The events transpiring in Europe merit a separate article, though the subject has been treated indirectly in VISHAAL from its inception in 1985, insofar as they bear a direct relation to the Yoga of the Chamber which I have been describing in various contexts during this period. Indeed, the very existence of this newsletter is entirely due to the successful developments in that revolutionary and new yogic process.
1984 was the reversal-point in the Yoga of the Chamber, but not at all confined to the realisation of one individual or a group. It was a turning point for the whole Earth, with ripples being felt on the increase from that time across the globe. Certain places responded more vibrantly and quickly to this breakthrough; but only because Time had already ripened conditions in those areas, being more responsive to its power for various reasons.
But what exactly happened at that time to make it possible to affirm that the successful outcome of the Yoga of the Chamber had a significant impact on world affairs and the far-reaching changes we are presently witnessing, hitherto thought to be unattainable? For the most salient feature of the events of 1989 is the unexpected changes the Eastern European countries experienced and the relative ease and, above all, the swiftness of the events. Similarly, contrary to the usual turn in such situations, there was very little violence. If we consider the nature of the ‘iron curtain’ which disintegrated to permit this transformation, we are indeed justified in marvelling at the ease with which such formidable structures were dismantled in a matter of days.
A Seer’s ‘dream’
Ancient traditions sustain that behind historic movements of significance stands the yogic realisation of an embodied sage, saint, avatar, either mingling with the people as the Ramayan and Mahabharat describe regarding the lives of the Evolutionary Avatars, Sri Ram and Sri Krishna; or else traditions that hold that there are superior Beings hidden away in the Himalayas or similar far-away retreats who act from a distance on world affairs. Then again there are the claims of disembodied beings, as well as those residing in other galaxies. One ‘brotherhood’ goes so far as to claim that at the centre of the Earth there is a community of superior souls who await the proper conditions before ‘appearing’ and taking over the management of world affairs. This Earth-centre based outfit (!) is held responsible by this group for the course of evolution on the planet, and these august Beings are expected to emerge from their hiding place in the bowels of the Earth and govern the world in the Golden Age which their spiritual efforts are preparing.
Clearly we have no way of verifying any of these claims. Most, if not all, are the fruit of excessive zeal and devotional delirium. I find it therefore understandable that the more pragmatic among us dismiss these stories as aberrations induced in minds warped by excessive mystical indulgence. And, in a sense, I tend to agree.
However, this does not mean that I do not accept the basic premise – which is the impact a yogic breakthrough of a very specific order can and does have on world events. But my point is another: when such actions do occur it must be possible to draw clear and unmistakable connections between the happenings and the process, i.e., the mechanism responsible for the developments on the world stage, and the events themselves as they unfold. There must be a clear, quasi mathematical correlation, a factual connection. To make these connections, however, we are obliged to accept the parameters the yogic process itself lays down. We cannot apply to it the norms and forms of disciplines which have no relation to the yogic methodology, scope and aim; and, more specifically, which lack any ability to operate in the more subtle dimensions where the REAL causes are set in motion for what may later transpire on Earth. By this I do not mean an activity in exclusively occult dimensions or in any sense removed from our physical field. I mean, rather, an action hitherto undiscovered, a power which operates through channels, agents, processes that the human being, however steeped in scientific lore he or she may be, ignores entirely.
Yoga in India (and I refer to the vast gamut inclusive of and beyond hatha yoga, which is normally the only discipline the West knows of the Indian yogic genius) is an extremely precise affair. The numerous shastras which form the recorded guidelines of these systems attest to the exactness which the realisers of these different schools of self-perfection were compelled to respect. Similarly, if today we state that the Yoga of the Chamber has played its part in events the world over, it must be possible to explain the connection adequately enough to exempt us from the label of mystic dreamers. This becomes especially important in our present new Age of the Supermind, whose very character fosters a far more mathematical approach in the yogic effort and its accompanying body of knowledge.
Indeed, all systems of Yoga in India have their respective framework of higher knowledge, based on the direct experience, to guide the seeker along those numerous paths. Likewise, the New Way has its framework. More than just a written codus, we have a physical symbol/structure – the inner Chamber of the Mother’s Temple. In particular, the CORE of that structure is the guiding key, being as the Mother prophesied, ‘the symbol of the future realisation’.
This statement was made by her in 1970. From that very year onward – and more specifically from 1971 – the lived yogic process substantiated her claim regarding that magical piece of sacred geometry and architecture, which her own yoga of the years following upon Sri Aurobindo’s passing in 1950 had permitted her ‘to see’.
The ennead 1971-1980, as I have stated elsewhere in VISHAAL, saw the descent of this corpus of an entirely new and truly SYNTHETIC Knowledge, brought about exclusively through yogic experiential methods in precise stages measurable by the yardstick those experiences themselves produced: the Gnostic Circle. Simultaneously, the yardstick permitted the veils to be drawn aside disclosing the true meaning and power of the Mother’s vision. The ennead of 1971-1980 provided us with the invincible foundation of a truth-conscious Gnosis which is the sole basis for the new world order to evolve successfully.
When we crossed the threshold of the ennead’s time portal and moved into the next, 1980-1989, this superior foundation which the supramental yoga had cemented in our experience was the upholding support of the process which came to be known as the Yoga of the Chamber. Its goal was to ‘construct’ that Chamber. Being the ‘symbol of the future realisation’, and the ‘symbol being the thing symbolised’ in our work, it was predictable that the Temple of the Mother’s original vision had to play an immediate and unmistakeable role in the process. Not simply as a ‘symbol’ up there, somewhere, in some occult and removed region or representative category, but right here and within an easily monitored time span. Indeed, that process, if it was to be true to the foundation already laid in the 1970s and recorded in my various books and in VISHAAL, had to make the connections with the planes the Knowledge described. The Yoga of the Chamber was therefore the means to construct the bridge between the physical and the supramental planes. And, we may rejoice, this has been done.
The Mother has discussed an aspect of the problem involved in establishing a connecting bridge of this order. She referred to it as an eternal truth in a timeless poise brought into time. The supramental Truth IS, eternally. Its existence lies beyond our time-measure. However, we live in a world which is time-bound by the very fact that we are embodied. Thus, the ‘process’ which the Mother alludes to is that all-important act of transporting that eternal truth into this material universe and our evolutionary framework. The ‘bridge’ connecting the two requires a very special action to bring it into being so that its purest essence may become rooted in our evolving world…
‘The truth I bring will manifest itself and will be embodied upon earth; for, it is the earth’s and the world’s inevitable destiny. The question of time is not relevant. In one respect the truth which I say will be made manifest, is already realised and established: there is no question of time there. It is in a consciousness timeless and eternally present. There is a process, a play of translation between that timeless poise and the poise in time that we know here below…’.
The process of ‘translation’ or the ‘bridge’ connecting these planes is the important point, the keys of which the Mother herself left us in the plan of the inner Chamber.
To substantiate our claims and the Knowledge put forth, by remarkable interconnections and patterns we are able to see the formulas of the Yoga take viable directive shape in the world. To render this statement non-speculative and thus to escape the labels earlier decried, I shall describe the key element involved in this process and how it has been connected to world affairs in this past decade. In addition, to make the following even clearer and less speculative, I shall reproduce portions of Volume 3 of The New Way, written in November of 1983, just when this yogic breakthrough was taking place that led to the Great Reversal of 1984 and the turn of events at the close of the ennead which are the direct outcome of that Reversal. In doing so two purposes will be served: one is to provide a description from firsthand and immediate experience of the nature of that Power that we see operating openly in the world; and second, I wish to reveal something of the new character of a yogic process based on the Supramental Truth in which knowledge and power are virtually simultaneous manifestations. The text from Volume 3 is able to explain an aspect of the happenings in Eastern Europe which is the most baffling part of the events. This is the swiftness and ease with which the transformation of that political scenario took place – as well as its meticulous faithfulness to the commands of Gnostic Time. One is continuously reading or hearing about the world’s amazement at such developments hitherto believed to be impossible. Indeed, the very terms and symbols involved in the transformation seemed to contradict any such ease and swiftness; namely, the iron curtain, the steel and concrete wall, and so forth. These are indeed solid, formidable, frightening symbols of a closed, blocked consciousness. The political bloc that took refuge behind this ironclad protective wall and which has come to pieces before our amazed eyes, appeared to us as partaking of that sort of hardness and impenetrability, and none could conceive of a breakthrough in such a closed fortress of the order we have just witnessed. Symbol (wall, curtain, etc.) was indeed totally equal to the very consciousness symbolised.
However, in writing Volume 3 in 1983, and during the very month of the breakthroughs which would occur six years later in 1989, I gave out rather exact details of the new process, made possible through the Yoga of the Chamber and in particular the success attained by end 1983. The most difficult and dangerous portion of the Yoga in terms of the individual effort was in 1983. What was achieved then and described in that volume was the creation of a ‘centre’, as I have often discussed in VISHAAL. It was the realisation, or rather the integration of the Fourth Power operating in the cosmos and on Earth, the Son Principle, or that act of PERFECT CENTERING which is ‘the birth that fills the void’. Together with that came the new alignment and in 1984 this constituted the element by which at the time of the Great Reversal the world would not experience chaotic collapse (into the prior ‘void’) which certain formidable pressures might induce or instigate but would be carried along in a minutely CONTROLLED process of transformation based on the existence of a new Power in the alchemy of contending forces. The nature of that Power and how it came into operation, collectively and individually, is described fully in Volume 3.
The Centre ‘Holds’
But what exactly is meant by the statement, the creation of a centre?
It means a NEW ALIGNMENT has come into being, eliminating the supremacy of a binary structure as the matrix of the species. Once this is effectively accomplished we find ourselves on the road to immortality. That is, we have conquered Death.
Indeed, this was the precise nature of what transpired in the course of 1983 to bring the Centre into being and to ‘fill the void’. During that year I withstood the pressures – constant and relentless until the work was done – to exit. I lived the most intense contraction of the embodied consciousness, inward upon itself until it became nothing but a speck of light, a lonesome and entirely solitary POINT and absolutely nothing more.
In other words, as a species we incarnate or enter this material universe of 9 by a similar but reverse process. We are pressed into this dimension, this universe. However, when that ‘point’ that we are is pushed into and through the mental, vital and physical layers of our world, it gathers about itself the elements for its manifestation and existence on Earth. Finally physical birth takes place in a body entirely dependent upon and held together by a ‘poise’ which corresponds to the present stage of evolution of the species. That is, since we are at an incomplete stage, with Mind as the highest governing and determining principle, in its turn having usurped the position of Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness, this incompletion results in an imbalance and we evolve physical structures for our sojourn on the planet in accordance with this state of affairs. That is, we are held together in the physical by an off-centre axis, the direct result of this incompletion. Consequently we orbit a void WHERE THE TRUE CENTRE SHOULD BE. And when Time presses inward, when Time exerts its contracting power at a certain stage in our growth and evolution – individually as well as collectively, as a civilisation – this contraction indeed presses the consciousness inward and upon itself, for it has nowhere else to go. The result is collapse into the Void. The result is Death.
The physical cannot withstand this contraction and sustain continued embodiment and evolution on Earth. We are literally driven out of Earth’s time. Our time comes to an end as a conscious and connected and lived experience on Earth. We are neatly thrust into this void which we orbit, shoved over the brink and into the abyss. The result is the slumber of death, the sleep that veils our previous experience on Earth and obliges us to re-enter in the future shorn of any knowledge of who we are and what our origin is, what we were or even where we are headed.
To be conscious is the aim of the supramental evolution – conscious on all levels of the being, each layer ‘opened’ and ‘integrated’ into the whole. To secure this state and a continued evolution having conquered Death – which means that we never fall into this death-sleep – we must remain conscious through the entire passage and re-entry takes place in a lucid state which SPEEDS UP the process of evolution and makes each and every experience on Earth something entirely luminous.
But this can only come about when there is no longer a void central to the consciousness-being. Implying an OFF-CENTRE AXIS. Hence the need to bring into being the true centre, the need to FILL THE VOID. To achieve this one had to live the contraction to a point CONSCIOUSLY, which normally produces death in the human being, misaligned as the species actually is. One returns to one’s original condition under the pressure of that intense contraction. One returns to one’s POINT STATUS, for there is no other choice once our time has ‘run out’ (like an unwinding clock) and we can only exit the same way we had entered. The reason is that there is nothing to withstand the pressure. There is no SUPPORT given to this ‘point’, this speck of light…or this ‘globe’ that is one’s soul.
In the Mother’s original plan of the Inner Chamber, the Core which she called ‘the symbol of the future realisation’ shows the soul (globe) supported (by the pedestal) and incapable of experiencing any collapse. That Core describes the state of Immortality. Are we surprised then to learn that the Knowledge connects the Pedestal supporting the Globe to 26 November, or Immortality Day? Are we surprised to learn that the Pedestal is the representation of the Son Principle whose birth as the returned Sri Aurobindo took place on that very day, November 26? Are we surprised to learn that the Globe can be ‘supported’ only by a pedestal whose perfect positioning and measurements permit it to be the binding energy of a true new Centre?
Again, are we surprised to learn that in the temple being erected in Auroville the globe they are installing this year does not rest on this perfect alignment and support and that the measurements of the pedestal they have devised is, as everything else in that building, distorted?
This distortion is the reason for all our woes, as individuals, as nations, as a civilisation, as a species: off-centre axis and misalignment create wrong perceptions and destruction and ultimately death. The distortions in the Auroville temple describe with uncanny, unfortunate accuracy the condition of our world of Ignorance. Every modification the builders have introduced in the Mother’s original plan, such as the void in the centre of the room, are faithful descriptions of the state of consciousness of a species of half-light.
For this reason, to counteract the impact of that obstinate rejection of the supramental Light, it was necessary to perform the Yoga of the Chamber. It was imperative to bring into being that true Centre so that in the course of earth-shattering events, those of the recent past as well as those to come, the planet would be saved, there would be no collapse but a miraculous ‘support’ so that civilisation could begin to make the transition demanded of it from 1984 onward, held intact in certain crucial passages and levels to prevent a total destruction. Thus has the process of TRANSFORMATION been introduced in contrast to the old method of constant tearing down, destroying and ultimately collapse into the void.
The first stage of this passage occurred in 1983 when the element came into being which would prevent collapse of the consciousness-being into the binary system’s void when contraction intensified leading to the new death. This element was the true Centre requiring a special alignment of ‘orbits’, or ‘directions’. These directions are described as contraction and expansion. In the chamber’s Core that centre is the Globe. 1983 was a year of 3 number-power. The Globe in turn represents the Third of the Solar Line or the 3 in the formula 9-6-3. It is Thea, it is the ‘act of seeing’. I wish to reproduce here an experience the Mother had in 1915, precisely on that very ‘secret and sacred’ Immortality Day, 26 November, in which this Vedic Truth of the miracle of a world evolved from the act of Seeing manifested in and through her and for which reason I can state very confidently, and based on sound supportive Knowledge, that the Temple she ‘saw’ and revealed to India as the final act of her stupendous Yoga for India and the world, is the only true Vedic Temple of our 9th Manifestation:
‘The entire consciousness immersed in divine contemplation, the whole being enjoyed a supreme and vast felicity.
‘Then was the physical body seized, first in its lower members and next the whole of it, by a sacred trembling which made all personal limits fall away little by little even in the most material sensation. The being grew in greatness progressively, methodically, breaking down every barrier, shattering every obstacle, that it might contain and manifest a force and a power which increased ceaselessly in immensity and intensity. It was as a progressive dilatation of the cells until there was a complete identification with the earth: the body of the awakened consciousness was the terrestrial globe moving harmoniously in ethereal space. All the consciousness knew that its global body was thus moving in the arms of the universal Being, and it gave itself to It in an ecstasy of peaceful bliss. Then it felt that its body was absorbed in the body of the universe and one with it; the consciousness became the consciousness of the universe, immobile in its totality, moving infinitely in its internal complexity. The consciousness of the universe sprang towards the Divine in an ardent aspiration, a perfect surrender, and it saw in the splendour of the immaculate Light, the radiant Being standing on the many-headed serpent whose body coiled infinitely around the universe. The Being in an eternal gesture of triumph mastered and created at one and the same time the serpent and the universe that issued from him; erect on the serpent he dominated it with all his victorious might, and the same gesture that crushed the hydra enveloping the universe gave it eternal birth. Then the consciousness became this Being and perceived that its form was changing once more; it was absorbed into something which was no longer a form and yet contained all forms, something which, immutable, sees, – the Eye, the Witness. And what it sees, is. Then this last vestige of form disappeared and the consciousness itself was absorbed in the Unutterable, the Ineffable…’.
Sri Aurobindo replied the following to this letter, on 31 December 1915:
‘The experience you have described is Vedic in the real sense, though not one which would easily be recognised by the modern systems of Yoga which call themselves Vedic. It is the union of the ‘Earth’ of the Veda and the Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above the earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine.’
The Core of the Mother’s original vision of the Chamber is the secret to the new being, the Gnostic Being who manifests that material union with the Divine, who embodies the eternal Truth without disfiguring veils. This new creation exists in the material universe in a perfect alignment of the powers of contraction and expansion. Or, to express it visually, the Gnostic Being is the embodiment of the Gnostic Circle. Thus, the 4.5 Orbit of his lived experience is when the REVERSAL comes about and the contraction subsequently experienced in passage through the third quarter of the wheel and the sign Scorpio, the sign of Death, does not signify collapse and disintegration. In other words, this being has experienced the new Death in a totally conscious process. There has been a pressing inward of the consciousness to a point (rather than expansion and consequent dissolution of ‘nirvana’), but that action is met by a marvellously supportive expansion, from within, from the newly-aligned centre of one’s being. This is the description of ‘the birth that fills the void’.
Birth and death are therefore transmuted in our experience entirely. The Reversal at the 4.5 Orbit is the revolutionary secret unveiled before our eyes due to the rooting of the Truth-Consciousness in matter, or its own unveiling in the core of matter. That tiny spark of light, that luminous ‘point’ is the Point of our innermost being which becomes our ‘support’ in the experience of the new death.
When this takes place in the process of Yoga a new world is born. New possibilities arise, new experiences are open to humanity. The newness resides in the fact that prior to this Yoga, for example, the type of pressure which had to be exerted upon Eastern Europe to bring about the changes we witnessed would have been too much to bear. The result would have been the bloodiest of revolutions and much worse. It would have been a total and destructive collapse of that area upon which the pressure was applied, carrying with it the rest of civilisation.
Thus, when we say that new forces are operating in the world, it is naïve to believe that this can happen without a process of this order prior to the introduction of these new powers. Both heights and depths must be stretched to new levels or dimensions to contain this action. It is reflected in the expansion of our solar system: a new triad is added with its consequent extensions and expansions of the Eye that Sees, and hence the lived experience on Earth. But when the Yoga of the Chamber passed this crucial reversal point in 1983-4, the time had come for these forces to be released with entirely new and unexpected results. Given the newness of the process and the details of its operation, Sri Aurobindo has aptly referred to our age of transition as ‘the hour of the unexpected’.
In light of the above, it can be understood why I constantly write about ‘the centre that holds’, borrowing a line from Yeats’ apocalyptic verse. The collapse of civilisation was described by him thusly in his poem, ‘The Second Coming’…
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity…
The ‘centre could not hold’ prior to the revolutionary Yoga of the Chamber. In 1983 that Centre, which had not been unveiled centremost in the heart of the new creation, came into existence in the evolutionary matrix. And it ‘held’ when pressured, both in India at Skambha and in the world at large during the trying experiences of the Neptune ennead. There is no better way to convey the nature of this realisation than by requesting the seeker to observe Agni-in-the-Core, the cover and frontispiece of The New Way (which is also available in poster size). This graphic image of the Core displays the perfect alignment and marriage of worlds. Never has a realisation been graced with a ‘symbol’ of such utter perfection of seeing, such exquisite and masterful use of sacred geometry as this one. Agni-in-the-Core is the heart and soul of the new creation, the centremost Centre of the new world.
The ‘Steady State’ Emerging Cosmos
When that centre (globe) was unveiled and its support (pedestal) was realised through the yogic process, Contraction as the unwinding power of Time came into harmonious interaction with the force of Expansion. It was as if a ‘steady state’ universe had been born. This condition of harmony became open to the individual seeker and it signified an entirely new range of possibilities for the Earth. It allowed for the realisation of a dynamic Peace to become established in the being and serve as the vehicle of expression on Earth.
I have written extensively of Contraction and Expansion as simultaneously operating forces or directions. But this is effected only when the centre is born that fills the void. Only then is a SPHERICAL ACTION truly possible (as the lived experience), for without such a centering the experience is always separative and linear. This means that these directions, though concurrent, are not interacting or brought into harmony.
In a binary system this means a movement along a pole (of tension). It is as if the being were sustained on a tensed elastic, with energies shifting from one end to the other, or moving along this shaft which holds the consciousness-being together. Harmony, true and proper, can never be known in such a state; there are time and space gaps to contend with. Above all, the binary poise is pathetically limited in the force or pressure it can receive from other planes. It is open or receptive only to the vital and mental regions, in attunement with the frequencies obtaining in those dimensions. If anything ‘higher’ is introduced, the being succumbs and one or the other centres becomes deranged.
It is the same for the collective consciousness and the ‘body’ of civilisation, or a national ‘body’. The Shakti operating through Time regulates the intake by evolving instruments in tune with these conditions. Aberrations do occur – on the increase especially in times of transition like our own; but on the whole the process of evolution is a flawless operation.
The problem before us at the beginning of the Neptune ennead (1980) was the discovery through the lived experience of the means to set in place in the evolutionary matrix the new alignment, which in turn would permit the intake of energies of a much finer frequency or higher pitch. This demanded an abdication of the mental binary supremacy. This required, therefore, a grappling with the death experience of Scorpio. In a word, it was necessary to transmute those energies expressed zodiacally as the shift from the Scorpion to the Eagle.
It can never be stressed too frequently that the 8th stage in the zodiacal map of evolution is the sign of Death – but that this is not the full circle: four signs follow Scorpio, four stages of the lived experience open to an evolving humanity on Earth. This map is our heritage. It describes the reason for our embodiment on this planet, as well as the measure of our progress within the womb of Earth-time.
The newly-discovered triad of planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, signify for humanity the new planes and the finer energies which are made available in order to experience these higher states and to allow them to mould a new world order. Insofar as it is the 8 Power we are dealing with, we note that in the Neptune/8th-planet ennead of the 1980s, this confrontation with Death has come to pass, altering the structure of our world.
Thus, in the third year of the ennead, 1983, the new death came into being. Contraction did not force the consciousness out of this material dimension, but rather was met with an upholding, supportive movement of expansion. The point where these actions ‘crossed’ created the new alignment – centred perfectly, poised in such a way that thereafter collapse was impossible, simply because at the juncture of the two there was perfect equilibrium. This is the meaning of the ‘new alignment’.
Once this is achieved a reversal occurs (1984) and it is then that Time truly becomes an ally and no longer a destroyer, a devourer of energies in an unwinding, inward spiralling drive. It is then that EVERYTHING becomes Time’s instrument, negative or positive.
However, there is one special feature of this new alignment. This condition produces the unveiling of a ‘divine Purpose’, at the centremost point of intersection. This then, this WILL, or Agni of the ancient Veda, becomes the ‘binding’ principle of our life. This is the ‘centre that holds’ – but the holding means an orbiting of that Will and no other, and nothing else. It is the beginning of a mechanism for bringing about total change in our civilisation, for creating a new order. Indeed, it is only on this basis that real Order can come about, a true cosmos in contrast to the chaos of a binary, competitive, combative world of Ignorance, a world populated by individuals orbiting not this Will and divine Purpose, but the void of their ego-will. And the ‘falcon cannot hear the falconer’….
In my journal during the December solstice I recorded certain experiences pertaining to this Purpose, this Will:
20.12.1989
…I ‘felt’ this question of the outer layers (of forms). I see how form is of many forms… Language is form. The Word is form. Thought formulated via language is form; hence K rejects thought because he is true to his path which rejects time the gestator and consolidator of Form. All of this is Form – some are simply more subtle than the denser and obvious physical.
But this morning I want to express the nature of Essence. I peeled off layers upon layers of all these dense and subtle ‘forms’. What then constitutes essence which UPHOLDS form, which is one with it but yet different, of a different quality or substance, if you will? What is, in a word, the essence of Essence?
What I ‘saw’ was Purpose, Intent, Will. This is not Form. It is Being. Again, it is the driving Power in the universe. Its ‘symbol’ is the Horse: Agni. The ancients knew…
I know this too. I have LIVED it, for this is the important part. The mind learns, the vital lives. And it is the vital which is the vehicle of Purpose or Will in the universe.
The quality of Purpose cannot be explained by forms. One can only cite ‘being’ – what IS. Hence it is a question of Simultaneous Time in the Core. This is what conveys Purpose/Will: the perfect Centre where the naked Truth is lodged. That ‘space’ which is really a convergence of directions and nothing more. This convergence permits a ‘field’ to arise from this centre/core. And once the field comes into being, forms can arise. Hence we say that the field is the extended body of the Sun-Core.
Always we return to this question of the inner truth. The Magical Carousel conveys this superbly in the Capricorn Chapter: layers upon layers of form are peeled away until the children reach the centremost core (of the mountain mass). There stands essential time. Simultaneous Time. Time in the seed, the 0 of Being.
It is in that ‘space’ that the children come to that truth which is, so to speak, ‘formless’. That is, the Time-Spirit demands to know their identity. They give their ‘names’. He replies that that does not explain, ‘Who you are’… Name is still Form. This is clear.
But what is the Time-Spirit fishing for? He presses in, to the point where he reaches Purpose: destiny, or the expression of that Purpose/Will in the universe. This is the Dharma (duty) of the inner truth. Destiny is the ‘form’ of the inner truth or Purpose. And Will is the motor or essence of the Time-Spirit. All of this is given in Carousel.
The ‘formless’. Again I come to the essential difference between my work and all others: the ‘formless’ I refer to is the centremost ‘space’ where form is seen as the womb, the evolucrum housing this ‘centre, this convergence of orbits or universal directions.
The important element is the Centre. When one reaches the Formless, or the ‘space’ where there are no more layers, via a PLUNGE INTO THE CORE (rather than an extension beyond), then there is no question of a void encountered, as with the process of extension beyond as the consciousness disperses itself and dissolves in the Infinite and Transcendent. A plunge into the Core discloses this sacred convergence and the true and only Centre. One can never reach that Centre by extension beyond. This is obvious. One can then never speak of emptiness or void to describe that centre-space. Emptiness and void are terms (forms) which arise to express the method and finality of the extension quest, the dissolving of the consciousness. The important factor which permits this dissolution (and hence the experience of emptiness and void) is precisely the fact that the Core is absent.
However, this is, of course, an illusion. The centre/core never dissolves. It is simply that the seeker adopts a POISE which permits the illusion to arise of a core-less, centre-less experience and consequently a void. That is, rather than accept to be carried by the Supramental Shakti into the core, as the children in Carousel, the seeker resists this force and its compelling pressure into the core of creation, through the countless layers which constitute our world of material creation. One adopts an escapist poise. Peripherally oriented – outward, until the ‘formless’ is reached. And that Formless is nothing other than the Absolute in his transcendent ‘form’, his occupancy of the Infinite by a spread-out, thinned and diluted and dissolved expanse of Being: power-less.
But how incomplete is this realisation! Creation is not a half but an integral truth. And above all, physically it states what it is, what the real nature of Reality is, comprising both essence and form.
We see therefore that cosmic structures, the very structure of the universe and our own planetary system, describe the truth of the New Way: round forms are the ‘words’ used to express the cosmic truth; circular orbits, and the like. These circles and spherical forms imply the undeniable existence of a centre, a centre that holds.
A new world is born when as a civilisation we become poised differently, in the centre rather than in the periphery. This means a NEW ALIGNMENT.
This is the ‘new spirituality’: perception and experience and realisation poised in the core, the seat of the Dharma or that Divine Purpose.
When the Formless is reached via extension beyond then one cannot know that Purpose. Purpose and the seat of Will are known only in the centremost space of the Core. Because spirituality has followed the course of the Buddha into the Void beyond, science has followed suit and evolved theories of purposelessness, or mechanics devoid of conscious intent. This is materialism divorced from essence and purpose. This can only arise in an experience coloured entirely by the void-extension as separate from the central Fullness. Hence it is a fragmented seeing.
The Solar Line, 9/6/3-0/1, expresses in its Being/Avatar this total, integral Reality. The vertical descent of the Solar Line is 9-6-3-0/1. The evolution on Earth (in calendar time) is 3-6-9-0/1. The two together describe the world and all its convergent dimensions.
21.12.1989
It is important to note one fact: Truth in our minds is invariably connected to Essence only. When we think of Truth we think of the Formless. It is an automatic connection. This is the result of the Undermining.
It all becomes clear… Truth is only a property of the Formless. My God, even K fell into this trap: ‘Truth cannot be exact, what can be measured is not truth’. Did he not see how he was fortifying the matter/spirit divide? It is unbelievable how people – high and low – just DO NOT SEE. None question these accepted notions. There is Rajneesh who believes he is the saviour. What is he offering as his ticket to salvation? The same formless Void. The same nirvana which dissolves the Core that alone can give birth to true forms.
The Void is not the answer. The Void is the PROBLEM.
I alone write about ‘the truth of form’. But what I write makes no impact because no one understands at this point what the problem is, what the real distortion is and by consequence how to resolve it. For everyone truth is only perceivable in the domain of the Formless. When we deal with Form we are dealing with something else. Herein lies the description of the separative consciousness which is the mark of the human species. For even our descriptions of that divisive consciousness are wrong. Yet people mouth the right phrases and words continuously. They speak of oneness, of universal, cosmic consciousness. They may even have experiences along these lines. But it stops there at words or experiences.
The true Knowledge does not exist, even the best cannot carry those experiences over into this dimension which has been overtaken by the veils of an undermining Maya. These are not veils now but ironclad crusts. It takes real power now, coupled with Knowledge, to bring down these divisive barriers.
Truth is all-pervading. It is not a property of any one thing, or one dimension, or domain or province. It is all things – subtle and dense. Truth is simply WHAT IS. Truth is clear-seeing of what is. That is, it sees even the Falsehood, the disfiguring, the chasm as what is, but it does not mis-see and call falsehood truth. Truth is never denial. Truth is a consciousness. When we speak of the Truth-Consciousness we mean a consciousness which is able TO SEE WHAT IS. A consciousness which sees the truth of Essence as well as of Form; which is able to penetrate the veils to reach that true Being in all things. And there is also a relative and an absolute Truth. The former is truth subjected to the disfiguration, a victim of the divisive chasm. Whereas absolute truth does not suffer from any disfiguration. The area between essence and form is uncontaminated. The truth in both is equal, oneness. This is oneness: the truth of the Formless Essence and the Multiplicity of Form.
22.12.1989
The mind may learn and the vital live – but Mind is still a part of the higher hemisphere, a ‘higher’ manifestation in a sense. When Mind evolves then we begin to speak of a conscious evolution. The reason is simple enough: Mind is the apparatus of cognition, self-awareness, self-reflection. Unless this capacity exists, all the lived experiences of the vital mean little or nothing. The animal lives ‘in the vital/physical’, with mind not evolved enough to permit self-awareness and conscious experience. This describes its limitations. The human being has the potential of something else, and again something else. But the important thing is the unfolding of that principle, that capacity, that light and power which allows these centres to express their true function but within the total harmony of integrated being.
The Third can draw the lines of this greater Harmony; the Fourth cements it in the physical. That is, the Fourth Power in manifestation allows for the integration in the physical being of these harmonised centres and their forces and powers of expansion.
This is what the City signifies as the field of the Fourth. It is that action of cementing in the physical, in a body, the superior Harmony. Whereas the Centre/Temple as the field of the Third is what establishes a connection (bridge) between the higher planes and this Earth.
This means that until now, until this integral, supramental fourfold manifestation, the planes available and from where one could draw inspiration, so to speak, were limited to the mental. One could go no higher. No wider. These were the boundaries. And on that basis none of the operating centres in the human being could express their full potential since this full potential can only manifest when each centre finds its rightful place within the totality of being.
In this light it is understood why the City is indispensable to complete the Symbol of the gnostic society and the gnostic being. The soul-temple of the Third makes the contact and constructs the bridges, closes the gaps, crosses the chasms and permits the power and light of those higher and more refined regions to manifest on Earth. But the centre/temple is not the field for that physical manifestation. Indeed, Thea is ‘the act of seeing’. SHE GIVES BIRTH TO THE VISION. Uncontaminated, undiluted – pure. But then the field is required to give material expression/form/body to that Seeing. This, in turn, is the function symbolism of the City.
The two, Third and Fourth, must be taken as a dual manifestation similar to the 9 and 6, or the first and second of the Solar Line. The Vision is still ‘up there’ if the field for its expression in form does not manifest.
This new action is explained in the centre/temple itself: No mixture, no distortion of the vision. The Seeing produces the perfect Form. This is the way the Third demonstrates for the world the truth of the New Way. It is a way in which the old boundaries are extended, exceeded; the old and former limitations are surpassed.
In the Centre this action is possible and easily accomplished, as well as demanded. This is because the Centre, rightfully speaking, is the point where a perfect convergence exists. There is no question of ‘gaps’, ‘chasms’, distances. Essence and Form are one. They occupy one space. And this is so beautifully conveyed in Agni-in-the-Core.
Yes, Agni…the divine Will working in the world. Agni, that ‘point’ of perfect convergence, that ‘navel of the world’, that centre that holds. It holds because it is the perfect convergence of universal directions and wherein no ‘gaps’ exist. The proof of this astounding, monumental breakthrough in evolution lies in the New Way.
On the Road to Unity
The principal feature of the new order is action stemming from within, from the centre. There can be no external imposition. The new creation is characterised by this self-contained, spontaneous out-flowering from the centre. However, this must not be confused with the contemporary notion of ‘doing one’s own thing’. This formula is the ticket to chaos because the ‘thing’ one does is not the result of truly centred and innermost promptings from the soul, but simply manipulation and cajoling. A state of chaos means a situation in which confusion prevails to such a degree that the human being cannot know what is an inner truth or simply a clever manipulation by forces entirely external and foreign to that inner truth.
At the same time, we seek a UNIFYING principle. We seek a core-truth which is not only eternal but universal. If we seek order it is understood that there must be something central to that state which has the capacity to infuse our atmosphere and environment with a single purpose. Concurrently, the existence of a unifying element of this nature must allow for the true character of a material creation to express itself: unity and multiplicity – a perfect blending of the two. This is the heart of the new truth-conscious Creation.
We see in the recent transformation of the Communist Bloc something of the above taking shape. Indeed, we can go further and state that it is because this divine Purpose had been unveiled as the central and binding principle of the new creation in 1983-1984, that the movement took shape the way it did, startling in its pace and thoroughness. The key factor in the process was precisely this question of no impositions from outside. Carrying this formula over to the happenings in Eastern Europe, we observe that it was the single most important factor operating in the transformation. There was no foreign power interfering in what was transpiring within the individual components of the Bloc. Russia under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev maintained a distance; and the western capitalist nations had no need to interfere. Thus we see, perhaps for the first time, something NEW operating, a new power. We see peoples spontaneously responding to impulsions arising from within the natural boundaries of the national consciousness-being. Because there was no interference or external imposition of a truth (or falsehood) foreign to the nation’s inner truth, the process was carried out with ease and little violence.
Difficulties arise when the inner truth is not permitted free and spontaneous expression. Violence and destruction are the outcome of wrong directions, – that is, a pressing in from without, rather than the easy and organic flowering from within. The problem has been accurately depicted in the temple being constructed in Auroville, in contrast to the Mother’s original vision and plan. The latter describes the presence and activity of this new Power as a force opertating from within, from the Centre; and from that ‘point’, that seat of the dharma and the inner truth, the lines are extended which delineate the external forms and boundaries. There is no imposition from outside, from the periphery. But in the modified version which has become the ‘symbol’ of the knots and problems humanity must contend with on its road to unity, the periphery (walls) IMPOSED THEIR MEASURE (of falsehood) and impinged upon the space of the Centre, thereby destroying the divine Maya or Measure. Because of the central void, in humanity as well as in the temple in Auroville, this method of external imposition has become the norm.
This pressing in describes the prevalent attitude of our present civilisation. We see the effects in every sphere of life. We see it in our modern systems of agriculture where chemical fertilisers and pesticides are the tools of this imposition and do violence to the soil and its products. For a time we are impressed with the results of our imposition and see in them a sign of a superior mental status within the kingdom of Nature, whom we have learned to dominate and whom we force to yield under the pressure of this external imposition.
We see it in the area of our collective desire nature, where societies the world over are artificially stimulated to want more and more of the things of less and less real value and meaningful substance. At the same time, suppression of that part of our collective being as experienced for the past fifty years in communist countries will not succeed. The vital demands space to expand and express itself. Similarly, the mind of mankind must be free, – free to receive the new Light and express it unfettered by dogmas – political or religious. In a word, the human being’s true and foremost right is FREEDOM, and any political system which impinges upon this natural condition is doomed from the outset.
However, the new being, as I have written in the Prologue to The New Way, expresses ‘only the highest part’ of himself. Therefore, while the highest part is unknown or inoperative, restrictions of various hues and shapes and degrees of severity are inevitable. Means are devised to govern the collective body, all of which signify an outer imposition of some sort. The new world order must therefore be truly new. It must involve an order forging its lines and parameters from within – from within each citizen; and somehow this spontaneous self-expression has to be brought into the harmony of the whole and integrated into the expression of the larger body. Only such an ‘order’ can be deemed truly NEW. Whatever falls short of this is simply a repetition of the binary patterns of the old order.
In the initial transformation of the Communist Bloc we do detect glimpses of this new function in the recent process of dismantling. The main feature, as stated, was the absence of outer impositions and nations left free to find their own solutions. But we must analyse what was required to allow this revolutionary operation to transpire. Clearly Russia had to be kept out of the affair. For this, events were set in motion in 1984 which would ensure the positive collaboration of the USSR during the remaining years of the ennead, in particular 1989. The yogic achievement of 1983-4 began to bear fruit immediately when Brezhnev died and was followed for a very brief spell by Andropov; and finally in March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev took over and began his revolutionising work. These shifts followed one upon the other in rapid succession. Truly an acceleration had begun after the 1984 Reversal, as had been foreseen: things would move fast from that point onward. But what is exceptional is the accuracy with which Time’s control has operated in accordance with the Gnostic Circle guidelines, so that the preliminary basis for the new order in Eastern Europe would be fully laid before the end of the final 9 year of the Neptune ennead of the 1980s: the end that is a beginning, as all 9-power years are in the harmony of gnostic time.
The question remains, How to bring about a collective process which is radically different from the old order, – that is, a collective response which is centrally determined and not the result of outer impositions? In the final chapter of Volume 3 of The New Way, entitled ‘The Core of a Divine Purpose’, I wrote in detail about the manner in which the new power would operate to bring about very rapid, seemingly impossible transformations. The key is action CENTRE-BASED. That is, humanity is not moved by waves overtaking a nation from outside, of whatever sort. Rather, each citizen is responsible to an impulse from within, from his or her core. However, this can only transpire when the true Centre has been unveiled for the Earth and this new element has been rendered an active component in the process of evolution. The Yoga of the Chamber was done for this purpose. The establishment of the Centre in a nuclear space opened the way for the events which swept across Europe. Without that Centre we would have witnessed a repetition of the old, with its attending acts of destruction and consequent collapse:
‘…In that individualised centre all must harmonise and a new balance must be created which will allow the individual to evolve a different and more enlightened society. Yet the soul is not separate from the whole, even as the individual can no longer survive if he sees himself as an isolated particle unrelated to the whole. Our material creation is a miracle of interconnectedness, which at the same time is its great bane. For we are faced today with the harsh reality that a solution will work in one sphere only if it can be applied to or incorporate the total sphere. The tragic condition of the Earth at present, her most dire and lonely hour, is due to the demand for integral solutions. The answer to disarmament, to war, to harmony between nations, is the same answer to the individual’s inner hell. And what is more, the breakthrough that solves one problem solves them all.
‘But what is that breakthrough?
‘In this study a realisation has been discussed which, it was stated, has the power to solve existing problems. It can be said that this realisation is the breakthrough, is the one solution that solves all problems. This may seem a wild and utopian statement, but it bears the test of logic. If all is indeed interconnected and the perceptive eye sees that no answers will come that do not accept this primary characteristic of life on this planet – its irrefutable interconnectedness – then a way must be found which has the power to work on all the parts of this interwoven whole, and in a manner which at the same time organises and controls them. The answer lies in a realisation of the most intense and compelling centrality. This is the realisation of the One in the Core. It is always at the heart, always and ever innermost, and its ability to influence the parts resides in the fact that the same centrality is the essence of each interconnected thing. Thus it influences by oneness.
‘It is at this point that the Fourth who is the One is born in the individual, thus making of the seeker an element in society which serves as a magnet able to contribute to the rise of a gnostic world in an entirely new and harmonious way…
‘…The combined realisations of harmony and integration are the secret for the rise of the new society. This takes us out of the realm of mental formulas and the solution of problems relies solely on the expression of an inner truth. That truth, that One in the Core, becomes the power which harmonises and integrates in a manner none in the mental consciousness could devise. It works from the periphery and from the centre. These outer and innermost reaches are native to all created things. Thus in the joint action described nothing is excluded in the process, precisely because exclusion and division are the causes of all our present woes…’
The condition of Europe receives prominent treatment in Volume 3 – in
particular the division of Germany and the Iron Curtain. I refer to this state of affairs as the direct result of the work of the ‘Lord of Nations’…
‘…Though the asuric power could not gain total supremacy over the world at the time of the rise of Nazism and the resultant Second World War, it did manage to leave its mark on the Earth, which occurred largely because the root of the evil had not been perceived in its more global aspects, – that is, it had not been seen as a force which not only settled itself in Germany but which had also dug its roots deeply into other areas of the world. The proof of this is to be found in certain key happenings…
‘Thus to begin with, if we look at Germany itself at the end of the War we can see the extent of the success of that dark force by observing that the country was dramatically split in two. Not only is this a further example of the divisive characteristic again manifesting itself, but the power of destruction inherent in such acts is visible in the condition that developed after this initial action… Consequently, the division of Germany, apparently the only solution possible at the time, gave immediate rise to what is called ‘the iron curtain’. Surely there can be no clearer example of the falsehood inherent in our diplomatic processes. Diplomacy today, as during the whole of historic time, is the product of mental being and seeing; in consequence, the fruit of its efforts is always productive of a greater and greater process of disintegration – on the basis of acts of division and separation…
‘Between 1945 and 1950, since the Lord of Nations’ efforts were fruitful, several such acts of division occurred, all linked to the same root force. One was the division of Germany, as stated; another was the partition of India…
‘In the world of tomorrow, the world of unity, nations will be formed on the basis of their soul-power; and this will be a harmonious process, – not one of division but revealing rather the delight in the play of the Many in the One. For this, however, the consciousness of a collective cell that unifies must first be fully born.’
The process of unification has been set upon its way and the divisive barriers are beginning to crumble…but in a ‘new way’. It would seem therefore that my New Year prayer of 1976, which later was included in The New Way as its Prologue, is being answered, as a small beginning, it is true, but it is a beginning…
‘I pray for a new way to come about, a way that will cause the barriers between nations and between individuals to fall away, – that we may come to the realisation of a new way.
‘I pray for peace and harmony and good will – above all, good will – among men. I pray for the emergence of a greater understanding and a breakthrough in the attitude of division, be this either political, social or religious. May all men be brought to the realisation that they are members of the one planetary family, regardless of colour or creed, regardless of wealth or poverty.
‘I pray for prosperity, that each man and woman and child may have what is necessary to live in decency in this world, so that their passage on this planet will be a joy and signify a progress, a spiritual and a material rise.
‘May each man come to enjoy the possibility of moving about as he wishes over the Earth, as his one home and the one home of all his brethren; and to express himself as he may like, and to know freedom in all things. But may this freedom be only for the expression of the highest part of himself. May all the ugliness of the old man fall away.
‘May the whole Earth come to realise the one goal, and to understand that no matter how contradictory the appearances may be, each one of us is here for the realisation of the One Goal: to help the Earth realise herself, though her ways are many and appear each one to offer a resistance to the other. Yet this resistance is merely to create the conditions needed for the realisation, the all-embracing Realisation.
‘Let each person see the cause within himself for the suffering and the agony of his Earth. Let him understand that the division in his being is productive of a division within his society. Let him heal this division, and then come to the new way in the collective body – that of true collaboration in a life of harmony, of positive growth, and of all that is true and good and real…’
On 12 March 1976, after this ardent New Year prayer, experiences began which culminated at the Equinox with the unveiling of the Fourth Power of the Solar Line, – the victorious Son, Sri Aurobindo himself reborn on 26 November 1963 or Immortality Day. This Power is the ‘centre that holds’, a power now set abroad upon the Earth, changing the world we have known, for the entire Earth is his stage and the world is his ‘city’.
On 27 February 1985, this fourth member of the Solar Line wrote to me… ‘I agree with you. Citizenships mean nothing, for after all we are all humans. Some humans do nasty things to other humans, which has to stop. I have deliberately chosen Chile as a stage to stop this nastiness; as an example for better things. If you can make India a staging place for a higher consciousness, well and good. I prefer to work in the US’ backyard because it is so prominent on the world scene. I also chose political means because they are the premises people understand – material and obvious. I may be wrong, but I’m quite sceptical that human nature will change or become enlightened through spiritual ways. That may take a long time, and in a long time we are all dead.’
In light of the above, we note that at the very time Europe was experiencing unprecedented changes, in Chile, his ‘chosen stage’, elections were held drawing to an end an oppressive military rule. But let us look more closely at the power of gnostic time operating in all these interconnected events, hinging on certain dates and sensitive points in the Gnostic Circle. Thus we note that the newly-elected president of Chile was born on none other than that same Immortality Day. His full number-power is, like the Fourth of the Solar Line, 2 (26.11.1918=2), while the year of his birth – again like the Fourth – equals 1 (1918=1). There are 45 years that separate these two births. Sri Aurobindo was about this age when he wrote the following profound words on the future ideal and the ‘unseen’ power’ which would operate in the world to fulfil his vision of ‘freedom and unity’. We see that in his new incarnation, as the Fourth Power, he himself has been an ‘unseen power’ whose secret presence gnostic Time unfolds…
‘It is the wrath of Rudra that has swept over the earth and the track of his foot-prints can be seen in these ruins. There has come as a result upon the race the sense of having lived in many falsehoods and the need of building according to an ideal. Therefore we have now to meet the question of the Master of Truth. Two great words of the divine Truth have forced themselves insistently on our minds through the crash of the ruins and the breath of the tempest and are now the leading words of the hoped-for reconstruction, – freedom and unity. But everything depends, first, upon the truth of our vision of them, secondly, upon the sincerity with which we apply it, last and especially on the inwardness of our realisation. Vain will be the mechanical construction of unity, if unity is not in the heart of the race and if it be made only a means for safeguarding and organising our interests; the result will then be only, as it was in the immediate past, a fiercer strife and new outbreaks of revolution and anarchy. No paltering mechanisms which have the appearance but not the truth of freedom, will help us; the new structure, however imposing, will only become another prison and compel a fresh struggle for liberation. The only safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward, not depending on institutions and machinery to perfect him, but out of his growing inner perfection availing to shape a more perfect form and frame of life; for by this inwardness we shall best be able both to see the truth of the high things which we now only speak with our lips and form into outward intellectual constructions, and to apply their truth sincerely to all outward living. If we are to found the kingdom of God in humanity, we must first know God and see and live the diviner truth of our being in ourselves; otherwise how shall a new manipulation of the constructions of the reason and the scientific systems of efficiency which have failed us in the past, avail to establish it? It is because there are plenty of signs that the old error continues and only a minority, leaders perhaps in light, but not yet in action, are striving to see more clearly, inwardly and truly, that we must expect as yet rather the last twilight which divides the dying from the unborn ages than the real dawning. For a time, since the mind of man is not yet ready, the old spirit and method may yet be strong and seem for a short while to prosper; but the future lies with the men and nations who first see beyond both the glare and the dusk of gods of the morning and prepare themselves to be fit instruments of the Power that is pressing towards the light of a greater ideal.’
Sri Aurobindo
‘War and Self-Determination’
The Unseen Power
Skambha, January of 1990