Archive for July, 2007

Extracts from a Dialogue with the Mother

The Mother's Agenda coverThe following excerpts from The Mother’s Agenda were published in The Vishaal Newsletter, Volume 1, Issue 4, following an article by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet titled, Change and Stability – the heart of the “New World”. The Mother’s expresses her experience:

“This morning about eight o’clock, I could have said many things…. Because there came a day when many problems had cropped up as a consequence of something that had happened, then this morning (towards the end of the night), I had the experience that was the explanation. And for two hours I lived in an absolutely clear perception (not a thought: a clear perception) of the why and how of creation. It was so luminous, so clear; it was irrefutable. It lasted at least for four or five hours and then it petered out; gradually the experience diminished in intensity and clarity…. I had just seen many people, then…it is difficult to explain now. But all had become so limpid; all the contrary theories, everything was at the bottom (the Mother looks from above), and all the explanations, all that Sri Aurobindo had said and also some things that Theon* had said were seen as a consequence of the experience: each thing in its place and absolutely clear. At that time I could have said it, but now it will be a little difficult.

Is it not so? In spite of what one has read and all the theories and explanations, something was left (how to say it?) difficult to “explain” (it is not “explaining”: that is quite trivial). For example, suffering and the will to inflict suffering, that side of the Manifestation. There has been, of course, as though a prevision of the original identity of hatred and love, because the thing was going to the extremes, but as for all the rest it was difficult. Today it is so luminously simple, yes, it is that, so obvious! (The Mother looks at a note which she had written.) Words are nothing. And then I had scribbled with a pencil that wrote badly…I don’t know if you can see the words. To me they represented something very exact: now they are nothing but words. (the disciple reads):

Stability and change
Inertia and transformation…

Yes, in the Lord they were evidently identical principles. And it was particularly that, the simplicity of this identity. And now they are nothing but words.

Stability and change
Inertia and transformation
Eternity and progress

Unity = …

(the disciple is not able to make out the words.)

It was not I who wrote it, that is to say, not the ordinary consciousness, and the pencil…I do not know any more what I have put down. (The Mother tries to read the words, but in vain.) It was the vision of the creation — the vision, the understanding, the how, the why, the whither, everything was there, the whole of it together, and clear, clear, clear…. I tell you, I was in the midst of a golden glory — luminous, dazzling.

Well, the earth was there as the centre representing the creation, and then there was the identity of the inertia of the stone, of what is most inert, and then…
(The Mother tries once more to read the words.)
I do not know if it will come.

(The Mother goes into a long concentration.)

One might say that…for the convenience of expression, I would say: the “Supreme” and the “creation”. In the Supreme, it is a unity that contains all the possibilities perfectly unified, without any differentiation; in creation, it is, so to say, the projection of all that makes up this unity by dividing the opposites, that is to say, by separating them (it is that which has been seized by someone who said that creation is separation): for example, night and day, black and white, good and evil, etc, etc. — all that, but it is our explanation. The whole of it, all together is a perfect unity, immutable and…indissoluble. Creation means separation of all that constitutes this unity — one might call it the division of consciousness. The division of consciousness starts from the unity conscious of its unity, in order to arrive at the unity conscious of its multiplicity in the unity. And then it is this path which, because of its fragments, is translated for us by space and time. For us, such as we are, it is possible for each point of this consciousness to be conscious of itself and conscious of the original Unity. And that is the work which is being done; that is to say, each infinitesimal element of this consciousness, while keeping this state of consciousness, is in the process of rediscovering the state of the total original consciousness — and the result is the original Consciousness conscious of its unity and conscious of the whole play, conscious of the innumerable elements of this Unity. This for us is translated into the sense of time: moving from the Inconscient up to this state of Consciousness. And the Inconscient is the projection of the first Unity (if one can say it; all these words are altogether senseless), of the essential unity which is only conscious of its unity — yes, that is the Inconscient. And this Inconscient becomes more and more conscious in beings who are conscious of their infinitesimal existence and at the same time, through what we call progress or evolution or transformation, become conscious of the original Unity. And that, as it was seen, explains everything.

Words are nothing.

Everything, everything from the most material to the most ethereal, everything finds its place there — clear, clear, clear, a vision.

And evil, what we call evil, has its indispensable place in the whole. It will not be felt as evil the moment one becomes conscious of That — necessarily. Evil is this infinitesimal element looking at its infinitesimal consciousness; but as consciousness is essentially one, it resumes, regains the Consciousness of the Unity — the two together. It is that, yes, it is that which has to be realised. It is this wonderful thing, of this I had the vision at that moment… And for the beginnings (are they the beginnings?), what is called in English the outskirts, what is farthest from the central realisation, that becomes the multiplicity of things, and the multiplicity also of sensations, of feelings, of all…the multiplicity of consciousness. It is this act of separation that has created, that is creating the world constantly and that is creating everything at the same time: suffering, happiness, everything, everything that is created through this…what might be called “diffusion”; but it is absurd, it is not a diffusion — we ourselves live in the sense of space, so we speak of diffusion and concentration, but it is nothing of the sort.
And I understood why Theon used to say that we were living at the time of “Equilibrium”; that is to say, it is through the equilibrium of all these innumerable points of consciousness and of all these opposites that the central Consciousness is rediscovered. And all that is said is stupid — at the same time as I say this, I see to what degree it is stupid. But one cannot do otherwise. It is something…something so concrete, so true, yes, so ab-so-lu-te-ly…that.

I was obliged to take up some paper and jot it down, and in such a way that I do not know any more what I jotted down…. The first thing written was this:

Stability and change

It was the idea of the original Stability (one could say), which is translated in the Manifestation by inertia. And the growth is translated by change. Then came:

Inertia and transformation

But it is gone, the sense is gone ? the words had a sense.

Eternity and progress

They were the opposites (these three things).
Then there was a gap (the Mother draws a line under the triple opposition), and once again a Pressure, and then I wrote this:

Unity=…(three illegible words follow)

And that was a much more true expression of the experience, but it is illegible — I think it was illegible deliberately. One must have the experience to be able to read it.

(The disciples tries to read the words:) It seems to me that there is a word “rest”?

Ah! It must be that. Rest and…

(The Mother goes into concentration.)

Is it not “power”?

Ah! yes, “Power and rest combined.”

Yes, that is it.

It was not I who chose the words, so they must have a special force — when I say “I”, I mean the consciousness that is there (gesture above the head); it is not that consciousness; it was something that was pressing down that compelled me to write. (The Mother recopies her note:)

Stability and change
Inertia and transformation
Eternity and progress

Unity = power and rest combined.

The idea is that the two combined restored that state of consciousness which wanted to express itself.
It was on the universal scale — not on the individual scale.
I put a line between the two to mean that they had not come together.

But already, often, when you speak of this supramental experience, you say that it is a staggering movement and at the same time it is as though completely immobile. You have said it often.

But you know, most often I do not remember what I have once said.

You say: the vibration is so rapid that it is imperceptible, it is as though coagulated and immobile.

Yes. But this was really a Glory in which I lived for hours together this morning.

And then all, all, all notions, all of them, even the most intellectual, all became as…as though childishness. It was so obvious that one had the feeling: there is no need to speak of it!

All human reactions, even the highest, the purest, the noblest, appeared so childish!… There is a sentence written by Sri Aurobindo somewhere that was coming all the while to me. One day, I do not remember where, he had written something, a rather long sentence in which there was this: “And when I feel jealous, I know that the old man is still there.” It is now perhaps more than thirty years since I read it — yes, almost thirty years — and I remember, when I read “jealous”, I said to myself: How can Sri Aurobindo be jealous? And so after thirty years I have understood what he meant by being “jealous” ? it is not at all what men call “jealous”, it was altogether another state of consciousness. I saw it clearly. And this morning it came back to me: “And when I feel jealous, I know that the old man is still there.” To be “jealous” for him did not mean what we call “jealous”…. It is this infinitesimal particle that we call the individual, this particle of infinitesimal consciousness which places itself at the centre, which is the centre of the perception, and which consequently perceives things coming like that (gesture towards oneself) or going like that (gesture outward) and all that does not come to it gives it a kind of perception that Sri Aurobindo called “jealous”: the perception that things are going toward diffusion, instead of coming in toward centralisation; it was that which he called “jealous”. So he said: When I feel jealous (this was what he meant to say), I know that the old man is still there; that is to say, this infinitesimal particle of consciousness can still be at the centre of itself; it is the centre of action, the centre of perception, the centre of sensation….

(Silence)

Yes, I could notice — it is the time when I do all my physical work — I could notice that the whole work could be done without any alteration in the consciousness. It was not that which altered my consciousness; what veiled my consciousness was seeing people: it is when I began to be here and to do what I have been doing every day: projecting the divine Consciousness upon people. But it came back…(how can one say it?) on the borders; that is to say, instead of being within, I began to perceive it, when you asked me. But that feeling is no longer there — there was nothing but that any more! That alone was there, and everything, everything has changed — appearance, meaning, etc.
That must be the supramental consciousness: I believe that this is the supramental consciousness.

But one could conceive very well that for a consciousness wide and quick enough, if I may say so, capable of seeing not merely a bit of the path, but the whole path at the same time…

Yes, yes.

The whole would be a moving perfection. Evil is simply holding one’s vision on one small angle; then one says, “It is evil”, but if one sees the entire path…in a total consciousness, obviously there is no evil.

There are no contraries. No contraries — not even contradictions; I say: no contraries. It is that Unity, it is living in that Unity. And that cannot be translated by thoughts or words. I am telling you, it is…a vastness without limits and a light…a light without movement, and at the same time an ease…an ease not recognised as such. Now I am convinced that it is that, the supramental consciousness.
And necessarily, necessarily that must change the appearances gradually.
(Long silence)

There are no words that can explain the magnificence of the Grace, how the whole is combined so that all may go as quickly as possible. And individuals are miserable to the extent to which they are not conscious of it and take a false position in regard to what is happening to them.

But what is difficult to think is that at each moment it must be…it is the perfection.

Yes, that is it.

At each instant, it is the perfection.

At each instant. There is no other thing…when I was there, there was no other thing. And yet, as I have told you, it was the time when I was physically extremely busy — all the work was being done, without disturbing anything; on the contrary, I believe I was doing things much better than usual…I do not know how to explain. It was not, as it were, a thing “added”: it was quite natural.

Life as it is can be lived in that consciousness ? but it is then lived quite well! Nothing needs to be changed, what is to be changed changes itself quite naturally.

…Well, this sort of a very quiet perception of what is still not all right — a pain here, a difficulty there — very calm, very indifferent, but it is perceived (without its taking any importance), and even that gone, wholly swept away!…I hope it won’t come back. It is really…this, I understand, it is a transformation. One is conscious in a golden vastness — my child, it is wonderful — luminous, golden, peaceful, eternal, all-powerful.

And how it is coming…. No word is there to express it indeed, this wonder regarding the Grace…. The Grace, the Grace is a thing that surpasses all comprehension, with its clear-seeing kindliness…. Naturally the body had the experience. Something had happened that I will not tell you and it had the true reaction; it had not the old reaction, it had the true reaction — it smiled, with the smile of the supreme Lord — it smiled. That was there for a whole day and a half. And it was this difficulty which enabled the body to make the last progress, enabled it to live in this Consciousness: if all had been harmonious, things could have lasted still for years — it is wonderful, wonderful!

And how stupid men are! When the Grace has come to them, they push it away, saying, “Oh! what horror!”… That I have known for a long time, but my experience is…dazzling.

Yes, each thing is perfectly, wonderfully what it ought to be at every moment.

Quite so.

But it is our vision that is not attuned.

Yes, it is our separated consciousness.

The whole has been brought with lightning rapidity towards the consciousness that will be the Consciousness of the point and of the all, at the same time.

(Long silence)

(The Mother finishes recopying her note.) There, now I am writing today’s date.

It is the 19th.

19 November 1969, supramental consciousness.

(Silence)

The first descent of the supramental force was a 29, and this is a 19… The 9 is something to note there…. So many things there are which we do not know!
(Silence)

I have already had the experience, partially, that when one is in this state of inner harmony and no part of the attention is turned towards the body, the body works perfectly well. It is this…”self-concentration” which upsets everything. And this I have observed many times, many times…. In reality one does make oneself ill. It is the narrowness of consciousness, the division. If you let it work, there is…everywhere there is a Consciousness and a Grace that do everything so that all may go well, and it is because of this imbecility that all goes wrong — it is strange! The ego-centric imbecility, it is that which Sri Aurobindo calls “the old man”.
It is truly interesting.”

___________________

* The Mother’s teacher of occultism at the turn of the century, before meeting Sri Aurobindo.

Change and Stability – the heart of the “New World”


Aion (Eternity) within the 12 signs of the Zodiac - a mosaic
[The following article by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet was originally published in The Vishaal Newsletter, Volume 1, Issue 4, 1986]

“…This fullness of the means of life might be, by its power for a release from the incessant unsatisfied stress of his economic and physical needs, an opportunity for the full pursuit of other and greater aims surpassing the material existence, for the discovery of a higher truth and good and beauty, for the discovery of a greater and diviner spirit which would intervene and use life for a higher perfection of the being; but it is being used instead for the multiplication of new wants and an aggressive expansion of the collective ego.” -Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Chapter 28 Continue reading ‘Change and Stability – the heart of the “New World”’

2012, the Mayan Calendar and ‘The Final Days’

Mayan Cosmogenisis by John Major JenkinsSome thoughts on the 2012 ‘end time’ mania, its origins, its logic, inspired by the article in the New York Times 1 July 2007 edition ‘The Final Days’ by Benjamin Anastas

My attention has been drawn to a crescendo a certain section of our society is experiencing, primarily in the West, I might add, regarding the Maya calendar ‘end time’ configuration. A number of researchers have postulated when that might actually occur. John Major Jenkins and a few others have pinpointed the December Solstice of 2012. Jenkins, for one, is of the opinion that this lesser cycle will coincide with a major galactic alignment on the same date – hence the extreme importance of this momentous happening.

Others question the purported accuracy of such projections, as I do as well. Be that as it may, excepting Hindus, human civilisations across the globe and throughout our historic cycle have been anticipating an End of some sort. Usually it is envisioned as the end of the world and by Rapture or other fantastic means the faithful will be lifted off this woeful planet and transported to another more benign planetary kingdom, if not the Kingdom of God the Father itself.

Would that it were such a simple matter. No, I believe that we must pay for our sins and play out the drama of cleansing the slate, as I have referred to the impending process. A humanity that can live with anything as atrocious as the Holocaust must realise that there is something in the human constitution that allowed for this madness. When it is a collective wave we know that it is a species deformity, something that lies beneath the surface of every human being; and that must indeed come to an end if time is to continue. If we do not discover what it is in the human structure that allows for these aberrations, periodically waves will rise to the surface and collective horrors will return to demonstrate its evil dimensions. Therefore, might it not be that what stands before us is not an end, as such, but a true coming to terms with the fact that a greater world is being born where these lower tendencies will no longer have a place, and the strength to overtake the higher?

The anticipated End is simply a play-out of the focus of the Age of Pisces which was on a Heaven beyond the planet we live on and, above all, free from the confinements of Time. This Earth is our hell, or at best a mere stepping-stone, as most Hindus now believe, to an extra-cosmic, liberated dimension beyond the entanglements life on planet Earth imposes. If we study every religion the Age of Pisces gave birth to, the pattern is the same: somehow we must end it all – be this even just through meditation practices which allow us to experience a state of Nirvana that does apparently obliterate our experience of life and the complex web it weaves forever.

It is logical to conclude that if our collective wish is to flee this Earth, we are going to project this desire into all such mysteries we seek to unravel. And this is what we are currently doing with 2012.

In the New Way cosmology, 2012 would fall at the 5 Point of a Gnostic Circle ennead. This year, 2007, set the ‘Maya end’ almost in the middle of that 9-year cycle. But as those who have studied the New Cosmology know, these cycles do not definitively shut down – however much our religious beliefs would ensure us that this will be the case, sooner or later, to prove an ultimate redemption of the Good and an eternal burning in hell for the Evil. Cyclic time is unending. We come into the wheel or we step out, but that wheel continues. It is simply that conscious awareness is put to sleep for a while.

This deep sleep is experienced at the eighth stage of the Vedic journey. It is known as the stage of Death, – Scorpio of the zodiac. But there are four more stages beyond this ‘death’. Scorpio thus presents us with an interlude, much like the Limbo Pope Benedict has recently dispensed with. Its importance is to dissolve all memory of the past and to present a cleansed slate. The great shift that awaits humanity is the beginning of a long period of human history where Scorpio itself will be transformed into what it was known to be in the Vedic Age – the realm of the soaring Eagle, Vishnu’s Garuda.

There is something revealing of certain human tendencies in these End World manias, but they would be apparent only to students of the New Way. It is the new cosmology that allows us to understand the strange propensity to disregard reality in favour of illusion, or at best speculation. There is ever present in the majority of the species and abhorrence of definitiveness and hence the wholesale rejection in our age of Absolutes – Time and Space for one. Relativity of Einstein did away with all such notions for good; but let us observe how this rejection manifests in manias such as 2012 has brought to the surface.

There are dozens of New Age researchers speculating over the true meaning of the Maya purported end-time calendar prophecy. We may fantasise that if a Maya priest were to manifest in our midst to explain exactly what this sacred calendar does predict and what its true function is, he would be ignored, and he might even be stoned! As proof we have the attitude the New Way cosmology provokes. Barring a minute percentage of the population, it is rejection either without seeking to make any effort to penetrate its mysteries, or else rejection based on the dismissal of its definitiveness.

Here is the curious part: the New Way cosmology describes in very great detail the actual, the real process New Age seekers are striving to find in their apparent desire to unravel the Maya mystery. We have that process presented in the complete body of Gnosis of the New Way, covering the evolution of the Earth and all its living creatures well beyond any fictitious end-time. It describes non-speculatively the mechanism for this process according to a new science that is based on Laws by which its premises can be accurately tested. The heart and soul of the mechanism is a string of births on Earth which serves to forge an axis composed of Time’s energy. They are not fictitious; they are real. And these real entities exist today, or have existed until just recently; in a word, there is nothing speculative about the Descent – and alas that is its undesirability.

This ‘science’ is founded on Time. It is a higher or wider understanding of its function in our world and the role its verticality plays. Science after Newton measures space only. It has wrapped Time into its horizontality, causing it to lose its vertical function and hence its own absoluteness.

How would that play itself out in society, for example in the current mania under discussion? The fact is that those who are interested in such issues would be the first to reject the absoluteness of the New Way. They do not want its axis of births in Earth time because that is too definite and leaves no room for speculation and illusory web-weaving. It is too confining. They would not want anything like what The Tenth Day of Victory presents as ‘proof’ because that too thrusts these speculators into a world they are not prepared to accommodate into their newly-acquired sense of freedom from laws and confinement. It is to be borne in mind that we are in the Sagittarian 9th Manifestation. One of the principle dilemmas of the sign is how to live in a world of confinement, impeding a romp through the vast and boundless expanses of the Infinite. This is what is presented to the Initiate who has passed through the portals of Scorpio and must confront the enticements of Sagittarius in his or her Journey. The temptation would be the choice that the aspirant must make to take the plunge inward, downward, into the heart and the core of the whirlpool of Time and reject the pull of otherworldliness. This is done by confinement to a Point, a Seed – in search of the Immanent One. If that is achieved, the 9 becomes the 10 – and only then. If that is achieved, the integration of the 9 and the 12 has taken place. This is the first step to Immortality.

In Auroville we faced the same rejection: the measurements of the Mother’s plan were too confining for the same reason, if at all we can attribute some amount of sincerity to the rejection. The Inner Chamber’s plan offered absolute truths if reproduced accurately. But the builders wanted to be ‘free’ and ‘unbound’, lest their creativity be hampered – equating, as the human creature does, creativity with this inferior brand of ‘freedom’.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology
27 July 2007

Iran and the ‘Clash of Civilisations’


Middle East Map
SOME THOUGHTS inspired by the latest edition of World Affairs, Journal of International Issues, Volume 11, Number One, which is centred on Iran and the ‘Clash of Civilisations’.

The reality we see about us certainly indicates that a major shift is being prepared in the distribution of power across the globe, but what the true nature of that shift might be is what has to be pondered deeply.
We see Iran emerging as a major world power enhanced by its potential to acquire nuclear weapons. But we cannot ignore that an ‘Islamic Bomb’ has existed for almost two decades, yet Islam did not come to occupy a leading position on the world stage just by this fact. Something else is required, and that is the thrust of the Time-Spirit. What is the direction the evolution of consciousness on this planet is taking, and what is driving it onto that course?

Iran is being used by Sunni Islamic leaders to foster what appears to be a common agenda. However, it is not at all ‘common’. Sunnis and Shiites are worlds apart; and at root they loathe each other more than what they feel about infidels. For a Muslim there is nothing worse than an apostate, – witness the Salmon Rushdie case as an example. For the mainstream Muslim that is what Shiites are: apostates. Their belief in the return of the Messiah, the Mahdi, can never be accepted by the main body of Islam. This is being displayed for us daily by the violence in Iraq. It is not so much against the allied forces as between these sects. The target of terrorism in Iraq is the Shiite rulers, and it will go on and on until somehow the Sunni minority regains power and is able to subjugate once more the majority sect.

Perhaps intellectuals and political analysts are not sufficiently aware of the schism that exists in Islam. It is brushed aside for the moment because it serves all parties to do so and to put a face to the world of a unity that actually does not exist. Iran appears to be gaining the position of leadership of the Islamic world. But this is merely until a critical threshold is passed, perhaps the extinction of Israel by an Islamic Bomb coming either from Iran or Pakistan, or both.

Once the hour of truth arrives the episode from the Bible, the building of the Tower of Babel, will play itself out. Divide and rule has always been the tactic to control the process of evolution in order to secure that the movement continues and does not exceed itself, that it is not arrested prematurely. In the current context such a situation would mean the destruction of all civilisations, Eastern and Western, and possibly of the Earth itself.

There is an immensely important process playing itself out at this vital crossroads of history. What the world is experiencing has little to do with the obvious such as a struggle for energy control, military dominance to further a certain economic system and the lifestyle it encourages; or even neo-colonialism of sorts. It is true that what is transpiring is a clash of civilisations; but we must be more explicit and describe it as it is, and particularly as it is surfacing today with an ever greater clarity. The clash is between the two Orthodox Religions both of which arose in the Age of Pisces (234 BCE – 1926 CE).

The civilisations in question were each founded on one of these religions, Christianity and Islam. This is indeed the struggle that is transpiring today. Both Islam and Christianity are losing their hold over the minds and hearts of the people; but above all, they cannot manage to regain a hold over the reins of power as they operate today. The Time-Spirit has turned the corner definitively and does not look back at what it left behind.

Islamic leaders believe that the past two millennia witnessed the ultimate dominance of Christianity, in spite of their own rise and many victories which almost carried Islam to the position Christianity holds today. They further believe, because of their God-given possession of a significant portion of the most important and coveted energy source, that this new millennium will witness the rise and definite imposition of an Islamic world order. Their time has finally come, they believe.

On the other hand, in view of the undeniable factor of a looming Islamic dominance, the head of Christendom has openly appealed for a united European front, but reasserting its Christian roots above all else, in order to counter the Islamic threat. Never before in the modern age have we seen religion declared the basis for unification of forces as we see today.

It is to be noted that the German Chancellor, who presently heads the European Union, has openly sided with the Pope in the call for a new Europe to emerge under the banner of Jesus Christ. Where have the gains of the last century gone? Where is our hard won secularism in the face of such a retrograde demonstration of despair and a paucity of ideas and strategies? We are not to revert to the Holy Roman Empire. A new world awaits us.

The plan of the Time-Spirit for this current Age of Aquarius is quite different than appears on the surface. In its initial stages the focus is on what might be called a ‘cleansing of the slate’. The dominance of either one of the religions of the Piscean Age is not the goal. What we are seeing today – and indeed what lies at the basis of the Iraqi conflict – is to hasten and aggravate the internal conflicts between the sects on both sides of the spectrum. But the time will soon come when the majority force of Islam will rear its head and turn on its ‘saviour’ Iran. These two forces will destroy whatever pretense either of them has for world domination. This will happen not because one is good and the other bad, one the true faith and the other the false, but simply because the Time-Spirit has moved on. The new world it fosters, and whose moment has come, is a world based on a reality that is not structured on divisive perceptions. It is a world where true unity prevails. But for that to be perceived one has to have the courage, even if in just a small portion of humanity, to accept that the dominant forces of the Age of Pisces are fast fading to clear the slate, be this in the realm of orthodox religions, imperial post-colonial domination, or whatever would pose a threat to the survival of the new world order of unity and truth.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology
21 July 2007

Simultaneity, Destiny & The Magical Carousel, -2- ENHANCEMENT

For Vishaal Study Group 7 February 2007
[Link to Part 1]

AeonWhen the Mother and Sri Aurobindo counselled their disciples that yoga was above astrology and that less importance should be given to the latter and concentration should be rather on tapasya, this was as correct as it was necessary, given the in-bred Indian tendency to believe in and rely on astrology. This belief and reliance would certainly interfere in the processes of sadhana if not brought within certain bounds. However, we must now go deeper into this question of destiny and the role it must play in the new dispensation. Continue reading ‘Simultaneity, Destiny & The Magical Carousel, -2- ENHANCEMENT’

A Tale of Two Temples


The Mother's Temple from The New Way by Patrizia Norelli-BacheletA summary of the significance of the Matrimandir inaugurationin Auroville based on the architects’ revised plan, paralleled by completion of the 36-year Supramental Yoga according to the Mother’s original vision and plan* Continue reading ‘A Tale of Two Temples’

Announcement 3 – Matrimandir Action Committe

Matrimandir Action CommitteeThe Room must be seen in its time aspect as well as its space aspect…its power and purpose are revealed only when we observe its history from the moment it was pulled down into the Earth dimension from the subtle plane of Truth, – from the moment it began its history in Time, for Time is the method by which sense, purpose, meaning is written into form, into Space. Hence the chamber’s fundamental aspect of Integration is revealed by this method and is understood by a thorough study of its being in Time. In so doing we discover the role all powers and forces play in the development, and how they are all a necessary part of its history and must, each one of them, be integrated and find their places in the new world. That is, the chamber reveals a process of transmutation of energies, accomplished on the basis of an integration of all powers – the dark and the light.’

PNB – 1977
The New Way, Volume 1, Chapter 10,
The Rooting of the Truth-Consciousness, p. 148
Aeon Books (1981)

There are especially significant verses in the Rig Veda which make reference to a new Heaven and a new Earth. The phrase also figures most prominently in the last book of the New Testament, The Revelation. We realise by this across the continents, across the board, across the ages happening that there must be something special here, something to discover which may have the power to transfigure our lives. And indeed this is so. The revelations around the Mother’s chamber allow us to draw aside veils that have clothed this mystery for thousands of years.

I have pointed out the unusual nature of the phrase due to its quasi oxymoron quality. We can quite easily understand what a NEW Earth might mean; but what of the really inscrutable mention of a new Heaven?
No one has explained how Heaven can be ‘made new’. It would appear to contradict what spirituality and religions have always sustained: Heaven is unchanging, extra-cosmic above all. Therefore there can be no ‘newness’ attributed to it which would be a contradiction in terms since ‘newness’ requires movement leading to change, precisely a property of the cosmic manifestation. By common accord Heaven’s very essence is considered immutable, the epitome of stable and unchanging extra-cosmic Permanence.

The verse quoted from the Mahamaya in Announcement 2, does throw light on this precise situation: a ‘heaven made new’. When it is stated that the measurements of the temple projected onto the cosmos make of that universal surround a ‘perfection as well’, readers of the Chronicles and the three Volumes of The New Way can readily understand exactly how this elusive ‘new Heaven’ comes into being. We have the entire process detailed in the Chronicles and Updates: the ‘perfect measurements’ describe that ‘new Heaven’. The temple’s Inner Chamber is the new model of the universe sought after by many esoteric schools, the last of which was Gurdjieff’s in the 20th Century.

All these attempts were unsuccessful because none were based on Sruti, the Vedic revelation. None were inspired by Mahasaraswati.

Thus, Heaven remained the old and incomplete projection of thousands of years which unveiled no newness. On the other hand, the measurements as given by the Mother in her momentous act of seeing have done exactly what the Mahamaya joyously proclaims: the perfection of the measurements holds the secrets of that New Heaven. And this is what ‘descends’, this alone can make the Earth new.

But above all else to note is that it is from the Earth that the Vision arises.

When we have removed the veils covering the meaning of these sacred verses, can we join in celebrating the completion of a Matrimandir in which nothing of the Sacred exists, which is only a celebration of a human labour giving form on the material plane to a human vision inspired by the human ego?

What then, we must ask, has been the objective of these parallel developments over the past 36 years? For surely in a ‘new Heaven’ of the Supramental Gnosis, where control is its key feature, a development of this unusual order cannot be outside its purview. Rather, we discover with an in-depth observation that without the human labour, unrelenting and steadfast, the Yoga of the Chamber, and finally the Yoga of the Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, could never have been successfully completed. Heaven could not have been made new. And without that, as described in great detail in various fora of the New Way, the Earth could not have been transformed to express her own unique newness, a perfect reflection of that Heaven.

To be more specific, the negation of the builders of Matrimandir, with their constant rejection of every item of the Mother’s vision and plan of her Inner Chamber, rooted the process in that one point on Earth. The product of their efforts has become a mirror image, but in the negative. What is not a part of that new Heaven is captured in the Auroville building. But the Divine Nectar that arose from the churning of the Titans and Gods is the vision of Heaven itself transformed,

Heaven made new. [‡]

Now we can enter the secret chamber where the knowledge of all that is New is hidden. And there we see Vishnu in control of the great churning of the Ocean of Time where all things are brewed, pressing down from above on the Axis of Light – gau, the solar Ray of 365 days – of that Chamber, holding it steady and firmly rooted in the Earth, making sure that both Titans and Gods complete their allotted tasks.

When duly completed neither can claim the prize or proclaim ‘Victory’, for it is only Vishnu Himself who is victorious.

The Titan’s labour in Auroville signified that what might have taken centuries to accomplish was done in the mere prescribed 36 years from 1971 to the present, – a remarkable acceleration never before experienced. They pressed forward like blinkered steeds in Pluto’s Underworld to complete the four enneads covering all four planes of Being, – the Supramental/Spiritual, the Mental, the Vital, and finally the Physical. Nothing luminous was allowed to be made a part of the building, only the labour. But that in itself is praiseworthy; for the Gods sin by their inability to hold firm. They are necessary in the plot to goad the Titans to themselves hold firm for the required period while Time gestates the brew of the new Age of Vishnu, which Sri Aurobindo has so cogently described in this Aphorism:

‘Family, nationality, humanity are Vishnu’s three strides from an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been fulfilled, we yet strive for the perfection of the second, towards the third we are reaching out our hands and the pioneer work is already attempted.’

In this Aphorism we have confirmed how step by each of Vishnu Trivikrama’s three magical Strides we reach the goal of our times. These are described, as per the Rig Veda: the Lion, the Bull, and lastly the Friend. It confirms that Sri Aurobindo understood how the Strides are related to the appearances of the last two Avatars of Vishnu, Rama and Krishna (the zodiacal Lion – or the Family as in his epic, the Ramayana; and the Bull – the Nation, as in the expanded Mahabharat). And that with the final stride, in the Veda referred to as ‘the Friend’, it is Sri Aurobindo himself who comes to fulfil the Divine Order in the Aquarian period of Mitra, the Friend. Only the Evolutionary Avatar of the Transcendent 9, by his own passing and rebirth in Earth time in a connected line, can bring into being that New Heaven for all of humanity.

Convenor
Matrimandir Action Committee
9 July 2007

[‡] In The Mother’s Agenda, Volume 1, entry dated November 7, 1961, the Mother reveals just how pervasive interest was in discovering the hidden meaning of this phrase by various groups: ‘…There is also what Theon and Madame Theon used to say. They never spoke of “Supermind”, but they used the same thing as the Vedas, that the world of Truth must incarnate on earth and create a new world. They even picked up the old phrase from the Gospels, “a new heaven and a new earth” which is the same thing the Vedas speak of…’

POSTSCRIPT: The full higher knowledge content of the Chamber as per the Mother’s Plan with its precise measurements was known in the 1970s, when attempts were made to convince the builders to revert to the original, and writing The New Way was in progress. As indicated by the quote at the top and attested to by its three volumes, the understanding of the role of all the participants was known from the beginning; as well as the sublime participation of Vishnu himself. From those earliest days it was ‘seen’ that what was being played out was the grandest of Vedic myths, the Churning of the Milky Ocean. But what was not seen then, the most amazing part of the saga by far, which has surfaced only now, is that both tasks would be completed exactly within the pre-determined period of 36 years – simultaneously. (12/7/2007)

Announcement 2 – Matrimandir Action Committee

Matrimandir Action CommitteeFurther to the first Announcement regarding the important breakthrough in matters Vedic connected to the Mother’s vision of the Inner Chamber, this additional material, with specific references to the Chronicles of the Inner Chamber (CIC) that MAC has been posting to interested parties throughout the world, will further clarify how the Chamber becomes a corrective Cosmic Time-Piece to serve the Vishnu Avatars.

This ‘service’ is rendered only when the accurate measurements are maintained as given by the Seer – in this case the Mother. Therefore it is stated in the Mahamaya of ancient times,

‘If the measurement of the temple is in every way perfect,
there is perfection in the universe as well’ (XXII, 92).

These words are inspired by the same wisdom we find throughout the MAC Chronicles, for example in those where the Sacrificial Year is discussed that has to be RE-SET to bring it back to the Vedic alignment. It is further to be noted that in disregarding the importance of a meticulous care in incorporating the measurements as given in the plan drawn up by the Mother herself, in addition to all the design details she had specified, the present building in Auroville readying to be inaugurated has no significant purpose except to serve as a political toy. Whereas, in the Chronicles of the Inner Chamber the precise PURPOSE of the Mother’s original vision and plan is explained in great detail, revealing the method whereby Order is restored to the universe and heaven descends upon Earth.

The most significant and relevant measurements given by the Mother are 1) the diameter of the Globe – 70 cm; and 2) the length of the descending solar Ray – 15.20m., from the top of the Chamber to the top of the Pedestal. This indicates a horizontal and a vertical measuring process. Without these the task of re-setting the Cosmic Timepiece cannot be accomplished; without these two measurements there can be no re-setting, and then the Hindu Line of Ten ceases to exist as the central Axis of Hinduism and its binding force. The Epics themselves drift into irrelevancy and the Dharma is lost forever.

With these two measurements it is established that the Vedic Sacrifice, extended over the 365-day Earth Year, rests on the four Cardinal Points. In Chapter 1, Volume 2 of The New Way (Aeon Books 1981), the exact details of this spectacular revelation are given, with accompanying diagrams (p. 219) that indicate how the Equinox of 21/22 March comes into being at the exact centre of the Globe. This is called the Year of Space, and its structure is fourfold and twelvefold.

However, of equal if not more importance is the Year of Time, extended down the very same solar Ray (‘cow’/gau) of 365 days; its structure is threefold and ninefold. But this sacredmost measurement indicates the year of Sri Aurobindo’s passing and how and through whom his return would occur. Based on the measurement of the Globe, the Pedestal’s height is extracted (CIC 7); thereby we are informed of the year that this Return would transpire, – 1963, or 13 years after 1950. None of this is verifiable or even at all perceivable if the Nirayana system of Nakshatras is the basis used in temple worship and calendar specifications.

Therefore we state that the Avatar, and ONLY the true Evolutionary Avatar and not the Usurpers, comes to re-establish the Dharma by re-setting the Cosmic Clock which mechanism is his own cosmic credentials. None of the Usurpers can lay claim to equal cosmic credentials which in themselves are able to re-set the Universal Clock to its accurate Zero Point and restore the Vedic Order as traced across the cosmic horizon by Vishnu Trivikrama. Only the Divine Maya can serve Vishnu in this sacred Mission. But to obstruct Him, to seek to have Vishnu fail to execute his perfectly measured Strides, the Usurpers must preserve the prevailing false and un-divine Maya that has been ruling over the Hindu fold for far too long.

Therefore, is the Mahamaya ‘fanciful’ or ‘quaint’ when it sings of the ‘perfection of the universe’ coming into being when the measurement of the temple ‘is in every way perfect’?

Convenor
Matrimandir Action Committee
and Movement for the Restoration
of Vedic Wisdom
7 July 2007

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The Dawn of a New Era

Movement for the Restoration of Vedic Wisdom It has come to pass that approximately two dozen temples in a district in Tamil Nadu, renowned for its Vedic studies, will be celebrating the forthcoming rituals according to the Vedic Sayana/Tropical Zodiac system. The first will be the up-coming Gokulashtami – 6 August. All the rest of the Observances will follow as per the Tropical Calendar. This occurrence is being given wide publicity throughout India. It coincides with the Tamil translation publication of our Movement’s ‘Manifesto’.

With this most important breakthrough many devotees and temple authorities will begin to ask questions – and this is what we had hoped for. The only way falsehood can be prolonged is when it succeeds in obscuring the Light, for the truth is to be found in the actual history of how and why the Nirayana system of astrological/temple calculations came to be adopted. The story is rather incredible, as the reader will now note.

As Convenor of this Movement, in various platforms I have been reporting my discoveries of the 12th Century scholar-traveller Al Biruni’s influence over Hindu Pundits in the question of shifting from the Vedic Tropical Zodiac as backdrop for the yearly Sacrifice to the un-Vedic system of measuring the passage of the year on the backdrop of the distant Constellations. The Vedic system must be balanced on the unchanging four Cardinal pillars of the Tropical Zodiac, which do not hold any prominence in the Nirayana system advocated by Al Biruni. He wrote in his famous document, India, critiquing Varamihira’s Brhad Samhita, ‘The solstice has kept its place, but the constellations have migrated, just the very opposite of what Varaha has fancied’ (India, II, p.7). In other words, an entirely different, distant ‘circle’ is proposed by the scholar, and it later found favour with Hindu Pundits. He appeared on the scene in the 12th Century, but it took many more centuries and the invention of the printing press for the final death blow to occur with the adoption of the un-Vedic Nirayana method by Hindu almanac providers.

The adoption of this un-Vedic method of calculation, binding on all Hindus throughout the world and which has brought so much confusion into Hinduism, was for purely commercial reasons. There was no great and illuminating revelation – sruti, dristi – involved in the switch to this un-Vedic system; whereas we have verses preserved in the Rig Veda and the Atharva Veda indicating specifically that it is the Tropical Zodiac ONLY that must be followed. On the other hand, when printing presses were engaged for the preparation and dissemination of the calendar of observances, the entire operation of preparing timings for temples and astrologers became one of commercial interests rather than to be at the service of the sacred. There was no VEDIC basis involved in the introduction of the current Nirayana system of calendar observances for Hindus, – a tragic state of affairs.

Today this commercially-inspired development has caused chaos to reign in matters that should be luminous and unquestionable. There is no ‘authority’ within the current Nirayana system who can defend its unillumined origins, or in any way demonstrate its superiority over the Vedic method of calculation. The Chief Pundits of the temples themselves rely entirely on almanac writers whose vested interests are served by propagating a Bija Correction to establish an exclusive Ayanamsha starting point that he or she can ‘prove’ is superior to other almanac producers. This is the way exclusivity is maintained by the different Pachangakars. If they seek to increase their popularity – and of course the sale of their Almanacs – they must simply claim that their ‘correction’ is more ‘scientifically accurate’.

The truth is that there cannot be any such accuracy in the Nirayana system. Science cannot determine any ‘accurate’ Ayanamsha in the circle of CONSTELLATIONS which is constantly shifting. That is, the various Ayanamshas proposed in the un-Vedic system float in a void, as it were. The ‘circle’ they are measured against is not prescribed in the Veda precisely because it is not FIXED. The only truly scientific and astronomically correct system is the Vedic Tropical Zodiac, the Sayana system, WHICH NEVER VARIES: each year the Ayanamsha for the correct start of the Hindu calendar of observances is the same, – the Equinox of 21 March.

The falsehood that has taken hold, the lie that must be exposed is this question of ‘scientific accuracy’ of the Nirayana system over the Vedic Sayana method, which does not in any way serve Hindus but only the vested commercial interests of Almanac Publishers. Their claims have no Vedic sanction at all.

But here is the saddest part: their adoption by different astrologers and temple pundits is similar to drug addiction. Once astrologers decide to adopt one of the numerous almanacs on the market, proffered through a particular family of astrologers, gurus or pundits, forever after they must continue to use that Almanac with its exclusive ‘bija correction’ that makes it different from the other competitors in the field. All horoscopes constructed on the basis of a particular selection will be INVALID if the astrologer were to shift allegiance to another publication. His or her whole life work would crumble. These astrologers and temple pundits are trapped forever by this falsehood that serves only the commercial interests of certain almanac publishers without any authority from the Higher Knowledge of the Veda.

With this declaration accompanied by the Tamil edition of our Manifesto and the Vedic observances in certain important temples in Tamil Nadu – precisely the land of the Preservation Guna in the trifold map of the Capricorn symbol-map of India – we start a new chapter for the benefit of the entire Hindu Samaj.

4 July 2007

The Convenor
Movement for the Restoration
of Vedic Wisdom

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See: ‘Announcements’ in ‘The Mother’s Temple’ category.

An Announcement – Matrimandir Action Committee

Matrimandir Action CommitteeMatrimandir Action Committee is pleased to report to all those who value the original vision and plan of the Mother’s Inner Chamber that a very significant breakthrough has occurred concerning the main objective of the Chamber.

Continue reading ‘An Announcement – Matrimandir Action Committee’