermost Point of our soul, the sanctum sanctorum each of us carries within – just as it is reproduced in every Hindu Temple. This is the significance of the Makar Sankranti as POINT; but above all as seed. Not just any seed but the Golden Seed of the Veda. Golden because it contains, compressed, the lost Ray/Cow of the Sun. The ‘lost Sun’ hides in that seed-enclosure; i.e., it is hidden in time as light, as energy, a theory that only certain very gifted contemporary physicists are coming to appreciate. Through Yoga the Aryan Warrior gains access and penetrates the Seed. He makes it his very own, while his consciousness is the soil that fertilises and helps the Seed sprout and spread its shoots throughout the world. Only the right timing (‘combination code’) for the Makar Sankranti can bring this about.
The Earth in her annual revolution around the Sun lives the very same experience. In Hindu tradition she has always been a personified being, a Goddess. In the Veda she is praised throughout; but nowhere as sovereignly as in the hymns to Usha, the divine Dawn who envelops the planet with the first pristine rays of a divine Solar Light. . .
The Light we seek, hidden within the time experience unique to this planet because of its rotational rhythms and position in the System, is compressed to a point at each Makar Sankranti. This is the itinerary of the ecliptic Journey, the setting, the stage, the base of the Rishi’s Sacrifice. There are landmarks, balancing pillars along the way in this journey – the four Cardinal Points which are unchanging, immutably positioned in time, and because of which they can provide stability to the individual and to the collectivity; therefore they bear eternal relevance. . . .
The Dharma cannot be called Sanatan if we jiggle these Pillars about and pretend that we are following the Vedic Path and are faithful to the Dharma of the Rishis. There are no sidereal/constellation locations [as in the Nirayana System followed in all Hindu temple worship] that bear any relevance to this Vedic way of the Earth and her inhabitants. That ‘beyond’ is not at all FIXED. Rather, in the Beyond (constellations) the notion of relativity and relativism arise in the seeker, who has been led off the Vedic path by the lure of escape from and dissolution of everything that connects him to his homeland, the Earth.
We speak glibly of a SANTANA Dharma, the ‘eternal’ Law. But what sort of eternal law, and consequent stability, can a shifting calendar provide the Hindu Samaj? The FLOATING AYANAMSHAS in vogue today, which bear no sanction in the Veda, are anything but stable and constant. Each second that passes of our Earth time causes that distant sidereal point light-years away to change position, thereby making that Ayanamsha with each passing second inoperable and inapplicable for any ritual. If the pundit is sincere to his trade, he must know this. He must know that yesterday’s Ayanamsha cannot be held today as valid because IT HAS SHIFTED IN THE HEAVENS, perhaps slightly, but shifted it has. Today it is not where it was yesterday. And if we add to this the complete impossibility to determine just where and what that Ayanamsha might be, then we understand why there is total confusion among the ranks of the pundits. And Hinduism suffers an increasing deterioration accordingly, with each ritual that propagates this illusion. . . .
Absolutism of the eternal Dharma lies within our grasp if we take the same Journey the Veda prescribes, poised on the immutable four Cardinal Points: the March Equinox – Cosmic Dawn; the June Solstice – Cosmic Midnight; the September Equinox – Cosmic Sunset; and last but best of all, the December Solstice – Cosmic Midday or Uttarayana, the highest position of the Sun whereby as a single Ray (the lost Sun hidden by Vritra) it descends to the Earth casting no shadows. And therefore it is known as the period of Victory for the Aryan Warrior; or, in the larger cycles of time, as the Golden Age, the Satya Yuga.
We need to understand the ‘seed’ nature of the Makar Sankranti and how it can be said that this is an experience of both the Earth, the individual and of the collective Hindu Samaj, all simultaneously on that very special Solstice. This is understood when we realise that Time itself is compressed to a seed at the December Solstice. The ‘shortest day of the year’ has no other factual significance for inhabitants of our special planet than this: compression to a point, compaction to a seed. The light of the Sun, those divine Cows/Rays, is compressed to this point-experience of Time when its measure reaches the extremes of itself [the Solstice or SHORTEST day of the year]. And then when the [Makar] Sankranti is observed with the right ‘combination’ – the right harmony of the Earth to the Ecliptic – the entire Hindu Samaj connects itself through this ‘seed-point’ to the replenishing Source from which it originally sprang. Today as in aeons gone by, it can drink once again of the waters the Goddess Mahasaraswati benignly releases abroad upon the world.
Hindu society, born from the realisation of those colossal Vedic Rishis, must not be cowered down by contemporary Science, which in these matters is but a babe in arms. Centuries must pass before the science we laud as the highest achievement of the human mind can reach the heights of the Rishi’s knowledge, primarily of what is certainly the most important element of our world – Time. For science Time remains a mystery along with its companion gravity. But not so for the Rishi. This inheritance has been passed down through Hinduism for centuries; but ‘forces’ interfered with the passage so that today we have SUPERSTITION in place of Veda. The ‘scientists’ can be thanked for this disaster that has befallen the sacredmost bhoomi of the Earth.
[Excerpts from: ‘On Reorienting the Self Toward Vedic Consciousness – Letters from Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet to an Inquirer’, Nov. 5, 2006]
