The epoch-making events in the USSR in August of 1991 merit a brief analysis in the context of the new way cosmology in order that the student may once more appreciate the accuracy and, above all, the non-speculative nature of this work

What has come to an end for the whole world, starting in 1989, is, quite simply, the Binary Creation. 1989 was to end the 1980-89 ennead; at the same time, it introduced the beginning of the new and final ennead, 1989-98, of this magnificent century. However, these cycles always present a ‘structure’. From an initial 0 point the time progression mirrored in the Gnostic Circle is not linear or a closed circuit. It is a spiralling motion and is therefore a series of cycles contiguous but building one upon another as the spiral form would provide. This would be as close to an accurate description as our mental framework can provide for the present.

Thus the events of 1989, and especially those of the final 3 months, have to be analysed in the context of the happenings not only during the first 9 months of the year, January to October, but the prior 9 years. It is this sort of review that can give us an indication of what specifically had occurred in the world to make this latest upheaval possible. Our review will make it abundantly clear that what I have termed the Yoga of the Chamber lies at the root of the transformation we now witness. Or at least, for the sceptic, it has been an almost simultaneous process.

Tradition in India from very ancient times sustains that a seer or a yogi of a particular order, doing a certain tapasya (‘penance’), may alter conditions in the world. Today this tradition has been greatly sullied by a series of claims from godmen of various hues that their yogic efforts, or even just their presence on the planet, has been the cause behind these apparently unexpected and world-shaking events. The unfortunate aspect is that none of these claims can be proven, not merely scientifically but, more importantly, yogically. By consequence they are valid only for adoring devotees of the particular claimants; or else they are the subject of ridicule for the more scientific-minded. This has nothing to do with the ancient tradition from where these latter-day yogis and godmen draw their legitimacy. In very ancient times in India, before foreign rule and before the divine Measure was lost, Time provided the empirical tool for separating the wheat from the chaff. Its entirely impersonal ruthlessness was the welcome ingredient. I write welcome because all true Realisers insist upon this sort of impersonal background so that the act of yogic transformation of the individual or of a society may be kept uncontaminated by these unwelcome intrusions. But we are discussing an age only fragments of whose perceptions remain in India. Yet the forcefulness and magnificence of that Vedic Age can be gauged by the very fact that fragments do persist and continue to some degree to colour the cultural fabric of contemporary Indian life. However, the unity of the vision and system having been lost, we are forced to admit that only its shadow remains, as with the caste system. Consequently, we find these yogis drawing from that shadow-sheath and able to construct a pleasing framework for their unprovable proclamations because the Source does indeed offer a system in which a realiser is able to isolate a nuclear space and yogically act upon that microcosm which, by the laws of correspondence and equivalency may affect, in no uncertain terms, the macrocosm. But the laws are the essential feature – dharma, ritam, to use the Vedic terminology. Few, if any at all, of today’s godmen or saints or yogis possess a knowledge of these Laws; failing which their yogas can do little if nothing to affect any event in the world, despite their claims. At best their efforts provide solace and hope for their devotees, and may very well help to establish a benefic atmosphere in their environment. At worst these claims have added a further ingredient in the mantle that has covered the Truth in a progressive darkening, to the point where yogic interventions are a thing of the past and have no power to arrest the rapid degeneration we witness. Moreover, these claims impede a true focussing of the lens of our Seeing, keeping society wrapped in ignorance rather than alive to the living Knowledge and Truth. In a word, they make confusion worse confounded.

The decline has been localised especially in India. The Yoga of the Chamber, while overtly not bearing any effect on the Indian scene, has indeed borne very accurate and measurable effects in the greater macrocosm. The reason why India appears to have been kept out of and untouched by the process is that India is a ‘centre’. While in the supramental Yoga a nuclear space may be isolated and the effects of the yoga be felt beyond, in a sense we may say that India as a whole, for the Earth, is that ‘space’, that laboratory, that CENTRE. The ‘laws’ obtaining in India are therefore somewhat different in their application and their aim.

Be this as it may, let us review the world scene and we shall confirm that the Yoga of the Chamber, even as it was being described in the pages of VISHAAL from 1985 to the present, and before that in Volume 3 of The New Way, has revealed itself to be faithful to its previsions and postulations. The important factor is that unlike yogis who make ambiguous proclamations AFTER the event, in the Yoga of the Chamber a detailed description of that microcosmic transformative action was published BEFORE its effects became visible on the world stage; and when they did, the terms used to describe the happenings were virtually the same as the Yoga of the Chamber had earlier elaborated. Moreover, the time factor, that impersonal divine Balancesheet, furnished the ultimate confirmation when the changes began exactly ‘on schedule’, a schedule which itself provided the backdrop to the Yoga of the Chamber – namely, the Gnostic Circle.

We therefore have both a formulation of the new and startling Yoga while the nuclear action was in progress in the precise terms which we now hear throughout the world to describe the ‘new world order’ taking concrete shape since 1989, and the correct time prescription of that unfoldment whereby the ‘schedule’ of the Yoga of the Chamber was also correctly fulfilled.

True to its own ‘schedule’, the Yoga of the Chamber began in January, 1980. But by far its most intense and dangerous period was 1983. I write dangerous because the nature of that process required a ‘death’ – or rather, the lived experience of the death process in the human body poised at the centre of a conspiracy of circumstances when the consciousness from all sides is COMPRESSED to a point; and then, having no further ‘space’ in this universe or material dimension, it is literally squeezed out of its body-habitat and forced into another less dense plane. That is, one is made to exit by this intense compression. In Near-Death-Experiences (NDE) this action is experienced by the subject as a dark tunnel at the end of which there is usually a bright light or a luminous space. The brilliance of the light is enhanced by the prior dark passage, which is really the act of compression, forcing that ‘seeing I/eye’ to exit this plane and emerge in another. The subject’s description of what is encountered in the other world depends largely upon previous conditioning; because it must be remembered that the NDE ‘death’ is not exactly final. The subject always returns to the body he or she had exited. That is, the subject had not yet definitively discarded the various subtle sheaths where conditioning – familial, religious, ethnic, socio-political – is recorded or imprinted.

In 1983 the time had come in the ‘schedule’ of the Yoga of the Chamber for the great yogic act of centering. The entire process in all its vivid details has been recorded in The New Way’s Volume 3, albeit in an impersonal style in keeping with the former two Volumes. Nonetheless, it describes the Third’s major contribution to the Transformation: the act of Centering. Implied in this is ‘the birth that fills the void’.

This ‘death’ had to be experienced not in trance or in a near-death-experience. Rather, compression to a ‘point’, which normally results in death, had to be sustained in the full waking state, with the consciousness poised at the centre of the compression from a ‘conspiracy of circumstances’ – the true definition of any death. This was an action involving elements in our real world, as in all deaths. The ‘conspiracy’ was not subtle or otherworldly, which might then have drawn the process into another plane and thereby rendered it useless for our purposes, insofar as it would not have been a real, a cellular programmed pattern. The elements involved were actors, actresses, circumstances of everyday life, though orchestrated by the Supreme Shakti of the Yoga to intensify the power of those happenings so that they would simulate the stresses that usually accompany death. That is, the intense compression. Only this would provide the nuclear space (the Chamber) with the Laws of Correspondence and Equivalency which could connect it to the larger sphere, – i.e., the world stage. In other words, all was done here, on this planet, in the fullest waking consciousness and within the evolutionary process as we know it.

The most dangerous part came when the conspiracy of circumstances resulted in the maximum intensification and the only possibility which might somehow safeguard the ‘existence’ of that tiny compressed ‘point’ of consciousness was to ‘let go’ and to allow itself to emerge in another dimension in order to escape the pressure of that intense closing in from all sides. This, to be brief, describes the basic human condition; we are a species lorded over by Death in that all our actions throughout the long aeons of our evolution have been coloured by this rulership and the ultimate way out provided by Death. Our sole security and certainty has resided in this escape through death, a feature common to each and every human being born into this ‘earthly paradise’. It has coloured all our perceptions of the afterlife, the beyond, and any possible return in other bodies. In a word, our ‘reality’ is entirely death-bound.

This background has had to be provided because only then can the act of centering in the supramental Yoga of the Chamber be appreciated. Centering meant simply to resist the programmed escape route – death – and to withstand the compression in full conscious awareness until the ‘centre’ had been pressed into being; or, more aptly, until the Void had been filled. That is, the ‘void’ is the escape route which ‘God’ has given the human creation from its inception. This has therefore coloured the entire gamut of our higher perceptions and spiritual experiences, simply because whatever had been experienced in this condition, bound by the laws which govern our planetary existence and regulate evolution, was always born in a consciousness inflicted by the stamp of Death. In past ages, when the circumscribing play of compressing circumstances was minimal, this void-escape was not dominant. Hence the Vedic Rishis could experience and formulate their perceptions disregarding that ineluctable flaw in the species. But they did so largely by relying on the attainment of ‘Swar’ or Heaven in which only some parts of the being could reach that plane of Truth-Consciousness, but essential portions were left out – namely, the vital and physical, the two parts which are directly involved in ‘filling the void’. These were therefore considered properties of the ‘lower hemisphere’. The Vedic Rishis did not carry those parts into the experience of Swar simply because the time had not come to do so. Later this partial realisation degenerated progressively into a permanent split, enabling the realiser to posit this Swar in a plane entirely disconnected from our creation in matter. The Integral and Supramental yogic achievements which could bridge this great divide would come only when the macrocosm, or the entire Earth, could be drawn into the process. That is, when, as in our times, the Earth is one and whole and the Time-Spirit has revealed those magnificent laws of Correspondence and Equivalency whereby the integral body, individual and collective, could stand at the centre of the ‘conspiracy of circumstances’. In other words, death too had to progress to the point of the total fulfilment of its own purpose: the destruction of the entire human species over which it had lorded since the first stirrings of the Earth’s binary creation began. It had to stand ready to devour its own creation.

When Death was fulfilled in our century with the invention of the tools for this massive self-annihilation, the time had come for the Yoga of the Chamber to be undertaken which could then bring into being the unitary, indestructible Centre and thus vanquish the hold of Death. But to be even more precise, it is not that Death is ‘conquered’. The Yoga of the Chamber simply eliminated death’s COSMIC PURPOSE. It did so by the simple act of instilling at the centre of the embodied consciousness another, a divine Purpose in that ‘void’ created by Death for the human species. And, to be even more specific, the void was simply the unavoidable result of a binary species and society, necessarily resulting in a mid-point void which it orbits. The yogic act of centering thus filled that central space with its divine Purpose and death’s cosmic necessity was dissolved, for it must be understood that the true character of Death is nothingness. Properly speaking, we cannot ascribe to Death a ‘purpose’ because that binding energy is the property of a true centre in a unitary system. Thus the stamp of that nothingness has been reflected in a sense of purposelessness in society and individual and therefore a desire for total annihilation. But now the effects of the act of centering are visible everywhere. The binary world has come to an end. A new world is born.

The yoga of centering covered a span of 9 months – from 17 April 1983 to 17 January 1984. Volume 3 of The New Way, in which minute details of the centering and its effects upon the individual and the world are described, was written in November of 1983 – that is, in the heart of the process itself. Thus it is a record of the lived experience as it was taking place. The text was phototypeset in 1984 but still awaits publication. (Volume 3 of The New Way was published by Thea in 2005.) Perhaps its final printing was held up to allow the process to spread to its predicted global dimension, to wait for world conditions to catch up, thus to perhaps make its contents not only acceptable but comprehensible to any who might then care to read the book.

With the escape route of death resisted in the intense compression, the ‘void’ was filled with the point, the Centre had come into being. The binary creation received the first shock. Thereafter the new alignment had to be established – that is, lines or directions from that Point to form the new balancing structure of the species, no longer orbiting a void but centred and unitary.

The Point or Centre is really a convergence of directions, a perfectly balanced intersecting of two cosmic force-lines, contraction and expansion. This action was the nature of the Yoga in 1984 – termed the Great Reversal because it did indeed coincide with the time-reversal for the whole planet. The element which, from that time onward, allowed the process to extend to greater global dimensions was, once again, Time. The Gnostic Circle reveals that in the planet’s own time 1984 indeed marked the turning point. It was the mid-point in the nuclear enneateric period beginning in 1971 and to end in 1998. the nature of this time-period has been fully explained in the already published volumes of The New Way and in the pages of VISHAAL (see the preceding article, ‘Culture and Cosmos’).

In The New Way I have analysed what I called Christianity’s ‘cosmic error’. The basis for this unusual statement is simply the proof Christianity grants of its incomplete vision: the crucified Christ; the image or idol itself  quite accurately adds substance to the perception of ‘error’ in that he is nailed on an unbalanced cross. This is precisely the point. When I write of the new alignment, the centre being simply the perfectly balanced convergence or intersection of its force-lines, it is clear that the off-balance Cross of Christianity describes the old off-balance binary species we have ever been. The problem would not be so severe or the ‘error’ so destructive if the dogma had made the point of relating the symbol-cross to the human species ruled by Death and orbiting a void (more or less centred in the figure of the dying Jesus), and that the Second Coming would consolidate the new alignment and Christ’s mission would thus have been completed. (This in fact is the message of The Revelation, last book of the New Testament, though never accurately extracted given the need for this COSMIC background which the Church had abandoned early in its development.) Contrarily, the Church Fathers jumped the time-gun and declared the process complete and terminated after the Resurrection’s fulfilment in heaven, in a ‘life everlasting’ in that other dimension, wherever it may be situated. This postulation, which stands as the undisputed pillar of the faith, simply served to consolidate death’s rule. Global society, so heavily conditioned by the dogma and an Aristotelian staticism, could only play out in the evolution on Earth that total affirmation of Death, granting legitimacy to its escape route and a denial of the right to pursue the next phase here, on this planet.

Out of that consciousness the tools of destruction gradually increased in potency and efficiency in the afore-mentioned act of ineluctable self-annihilation. In the terms of the new way Cosmology, it is the inevitable collapse into the Void, into Death’s essence of nothingness, a collapse which the tension of a binary creation has provoked. All of this has culminated in our century; indeed, in its final three ennead/decades.

Perhaps nowhere else is the dilemma better reflected than in the late J. Krishnamurti’s words, taken from his book The Ending of Time,…‘Of course there is only complete security in nothingness!’ (Harper & Row, p.264.) If I have described Death as precisely that ‘nothingness’ which hitherto had been ‘the only security’ (read escape route) of the binary, incomplete species, it is a mark of precisely Death’s stamp on the human consciousness when a contemporary Teacher of Krishnamurti’s calibre considers the discovery of this ‘only security in nothingness’ to be an attainment of the highest spiritual order.

Thus 1984, or the 4.5 Orbit of the tri-enneateric 1971/1998, introduced the Great Reversal. In terms of cosmic directions it involved an overall shift from Contraction to Expansion. This means that from 1971 to 1984 the Yoga was under the rule of Contraction. It was as if a progressive tightening, stretched over 13.5 years, until the central point came into being in 1983 and culminated with the Reversal in 1984. The direction in the Yoga then shifted to Expansion. This meant that the centering and new alignment would begin to have an impact, to extend from that Point in the nuclear space, to reach beyond in a circular not linear expansion from that seed achievement: the great Transformation in the world would become visible thereafter.

There were various details in the Yoga of the Chamber which remained to be achieved. The axis and alignment had to be consolidated on the wings of the expanding movement. Thus, 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1988 provided the time-fields for that expansion and consolidation. The ‘structure’ had to be ‘balanced’ – a new balance – around a unitary creation, a structure with a ‘unipolar’ foundation which would do away with the dual poise of the binary world. With this achievement, through discovery of Skambha in December 1985 and then its progressive development starting with the purchase of the land in January 1986, whereby the physical centre could serve as the field for that expansion, and then occupation in August 1987 after some initial constructions were in place, the effects on the world stage were foreseeable. For this reason VISHAAL came into existence exactly when it did, October 1985, accompanying this expanding process. VISHAAL, as its Sanskrit name implies, was the vehicle to communicate the lines of the Yoga in its phase of expansion, as it is being experienced at the Centre. This would not be a ‘victory by hindsight’. It was designed to be a formulation without time gaps, whereby the means would be as important as the end – a perfect equality of being and becoming.

A significant development in the expansion was the appearance of Mikhail Gorbachev on the world scene in March of 1985. With his appearance the first undermining of the Binary Creation began. Perestroika and glasnost were those undermining agents. Before very long, as the ennead of the Yoga of the Chamber was drawing to an end, in October, November and December of 1989 the first devastating collapse of that binary civilisational structure began – swift, clean and complete, albeit preliminary. The new ennead had begun and its purpose would become consolidated into a ‘unipolar’ world which simply means the binary WE/THEY syndrome, expressed in the polarity of the two Superpowers and the tensions generated by this bi-polar structure, was a thing of the past. The Yoga of the Chamber had introduced this formidable shift in the recondite dimensions of Time in 1983/84, and its very terminology was reflected in the same words used to describe what had come to pass on the extended global field. For this reason it has been a simple task to analyse, for example the ‘quality’ of the Third’s World War, referred to as the Gulf War. Simple because the Yoga of the Chamber having been completed in the 1980-89 ennead, all events in the world could be accurately described and analysed on the basis of that achievement, with little margin for error, the reason being that the entire process transpires in an interconnected universe of Oneness. The only demand is the ability to locate and isolate a time/space nucleus in or on which the work can be done.

Our entire civilisation has been affected by the act of centering and realignment. It has resulted in the very same realignment of global forces which world leaders are having great difficulty adjusting to. There is no going back to the old structure because the Laws governing the process do not allow any retrogression since Time moves on in a forward direction. It cannot be halted and the hands of the evolutionary clock turned back. In terms of the new world that has been born, the ONLY future is the expansion of what was achieved in the nuclear seed-space, the innermost heart of our creation, called ‘the Chamber’. That is the ‘seed’ of the new unitary creation. It is indestructible because its ‘stamp’ is immortality, fullness, – no longer Death and Nothingness. Thus the growth from the Golden Seed can neither be stopped – because Time is its gestator and consolidator, its creator, preserver and dissolver (no longer destroyer); and Time moves ever forward in the fulfilment of the seed it gestates. It cannot be destroyed because the immortal Agni/Skanda has been born of mighty Mahakal, or Shiva the great Spirit of Time, in the form of his invincible Warrior Son – he who is the Centre, the Point, or the One. The Void having thus been filled, collapse for the new creation is impossible since there is no ‘space’ or ‘place’ available to us for the collapse. There is only one ‘escape’: growth from the Seed, creation and no longer destruction. The first effects of this Birth are fully visible on the world stage. Those weapons of massive destruction are being dismantled, the structures for annihilation of the species are being undone. The first foundation of a true new consciousness is seen on the horizon, and as Time moves us on that new Sun will reach its zenith as the real and complete new world order will have finally replaced the old.

While the Crucifixion accurately describes that binary, off-balance creation the world is outgrowing, the Mother’s original plan of her Chamber equally accurately describes the new creation together with the entire process of Becoming insofar as it is a ‘womb of Time’. On the basis of the Knowledge, this gnostic womb may provide minute details of the workings of the Time-Spirit. Simple observation of the Chamber’s original floor plan designed by the Mother and here reproduced from The New Way, page 198, describes the ‘new world order’ – no longer bipolar, no longer linear. This unitary structure is circular and hence all-encompassing. It bears a single focus, or a ‘centre that holds’ by this very fact. It houses a core which rests not upon a void into which energies collapse. Its sacred Core stands upon a solid White Stone, the White Stone of St. John’s Revelation with its hidden manna and sacred Name.

The centuries-old Puranic tradition with its special iconography, more accurately than any other channel of prophecy provides us with the response to the bi-polar off-balance symbol. We have, when correctly executed, a feminine power and a masculine: the Third and Fourth of the Solar Line. These are the images of Durga and her Warrior Son Kartikeya or Skanda. The traditional icons of these Godheads bear ‘axes’ or symbols of the two convergent cosmic directions, contraction and expansion, which I have been describing. These are expressed in the principal ‘weapons’ of the Goddess and God – the ones with which each of them slays their Adversary. Indeed, both deities are symbols of Victory. One, the Goddess, conquers in a period of 9 nights, and that is the number/measure of Contraction. The other, the Son-God, conquers in a series of 12 stages, the number measure of Expansion. These two Measures form the basis of the Gnostic Circle which provides the key to open that ‘secret chamber hidden and mute’ and thus to the Yoga of the Chamber and the flow of gnostic time in our new age. (See The Hidden Manna, Chapter 21.)

The iconographic representations of these conquering directions and time-periods appear in the idols in the downward direction of the Goddess’s Trident, and the upward direction of the Spear of the Son-God. Most importantly, in the true execution, both weapons cross the navel – or the centre of the divine Gnostic Being.

In Leonardo da Vinci’s figure, Man in Circle and Square (The New Way, page 233), which was revealed to be such a fundamental piece in the formulation of The New Way, especially Volume 3, the navel is indeed the centre of the Circle-Man, the divine manifestation, in contrast to the figure in the Square where the central point is the sex organ. In other words, the Goddess and her Son-God bring about the shift in the centred poise by the interconnected action of their weapons (or powers) – just  as Leonardo’s figure incorporates the essence of two elements in one structure. The Puranic iconography cannot be properly understood unless these manifestations are taken together – the downward pointing Trident (contraction) and the upward pointing Spear (expansion). Similar to Leonardo’s figure, the weapons-axes intersect at the navel in a perfect convergence. Moreover the Goddess’ Trident is trifold in nature – for she is the Third and 3 is her position in the Solar Line descending scale; while the Spear is single-bodied since the Son-God is the One, the infinitesimal single Point, or the perfect centre, born of the triadic formula 9/6/3/ and finally the 0 which is the compressed Fullness to the Seed wherefrom the Son or the 1 is born. Thus 9/6/3/0-1.

To my knowledge no one in India has discovered the connection between these idols or that this interrelated discovery could be a prophecy of our times. It is of course known that their weapons represent their cosmic powers; but this is never connected to any verifiable system such as the new cosmology which informs us of the exact nature of their cosmic action of contraction and expansion.

There is a way to construct these two figures in a single sculpture so that their weapons form the axes described in the Map, page 12. One day at Skambha this figure will be fashioned.

Thus the Puranic iconography is revealed to be one of the most profound revelations of things to come ever expressed in mythic symbols. Therefore to have condemned this conceptualisation to the derogatory compartment of pagan idolatry is, quite simply, to have missed the ‘point’. It is one more stain on the history of evolving humanity in the throes of its cosmic birth pains in a nine-Manifestation ‘gestation’ of over 50,000 years.

The sublime secret of these interrelated Axes has been carried over to the Mother’s Chamber in what I have called the Supreme Power Point, the point of intersection of the diagonals of the Core’s pedestal (see The New Way, page 247ff). In time that point is 1956, the year of the Supramental Manifestation or the beginning of everything we are witnessing today. On the world scene, 1956 saw the first undermining of the bi-polar world when Nikita Krushchev began his bold undermining of the Stalin mystique, paving the way for the complete work by Mikhail Gorbachev.

It may be demanding too much of spiritualists and traditional yogis to accept that these seemingly complex formulas may have any bearing on the realm they claim is their private heritage. But it must be accepted and constantly borne in mind that the ‘new world order’ refers equally to spirituality. The Yoga of the Chamber has introduced that ‘third thing’ which the Mother stated was ‘beyond both science and spirituality’. Her original plan of the Chamber gave all the details of this new way. At the same time I have presented the Puranic confirmation for the legitimacy and accuracy of this New Way; while it must also be borne in mind that originally Indian yogas did not shy away from similar formulations – Tantra, for one. It is only with the decline that precision and science became excluded from the realm of a Spirit which has now been posited in a dimension separated and far-removed from our material universe. Consequently, the godmen in contemporary society are free to weave their illusions insofar as the Spirit they worship has no connection to that world in which these illusions are woven.

30 September 1991

to the Navami 1991

Aeon Centre of Cosmology at Skambha

We begin this portion of the essay with a recapitulation. For this purpose, I shall present a diagram which incorporates in one design everything discussed so far. Indeed, in so doing an important service is rendered to the cause of higher knowledge by highlighting its distinguishing features. Employing just one geometric form to draw together all the elements so far analysed is the most effective means of describing the unitary, integrated perceptive capacity. This act will be engaged in throughout the remainder of our study in caste and cosmos. The very fact that a single design is capable of incorporating numerous dimensions and planes, related both to the individual and society as a whole, reveals a salient feature of the new consciousness seeking to become established on Earth: the experience of Oneness. Central to the perception lies Time. In this portion of the study, I will describe the manner in which the process of integration is carried out almost exclusively on the basis of a gnostic vision and utilisation of Time. Vast cycles are connected to the smaller, always through the same diagram. And these are rooted in the consciousness of the human being via his or her individualised ‘measure’: the Earth Year.

In the diagram (below) I have incorporated several major divisions of the circle which draw together various apparently separate branches of Knowledge, the relatedness of which may not be fully appreciated without this visual aid. The main division is fourfold. Each section combines various elements of our analysis. For example, the first of the four segments refers to caste (Shudra), and time via the first quarter of the zodiacal year, the sign/months Aries, Taurus and Gemini, or April, May and June, starting with the March Equinox. In addition there is Twashtri’s ‘Bowl’ of the ancient Vedic school in which the fourfold division refers to planes of consciousness and parts of the being, in this case the Physical. But Twashtri’s Bowl does not restrict itself to the human being. It refers to the subtle dimensions as well and the ‘being’ of a civilisation or a society. Consequently, it is intrinsically connected to caste. Each caste has an affinity with one of the subtle planes of consciousness-being which this ‘Bowl’, or the celestial sphere, describes. As the study progresses, we shall locate these divisions in the greater harmony, in the workings of evolution itself and in the movement of the Cosmic Ages. In the process, I am confident that a new perception of the destiny of India will emerge, an offshoot of which is a radically different concept of nationalism, for the latter too has its roots in the cosmic harmony.

The Uniqueness of Indian Nationalism

India is the centre of the new Aquarian Age. Given that Aquarius is a sign of Preservation or Fixed energy flow, it is the Sattwa period designated for the appearance of one of the ten Avatars in Hindu tradition. But being a ‘centre’, and the only centre of the Age, a heavy burden is cast upon India, one that sets it apart from the comity of nations. Indeed, at the heart of the matter lies precisely the question of nationhood. What, exactly, is meant by a nation; and in this special case, a nation whose destiny lies in being the ‘centre’ of the 9^th Manifestation’s Age of Aquarius?

The definition is very precise and unequivocal, albeit somewhat obscure for the layman not versed in the specifics of the new cosmology. For it involves the question of cosmos, and by consequence the definition of ‘centre’ itself. The Indian nation is not merely a landmass, sacred though it may be as revealed by the application of the Capricorn hieroglyph, or tradition’s hallowed ‘Name of God’, on this landmass. It is the physical-consciousness manifestation on Earth of a new cosmos. This, succinctly, is the description of the Indian ‘nation’: a cosmic body. Insofar as the Divine Mother is that very Cosmic Body of the Brahman, we aptly refer to this landmass as Bharatmata, or Mother India. Thus, the nation is far more than the land enclosed within its borders. It is a creation on Earth of the Cosmic Truth; or, more precisely, it is a portion of the Earth upon and through which that Truth is given physical/consciousness expression. To understand this singular type of ‘nation’ demands therefore that we discover the nature of that Cosmic Truth itself. In other words, the nationhood of India is described in and by the cosmic harmonies. Inasmuch as this also describes the foundations of Hindu Dharma, it stands that as we unravel the mysteries of India’s nationhood, we also reveal the intricacies of Hindu Dharma, and vice-versa.

The heavy burden of such a destiny is obvious, for the world is not an image as yet of that high Truth. The presiding powers are agents of the Cosmic Ignorance. It is India’s destiny therefore to work out this cosmic ‘knot’ for the world, which alone can permit light to replace darkness. Thus, a true and uncontaminated concept of Indian nationalism is obliged to incorporate an appreciation of this service to be rendered, the effects of which extend far beyond the nation’s borders.

When this cosmic foundation of the Indian nation is disregarded or unknown, the result is varying degrees of chauvinism. For India, and India alone, the dividing line between the two may be thin – but, at the same time, there is a great chasm separating one poise from the other. Chauvinism, within the Indian context, is nationalism which ignores the nation’s cosmic character. It seeks to cage the national soul in the boundaries of the separative, divisive consciousness. To provide a practical example, the soul of the nation is its COSMIC substance as described in the Capricorn symbol-map of the subcontinent. The area the symbol delineates is thus the true nation. These would be or should be its borders in the higher vision of its cosmic destiny as the Centre of the 9^th Manifestation.

If higher knowledge is employed in the determination of such essential issues, it is evident that the partitioned condition of Bharatmata exposes the fact that this cosmic truth was unknown at the time Pakistan was sliced out of the landmass and organised into a separate state and Bengal became divided. Similarly, Sri Lanka, Burma, and since 1971 Bangladesh, all stand as aberrations or denials of that Cosmic Truth. To have attempted to stand, integrated and whole, as a landmass united to form the Capricorn hieroglyph at the time of Independence would have meant a conscious espousal of these guidelines. Or a nationalism not tinged with ignorance as was the case in 1947. Had the nation been in a position to listen to and follow the indications Sri Aurobindo was giving from the early days of the freedom movement, the 9^th Evolutionary Avatar would have been able to guide the people of India to the fulfilment of that cosmic destiny, swiftly and benignly. That is, the organisation on Earth of the Centre of the Age and the direct representative of the Cosmic Truth in the comity of nations – an element which is lacking at present. Insofar as no other nation can occupy that centre, the position stands as a void. In that ‘black hole’, energies are compressed which demand now to be released.

The totality of prevailing conditions did not permit this guidance. The result was Partition. The ‘nation’ that emerged stood as representative on Earth not of that unifying Cosmic Truth but of the Cosmic Ignorance. Indeed, the very power which has been in command of the evolutionary process for many millennia and which is sought to be vanquished.

The Vedic Dharma describes the mechanism by which the Cosmic Truth is manifested on Earth. The truncated nation we know today as India presents the world with a denial of the purest, highest expression of that Truth. The Indian ‘nation’ is simply the lived embodiment of that Dharma. That this has been denied and combated, in the effort to uphold a confused brand of secularism, is also evident in the dismembered condition of the symbol-map; while the ‘nationalism’ which seeks to take hold of the people of India in this last ennead of the millennium is simply the perception of the nation as a sacred landmass, embodying for the Earth that cosmic Truth or Hindu Dharma.

When this cosmic purpose is lost sight of, the result is chauvinism  which in the Indian context is nationalism divorced from the enlightenment this Cosmic Truth provides. Thus, to awaken true nationalism in the hearts and minds of the people of India signifies that we must simultaneously unveil India’s cosmic purpose; and this in turn implies that the Vedic Dharma is revealed as the foundation of that nationalism. Since this was not the case during the freedom struggle, in the fullest terms which it is now possible to do, the result was a nationalism coloured by concepts which stood in stark opposition to the fundaments of the soul of the nation. The outcome was Partition, and since then a gradual disintegration not only of the nation’s body but also of its collective will.

The answer is therefore only one: an awakening of true nationalism which is the unveiling of the nation’s soul whose essence is the Cosmic Truth, and which, in turn, forms the indisputable foundations of the Hindu Dharma. While we continue to deny or oppose these facts, we postpone the act of integration and in the meantime we continue to suffer the anguish of diseases which have set into the body of the nation due to this denial and for which we have no cure.

Religion is not involved in this process in any way. The Cosmic Truth that is the Vedic Dharma is akin to an umbrella under which all expressions of life may take shelter. It is a synthesising, integrating agent – NOT a unity of religions but revealing a superior reality beyond religions, towards which the world as a whole is rapidly moving – a reality which stands well above organised religions of whatever brand. Partition, signifying the denial of India’s cosmic Purpose, drew into the nation’s destiny a lesser struggle for which it was ill prepared. Indeed, for which the contaminated condition of its collective consciousness had no effective means to combat or counteract. Partition, and everything that led up to it over the centuries, thrust before the nation the ugliness of the religious consciousness, a totally alien concept which came into the body of Bharatmata through a series of invasions and foreign conquests. India today continues to grapple with this alien concept. Yet lamentably the tools it uses to do so are themselves products of those alien concepts, – impotent in the extreme as elements for the unveiling of the true spirit and soul of the nation. That the intelligentsia of the country believes these concepts to be the only ones which can arrest the impending slide into a further partition and a complete disintegration of the collective will, is the measure of the success of those foreign conquests. India is thus still a prisoner of ‘foreign rule’, the meaning of which is ideologies, concepts, formulas, programmes which fail to take into account the nation’s cosmic essence and hence the true quality of the Vedic Dharma and its central place in the formation of the new India. If Islam and Christianity were the avenues for those alien concepts to take root in the consciousness-soil of Bharatmata, the method to the madness was not that they be integrated and a ‘synthesis’ emerge of the resulting cocktail. Rather, they were drawn into the nation to serve her in the process of conquering the power that feeds these limited expressions of human society and holds the entire Earth prisoner of a divisive, separative consciousness.

These concepts did not enter into the symbol-nation to enrich the Vedic Dharma but simply to provide a field in which the soul of the nation could express its cosmic purpose through a struggle which has been described in a series of epics and myths recorded in the nation’s collective memory. The finality of the struggle will be to rid the Earth of the scourge inflicted upon her by the divisive consciousness. And none can deny that religions throughout the world are tools to divide rather than unite. The seeds of the religious consciousness were thus drawn into the Centre of the Age not to conquer but to be conquered – i.e., to force the soul of the nation to stand erect and unveiled in its cosmic purpose, to unveil this before the eyes of the people of Bharat and the world.

I write these lines at a most incongruous moment, it would appear. I write as the nation seems to face a further dismembering. To appearances this is so, but it is also true that in this darkest hour of her history, India prepares to conquer. India prepares to experience for the first time in her long history of thousands of years, the fullest depths and heights of true nationalism rooted in the fully revealed precepts of its Vedic soul. This study in caste and cosmos is one more ingredient in the process of kindling the flame of that true nationalism by a revelation of the cosmic background of caste and therefore how in antiquity the Chaturvarna served as a vehicle for Indian society to express that Cosmic Truth on Earth. The decline of caste proceeded pari passu with the decline of the Dharma, and it accompanied the infiltration of alien concepts meant to hasten the collapse so that the soul of the nation could be more swiftly born.

The time has come for that birth, insofar as the Earth has become one whole, a global ‘being’. That is, the necessity for a ‘centre’ to emerge hinges on the uncovering of the periphery of the circle. Until the Earth was fully explored, and until space exploration had revealed its boundary-less condition of oneness, the purpose of the Centre could not be fulfilled. It must be borne in mind that India has always been this ‘centre’. That is, India’s role in this capacity is a development stretching over thousands of years – approximately 50,000. It has been a progressive unfolding or unveiling. This is an evolutionary process, the contours of which are provided by the Ten Evolutionary Avatars of Puranic tradition. In an explanation of the Gnostic Circle geography in Volume 2 of The New Way, I have disclosed certain elements of the new cosmology which reveal India’s predestined role as Centre of the Age, when the Earth’s entire periphery would be known and the Centre would be called upon ‘to hold’.

Fullness versus Void

Having laid the foundations for an assessment of the cosmic background of the caste system, it is important at this point to discuss briefly the elements which served to weaken the system. Not so much because, in the view of certain religions, it was an inhumane treatment of a large segment of the society, but because those religions opposed the cosmos itself. Hence caste became a target for their attacks.

The case of Buddhism is quite clear. While Buddhism did not directly bar the cosmos and material creation from its vision of reality, it did plant the seeds for a slow and steady decay in the spiritual dimension of Vedic civilisation by a remarkable process of undermining. This was achieved through the introduction of a certain realisation which in itself served as the undermining agent. It was the dissolution of the consciousness (Nirvana), whereby the nexus binding the individualised consciousness to the planet and the cosmos, as an integrated, vibrant particle in the network of time and space, was disintegrated. The result was moksha or ‘liberation’. Hence it is held that Buddhism denied the existence of the soul, for indeed it is this component of the human incarnation which provides the link between cosmos and man. The Cosmic or Universal Purush is thus a description of that supreme Atman or Soul through which the microcosm (multiple souls) is equal to the macrocosm. Caste was a system whereby the entire society became the reflection of that greater harmony by organising it in such a way as to provide the Cosmic Being with every possible channel of expression for its evolutionary purposes. Each section of the ‘circle’ embracing the four castes was intended to be the collective instrument for that superior, integral manifestation.

The Purush is the cosmic Soul. The individual born on Earth partakes of the macrocosmic by embodying in the physical universe a spark, shall we say, of that all-encompassing Flame. Time is the essence coursing through this network, as breath rushes through the body, and it utilises the soul for creating a cosmos; or, in a succinct description of our world: a unified multiplicity. Consequently, two features of caste cannot be overlooked in a truly deep study of the matter: time and cosmos. Both hinge on the soul and the part it plays in the physical universe in this act of harmonising and integrating.

Thus, if the Buddha undermined the soul’s central position in the civilisation, it was only a matter of time before the edifice of caste would collapse. However, it did not collapse entirely, as history records and an assessment of present-day society affirms. Rather, as Sri Aurobindo wrote in the early part of this century ‘…old names and formulas have been preserved while the thing itself was profoundly modified until its original sense remained only as a pious fiction.’ (TVN, 6/2, p. 31.)

Referring to our diagram on page 16, we may situate the soul at its central Point, the centre without which ‘the circle cannot hold’. The Point or the Soul having been undermined, the channel which feeds the periphery and the infinite diverse segments of the circle was attacked. Seepages of energy began, drains on the system. Buddhist practice and related methods of ‘liberation’ secured in India that the Centre would no longer hold the periphery together or be the bridge to the Cosmic Fullness of the Mother. Rather, it would be the shadow of that Fullness, – i.e., the Void.

In practical terms, in the spiritual world this introduced the first perceptible seeds of what was to develop fully later, in Shankara’s time: an almost complete split between Spirit and Matter in the perception of Reality and the experience of yoga. The Spirit was no longer experienced through the channel of the Soul, or the Mother, but rather, in a series of yogic realisations which in varying degrees continued the process initiated by the Buddha in his experience of Nirvana, the seeker was encouraged to overstep the Cosmos as Sri Aurobindo has explained:

‘…But in speaking of the supreme liberation I was simply taking the Buddhist-Adwaita view for granted and correcting it by saying that this Nirvana view is too negative. Krishna opened the possibility of overmind with its two sides of realisation, static and dynamic. Buddha tried to shoot from mind to Nirvana in the Supreme, just as Shankara did in another way after him. Both agree in overleaping the other stages and trying to get at a nameless and featureless Absolute. Krishna on the other hand was leading by the normal course of evolution. The next normal step is not a featureless Absolute, but the supermind. I consider that in trying to overshoot, Buddha like Shankara made a mistake, calling away the dynamic side of the liberation. Therefore there has to be a correction by Kalki.’

                                                            ‘Letters on Yoga’, p. 402-3

The consolidation of these realisations in the spiritual evolution of Indian society had the devastating long-term effect of undermining the cosmic bridge, the soul, and all that this signifies for a creation in matter. The soul was thus the target; in the terminology of the new cosmology, it is the Third in the descending scale of 9-6-3-0/1. If the 3 (the soul) and the 6 (the Mother) are eliminated, the realiser shoots from the 9 directly to the 0. In that case, without the ‘fullness’ of material creation in between, the 0 stands as Shunya, or the Void. It has not thrown up the One, the divine Son Agni. In a word, it is an incomplete perception of Reality, entirely un-Vedic, with devastating results on the society that embraces these concepts, driving it to devise evermore sophisticated means of escape. Again, Sri Aurobindo writes…

‘According to both Buddha and Shankara liberation means laya of the individual soul in some transcendent Permanence that is not individualised – so logically a belief in the individual soul must prevent liberation while the sense of misery in the world leads to the attempt to escape.’ (Ibid, p.66.)

Returning to our diagram once again, this process can be visually appreciated if we locate the area of dissolution or annulation OUTSIDE the periphery of the circle. In that realm there is no individualised consciousness. The nexus or the binding energy that constitutes the soul is dissolved (‘nirvana’). Thus, the embodied consciousness of such an individual, who in the proper terms of the experience can no longer lay claim to that title, does not offer sufficient concentration of energy to serve as a channel on Earth for the influx of an integral flow. In other words, the individual is no longer centred, no longer poised at the centre of the influx and harmoniously aligned so that he or she may express that totality. The centre is a void and the binary structure of an incomplete energy base is the result. Such individuals or the society they form can never be the instruments on Earth of a divine manifestation:

‘What are you going to do with all these people? If you want Nirvana, you have either to expel them or stifle them or beat them into coma. All authorities assure us that the exclusive Nirvana business is a most difficult job…and your own attempt at suppressing the others was not encouraging, – according to your own account it left you as dry and desperate as a sucked orange, no juice left anywhere. If the desert is your way to the promised land, that does not matter. But – well, if it is not, then there is another way – it is what we call the integration, the harmonisation of the being. That cannot be done by the mind and vital being – they are sure to bungle their affair. It can be done only from within by the soul, the Spirit which is the centraliser, itself the centre of these radii…’ (Ibid, p.53.)

Fullness versus Void is most clearly expressed in the art Buddhism and Hinduism have inspired. Pure Buddhism, not influenced by Tantra, is bare, placid, revealing no other state or emotion but a static Peace. On the other hand, Hindu art and temple architecture offer always exuberant displays of the Fullness; and, above all, dynamism. Even its representations of Peace in certain creations depicting Shiva, for example, are dynamic and serve to convey one of the highest experiences available to the practitioner of the Integral Yoga – the supramental state of a harmonised unity and multiplicity, or the simultaneous experience of rest and motion. For the whole of society it would be the correct blending of Stability and Change. This would be the true VEDIC experience, shorn of these intermediate developments, in the fullest sense of the word: veda meaning knowledge: a Gnostic Society.

‘…The harmonisation is in the Supermind – the Divine Truth at once static and dynamic, a withdrawal and extinction of the Ignorance, a recreation in the Divine Knowledge.’ (Ibid, p.79.)

Most spiritual realisations offer the seeker only unity, or rest, or stability. Change, movement, dynamism became equated with a lesser deceptive power whose objective it was to imprison man within that Circle where movement is perceived as the impermanent and hence the unreal, impeding his escape to the Beyond by entangling him in the coils of a ceaseless, inebriating motion, an entanglement in what has come to be known as the veils of Maya or Illusion. Escape can be achieved only on the basis of the experience of Dissolution or disintegration of the consciousness in one form or another by a prior denial of reality to that deceptive conspiracy of circumstances labelled samskaras, or one’s fixed responses to past patterns within the web of time and space.

This development or emphasis reached a peak in the Middle Ages. If we refer to our diagram again, Hindu civilisation quickly became the shell of itself once the Soul had been dislodged from its central binding throne, once the Point had been rendered an empty space.

Hindu Dharma was ill prepared to contend with the consequences of Nirvana, having no recourse to dogma, to bigotry, to expulsion or excommunication. The foundation of the Dharma was unity, and the lived perception and experience of the One embracing the All. Therefore its response was the only possible one if wise men and women in that dark period of the Age of Pisces were to be faithful to the Vedic foundations of the Dharma. Their reaction was thus to incorporate the Buddhist realisation, for it was the lived experience that the Brahman included everything, even the darkness. At the same time, they knew that even if contained in the All, Nirvanas and Voids were underminers of the Atman.

Hence the Buddha was incorporated into the Puranic Line of the Ten Avatars, but his participation was a qualified one: the ruse of the Supreme meant to mislead the asura-seeker. This incongruous description for an Evolutionary Avatar of the Line points to two facts: one is the all-embracing nature of the Vedic perception, and the other indicates that perhaps the decline was anticipated and accepted and foreseen in the renovating mechanism of the Dharma as a means to attain greater future manifestation. That ‘fall’ was seen as a necessary corollary to a future rise. In the terms Sri Aurobindo provides, the wider harmonisation which only the present Age of the Supermind can unfold.

But the results of the decline were fast in coming. Thus, in the early 700s the subcontinent witnessed the first invasion from the west. The seeds of Islam were brought into India as a perfect symbol of the denial of the soul which had already become consolidated in the civilisation by that time. The capacity for Islam to serve as this symbol lay in the fact that one of its pillars of the faith is the condemnation of idol worship. Given the proliferation of Hindu Gods and Goddesses with their many arms, vahanas and whatnot, it is clear that Islam’s almost complete denial of FORM, or the Mother who is the FORMATIVE POWER of the Brahman, would present a chasm between the two civilisations which has never been bridged, partly because most do not realise what it is that really separates the two. The compulsive destruction of Hindu Temples by these invaders and their replacement by mosques is simply a very physical albeit brutal means to affirm the supremacy of a religion which has radically veered toward the masculine pole in its perception of Reality, and which, when denied the companionship of the Feminine, is able to espouse a vision of God entirely formless.

The undermining Nirvana and similar realisations set in motion simply served to dissolve the energies which could have coped with the invasions. At the same time, we must admit that Islam was merely fulfilling its own dharma via those relentless incursions into the Body of Bharatmata. Thus, no blame can be attached to their bold thrust. Nonetheless, we must realise that the conquests by these foreign powers were simply reflections of that inner disintegration. From the standpoint of the conquered, it ought to be stressed once again that the purpose was to queer the pitch, as it were, to heighten tensions. It was a divine strategy to play out before the civilisation the results of an original denial of the soul.

This play-out has been central to Indian life for the past 2000 years. With each passing year the results of the great Undermining became more and more devastating because the imbalance of energies was accentuated. Today the nation has no energy/will to eject definitively the viruses from its sacred form which are the offspring of those original ‘seeds’ planted so long ago.

Half-lights of History

In the June 1991 VISHAAL (6/2), I discussed at length the areas in the physical landmass through which invasions took place. By the application of the Capricorn hieroglyph, I pointed out how perfectly in tune they were with the cosmic harmony, albeit negative expression of that harmony – that is, representing Vedic civilisation’s decline and the disintegration of its collective will. I repeat, having begun more than 500 years prior to the first invasions from Arabia, by the Middle Ages the inner disintegration was such that invasions could not be conclusively repelled. Historians speculate endlessly about the underlying causes of India’s inability to contend successfully with these invasions. Many consider the degeneration of the caste system to be the principal reason, or at least one of the main expressions of the inner decay and subsequent collapse, presenting the invaders with a society at war with itself and unable to unite its forces due to an inherent divisive quality in the system itself, where the four castes were not complements but antagonists. However, this is only partially true.

To begin with, I find the reasons given for the degeneration of the caste system to be entirely unsatisfactory. The prevalent view is that the preponderance of the priestly caste caused the structure to collapse under the weight of this sacerdotal despotism. While I might attribute the decline to that segment of the society, the reasons I give are quite different. Such a system, founded on a SPIRITUAL perception, can disintegrate only when that perception has been corroded. And this was exactly the case.

Be this as it may, the fact is Hindu civilisation could not contend with Arabic, Persian and Moghul invasions. Within a span of several hundred years, and though greatly out-numbering the aggressors, almost the entire subcontinent came under foreign rule and Islamic influence.

The problem lay in the fact that the unifying power of the subcontinent, the binding force of Hindu civilisation, was the Dharma. Thus, in spite of the fact that there was no POLITICAL unity meeting the aggressors, with the subcontinent presenting a very disunified appearance, it was the Vedic Dharma that made of India a unified civilisation, entirely unique and not to be found anywhere else on the globe in ancient times. India was a ‘nation’ regardless of the separate kingdoms the subcontinent housed.

As already established, the Cosmic Truth is central to that Dharma; the soul is, in turn, central to the Cosmic Truth. With the denial of the soul, and by consequence the denial of the Mother or the Formative Power of the Brahman, it is understandable that Islam and later Christianity – religions which both nurture an aversion to form as demonstrated in their condemnation of idol worship, labelled paganism – moved into the subcontinent with relative ease, except for isolated periods and incidences of effective resistance here and there. The latter, however, were not conclusive or all-encompassing enough to protect the Body from an implantation of divisive elements in the system which would take decades and centuries to eliminate.

The degeneration of caste was thus contingent on that original denial and undermining. Indeed, it was a wave which, in a very brief span, engulfed the entire planet. The Age of Pisces, dating from 234BC to 1926AD, witnessed the almost complete collapse of one element which in itself encapsulates the entire process described above: the prominence of the Mother or the Goddess in almost all philosophies, belief systems, schools of yoga, and cults of worship. In a word, the dismantling of the ancient world which in its entirety could be labelled ‘pagan’ since the Goddess was indubitably central to all belief systems that in the Piscean Age earned that label.

With the spread of the Middle-Eastern religions, in particular the proselytising ones such as Christianity, the Goddess and all that the Feminine Power stands for in the collective consciousness of the Earth, was almost entirely dislodged from the elevated status she had always held. The symbol of this displacement was the simple act of condemning idols, a tenet shared by all the young faiths which emerged from the Age of Pisces. Accompanying this displacement was a loss of perception of the sacredness of the Earth itself, – indeed, mother Earth. This too was reflected in the new tenets in a blanket condemnation of ‘nature worship’, a corollary to ‘paganism’ in theology, and ‘animism’ in philosophy. Both carried the connotation of uncivilised and barbaric. By implanting this sense of inferiority in the masses of the subcontinent, conversions to the new religions were easily achieved, its corroding power being far more potent than the discriminations of caste. These incursions into the core of Vedic belief, affecting especially the elite of the society, was to peak in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Thus, the seeds of the great Undermining which began at the outset of the last Age, the first of the three which comprise our 9^th Manifestation, allowed for two different though related foreign conquests in India, Islamic and Christian. The former signified military subjugation above all else, in keeping with Islam’s character. Islam, being so utterly different from Hindu worship and culture, posed little danger of invading and replacing the indigenous philosophies and cultural substratum of Hinduism, or even contaminating it in any essential way. Conversions were effected by force or otherwise, but these did not strike at the core of the unitary consciousness which pervades Hinduism, primarily because Hinduism was not a religion as Islam was. The twain could therefore never really meet or mutually influence each other in substantives.

The situation regarding Christianity was quite different. It was not Christian religion that conquered or made definitive inroads into Hindu civilisation. Rather, it was the consciousness which had overtaken the entire world as a result of Europe’s colonial exploits. Christianity, with its dogmas of faith and discomfort in dealing with matters material and of the flesh, had forced the rise of science (as separate from pursuits of the spirit), rationalism, the logic of the Age of Reason and ‘enlightenment’. And finally a worldview entirely overshadowed by a materialism divorced from the more subtle influence of the Spirit, – a split unknown in the ancient world and even, though greatly reduced in vigour, in India at the time of the appearance of the traders/conquerors from the British Isles. These are the ‘seeds’ that Christianity planted through British rule, stressing, as we must, that this rule occurred not at Christianity’s peak of influence but rather at a time when the seeds of its own decline were evident. And the conquering continues though the conqueror has left because the consciousness that invaded India was ‘secular’ and bore profound affinities with the ancient Indian spirit.

The Indian mind, while not enjoying any particular affinity with Islam, was entirely at ease and comfortable with the ‘scientific temper’ and with ‘secular’ concepts, – these having been part and parcel of India’s ancient culture and civilisation millennia before the appearance of these latter-day secularists and scientists. Rationalism, logic, science, the demand for empirical proof and practical substance which characterise all schools of Indian yoga, founded on direct experience rather than blind faith, were part of Indian civilisation before the advent of Jesus. When these attitudes arose in the West as a reaction to religious dogmatism and obscurantism, they were easily accepted in India of the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries, insofar as they were concepts closer to the character of Indian philosophy and systems of yoga than any religion might be.

Thus, the two waves, Islamic and Christian, each in their own way continue to ‘conquer’: Muslims, with their demand for a dismembering of the subcontinent on the basis of religion at the time of Independence, and presently with a rise in Islamic fundamentalism which, in the form of another wave from the West, has stoked the fires of secessionism and has not ceased to encourage a sense of instability, a nation perennially threatened with a new partition. While the brand of secularism which the West firmly planted in the consciousness of the elite of pre- and post-independent India through British conquest and influence is a constant underminer that does not allow the nation to appreciate its own soul and the deepest truths of the Vedic Dharma. This is attainable only when the true nature of Hinduism is explored and its unreligious character is discovered. In other words, the western concept of secularism, introduced in Europe because of a necessity to counteract the dominance of religious obscurantism, is inadequate to contend with the fissiparous forces at work in the subcontinent. Western secularism cannot unify because the seed of its own origin is divisive. It was an entirely reactionary formulation, with no inherent and substantial power and truth; unlike the Vedic Dharma founded on the Cosmic Truth.

Caste, Time and the Calendar

The first appreciable casualty in the loss of the cosmic vision was the caste system. When the Beyond became the goal, and life in the cosmos and on Earth was held to be a prison of consciousness, the spherical perception disappeared and in its place remained caste as a linear, pyramidal structure (see: TVN 6/3, diagram p.24). In the very same period, Hindu civilisation lost its vision of an enlightened perception of Time, a development which I have discussed in ample detail in the series ‘The Capricorn Factor’ (TVN 2/4, 2/5). The Divine Maya or Measure was lost and this had a direct effect on caste because caste and time are quasi synonymous. That is, without the Divine Measure there can be no Cosmic Purush reflected in a society on Earth, integrated in all its parts, each limb or organ supporting the other limbs and parts of the Being. Nor could there be any all-encompassing fabric integrating the diversity that has always characterised the societies of the subcontinent. Time provided the means to achieve this integration. Hence, the means to record and regulate the flow of time in a cosmic society is fundamental. We understand, therefore, why the Year occupied such a central position in the knowledge of the Vedic Age (and also in Mayan America), as revealed in the extant hymns of the Rigveda and the Atharvaveda. The Rishis were forever singing praises to the various components of the Year, – the seasons, the periods of the 24-hour day such as the dawn, the night; or else the elements which are energy manifestations within that time structure: fire, earth, air and water, elements which Time uses to give form to consciousness.

It must be borne in mind that the diagram by which we have integrated all the elements of our discussion (p.16) – or the circle of 360 degrees divided into four – is also the year. Thus, Shudra, Vaishya, Kshatriya and Brahmin can also be allocated to a portion of the Earth Year. This means that there is a beginning and an end, a 0 point and a 360-degree point to both the year and caste. It means that while 90 degrees of the 360 comprise three months – those of Spring, for example – they also ‘comprise’ the Shudra in the collective Body. It means that the twelve months of our Earth year and the calendar we devise to monitor the passage of time within that span are intrinsically related to caste and are essential to its right functioning. Given the disintegration of caste, whereby only its shell remains, and the proliferation of divisions within each segment which are indications of the degeneration, it is not surprising that we should find the same process to have afflicted the methods for a collective systematisation of the time experience: the calendar. India today does not possess just one calendar; there are many. Almost each State and community have a different system of reckoning, as well as each religion – Islam, Christianity (the Gregorian calendar in use throughout the world), Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, and so forth. There are five principal methods employed; that is, some may use the lunar year, some the solar. In addition, there are 300 almanacs in use throughout the country, each different from the other, each catering to the needs of the different communities.

The Cosmic Truth, which uses time via the Divine Measure for its binding and formative creative operations, is reflected in the calendar. An enlightened calendar is the hallmark of an enlightened society. This means a calendar which comes as near as possible to aligning society with the Cosmic Truth unrolling through the flow of time during the Earth year. Thus, we can easily appreciate why the Rishi declared in the Rigveda, ‘Certain eternal worlds are these which have come into being, their doors are shut to you (or, opened) by the months and the years; without effort one (world) moves into the other, and it is these that Brahmanaspati has made manifest to knowledge.’ (II,24-5)

The essential feature of that superior alignment was the correct zero point, or the start of the year, which then set ‘each thing in its place’ as time moved on in the course of the ensuing twelve months. If that 0 point was miscalculated or otherwise tampered with, the flow was disfigured accordingly and time’s ‘gestation’ produced either a stillborn or maimed creature. A society that had lost that correct calculation of the 0 Point could not hope to experience any significant harmony within itself or integration of its diverse limbs, not to speak of a proper relationship with the cosmos, since the act of integration hinges on the correct ‘axis’ or ‘alignment’. In the Veda and the earlier Upanishads, this ‘axis’ was the property of the God Agni.

Before proceeding further, a word ought to be said about the proliferation of symbols, personifications of the Gods and their carriers via animal or other images in India, since this practice is one that divides contemporary society from almost all ancient civilisations. In all parts of the world there has been a complete break with this ancient form of conceptualisation. India is perhaps one of the few nations today where we find that this practice is still a vibrant part of the country’s cultural and spiritual life, given the fact that myth, epics and, above all, the still prevalent guru/disciple parampara or tradition, are vigorous ingredients in the socio-cultural fabric. The need to transmit knowledge in this fanciful manner was not a frivolous indulgence of a pagan, nature-worshipping and naïve mind. Rather, that the Seers of the Vedic Age (and rare modern visionaries) chose to frame their knowledge in this way was an indication of a very high degree of sophistication. The purpose was to achieve an integral seeing. For example, this meant that the use of Number alone, or even the enlightened use of diagrams as a means of transmitting facts about matter, time and the cosmos, could only appeal to and develop the mind without engaging other equally important parts of the being and planes of consciousness. Hence, they were not adequate if exclusively utilised, as we do today, for the transmission of concepts. Indeed, in so doing the result is information leading to the manipulation of those facts, never an understanding of the integrality and oneness of our world and the interconnectedness of its many planes and dimensions. Number might appeal exclusively to only one of those planes – the mental; while the animal image, for example, drew in the visualisation capacity of the human consciousness, the art of seeing, and hence the vital to a large extent.

Or else there was the utilisation of hieroglyphs, for instance of the twelve signs of the zodiacal year – a highly sophisticated means of transmitting knowledge which drew into the exercise the higher mind and higher vital centres. Today this capacity to see in such an integral fashion is entirely lacking. Consequently, there are no seers, no Rishis.

Let me provide an example of the above which illustrates the capacity for ‘seeing’ in an area connected to the present topic under discussion: the calendar related to caste. Agni’s vahana or carrier is known to be the Goat. This image must not be construed as a meaningless designation born in the mind of pagan nature-worshippers, for the Goat in Agni’s imagery refers to the Year and the correct alignment under discussion. There are two complementary 0 points which describe the Divine Measure and bear a very special relevance to the act of ‘setting each thing in its place’. One is the Ram 0 point, or the first zodiacal sign Aries, and the second is the other goat image, Capricorn, the tenth sign/month. In terms of number-power they are both 1 – the 10 simply being the 1 after the completed cycle of 9 numbers; 10 starts the new cycle and is, numerologically speaking, a 1. Both correspond to the power of the Son, or the One: the divine Agni.

Hence, the Vedic ritual may begin (and end) with an invocation to Agni, first manifestation of the Gods, first of the elements (fire=Aries), ‘leader of the hosts’ in his aspect of Mars, ruler of Aries; Mesham, in Sanskrit, the first month. These correspondences are found throughout the hymns. Thus to ignore the zodiacal character of the Rigveda is to deliberately and wilfully seek to thrust upon this bedrock of Hinduism a character which is entirely foreign to its true nature and purpose. This was indeed the case when 19^th– and 20^th-century Indologists sought to cram the Veda in the entirely inadequate slot of History. That they succeeded in doing so is the measure of success of the contamination set into the Indian mind via the western secular onslaught.

After Aries – first sign or first manifestation of Agni/Mars – the ‘journey’ or the ‘sacrifice’ brought the initiate to the 10^th sign/month/’door’ and entry into Swar, the realm of the Truth-Consciousness. But this passage was not a simple matter. It was fraught with danger, for it involved the 8^th stage, Scorpio, also ‘ruled’ by Mars; it was then that the real trouble began – in the imagery of the Veda, the rescue of the cows (rays of Light, or Knowledge) from the cave of the Panis. Scorpio is the sign of Death in traditional astrology. It was the same in the Vedic Age, ample proof of which is given in the references to Martanda, the eighth son of Aditi, the ‘fallen star’, whose very name comes from the root meaning death.

If the energy of Mars is not transmuted or released (the ‘release’ of the cow/rays), death meant the obliteration of the consciousness and disconnection with the physical plane. It meant that the ‘victory’ in the 10^th month of Capricorn, traditionally known as the exaltation of Mars, could not be achieved on Earth and connected to its evolutionary processes, but only in ‘heaven’. The decline of the Dharma saw this drama enacted in full, with spiritual energies posited in that ‘heaven’ beyond and withheld from a process which alone could unify and conquer on Earth.

On the other hand, when the Mars transmutation occurred and the Sacrifice was ‘pleasing’, the energy was released which provided fuel for the rise to the mountaintop or the sign/month Capricorn, India’s very own zodiacal ‘ruler’, according to tradition the world over. Interestingly, at that point Agni became the Horse, the white steed – indeed, horse-power. This was indicated by the 9^th sign sandwiched between Scorpio and Capricorn: Sagittarius, precisely the sign of the Horse. And in order to emphasis the Earth-oriented essence of the realisation, rather than a heaven beyond of a dimension outside of this cosmos and our material creation, that immaculate Steed which is Agni transmuted, is the vahana of none other than Usha, the divine Earth-Dawn. Agni, as the Horse (9^th sign/month), ushers in the Dawn, be it of the Earth day, or the year or twelve months, or the cosmic year of many thousand months.

We may now refer to our diagram on page 16 and locate this process of transmutation, of conquering, in the third segment of the Circle – the Kshatriya. In so doing, we instantly confirm the connection between caste, time, the calendar and the Vedic Dharma. To provide even more conclusive proof, it may be recalled that an aspect of Agni is the Hindu War God Kartikeya. His birthday is celebrated precisely in the heart of this Kshatriya segment: late November, or with the correct 0 point, in the sign/month Sagittarius. In Sanskrit the month is known as Kartik.

Thus the Rigveda, the oldest book in the world and foundation-seed of all that is contained in Hindu culture, establishes a remarkably rich and poetic connection between cosmos, time, year, Earth – and caste. The only problem is that the great Undermining produced the unfortunate result of a loss of the Divine Measure. Contingent upon that loss is the lack of a single calendar uniting the collective consciousness. There is not one but dozens, and each has a different 0 or starting point. Hence, though these multiple calendars may still use the backdrop of the 360 degrees of the celestial sphere and the division of that sphere into 12 segments or months, initiating their counts at different times reflects the inability of Indian society to become integrated. Indeed, for a person of Knowledge it is as if one were observing the unfolding of present-day Indian society through a painfully unfocussed lens: no matter how hard one tries, clarity just will not attend one’s efforts. The chaos brought before one’s vision is simply another indication of that lost Measure. Notwithstanding the fact that at the time of Independence the Gregorian calendar was adopted for official purposes in order to align India with the rest of the world, the different communities and religions continued to use their own methods of reckoning. Any attempt to bring about a ‘focussing’ in this time-lens would be similar to the demand voiced by certain quarters for a uniform civil law code, whose adoption is also hotly contested by communities which view such a step as a threat to their ‘separate identities’. In fact, a true discussion of caste and cosmos is, by definition, precisely one of identity, of essential truth of being, of individual and collective dharma. This aspect of the study will be explored further on.

To return to our discussion of the stages of the Vedic Sacrifice, or progression through the year, we note that passage through the 7^th, 8^th and 9^th stages, or the Kshatriya/warrior caste segment, was considered crucial. Indeed, in the successful ‘crossing’ of this zone lays India’s ability to survive as a nation and a civilisation. But to appreciate how this may be and what connection these ancient prescriptions may have with contemporary Indian society, we must expand our time vision and study the Chaturvarna on the backdrop of the larger measures of time, the cosmic Ages, or, as I have called them, the Twelve Manifestations. In this way we shall appreciate why it is that the 7^th and 8^th Avatars, and indirectly the 9^th, have come to such fierce prominence of late, through the contentious issue of ‘temple or mosque’ at Ayodhya, and how this issue is singularly reflective of the grand Sacrifice described in the ancient Rigveda as precisely involving the 7^th, 8^th and 9^th stages of the Journey. And by this interrelated seeing, we shall discover how the last three decades of the millennium, the 70s, 80s and 90s, have recapitulated or condensed in this very special time span the Vedic passage through the most dangerous and determining portion of the Circle.

As we proceed with the next portion of the study, once again we engage in that magical feat of harmonisation and integration, whereby caste and time continue to reveal the profound truth in the Hermetic aphorism, ‘As above, so below’. This further act of perceiving the equality of macrocosm and microcosm will assist us in drawing together these multiple time-threads in a concentrated focus on caste within contemporary Indian society, in its individual and collective expressions; and what might be its relevancy to the civilisation that gave it birth, if any at all.

P.N.-B.
August 1991

Aeon Centre of Cosmology
at Skambha

On 21 May 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. In 1984 his mother, Indira Gandhi, was also assassinated. According to the new cosmology and the Capricorn symbol-map of India (see TVN, 6/2), the gunas involved were Rajas in the case of Indira, and Sattwa in Rajiv’s death. Both occurred in areas on the symbol-map ruled by these gunas. In the very first issue of Vishaal, (0/1, October 1985), I analysed Indira’s death which, within the totality of prevailing conditions, would permit the continuity of the Lunar Line through its fourth member, Rajiv. Also discussed in that article were its unusual time equations according to the new cosmology.

In Rajiv Gandhi’s demise there are similar correspondences with his own number-power, the 1. The date of the assassination was 21.5.1991, which equals l (2+1+5+1+9+9+1=1). In addition, he was in his 46^th year, also corresponding to the power 1. His death occurred an exact 9 months – or a complete cycle – after his 46^th birthday, plus one day. That extra day brought the count to a 1-power day, thus fulfilling the harmony he was born into.

While the circumstances surrounding Indira Gandhi’s death served to bring the next member of the Line swiftly and unchallenged to power, this was not the case regarding her son. His early, unexpected demise leaves India without a member of the Lunar Line in office and an apparent end to this ‘cosmic dynasty’ which has perplexed political and historical analysts throughout the world, having presided over the affairs of the nation for the better part of this century through entirely democratic processes.

This turn of events leaves India in an extremely vulnerable position, facing a great unknown and coming as it does in the midst of grave threats to the nation, both internal and external. However, this crisis was not precipitated by Rajiv’s death in May of 1991. Its seeds were sown in 1989 when his party stood for elections to the 9^th Lok Sabha (Lower House of parliament) and failed to secure a majority so as to form the government. That election being the 9^th, in a 9-power year, it marked the true start of a process in which Rajiv Gandhi’s death is one more feature, albeit a very significant one. And though it was the 9^th Lok Sabha, it was to bring to power the nation’s 8^th prime minister. With the fall of that 8^th in November of 1990, the country was then given a 9^th prime minister to preside over that 9^th Lok Sabha, which, however, came to an end a mere 4 months later. Finally new elections were called for 20 May 1991, after barely 18 months. These new elections would bring the 10^th Lok Sabha into effect and the 10^th prime minister. Considering the prominence of the 10, or the 1, it was clear that in some way Rajiv Gandhi would play a significant role. The fourth member of both the Solar and Lunar Lines brings to the harmony the number 1; that is, the last figure of the nuclear formula, – 9/6/3—0/1.

Thus, the real change for India began in 1989, as it did for the rest of the world – witness the great shifts in Europe in that very November of 1989, and the collapse of communism. In any analysis of the political happenings in India on the basis of the new way Cosmology, it is necessary to bear this fact in mind, insofar as the movement is a progression involving 9 stages of development, always beginning with an original 9. In this case, the 9^th Lok Sabha elections in 1989 (=9).

On 13.3.1991, a 9-power day, the President of India announced new elections for 20.5.1991, another 9-power day. Elections were to be stretched over several days, ending on 26^th May. But Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination brought an abrupt interruption after that first 9-power day. The nature of this disruption entirely characterised the energy quality that particular date bought into the equation of the electoral process. It brought into play the force of the Gnostic Circle’s 4.5 Orbit – or the shattered, splintered Asteroid Belt of our solar system.

In contrast, the 9^th Lok Sabha did not incorporate this same shattering quality. Rather, it was a hung parliament for the first time in the history of independent India. But that election, initiating the new ennead of 1989-98, set the tone for the insecurities which would surface during the rest of the cycle. These last elections also brought a hung parliament, but this time accompanied by the shattering experience of the Asteroid Belt and Rajiv Gandhi’s death. Even the instrument and method employed to bring about his end seems to point to the cosmic explosion resulting in billions of roaming particles filling the Asteroid Belt.

This tragic happening comes upon India at a time when the nation faces grave difficulties on all fronts, – political, social, economic, ecological, and accompanied by a population increase of unbearable proportions. In this precarious situation the steadying pole of a stable Lunar Line to guide the nation through these tumultuous moments is also eliminated. It would appear as if the Divine Shakti, presiding over the destiny of India, had withdrawn her grace and had decided to abandon the country to its own human resources. For it is clear that India is sliding into an abyss. Salvation in these circumstances is difficult though not impossible. But contingent upon that salvation is the correct perspective and perception, and the understanding that India is not governed by human effort alone, that she bears an unusual and hard destiny unlike that of any other nation. Its fulfilment hinges on the Divine Shakti’s controlling power operating in the nation through the Solar and Lunar Lines as prescribed in these unusual time-patterns. When connection is lost with this Power and the Lines are severed or in some way rendered unable to accomplish their work for the nation, the result is this slide down and down into an abyss of time that cuts that nation off from these higher integrating and harmonising resources.

India’s accelerated decline began in 1971. Events that year indicated a turning point had come. Either the new way was to emerge victorious from the churning process initiated in 1971 and serve as the ‘seed’ of the new creation which India is destined to offer the world, or the slide would begin and overtake the nation at an ever-accelerating pace.

The path into the future was finally decided in July 1975 – or, precisely at the decade/ennead’s 4.5 Orbit. An indication of the crossroad reached was the decision right then by the architects of the Matrimandir under construction in Auroville to incorporate in the temple the revised design and measurements rather than the originals given by the Mother in 1970. The disharmonious axis was cemented at that time and the course into the future could then be ‘read’ in the changed measurements, similar to a horoscope erected in steel and cement, in which had been cast this disharmony rather than the harmonies of the new cosmos the Mother had created. By 1977, it was evident that redemption of the construction was impossible: the architects had had their way and restoration of the harmony could not be carried out. This coincided with the ousting from power of Indira Gandhi since the destiny of the Lunar Line was also contained in those original measurements and any alteration therein would reflect on the members of the Line. India was immediately left politically vulnerable, then like now.

Of equal importance was the destiny of India herself, since in the centrepiece of the Chamber, the globe, the Mother had captured the correspondent measurement of the unpartitioned land-mass of the subcontinent in the sacred dimensions she had given for that special item of sacred geometry. Thus, any alteration in the temple’s overall axis would perforce affect the ‘alignment’ of that globe/India. Consequently, when the axis was cemented in its present disharmonious fashion, it was a simple matter to predict that India would then begin a slide into the disintegrating orbit of the Asteroid Belt and a dismembering of the remaining portion of the nation appeared almost inevitable. This prediction, solely on the basis of the distortions, began to play itself out in the nation’s march into her disharmonised future. Secessionist movements began thereafter, and the pace accelerated in the 1980s, keeping pace with the progression of the construction: the closer it neared completion, the greater the threat of disintegration. In 1980, Sanjay Gandhi, also a member of the Line, met an unexpected death. Then, at the 4.5 Orbit of the 1980-89 decade/ennead, Indira Gandhi was assassinated. But as early as January of 1977, I had warned that this would be India’s ineluctable future unless remedial measures were taken to correct the architect’s distortion of the original plan. In a booklet entitled, ‘What is Wrong with Matrimandir’, I wrote:

‘The effects of the power of disunity and disharmony stemming from disproportionate forms are seen at the level of this Centre (the Ashram and Auroville) itself and the national level as well – especially in what concerns those whose destinies are written in the structure (the Lunar Line) and those elements prominent in the national life who are joined to the Mother in some way. There too the confusion becomes acute and events begin which can prove in the long run to weaken the effectiveness of the Mother’s Force at that level. This is especially felt in the beginning by those who have a direct or indirect connection with Auroville, for it is there that the power establishes itself. But ultimately, as the disproportionate structure grows its influence widens and strengthens. Ultimately it can bring about a total disintegration at the national level, just as ultimately, if it is proportionate it can help to bring about the total harmonisation of all levels.

‘Effects of such a disintegrating occult force are subtle, impossible for the human being to perceive and understand. This power is a hundredfold intensified when given a material support such as a Matrimandir. When this happens we find that suddenly, almost imperceptibly, the atmosphere begins to change, the area becomes pervaded with a fog that clouds the people‘s consciousness. Friends turn to foes, falsehood is held up as truth, and – worst of all, no one can perceive, no one can see the Truth. Each one believes himself to be its upholder, when in fact each one is subjected to the same toxic force, living under the same cloud, being made use of for the one end: disintegration, disunity, division – in a word, the opposite of Truth’s goal…

‘…Then, as of the very beginning of 1974, two forces have been simultaneously at work, steadily active. One force seeks to bring about a union between the two Centres of the nation, – what might be called the spiritual centre and the material centre. The second force simultaneously seeks to undo the work of the former and actively puts forth its most concentrated power in order to bring about a complete split in this occult Axis, because only when this Axis is forged and operative will India begin to manifest her true soul and destiny…’ (p. 44-5).

As predicted above, the Lunar Line did feel the brunt of the disharmony. In subsequent publications and private exchanges on this subject, I warned that as the time neared for the installation of the globe on the basis of that misalignment, the stresses would increase and disintegration would be accelerated. I am obliged to point out that the globe, after a 20-year construction process started in 1971, finally reached Auroville, from Germany where it had been fashioned, barely a month or so before Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination – an event which took place very close to the spot where that globe stands. His destiny, as foreseen, felt the impact of that arrival. When the globe is conclusively installed the process of disintegration will be complete.

The significance of these timings and synchronisations merits in-depth analyses. In the course of future VISHAALs, I shall deal with these forecasts on the basis of the new cosmology. Having engaged in these analyses from time to time, I am accused of being ‘superstitious’, of encouraging an outdated, retrograde outlook, especially by those involved with the construction of the Shadow Temple. This is somewhat understandable considering that the new cosmology is NEW and has no parallel or previous models from our period of recorded history to help us fathom these profound operations of Time and Destiny and Form. Thus it draws to itself the usual derogatory labels conjured up in minds ignorant of these mysterious processes bridging the visible and invisible. This inability to understand is also an outcome of the atmosphere described above which creates a ‘field’ wherein none can perceive the truth: nationalism may be equated with fascism in such an atmosphere; reestablishment of the Dharma as arranged through the Line of Ten Avatars may be labelled communalism; the high truths of the spirit may be forced into the mould of divisive religion. None know for none can see in that obfuscated atmosphere fomented by disproportionate forms. But I am confident that my published works with their detailed record of the progression from the point of utter and compete Harmony which the Mother’s original plan held in seed form, to the actual state of disintegration mirrored in the destruction of that Harmony by the builders of the Matrimandir in Auroville, can well stand as its own defence before these secular architects who have no knowledge of the higher workings of Time and Destiny and the Sacred. And, above all, who ignore India’s unique place in the cosmic harmony and the role she must play in the world. That role was captured in the Mother’s original design and measurements…

‘…There are many levels that could be discussed in this regard. The Mother’s plan is a mathematical perfection and this perfection can be explained… But the point to be brought forth here is that alterations in the (temple) change the quality of the Time that is gestated and hence the quality of the Breath. As the Temple is not only the soul of Auroville but that of the Earth, and we know that India is the planet’s soul in terms of its organised nations, any change in the Heart (temple) will have its effects upon the land of the Mother.

‘The destiny of a New India is written in Matrimandir. In particular, the globe, onto which the solar ray is to fall, is this land. By the laws of correspondence the Mother has captured in the measurements she gave for the globe and insisted upon, the exact measurements of the physical body of India. These measurements include the true body…the spiritual reality of the body of India which is the only reality, in spite of the distortions men have brought about therein. In the realm of things true and real, this is Mother India, and this will always remain Mother India.

‘In the core of Matrimandir, the Mother installed the soul of a New India, integrated in all its parts. This was immediately altered and the area where the pedestal was to stand upon the Mother’s symbol carved in white stone and supporting the sacred globe, was made into a hole. The centre of the Temple would house not this perfect creation of sacred geometry but rather a void. And over that void a globe of some sort was to be suspended and its relationship therefore to the pedestal on which Sri Aurobindo’s symbol was to be engraved, with all its implications, would be lost. Moreover, all the energies poured through the solar ray to be collected in that globe would pass through and vanish into this void…’. (Ibid, p. 42-3.)

The 4.5 Orbit is the ‘void’ where energies do indeed escape and ‘fuel for the rise’ is lost. There are five days during the year which are sensitive to this Orbit, 20 to 25 May. These were the very days selected for the elections which saw the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. At the same time, the fourth member of the Line bears a destiny of RELEASING that energy. His destiny holds the key to that mysterious process of time and energy. Thus, having occurred at that special, critical moment, it is clear that Rajiv Gandhi’s death will, though it may still be unclear, produce that release which will accelerate the collapse of the old and the rise of the new.

Patrizia Norelli
25 June 1991

Aeon Centre of Cosmology

at Skambha

While there is time I wish to share a few thoughts which have evolved on the basis of a study of certain dates of importance in Chile. To really unravel the mysteries of a nation’s destiny requires, however, a much greater penetration than what I can give for the moment. If this attention is given though, one can be quite precise in one’s seeing. But let this be simply a beginning, in any case; perhaps further on the opportunity will arise to go much deeper into things.

            On the basis of a study of time-cycles, the date of Chile’s independence seems to reveal that as of this year (July) through to September of 1982 decisive events will take place to give the country a more solid political base. That is, there ought to emerge during this period a truer political foundation. But this is not a process confined to a particular party regaining power, or even an individual. It is a process to furnish the country with a more truthful vehicle to express the longings of the Chilean people. We can say a collective consciousness or awareness is being formed, and all the recent, and not so recent, events are simply taking place in order to forge this collective awareness. This process is spread over many decades; in fact, the beginning was the country’s Independence. But Chile, as it stands in the comity of nations, is young. She is just beginning on this long journey in the manifestation of what we may call the national soul. Actually what is occurring is precisely the discovery of that Soul. All elements, individuals, events entering into the country’s destiny are pieces necessary in order to force the collective consciousness to emerge or to forge itself into a crystallised element which can give expression to this eternal Soul.

Chile’s case is different from India’s for example. Though the latter attained so-called independence only in this century (1947), there has never really been a severing in the expression of the nation’s soul-power. India is ancient, and even in her new phase of expression, she builds upon this ancient foundation. Indeed, this is both her strength and her deficiency. But each nation has its own particular destiny-power and character, its own foibles as well as its stable core.

Chile, on the other hand, underwent a violent experience in the ‘conquest’ of the territory by the Spaniards. The ‘line’, if we may so call it, which the true spirit that fragment of land embodies was severed. That is, the conscious development was dramatically stopped; no connection with the past was really maintained, and so the new formation had to stand on tottering foundations. This made it possible for a more potent nation like the USA (in terms of destiny) to gain considerable control over the country – either outwardly manifested or in more hidden ways. In fact, what I write here pertains to all of Latin America. We have there a continent which housed perhaps some of the most advanced civilisations in the world; the Mayan/Aztecan, for example. That civilisation was in many ways far ahead of Europe at the time the Spaniards arrived, as revealed in their knowledge of astronomy and more specifically of Time. On this, much could be written, but it may be left for another occasion.

In any case, the point I wish to make is that the continuity of the destiny manifesting in Latin America (Incan, Mayan, Aztecan, etc.) was tragically truncated; that is, the conscious continuity. That ‘thread’ having been lost, the web of the collective consciousness suffered a tremendous setback and a long period of darkness then ensued. This dark period covered the time of the Conquest to the present. What Latin America is now experiencing is simply a process of awakening, of re-forging the threads of destiny, this time proceeding consciously forward and finding her place in the whole symphony of nations. It is this awakening and seeking to make connections with the true and ancient soul of Latin America that is the explanation for the urge on the part of the youth of Chile and its artists to revive the nation’s folklore, which has been witnessed in the 60s and 70s. All of this, however, is a world process, not something confined to Chile or even to Latin America. Latin America has to find her diversity and unity within herself, and then find this unified diversity’s place within the whole of the Earth’s destiny as expressed in the rise of all nations.

Young people on both the South and North American continents have been seeking during the past two decades to make contact with not only the past of their countries but also with the very land itself. This has brought a dramatic change in the lifestyles manifesting. However, all this is still superficial. It is not by singing folklore or painting in the indigenous style that contact is established with the spirit of a nation. In fact, this is a rather superficial manner of seeking to consolidate the national consciousness. It is, however, a deep symbol. The fact that such an upsurge of interest occurred in Chile during the 1960s and 70s points to the need and desire in the people to establish contact with what is true, or the soul of Chile. To establish contact with the spirit, however, one has to go about it in a somewhat different way, – that is, one has to find its perennial truth in the present. Indeed, for this very reason that tragic severance had to occur at the time of the Conquest to bring the spirit-soul housed on the Latin American continent into harmony with the Time-Spirit. So the need of the moment is for a group of people to come forward, or a leader, who sees the present position and the true course into the future.

For the moment in Latin America there is no such leader. All the movements there and their leaders are seeking on the basis of imitation, – imported models which do not satisfy the needs of the times. However, the process has begun and cannot now be arrested. It is therefore all the more important for someone or a group of people to come forward with the courage to break open the path into the future along truly constructive lines, according to the real dictates of the times and in harmony with the Latin American soul.

As can be seen, when one starts to delve into the destiny of a nation today one is immediately projected beyond the confines of the established border of that particular country and one sees its evolution in harmony with a process that encompasses the whole Earth. The experience of Chile is the experience of all Latin America, and of the Earth herself. The planet’s entire comity of nations is seeking to find its place in the whole. This is the reason for our present turmoil. When we isolate the process and view it in a fragmentary fashion it is a distressing picture that emerges. But, if we look more deeply, if we touch a layer that reveals a unity in the process, then we can only rejoice, because one sees thereby the controlled evolution of the Earth, which is leading to a true unity of nations.

Each nation in this communion of Earth-consciousness has to find its place, its own spirit-soul first, and then if it does so it automatically finds its place within the Whole. Any vision that isolates is not the true vision, because the chaos we are experiencing is precisely the result of a disunified seeing, a fragmentation in the human consciousness.

The dark night Chile is living is precisely because there is no one as yet in evidence in the nation who is capable of piercing through the appearances and seeing the real process. This goes far deeper than the conventional political patterns, be these of the Left or the Right. It requires a seeing that rises above these distinctions and sees the point of unity in the timeless soul of the nation. Such a seeing then unfolds a power which is capable of uniting these apparently opposing forces, for the benefit of the entire country. If this does not happen, one can only expect change within a reigning disharmony: today it is the Right, tomorrow it is the Left; then again the Right, and again the Left, – and so on in a miserable unending chain of reaction, causing in the process tremendous suffering to the people, as can be witnessed in many countries of the world.

This is the old way that the Earth is getting rid of. She moves forward to a unity of being and a progress on the basis of complementation and not confrontation.

Thus Chile has, as all Latin America, the possibility to move forward toward this new condition; and if a leader arises there who sees this course and has the courage to follow it, he or she will find an almost miraculous response, in people, in events. Because this is the truth of the times. All our present sufferings are simply because we seek to pull into the past, to hold back the evolution of consciousness that embraces the entire Earth.

The struggle the Earth is witnessing in all its four corners is not simply between Left and Right. This is only a fractional part of the process. What is really happening is a war between the Old and the New. A new world order is in the making, but as long as people cling to the old patterns, as progressive as they may seem the establishment of this Order is going to be further delayed and rendered more and more painful, accompanied by ever-increasing violence and destruction. This, in fact, is simply the consequence of the resistance offered to the new: the quantity and the scope of destruction experienced are in proportion to this resistance.

According to a deeper vision of certain time-cycles that are relevant in the above-mentioned process, a particularly important one began in 1971. This cycle, a smaller one within a larger, comes to an end this year, – only to open into a new one. It is especially interesting to note from the dates furnished that Allende came to power precisely at the end of 1970. That is, his term essentially began with the commencement of this cycle. (For students of the new cosmology it is important to note, however, that Allende came to power in an 8 year, 1970, bearing the fragile 8 power of dissolution inherent in his term of office.) The particular significance of this period lies in the fact that it marks the period during which this new world order will manifest; from 1971 till the end of the century, approximately, the process will be complete. This does not mean that all the work will be finished during that time; it simply means that the solid foundations upon which a new future will be built will be firmly established. From 1971 the Earth has been living the experience of acceleration, one may call it, toward the achievement of this goal.

Chile has particularly felt the impact of this demarcation in time and its pressures. The Allende regime came to power in 1970/1971 and set off a series of events that are bringing the nation to a deeper level in its process of conscious evolution. Outwardly it appears to be a struggle between Left and Right, and Allende’s fall the work of certain powers that have since been unmasked. This may be quite true, but as long as one remains content with this explanation and this vision, the real importance of what the nation is undergoing will be overlooked. Consequently, the means to extricate itself from the present impasse will also be ignored and continued strife and violence will ensue. One has always to bear in mind that such manipulated coups can only take place successfully when there is an opening in the collective consciousness that allows it. Allende’s rise as well as his fall are as much the projection of the state of consciousness of the Chilean people as is the rise of Pinochet. And the fall of the latter will only occur when this collective consciousness has evolved to the point where its maturity forces a breakthrough and ousts the offending element.

The year that lies ahead of the Chilean nation will most probably see the end of the present government; but it may take another year thereafter before a more stable order appears. Therefore now is the time when a conscious effort should be made on the part of clear-thinking people to make the courageous move toward a really new beginning. That is, now is the time – and it should not be missed – to begin a positive effort at consolidation and a vigorous forward movement.

The forces at work that seek to maintain the supremacy of the Old thrive on a certain tension which is created by involving all the energies of people in a struggle with the past. This struggle therefore leaves no energies for the creation of the New. In the case of Chile it is quite clear; and in particular the situation involving those in exile during this period. One can see how the precious energies of the people are being blocked by these subtle forces, by entangling them in a useless process of exposure, we may call it. For example, CHILE-AMERICA has as its main purpose the exposure of the atrocities of the Pinochet regime. By channeling energies into this endeavour, as noble as it may seem, the elements concerned with the magazine’s publication are simply wasting a precious opportunity given them to leave the past, with all its sad and unfortunate memories, and to strive to build a new consciousness. It is in the building of a new awareness alone that the possibility can arise of eliminating the cause of Pinochet’s emergence. Simply opposing the wrong-doings of this regime is in no way sufficient to bring about a change. On the contrary, this process is feeding the very characteristics in the Chilean consciousness that made his rise possible in the first place.

If CHILE-AMERICA is to serve the cause of the New, if it is to be a service to the people in this most important phase of Chile’s destiny, then it must be a channel for positive energies to manifest. It must become a source of inspiration for the new spirit that seeks to manifest and be a vehicle through which young thoughts, young and vital ideas can be formulated and ultimately assist in the evolution of this new awareness. As it now stands, the old consciousness, with its subtle obstructing powers, is merely keeping those energies tied down and caught in the trap of a struggle with the old. Now is the time to leave the past and to open up the doors to the future, to usher in a period of constructive growth. This positive movement is the way to unify the forces, which will result in a power sufficient unto itself to eliminate the root causes of all wrong-doing which have engendered untold suffering to the people. One can do this, one can free oneself from this entanglement only if one sees that it is the reigning collective consciousness itself that has given birth to the actual regime. Imposing another, overthrowing this one to establish something else without seeing to the root causes and the transformation that must take place therein, will lead only to a continued negative state; there will be the appearance of change, but nothing more. No real, fundamental transformation can come about in this way.

Chile has been living a tremendously important experience in her destiny. It has culminated in a colossal movement of exile. The number of exiles, for one reason or another, in proportion to the population is certainly a fact revealing the importance of the present happenings. But when such a large amount of people are forced to leave a country one has to see the event as a symbol of something much deeper. The dispersion of all these energies, the fragmentation in the collective consciousness that has occurred thereby, clearly indicated by this mass exile, is a powerful indication that from 1971 a pressure began to break up a formation in the national consciousness that was impeding the flowering of the true Chilean psyche. The rise of Allende served to set off the process of fragmentation which the present regime is consolidating. That is, Left or Right – all are only instruments in this process which embraces the whole consciousness of the people. Again it must be stressed: it is the Chilean soul itself that seeks to manifest. All political tendencies are simply portions of that soul in evolution. One part rises and falls, then another rises and falls; but the underlying movement goes on and is steady, constant, unrelenting, – using one now, another later. However, if true peace and prosperity and well being are to be experienced, the time must come when the spirit is mature enough to rise above the play of opposites in a fragmented manner and to reach a vision of unity – not uniformity but UNITY. That is, all the parts must be seen as parts, but on the background of the spirit of the nation, and each portion must find its place in that Wholeness.

From the standpoint of a vision of such a wholeness, one can see that the time has come to perceive the integral process which is being experienced in Chile. The time has come to perceive in terms of harmony, integration, complementation, and not disunity, fragmentation, division, isolation and all the rest. One cannot solve the problems of Chile in a truly satisfactory manner, be these political or on the order of social inequality and injustice, while one sees Allende or Pinochet or whosoever as something apart from the collective consciousness, a freak phenomenon be it either of Left or Right. One needs to see these appearances in terms of the more integral working out of the kinks and creases in the formation of the national psyche, which have to be eased out by the growth from within: the larger and wider the vision the easier it becomes to harmonise all the conflicting parts and to set on its way the new national awareness which sustains itself on the basis of wholeness, of integrality and harmony.

All of Latin America is reeling under that same pressure from within, and as each nation comes closer to the unveiling of its deeper essence, this very happening will open the way to a larger harmonisation on the continent. Ultimately, it is possible to perceive this process of integration will lead to an experience of wider unity and possibly a form of confederation among the nations of Latin America. The realisation of such a goal is being hastened by prevailing conditions in the world. The chaos and entanglement and stagnation we now experience on world-wide dimensions are serving to accelerate the coming of a new world order, which is not a utopia we strive for in the future but is rather a phenomenon – albeit  as yet somewhat hidden from the ordinary vision – that is taking place today. The turmoil of Latin America is one such proof that the new order is on its way and no earthly power can impede its full flowering. We have no choice but to participate consciously, to offer the least resistance possible to the pressure of manifestation of the new, so as to avoid as much destruction as possible.

All clear-thinking people must be aware that there is no solution to the problems we face in all the four corners of the Earth on the basis of the known systems of thought and political solutions. While one may give a greater degree of individual freedom, it does so on the basis of an exploitation of another order; while one may give a greater distribution of the wealth of the nation, it does so by suffocating the freedom and the free growth of the spirit of the people in other spheres. And even when a nation appears to have found a certain balance within its own confines, the world situation today has clearly revealed that there can be no isolated haven: a secluded well-being, disconnected from the throes of the great turmoil the rest of the Earth faces, cannot endure. The most important revelation of our times, brought dramatically before our eyes with an unmistakable clarity by such elements as nuclear power, for example, is that the Earth is one, in her felicities as well as her penuries. We can no longer achieve a divisional well-being and solution. Today’s answers must perforce embrace the whole.

Chile is in a unique position to be a forerunner in such a process. She has been forced into this position, and the particularly large amount of Chileans scattered the world over can offer a special ingredient of wideness of vision and an integral approach to the solution of the country’s afflictions. These elements outside the country, working in harmony with those within, can help to bring about another way, a Chilean way, which is yet inextricably united and in harmony with the way the entire Earth is seeking. The maturity of the Chilean spirit with respect to other Latin American countries places the nation in a special position, bearing a unique responsibility on the continent. The political maturity Chile enjoyed in Latin America is what can allow the country to serve as a model in that part of the world. The time has come for a consciousness to evolve therein which offers a possibility of a truly united spirit to emerge and to bring Latin America to its rightful place in the comity of nations, in an atmosphere of harmony, of collaboration, of good-will among its sister nations on the continent, each one manifesting its own tendencies, not in conflict with others but rather displaying an ever wider diversity that is set in a larger framework of unity. The political maturity the people of Chile enjoy places the nation in this special position. But the lesson to be learned today is that such a positive, on-going thrust cannot come into being unless the poisons of revenge and hate and retaliation are dissolved in the collective consciousness, and the energies that were usurped in this negative functioning are channelled wholly into the building of the New, on lines which truly correspond to the national spirit and soul, thereby answering all the needs of the people in an atmosphere of harmony and integrality never before experienced in the country. This is the model Chile can be for Latin America. And the time is propitious now for her to play this all-important role. For indeed, the task is urgent. Time is with us still, but not for long.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
South India, 1979

[Publisher’s note (April 1991): Given the importance of recent unique happenings in the world, we are carrying only one article in this issue, in which PNB discusses those and related issues. The Tenth Day of Victory and the further parts of ‘Culture and Cosmos’ will be featured later in the coming issues.]

The Third World War, also known as the Gulf War, has come to an end. With our last issue of VISHAAL we included a supplement dedicated to the process in cosmological terms which distinguished that war from all others. Its primary feature was, as I wrote then, a controlled dismantling. This is an ongoing process; there is more to come. But the fundamental point is that there is this ‘control’. I propose in the following to provide the student and reader with another example of that newly-revealed power working in the world by reproducing portions from an article I wrote in 1987, immediately after moving into ‘Skambha’, the permanent seat of Aeon Centre of Cosmology. The choice of the name, Skambha, was not insignificant, as I have written elsewhere in VISHAAL. The Sanskrit word means Cosmic Pillar. Insofar as it is this Pillar that provides the ‘control’ I am describing, it would be interesting to note that the article referred to, ‘The Capricorn Factor’, was the first piece I wrote at Skambha after moving to the Centre. The series, in two parts, was featured in our October and December issues of 1987.

It would be wise for the student of this new cosmology to re-read this article in toto, since it is relevant not only to what has transpired in the Gulf recently, but to what lies ahead for us in our work. I discuss therein the question of a nuclear confrontation and the central role India would play in such a scenario. But, at the same time, I specifically state that a ‘special intervention’ is needed to avert catastrophe. I will guide the student to the discovery through the pages of VISHAAL of just how true those words were and when that ‘intervention’ took place. It introduced a new way in the workings of such ‘catastrophes’. But let me reproduce here the most relevant portion from ‘The Capricorn Factor’, Part II, from VISHAAL, 2/5, December 1987, as a very specific example of the accuracy and non-speculative nature of this work:

     ‘But India at least recognises these true things, these harmonies of the cosmos. And for this very reason the Aeon Centre of Cosmology and Skambha are established on her soil. Their measures may be distorted but India alone among all nations understands in her innermost heart that the future of the Earth is somehow connected to or described by this important zodiacal time-axis, Capricorn and Cancer. For it is a fact that indeed the future of the world is playing itself out in correspondence with this axis, since India is ruled by Capricorn, while the United States of America is ruled by Cancer. And it is the latter that has put Pakistan in the significant position of being able to deliver a nuclear weapon. At this point it is an open secret that Pakistan is embarked upon a nuclear programme whose ultimate design is the manufacture of this devastating tool of destruction. America knows this, yet it continues to arm Pakistan beyond all reasonable measure, – if at all we can consider the arming of a nation in any way ‘reasonable’. It is an unfortunate situation forced upon our civilisation by the insufficiencies of the present mental race. The way to disarmament is via the channel of a superior act of seeing and a knowledge that arises in a higher poise of being.

‘Thus in keeping with the exquisitely true nature of cosmic harmonies, it was precisely on the day Adi [the ‘inauspicious’ Tamil month] is purported to begin, 17 July 1969, that the Mother spoke to Indira Gandhi through an emissary of ‘Auroville being the only hope for avoiding a world war’, which at this point would necessarily mean total annihilation. What then was the real aspect of this message? By its timing the Mother seems to have been giving a clue to the shift that must take place if India and the Earth are to be saved.

‘To add substance to this thesis, it is important to note the correspondence between this and the vision she had of the Temple, that fundamental piece of sacred architecture of such special relevance for India. The Mother’s vision took place in the very beginning of January, right in the midst of the true Capricorn measure. But she gave up insisting to the architects on the implementation of her plan on 17 January 1970. That is, exactly six months after making the above statement concerning Auroville as the only hope for avoiding a third world war. January 17^th would stand in direct opposition on the calendar wheel to July 17^th. These two dates would thus form an ‘axis in time’. Since the implementation of her vision did not come to pass, can we deduce that the Earth is headed toward some catastrophic destruction?

‘A special intervention is needed. That intervention is decided and determined in the realm of higher Knowledge and Power and relies on an action that stems from this higher Seeing.’ (pages 19-20.)

In these previsionary passages I have connected various elements together which have all played a role in the unfolding of the Third World War. This is made evident by reference to 17 January in relation to the Mother’s 17 July statement that Auroville was the only hope for avoiding that War. Significantly, when the war did begin, it was on 17.1.1991. However, I draw the connection via the date of her statement to the Temple episode and 17 January as the last day of the 18 during which time she sought to have the architects and disciple accept her plan as the basis for the construction. In addition, I refer to the important ‘time-axis’ resulting from these connected dates. But there is more on this subject which I will discuss further on.

There is another timing to note with regard to the War and the Mother. I am told that it was at 1:26 AM, on 17 January that the actual war began. I presume this was local time. This, as we know, was the time of Sri Aurobindo’s passing. The Mother’s was 19:26, thus directly related to Sri Aurobindo’s numerically by the simple elimination of the 9.

The final paragraph of the passage quoted above is the most significant, for indeed that special intervention did come to pass through processes of this supramental yoga, or what I have named, the Yoga of the Chamber. Interestingly, that process hinged entirely on the ‘construction’ of an axis. It was a process demanded by the distorted axis that was being cemented in the temple in Auroville, precisely. Thus, when the Mother spoke of Auroville as being the only hope for avoiding a third world war, her words were entirely true. The only ‘unknown’ at the time she made this statement was that the ‘time-axis’ which should have been the central, stabilizing and harmonising feature of that temple, never came to be. Given this fact, with its profound significance in the realm of this higher scheme of things, it became imperative to ‘construct’ that very axis by and through Time, to counteract the effects of the distorted one, as well as to provide a ‘centre that holds’ for the tumultuous events to come.

Thus, in some way this date, 17 January was a key element in the design. And indeed, it was on this very date in 1984 that the process of ‘constructing’ that Axis and bringing into being a ‘new alignment’, was completed.

The New Power of Seeing

The construction of the new Axis began on 17 April 1983. But it took an exact 9 months for it to be completed. At the same time, or rather crucial to the affair was the creation of a ‘centre’. I have discussed this in a number of articles in VISHAAL and need not repeat now what I have written on other occasions. What is of interest in this analysis is the very exact way in which this applied cosmology uses Time for the ‘construction’ of these subtle or occult shafts or axes, and then how this is translated into events on Earth of singular importance for humankind.

We find then that the date, 17 April, taken in conjunction with the other two, 17 January and 17 July, seeks to form a cross which describes four even sections of the celestial wheel if we add the missing date, 17 October. Recent happenings of significance in this process of transformation the earth is experiencing do furnish us with data that indicate the existence of this fourth point. I refer to the earthquake in California on 17 October, as well as the Crash of 1987 which fell quite near this point on October 19. I have mentioned these two events in my last piece on the War as indicators of that special ‘control’, or the ‘controlled dismantling’, so crucial to the establishment of the New Way.

Briefly, I would like to explain in what way the physical location of Skambha also calls up that Axis. The process of its forging began, as stated, on 17 April 1983. Two years thereafter the land was found for Skambha. Unequivocally, it was the place. Later I came to realise that on 17 April the Sun is directly overhead at the latitude of Skambha, thereby coinciding with the occult shaft that had been constructed with the help of that very date two years earlier. This was indeed a ‘marriage of heaven and earth’, insofar as that occult realisation (heaven) came to coincide with the physical Earth. The coming into harmony of the two was a phenomenon of the utmost importance for the Yoga. On this basis the very difficult process of the remaining years of the decade was possible. It is the joining of these two that creates the power ‘to hold’.

We have then a cross formed by these dates, 17 April, 17 July, the 17^th of October and then on to January 17^th. The precise degree of the latter in the celestial wheel is the 26-27^th degree of Capricorn. Further on we shall see how this degree also played an astounding role in the Third World War in connection with certain prophecies and esoteric teachings from the Middle East and Europe.

In these pages I have disclosed a key feature of the New Way. It concerns the ‘act of seeing’, a capacity that comes into being at the third level of the transformation or unfolding, involving as it does the soul and what Sri Aurobindo has called, the Mind of Light.

This is not simply clairvoyance. The act I refer to is in fact entirely different, namely because power is one of the results of the act, though its implementation or expression may be of a different order than our present understanding of the word. The ordinary ability to ‘see the future’ does not play a significant role in the process. Contrarily, it can prove a distraction. Thus we could describe this new quality as one belonging to the new seers, in contrast to the old, much the same as don Juan had explained to Castaneda in the course of his teachings.

The distracting factor in clairvoyance is that it does not operate through a synthesising vision. Isolated events are ‘seen’, often with astounding accuracy and faithfulness to detail; but there is usually no evidence of a TOTAL vision, or a seeing that harmonises and draws into the panorama of its vision numerous interrelated elements. This perception of the interrelated is a primary characteristic of the new way. Without it there is no new way.

Thus in these pages I have given a key to an entirely different method of prediction, if it may so be called. In the passage quoted on page 1,  this capacity is displayed. It is an ability to perceive the connection between things. Had this not been the case, it would not have been possible to take the Mother’s 17 July statement regarding Auroville and the third world war and link it to the temple episode via its concluding date, 17 January; and in so doing, to pinpoint, in effect, the exact beginning of that War. The ability to weave this web hinged on the fact that through Gnosis and the practice of this Yoga, it was spontaneously or intuitively known that these events were and are decidedly interrelated. I shall provide another accurate and non-speculative example of this action further on, again involving the same War/Temple/Axis.

At the heart of this new experience lies the fact that clairvoyance isolates a phenomenon. It is a sort of specialised focusing of the inner lens on a particular frame in the film projecting itself on the screen of Time. But it is just one frame, or perhaps several in a string, in a linear display. The new Act of Seeing is largely circular, incorporating therefore the detail and the whole, the one and the many. In his writings on the Mind of Light at the very end of his life, Sri Aurobindo discusses its properties and purpose in ‘The Supramental Manifestation’:

‘…A mind of light will replace the present confusion and trouble of this earthly ignorance; it is likely that even those parts of humanity which cannot reach it will yet be aware of its possibility and consciously tend towards it; not only so, but the life of humanity will be enlightened, uplifted, governed, harmonised by this luminous principle…It is this possibility that we have to look at and that would mean a new humanity uplifted into Light, capable of a spiritualised being and action, open to governance by some light of the Truth-Consciousness, capable even on the mental level and in its own order of something that might be called the beginning of a divinised life.’

A revealing difference between the two methods of ‘seeing the future’ is that in ordinary clairvoyance an accurate time-sense is invariably lacking; or if the ability to pinpoint an event in time does exist, time is a secondary factor, not central and controlling as in the new Seeing. Indeed, Time had not become the ‘ally’ in the transformative process until recently; it had not come to the point where it could ‘release its energy’ as a pivotal ingredient in the establishment of a new order for the world.

In traditional astrology time is, of course, a key feature. But still its role is peripheral rather than central. This is indicated by the simple fact that in casting a horoscope the astrologer places the Earth at the centre of the chart. On the other hand, in the new astrology for this new age, the Gnostic Circle places the Sun central. The experience we know of Time on this planet hinges on the pulse emanating from the Sun. Thus it is only in the New Way that we find Time to be a collaborating, creative force. We should not be surprised therefore to find that the Temple of the Mother’s original vision is a symphony of time relations, as she herself explained.

While on the subject of the War and the old and new seeing, I should like to reproduce a portion of a letter recently received from John Wren-Lewis, precisely related to this question of seeing. It was written on New Year’s Day, 1991:

‘…I will just make one comment here on your remarks…about the common feeling, especially in America, that some kind of world disaster is necessary for humankind as a “cleansing” before the true New Age can come. (See, TVN 5/2, June 1990, page 27, ‘Other Possibilities’.) You made this remark before the current Middle East crisis (and I expect this will reach you before the U.S. deadline date, and hence in all probability before we know for certain what’s going to occur there), but I think it was a very shrewd analysis, and I’d go so far as to say that this apparently widespread and deep feeling (which I’ve encountered quite often in the context of prophecies which sometimes seem to come upon folk in near-death experiences) is very dangerous indeed, and possibly one of the factors most likely to actually precipitate disaster. Have you read Heading Towards Omega by Kenneth Ring, the University of Connecticut psychology professor who’s probably done more than any other single person to put near-death research on the map amongst serious investigators? It’s encouraging in a way, inasmuch as he reports a substantial consensus amongst NDE “Prophets” that the Great Cleansing would happen at the end of 1988! He gets around this by suggesting that what these people “see” is a possible scenario of the logic inherent in current world activities unless some change of consciousness intervenes, but I think this ignores the very real danger that people actually want to seek out pain for themselves and others if they feel guilty enough underneath the surface of consciousness. So, I welcome your turning attention to this one.’

I was able to answer Wren-Lewis on 22 January, after the US deadline, and after the supplement of the February 1991 VISHAAL went out containing my letter on ‘war in the new way’:

     ‘Your references to the “cleansing” as seen by people who seem to break into a higher state of awareness when on the point of death, or coming back from death, forces me to explain what I wrote in the Harvard letter concerning the time equation which pinpointed certain events that formed a part of the process I described. What you have written to me is really a sort of confirmation of the preciseness of the formula. In particular your reference to the “end of 1988” as the time the NDE Prophets pinpoint as the time it is all supposed to happen.

‘Now, what I wrote in my letter to IG [cited above] may seem to contradict what is in this latest piece regarding the necessity of a certain “destruction”, but it is not at all so. The whole point is that the work of the 1980s brought the shift from Destruction to dissolution. This is all explained in my article so I needn’t go into it here. But I had mentioned to IG that I was seeing “something else” as the solution. This was precisely it – a new way of dealing with the practicalities of the matter. In other words, already in 1981 I had realised that a new power or a new action would have to manifest and this new equation would render obsolete past strategies and all those dire prognostications.

‘Well, in the course of the decade I LIVED the process, but more on that another time, it is described off and on in VISHAAL, and also in this latest piece. Now these NDE seeings provide another proof of the accuracy of the experience and formulations. They saw end 1988 as the time of the “cleansing” because that was, in fact, the end of the cementing of the 8 as Dissolution rather than Destruction. 1988 was a year of 8 number-power. I believe you have the VISHAAL of December 1988 and the article “The New Dawn of 1989”. This was a discussion of the culmination of the 8 power. And then came 1989 and the end of the cycle; a new one was opened that year, with the close of the previous ennead. Thus 1989 was a formidable year indeed, as world events proved abundantly. But, as the NDEs saw, 1988 was correct as a demarcation, and a shift to a new operation based on a new principle.

‘The only problem with these seeings is that one has to have “eyes made new”. These subjects transcribe their visions according to their perception which is quite limited. It is conditioned by the old formulas. Nonetheless, and this is the fascinating part, they are correct in what they are perceiving, thus proving NEGATIVELY the efficacy of the new formula, minus the “shift”. In other words, the timing was right, but based on the “old time” and its old pattern – because that is all they know.

‘Thus, 1988 cemented the process of DISSOLUTION. This meant that the Cleansing would be a clean operation. And very, very precise. At the same time, it would be totally different from the projections of the old prophets of whatever school, for in order to move along with the New Time and its revolutionary equation, the consciousness would indeed have to be transformed. But this transformation too is not to be learned in any of the existing Schools. What is taking place is NEW. It has no previous models. Truly a new world is being born.

‘Let me give you some examples; these will involve the happenings I mention in my piece which were carefully CONTROLLED for the purpose of the “release of energy” which I describe. I will not go into the details of the process in this letter because you will read about it in VISHAAL. What I want to clarify is the flaw in these seeings which are on the one hand correct and on the other false, simply because they have not these “new eyes” to perceive that “new heaven and a new earth”. People mouth these phrases constantly, but when it comes to the practical experience we invariably find that they project onto the new their old perceptions and so miss the point entirely.

‘Let us take the earthquake I mentioned as an example in my article, the one that struck California on 17.10.1989 at 5:04 PM. As you know, countless prophets have been predicting the destruction of California by a form of natural cataclysm of this sort. Rajneesh (Osho) is one of the prophets who comes to mind: I remember that in the second half of the 1980s he had advised his disciples to leave California because it was going to be destroyed by an earthquake. True, the quake that all these prophets had been foreseeing did seem to come to pass in that October afternoon, right on time, but it did not bring the total devastation they were all expecting. So, of course they say: next time. But will it follow this pattern? I have my doubts. I see these projections as part and parcel of the old consciousness, incapable of responding to the new time and its workings. Nor its “purpose”. Yes, the quake took place, but its purpose was to release the energy CONTAINED IN THESE FORMATIONS.

‘I realise this may be a little too esoteric for you, but let me try to explain the process as simply as possible. This explanation will become clearer when you have read the February VISHAAL. The main point is that we are dealing with time energy. This, as you know, has been one of the main focuses of my work. In 1982 you found it interesting that I was acquainted with Kozyrev’s work in this field. But my approach is of course quite different from a physicist/mathematician’s. Time is for me a cosmological phenomenon indisputably linked to the evolution of consciousness, and with the keys this “applied cosmology” provides, we can unravel its mysteries and methods. Thus, the Past captures a certain energy and being misaligned as we are as a species, this energy accumulates and creates a “residue” in that dimension where Time operates, which I might call the Zero Dimension. In the cases in question, the visions are meant to fortify the old structures. They are real and true – but irrelevant in the new context. They have no bearing on the new world except insofar as they “serve the purposes of the Centre” by providing for this “release” of energy trapped in Time which then ACCELERATES Time, as it were, and assists as well in the dismantling of the old in a process of “dissolution” rather than destruction.

‘Or else there are the visions of nuclear holocausts. This particular play-out came about on 26.4.1986 in Chernobyl. The expected disaster occurred but in an entirely “controlled” manner – controlled by the new time equation, that is, not by technology which in fact failed to rise to the occasion. The purpose of this play-out had little to do with nuclear catastrophe and more with this release of time energy entombed in these vision/formations. Because these usually occur in heightened states of awareness, they are particularly dangerous, the imprinting being considerably more powerful and enduring. At the same time, if the release occurs, that much more energy comes forth. It is precisely for this reason that the Mother always refrained from giving expression to seeings of this sort. She too explained that if she were to do so she would REINFORCE THE FORMATION. And she knew that these were part of the old world, though she may not have had the formula now at our disposal for the release of time energy to deal with these formations at the time of her embodiment. Similarly, in India, for example, a sage is known to have the Power of the Word. A curse from a realised being is especially terrible and is thought to bear unavoidable results. The Puranas are full of tales about the maledictions of seers and gods and goddesses (the latter’s are especially stinging!).

‘The element behind these acts is WILL. But perhaps you are beginning to appreciate what I am hinting at: acts of seeings are the main determinant in our lived experience of the world, starting from the original act of Creation: a Vision that unfolds.

‘Another example of the control of events for the purpose of Release, according to this time equation, was the market Crash of 19.10.1987. In this too we were dealing with the dire prognostications of the economic visionaries: the total collapse of the world economy. This has been an important formation and could not be left out of the process. As you may be aware, there have been predictions about this collapse from prominent quarters in the USA. In Texas there is an economist of Indian origin who shot into the limelight when the ‘Crash’ occurred because he had predicted the collapse of the economy and the stock market crash in a book he had published, basing his predictions on the teachings of his guru, the head of the Anand Marg (since deceased). That Batra had predicted this happening for 1990 while it took place in 1987 did not seem to disturb him much or anyone else, though he was using time cycles for his analysis and I would have expected a bit more accuracy in the affair. No one was greatly put off. But this inaccuracy intrigued me because I could see another “hand” working, with perhaps a very different objective than what Batra had in mind. Indeed, the Crash that did take place was utterly faithful to the power manifesting in the 80s: there was that recognisable feeling of helplessness, of not being able to arrest a movement set in motion somehow, never really adequately explained, which was then taken up by computers and carried through the labyrinthine corridors of computer consciousness throughout the whole world with apparently no intervention possible! And the panic – let us not forget the panic, so intrinsic a part of the financial world consciousness. But the point here too was CONTROL and RELEASE. And once again we were dealing with “visions” and predictions. Batra’s being one good example. His book, by the way, was an instant best seller. Talk about reinforcing formations!

‘Another very important feature of these events is that the controlling Power seems always to pull the happening back from the brink of an abyss. It is as if the world was standing on a precipice, about to slide down – but held back just in time. Because, you see, the point is not to live the experience of destruction but rather DISSOLUTION. And this means the release of energy accumulated in these “sheaths”, as I call them. These layers of time-residue determine what is then played out in the denser physical, hence I call this the Zero Dimension, based on my formula that the fourth dimension of time is space. The three dimensions of time are proper to this Zero Dimension. I have described this in considerable detail in the third volume of The New Way.

‘The point I wish to make here is that if we do not deal with these hidden strata we can never hope to transform anything here, on the denser physical dimension. And this includes everything that constitutes the world as we know it and live it. When New-Age groups carry on about the new world order, the new consciousness, the new man, and so forth, I feel they are not really aware of the implications in their anticipations. We have to dismantle one world and establish another on the same spot! Or in the same “space”. In a simultaneous operation, because if not destruction will overtake the process given the powers we have unleashed upon ourselves for the total annihilation of the species and the planet. So the Control lies in just so much PHYSICAL play-out whereby the accumulated energy is carefully released and UTILISED for the rise and establishment of the new. This is the sense in the story of the descent of Ganga to the Earth. Her crushingly powerful descent has to be met by Shiva. The River-Goddess’s power is then captured in the God’s matted locks and gently released upon Earth.

‘The old prophets, be they near-death experiencers, or whoever, just cannot make this leap in perception, for if they could they would not be in that category! But again, I repeat, the fascinating part of the story is that one cannot deny the truth of what they are seeing. Nor its time factor. It is simply that their visions are limited to the old way, the old world. They have to refocus their lens of perception since their acts of seeing are part and parcel of that oldness and constitute the accumulated energy in the tomb of the Past which now has to be released. The visions therefore have to be played out, but in this controlled manner.

‘Regarding Heading Towards Omega and its author Kenneth Ring’s contention that those 1988 NDE predictions about the Great Cleansing which did not come to pass were “possibilities” unless there was an intervention, we could say his assessment was right in a way – but only partially. Yes, an “intervention” did occur, a realignment, but from what you report, it seems he fails to appreciate the part these visions play in the accumulation of “baggage” which helps to weigh the world down. It is a bit like the channelers who take every word that comes from “the other side” as unquestionably true, just because it comes from the Beyond, which for some reason has to be THE SOURCE. They too fail to realise that not only are there gradations on the other side but that whatever comes into this plane must pass through a human instrument with all the limitations I have described in this letter. I think it was this understanding that made J. Krishnamurti often speak of “changing the brain”, remaking the cells, and referred to the headaches he had as part of a “process” which seemed to be on this order of phenomenon. My point is that it is not so much a question of actual physical cells at this point. That is like jumping the gun. It is the Act of Seeing that is all important, more in line with Castaneda’s reports of don Juan’s teachings.’

It should be evident from this presentation that this ‘act of seeing’ has properties which are entirely different from other such faculties; above all, there is a certain power involved. It is as if the Act rends veils and therefore HASTENS the advent of the thing seen. At the same time, and this is most important, its main function is to reveal the Harmony, the Purpose and the patterns Time weaves on this planet to bring about a new world founded on these higher principles. It is hence an integrating power, a vision of interrelatedness and therefore of oneness. To quote Sri Aurobindo once more on this subject,

‘…What we have called specifically the Mind of Light is indeed the last of a series of descending planes of consciousness in which the Supermind veils itself by a self-chosen limitation or modification of its self-manifesting activities, but its essential character remains the same: there is in it an action of light, of truth, of knowledge in which inconscience, ignorance and error claim no place. It proceeds from knowledge to knowledge; we have not yet crossed over the borders of the truth-conscious into ignorance. The methods are also those of a self-luminous knowing and seeing and feeling and a self-fulfilling action within its own borders; there is no need to seek for something missing, no fumbling, no hesitation: all is still a gnostic action of a gnostic power and principle.’

Considering that this Mind of Light is now functioning in the world, let us now turn to the details of the War with ‘new eyes’.

The American Eagle, symbol of  Power

In the wake of the absoluteness of the American victory in the Gulf War, panic seems to be setting in across the globe, in particular in Third World countries, especially evident in India. The general fear is that we have become trapped in a ‘unipolar’ world, lorded over by the USA and with no nation on Earth able to provide a balancing, attenuating force. There are laments that the United Nations has been hijacked by America and calls for its restructuring whereby this situation might never arise again.

I will not enter into a discussion of the above in any great detail since these fears are an important consideration in the New Way only insofar as they reflect the difficulty the old world has in coming to terms with the new; and above all, with power.

At the outset I must state that America, perhaps better than any other nation, is in the process of fulfilling the purpose for which it came into being as an independent nation. It is difficult to locate a similar impeccable display of faithfulness to an inner truth or Dharma. Having made this point, I shall explain the basis for this statement by reproducing passages from my earlier works concerning the role of America in the scheme of these higher harmonics. It will be revealed that for the past 15 years and more I have been predicting (and recommending) the inevitability of the role America has played in recent events, and will continue to play in the future. Thus, I quote first from The Gnostic Circle, written in 1974, at the time of America’s all-important 198^th birthday, from Chapter 15, ‘The United States of America and India’:

‘The United States of America is of course a very important element in the Earth’s evolution at present. Together with India it forms the evolutionary axis of Cancer and Capricorn that has often been referred to in the text. Capricorn is India’s ancient occult sign, and Cancer is the Sun sign of the United States; these together represent the axis of Spirit and Matter which is now carrying the evolution. It is around these two nations that the future of humanity’s growth into a more divine species largely depends. Both must pass through ‘labour pains’ as described for Tibet. India must become ‘materialised’ and the United States must awaken to the Spirit. If neither of these fulfils its destiny there is no possibility of a transformation on Earth. It is also essential that the two realise their union and come to the point where they shall work in harmony with one another in order that the new reign upon Earth become established, for it is no coincidence that Columbus in 1492 thought he had reached India in his travels and called the natives of the land Indians…

‘Both these nations began their cycles in this present round during 3 years. For America it was 1776 (=3) and for independent India it was 1947 (=3). Thus this year, 1974 on July 4^th the United States was 198 years old and had therefore reached the 9 apex, and on August 15^th, 1974 India is 27 years old, also reaching the 9 Apex. For both nations a new round commences and both have been preparing for this new beginning.

‘With regard to India it was nuclear power that has given the nation a new image, and for the United States it is Watergate and all that it has brought to light which serves to give a new direction to the nation. For India nuclear power was a breakthrough in material science, for America the recent happenings are to make the nation ready for perhaps a spiritual birth, a purging before the actual transformation.’ (Page 181.)

---

‘The two poles, Spirit and Matter, as epitomised in India and America, must unite in the deepest sense and collaborate to bring about the great birth of our times. India has the upholding force but it has lost the ‘arms of Durga’, the material power and possibilities; America must become its matter, America is the Word, the body of the Ideal…’  (Page 199.)

And in The New Way, Volume 1, I had written in 1977,

    ‘The West stands today for the principle of Matter, which the Moon represents. This destiny is centred on one nation that has collected around itself an entire symphony of nations and permeated this collective consciousness with the ideal of materialism. It is true that there is a counter-reaction now being felt in that nation, the United States of America, and a way is being sought to open new and higher vistas with the hope of reorienting its development in order to extricate the world from the present throes of an agonising, slow death process. However, America cannot lead in this endeavour because by destiny she is meant to follow, to be the material support for the nation that must carry out such an awakening and re-orientation, – the nation that has undergone a long preparation for such a task.

‘The East is generally believed to stand for the principle of the Spirit, which is represented by the Sun. However, we can clearly observe that there is only one eastern nation that remains faithful to this role. As America collects around itself all the nations committed to the principles of materialism, in any of its forms, – so India must gather the now dispersed or diffused aspirations of world societies for a spiritual resurgence; and she must provide the inspiration for such an awakening.

‘Herein lies the truth behind the policy of non-alignment that arose in India. However, Jawaharlal Nehru was not able to give correct expression to the real idea behind this movement, which corresponds to the deepest seed of India’s destiny. He was bound not only by the image of an India of the past but also by the conditioning the Western world had brought to bear on her…

‘Thus non-alignment, as it issued from India, meant the attainment of a collective consciousness that could rise above and from there perceive the path whereby the Earth societies could be guided out of the entanglements that alignment has brought.

‘We find however that non-alignment has merely developed into a more constricting process of alignment, because India has herself failed as yet to find the new way…’ (Pages 128-9.).

In both The Gnostic Circle and The New Way, I mention the significant fact that the two peripheral though important members of the Solar Line, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, were also indicators of the intermingling of the American and Indian destinies: Ramakrishna left his body on the eve of India’s independence, while Vivekananda passed away on the day of America’s independence.

The above are just a few passages from my published works where this question is dealt with. There are also many articles that have been featured in VISHAAL which treat the same subject. This is that the feared ‘unipolar’ world is not an accurate assessment of the current situation but merely points to one all-important fact: America is at present living up to her destiny as the centre of the pole of Matter, alone and all-powerful in the midst of the nations of the West which represent that pole in the higher Harmony, while India, an equal if not more important element in the design, has so far failed to live up to her role in the higher scheme of things. Indeed, at the national level there is a ‘void’ in evidence; but this circumstance corresponds to a certain work India must now undertake – a filling of the Void, to be very precise.

I shall provide certain clues based on this new and applied cosmology which will help the student appreciate the accuracy of America’s instrumentation in the Gulf War. Quite simply, we must observe that the dates chosen for the two and only deadlines in the War both fell on 9-power days. The first of these, 15 January, has a very special significance precisely in India: it is the Makar Sankranti, or the day the Sun is supposed to enter the sign Capricorn, which tradition holds to be India’s ruler, as well as the hieroglyph delineating her physical boundaries. But, as I pointed out in my article, ‘The Capricorn Factor’, the problems India faces can be summed up in the fact that the nation celebrates this passage 23 days late. Nonetheless, in the national psyche it plays a significant role and the fact that the deadline set by the Americans was this very auspicious Makar Sankranti must have resonated ‘somewhere’ in the hearts of the people of India.

For a cosmologist of this New Way, however, the deadline date had to be taken amidst a series of other dates, and in particular its 9-power feature. Thus the actual beginning of the War on 17 January fit into this larger scheme, the 0 point of which began on 15 January.

Similarly, the second and last deadline the Americans set was 23 February 1991. Again a 9-power day. Moreover, this marked the final 0 point and from the 23^rd we could count a full cycle of 9 and come to the actual end of the war with the first prisoners released on 4.3.1991, another 9-power day, and 9 days after the 23^rd deadline. At the same time, this final date, 4.3.1991, marked the day that the first member of the Kuwaiti royal family, the Crown Prince and prime minister, returned to Kuwait. But for students of the new cosmology, it is especially interesting to note that it was at exactly the halfway point between these two dates, 23 February and 4 March, the 4.5, that the ceasefire was called: 27-28 February.

There are other numerical features of the War which indicate that America was serving a special purpose in this play-out. Further on we shall discuss some of these, but in the context of other interrelated events and developments. But first we must analyse the special nature of this ‘war in the New Way’, or ‘the Third’s War’.

The Third Principle in Action

It is evident that a very unexpected, unusual and timely set of circumstances had to conspire to allow America to play her destined role in this War. Added to this, we are forced to agree that this War bore very unique and intriguing characteristics. It was like none the Earth has known. These have prompted me to call this the Third World War, or, more aptly, the Third’s War, the reason being that those unusual characteristics can be understood when this point is borne in mind.

Before entering into that part of the discussion, I would like to remind the student of what he or she surely has not been able to forget. It is that the events which allowed America to play her central role in the War took place, in large measure, in 1989. That year, of 9 power, marked the beginning of Pluto’s cycle of the 90s, as well as the last ennead in this millennium. The cycle carries us to 1998, when, in conjunction with the close of the last ennead of the century/millennium, we also have the shift from the 30/29^th degree of Aquarius in the Precession of the Equinoxes, to the 29/28^th. These comprise periods of 72 years. Thirty such shifts carry us through an Age of 2160 years, in this case the Age of Aquarius.

Given these facts, it is obvious that 1989 marked the beginning of a tremendously important cycle for the world. The events of that year certainly proved this in ample measure. As well, they proved the accuracy and ‘new precision’ of this applied cosmology.

Thus, with the collapse of communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and so forth, America found herself alone at the centre of that western pole of Matter, in perfect attunement with her destiny. This position was forced upon her, we must concede, but the important point to bear in mind is that America did not shy away from her role; she demonstrated herself to be equal to the task. And when called upon to carry us through that ‘controlled dismantling’, she did so with impeccable determination and skill. This is not palatable to many throughout the world who view America’s participation as aggression and neo-imperialism. In the old context of things, this assessment might have been appropriate to a certain extent. In today’s world it is a gross mis-seeing and reveals an individual and national consciousness trapped in a frozen dimension of Time. Moreover, it pathetically displays an inability to vibrate to the new and perceive the true nature of the changes taking place in the world today.

To a certain extent I have discussed the ‘third-level’ character of this War in the supplement to the last VISHAAL. I will repeat only a few points which need to be emphasised for the sake of clarity in this analysis. The main item is the centred action of the War, or all nations focusing on one target in a sort of circular convergence. This, above all else, is thoroughly indicative of the action at the third level of the supramental Descent. But to appreciate this better, let us review the other major wars of this century, the First and Second World Wars; in so doing, the true nature of the present one will become clearer.

We have had three such wars in which all the major powers have been involved. These correspond to the three powers of the Solar Line, – the 9 or Transcendent, which would be the First World War; the 6 or Cosmic, and the Second World War; and the 3 or the Individual, the present War.

The first was therefore the Transcendent’s war. When taken in isolation from the other Principles, the Transcendent is of course characterised by a certain detachment or aloofness. It stands ‘beyond’, in a certain sense. It is the solitary Principle which most spiritual realisers know and aspire to.

In this context, it is interesting to note that Sri Aurobindo, the 9/Transcendent of the Line, did indeed face that War alone. The Mother had come to Pondicherry in their first meeting on 29 March, 1914. Soon thereafter war broke out and she left for Europe. She spent almost the entire period of the war in Japan where her husband was posted on a diplomatic mission.

During that period, – that is before 1926 – Sri Aurobindo carried on the work of the Age alone. They had not formally joined in their mission. In addition, the First World War took place still in the Age of Pisces. It closed the Age, cleansed the field for the great dawning of 1926 and the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. And it was in that very year that the joint mission of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother began. Thus the First World War stood in the ‘beyond’ of the new Age.

The Second World War was another matter entirely. It was fully the Mother’s War, as I have described in various publications. Thus, being the Mother’s domain, it bore characteristics of the Cosmic Principle. In the larger scheme of things, this is where the forces of Light and Darkness manifest. Its character is dualistic and therefore it is highly occult, given its cosmic foundation. Of all the three, that War was certainly the most occult, even to the extent that the Nazis had adopted various occult symbols in the course of their activities. As well, they took certain key elements of the New Age and perverted them – i.e., the ‘Aryan race’, and even the creation of a centre for their activities which was to be the ‘navel of the world’, using certain occult formulas of sacred architecture and geometry for the purpose. It is known, in addition, that Hitler was in contact with an occult being who communicated to him regularly the instructions for carrying Nazi Germany to world supremacy.

However, perhaps the factor most indicative of the 6 or the Cosmic Principle in action in the Second World War was its binary nature: powers were ranged against each other in a manner entirely expressive of the dual character of the Cosmic. There were the Allies and the Axis powers. Things, though clearly defined and stark in their bare truth, were not ‘put in their place’ during that phase of the evolution, though there were hints of a future possibility of a superior definition in world affairs. Nonetheless, this failure, which we might call the obvious gap in the Scheme, allowed for the Cold War to take shape and a world still far from any true ‘new order’.

This could be a long discussion, and space does not permit me to do justice to this theme. Let me then pass on to the third-level War and, with the help of the analysis of the former two and in conjunction with those ‘principles’, we can better understand what exactly has been the uniqueness of this confrontation.

The Third is the Individual Principle, or the soul. Its main characteristic is, I repeat, a centering, a convergence onto a centre or a flowering from a centre. Most important of all is that at the third level of the Descent, through the special processes of the supramental yoga, there is the ‘birth that fills the void’. This refers to the void that arises when the Third Principle is not incorporated in an integrating process and the BINARY status of the Cosmic reigns supreme. The work of the Third is therefore to FILL THAT VOID.

This may be too esoteric for the student, but suffice to say that it is when the ‘void’ is filled on the basis of such a ‘centering’ and REALIGNMENT that it is possible for us to experience precisely what we have witnessed in the Third World War; a complete miscalculation and failure of strategies on the part of the instrument occupying the central position in the confrontation.

Saddam Hussein did his best to reshape the characteristic of this War, in particular by his numerous attempts to dismantle the circle of powers converging upon him. He sought, in a word, to replay the Second World War and its BINARY character, be this either Arab against Jew, or Muslim against Christian. However, this was not permitted because that ‘void’ was filled in the 1980s. A ‘centre’ had come into being for the Earth and a new world was formally born. That is, only after that objective had been accomplished could any ‘new world order’ become feasible. To this end, the timing was perfect: 1989 saw the close of that phase of the work – with 1984 as the Great Reversal – and the beginning of a new cycle in which the larger lines of that Order are to be drawn.

When the Centre exists and is the UPHOLDING power in the individual or nation, one of the main tools of the Adversary to pin the species down to its ignorance and misery and pain is rendered obsolete. This tool is undermining. The existence of a void in the binary creature and creation is what permits this constant undermining and collapse of energy. When the void is filled, undermining is an extremely difficult prospect. Consequently, we find that the old strategies fail, as they have failed for Saddam Hussein. None of his calculations brought the desired results. Similarly, the existence of the Centre renders obsolete all our assessments in this regard. The new has no previous model; consequently, political analyses based on past projections can only fail.

However, because the Centre exists and is operative in many spheres, this does not mean that everything and everyone in the world are instruments for its expression. We are on the way to a new world, but we have a hard terrain to cross yet. The object of this applied cosmology is precisely to present a new Knowledge which will assist those who aspire to the Truth in this difficult period of transition when the old is often called the new, or the new is missed sight of entirely.

The three Principles correspond to planes of consciousness: the first is the Spiritual, the second the Mental, and the third is the Vital. I will discuss the last two in more detail since these planes have been involved in the War – the Mental and the Vital – with the former playing a more subdued role.

The new cosmology reveals that the Middle East is an arena where two peoples have stood pitted against each other since biblical times, and that these peoples are representative of these two planes of consciousness-being. The Jews represent the Mental, while the Arabs are the Vital. Thus if we consider that the Second World War was the Mother’s war, or the Cosmic Divine, and that corresponded to the Mental Principle, we realise that the third war would then have to focus on the Vital; by consequence, the Jews were destined to be kept out of this war, as indeed they were. In spite of Saddam Hussein’s relentless attempts to draw the Israelis into the conflict, he was unsuccessful. We may attribute this to superior diplomacy and the irresistible offer of billions of dollars as the reward for restraint, but it must be borne in mind that the Power makes use of human instruments and compelling circumstances to achieve its higher aims. Thus the exclusive focus of this war was the Vital, and Saddam Hussein was its representative.

Similarly, Saddam Hussein sought to make of the conflict a religious one, in the effort to legitimise his stand and cast himself into a hero’s garb. This too failed because the issue to be dealt with was not the ‘knot’ in the evolution of consciousness engendered by religions. That aspect of the process comes at the final stage, the fourth, when the Physical plane becomes the focal point. At the fourth level there is an interesting phenomenon: the Serpent’s head and tail meet: the spiritual joins the physical and there is an integration of all the intermediary levels.

The Iraqi leader sought to draw the Allies into a thoroughly ‘vital’ war, a man-to-man combat, exclaiming time and again that he would ‘show the infidels a thing or two’ once the land assault began. We know the outcome of the rhetoric. Especially important to note is that all attempts to exceed the boundaries of the conflict, set not by human elements but by the Divine Shakti, failed. This of course was part and parcel of the ‘control’ which characterised the War. I hasten to add that this does not diminish the value and capabilities of the executing human forces, who are convinced that it was their strategies that brought the victory. The Divine works through human instruments, and indeed one of the main objectives of the Yoga and the evolution of consciousness is to attain a poise whereby there is no conflict of wills, human versus divine. To help the human creature in this noble endeavour, the new cosmology seeks to provide those who wish to collaborate in the great Transformation certain keys of knowledge which will assist the sincere seeker in following the expressions of that supreme Will in world events, in those spheres which for so very long have been kept apart from the Divine Order as incompatible or unable in any way to be channels for that Truth to manifest. Through the new cosmology we see, therefore, that ‘all life is yoga’, to use Sri Aurobindo’s phrase, and all are participants in the masterful Play of the divine Strategist.

And finally, in discussing the Third Principle it is necessary to note that the United States of America was born on the wings of its power, given its independence in 1776(=3). Thus the nation was suited in more ways than one for the role it has just played so well. On the other hand, India, also born on that same 3-power ‘note’, has yet to experience the play-out that will unveil its true role in this new Age. India has a special work to do for the world, and the time nears when she will be compelled to express the summit of her destiny.

Prophecies, Temples, and ‘Hidden Mannas’

Most esoteric schools and religious fundamentalists have been expecting a major conflagration in the Middle East. One of their most important sources of information seeming to confirm this calamity has been ‘The Revelation’ of St John. In the supplement to the last VISHAAL , I too have quoted portions of the text which do indeed describe the Gulf War and the destruction of ‘Babylon’. The element in the prophecy which is overlooked, however, is the role the Temple plays though this is the key feature of ‘The Revelation’.

In my book, The Hidden Manna, I have deciphered St John’s text and laid bare the purpose of the Temple. In addition, immediately after its publication in November of 1976, I wrote a paper entitled ‘What is Wrong with Matrimandir’, where I expose the falsehood reigning in Auroville in precisely what concerns that Temple. The last section of the paper has proven to be prophetic of our times and this War. In consonance with the new precision at work and the new method of prediction described in the beginning of the present article, the time of the Third World War was given when, in the very beginning of the section entitled ‘Matrimandir, India, Earth’, I chose a message of the Mother to introduce the most important discussion of the paper which, as might be expected, bore the date 2.8.1970, or the very day Saddam Hussein would invade Kuwait 20 years into the future. At the same time, this message concerning the role of India and the imperative need for the ‘psychic law’ to reign in the nation, was given by her just after she had the vision of the Temple.

The ‘temple’ St John refers to is considered to be Solomon’s Temple rebuilt. This indeed would have been the legitimate interpretation prior to the Supramental Manifestation in 1956. But given this occurrence, ‘all things are made new’, as the text of ‘The Revelation’ itself specifies. Insofar as the last pages of this paper connect these different issues, i.e., the Temple, the Middle East, the War, and so forth, I would like to reproduce for VISHAAL readers what I wrote then, in January 1977:

     ‘There are prophecies thousands of years old which speak of the Temple and the need to rebuild it. These prophecies come from the Middle East, where today the war between two religions rages. After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, it was predicted that the age of Peace, the golden era for the Earth would begin when first, the state of Israel was formed once again and the Jews reunited therein; second, Jerusalem was taken back and the Jews again able to worship at the Wailing Wall; and third, the Temple was rebuilt.

‘Two of these prophecies have been fulfilled. The third remains and seems impossible: on the site where the Temple is supposed to be rebuilt an important monument of Islamic worship now stands. To build the Temple there would mean destroying the mosque first. We know that such an event would signify that the Earth was on the threshold of a Third World War.

‘But the prophecy is fulfilled, in a way which truly opens the doors to an era of unity and peace. Jerusalem means “the peace that is visualised”. It is King Solomon’s Temple that is built therein, the Egyptian Jew, wisest of all men, possessor of the Knowledge, who received the divine plan for the Temple and had it built. History tells us he could not use his own people however for this great task and he had to resort to neighbouring Tyre and seek the aid of the Phoenician King Hiram. It was this secular monarch who served him in the building of the Temple.

‘The prophecies then speak of rebuilding Solomon’s Temple for the Age of Unity. But at the time they were given the world was not one whole, and unity was considered to be unity of a people, a race. Today such a unity is no unity at all. Only the unification of the entire Earth can have meaning for the new world, for an Earth that is now seen as one whole, and for such an accomplishment it is imperative to rise above religious division, precisely what cannot happen in Jerusalem, for the nations there seek to consolidate themselves according to the traditions of the past and reinforce the divisions of old. This can be, the Earth can know peace for a while during the transitional phase, even in such conditions, – but only if the Centre of the New Earth is established, which has the power to unite all the nations, in the realm of as yet hidden dimensions of Earth being. Thus in spite of itself, by the mere presence on the planet of such a Centre, the Earth’s societies will be occultly influenced and the hard barriers softened to make it possible to move forward toward a new Life, to escape the clasp of Death that lurks behind each corner, that threatens to devour the new Child that is being born.

‘While Jerusalem means “the peace that is seen”, Solomon means “her Peace”. It need only be mentioned that the Mother named the place where the Temple is being built: PEACE. The white dove is its symbol. And the Room is on the plan of 12, as is the prophesied Temple of Solomon which is to be rebuilt. As well, the prophecy speaks of a New Jerusalem, hence not the old one. Moreover, Sri Aurobindo’s symbol is known as “Solomon’s Seal” in occult schools, or the “Star of David” in exoteric bodies, since Solomon was David’s son. This symbol is the centrepiece of the Mother’s Room.

‘The situation which gave rise to the partition of India is the same that divides the peoples of the Middle East. It is only in India that the occult axial power can establish itself which will harmoniously solve this problem for the whole Earth. The physical war may now be fought elsewhere, but the occult war is waged here. It is wiser to undo the errors that have so far been cemented in Matrimandir, than to reach the point where the Mosque in Jerusalem will be destroyed.’ (‘What is Wrong with Matrimandir’, p. 46-7.)

The ‘physical war’ that was ‘fought elsewhere’ has just come to an end, regulated by the very Knowledge the Mother captured in the original plan she gave for Matrimandir. But what of the ‘occult war’?

When I wrote the above Ayodhya was not an issue in India. Now however, by an unusual turn of events, we find that the very same conundrum has to be addressed in India as we find in Jerusalem: destroy the mosque to build the temple. At the same time, the errors in the Matrimandir were never undone. Consequently, Auroville was unable to ‘avoid a world war’, as the Mother had hoped.

I began this article with reference to a comment the Mother made to Indira Gandhi on 17 July 1969. I would like to return to that same date as perhaps the time when, in the summer of 1969, an English writer, Henry Lincoln, came upon a book which opened a new chapter in his life. It drew him, and the two who were later to become his colleagues, to the discovery of certain intriguing facts of history starting in biblical times and moving through European history via, for one, the Knights Templar and a society known as the Prieuré de Sion or the Priory of Sion (PS hereinafter). Since these discoveries involve secrets and temples and dynasties and new world orders, and, significantly, numbers and astrology and sacred geometry and architecture; and since Henry Lincoln’s first contact with this material began at the very time the Mother sent out her first ‘clue’ regarding the time-axis 17 July/17 January, I consider it appropriate to draw these findings into our discussion. I shall begin by first pointing out that Lincoln dated the Introduction to a book which he later published on the subject, together with his two colleagues, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, the 17^th of January, 1981. The book is entitled, The Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Jonathan Cape, 1982). It was an instant best seller and went into numerous editions after its first publication in 1982.

The book begins with the story of a parish priest, Bérenger Saunière, in the small village of Rennes-le-Château in the south of France. In 1891 Sauniere began a restoration of the church in his care, and in so doing appears to have come upon four parchments, one dated 1244, another 1644, and the others from the 1700s. Considering that the priest became immensely wealthy after this discovery, it is believed that these documents allowed him to locate the whereabouts of a treasure which some believe may have belonged to the Knights Templar who operated from that area from the 12^th Century onward. These parchments seem to have formed a rallying point for a renewed interest in the core of the PS’s quest. Before 1188 the PS and the Knights Templar enjoyed a common ‘Grand Master’, as the head of the organisation is called. At that time they branched into two, and finally the Knights Templar were exterminated in the 14^th Century except for the seat of the society near Rennes-le-Château and some places outside France it seems.

The history of these two organisations is a long one; it has been fully documented in the book and the student can refer to it for all the details which space will not permit me to include. Let me simply state that it was the Knights Templar who undertook the first crusade in 1099, in quest of certain ‘secrets’. These involved King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. Apart from material treasures, it is widely believed that the Templars were searching for knowledge which would reveal certain basics of sacred architecture, number and geometry, and that these discoveries would, in some way, confer power and unlimited wealth through alchemical formulae which seem to have been contained in these findings. Whether these secrets were discovered or not, may not be conclusively proven. My belief is that something was discovered – but only a fragment, or a clue pointing to future discoveries, all of which concerned ‘the temple’.

In view of what I had written in my paper, ‘What is Wrong with Matrimandir’, quoted on pages 24 and 25, I may now disclose that this ‘secret’ is precisely what the Mother gave out in the original plan of her Temple in 1970. Furthermore, the date 17 January seems to occupy a most, if not the most important place in the PS’s involvement with this matter. It was during the 18 days ending with 17 January 1970, in the course of her attempts to convince the disciple and architects of the worthiness of her vision, that the Mother revealed by far the most astounding ‘secret’ of that vision. It was the measurement of the Globe, 70cms. On the basis of this simple measurement, I was able to make all the discoveries which I have recorded in the three volumes of The New Way. At the same time, it was the measurement of the globe that disclosed the whereabouts of the fourth member of the Solar Line and the rebirth of Sri Aurobindo in that form. This ‘child’ was the tremendous Secret which was occulted in those measurements. And this is what the Prieuré has been searching for for the past 1000 years.

Inasmuch as all of this is now history – that is, I had already given out this knowledge in unimaginable detail long before becoming acquainted with PS’s existence – there is no need to mince words and suppress these important facts. Especially since they involve earth-shattering events and the future of the world, its survival into the 21^st Century, and that much discussed ‘new world order’.

It was in March of 1976 that on the basis of the globe’s measurement I was able to fit all the pieces of the Temple’s mosaic together, the central theme and revelation of which was this Child. It was in Sri Aurobindo’s 76^th Aphorism that he himself revealed the nature of that birth and its goal. I quote,

‘Europe prides herself on her practical and

scientific organisation and efficiency. I am

waiting till her organisation is perfect; then

a child shall destroy her.’

I shall now reproduce certain important comments the Mother made on this aphorism, on 11.12.1971. I have included them in The New Way as Appendix II. The date of these comments is all-important, especially since the Mother herself emphasises this point by stating that…‘the time has come to say it’.

When we published these Aphorisms in the ‘bulletin’ [1962], you said to omit this one. It is a very mysterious Aphorism – which I would like to understand naturally. But I would like to know if we should publish it or not.

Where had he written this?

In the ‘Aphorisms’.

Yes, but he hasn’t written a special book: these texts have been taken from here and there.

No, not at all. Sri Aurobindo had a special notebook where he put these Aphorisms as he wrote them. And this one was found amongst the others.

(After a silence) ‘A child’…

What did he write in English in the beginning?

‘Prides herself’.

Prides herself…

I would publish it.

But what did he mean by this?

I don’t know.

Naturally it can only be the power that is destroyed, because one does not destroy the Earth.

Yes, one does not destroy the Earth, but one can destroy a civilisation.

Yes.

He says, ‘Europe will be destroyed’.

Yes…But what child?

I have the impression this came as something absolutely true, an absolutely true prediction – but I don’t know.

You said it was better to omit it.

But now, on the contrary, I have the impression that it must be said. But I don’t know if the time has come yet – ‘come’, I mean for the realisation; the time has come to say it but not for the realisation.

‘The child’…perhaps it is the child of the New World – with a smile, he will make all that collapse.

Yes, it is possible – it is possible.

(silence)

This has an incredible power…something formidable. You cannot imagine the power that is in there, it is really as if the Divine Himself were saying, ‘J’attends’…I am waiting…

By the end of 1971 the plan of the Temple had been given, the foundation had been laid – and the plan distorted seemingly beyond repair. At the same time, the Fourth as a child had reached Pondicherry. Indeed, the time had come ‘to say it’, but not yet for the realisation. The Mother’s words were as prophetic as Sri Aurobindo’s had been decades earlier.

The above of course reveals that the Mother was not aware, in all its details, of what she had captured in the plan of her Temple. For it was a revelation that had to be kept entirely secret until the full details of the Knowledge had descended. And this happened in the 76^th year of the century; then the ‘power’ of Sri Aurobindo’s 76^th Aphorism was released. That ‘child’, that fourth in the Line, was the binding energy of the Knowledge, without which the ‘temple’ could not stand for it would have neither a fourfold supramental foundation nor a centre.

I am obliged to give further background of the PS in order to disclose exactly what it was that Sri Aurobindo was referring to when he stated…‘I am waiting till her organisation is perfect’… The reference is to the unification of Europe.

The Prieuré de Sion has been and continues to be a very influential body in the West. Through the centuries some of the most prominent men and women in history have been its Grand Masters. To name a few, Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Claude Debussy, and Jean Cocteau until 1963. Even the beloved pope, John XXIII, was supposed to have had connections with this order. Indeed, on page 165 of the Corgi Books’ paperback edition of The Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the authors refer specifically to a work which I have had occasion to quote from in VISHAAL, in 1989/90, in the series ‘On Things Neptunian’. This book is The Prophecies of Pope John XXIII, published precisely in 1976. I quoted one of the prophecies because specific mention is made of ‘Patrizia, Daughter of God’, Italian(?), American(?), in connection with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The prophecy mentions the new world order this ‘Patrizia’ would initiate after having brought the Wall down. The authors of The Holy Blood, Holy Grail  have mentioned these prophecies as another curious hint that perhaps John XXIII was indeed affiliated in some way with the PS and connected groups. The evidence they provide in their book certainly lends weight to the argument.

Thus, the PS can boast of a luminous galaxy of personalities among its ranks. In this century there have been prominent politicians and diplomats. Significantly, members of the PS were at the forefront in the creation of the European Economic Community, since the primary objective of the PS has been the unification of Europe. This indeed is the ‘organisation’ which Sri Aurobindo refers to as becoming ‘perfect’ when this ‘child’ steps in and destroys it.

Sri Aurobindo’s words can only be understood when we realise that central to the PS’s ‘secret’ is precisely a child who is supposed to be on the order of a god-king. It is believed that this Child is of the bloodline of Jesus, the secret details of which are thought to be in the possession of the PS.

I have studied the material carefully in The Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and my conclusion is that the Prieure knows ‘the time has come’ for the secret to be revealed. Indeed, the ‘organisation’ they have worked for so diligently has come into being. In 1992 it will be further cemented and we will witness for the first time in history a united Europe. I have also studied the few diagrams and other material presented by the authors which they collected in the course of their investigations. I can state that the ‘clues’ put out by the PS from 1956 are valid and do indeed form a part of that ‘secret’. However, the core of it is ‘something else’. Let me proceed to clarify.

On page 100 of ‘HB,HG’, the authors refer to a private publication which was deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Its title is, ‘Le Serpent Rouge’, or ‘The Red Serpent’. The book was dated, 17 January 1967. Once again January 17 comes up; the date is clearly used to identify or classify the knowledge as being part of that ‘secret’.

Apart from the genealogy of the Merovingian dynasty which is supposed to be the bloodline referred to above, the main portion of the text is a series of 13 prose poems. According to the authors of ‘HB,HG’, they refer to the zodiac and are a sort of allegorical journey through the signs, in a sense recalling my own The Magical Carousel. The authors write,

‘Narrated in the first person, the thirteen prose poems are a type of symbolic or allegorical pilgrimage commencing with Aquarius and ending with Capricorn – which, as the text explicitly states, presides over January 17^th… At one point there is mention of a red snake, “cited in the parchments”, uncoiling across the centuries [italics mine] – an explicit allusion, it would seem, to a bloodline or lineage…’ (page 101).

In addition, the authors state that the text speaks of 13 signs, not 12. This enigmatic 13^th is supposed to stand between Scorpio and Sagittarius, and it is called Ophiuchus or the Serpent Holder. Again, I must state that this conforms very accurately to the ‘secret’. The only problem is that the authors of ‘HB,HG’, not being conversant with matters astrological, have misinterpreted the significance of the meaningful line…‘uncoiling across the centuries’. But, at the same time, THEY ARE CORRECT!

The ‘red serpent’ is, quite simply, the astronomical lunar nodes. This is often referred to as the dragon, or indeed the serpent whose head and tail mark off opposite points in the sky. That is, these nodes, which are the points where the Earth’s orbit and the Moon’s intersect, describe a backward movement through the signs of the zodiac, – hence uncoiling. Eighteen to nineteen years are required for the nodes to move through the entire circle, and therefore they do ‘uncoil across the centuries’. From the information the authors of ‘HB,HG’ have presented, it would appear that the Red Serpent is described in the text as moving from Aquarius to Capricorn in a movement through the zodiac, the last stage being Capricorn rather than Pisces, and within which is 17 January of course.

The correctness of the authors’ assessment that this ‘uncoiling through the centuries’ refers to a bloodline or lineage, is explained in The New Way. In Volume 2, Chapter 10, the two sections wherein the role of these nodes is discussed in minute detail are, ‘The Lunar Nodes in the Harmony of Today’, and ‘The Union of the three Dragons’. I have demonstrated how it is the position of the nodes in the horoscopes of the members of the Solar Line which reveals their interconnection and identity, or their ‘lineage’. But, as is usual in such cases, this may well not be what the Prieure de Sion had in mind. Nonetheless, their own ‘secret dossiers’ confirm the knowledge given out in The New Way and elsewhere in my publications.

But let us return to that enigmatic 13^th sign, the Serpent Holder between Scorpio and Sagittarius. For this was precisely the location of the ‘red serpent’ (hence the ‘Serpent Holder’) at the time of the birth of the ‘child’. I would refer the student to The Hidden Manna as well, since this same phenomenon is referred to in Chapter 12 of The Revelation, and is called the ‘red dragon’, set to ‘devour the man-child’ when he is born. Indeed, the position of the lunar nodes in the mother’s chart of that ‘child’ exactly coincided with the Sun’s position of that ‘son’. It was quite accurate to state therefore…‘about to devour the child’.

The PS has thus proven itself to possess some important clues concerning the momentous advent of this Line and its relation to the Temple. However, they are just clues and nothing more. I am convinced that these documents are given out at this time as ‘bait’, so to speak, in anticipation of a connection being made with the ‘secret’. For the lamentable part is that everything is ready in Europe, the ‘organisation is perfect’, but one fundamental piece is missing in the Prieuré’s design: the Child and, by consequence, the real knowledge of the Temple. Europe stands poised and waiting, her ‘organisation’ complete and perfect. But it is, as it were, an empty vessel. The Line is not of Middle-Eastern origin, nor is the seat of its manifestation Europe. The ‘new Jerusalem’ is in India. And this, of course, can never be palatable to a Euro-centred order.

Be this as it may, I repeat, the PS does possess very interesting clues to the unfoldment of the new manifestation. And 17 January does indeed play a central part. To give another example, apart from the fact that the Third World War indeed began on that date, the ‘red serpent’ was also prominent then, as the war was unfolding. The position of the nodes in the sky from the time the war began to its end was precisely equivalent to the degrees where the Sun is on 17^th January: 26-27 degrees of Capricorn. In a sense one could have predicted that the Third World War would begin when the Red Serpent had reached the point of its own position in the sky. But it would have been difficult to be specific since this interconnecting mechanism repeats itself every 18/19 years. However, there is evidence that the Prieuré knew that a particular year in this century would mark the beginning of the count, the moment when ‘the time has come’. This year was 1956.

As the student knows, it was on 29 February (next in fact to the date of the end of the war) of 1956 that the Mother revealed that ‘the time has come’. The Supramental Manifestation had occurred, and it announced itself with those very words: the time has come. For the PS 1956 was a turning point, as reported earlier.

Insofar as the PS and its associated orders operate from France primarily, it would not be far-fetched to assume that at least one of their members had been apprised of the Mother’s declaration. It is also well to remember that at the time of Sauniere’s discovery of the four precious parchments, the Mother was living in Paris and very much involved with esoteric groups in the city. It is certainly feasible that she had interacted with members of the PS. Possibly her own teachers of occultism were a part of the order. Whatever the case, the foundations were laid during those years of her life for the work she was to do in occultism, primarily involving the greatest work of her life, the revelation of the measurements and design of the Temple.

Given the fact that we are dealing with secrets coveted through the ages, it is understandable that when this manifestation would take place and the knowledge given out, ‘forces’ would emerge in opposition to that truth. It should not be surprising therefore to have experienced just that. From the first moment the Mother gave her disciple and architects the plan for the Temple, with its prized ‘secret’, it was opposed and finally distorted to the point where it would be impossible to find that ‘secret’ in the temple they are building in Auroville. Indeed, this seems to have been a development anticipated or arranged in some ‘region’. Interestingly, the disciple and original architect were French. Those who then took over the construction are Italian: Europe seemed to have dismantled the Knowledge. Ironically, the disciple to whom the Mother first handed her valuable diagram has been assiduously seeking ‘Sri Aurobindo’s secret’ in the voluminous transcripts of his conversations with her, which of course he has never found. Yet it was precisely to him that the Mother entrusted the Secret, which he failed to recognise and take seriously.

At this point, what may we expect? The authors of ‘HB,HG’ have published another book since then, entitled The Messianic Legacy. It incorporates much of the same material but the emphasis is on the workings of the PS today, in particular its efforts to establish a United States of Europe, over which is supposed to preside the divine King, whoever they believe him to be. This book offers other ‘clues’, I might add, in particular dates, – i.e., 1984 as being considered by the present Grand Master of the order to be a year critical to the PS’s plans. The authors report in this context…‘So far, at least, as public affairs were concerned, 1984 was in this respect resoundingly anti-climatic. But so far as the Prieuré de Sion’s own internal affairs were concerned, 1984 was to prove a year of major upheaval’ (p.297-8). Again their information was correct: 1984 was the year that I call, the Great Reversal. It was then, from April 17, 1983 to 17 January 1984 that the new Axis or new alignment came into being; or the incorporation of the Fourth Power and Principle into the work, into the workings of the evolution, into the operations on the world stage. But, though the PS may have intuited this fact, they are unaware of what this might signify in the context of that new order they anticipate, nor would they be able to accept everything else that accompanies the promised event of 1984.

I would like to close this discussion by presenting a sketch of an interesting geometric design found at the Knights Templar church at Garway, Herefordshire. The original church was a circular construction, it may be pointed out; the one standing today is rectangular. This diagram again confirms the ‘secrets’ in the sacred geometry of The New Way and the Mother’s original plan. At the same time, this diagram brings me to the point on which I would like to conclude this article, – namely the Temple’s relation to the Pyramid, and by consequence to Sri Aurobindo’s symbol. It may be recalled that in the June 1988 issue of VISHAAL, in the article ‘Matrimandir Disinformation – Once Again!’ I refer to a prediction about my need to insist on the correct measurements of the Temple, and its connection ‘with Egypt’ (TVN 3/2, page 35). Indeed, the discoveries I made in the Mother’s plan forged the connection, but via Sri Aurobindo’s symbol, the interlaced triangles being of the same proportions as the Great Pyramid. In The New Way I present my findings in a series of special diagrams in Volume 2, Chapter 11 and in Chapter 12, particularly pages 451 to 467. But first, here is the sketch I have made from the ‘HB,HG’ plate 31, of the Templars’ ‘secret’.

The symbols are quite clear. The fish refers to the Vesica Pisces, or the ‘Vessel of the Fish’, as it is called in sacred geometry. On the other side of the carving is a serpent, which we have already discussed. Central is the Pyramid but with the all-important cross in a circle which is both the symbol of the Earth and also the diagram representing that time-axis around which hinged the 1983-1984 breakthrough and the new alignment: 17 April 1983 to 17 January 1984. The circle is placed at the top of the Pyramid, pointing to the ‘axis’ passing through the structure, or the correct and perfect alignment of the edifice. This seems to be contained in a vessel of sorts, perhaps indicating the Vesica Pisces. Indeed, this was precisely the geometric form that revealed the Secret, the coveted knowledge of the Fourth of the Solar Line. At the basis for the construction of the Vesica was the precise measurement the Mother had given for the Temple’s central globe: 70 cms. At the same time that measurement revealed India to be the location of the ‘new Jerusalem’.

The presence of the Pyramid in the carving might not have been so evident in its connection with the Mother’s Temple if it had not been for Sri Aurobindo’s symbol, consisting of two interlaced triangles of the proportions of the Great Pyramid, and that these would fit exactly into the outer form of the construction, as I discovered in 1976; provided, however, that the exact measurements the Mother gave were incorporated. Above all this referred to the floor diameter of 24 metres, wall to wall. If this inner measurement was wrong or in some way inaccurate, there would be no ‘pyramid’ contained in the structure, since the lines upon which the sides of the pyramid were to rest would be non-existent. Indeed, on the basis of this discovery I was able to provide proof that without the correct measurement of the floor of the inner chamber, the all-important axis would be off, and no pyramid would be occultly incorporated with its consequent power.

True to form, my diagrams have now been reproduced in Auroville’s main journal, Auroville Today, but the all-important fact of the incorrect axial measurement they have built in the Matrimandir has been once again withheld. The diagrams appear to refer to what they have built in Auroville. This journal was published in January 1991, with its falsehood blatant and clear. The analysis I have presented in this article can help the seeker to understand just why it is that so much energy has been put into 1) distorting the Mother’s original plan, 2) constructing a building in her name incorporating all those distortions, and 3) tenaciously hiding this information from the public. The issues involved are perhaps the most important of our Aquarian Age, as the material from the Prieure reveals. Whatever I had foreseen regarding the effects the distorted temple would produce have, lamentably, been proven true. The chaos, confusion, disintegration in India have never been so acute; never has India faced the threat of a total dismembering of her sacred Body as starkly as today. For unless India openly takes her place on that time-axis she forms with the United States of America, unless she occupies the ‘centre’, in the fullest terms of what that means, the reign we have worked so hard to hasten will not emerge in all its glory and power.

In closing, let me state therefore that the action moves eastward, the spotlight focuses now on India.

Skambha,

7.3.1991