The Gnostic Circle, Chapter 15 (PNB, Aeon Books), I wrote of a destiny tie between the United States of America and India; its broad lines are made clear by the new cosmology. The zodiacal ‘ruler’ (of longitudes and latitudes) laid horizontally and vertically across the globe, added to the birth dates of the newly-independent nations from their colonial masters provided the details of this connection. America’s 4th July independence, for example, places the nation under the rule of Cancer. I have pointed out how India’s ancient ruler Capricorn delineates the actual geography of the subcontinent over which it rules according to astrological tradition as practiced throughout the world – and in India as well until the Nirayana system based on the Nakshatras became the vogue. Does the hieroglyph of Cancer ♋ play a similar role for the USA? It is not the contours of geography in America’s case that the glyph reveals but something that has come to be a characteristic feature of the culture.

The Cancer hieroglyph, similar to Capricorn and the remaining 10, was seen and recorded in very ancient times; in fact, we have no precise date of either its origin or place, regardless of what our history books tell us to the contrary. We teach our children that everything we know by way of culture arose in Mesopotamia; but the truth be told, this simply fit into the Eurocentric view of the world and the dominance of Christianity. Regarding the zodiac, given that the glyphs, when read on the basis of the knowledge the Integral and Supramental Yogas confer, describe the Journey of initiates as recorded in the world’s oldest scripture, the Rig Veda.

The superimposed zodiacal ruler of the USA, Cancer

Be that as it may, the Cancer glyph has a distinct quality. Apart from imaging the female reproductive system, it has a special characteristic: it is binary, bearing two balanced circles at either end. When superimposed on the United States map, the striking aspect is how the east and west coasts are highlighted, which are undeniably the dual cultural hubs of the culture.

We are justified in questioning what came first. The glyph obviously predates the development of the binary culture as it stands today. We talk of influences due to being born under a particular Sun sign of the twelve. Is it therefore this ‘influence’ that caused these two cultural hubs to emerge thousands of years after the Seer first ‘saw’ the hieroglyphic shape of the fourth sign of the zodiac?

In India’s case the major determining factor is Capricorn rather than Leo of the newly-independent nation because of everything Capricorn signifies, particularly regarding the Sanatana Dharma – though its 15 August 1947 date in Leo also plays a role, which we will discuss further on. Capricorn is the abiding constant of the civilisation’s destiny from very ancient times until the present. Regardless of newly-set borders within the glyph – which in any case just reflect the divide-and-rule strategy of the departing colonial power – the land delineated by Capricorn is the area where the Dharma exists, and will persist for many millennia into the future based on what might justified be called the Earth’s sacred geography.

If we observe the full zodiac circle we note that the two signs face each other and form an axis which I consider the Axis of Evolution, thus revealing the immensely important role these nations/signs play in the movement of the Ages. This is strengthened by the solstice points at the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn which have always played a major role in the ritual observances of many civilisations. Even their location on the globe suggests an axial balance: they stand back-to-back. Regarding the purpose of this Appeal, there is something of greater significance to consider. Cancer within the context of the old Yogas is Prakriti: she ‘rules’ over the lower hemisphere together with Purush, or Leo, whose own hieroglyph conveys the image of a single male sperm, perfectly in tune with the female reproductive organs of Cancer.

Leo is the sign under which India became independent on 15 August 1947, Sri Aurobindo’s birth date, Vishnu’s 9th Evolutionary Avatar. This was no happenstance. It is another demon-stration of the control that exists over the destiny of India to assure that the entire nation would celebrate the birth of one of his Line of Ten well into the future. The understanding that the Dasavataras are the ‘backbone’ of the civilisation would eventually dawn.

The two, India and America can be meaningful partners in the more external dimensions such as world affairs; but more significantly at far deeper levels, precisely the theme of this Appeal. I saw this partnership in 1974 while writing The Gnostic Circle. The situation between the two was anything but collaborative in the 1970s, when the Cold War was at its peak. Nonetheless, I wrote what was indicated in the new cosmology. The Cold War became history with the collapse of Communism and the Berlin Wall in the 1980s.

Today India and America have gone beyond ideological taboos and the partnership is getting stronger by the day. But still there are hurdles to overcome. These are recalcitrant carry-overs from the Age of Pisces we left behind in 1926 but that seek to maintain a supremacy which is no longer viable. However, they are strongly entrenched and stand in the way of the partnership fully realising its potential to usher in a newworld order.

Mention of Pisces brings up another ‘coincidence’ involving zodiac rulerships. Italy, also known as the Boot, was the centre of the Age of Pisces (234 BCE – 1926 CE) when she ruled over the then known world, first through Roman conquests, and later as the seat of Christianity. Pisces rules the feet according to traditional astrology. This is ‘coincidentally’ confirmed by the shape of the Italian landmass in the form of a boot. Geography becomes indeed sacred when the Earth is seen on the backdrop of the cosmic harmonies.

Also to be noted is that there is no single pattern employed by the Supramental Shakti in this question of glyphs and landmasses. One is obliged to ‘see in understanding’ – that is, there must be a comprehensive understanding, founded on unity, of the language employed by the ancients to transmit and preserve the perennial knowledge across the ages: one must see the parts and the whole simultaneously, with the ability to put each thing in its place as this analysis of the USA/India axis reveals.

America arose as the new world, while Europe stands as the old. Lamentably, the decimation of paganism by the powers of that old world was exported and implanted in the new, to the extent that this mindset influenced interaction with the indigenous cultures the early settlers encountered, as they sought refuge in the new land from religious and political oppression in Europe. It is unfortunate though that those settlers carried over what was a very deep-rooted bias against paganism in whatever form, but essentially the central position the Feminine occupies in paganism could not be accepted.

Subsequently the inferior status given to women reached its lowest ebb. The bias was planted in the soil of the new world and thrived unchallenged for centuries until the dawn of the new Age when unsettling Aquarian influences began to be felt, the goal of which was to uproot those transported biases and to allow for the new way of Woman to rise. It has been a long and hard labour. The purpose of this Appeal is to provide the means to hasten that change – but for this America cannot stand alone precisely because the scope of the endeavour is evolutionary. She needs India’s help.

The reason I make this statement is cosmological. Confirmation lies in the nature of the axis that joins America and India. Cancer and Capricorn are two aspects of the Goddess that need to meld into one now, otherwise the binary condition will persist with its devastating consequences. To avoid this, to hasten the new order this Appeal is sent out in anticipation of an awakening and dawning realisation of the help the forging of the bridge between the two nations can bring to overcome the persistent negation America and India have inherited from the Age of Pisces with the affliction of anti-paganism Europe imposed across the globe and its consequent suppression of women. It was not so-called ‘civilisation’ and progress that Europe brought to the new world and the lands it colonised in its expansionism; for the most part it inculcated in those unsuspecting pagans a bias against Woman that seems recalcitrant and so deeply rooted that extirpation, at this point, is likely to destroy the very Earth as the field where this play-out takes place. Nonetheless, regardless of the danger it is time to shed baggage and to embrace the new future this axial balance can offer the world, in an organic development based on higher knowledge, the gift the Supreme Mother has provided: to proceed ahead in ignorance of the real rules of the game is to plunge our world into an irredeemable chaos.

Cancer/Prakriti rules over what is known as the lower hemisphere of the circle of 12 – when the circle is divided in half (the equinoxes), and then again into four (the addition of the solstices). India’s Capricorn rules over the higher hemisphere – and this is the higher aspect of the Goddess. In Vedic cosmology and myth they are known as Diti and Aditi, the Mothers of Division and Unity. Aditi represents the capacity to unify what Diti divides.

The Diti/Aditi relation is found projected into the chamber saga not only by the symbolic representation of the ego structure of the human being in what was finally built in Auroville and passed off as ‘the Mother’s original’, but in the way she had to be addressed – i.e. ‘Mother’s original’ – or Diti who does indeed providemotherly comforts for her subjects, particularly the ego as a temporary protective device. However, when the seeker passes through death (to the lower hemisphere) and has the good fortune of knowing Aditi with the soul replacing the ego, she can only be addressed as the Mother. This is not dogma; it is simply the result of realisation. For most residents of the Ashram, she certainly was the ‘motherly’ Mother; and they remained satisfied with that – or better said, that aspect required far less effort on the part of the sadhaks than Aditi would.

What is needed in the world today, and womanhood in general, is a balance between the two, each supporting the other from their respective strengths. USA/Diti/Cancer has affinity with Matter and all things material. India’s predilection lies in the Spirit; but alone she cannot eradicate the forces of negation the Earth is still saddled with; whereas together the axis Aditi/Diti can help to usher in the new order. This is written in the cosmic harmony and as Time is the motor of the cosmic manifestation and evolution, each day brings us closer to that grand apotheosis.

The Mother’s chamber carries this message and power; hence it was sought to be obliterated because those handling the matter could not rise to the occasion. The new way and its cosmology carries the same message: the central place the chamber occupies as an executive force, disclosing the controlling and organising powerof a newly-manifested aspect of the Goddess, the invincible Supramental Shakti; therefore it has experienced the same attempts at suppression women face throughout the world. But the Supramental Shakti cannot be so easily dismissed. She devised contingency plans. This Appeal is one of them.