Author Archives: Thea

Crib Death

(The following concerns Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (‘Crib Death’). A student of the New Way, who is a social worker in a programme that provides assistance to parents of victims of this bizarre death, has prepared an introduction with some data on the phenomenon. This is followed by two letters from Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet on the subject.)

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (’Crib Death’) is the sudden and unexpected death of an apparently healthy infant, usually during a sleeping period, whose death remains unexplained after a case study and a thorough autopsy.

SIDS is the leading cause of death in the post-neonatal period, i.e. from 1 month to 1 year of life (in the USA), occurring more often in the cold months, with a slight predominance in males (as in many diseases). It occurs across all socio-economic lines and is more common among the poor of no matter what ethnicity. The highest incidence in the USA is among the Native Americans in Reservations, followed by Blacks and Hispanics. The lowest incidence is among Orientals.

When looking at those infants at greater risk, statistics reveal that they are more often born prematurely, are of low birth weight, their mothers are under 20 years of age, who smoke, who are drug addicted, who have had intra-uterine infections, elevated blood pressure. At the same time, there are many infants who die of SIDS whose mothers have not one of these features.

Because SIDS occurs without cry, without warning, there is no opportunity to prepare for it. A parent can turn away to prepare a bottle and return to find the infant lifeless. Resuscitation efforts are to no avail usually, and if an infant is revived it is ‘brain dead’ and succumbs in a matter of days. Parents’ grief is compounded by guilt and blame from others who create doubts through criticism of parental care or insinuations about the parent’s actions. Families are forced to deal with police, medical examiners and hospital personnel who must investigate such deaths and are not gentle.

Autopsies are done in order to rule out other causes of death.

Some statistics: 85% of deaths in infancy are due to SIDS. The other 15% are due to other causes. Rate: about 2 per 1000 live births. 7000 per year in the USA.

24 November 1986

‘…The point is the illness [Sleeping Sickness] came and went mysteriously. In a similar fashion there is this “Crib Death”. But to me the matter is even clearer in the latter. This is evidently a “decision” taken by the soul to withdraw. In a way this corresponds to the greater consciousness coming into being regarding death (and birth). It indicates a far greater awareness in the processes. That is, the infant is aware of what he has stepped into and “decides” to leave before he/she has forged “ties” – or a certain network of time-energy, which makes the enacting of such a decision possible. Between 1 and 6 months, provided this awareness exists, it is easier to leave the body, to “slip out” like one steps out of a dress. Usually it is done through the top of the skull, which is also facilitated by the fact that it is still “open”. But in any case, that opening is just indicative of the condition of being in early infancy, which is yet to be firmly “cemented” on earth, in Earth life.

‘These infants then desire to leave, perhaps because of the trying conditions and atmosphere of the Earth. They can do this easily if there are no connections made as yet with others, no conscious experiences lived in time and which begin to draw a network around the soul and rivet it to a collective karmic web. Hence the reason why these deaths occur at such a young age. It will also explain why there are no traces, no illnesses.

‘I have come across such situations in older people, two cases of such “deaths” that I knew of in Pondicherry, after the Mother left. But there is an age by which the enactment of these decisions becomes more difficult. Then a form of “suicide” is reverted to. I have discussed this with regard to the Auroville children in The Gnostic Circle (See Chapter 15) and their connection to the collective movement and karma.

‘I was wondering whether these deaths were occurring elsewhere in the world. If it is only in the USA that is doubly interesting, in its connection with Cancer…’

19 February 1987

‘I have gone over the material you sent on SIDS. From studying this it all seems to confirm my original feeling. There are certain significant details. Foremost is the fact that hardly any of these deaths occur in the first month. They begin then and increase until a peak at between two and four, and then peter out after six. Dapena significantly writes, “There is a clue in there if we only understood what it’s all about.”

‘Well, to me this is in order because if, as I more firmly than ever believe, we are dealing with voluntary withdrawals, then certain aspects of the process of birth have to be taken into consideration. I realise that what I write will have no effect on people who do not understand birth and death in terms of more or less conscious transitions from one plane to another. But whether this is accepted or not by the medical world, believe me, it is the only answer to this mystery.

‘You see, in the process of incarnation, various “layers” of consciousness must be gathered around a central axis, a nucleus, a seed, – or a soul, if you will. There is a critical transition when one diminishes the consciousness, a sort of tightening and confinement. Just like I described in the discussion on Sleeping Sickness. (See TVN, 2/1, April 1987) The individual soul repeatedly experiences this same process, each time a new birth comes about. Compared to the condition in a physical body confined to a delineated space, sojourn “on the other side” is akin to the Transcendent’s “freedom”. I think for this reason the human being is so obsessed with freedom.

‘When the moment comes to enter this physical plane of the 9 – or the densest part of creation – it is like a whirlpool: the consciousness is regrouping. That is, the mental and vital sheaths are being collected around the axis/soul, and a “materialisation” is engendered by the speed that the consciousness attains due to this tightening and confinement. It is during this phase that the vital and mental sheaths come into being. Remember that these sheaths disintegrate after death – sometimes quickly, sometimes more slowly, depending on the development, the focus of the previous life. A strongly vital person will retain his/her vital sheath for a longer period. Or else, something of that sheath may be passed on to a living person; or it remains in the atmosphere as a “ghost” and makes periodic appearances. But if there is no “axis” the apparition is hollow, a vacant shell, as it were. Any power it may appear to have is simply a projection from a living being – fear, for example.

‘So, when the time comes to reincarnate the soul requires these subtle sheaths – in particular the vital, which is indispensable for life on this planet. One can survive with a weak or even an absent mental sheath, but not the vital. The bizarre stories of zombies, for example, are cases in which a magician with certain knowledge calls a vital sheath of some dead person (perhaps recently deceased), or a sheath crystallised in the vital plane, into a dead body and animates the corpse in this way. The technique is known in India and is one of the lower powers a Tantrik can acquire.

‘Just imagine the process visually, like a whirlpool; and then you will come to understand that from a certain wideness there is an increasing tightening, to a point. This is what “drops into” the waiting physical vessel. There are separate dimensions here: above and below. The physical vessel is prepared below and awaits the soul, around which these sheaths are gathered. In a sense, they attach themselves to this axis. They are propelled and usually compelled to enter the waiting vessel. (Sri Aurobindo describes this so beautifully at the end of Book 11 in Savitri, when the Goddess takes birth again.)

‘But the transition is critical because the passage “puts one to sleep”. That is, the consciousness “falls asleep” in the transition. It is during this passage that the awareness of what constitutes the Beyond is lost. And this is the answer to why those SIDS babies do not leave immediately. It takes a while to adjust to the transition, to “awaken” to the new condition and to adjust to the confinement. A shock is experienced.

‘When one comes out of one’s body by a conscious process in the waking state, during the first experiences it is rather depressing because one becomes acutely aware of the heaviness of the physical. After all, in the subtle sheaths one can move through dense objects. There is no limitation in this sense, just as one can pass into other dimensions. All of that is lost when in the physical. And so, in the early stages effort has to be made to overcome a certain sense of unhappiness with our condition which appears to be so limited compared to the other. But this limitation has its own rewards.

‘These SIDS babies take a while before they realise where they are; and what their options are in this new condition. But, you see, the “decision” was taken on the other side, before the plunge through the waters of oblivion. It takes a while to recall that decision also.

‘This is why there are so few deaths in the first month but they begin immediately when this adjustment sets in and these babies then get down to work to find release. I would imagine that the longer it takes them the harder it would be for them to leave – the more complicated the process.

‘I can see why these two phenomena came to my awareness at the same time: Sleeping Sickness and SIDS. It is because in a sense they are related. That is, by understanding the plunge of the Transcendent through Sleeping Sickness (and Sri Aurobindo’s tapasya), you can understand better the process of incarnation of the individual soul, which will give you the answers to the how and why of many aspects of these SIDS.

‘The data are interesting. One aspect seems to point to the will. A weak will to live is why they encounter certain traces of a physical weakness – i.e. somewhat underweight, etc. I believe that these data are simply the result of over-scrupulous autopsies. That is, in the effort to find clues to these deaths, clearly these babies are put through tests that would not be done under normal conditions. Or, say babies who live, reach adolescence and beyond. If ALL babies were put through these exacting tests, I wonder how many who survive healthily and grow to a ripe age would also show the same signs of weakness, etc., as the SIDS baby. But I suppose this is taken into account in the data. Perhaps for this very reason they hesitate to blame the deaths on any of their findings and prefer to believe that the cause lies in a combination of malfunctions, however slight.

‘If however, a soul incarnates having already taken the decision to leave as soon as possible, you understand that this “decision” must affect the baby’s vitality to some degree. And it would not necessarily be marked. There would most likely be just traces, some disquieting hint of an undermining willessness. This undermining would seem to me to be thoroughly consistent with what medical examinations have unveiled regarding certain hints of weakness or underweight in these babies.

‘Then there is the other, perhaps more important aspect to the matter. This is the environment into which the plunge is made.

‘A baby and a child are extremely sensitive to the “psychic atmosphere” of their surroundings. Depressed atmospheres are readily felt by the baby and the child. This sensitivity lasts for each one different lengths of time. In some it continues for several, even more, years. For others a dullness sets in quickly – precisely as a protection, as a means to stay rooted in the body. This knowledge has far-reaching consequences because, you realise, it influences our ideas about child-care in subtle but significant ways. Because what is this psychic atmosphere? And, where lies the real answer to a psychically harmonious atmosphere?

‘You see, we have many ideas about these things. Sincere and serious attempts are made to understand and to create congenial conditions for the healthy, happy and fulfilling growth of a child. But often these ideas are far off the mark. An ignorance in certain key spheres produces these contrary effects – without any realisation that such is the case.

‘This could be a long discussion, so let’s leave it at that and return to our subject. A baby responds to an atmosphere which 99% of adults are oblivious to. But, this much is clear to all of us: the deprived classes of society carry an aura of deprivation around them. True. But the “atmosphere” I am referring to cuts across economic lines. As an example, take the deprived population of India. I am certain you have never seen anything like the poverty one finds in India. I can tell you, having travelled all over the world, that there is little comparable to the degree of abject poverty one finds here. And yet, that psychic depression is absent here. It is hard to believe at first, but after living for a while in India one realises this is so. And I often wonder if this is the reason this poverty drags on. Something continues to “smile” in these people. And that “smile” is perceptible, tangible. It creates an “atmosphere”.

‘In contrast, I have never found deprivation as depressing as what I witnessed in New York City in l981. My rational mind could clearly see that what I was witnessing was nothing compared to the starkest poverty of India. But I saw real human misery [in NYC]. The most miserable in fact. Squalor of the psyche more than the body. And this is far worse. To this the baby responds rather than the mere physical conditions. Obviously if we combine the two, as is often the case, we have the most abject conditions a soul can be born into.

‘And so, the data you sent, strangely enough, brought to mind a particular sorrowful experience I had a few years back. Going through one of the weekly news magazines, I came upon an article about the condition of American Indians on the Reservations. There were some statistics given, i.e. the high rate of alcoholism, and such things. But more moving of all was a photo of one of the women, apparently drunk on beer, throwing beer bottles around. You know, I have never forgotten the face of that woman. The pain of the soul…so evident. Compared to the Indian (of India) deprived class, her economic condition appeared reasonably adequate. In fact, she appeared overfed. In contrast, here we see, we live next to people who have not even one meal a day. But her psychic pain, her racial awareness of a lost state of beatitude, was so evident on her face, in her being. I realised then that the American Indian is by far the most unfortunate ethnic group in America. Their fall would be proportionate to the level of their former condition, which in many ways was so high, so close to the Earth and healthy living. This reminds me of the Indians I saw in Peru, in Bolivia – that same psychic sadness. Or in Mexico. More-so in countries that have known such formidable civilisations.

‘A soul, incarnating in the body of an American Indian, would immediately respond to that sorrow, that particular type of psychic depression more than any other. It is fortified, in a sense, by the collective condition, which adds power to it.

‘And so, I was not surprised to read in the data that you sent how much higher the incidence of SIDS is among American Indians, almost double that of other lower socio-economic groups. I am convinced that it is because of the racial, collective psyche that fortifies the depression and makes the atmosphere more tangible in this respect for the infant. But, once again, this could be a long discussion….

‘To conclude, I just want to mention that I think they are exaggerating in their effort to locate cases of SIDS throughout history, through a scrutiny of scriptures, etc. Certainly some of the cases in the past which were thought to be death by smothering (“overlaying”) were probably SIDS – but probably the majority were not. And the important point, in our case, is the increase, the collective phenomenon; and in particular the fact that these deaths are so much more numerous in the USA. 200 per year in New York City alone! And how to prevent something over which we seem to have no control?

‘It is clear that we have to improve conditions of life on this planet, so that we cease to “frighten” souls away. We have to create a congenial psychic atmosphere. The question is, what is that, and how do we attain it?

‘About the strange synchronisation in the “crib deaths” with the mother’s birthday, etc. I think this is most probably due to a certain horoscopic combination [between the two] which permits or sets such events in motion – a harmony of time, quoi. Not all infants have such horoscopic combinations with their parents. But the ones that do may respond to these synchronistic impulses.

‘And I wonder if the fact that these deaths occur more to teenage mothers isn’t because they themselves are less stable, less rooted; and so the process is somehow easier when there is less maturity, the network is not so consolidated.

‘You know, yogis learn to die voluntarily, to leave in the same way [as SIDS]. Infants know how instinctively, but later forget. The process of living roots us here. Then we have to use dramatic means to leave – by suicide. Or else, an act of will to fall ill and go by this means…’.

Thea

‘Perspectives’ – Evolution and the Genesis Bind

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I was trying to find this piece…I can’t find it in the book. Peck’s book [The People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck, Simon & Schuster, NY, 1983]. Anyway, what brought it to mind now is this talk we were having about evolution – because this is the problem that they cannot face in Christianity, in the Christian way of thinking. The problem they have with it is true. But at the same time it is also their limiting factor.

Now, if you take what we were saying before, that it is not evolving from the apes – the human consciousness – that it is not a question of preparing a vessel via that ape, or monkey, or whatever, but that…

That Consciousness is trying to find a form…

…It is trying to develop a form to fit it. And these species represent these developments, these processes in which the atmosphere of the Earth is being prepared to house higher and higher levels of consciousness.

Yes, you have to say in a sense we do evolve from that, because if that hadn’t been it would not have been possible for the human being to establish his habitat on Earth. But that if you look at it in the strictly physical sense and you cannot see that all these species are forming aspects of the Divine Consciousness in evolution, then you are stuck there.

So, there will always be that ‘missing link’, because there is no link.

In other words, when that consciousness was ready the form was also ready. I mean, the consciousness was being prepared all along, in all these other trials. But then the consciousness of man – the mental human being – actually descended then.

So, in a sense the Christian theory, Genesis, is right. In a ‘sense’.

It is that man descended ‘ready made’.

…In a way it is right.

The trouble is when you understand it literally then it becomes disastrous because it becomes a dogmatic falsehood.

And it is a joke because then you say NO to the other, YES to this. Whereas in actual fact, what I am saying is yes to the both of them, because without that evolutionary process the human consciousness… Because as you mentioned before, it is true: it is involved. Mind is involved, life is involved in matter. So it is a question of this gradual unfolding. And the animal phase of this was very important because that developed life. That is that vital level (vital-physical, really speaking). That was what was unfolding then.

Then comes the other. And obviously you’ve got to find forms that are suitable to this habitat.

But the problem so far in the evolution is that it has been… The involution has taken place and there is an evolution, but it is evolving in ignorance; or from the Inconscient. Up to this point.

And now, with the fourth element you get what you once described…about the ‘reversal’. I think you wrote about it once in one of your journals: The reversal of the 4^th. Then you get evolution in truth.

That’s right. This is the point where something else can take place. For example, we are preparing a new form right now. This is evident. Now, it doesn’t mean, really, that out of my brain is going to come the new Brain. You know what I mean?

It is not that somehow, either to my children, or whatever. I mean biologically, genetically, I am going to pass that new form on. This isn’t the way it happens.

You ‘pass on’ a consciousness, a state of consciousness.

I think you pointed that out pretty well too with the Mother’s transformation and what that was involving. There’s a classic case: everybody is expecting the 95-year old person to turn into the new species.

This is precisely the point.

Now, what was it that the Mother was doing? She was doing exactly this work. She was preparing the field so that this other could manifest.

You see, again you come to this question, all these ideas about…it is going to ‘descend’ from outer space, also, in a way, have their truth. But, yet again, they’re off! Because, there again, they do not see that what we are doing here would allow for something like that to happen. That you cannot even descend in a space suit from outer space if it is not ready here. You see?

So, we are in this transitional phase, and we are working on the consciousness which will then be able to develop its own forms accordingly.

It is a very important phase. It is essential, because without this nothing else happens. But it is not that you, or me, or somebody else…we are going to turn into the supramental beings overnight, because it is really… It is irrelevant! That is not the point.

The point is to prepare the Earth for this advent, in whatever way then that the Divine… You see, it gets far more ‘mechanical’ than that: In whatever way this seed flowers. Of course it already contains in itself the means for its own flowering. And, as I’ve already said, the Supermind creates its own conditions.

These are just our mental projections, our ideas…

All the time we’ve got these ideas: it has got to be like this. I mean, I can experience in my own consciousness that there is something different here than in other consciousnesses because…. I experience it in what way? I experience it in this way, in that there is some kind of a connection made, somewhere ‘up above’ that other people do not have. Because how do I ‘see’ these things? I always feel that it is like a descent. It is almost like a seed that comes in and it’s like a suggestion, sort of. Obviously these are ‘intuitions’ – that is what it is all about. But the only thing is that in my case I feel that it is almost a constant contact; whereas somebody else may have an intuition, a ‘flash’, and you know, then they build up a whole school on one insight.

With me there seems to be some sort of a constant flow. It just keeps coming and coming. And so, that gives you the clue then, because it is something steady then that is created. A bridge that is opened. There is already something that you can go back and fourth on, let us say.

What in the Veda they called ‘stable lightnings’.

Sri Aurobindo must have written about that in those portions [of his book The Secret of the Veda] about Saraswati and the Rivers…the ‘stable lightnings’…

Well, that is the way I feel about it because they do come like lightnings. Suddenly. But it is a constant flow. I can give you any number of examples.

How did it ever occur to me, for example, in the discovery of the new planets, how they fit into that [pattern]. Now I don’t even remember. I only know that there was some clue given – not a direct clue, but something that X said. It just made me look – just look, cast a glance in that matter and that whole thing opened up.

The same thing with the Lunar Line. What is it? Some ‘seed’ that comes in and you follow that thread. But it is a steady thing. These are the preparations.

Now, obviously I wouldn’t be able to do this if Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had not cleared the way. This is clear. It is also clear that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were experiencing this kind of steady flow too.

But that is the thing. Then you carry that forward and you realise that at a certain point you are going to have beings incarnating with the channel open.

Nothing special at all. It will be the normal level of consciousness.

Of course. But in order for that to happen you have got to prepare a field here. You have got to make the field congenial for those beings, that being – to make a permanent, stable ‘home’ here. So, it cannot be just sporadic.

It would be an abomination otherwise.

Not only that. It is a horizontal movement. This field is horizontal: you have to create a horizontal field that receives this and that is…congenial, that is attuned to this ‘new matter’, let us say.

The way things are arranged, if something like that were even conceivable you get the impression that it would just annihilate the physical universe, if something like that ‘broke the laws’.

I know.

It is not possible because it is not arranged that way.

…because it is such a perfection, where each part supports the other, that you really could not… But, you see, even these kinds of perceptions – they are impossible for the human being. Then again, he cannot conceive of something that is an evolving perfection. He conceives of a perfection as something static. But a perfection of each moment, of something in movement, is something quite difficult.

And it frightens him because it is something too impersonal. It seems to be so… To the mental consciousness it is sort of…

Unrelated.

Yes, you know, ‘What about ME!’

Unrelated to himself.

Because he is too much bound to that immediate physical frame that he happens to inhabit at this time.

You see, at this point I don’t know that we are going to be stuck with a ‘missing link’ along the way, as there was from the vital consciousness, which was the habitat of the animal kingdom, to the mental. That ‘missing link’ there… Because you were dealing always in the lower hemisphere then.

What I think now happens is something far more…well, as you said before, conscious. And so, by conscious processes of yoga of course there are greater possibilities.

In any case it is immaterial. The important thing is this: that it is getting done. And the important thing to see is that it is not that we actually evolve from the apes but that we could not have evolved without the apes. Let’s put it like that.

(Pause)

There was something extraordinary in this book. The other night it opened up such a clear perception of Genesis that… And I wish I could find it. I wish I had written it down. I may have. I don’t know…

There was this question of the Serpent, and he wrote something here, without realising it. It is not that he was writing about what I am talking about. He was describing his Christian ethos. But it made it so clear that these people…they got stuck at the first part of the book, you know. They didn’t go all the way through!

I wish I could find [the passage]. It was on evil and sin; the whole book is on this question of evil, and of course he brings in sin all the time.

It had to do with… It was so evident what had happened along the way and how really beautiful it is that there is no ‘lie’. The Serpent is the symbol of time in the evolutionary drive, let us say… The power of time in the evolution. This whole question of Eve succumbing to the temptation of the Serpent is so beautifully accurate; and that from that point on they could not accept Woman anymore… That became the symbol, you see, because obviously the symbol is one – this feminine power and the Serpent, being that symbol of the evolutionary force. And Christianity – and probably Judaism, I haven’t gone into that much – has gotten stuck. And they are still combating this.

The only thing that could come out of it was this stark dichotomy: up above/here below, and good and evil. Then they got caught in this trap. That is what this book is about. The whole book is about good versus evil.

It was such a clear seeing of the truth of their position and how that tells you how far off they are… It was pathetic and at the same time so beautiful to see this. I said, at some point I will have to write about this.

But there were certain details… They will come to me, if I find the passage. There were ways that he was expressing this without realising it. Then he was saying some formidable things because he was revealing the condition of consciousness of the Christian in this matter. And how this…

Why is it that they have to deny the evolution, that the ones that are denying it are simply being true to their own experience in a way. They cannot do otherwise. But at the same time, of course, it is completely wrong. They are blocked in that consciousness.

And then… The problem as I saw it just resided in the simple fact that they made an absolute of the human being. In other words, the human being was not evolving. And therefore they made an absolute of Satan: evil – because they were putting as the ‘measure’ man, in his transitional phase. You understand? This was the problem.

So, when they began denying the Serpent and Eve and all the rest of it, and putting it all in one bundle and throwing it away in the sea, what they did then is they made an absolute condition of evil. There was Good and there was Evil, and these were absolutes. They remain that way today in the Christian faith. But they were basing this perception… (There were some things in here that he wrote which made it all so clear…) They were basing this perception on the human being.

In other words, that so-called ‘devil’ is in man, you understand? It is in man. Without the human instrument as it is now you would not perceive it. I mean, if the human being did not exist on this Earth there would be no evil.

It is clear that what Genesis says is absolutely accurate: that you ‘eat of this fruit’ and you have the knowledge of good and evil – because you have the mental capacity and no higher light with which to be able to make this distinction then.

If you remain at that – which is what the Christian has done – if you remain at that level you can only make of evil an absolute because you also make of the human being an absolute. There is nothing beyond that…

Now I remember… When we were talking about evolution it brought all this up. Because there is nothing beyond the human being. This race isn’t in transition toward something else. You make that the highest, or whatever, and you also make the devil a permanent element – because he is not going anywhere too! Because the human being is not evolving, then evil is not evolving. It is static too and it stays as a permanent feature.

Now, evil as he is describing it is purely a condition resulting from the inadequate human instrument, which in any case was never meant to be a permanent instrument, you understand? It is part of the ‘growing pains’.

So, all of this cruelty, this torture, the twist of the human consciousness that he is describing… Oh, that’s another thing, when he brings in the question of ‘will’. For him it all revolves around that. And he brings in the question of freedom, free choice, all of that… And that these so-called evil people, where their real aberration lies is in wanting to impose their will, you see, and it is their will against God’s will.

Okay, very true. But, you know, it is a problem that arises out of this off-centre poise; and there are only different degrees of that. Some people go off on a tangent, let’s say, and become crystallised at that point; others manage to skirt around it. But the problem exists as an evolutionary problem.

So, that is why they got stuck at this immature stage, because they would not accept evolution like they would not accept the Serpent, like they made something evil of the Serpent, you see.

The Serpent was that power of evolution. So the whole thing is perfectly logical and coherent – the way it happened and the way it got crystallised like that. It is perfectly logical: Reject the Serpent, you have to reject at the same time Eve – or Womanhood, the Shakti, that power… That is what the Serpent symbolises. At the same time you have to reject evolution… They are still fighting battles over that. They are really only just now coming to terms with people like Galileo. Just imagine! Darwin? I think he is in the doghouse for good!

But, you see, the beauty of it is that it is so coherent, and all because… Of course, this is what I was seeing: why then is Sri Aurobindo’s message so important. It is so important simply because he says – this is the really big thing of his message – that we are in transition to something else.

‘Man is a transitional being’…

Because if you do not accept that, this change cannot come about here. And then you have to deal with all these problems about evil and good and the absolute nature of… Sure, you make of this imperfect human being a permanent, unchanging, static element and you have all of his evil static too. Because, as I say, it is through those eyes, through that instrument that these ‘absolutes’ are fixed. You change that and you come to some other possibility.

And then of course they have had to put God up in some other ‘paradise’, some other ‘garden’ somewhere else. They had to because how could you then reconcile this, you see. I mean, if you make this an absolute here, based on Man in his own image, let us say, then how can you reconcile this? How can you? Of course you have to say, No, God is separate, and it is blasphemy to say that ‘I am God’…because in me is this crystallised evil and God is all perfect and all good.

What a mess they made of it!

So total that you wonder how – for thousands of years now, more than that – you wonder how they are going to unravel it all.

He is big on sin, [Scott Peck] because he says every good Christian realises that he is sinful and that he is born in sin. That is one of their main doctrines.

It seems to me such a silly thing!

Well, it is something that has become a central tenet of their faith. Whereas you have in Hinduism this idea of sin and the punya which absolves your sins, in the bathing in the Ganges, and so on; but it is not a central feature of… It is just so conditioned by the transitional features of this race that it takes on those characteristics too. Like something peripheral. It is not at all central to Hinduism in any way. Whereas in Christianity original sin is…that is the first thing you learn about.

All the Protestant sects split up because they couldn’t come to terms with it: Calvinism and all the different European sects that developed because of that whole problem with original sin.

Can you imagine what torture! Torture over the Shadow! And all of this, as I say, because they are not appreciating that the Divine Consciousness is evolving through all these channels, and the major one right now is through the human channel. And that it is evolving always higher and higher forms.

It is so simple.

And so, there is this desperation to find ‘the missing link’. Now, what do they expect to really find? Because, you see, what will they find? They will find, maybe, a specimen ever older of what they consider to be man’s ancestor. And then they push it back and back. But how are they ever going to get to that so-called missing link? Because, you see, what can it possibly be, I mean, that would indicate: Ah yes, this is the way you sprang from the animal state to the real human consciousness.

I don’t think they will ever come across anything like that because, again, I don’t think that is the relevant point. The point is when was the atmosphere ripe on Earth, ready to receive that? That is the important thing. And for that you have to come to an understanding of the evolution of consciousness and what it uses to prepare the terrain. And you have to look for clues like that, you understand? I mean, you wouldn’t look for clues in bones and a species. You would look for clues in a different way. Like, what was happening in the atmosphere of the Earth that would have indicated that the time was ready for that sort of a manifestation. That’s all.

But, you see, it is hopeless. It is like finding the original moment of creation. That is hopeless, all that. The important thing right now is to be conscious of this process, – right now, because essentially it is the same.

That is what hit me so strongly. You know, Sri Aurobindo’s message, really… ‘Man is a transitional being’. And of course then he goes into the nitty-gritty of it: What then is coming after this; what is the next phase? What is it?

And that is why what you can imagine happened when the mental being came was that it really was an unconscious process. That, you can imagine very easily. Something like this was almost a command. Like in Genesis: God did all the creation and put everything there, and that was it! Whereas now it is almost like… ‘the Gods descend’, really. And they participate from the other side AND here.

That is when he says, I think it is in ‘The Supramental Manifestation’, at that point evolution itself evolves.

That’s it. That is the idea. That is exactly the idea. Because in actual fact it takes on different characteristics. Of course. It creates its own conditions then.

It becomes a luminous development then.

Of course.

And then it becomes very exciting.

Right. That is why I feel it IS exciting, because I can see what is happening. I am sure you can too. So, it is only that there is all this obstruction and opposition and everything…

‘How shall your voice convince the mind of Earth?’

Yes, really.

Well, then he [the Mother’s disciple with whom she held the discussions recorded in L’Agenda de Mere] says this about the Mother and that experience that I read out the other day [see: TVN, 2/3, August 1987]. About that experience of Absolutism: ‘The Mother has said all of this in a profound trance. It seems that one could compare her experience to that of the Vedic Rishis, as they said, “Like an eye extended in heaven”’… Because there she is talking about… Remember that experience of Absolutism? Well, and then he ends by adding, ‘Maybe this is the secret of the whole Agenda!’

Quite extraordinary, no? And the most extraordinary thing is that you cannot even write to this fellow and say, ‘You’re right on! That’s exactly what it is! You’ve found the Secret!’ Because he would combat it to death… I mean, isn’t that tragic?

Because he thinks he’s got the Secret.

No. He presumes that only HE could find it. So, if somebody else even came and said. ‘Yes, you’ve found it,’ that would presuppose that somebody else knew more than him. Because in order for somebody else to come and say, You’ve got it, it means that the other person has to know what had to be gotten in the first place!

I’m telling you, this is the way it works in the human consciousness… Because my work has been around now for ten years at least, and he could have easily come upon the verification of his feeling that this was the ‘secret’. The Magical Carousel was there; I was quoting all of this in the Commentaries…

But this is the question of that ‘evil’ that Peck writes about, where these are twists in the consciousness. These are the reasons why the human being cannot perceive. One person has got this kind of a ‘hang-up,’ somebody else has got something else… And all these things are blocking that ‘eye extended in heaven’, you know, that is able then to see these things. It is the incapacities of the human instrument which indicates… It is not that I am blaming the instrument. It is not so much that I am saying the instrument conditions us as I am saying we are responsible also for the condition of that instrument; that that instrument is as it is because the evolution of consciousness has reached only this far. So, it can only house a consciousness that has these twists, let us say.

It is not even that it has these twists. Its level of…

(Later)

You know, time is the key to it. Only so much can be done. Only so much of that Consciousness can manifest at certain points because time controls that manifestation, that unfolding of what is involved. So time controls the process, and nothing can manifest before ‘its time’. Because ALL the totality of conditions go into allowing whatever it is that is to come about. The human instrument is what it is because that consciousness manifesting can only express itself in certain terms which the human instrument is harmonised to express.

Clear. As you go on you have got to, at the same time, work on the instrument; that these two things are going to go hand in hand. As the time approaches when this other possibility comes into play, then at the same time it is going to evolve its own vehicle for expression.

This seems to me to be so evident. It seems to be what is happening right now: We are simply preparing, quite accurately, this new race.

But certainly NEVER in the past, in the lower echelons, was there the process as it is manifesting right now, in so conscious a form. Never was it possible for Sri Aurobindo to come and say, ‘This is the way it is going to be.’ I mean, when the mental phase came about it was a phase of ignorance, totally.

But, you are in the 9^th Manifestation now. So you have come to that point where it is the birth into the higher… It is THE BIRTH! Before there wasn’t even that. So it is now that you have the… You have, well…you have the REAL destiny of Earth coming about. You have now evolving… well probably the highest species that the Earth will know. And that is when it then starts evolving consciously, you see.

Now, what I mean by that is the species, the instrument. I don’t mean that the consciousness that manifest then is static, but rather that the next instrument that evolves out of this will be that instrument that is sufficient to express all these higher states of consciousness because as yet we really have NOT expressed them. We have been evolving in ignorance and all of these instruments have been instruments of ignorance. Whereas now, at this 9^th Manifestation, that so-called ‘Child’ is born – which means that it is the Earth’s child. You know what I mean. You see, it is really that Son, that divine Son that is born then: S-O-N… And that is the purpose for which she exists as a planet, you see….

S-o-n and S-u-n.

Yes, exactly.

But how beautiful Genesis is. How accurate. I have to admit, it is probably one of the most accurate documents of a…tragic misconception!

(Laughter)

And so accurate that it HAS to be divinely inspired. It HAS to be the ‘word of God’, because the Word of God was telling them: This is all you are going to know for the time being. And this is going to explain your calamities from now on.

This is what they say, no? That this is it: the Serpent, Eve, it was all responsible for the big mess here! And that is what happened. Genesis is telling you: This is how you came into this ‘original sin’, and this is why you are ‘born in sin’ and this is why you have to labour and sweat and all of this and ultimately die.

But what they did not say was: BUT THIS IS ONLY A PORTION OF IT!

(Laughter)

And yet, then of course you have The Revelation.

It is almost too fantastic for words, when you think that through the Christian scriptures you have got probably the most accurate prophecy of what was going to happen on Earth than probably you have in any of the Indian ones, you know.

Clear. Because Christianity was the world vehicle, really. It conditioned the consciousness all over.

Right. Very centrally.

(Pause)

And so, what was the Mother seeing with this? I mean, how formidable! That totally new consciousness. And she said, Keep it secret. Destroy it [the tape]. Don’t let it out because they will think we are mad.

And then he [the disciple] says, How could I keep it secret? You know… This may be the big thing that we are looking for in the whole Agenda!

Isn’t that phenomenal?

The Capricorn Factor, Part One

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In the 1960s the Mother, realizing the grave peril that existed if India was forced by circumstances to manufacture nuclear weapons, expressed her concern in the following:

‘The particular view of evolution which I here present will bring out some significant facts. The first phase of evolution was of matter and on this Earth, for millions of years, elements of matter were in great conflict with each other, each one trying, as it were, to suppress or obtain dominance over the others. This process was necessary so that the primary fury of these forces could be expended and by mutual destruction or subservience the substance of the Earth as a whole be tamed and made a more fit place to receive the next phase of evolution, that of life or the vital principle.

‘When this force of life arrived, settled, and grew over the centuries, again great conflicts developed between the numerous species, arising first out of the need for their very existence and then for aggrandisement and domination. Again by this act of Nature in inflaming the species against each other, the most ferocious ones were destroyed or sufficiently subdued so that the next phase of evolution could arrive and survive.

‘When reason descended into the animal, the chosen creature was much inferior physically and vitally compared to some of the other species. But yet, both on account of the power of the new instrument of reason and because the furies of the other species had been somewhat lessened, primitive man survived and grew and ultimately established dominance over the rest of creation.

‘Now the process is repeating itself. The forces brought up by reason have not only advanced man to a very superior position, but are also working towards a mutual self-destruction so that a fourth phase of evolution can safely arrive and be established and grow.

‘This, as I have said, is the pattern of the procedure followed so far in the evolutionary movement. But it is not necessarily the only method. Man, by the correct use of his reason, inspired and enriched by the higher knowledge already descending in the new phase of evolution, can prevent the great destruction and even actively collaborate in the descent. This is the opportunity now presenting itself and it is left to be seen if man will rise to meet it or allow the old process to repeat and allow himself to be almost annihilated. We have come to the crisis of decision.

‘There have been many such crises in man’s history, but all relatively minor ones, yet growing in intensity and preparing for the great final one which we now face.

‘If we can now see this fact, let us next see how we can prevent the holocaust and even, as I have said, collaborate in the evolutionary leap that is preparing.

‘It is clear that the atom bomb and other nuclear weapons are ultimate instruments of almost global destruction. Can we prevent them being used and how?

‘The key to this new phase of evolution lies in India. This may seem strange when one considers that in many respects India lags behind other countries – but nevertheless it is a fact. The consideration that the new phase [of evolution] will act more in the spirit than in the mind may help one in understanding how India is destined to lead the world on its new path. By that token, it is in India therefore that the destructive process will begin, if the old pattern is to be followed. A little reflection should make this clear to anyone. Hence the manufacture of the atom bomb by India assumes great significance for the whole world and not for India alone. No matter which other countries, or how many of them, make the bomb – there is good chance that human reason with some enlightenment, may refrain from using it. But if India makes the bomb, then there is no chance at all. By this very act the formation that has been built up for preventing the Pralaya and which particularly protects India will be broken. Then the Bomb will be used, widely used – and it will no longer be a question of India defending itself from attack, but of the survival of the whole human race.

‘That India is in this position is not by our choice. It is so ordained by the process of evolution itself. And for this purpose there is a special dispensation working in India, that shapes its ends and has preserved its integrity through all vicissitudes.’

I propose to comment extensively on the Mother’s observations primarily because that ‘crisis of decision’ which she describes has arrived. When the Mother spoke of this matter there was little to make one suspect or believe that the central role she was attributing to India could in any way be true. Especially in what concerns nuclear weapons. India did not have this nuclear potential then. But just six months after the Mother’s passing, on 18 May, 1974, India exploded a nuclear device. The Mother’s vision was beginning to prove itself true.

That ‘explosion for peaceful purposes’, as it was called, thrust me into a state of dismay. I was aware of the Mother’s injunction concerning the fact that manufacturing the bomb would break an occult protection India was under. For this reason the possibility that it could actually come to pass caused me the deepest concern.

My distress at that time was heightened because I had just then begun to have very clear perceptions of India’s place in the new Creation and her central and dynamic role in the Supramental Age. Therefore, did the Mother’s injunction and the fact that India had indeed acquired that dreaded nuclear potential mean that all was lost, that everything that I had seen regarding the nation’s unique destiny was erased by this one act?

My concern went very deep because at the time this experiment in nuclear technology took place I was in the midst of writing The Gnostic Circle. Knowledge was descending in a steady stream as a result of the continuous flow of yogic experiences; the main foundations of the New Way were right then being laid in which India was central. Was it all to be cast to the winds because of this new course India seemed to be embarking upon?

I knew that the Mother’s seeing was accurate; it contained ‘the Power of the Word’. There was no doubt of it. But I also knew that my vision of an invincible destiny for India was equally true. The new knowledge that was descending and which I was recording right then in The Gnostic Circle confirmed this ultimate apotheosis in which India stood as the central figure in a new world order, in the new dispensation of the Supermind. How then to reconcile these two positions?

The Mother was stating that if India produced the bomb she would be central to the greatest holocaust the Earth has known. And what seemed to be merely a possibility and entirely in the realm of speculation, had now become a reality. That ‘possibility’ became a fact of the nation’s destiny on 18 May, 1974.

But still the ultimate play-out was far off. There was no immediate danger; the crisis appeared to be as yet far away. However, in matters of higher Knowledge and Seeing one is trained to look into the ‘seed’ of things, of events, and in this act to perceive what is but what has not yet unfolded in the inevitable course that that seed determines. Knowing this, realising that 1974 marked a decisive and perilous turning point for India and the world, I prayed fervently to the Divine Mother for guidance. My prayer consisted in this plea: the Supreme should send me a ‘sign’, a clear and unmistakable one that what I was seeing of India’s destiny would hold, that the nation would be victorious in realizing her destiny, her unity above all, which was crucial not only for her own survival but for the entire Earth, and by consequence for the Supramental Creation. I had seen India to be ‘the soul of the Earth’ within the symphony of nations. I prayed ardently for a ‘sign’ that this soul-essence would establish itself, that all that I was then seeing was indeed true. Foremost was the ultimate victory of Truth and the establishment of the new Creation first on Indian soil.

Within a few days of this fervent prayer I did indeed receive ‘a sign’ – and it was unmistakable in its significance. It was, in fact, a sign that I alone, perhaps more than anyone else, could understand. It was the Capricorn hieroglyph superimposed upon the geography of India, in an exact correspondence.

The features of this sign can only be understood properly by those who know exactly what Capricorn indicates in the harmony of the twelve zodiacal signs. Astrologers from the most ancient times have unanimously considered Capricorn to be India’s ruling sign. But no one, to my knowledge, had ever seen that this hieroglyph actually delineates India’s physical boundaries. But of course it is an India whole and intact, as she was before the devastation of Partition. This too was a profound verification: India’s true form is delineated by the hieroglyph of the zodiacal sign that is her ruler. That glyph in ancient tradition is called the Name of God, this I knew; but I also knew that everything I had been seeing concerning India’s central position as the Earth’s ‘soul’ is contained in the inner and esoteric experience of Capricorn. In that secret dimension its real mystery was disclosed, its deepest truths. And with this answer to my prayer the Supreme had not only confirmed a vision in a way that could only be understood by someone initiated into the secrets of Capricorn, but the sign itself would be a potent tool ever after in the work I was to do for India.

Thus with this ‘sign’, the deeply meaningful answer to my prayer, I considered that whatever was to happen India would be saved, the Earth would be saved, and the things contained in the Capricorn symbol would come to pass regardless of the ‘decisions’ men take.

This conviction was tested two years later. But with this subsequent test once again Knowledge poured into me to confirm the facts seen of the country’s invincible destiny. Always the Capricorn hieroglyph was at the root of the perceptions. When this ‘sign’ had been given to me it was as though a seal and sanction had been set upon this work and that Seal would be the everlasting ‘philosopher’s stone’ as it were. With it I would always have an element of objective knowledge to verify what my yogic experiences were revealing.

This being the case, in March of 1976 once more a decisive breakthrough was made and the question of India’s central role, even in the case of a destruction, came up. This time the breakthrough involved the Mother’s Chamber. An unparalleled yogic realization disclosed the deepest meaning in the discrepancies between what was indicated in the measurements and design of the original plan the Mother gave of the Chamber, where the destiny of the Earth and India is written, and the revised plan of the builders of the temple in Auroville. Not only did those discrepancies indicate the destruction India might have to face, but they revealed to me the imminent and conclusive split between the Ashram and Auroville, a rift that soon thereafter came about and remains total to this day.

Yet the most crucial aspect of this breakthrough revealed that there was every likelihood of a very great destruction on Earth. But whatever this would be, one thing was certain: India would somehow be central to the matter; it would be played out in or through India.

In 1976 this still seemed remote and not immediately preoccupying. Yet today, as Pakistan realises its aim of manufacturing nuclear weapons, we are witnesses to the fact that India has indeed reached that ‘crisis of decision’ the Mother warned of two decades ago.

In my vision of 1976 one thing more was made clearer than ever before: the Supramental Creation was a fact, the only real reality of the Earth’s future. But in what way would it be established on this planet which is its destined home? We are all aware, as the Mother stated, that destruction this time assumes a new meaning, given the nature of the weapons that are to be used for this purpose. It may now mean total annihilation. Where then would that leave the Supramental Creation?

I would like to use the Capricorn hieroglyph for this timely discussion because it does indeed hold the key to both India’s destiny and the entire planet’s future in terms of the realisation of this high goal. Let us then analyse the condition in India today of the knowledge this symbol holds. A number of very revealing facts will emerge and these will help us to understand the true position which is of vital concern to us all. As in the question of the Mother’s Chamber and the builder’s distortion of its measurements, the following will reveal that India too, centuries ago, ‘lost the measure’. Consequently, connected as these two events are, we may conclude that the loss of the Temple’s Measure was determined more than a thousand years ago.

It was a very coherent development that led to this degeneration, stretching over more than a thousand years. During the Dark Ages two concurrent movements began in India, both of which portended an ominous future for the country. One was the decisive rise and predominance of the Mayavadist school of thought and the organisation initiated by Shankara, the great philosopher and yogi of Medieval India, of Hinduism as a religion with the seeds of Illusionism at its heart. This reformation, forced upon Hinduism by the vigorous rise of Buddhism and its attack on the most central aspects of the Sanatan Dharma, was the first indication that trouble lay ahead. The consequences of the predominance of Mayavadist thought and its influence on the spiritual and cultural fabric of the nation were destined to play themselves out in the centuries to follow, long after Shankara had left the scene. This was the turning point for India, when ‘otherworldliness’ became the favoured poise in contrast to the earlier Vedic position of a quest and realisation that was Earth-oriented. Indeed, it was then that the ‘secret of the Veda’ was lost. It was then that a corrosion began in the perceptive faculties of Indian wisemen and the highest truth the Earth has known, captured in the earliest hymns of those sublime Vedic Seers became progressively more hidden from the seeker behind impenetrable veils. The Veda was then distorted to accommodate the Mayavadist ideal by interpretations that cast it into the mould of a largely ritualistic function; and at that point India began increasingly to lose touch with matter and the Earth’s purpose as a home of an evolving species, and hence with her own true destiny. In a related development she began to succumb to invasions from beyond her borders, the consequences of which she is still experiencing, the destabilising effects of which she is yet to conquer.

There was another development around the same period which proves more conclusively and objectively that India lost the Divine Measure describing her soul’s truth, that Vedic ‘divine Maya’. This Vedic truth was the Measure of the Year, Earthly and Cosmic, as the distinction is made in cosmology. It may seem absurd to state that the simple measure of 365 days could be ‘lost’, but let me explain what exactly I mean by losing the Measure of the Year in this context. The Measure’s inner truth was lost, and its power – above all its power, its potential as a transformative tool. In the way that India is still contending with the consequences of Mayavadism and the ‘illusion of the world’, she is still today contending with the consequences of having lost the Measure of the Year.

How did this come to pass? The details of this development are revealingly coherent. In the Dark Ages the split began in India – as elsewhere – between astrology and astronomy. Until then they were indisputably one. But from that point onward astronomy began to exert itself as a science, separate from its mother-source. Astronomy became concerned exclusively with mechanics, with measure for measure’s sake, divorced from the inner truth and purpose of the physical manifestation. And at that point the Vedic divine Maya (or Measure) was lost. Maya was no longer ‘divine’ and by consequence everything that was measurable was nothing but ‘an illusion’. This became the ‘truth’ of material creation in which its divine attributes were then concealed from the human perceptive faculties.

With this division between astrology and astronomy the latter became the dominant force, as it is today throughout the world. The truth of astrology as a body of knowledge could only be verified on the basis of yogic experience, whereas the other depended solely on the physical senses and the ability to verify what they perceived by mechanical means. Astrology’s truth was accessible to very few, and as ‘science’ imposed itself men and women of knowledge increasingly had to occult their light when confronted with the unenlightened systems of measurement based on entirely divisive perceptive faculties and the instruments these gave birth to. Science easily subjugated the more elusive truths of the spirit and the soul, and as a consequence the Measure of the Year was corrupted. Those seeds of corruption continue to work in India today.

Let me be more specific. Astronomy of the Middle Ages established the measure of the year with its 0 degree Aries starting point as rooted in the backdrop of the Constellations… This became the ‘fixed point’ and the basis for determining the beginning of the 12-month year in calendar reckoning. That is, the constellational circle, which could be seen and measured in the sky, was to be thereafter the one that would determine where and when the zodiacal wheel would begin and by consequence when the calendar year would start and the remaining twelve months would follow.

From astrology’s dawn, which I have good reason to believe took place in pre-historic India, there have always been two circles in the heavens to which the Earth is related in her orbit of the Sun. One is the circumscribing sphere of the constellations of fixed stars. Our planet requires 25,920 Earth years to experience passage within this full circle. The other is the tropical zodiacal circle. This consists of a band extending as a plane from the Sun a certain number of degrees on either side. Within this plane the planets are situated and revolve around the Sun in their orbits. In this band the Earth takes 365 days to complete a full orbit of the Sun. Her movements on her axis in relation to this plane give us the equinoxes and the solstices, and hence the seasons. Thus the tropical zodiac begins with the March equinox each year, on a fixed date that is determined by the Earth’s alignment in this plane that extends from the Sun. It is, therefore, a measure that the Earth receives directly from her relation to the Sun, to her source of energy and light. Further on I will discuss the importance and relevance of the constellational sphere.

In a sense the obsession with the constellational starting point was reasonable. At the time this system of measurement came into vogue the two circles, the zodiacal and the constellational, coincided. That is, the beginning of Aries of that larger, visible sphere was observed to be in line with the point on the eastern horizon, toward the end of March when the Sun is seen to cross the Equator. Thus, some 2000 years ago these two points were aligned. But it was observed that thereafter they began to move apart. Indeed, in 72 years they were one full degree apart, and each subsequent interval of 72 years brought them a further degree away from each other. The two points were clearly distancing themselves; before long, there was a distinctly measurable discrepancy between the two. But the tropical zodiac’s starting point always occurs on 21/22 March, regardless of where the constellational point is. It is a circle whole in itself and does not require the ‘support’ of the constellational backdrop. It is determined by the Earth’s rotation on her axis and around the Sun. It produces the seasons we know and is wedded to our measure of a 24-hour day. As a species we are wholly involved with this measure. In a sense we could say that we have it engrained in each cell of our bodies.

The other more distant constellational sphere has a different function and significance in cosmology. It is this circle that determines the passage of the astrological ages. Similar to the ascendant in an individual’s astrological chart, the measure this circle provides is akin to the Earth’s ascendant in her ‘horoscope’. When we say we are in the Aquarian Age we mean that the constellational 0 starting point has shifted thirty degrees (in a backward motion) to the sign Aquarius. This is called the Precession of the Equinoxes, implying that the way we determine this passage is related to the equinoctial alignment that has shifted. There is no clear consensus on the direct cause of this slow gyration the Earth experiences to produce this precessional movement.

I do not wish to make this discussion too technical, but I must provide a certain background information if any sense is to be made of the consequences these developments have brought about. For in fact what was the outcome of these observations in those remote days of history?

The ‘scientific’ observer imposed the results of his observations on the wisemen of the day and insisted that the constellational point marked the true beginning of the year, that the year’s commencement should always be wedded to this point, regardless of what was happening on Earth, regardless of the seasons, and so forth. If this point was seen to shift in the sky, then the March equinox would also have to shift. Thus 72 years after the coincidence of the two points the Equinox of March, normally celebrated on 22 March each year when the Sun is seen to cross the Equator, was celebrated a day later. And this progression increased with each passage of 72 years. The relation is approximately 72 years for an Earth day. Thus, the start of the zodiac and the year for Hindus today is no longer coincidental with Aries of the tropical zodiac. It is 23 degree/days later. In practical terms this means that a person born on January 1st is not considered a native of the sign Capricorn by an Indian astrologer, insofar as Capricorn, according to this reckoning, must be considered to begin only on 15 January since the constellational starting point has moved away from its equatorial correspondence by this amount of time and celestial arc.

At this point I am obliged to state that any moderately competent astrologer can verify that this is entirely unacceptable and inaccurate in questions concerning the character reading of a native of the sign. In my own experience, earlier as a practising astrologer and now concerned with the more precise work of evolving a new cosmology, it is ludicrous to maintain that the constellational shifting 0 point must hold for creatures born on this planet and that their zodiacal homes are not to be determined by the Earth’s measure relative to the Sun’s position and located in our year of 365 days, but rather by this remote shift of the Precession of the Equinoxes. The latter gives us an important measure – the astrological ages. With this we can determine what the greater age of the Earth is, stretched through a cycle of 25,920 years and more. But that is all. For the other we must use the circle of the twelve zodiacal signs/months, which begins each year on the same day, a fixed point in our calendar demarcation of time. Failing to do this the ultimate result is, for example, that a harvest festival will very soon fall in the middle of winter, a spring rite in the thick of summer, and so on. This is precisely what is happening in India now; before long it will be a total confusion. This is the result when such matters are determined by men who are concerned exclusively with measure for measure’s sake and have lost sight of what it is they are actually measuring, what its function really is. Discernment has been completely lost and the consequences of this error accumulate with each passing year.

A factor of additional importance concerns the question of exactly when these two points were aligned. This has never been clearly established and decided upon by astrologers. We are dealing with relationships between ‘occult’ circles, really speaking, and hence it has never been accurately determined. The revelation of that zero starting point was one of the most significant happenings in my work and laid the basis for a precision that had been unattainable without this date. It disclosed that the Aquarian Age began in 1926. But India, based on the corrupt measure, considers that the Age of Aquarius is still 500 years away!

I know of no better means than this to explain certain problems India faces in coming to terms with her high destiny. Wisemen in India believe that this significant shift to Aquarius lies far into the future; not to speak of a related development: that wretched bane hanging over the nation’s destiny called the Kali Yuga! These erroneous ideas have conditioned the consciousness of the people significantly. We observe that India is being propelled into the new Age in spite of herself. She clings to the idea that Pisces, the Age we have already left, is still the truth of her destiny, regardless of what the rest of the world believes. Thus, in many aspects of her collective life, she refuses to accept change, to go along with the pull of a new future that awaits her and that is wholly described by the shift to Aquarius. The rest of the world moves forward, largely in harmony with Time; whereas India, a nation that alone among the nations of the world, respects time and astrological wisdom, is caught in the incongruous position of being ‘out of tune with time’!

For this much must be said: India is the only country in the world where zodiacal wisdom is a consistent and decisive moulding force in the nation’s religious and cultural experience. But it is distorted. The effects of this distortion are far-reaching. Therefore, let us examine them, and let us use for this purpose India’s own sacred sign and hieroglyph, Capricorn.

Thea
Skambha August of 1987

A Preamble . . . Sri Aurobindo

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‘Man is not final, he is a transitional being. Beyond him awaits formation the diviner race, the superman.’ ‒ Sri Aurobindo

‘…I seek a light that shall be new, yet old, the oldest indeed of all lights. I seek an authority that accepting, illuminating and reconciling all human truth, shall yet reject and get rid of by explaining it all mere human error. I seek a text and a Shastra that is not subject to interpolation, modification and replacement, that moth and white ant cannot destroy, that the earth cannot bury nor Time mutilate. I seek an asceticism that shall give me purity and deliverance from self and from ignorance without stultifying God and His universe. I seek a scepticism that shall question everything but shall have the patience to deny nothing that may possibly be true. I seek a rationalism not proceeding on the untenable supposition that all the centuries of man’s history except the nineteenth were centuries of folly and superstition, but bent on discovering truth instead of limiting inquiry by a new dogmatism, obscurantism and furious intolerance which it chooses to call common sense and enlightenment; I seek a materialism that shall recognize matter and use it without being its slave. I seek an occultism that shall bring out all its processes and proofs into the light of day, without mystery, without jugglery, without the old stupid call to humanity, “Be blind, O man, and see!” In short, I seek not science, not religion, not Theosophy, but Veda – the truth about Brahman, not only about His essentiality, but about His manifestation, not a lamp on the way to the forest, but a light and a guide to joy and action in the world, the truth which is beyond opinion, the knowledge which all thought strives after. I believe that Veda to be the foundation of the Sanatan Dharma; I believe it to be the concealed divinity within Hinduism, – but a veil has to be drawn aside, a curtain has to be lifted. I believe it to be knowable and discoverable. I believe the future of India and the world to depend on its discovery and on its application, not to the renunciation of life, but to life in the world and among men.’

Sri Aurobindo, ‘Hinduism and the Mission of India’
Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research, April, 1983

The First Imperative . . . a letter

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…You want a response from me on the work of Z, but I am afraid that I have no direct knowledge and therefore I cannot make any comment. However, what I can discuss is something perhaps more important and relevant. It is this question of an unending stream of different techniques, methods, paths, belief systems, and all the rest that is the American experience now. Z is only one more in this stream. At this point and for the question at hand, it matters little what the teaching is. Today people flock to her, tomorrow it is to something else, the day after another method. And so on it goes.

My question is, What is it that people are really seeking? In my experience, the only thing is a desire for continuous stimulus – both for the mind and the vital. We have now reached the point where our minds and vitals have become dulled because of the constant onslaughts they have been receiving. Now more and more is needed.

Previously this was confined to the so-called materialistic lifestyle. But as of the past fifteen years it is the ‘spiritual’ world that is now experiencing this same over-stimulation. This strategy has been the most clever means to undermine the serious spiritual endeavour. It is now virtually impossible for people to realise their souls in that environment, mainly because to do so requires a one-pointed effort. The result is a lot of noise – but no realisation. The result is a familiarity with ‘new age’, ‘new consciousness’ jargon – but jargon does not make the man!

From ancient times it is known that the seeker must make a serious effort to first of all find his path, the one that suits his temperament and corresponds to his destiny. Sometimes many lifetimes are passed in just this quest – weeding out and seeking to hew one’s way through a jungle of mixed experiences until one comes to the way suited to the seeker. Once he finds that he must concentrate entirely on pursuing his quest along those lines. Any distraction at that point defeats the purpose of his quest.

Prior to this 15-year period which saw this undermining strategy come into being, there was little real difficulty in this. The spiritual world was not the focus of invading forces bent upon destroying any higher purpose in the seeker. Once he found his way he pursued it undisturbed, with no temptations, really speaking, from other quarters.

Not so now. It is virtually impossible in the West for a seeker to come upon his true path and be allowed to follow it until he reaches fulfillment therein. And the fact is that unless this one-pointed focus exists, any ideas about attainment, realisation, etc, are simply illusory. On top of it all, to hide this truth the modern western seeker has to keep running in the labyrinth, so to speak. He requires more and more vital and mental stimulus so that he has no time to STOP and objectively assess the trap he has been caught in. If he ever did he would see that he has been kept hopping from one guru to another, one path to another, one technique, one method to another. All of this is done to effectively keep him from true enlightenment. At the same time the illusion is nurtured that one is on the way to a new consciousness, or even in it already. But, I repeat, this is just a familiarity with the jargon. Nothing more.

What I am discussing, let us be clear, is the real thing: realisation – of whatever the chosen way, but the true attainment. For that it is indispensable that one keep one’s energies concentrated and one’s attention focussed solely on that endeavour. If the intention is, however, to fill up one’s life with something ‘spiritual’ and ‘new Agey’, then this hopping around is the way to do it. It is a new lifestyle, one among many. But it has nothing to do with true spirituality of whatever path.

People who are serious have to ask themselves what it is that they really want. Is it power – occult powers? Is it peace? Is it transformation and the establishment of a new consciousness? The questions could be numerous. But once they realise what their souls are aspiring for, then they have to attain a concentration of energy which permits them to find their way to the source that can help them to achieve the fulfillment of their aspirations. IF such serious questioning is done then one thing will be very clear: one must at all costs avoid distraction and dispersal of that precious energy.

Your case is an interesting example. Since I have known you you have been doing some wonderful hopping! You have gone from Raja Yoga to Sri Aurobindo to X and now to Z’s work – and perhaps a number of other fillers-in along the way. I think it would be immensely fruitful at this point for you to assess the condition of your quest. What has been effectively gained in this past year? What have been the concrete achievements, if any at all?

You see, the moment you get close to starting a serious endeavour, a ‘new technique’ catches your interest and the original concentration is lost. This effort has to be made by you. You cannot rely on an outside stimulus to consolidate this initial poise that would permit you to make real progress thereafter. That is precisely the point: You, as everyone else in America, are now accustomed to these external stimuli. Without that there is nothing but an emptiness inside. You have lost touch with that capacity to turn inward and from there to extend the consciousness outward in the process of transformation. If the external stimulus is absent, so is the quest. But for any true spiritual attainment the first indispensable ingredient is this capacity to hold inwardly to the central aspiration of the soul and let that become the centre of one’s life. This does not depend on outer stimuli or circumstances. Rather it creates its own conditions for progress and realisation. In this path we call that the Yoga Shakti, the Divine Mother who takes up the yoga from within once this contact has been made.

But hopping about will never allow this to come into being. When you were following the study circle you had the other stimulus which kept you involved. But then the end of that exercise came and I set things in motion to allow you and the others to move to another level as far as the yoga is concerned. At the end of the study circle conditions were exceptionally propitious, though not apparent to you all, for the plunge into the true inner dimensions of the Work. You were offered entry into the sacred precincts of ‘the Mother’s Temple’, which is a symbol for the soul dimension – your own and the Earth’s as well. But being so accustomed to outer stimuli, once that came to an end so did the interest. The book distribution has simply been a means to observe the mechanism and see and experience the drift without masks. Whether you participate or not in book distribution, or whatever other organisational aspect of this work, is immaterial. It is just a means to see yourself and this process.

Well and good. Now where do you stand? To me it is very clear, and so I have some sound advice. It is time to stop hopping, and stop justifying this hopping by trying to see a ‘connection’ between these different stimuli being offered. Believe me, in terms of this work there is none. But that too is immaterial. The only really important matter at hand is that you find the way suited to you and that you stick to it. Allow it to develop and carry you to the point of real entry into the inner chamber of that particular work.

It seems to me that in Z’s work you may have found what you have been seeking. Just the fact that you have willingly paid for her ‘ridiculously expensive’ course is an indication that what she has to teach and the inner fibre of her being have struck a very deep chord. Therefore my advice to you is to put everything else aside and to plunge into her teachings wholeheartedly.

From your letter I gather that you are not doing this. You are approaching the whole matter diffidently, holding back, harbouring reservations about her. In this way you are preparing yourself for another hop! In my last letter I wrote you that in this sort of work you get out of it what you put in. If you go to your classes with an open heart and confident of learning what is truly necessary for your soul, you will surely attain what you appear to be seeking. You want to ‘erase the memory of the cells’ and have paid a ‘ridiculous’ amount to do so. Then you owe it to yourself to approach the task in the right poise. And you owe it to your teacher as well. She cannot enjoy teaching people who harbour reservations, who hold back, who are critical and all the rest. But this too comes as a result of over-stimulus, – a form of cynicism really. Gone is that childlike openness and joyous anticipation. The whole thing has lost its ‘wonder’. But believe me, there is no wonder greater than to learn from a realised soul. One must approach such a person with great reverence and respect, for they are very, very few. And to teach matters of the soul and spirit the only credentials that make this possible are those the true and actual Realisation grants.

So, go into your new quest with this childlike wonder in your heart. Go into it putting everything else aside and out of your mind. Go into it with one-pointed determination. Only then will you receive from your Teacher what she has to give.

Thea
June, 1987

‘It IS Therefore it Will Be’ Perspectives

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From Thea’s Journal, 31.1.1987/4.2.1987:

‘It will be because it IS, not because of any reaction.

This is the difference when one is centred. There is no reaction, nothing ‘desiring’ because that implies peripheral poise. In this matter even to say something comes because one no longer desires it is wrong. That is reactionary, and life is not like that. What comes comes because IT IS. Only in our off-centred beings do things come because of ‘anything else’.

Real power is born when one remains centred. No energy is wasted, drained. Every action is true to itself. One acts not to attain something, but because it must be done because IT IS. Truly the message of the Gita: slay because they are already slain! If one becomes centred in that which IS, then every action is perfectly accomplished.

The human being has always longed to know the future, what will be. He should rather have concentrated on WHAT IS. That is the vision of the Transcendent. But we are conditioned not by time and space but rather by our limited understanding of time and space. We have not known Simultaneous Time, and therefore we see the play-out linearly; therefore we feel that in order to attain a goal we must DO SOMETHING, – that the attainment relies exclusively on this action. The goal then is conditioned by our action, one way or another.

Reality is quite different though. Only what IS can ‘become’. If we centre ourselves in what IS, then there are no energies dispersed and there is the possibility of becoming the instrument for a greater destiny. One moves forward in time centred, and this is the experience of Simultaneous Time, which leads us to the Whole Time experience.

The problem in the past has been a wrong positioning: one reached out to the future. One sought to know by EXTENDING the vision. But this brought a further off-centred poise because the consciousness lost its power of concentration. The Chamber of the Mother shows us the true poise, and hence the experience of Simultaneous Time is a property of that Chamber.

Spirituality realised that a problem existed and this reaching out was condemned, – by obliterating time and space and all concern for the future. Yet that concern is, in a way, legitimate. One seeks to contain the energy somehow, by knowing what is to come. This is meant to facilitate and enhance the lived experience in the present.

But the new poise is a centering, in the present so to speak. Yet it really means a centering IN WHAT IS. That is, – in the Real, the True. Then the lived experience is a contained concentration. And this generates real Power, the new Power. This is the poise of the Sun – or the Truth-Consciousness. And then one is able to control the periphery, or the ‘extension’, because it is not a linear extension. It is spherical – which is just how life itself is, the true nature of Reality. Poised linearly we cannot appreciate the spherical reality of creation, of living. This too is what imprisons us in the belief that we can determine our destinies, that we are ‘free’, that we have ‘free will’. None of this is true, as we comprehend these matters. Freedom, in the truest sense of the word comes ONLY when one is centred in Simultaneous Time. But the word acquires a different meaning: Freedom is CONTROL. It is the generation of a power which permits a person so centred to control the peripheral activity of his/her life, – that the circumstances of life conspire to fulfil that Will at the centre.

This is the true quality of the Gnostic Being: centred in Simultaneous Time…and therefore FREE. That is, one creates one’s own conditions. One is not conditioned and limited, but creative and centred. Hence there can be no limitations in one who is ever poised centrally. One cannot condition or limit the Centre. It creates its own boundaries and controls the periphery of its destiny which is an extension of itself; its system. Not something incorporated from outside and imposed on the Centre.

The Gnostic Being generates the power to be able to create the conditions for his/her central incarnate divine Will to fulfil itself. Or else, one poises one’s consciousness in such a way as to allow the Supermind to work through us, the Truth-Consciousness, so as to control and generate the POSITIVE circumstances for its harmonious fulfilment in life.’

It is really interesting because I remembered that experience of the Mother. I had written in the Commentaries (of The Magical Carousel):

‘…on 25 April, 1961, [the Mother] described the consciousness of Absolutes, the central realisation of Capricorn and the initiation of the mountain’s inner chamber. But the experience was of such an unusual nature, so unrelated to the common spiritual experience that at the end of the talk the Mother expressed the wish to have it kept secret. The decisive aspect of the experience was the absence of movement toward a goal…’   (p. 110)

Do you remember that?

No purpose.

You see, what she meant by purpose…it isn’t in the sense that I use the word. It means: do this to attain that. Exactly what I was writing.

The whole thing of cause and effect.

Yes, that’s what she says: no cause and effect…

‘Now it is a sort of absolutism of each and every second, each movement, from the most subtle, the most spiritual, to the most material.’ She says the connecting chain has disappeared, to do this in order to do that. And she asks, ‘Is this what the Supreme sees?’   (Ibid.)

Here again, I had this experience a few nights back. The same kind of thing. Yes, this is the vision of the Supreme. This is the Transcendent. That is, only what IS can become. So, obviously to find out what will happen, what will become, you must only find out what is. You must only have that vision of the Supreme.

And they were going in the opposite direction. Now, she was… this was the beginning. It’s interesting. This was the beginning of that breakthrough, of reversing this whole process.

‘It is perhaps the perception, the supreme perception: an absolute. It is strange. An unnameable and perpetual absolute, simultaneous.’   (Ibid.)

You see? Really these are memorable because they were the experiences that give birth to the Chamber. This was the beginning.

‘She describes how cause and effect disappear…’

That is the same thing I saw recently – again: yes, it is not like that. Life, reality is not like that. It is not a reaction. It is not a process of reaction.

It IS, therefore it will become. It will be. It is not the reverse. It is not, if I do this then only will da-da-da-dah. You see?

In other words, the goal does not at all depend on… Yes, there is no cause and effect process. This is the great shift in the human being. Then that marks a before-and-after between all other spiritual and religious experiences. Because they are all based on that.

Not only that, but it completely changes ones whole conception of karma.

That’s what I mean. Because karma, at least in all Eastern religions, is the one fundamental…almost dogma.

And it is misunderstood.

Well, because the poise was wrong. As I say, by continuing to extend the vision, to reach out to the future, even if you are doing it in terms of your own life, saying ‘I will attain this in the next life’, it is the same kind of process.

For thousands of years the human being has sought to know the future. To this day; it has always been like this. It is the plague of humanity. The human being wants to know, and because he has had experiences of knowing…he’s had dreams, he’s had previsions…so, he knows that in some dimension everything is. And it can be known.

And so, instead of staying rooted in the core and seeing what is in the seed of That, he simply tried to extend into the future and find out. In consciousness, you understand? It is a poise of consciousness, that’s the difference.

This is why it is so difficult to understand, so difficult to pinpoint; because you say. How does it express itself? Yes, somebody seeking to know the future is extending… But, it is not that. It is a poise of consciousness that is reaching out. And therefore it is seeking through that Becoming rather than in what is. That is where the concentration suffers, you see. Because that is the Chamber; that is what [the Mother] meant by concentration: Learn to concentrate because you are contained in WHAT IS.

Then to see the future really all you do is extend your being, in a sense.

Well, then the problem is that you are reaching into ‘possibilities’. Then you get into another series of problems also.

But let’s leave all that aside. Let’s say, legitimate knowing. You’re still extending the consciousness outward to the periphery through the Becoming rather than in Being.

‘She describes how cause and effect disappear, belonging as they do to the world of time and space. But she has difficulty in identifying the element, and she says it cannot be called a ‘movement’, a ‘state of consciousness’, a ‘vibration’… [This latter in the original French is ‘vibration’, mistakenly written ‘revelation’ in the Commentaries.] (pp. 110-11.)

You see how she was having the same problem. How do you define this? How do you describe it?

‘So, one must say ‘thing’. Each ‘thing’ carries within itself its absolute law.” (Ibid.)

And that’s the whole key! Can you imagine – what came out of this kind of an experience! Then the Chamber became the physical manifestation of this Vision.

Here it was. And she gave this to humanity. She had this…and then she was able to describe it PHYSICALLY. In a form. It is phenomenal. Who can do that? Something that she hadn’t even fully understood yet!

‘Hereafter the Mother wishes to clarify that the experience eliminates the chained succession of events in the consciousness, of “purpose”… [You see, this is what she meant by purpose.]… In order to do this she insists that it is not a horizontal movement’… [No extension, you see.] …and to further stress the difference she makes a gesture explaining the experience which the disciple describes as: a vertical gesture that dominates and embraces at the same time. Thus the Mother seems to have clearly given her experience the symbol-shape of the Mountain, for Omanisol’s consciousness is experienced by the children as precisely dominating all and carrying everything into her protective embrace.

‘In a succinct definition that thoroughly captures the Capricorn realisation, the Mother says the experience can be translated as an “infinitesimal point, which is a physical body and all that is dependent upon it, but which is exactly equal to the Supreme Point and all that is dependent upon it.”’   (Ibid.)

Isn’t this fantastic! that ‘centre’ that is everywhere. Central to every thing in creation.

‘It is a question of perception, a different vantage-point of the vision…’   (Ibid.)

You see, it is exactly what I was saying. The vision is not outside but at the centre. This is the whole point.

‘…a different vantage-point of the vision which alters everything. But though she stresses the apparent immobility of the nature of the experience, – no cause and effect, no goal, no purpose…”a sort of Absolute”, she is emphatic in her insistence that it is not Nirvana, that it is far beyond Nirvana. It does not exclude the creation. It contains all, Nirvana included. And the Mother concludes by again describing the experience in the form of a vertical rise that embraces and dominates, which is obviously the shape of a triangle that in its base contains all and then rises to a peak.’ (Ibid.)

This is where I was writing about the Mountain-Chamber and her vision. (Some of these things in the French are so beautiful…) ‘The normal state of consciousness is to do something in order to, or for something else…’ You see, this was so clear to me. I don’t know why it hit me. It had to do with these latest things: Skambha*, the land, the dimensions. And that energy that is wasted in an anxiety over things that… And yet, as I say, it is legitimate because if you knew what is, then you do not waste that. It’s a vicious circle because how do you come to know that then. We haven’t that kind of poise anymore. We’ve all lost that.

So, we’ve got to find the way back to that centre, actually.

[After reading in French, the dialogue continues.]

This Point, this Supreme Point that doesn’t occupy space… Incredible. All of this brought up so many different perceptions. Again this insistency all the time now to help people to perceive this ‘changed poise’, that that is the only way.

And you see, that man in Madras candidly wrote, ‘I can’t see how this work can give you a practical grip on life.’ This is the problem. Now, this man is a sincere fellow. There is something in him that would really like to do something. To bring about a change. Be it only a ‘Lonely-Hearts Club’ or whatever. And yet, you understand, that if we really do not find out what the root problem is, all of this is useless, worthless. And goes on and on and keeps the ball rolling like that…

But it is such an unusual happening. Because again, what is it? As I say, it is nothing but a vision. But that is what she is saying here: This is the Supreme’s vision.

Now, that is exactly what I am talking about. I’m saying, Let’s really bring that Transcendent’s vision here: the real thing. Not what people have imagined it is by these projections outside and beyond. But the real thing. In order to do that you have to go to the Centre; you have to find that point where one can enter into that Supreme Vision. Then you come to the Core, to the Centre, to all of that….

And so, there you have the Chamber with this magnificent Vision of Simultaneous Time. This Chamber where… Naturally she would have spoken about it in terms of ‘concentration’ because what she meant was containment in what is.

It is not even the present. It is wrong to say… You know, it is a way of saying ‘in the Now’, in the present; but it is also wrong. It is misleading. It is a containment in what is. It is not even a question of past/present/future – anything of that sort. It is a containment in what is, and that is that special ‘concentration’ that she was talking about. That is where everything begins to change.

Look at what is happening now in this work as of the last two years. And this year, the work of this year is clear. Last night I really saw the movement very clearly, again with respect to the Temple; because last year I saw it was Saturn, and I knew we were extending; there was that horizontal dimension. You were extending [the floor of the Chamber]. And then the trip to America and establishing things there was clearly those pillars. And that was the Moon [USA]. To me it was so evident.

And this year? Well, this year it is Uranus, and what is the work of this year? Yet there is an enormous difference from what it has been in the past, when I was working with the Shaft, the real ‘heart’ of the thing. It is very different now. I’m not working against anything…over there. This is something completely contained here now. Whereas before, because that reversal hadn’t occurred, there were all those forces that were able to crush this thing. And you felt it, that you couldn’t really get anywhere. Very different now, as of ’83, ’84.

And then there is this process of ‘repelling’, and I could see how the ones who can’t make that ‘shift’ have to go and that you don’t even have to do anything because the System repels…

But another thing is the way – as I have written in the 3^rd volume [of The New Way] – the way that Point holds the whole thing together and utilises every element, negative or positive, for its own designs and ‘purpose’. For that becoming of Itself. You see?

So, it’s that Point that sustains, that repels, that attracts – but that even the negative is used…to help establish the work. But if you don’t make that ‘reversal’, there is no centre.

Okay, we understand that, because the Centre, that ‘point’ comes into being precisely when this Reversal takes place in the consciousness, in all. All right. When that happens it is only then that this ‘system’ comes into being, and this action of repelling. Otherwise, before that there is always this ‘caving in’ – a caving in.

When I review the past I can see it… In those days I didn’t have the kind of power to sustain that force. It wasn’t only a question of power (Here again, the time wasn’t right)… The problem resides in the fact that it was Knowledge separated as yet from Power. But at the same time, that is obviously all that could be done. And all of those events gradually built up to allow this very Reversal to take place.

But it’s clear that something like that [the problem The New Way faced] couldn’t really happen now. That is, those elements couldn’t really be victorious as they were at that time. Because, you see, the System simply would not allow it. I mean, it would so immediately use their negativity, you see, that it would become something entirely different; as it always has now.

And so, you get now this ‘attraction process’, and you get these elements coming in. Now remember that one of the characteristics that I said of this change that comes about – this Reversal – was that those people who were not able to make the shift and go along with it simply could not remain in the atmosphere of this ‘thing’. And remember we started out like that right away in 1984 when I was alone and then gradually all the bits…

It is like that all the time now: you go along with it, yes, but you go along in the sense that you know if something is negative it will find its solution.

And this is the difference. This is where the question of trust comes in very strongly; because, again, I can’t know by extending the vision. This is not possible for me. So, I can BE, in that Consciousness, and with the ab-so-lute certainty that that Consciousness will arrange all the circumstances. This was the dream that I had…remember? That certainty: NO, this cannot be. It will not be. I’ll never forget that dream. It was such a profound experience. The moment when I took hold of that Certainty, and said, This is it.

Well, this is what I feel has to become a very solid realisation right now. This kind of certainty. And you see, again I had to use that, I had to tap that: It is clear, Skambha IS. It has its dimensions. I mean, if it is…

Now, this is the question, where the attainment of that supreme Vision comes in. But what is it? It is not a vision that you ‘acquire’. What is that vision? It is a state of being. That is what the Supreme’s Vision is: a condition of Being. It is BEING. It is Sat [Sanskrit for ‘being’]. That is what the sign of Capricorn is: SAT.

And so, one thinks of it in terms of a ‘seeing’, a ‘vision’ like that, in which… Again, it’s like looking out, projecting, you understand? This is our idea of it. But the Supreme’s Vision is a state of….

It is everywhere.

Yes, and that is how it can be everywhere, because it is a state of Being. It is Being, not even a ‘state’.

You see how interesting? You see how everything starts shifting then…and then you realise, Well, yes, we’ve been all off. And for many thousands of years we’re off.

That is why no one can really conceive of what it is going to be like in the future. You can’t until you attain that state of being.

That ‘banal’ statement: Until you change your consciousness. But what does that mean? These are words, that’s all: the ‘new consciousness’… People haven’t a clue, – because they would have to give up so much. And it’s not giving up in terms of worldly possessions, in terms even of attachments. All that is banal. It is not that. It is giving up this precious falsehood, really, of extension beyond…of, yes, also of being lost in the Becoming.

But then even that is another trap. Separateness. That is it.

Okay, the Buddhists have seen that. You know, the scourge of the human being is this separateness. But, you see, that is the hardest – for those people it is even harder; because they’ve come close, really close to grasping that. The real thing is that BEING; and they ‘fell into’ the Void. They came very close to that, because when the Buddha says it is in the Now, or the Taoists, they are very close, – but yet, somehow, still…. Because why? The ‘centre’ had not come into existence [cosmically, in the evolution]. Because this very work, the Yoga of the Chamber had never been done. That is the only reason why they could always go around that void, and then always skirt this.

There is that secret of the Fourth that is there.

That is it. And even for myself, how far would I have gotten if I hadn’t realised that? I mean, look at the tremendous difference in this work from 1983 and ’84. And what was it? It was simply that realisation.

Now, before that, look at how much I had seen, look at how much Knowledge there was. But this power to really bring it down, that ‘power of crystallisation’, that power then of concentration…that came only then, you see. And still, without that you couldn’t do anything. You couldn’t establish anything.

Now the Centre is there. It grows from within and gradually strengthens…. So, what does that mean? It means simply that there is no caving in. This is the simplest way to explain it: there is no caving in anymore.

It is so fundamental this change. It makes all the difference in the world, – for the whole world eventually. I mean, eventually it has got to be this process. There is not going to be another process. Somehow, however it comes about for the world at large, I don’t know yet, but it is this very process…this arresting of the caving in.

So, last year it was evident what it was. Last year the [‘construction work’] was just up to the Pillars: it was Saturn, it was taking on those responsibilities which at the same time are ‘supports’ if they are done properly. And the connection, of course, with America, this ‘relay station’, as I have always called those Pillars. There it was. It all came together last year. Wonderful.

Then we go on to this year. And what is the big event of this year, apart from the fact that we are ‘extending the boundaries’ now to 24 acres [at Skambha] – and the Chamber’s diameter is 24 metres(!). The interesting element is that you come to those walls. And really I was going very deeply into this situation that has arisen in the USA which is…very serious, in the sense that you can’t take this flippantly. And why?

You know, if you go over the letter they sent, there is one thing that is very clear and that the Mother already experienced in the Temple episode, precisely at that point of those ‘walls’. In other words, that is where the outer imposed its measure. And there was no Centre then, and it could not ‘hold’, and it succeeded, it succeeded in…. That is the only thing in the temple [in Auroville] that is totally irreparable. I mean, that destroyed that thing there: it was the fact of the measurement of those walls [24 metres]. And I have always spoken of it in terms of this outer form crushing, pressing in…and imposing its measure, rather than the thing developing as this Yoga of the Chamber has: from the Centre. You contrast that Shaft first with the Core. And then THAT determines the Measure. It is on the basis of that.

Now, look at the letter that they’ve sent me, where the whole thing is geared to destroy that central Purpose and the central Measure. You understand?

Now, people can’t see this. You know, if they would consciously… If they would see what they are instruments of, obviously they would not be able to act like that. But, you see, nobody really realises what is going on!

But then there are these telltale lines in their letter. And the final line is phenomenal: ‘If these proposals that we are giving you’, – okay, as far as they are concerned this is legitimate: We are going to be legal; we’ve got our lawyer, he says this, that, the other thing: ‘If these proposals are not acceptable, perhaps you can come up with some suggestion that will be consonant with the legal parameters governing….’

So look at the implications. In other words, that determines what you are going to do and the measure of the Whole…. That is exactly what is in that letter. Now, it is very interesting because, as I say, this is exactly the Yoga of the Year. The kernel of it is right now…. Leave aside whether it is true or false what their lawyer has written, whether they are off or not. I’m just talking about a process right now. And I can see that this is something one has to face all along, that it is always going to be this kind of attack to crush the Centre. This is what has to be right now.

And it is going to be the old forms. They are going to try and impose the old forms on this Centre, from where the new forms have to come about.

(Pause)

What I am trying to do is something entirely different. Even amidst the old I am trying to create these new Forms that will be responsible only to that inner central Measure. You understand? This is the big thing. This is the kernel, as I say, of the whole Yoga of the Chamber of this year.

So, this thrust comes from there – and with such a power in it: determination. It is going to be like this. You are going to have to come to terms with us and with… You have to conform to the way things are run here.

Now, it is clear that this is the instrument for this year in order to make me come to terms with this Yoga of the Chamber. And that we have reached that point where… You’ve reached the walls, and as the Mother said, we learn from the first temple we build, and the second…. And there I am learning! And I say ‘Oh, isn’t this interesting. It’s exactly the same thing!’

Now, never in a thousand years could they imagine that they would be instruments and embodying that very same consciousness that the architects had, and the role that they played with the Mother then.

And you see, if I can say that what happened to The New Way in the Ashram could never happen now because of this realisation, think of the Mother, when this happened to her. There was no hope at all at that time of rescuing anything. Look at how she left it. She just had to succumb. And not only that. She succumbed to such an extent that they actually built the thing like that; and that nothing I could do could change it. With all the power of truth in the world. I mean, I had every weapon, you know, every possible means to do that. And it was useless. Completely useless. I could not, once that consciousness had established its power to determine, to crush…once that ‘void’ was there, huh? Once they had established that ‘hole’ in the centre [of the Chamber], it was the signal that there was no centre. And in fact there was none.

At the same time then this Power uses…because, as I have always said, it was precisely that ‘hole’ that allowed me to do this Yoga of the Chamber in the ‘80s, and that filled that Void, you see.

Even so there is this power working. But, look. These people cannot imagine that there is any relation, that they are acting in the same way as those other people. Why? Because, ‘Oh, it’s two different things! This has nothing to do with the temple!’ You understand? These are legal matters, where is the relation? Yet look how absolutely exact.

(Pause)

You know, at this point, when that ‘thing’ – as the Mother said, let’s call it a ‘thing’ because you can’t call it a realisation! [Laughter] Let’s call it a ‘thing’. Okay, when that Thing is there, this changes everything. And then, you know, all your reactions… Some times I get these reactions, and then after I think, Oh my gosh, maybe that was a little bit…rash. [Laughter] Or maybe I should have been a little kinder, or… But then you realise that you too are an instrument; and, by gosh, you’re an instrument to repel also, when you have to.

And nobody can come and stay in the precincts of this work, the way it is getting established now, if they are not able to make this kind of shift. If there is not that suppleness, you know, it is really just a suppleness. It is not rigidity. I saw this last night – this rigidity.

In any case, in this work it is this suppleness where…this kind of softness. The real quality of the soul, that allows itself to be carried along into the New. And that trust….

A sort of Devic [of the Gods] quality, rather than…

That is it. That is perhaps the most important thing that the Gods have to offer, it is that softness…which, in the Puranas, in all the mythologies, was their weak point! Because they didn’t have that ‘strong will’.

And what is this now? Again it is a battle of the wills, but with a difference now. Here I am talking about the possibility of allowing the new forms to manifest and that if we are not very careful in the beginning we are going to kill….

Or create a monster!

And we are going to say, ‘Why must we begin again, again, and again!’ I’m certain that I don’t have time to waste.

(Pause)

But it is the correspondences, you see. This is what I have found: that the ordinary person cannot see how things are the same! They see the outer forms, they see this was the Temple, this was a problem of the architects, this was a problem with concrete and stone… But this here is such-and-such. And yet they can’t see that the one is the other.

In the same way that if you tried to explain to those architects their attitude at that time, they would have all sorts of similar… It wasn’t black and white.

But that’s what happened! Don’t you remember how much they ridiculed me? Saying, ‘Ha! Ha! She thinks that because we’re putting this, we’re doing it like this, it’s going to cause disaster in the world, etc.’ And the major point, their whole argument against me was that I was ‘superstitious’ and that I was imagining all these kinds of correspondences.

It is interesting, because out of that ‘imagining’, out of that ‘imagination’ look what has come. And look at it there: sterile. Just sterile. So wrapped up in themselves…

You see, this was the problem: When the vision went, when the poise was lost, then it allowed for this intensification of the ego. That was its biggest boon, you know.

(Pause)

But how much steadier thing are now. Sometimes at night I have this impression of steadiness. Well, it is almost like the Mountain. That solid mass. And I think we’ve come a long way. We’ve come a long way to be able to sit here and discuss these things in these terms. Look at the difference from the Talk I have just read of the Mother, where she had that experience but in no way, at that time, could she apply it to the work she was involved in. In no way. There was no connection. It was an experience, or a realisation. But there wasn’t the method by which you could apply it to the work.

And this is what Sri Aurobindo was talking about when he said, ‘Supermind organised for Earth use’. That this is what we have to find, that this is what we are seeking, what we are bringing down: Supermind to be organised for Earth use. This is what I mean.

This experience of the Mother is a gem! I mean, it is the seed of it. But it wasn’t…you couldn’t apply it.

And did she know that nine years later she was going to be faced with the…results of precisely the opposite to what she had had in that experience? That the true poise which she described, the lack of which was going to create those problems in the Temple. Obviously, if she were around now she’d have no difficulty at all in understanding! But how was it possible then? There was no way to make these ‘links’ then. She didn’t have those ‘laws’.

Isn’t it something to rejoice about? Yes, there are difficulties in the work, blockages that… There is definitely a dimension that is totally closed. But there is also so much….

Many of the difficulties are developmental difficulties. They are problems on the positive side rather than the negative.

Well, the point is that you can see now a blockage, a problem, in its rightful place. In the context of the larger dimensions. Remember what the Mother said about…that she felt that in the process that she was involved in there was this ‘supreme wisdom’, these ‘laws of a supreme wisdom’ guiding it; but that she was in the middle of this arc and therefore she could not speak of it or describe it or understand it even. But that it was only after the arc was closed, let’s say, that she could.

This is what now has changed, because you see this blockage, you see this difficulty – as, for example, I’ve seen exactly what is happening in the USA, what role these people are playing. We’re right on top of it. I mean, I don’t have to wait even until the end of the year. I know what we have to work with. And isn’t that a quality of the Supermind? That is the way Sri Aurobindo was describing it; you go from truth to greater truth. Which means that in this transitional phase you are still able to proceed with a certain amount of light. That is, if sometimes I get desperate because there can’t be a breakthrough, at least I know what breakthroughs there must be! I know that in the physical dimension there is this blockage. I don’t know how to deal with it yet. But I know that this is the process, and we are in the middle of it; and while we are in the middle of it we can understand and move along with it.

This is an enormous difference. This is really when you come to the ‘third point’, when you come to the Individual. This is the quality of that…that possibility.

(Pause)

The other day I was talking about the new Power. That’s it, you know. That ‘thing’ that has the capacity to repel, to attract, to control the play of circumstances.

And this pernicious effort that one is going to have to grapple with constantly of these forces seeking to crush out of existence that Centre.

Maybe that is the idea of Skambha going down like that. It really gives the impression that at any moment it could all come tumbling down on your head! It’s an unusual landscape.

X had a dream experience like that: there was this feeling of things crashing down, but somehow it didn’t come, it didn’t happen. There was also that dream experience of yours? What was that experience of yours, of water?

You mean the one on the train coming back from Madras? Of going on crests, and then going into… Oh yes, I will never forget that. It was so impressive, those enormous waves! You know, it was like ‘slow motion’. I saw it coming…You’ve been in the ocean and you’ve had that happen to you. You know, where you are overtaken by an enormous wave. You see it coming and you can’t do a thing… And here goes!

Well, this thing coming… It was very clear water though, I remember that. Seeing it come, and then somehow I went into it – but not into the wave. Almost…I went into another dimension. And then I was carried like that on the crest. It is difficult to explain. I wasn’t really on the crest. It was like carried through but via some other dimension, or another power. And these waves kept coming but they never overtook me. Yet I saw them there, I said. ‘Oh, my gosh!’

I remember when I awoke (I was on the train coming back here) and I thought, What does this bode?! [Laughter] Because it was so powerful. It was like the one with the electrical current (after that experience). It was the same, exactly the same message in this dream. Finally I had to gather myself together and I said, ‘Well, wait a minute, what actually happened in the dream. You weren’t overcome.’ That was the whole point of the dream. It was that in fact somehow you managed to get into a ‘space’ where these could not overcome you, overtake…

And that’s probably, I would say, the key to the remaining years in this millennium. It is finding that poise, that state of consciousness which will allow us to ride through any storm, through whatever….

That is the secret of that new Power of protection, you see?

Now, it is evident that this is a very important turning point – this moving to Skambha. Evidently this is probably one of the major moments of this work, – the fact that that actually will come about. Because you know the symbol that that has always been – of this searching for this permanent spot… And then of course coming there; and you have this ancient land, but all the forms have to be new. Nothing there. Not even the road, do you realise? You have to even do that. Find your own access, your own entry. And it’s clear that this is significant.

Oh, last night too, what was so beautiful was, again, the image of the one entry into the Room. I said, Well, how can these people… You know, how can you help people to come to this. People who are really so blocked; but at the same time you know they should find their way to this work, or whatever. Yet again, you can do nothing but hold your own poise. That is it.

But then the point is that when you come into that Room, from the moment you start coming up those 15 steps, you’re seeing that Ray. And as you move you follow that Ray… In other words, you have to have your vision always on THAT, and the Core. Otherwise there is no way to enter. And this is what keeps people out. What I was saying: that outer cannot impose its measure on it; and you can’t come in from the darkness and pretend to find your way. You really have to have it in your heart from the beginning. You have to be open to that. This is what is so difficult for people to come to terms with. And when there is not that suppleness, then the system rejects…

And it makes you wonder about this development now, because it is clear that there must be souls who have incarnated for this particular phase of the work and that at some point…let’s call it, this arousal has to happen.

Yes, and down there [Skambha] one has to have a strong physical. There is such a power down there that would just ‘break’ anything that is not…

Very powerful. But it is a ‘power point’. So it must energise.

And how does it energise? It energises by what we are all feeling, what everybody has felt. Everybody comes back from there so happy. There is that psychic joy.

So, the energising quality is that soul power – not in terms of the ‘equal rights movement’! I mean the real thing, where there is that sweet Power that sustains and that leaves you with this…happiness, this joy….

Added at the time of printing [22 March 1987]:

The Mother has provided us with a visual image of this revolutionary realisation, the realisation that will introduce a higher species on Earth. The Temple of her original plan is the method to lay the first foundations of this new way. The core is that true Centre which comes into being on the basis of a perfect axial balance, a new alignment. This is the new Axis, the higher one that the practitioner of the Integral and Supramental Yogas forges in his/her consciousness-being. A rise comes about. The pivot is shifted from the sex centre (the present pivot of the human species) to a higher position which then liberates energies by a process of integration. The practitioner becomes the Temple, is the Temple.

I would like to reproduce a footnote which the disciple who edited the dialogue of the Mother that I have referred to above added at the time of publication, in the collection he entitled L’Agenda de Mere (Volume 2, 1961). Since the Mother told him when she was describing her unusual experience that she wanted it kept secret, he was obliged to give some sort of explanation, it seems, for disregarding her request and printing this dialogue nonetheless. Thus he wrote:

‘…and this “secret” is probably part of the Secret that this entire Agenda is trying to trace. Therefore, where does one stop? And if we are indiscreet, who knows if the secret of man was not the indiscretion of some monkey?’ (p. 209.)

The disciple was quite correct in appreciating that this dialogue held perhaps the key he was searching for in the Agenda. But he was unable to see that this experience was directly related to the vision of the Temple nine years later, that the Temple was the consolidation of this very experience. Indeed, he missed the ‘secret’ entirely when he saw in the architect’s vision of the temple the ‘birth of Auroville’, rather than in the Mother’s.

The ‘secret of the Temple’ is a new being perfectly centred, having brought about a shift in the bodily axis to a higher balance. This perfect centrality is what eliminates the accumulation of karma, because there is no separation, no distance: a complete integration of all parts of the being around this new and true Centre. It is then that the Being and the Becoming are harmonised because this Centre holds the extension of events to itself in an organised relatedness, in a field of oneness. It is then that the Gnostic Being stands as a Sun in the midst of a universal field. The Gnostic Being recreates in his/her own being the planetary harmony once this Sun is realised within by this new axial balance. It is a ‘centre that holds’ and a cosmos is born of the chaos.

This is the distinguishing feature of the gnostic race: there are no ‘gaps’ in the different layers of consciousness-being which allow waves to rise and obscure the consciousness, as is the case with our present race of Ignorance.

When the Centre comes into being via the new axial balance, the Truth-Consciousness is able to manifest through a new and integrated instrument. Then only is Truth our base. From that truth-conscious Base the Gnostic Being perceives Reality. This entirely new perception becomes the foundation of action in the world.

Thea

______________________________

* Sanskrit: cosmic pillar or axis mundi; the name given to the land for the Aeon Centre of Cosmology in South India.

‘Perspectives’ – All Roads Do NOT Lead to Rome’

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4 October, 1986

I wanted to record some things the other night, but…now that we’re on the subject of the difference between paths…

I don’t know, this work really moves farther and farther away from… It just moves farther and farther away! And then, when I read something like this, today, it gets more and more acute.

The other night something really interesting came up…the process leading to it. The process. That was the whole point, because what finally came out was another one of these radically different positions everybody takes. Because I realised that the only difference, I mean the main difference with this work, why it would really bring a change in the world, was concerning the process.

In other words, there is the idea in spirituality that ‘all roads lead to Rome’, you know. Here I saw that that is really the big fallacy, that there is only one process, really. But that when you get there that is where the multiplicity comes in. That there is only one way to get to that Core, let’s say; but once you get to that Core, that ‘seed’ of the individual – whatever – that’s when you cannot determine what it is going to be; because that is where the individual dharma, that is where the individual truth-essence manifests in any form according to that Truth.

But there is only one way to get there. And this was the remarkable thing. Because all of these people – this man from the Ramakrishna Mission – all of them will go on saying all paths lead to God; and that is their big thing. Any religion, any path, any God-realisation… And then I realised that in this it is completely different. That was what the Mother gave in the Matrimandir. This was the whole idea of that ONE STAIRWAY. The stairway is the ‘process’.

I mean, it was so remarkable because I was going into it so deeply. And I said, Okay, what is the key to this work? I mean, what is it that we are really after? Of course it is to reach that ‘seed’, that Point, that One-in-the-Core. Individually. Collectively. As a work…in whatever form.

But that inner truth of every thing, how do you get to it? This is what nobody has been able to do before. And of course, when you are going out into the periphery and you are dispersing the consciousness, then all paths do lead to that. From any point you can extend outward and the whole question is dispersal of the consciousness. So it doesn’t really matter. You can take any method to get to this otherworldly stance. It doesn’t matter.

In this you really can’t because there is only one direction. That is, it is centred, no? So, I was going into this, this whole question of centering. What is the basis of it and what does it produce? Well, of course, what it produces is that that ‘point’ comes into existence, which becomes your ‘anchor’ thereafter. And there is only one way to get to that. And that is the way of the Earth. It is the direction that goes inward, into the Core.

And then there was that extraordinary vision of The Magical Carousel with this ‘mountain’ in Capricorn. [The children] go inside the mountain. They are thrust there. Then what happens? Into that Chamber from which they have no escape, you see?

Now, this is the problem, because you have no escape. And in order to get to that inner Point that is what has to happen. You cannot… That’s the concentration; that the Mother was talking about in the Temple. This remarkable thing.

What was she saying? She was saying: to concentrate; she said, to concentrate. And she stressed this.

And you know, the extraordinary thing is that it has ab-so-lute-ly NOTHING to do with meditation. I mean, nothing. Really you can sit and ‘contemplate your navel’ till doomsday and you will never get this realisation, because it has nothing to do with…. You can meditate and that is fine. But the two things don’t go together.

This ‘concentration’ is the focus that keeps you in this one-pointed direction into the heart of things. And for that, I am telling you, there is only one process. You see?

But once you get in there, once you realise that inner dharma – because that is what you do finally when you come into that – that is where the multiplicity begins. Of an individual expression. Where every individual becomes…CONTRIBUTES this extraordinary wealth.

You reenact the evolution.

That’s it.

And how remarkable that Temple is. How fantastic, with this ONE STAIRWAY. But of course, what happened when they distorted it: the first thing they came up with was a dozen stairways! You see?

…Because it just occurred to me… Well, all right, it is interesting, I’ve come to this point: there is only one way. All the time there is this problem about…you know: You’re so tolerant, or you have to accept all of the other schools, or… Well, I have to say that more and more …so riddled with flaws. I mean, so FLAWED. It gets to be a bit embarrassing after a while, you know?!

There is this Temple. And [the Mother] was saying the same thing: there is one stairway (and it was symbolic). There’s one way to get inside it. There’s not a dozen! She said, ‘I don’t even want one stairway and you’re bringing in all of this!’

Well, isn’t it true that they should have done this, that that should have been the first point of contention…because: Let’s all be free, let’s not be confined to one process. Because unless you’re confined to the one process you cannot reach [the Core]… This is the interesting thing.

So, what was I doing in my work in 1983? This was what was so extraordinary. It was that I gave ‘the Process’. That is my real contribution. You know, I ‘made’ that stairway. I hewed that. I gave that process which is this tremendous concentration where you hold firm, you reach that centre, that point, that One-in-the-Core. And then you come to the Dharma. And that is your base in life. Your individual base.

There were a lot of things that were coming…it was quite remarkable these days. But it was this: that you really can never… Unless you really reach your own inner dharma by whichever means (if you could in any other way), you can’t do this work. It is impossible. That is really what the finality of it is because that is what is lacking in the world. That is what nobody has.

And so I saw… Who has been given the method to do this? Of course, this in conjunction with the Mother and the Temple. That was my big key, you know. And that was why there was that ‘construction process’. What was it that I constructed? I was constructing the process of this. Opening that up.

It is very interesting because when you make that breakthrough then obviously it becomes progressively easier for others. Look at our work from that time, 1983-84. Now, what had to happen? Obviously there had to be that ‘reversal’, – and that happened. Up until that point there was this ‘concentration’ that was always a caving in, this pressure, pushing in. Think of The Magical Carousel and that scene in Capricorn…almost a suffocating feeling. You know, you’re drawn to this point.

This was happening in me – but it was happening in the work. This is important. Because obviously when I reached that inner dharma… What did I reach? I reached the Dharma of the work. My individual dharma happens to be that. So, the two went hand-in-hand; and it was immediately reflected in the work.

So what happened? When you got to that point and that reversal came about, from then onward in time an increase started… And then you gather forms. You are able to build. So you consider it like a building project.

It is almost the multiplicity that starts…

That is when it starts.

Now, this [resembles] my realisation in Pondicherry in September, 1972, when I was ‘silenced’, let’s say – in the Zero. But it was at that point that, in terms of the Knowledge, that same multiplicity started. And all of it was partaking of that one breakthrough, the realisation I had of that Zero, you see?

Now, the same thing here. Depending on the quality of the seed, let’s say, that you reach, that is what comes out. Inevitably.

So, what happened in this work? This extraordinary increase began. And you can see it. And it started gathering about itself…

Then of course that remarkable process of repulsion and attraction: ritam. Putting everything in its place. The ordering. All of that because that Centre was filled. There was that Base, that Point – from which to work. And then progressively each year from that time we have been building on that.

It is just like in a building when you lay your first foundation-stone. From that – and you don’t even see it – from that the building arises. And then you’ve got this colossal thing that comes out. This is exactly the same.

That is the message of the Temple. There it is. And there is only one way.

Now I have this problem you see…I have to go against everybody, what they think. As I say, this idea that all roads lead to Rome. Well, they really don’t!

You know, the process is what I am talking about. I’m not saying…I mean, yours is going to be slightly different in the sense that it is determined by the conditions of your life. But there is one method and it is this convergence into that Point, – until you get there: no escape…that form of concentration that makes you hold firm until you can reach that ‘inner chamber’, that inner core. This is the important thing. So, this process is the same for…it is going to be the same for the whole world. Everything. That is why the tensions in the world are there in this way. They are doing this: confining, confining.

Then after, as I say, comes the increase. And the expression comes in a multiplicity of form; and this is what has been happening in this work because from that time, 1984, it is starting…this expansion.

But it was such a remarkable clarity of this wonderful image of the Temple, you know, that tells you absolutely everything you need to know… And that the thing is done. This was the extraordinary thing: IT IS DONE. Now, the rest is inevitable.

Mind you, that ‘seed’ is the Seed of Immortality. This is its whole quality. That is why nobody has ever been able to realise immortality of the physical; because they had never had this direction. But that is where the Seed of Immortality is, and when you get that it becomes the base. You realize that it is inevitable then that this play itself out at some point and reach that state of Immortality. On all levels. Because it is from there that it stems, you see. That is its quality: this Golden Seed, this Hiranyaretas. That Immortal One.

It has just never been done before like this. Once it is done, once the process is done…because that’s the tricky part: it is to live the process. It is the process itself that opens the path. Once you’ve laid out the process then the rest… As I say, it becomes progressively easier.

You have to realise that all of you had to go through that process with me of this Reversal. Whereas people who come into the work now don’t have to do that. They don’t have to live the process with me. They come to find their place already in a ‘system’ that is manifesting, that is growing. We were working, let’s say, in the Zero, when nothing was…and we had to bring it out from that Point. But people who come now do not have this…critical…

You know, it was the halfway point of these three decades till the end of the millennium. It was exactly the halfway point. It was really the do-or-die of this work. I knew it. If it didn’t succeed I knew that you could all pack up and go off somewhere, because it was completely useless to continue. And it worked, of course. But the perception was very clear that what was happening then was the great decisive moment: creation or destruction.

I notice that it is getting so very much easier. It could be that I am expressing things more clearly; but that is part of it too, no? Obviously if you’ve lived the process then you are able to express it more clearly. But I notice that all of these people…they are grasping things quicker, that poise comes into being with less of an effort, or a strain. Because there is that ‘centre that holds’, you see.

And then you have this factor of the negative elements that get caught in the shadow universe. This is a fact. And you see how they are still bound to it, and they still have to play that out. You take X’s case, for instance. That ‘seed’, that inner truth, I know what it is. So, she can never be other than that. No matter whether it is in the shadow kingdom or the kingdom of light. It has got to be a playout determined by that.

(Pause)

And this is how you come to the harmony between the inner truth and the external forms…

That is the only way that harmony can take place.

There is never any separation.

[A discussion follows on Objective Art, and then:]

…What is this process? Connecting those planes. Now, this hadn’t happened in Sri Aurobindo’s time. And this was part of what I was going into all these days. They couldn’t realize this. I mean, they couldn’t realize that One-in-the-Core because it hadn’t come to that point. You realize that? It was all converging down, down, down – more, until you got to the Third Level. And that is the level at which it happens.

So, they could never have given this process, you know, it was impossible. Nor could they have lived it as such. They lived what they had to live for their levels…to open, to make these links: the Transcendent, the Cosmic, and then the… And that is what the Mother did. She ‘linked’ those planes and gave the cosmic plan…gave forth the Cosmic Truth. Replaced the Ignorance, the Cosmic Ignorance, and gave forth the ‘plan’ of the Cosmic Truth.

But this process is something else then. You know, bringing it down to the individual. Opening that channel for the individual. And that is what was done now.

It could not be done earlier; it could not have been explained earlier. Nothing. Each had to add a portion – to come to that.

(Pause)

Nonetheless with that certitude. All the time with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother – that total certitude: That it was done and that it would be.

That is obviously the foundation, you know. And that is why not just anybody can do it. It has got to be beings born for that, because that is what gives… It is that dharma. It is like what I was saying, when I went through that process, well I got to the dharma of the work – because that is what my inner being is made of. And that’s the foundation you bring into the world. So, automatically there is a certitude underlying everything. I mean, it is there. It is your essence. You come for that purpose, to do that.

But it was so remarkable to go into all of this, to see what has really been done… You know, these years in Kodaikanal. What an extraordinary thing has happened.

And so then, of course, all the little details really become so unimportant…the little difficulties. Because, you know, you have, again, that certitude….

[Added at the time of printing:]

The most urgent question for the Earth is the realisation of the inner truth of things. By extending the consciousness outward, by stretching it beyond, we have rendered this intimate discovery, unveiling, progressively more difficult; until today we are at a complete loss as to how to proceed in order to ‘find our roots’ as it were. Or, as I would say, how to find our core and our purpose.

In that Core we find that Golden Seed – our inner Truth. And the one stairway into the Temple that the Mother sought to have incorporated in the construction represents that way of concentration. But she also described the descent and rise into the Chamber (through the floor) as being ‘symbolic’ too of this process.

Indeed, for me it represents that rise of the pivot of being, that shift to a higher pivot: in a word, the creation of a new axis of being, – individually, collectively, for the Earth herself.

This is why the single stairway of 15 steps rising into the Chamber was such an important feature of the Mother’s original plan. Like everything else in the Temple, it foretold the new way; and by her act of seeing which rent the veils that were keeping this way as yet hidden, the Mother set in motion that process.

In Volume 3 of The New Way, I describe in detail the necessity for, and the method of, shifting the axis in the human being to a higher pivot; the higher pivot consisting of the new axis that comes into being on the basis of a perfect centering, is a singular convergence of Time and Space dimensions (vertical/horizontal). Lacking this higher pivot and axis the human being orbits a void, where energies cave in, collapse. This describes the process of destruction as opposed to creation. It is the definition of death.

The modified plan of the architects is a representation of the present human condition: the perfect centering and the correct axis were lost, when the builders refused to make the diameter of the Chamber 24 meters to the walls, as the Mother has so often requested; and at the same time, the entire construction came up with a hole in the centre of the Chamber: a void. In terms of symbols in architecture this is truly a remarkable symbol-image of the human dilemma and the evolutionary impasse.

Thea
March, 1987

Core Poems by Aryaman

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O Throbbing core of vision in the soul,
Pulse forth the force to break the clouding veils,
Extend thy web of Truth that never fails,
Unfold the plan for earth, reveal thy goal.

In measured beats let Love attune our lives:
That Eye give mind its all-seeing source of Light,
Our actions know from where their power derives,
Thy ray’s descent defeat the reign of Night.

O widening ever widening warming Gleam,
Vision for us the wonder of whole Time,
Your children lead into the City of Dream,
And make this planet midge dance out your rhyme.

Pulse of Light and Love with rhythmic Breath,
Extinguish from the Earth the need for Death.

***

Core of Light, still, immobile in the silence of the soul.
Rhythmic Pulse, with thy immense power to make Time whole.
Inseminate this womb of night, leave pregnant with thy bliss,
Let birth here be fulfilment and live divinity’s kiss.

Core of Light, invincible sword of the Truth supreme,
Impeccable sight, intimate seeing by that incarnate Gleam.
Devastate this Ignorance, hew for man the way,
That we may see along with Thee and know eternal Day.

Core of Light, glimmering Ray hiding Mystery’s face;
Terrible might, impetuous rapture of the Mother’s grace,
Gift earth thy measured beats of Love and to our hearts here bring,
Power that slays, Power that saves, Power to end Death’s sting.

Core of Light, sheer mountain peak of godhead Thrill,
Force divine, swift galloping steed of inviolate Will,
Panic the dark Adversary with thy bugle battle sound –
Behold! the City’s gates are open, the sunlit path is found!

The Key to a Hidden Knowledge

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‘Yesterday I was listening to some of the Gnostic Circle tapes you made here. And in the course of listening I began to wonder why the poster of Agni-in-the-Core doesn’t have the shaft of sunlight, which is so very important, falling on the globe. The two illustrations inside The New Way do show the globe-pedestal with the shaft. I wondered if you could tell me what significance it has without the shaft of sunlight. I began to feel it was incomplete in some way. These thoughts also came from reading the Mother’s description of the Temple.’

Regarding your question about Agni-in-the-Core featured in The New Way, let me discuss a few essential points that have been overlooked. They can help to clarify the matter.

You feel it is incomplete because the solar Ray is not seen in the photographic image, which the Mother described as ‘the symbol of the future Realisation’. The Ray, however, was only a part of the complete Symbol, and not the most important. Here is the description in her words: ‘…and the important thing is that, the play of the sun on the centre. Because that becomes the symbol – the symbol of the future Realisation.’ [‘The Mother’s Dialogues on Her Temple’, The VISHAAL Newsletter, 1/5, p. 32.]

This statement is pregnant with meaning, because, you see, the emphasis here is the play of the sun on the centre. That is, in referring to the sun ‘playing’ on the centre, the Mother is indicating a dynamic process. Agni-in-the-Core is not incomplete in this instance without the Ray because, as you can see, the globe is luminous. That illumination is provided by the Ray, though unseen. Thus we are seeing ‘the play of the sun on the centre’, – precisely. We are seeing that globe (the centre) illumined by the sun, and that is the fundamental part of the symbol.

In addition there is the flame emerging from the pedestal’s base. This is the secret knowledge that the Core (as I have called the centre) holds. Thus Agni-in-the-Core gives the seeker a hidden knowledge. I have explained this in detail in The New Way. (I must say that your question causes me to sympathise with Sri Aurobindo who complained about the time-consuming, endless correspondence he had to sustain with his disciples who would not, it seems read his books where they could find the answers to their questions and save him this labour!)

In presenting Agni-in-the-Core my main concern was to provide the seeker with the most important part of the Mother’s vision of the Temple. Now that in VISHAAL we have reproduced her more complete dialogues on this subject [TVN 1/5, & 1/6], I can be more specific.

Please note one fundamental point that emerges from careful study of these dialogues. We see that up to 31 December, 1969 the full vision had not yet come to the Mother of the inner Chamber. However, reviewing her Talks you can verify that practically every detail had, in effect, already been seen and known by that date. She gives lengthy descriptions of the inside of the Room [TVN 1/5, pp. 17-20]. She had already seen the Ray falling as a single shaft of light, the pillars, the bareness of the space, etc. In fact, her description is so complete that one has to question what was actually withheld from the seeing, for which reason the Mother was still open at that time to suggestions from others as to what this temple would be. For it was only after seeing one item that she closed the discussion (or at least SOUGHT to) and declared, ‘Now I have seen, now I do not need anyone.’

This item was not the Ray. It was the CENTRE. Precisely Agni-in-the-Core.

‘…A very big room, and absolutely bare, which receives a light that comes from above, which would be concentrated on a place where there would be – whatever one wants to put as the centre of the city. At first we had thought of Sri Aurobindo’s symbol, but one can put whatever one likes…’. (TVN 1/5, p. 18.)

Note that she describes this as yet unseen portion as nothing less than the centre of the city, not merely of the temple. Again, in the same dialogue, she discloses that she was in the quest of the proper item for the centre:

‘…And a ray of sun which could come at all times – it would be arranged in such a way that it enters all the time. And then there would be something there, a symbol, which would be at the same time upright so that it can be seen from all around, and flat so that it receives the light fully…’. (Ibid, p. 20.)

And further on,

‘…And that is what is needed: something, a symbol – we will find what is needed, we will see – of course like an altar, but what? A symbol that at the same time receives the light directly from above and from the side…’ (Ibid page 22)

This was the last reference to her quest for that central, most important and mysterious symbol. A few days later, by 3 January, 1970 when she again met the disciple, she disclosed the glorious news that she ‘has seen’. And what was that breakthrough? It was precisely the image I have provided seekers with in The New Way: Agni-in-the-Core.

The key feature of the vision was the Globe. But when that ‘came’ with its pedestal (and remember it is the only luminous item in the Chamber), the rest of the room was immediately set in place: namely, the 12-faceted walls. And with the centre came the divine Measure, thoroughly dependent upon the positioning of the Globe and Pedestal. In all her talks on the subject over the remaining days of this momentous 18-day period, she specifically reveals the Chamber’s connection to time (‘…each facet represents a month in the year’).

I should point out that I made the same discovery merely from seeing her original plan, months before reading the transcripts of her dialogues on the subject. The Gnostic Circle, where I first write of the Temple’s connection with time, was already in press when I was finally given a copy of these transcripts. You can imagine how thrilling it was to find my discoveries confirmed by the Mother’s words.

And so, your impression that Agni-in-the-Core is incomplete because one does not see the Ray striking the Globe is not really correct. The Ray is of course there, otherwise the Globe would not be luminous. It receives its light from there (the sun) and no other place. But my intention in presenting this image to seekers was to highlight the actual centre of the temple/city-Consciousness, – the Core. This was the formidable breakthrough the Mother made in those early days of 1970. It was not the Ray.

I must further point out that the hidden elements of the Supramental Manifestation – hidden even from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother – are revealed in Agni-i-the-Core, the centrepiece of the Temple. By itself the Ray is an undefined span of time, essentially meaningless for the purposes of this new Gnosis. You can well understand therefore what an extraordinary moment it was in the history of the Supramental Descent when the Mother had the vision of this central Symbol, the heart of the new creation. Until that time everything that the Core contains was held back, as elements of Knowledge in the Supramental Manifestation, and as a POWER working in the world. Furthermore, as I have explained in my letter on the symbol-forms of Supermind [TVN 1/6], immediately after the Mother’s seeing of the Core, or the main item withheld from her vision until that point, the Knowledge it contains began rapidly to descend. The most essential feature of this new Gnosis was the Solar Line, a gradation of the Supramental Manifestation in four stages; and of course the most stupendous tidings of all: Sri Aurobindo’s return as the fourth in the Line, with the date written therein when that would occur.

Insofar as this explains all the enigmas left unsolved, the baffling mysteries that have plagued their work from the beginning, you can understand why time and again I have sought to draw attention to the Mother’s dialogues on her Temple and the original plan she left for its execution. The key feature of that vision was the Core, consisting of a globe and a pedestal. These represent the last two stages/members of the Solar Line. The Third and the Fourth respectively. And isn’t it interesting to note that the principal item attacked and demolished by the architects was this most essential portion of her Seeing. It was straightaway eliminated entirely! In its place a HOLE was introduced (shades of that infamous Void of Nothingness?). The Core was thus done away with and in its place it was decided that the shaft of sunlight would pass through this void in the floor, where the Core was supposed to rest on the Mother’s horizontal symbol, and emerge below the temple, falling into a pool of water with Sri Aurobindo’s symbol at the bottom. The globe would be somehow magnetically suspended over that void in the centre of the room.

How revealing all this is of the human being’s approach to higher knowledge, not to speak of the philosophical implications. And how prophetic was this alteration in the design; for when the knowledge contained in the ill-fated Core was finally given out, it was treated in the very same way as the physical Core of the Mother’s vision.

Another interesting point to note for its philosophical implications is the fact that no one tampered with the solar Ray, as such. The architects never questioned it; and for all practical purposes, it remained a part of the design. However, doing away with the Core rendered that Ray ineffectual since the Core is the element that defines the Ray, that marks off the correct measures and periods in the year and the longer cycles. Without the Core, time remains elusive and the prophecies indeterminate. The Ray can mean anything and nothing. Its measure of 365 days (or years) is only established by the correct placement of the Core in the Chamber, – for which reason the Mother insisted that she wanted only an engineer, not an architect. But the fact that the Ray was left in this ineffectual condition confirms what I have always experienced in these matters: that people are very much disturbed by specific knowledge. They want vagueness, elusive metaphors and abstract symbols. When one dots the ‘i’s, trouble begins. Vagueness becomes equated with ‘freedom’, that old scourge of spirituality. The ‘new Precision’ of the supramental Gnosis is not for people who are afraid to measure and be precise.

But though I have put enormous efforts into helping people understand what stands behind the Mother’s vision by revealing its keys of knowledge and its central importance for the Supramental Manifestation, I am sorry to say that this has had no effect on those in charge of these matters both in the Ashram and Auroville. They remain completely closed and, what is worse, totally, dismayingly uninterested in these fundamental issues. Added to this are the constant attempts to undermine, to occult or distort these self-evident truths, and a refusal in fact even to read the material or discuss the issues. The documentation I have on these developments will certainly make interesting reading one day, when the ‘history’ of this affair is written.

To conclude, let me refer again to the Mother’s description of that symbol of the future realisation: the ‘play of the sun on the centre’. The dynamics are provided by the Ray, which adds to the Core the progressive time measure of the Year. But the centrepiece – the Globe and the Pedestal – is the crucial vessel into which these ‘solar seeds’ are projected and then defined, organised into a cosmos.

The Core is the new Earth (the globe) and the new Heaven (the pedestal). The tremendous innovation in this vision is the shift: Heaven is BELOW and UPHOLDING. The higher supramental Truth has been awakened in the depths of material creation. It is no longer a vision above and beyond this Earth. The Transcendent (Heaven) is immanent, in the form of the Son. The divine Life is established on Earth. Truly this is the Temple of the new Age; and Agni-in-the-Core is the new Heaven and the new Earth, central to St. John’s vision of so long ago, – of the Bride and the Lamb, of the temple and the city, and of ‘the Book’.

5 January, 1987

Aeon Centre of Cosmology

Kodaikanal, India

Letters – Sri Aurobindo

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‘There is nothing to be troubled about. You ought rather to congratulate yourself that you have become conscious of your ego-centricity. Very few people in the Ashram are. They are all ego-centric and they do not realise their ego-centricity. Even in their sadhana the I is always there, – my sadhana, my progress, my everything. The remedy is to think constantly of the Divine, not of oneself, to work, to act, do sadhana for the Divine; not to consider how this or that affects me personally, not to claim anything, but to refer all to the Divine. It will take time to do that sincerely and thoroughly, but it is the proper way.’ (pp. 1371-72.)

***

‘Your nature like that of almost everybody has been largely ego-centric and the first stages of the sadhana are with almost everybody ego-centric. The main idea in it is always one’s own sadhana, one’s own endeavour, one’s own development, perfection, siddhi. It is inevitable for most, for without that personal endeavour there would not be sufficient will or push to bring about the first necessary changes. But none of these things – development, perfection or siddhi – can really come in any degree of completeness or unmixed finality until this ego-centric attitude changes into the God-centric, until it becomes the development, perfection, siddhi of the divine Consciousness, its will and its instrumentation in this body – and that can only be when these things become secondary, and bhakti for the Divine, love for the Divine, oneness with the Divine in consciousness, will, heart and body, become the sole aim – the rest is then only the fulfilment of the Divine Will by the Divine Power. This attitude is never difficult for the psychic, it is its natural position and feeling, and whenever your psychic was in front, you had it is your central consciousness. But there were the outer mind, vital and physical that brought in their mixture of desire and ego and there could be no effective liberation in life and action till these were liberated. The thinking mind and higher vital can accept without too much difficulty, but the difficulty is with the lower vital and physical and especially with the most external parts of them; for these are entirely creatures of habit, recurring movement, an obstinate repetition of the same movement always. This habit is so blind and obstinate and persistent as to seem almost invincible, especially when it is used at a juncture like this by the Forces of Ignorance as their last refuge or point of attack. But the apparent invincibility is not true. The most ego-centric can change and do change by the psychic principle becoming established in the external nature. That it can be done only by the Divine Grace and Power is true (that is true of all spiritual change) – but with the full consent of the being. As it was done in the inner being, so it can be done in the outer; give the adhesion of your full will and faith and, whatever the difficulty, it will be done.’ (pp. 1372-73.)

***

‘But in what way do they [all things] belong to the Divine, so long as the ego appropriates and uses them for its own purposes? Self-giving in fact means a change from ego-centricity to God-centricity; also such a giving as would lead to a change of the whole base of the consciousness.’ (p. 1374.)

***

‘Your practice of psycho-analysis was a mistake. It has, for the time at least, made the work of purification more complicated, not easier. The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind – to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms – runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.

It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, – and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners, – is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of the nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of one’s way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.

The system of getting rid of things by anubhava [experience] can also be a dangerous one; for on this way one can easily become more entangled instead of arriving at freedom. This method has behind it two well-known psychological motives. One, the motive of purposeful exhaustion, is valid only in some cases, especially when some natural tendency has too strong a hold or too strong a drive in it to be got rid of by vicara [intellectual reflection] or by the process of rejection and the substitution of the true movement in its place; when that happens in excess, the sadhak has sometimes even to go back to the ordinary action of the ordinary life, get the true experience of it with a new mind and will behind and then return to the spiritual life with the obstacle eliminated or else ready for elimination. But this method of purposive indulgence is always dangerous, though sometimes inevitable. It succeeds only when there is a very strong will in the being towards realisation; for then indulgence brings a strong dis-satisfaction and reaction, vairagya [distaste], and the will towards perfection can be carried down into the recalcitrant part of the nature.

The other motive for anubhava is of a more general applicability; for in order to reject anything from the being one has first to become conscious of it, to have the clear inner experience of its action and to discover its actual place in the workings of the nature. One can then work upon it to eliminate it, if it is an entirely wrong movement, or to transform it if it is only the degradation of a higher and true movement. It is this or something like it that is attempted crudely and improperly with a rudimentary and insufficient knowledge in the system of psycho-analysis. The process of raising up the lower movements into the full light of consciousness in order to know and deal with them is inevitable; for there can be no complete change without it. But it can truly succeed only when a higher light and force are sufficiently at work to overcome, sooner or later, the force of the tendency that is held up for change. Many, under the pretext of anubhava, not only raise up the adverse movement, but support it with their consent instead of rejecting it, find justifications for continuing or repeating it and so go on playing with it, indulging its return, eternising it; afterwards when they want to get rid of it, it has got such a hold that they find themselves helpless in its clutch and only a terrible struggle or an intervention of divine grace can liberate them. Some do this out of a vital twist or perversity, others out of sheer ignorance; but in yoga, as in life, ignorance is not accepted by Nature as a justifying excuse. This danger is there in all improper dealings with the ignorant parts of the nature; but none is more ignorant, more perilous, more unreasoning and obstinate in recurrence than the lower vital subconscious and its movements. To raise it up prematurely or improperly for anubhava is to risk suffusing the conscious parts also with its dark and dirty stuff and thus poisoning the whole vital and even the mental nature. Always therefore one should begin by a positive, not a negative experience, by bringing down something of the divine nature, calm, light, equanimity, purity, divine strength into the parts of the conscious being that have to be changed; only when that has been sufficiently done and there is a firm positive basis, is it safe to raise up the concealed subconscious adverse elements in order to destroy and eliminate them by the strength of the divine calm, light, force and knowledge. Even so, there will be enough of the lower stuff rising up of itself to give you as much of the anubhava as you will need for getting rid of the obstacles; but then they can be dealt with with much less danger and under a higher internal guidance.’ (pp. 1605-08.)

***

‘But what is this ego of which you speak? Everybody has the ego and it is impossible to get rid of it altogether except by two things – the opening of the psychic within and the descent of a wider ego-free consciousness from above. The psychic being opening does not get rid of the ego at once but purifies it and offers it and all the movements to the Divine, so that one becomes unegoistic through self-giving and surrender. At the same time the nature opens above and the wider ego-free consciousness comes down and ego disappears and by the power of the psychic you know your own true being which is a portion of the Mother. This is what has to happen, but it cannot happen in so short a time. Do not be always thinking of the vital movement and the ego – you have seen them and know that they are, it is enough. Concentrate rather in the heart on the opening there; concentrate persistently and aspire persistently and do not mind if it takes time. Call in any way even if you cannot call yet deeply – then the deeper call will come.’ (pp. 1376-77.)

***

‘The sense of ego can disappear into that of the Self or the Purusha but that of itself does not bring about the disappearance of the old ego-reactions in the Prakriti. The Purusha has to get rid of these by a process of constant rejection and remoulding. The remoulding consists in throwing everything into a consecration to the Mother and doing all for her without regard to oneself, one’s desires, opinions, vital reactions as if they were the things to be fulfilled. This is most easily done if the psychic being becomes quite awake.’ (p. 1378.)

***

‘The division of the being of which you speak is a necessary stage in the yogic development and experience. One feels that there is a twofold being, the inner psychic which is the true one and the other, the outer human being which is instrumental for the outward life. To live in the inner psychic being in union with the Divine while doing the outward work, as you feel, is the first stage in Karmayoga. There is nothing wrong in these experiences; they are indispensable and normal at this stage.

If you feel no bridge between the two, it is possibly because you are not yet conscious of what connects the two. There is an inner mental, an inner vital, an inner physical which connects the psychic and the external being. About this, however, you need not be anxious at present.

The important thing is to keep what you have and let it grow, to live always in the psychic being, your true being. The psychic will, in due time, awaken and turn to the Divine all the rest of the nature, so that even the outer being will feel itself in touch with the Divine and moved by the Divine in all it is and feels and does.’ (pp. 1112-13.)

***

‘When the psychic being awakens, you grow conscious of your own soul; you know your self. And you no longer commit the mistake of identifying yourself with the mental or with the vital being. You do not mistake them for the soul.

Secondly, when awakened, the psychic being gives true bhakti for God or for the Guru. That bhakti is quite different from mental or vital bhakti.

In the mind one may have admiration or appreciation for the intellectual greatness of the man – or Guru, but it is merely mental; it does not carry the matter very far. Of course there is no harm in having that also. But by itself it does not open the whole of the inner being; it only establishes a mental contact.

The vital bhakti demands and demands. It imposes its own conditions. It surrenders itself to God, but conditionally. It says to God, “You are so great, I worship you, and now satisfy my this desire or that ambition, make me great, make me a great sadhak, a great yogin, etc.”

The unillumined mind also surrenders to the Truth, but makes its own conditions. It says to the Truth, “Satisfy my judgment and my opinion”; it demands the Truth to cast itself in the mind’s own forms.

The vital being also insists on the Truth to throw itself into its own movement of force. The vital being pulls at the Higher Power and pulls and pulls at the vital being of the Guru.

Both of them (the mental and the vital) have got an arriere pensee (mental reservation) in their surrender.

But the psychic being and its bhakti are not like that. Because it is in direct communication with the Divinity behind, it is capable of true bhakti. Psychic bhakti does not make any demand, makes no reservations. It is satisfied with its own existence. The psychic being knows how to obey the Truth in the right way. It gives itself up truly to God or to Guru, and because it can give itself up truly, therefore it can also receive truly.

Thirdly, when the psychic being comes to the surface, it feels sad when the mental or the vital being is making a fool of itself. That sadness is purity offended.

When the mind is playing its own game or when the vital being is carried away by its own impulses, it is the psychic being which says, “I don’t want these things; what am I here for after all? I am here for the Truth, I am not here for these things.”

Psychic sadness is again different from mental dissatisfaction or vital sadness or physical depression.

If the psychic being is strong, it makes itself felt on the mental or the vital being, and forces them – compels them – to change. But if it is weak, the other parts take advantage of it and use the psychic sadness to their own advantage.

In some cases the psychic being comes up to the surface and upsets the mental or the vital being and throws everything into disorder. But if the mind or the vital being is stronger than the psychic, then it casts only an occasional influence and gradually retires behind. All its cry is in the wilderness; and the mental or the vital being goes on in its own round.

Lastly, the psychic being refuses to be deceived by appearances. It is not carried away by falsehood. It refuses to be depressed by falsehood – nor does it exaggerate the truth. For example, even if everything around says, “There is no God”, the psychic being refuses to believe in it. It says, “I know, and I know because I feel.”

And because it knows the thing behind, it is not deceived by appearances. It immediately feels the Force.

Also, when the psychic being is awakened, it throws out all the dross from the emotional being and makes it free from sentimentalism or the lower play of emotionalism.

But it does not carry in it the dryness of the mind or the exaggeration of the vital feelings. It gives the just touch to each emotion.’ (pp. 1103-04.)

***

‘Of course the ego and the vital with its claims and desires is always the main obstacle to the emergence of the psychic. For they make one live, act, do sadhana even for one’s own sake and psychicisation means to live, act and do sadhana for the sake of the Divine.’ (p. 1099.)

24 November 1986

19 February 1987

Sri Aurobindo, ‘Hinduism and the Mission of India’ Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research, April, 1983

From Thea’s Journal, 31.1.1987/4.2.1987:

4 October, 1986

Excerpts from the Centenary Edition, Volume 24, Letters on Yoga, pages indicated.

Sri Aurobindo, ‘Hinduism and the Mission of India’
Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research, April, 1983