Posts
An essay on Essence and Form
Part I
Reproduced from The Vishaal Newsletter
Volume 4, Number 5, December 1989
© Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet 1989
[Link to Introduction]
Prominent thinkers the world over realise that the old order has come to an end. We witness the crumbling of iron barriers between nations, hitherto believed to be unshakable and resistant to any attempt at change. However, the question remains, What is to emerge in place of the old?
I have shown in minute detail how the Measure of 9 and its inherent formula 9/6/3-0/1, has been active in the Indian subcontinent. But in India too in spite of this remarkable display of the power of gnostic time, the old order persists and we find no spirit in the nation bold enough to introduce the new. Consequently, we hear unending laments from the political opposition about the ‘dynastic rule’ of the Nehru family. I, for one, have often referred to the need to discard or drastically modify the actual parliamentary system of government precisely because its continued use OBLIGES this ‘dynasty’ to perpetuate itself. But the Opposition (as well as the ruling party) silences or disregards any voice that calls for a change in the system, often to the extent of accusing the innovator of wishing to introduce a dictatorship via, for example, the adoption of a presidential form of government. (How a presidential system can be equated with dictatorship is difficult to understand.) The result is that due to this resistance a thoroughly inadequate political structure must somehow serve as the vehicle for the Measure of 9 to hold the nation together.
India inherited its present system from the British. Many of the ills the nation suffers from can be traced to this factor: a ‘foreign’ system has been imposed upon a country which has not been allowed to breathe its independent breath and follow its own rhythms and expressions. This is easily appreciated in an assessment of the Indian model of parliamentary democracy compared to the British image of which it is meant to be a somewhat modified version.
To begin with, in Great Britain we have a true dynasty, a real and healthy monarchy. The monarch in England is not elected of course; he or she is a part of a lineage which cuts through time and is therefore independent of the uncertainties of political fortunes. Consequently, the enviable qualities of stability and continuity arise. They are not fictitious; they are real components of the national heritage.
However, this is not the Indian reality. Every effort has been made to create this situation in India via the office of President, which is meant to provide the same qualities of stability and continuity by being out of the political struggle of the various parties, whose members are elected to parliament approximately every five years on a representative basis. In this way the President stands outside of the political arena; and this, coupled with the fact that his election to office by members of Parliament ordinarily follows a different cycle than the parliamentary polls, is meant to provide that stability and continuity which the British system enjoys via its monarch.
However, we know that this is not the case. The British monarch and the Indian president have little in common because the former is not a construed but a real component based on a quasi organic, evolutionary fact. In contrast, the office of the Indian president is a fabricated imposition in an effort to mimic the British system by introducing a form of government which is supposed to produce the same results but without those legitimate components underlying the arrangement. Continuity and stability are characteristics which cannot be imagined or mentally devised. They come into being by virtue of a series of circumstances which organically confer these conditions in a process of natural development. They are not accommodations but come into being in harmony with certain essential ingredients found in the national psyche. When these conditions exist then stability and continuity become pillars for nation building.
Since this has been lacking in India the line of prime ministers – contrary to Great Britain – has had to serve as the element of continuity. Indeed, the most politically uncertain period India has known since independence was certainly the 2½ years of Opposition rule, from 1977 to end 1979, when there was no member of the ‘Nehru Dynasty’ in office.
Thus in opposing change to some other form of government which would better accommodate this legitimate need for a vehicle capable of providing continuity and stability, the Opposition is condemning itself to continuous defeat at the polls, inasmuch as the Nehru Lunar Line is the means to hold the country together, given the inadequate system India has adopted for her political expression. This is an example of the failure to recognise and appreciate the true character of a nation and the measure of its individual pulsation.
A development of this nature was seen as inevitable, from the cosmological point of view. The most revealing hint of it was the date of Independence itself. Though significantly falling on Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, I have often pointed out that the number-power of the day was 8, just one short of the complete cycle of 9. This fact reveals that full independence from the British had not been attained on some levels. More was yet to come to bring the movement to the 9, or the completed process. Sri Aurobindo himself, in his message to the nation at the time of Independence commented on this very fact: Independence had occurred on his birthday and was a confirmation of his work, but the partitioned condition of the nation had to be healed to make the movement worthy of his highest aims.
The prominent position of the 8 also reveals that there is a residue of a sort which does not easily allow the movement to complete itself. This is explicitly the problem India now faces.
We see that British rule left this residue in the new Indian nation in the form of a political and administrative system which has in its general character no REAL connection with the national spirit. It was an imposition from outside, the result of colonial rule. The bureaucracy, for example, was devised to serve that rule rather than self-rule. Out of this, bearing no harmony with the true pulse of the nation, laws and methods of governing were imposed which to this day hinder rather than further the free and forward-moving thrust the country needs to faithfully fulfil its noble destiny along the lines arising from its own individual web of destiny. One specific aspect of this residue is the increasing chasm between the bureaucracy and the public, as if the public were the enemy of the administration rather than the elements to be served. The explanation for this lamentable situation is simply the fact that indeed the ‘natives’ were the enemy of the Raj and the administration was arranged in such a way as to permit that native populace to be effectively ruled by suppression of its any aspiration and effort at upliftment. The situation in India today, with the almost complete lack of openness (at a time when even the Soviet Union has opened its society) and the nefarious secrecy which characterise the Indian system are the inevitable outcome of the residue the country inherited and which she refuses to shake off.
However, this situation in a very profound sense mirrors the condition of our entire civilisation – east and west. The new must arise amidst the old; but for the true new way, it must somehow come into being uncontaminated by the old. Throughout the world nations and individuals face the same dilemma. We are born into a particular structure or environment. We must evolve within that, bearing the limitations which our heritage may foist upon us. Yet in the midst of these very ‘fields’, and no other, new structures must nonetheless arise.
India is no exception; indeed, her task is perhaps more complex than that of any other nation. But in spite of this limitation she has played out for over a century the patterns of her higher destiny which the new cosmology describes so thoroughly, regardless of any existing limitation. Nonetheless, it is precisely these limitations, this ‘residue’ which is burdening the nation at this critical crossroads of her destiny.
We do not place in doubt that India’s higher destiny is being fulfilled despite the inadequacy of the system within which this superior pattern must draw its lines. We cannot doubt insofar as the facts prove the victorious existence of this higher pattern which, like it or not, has been the pattern the nation has been made to adhere to. However, the 8 makes its presence felt constantly by a certain ‘baggage’ which the country totes on its back. Thus that extraneous element acts as a corrosive agent. It contaminates everything. It is like a parasite draining the host tree of its most vital substance. And as the tree grows, so does the parasite grow. Until a threshold is reached. Then either the tree develops sufficient strength to throw off the parasite, or the latter succeeds in destroying the tree which permitted its growth in the first place.
By examining certain original components such as the health and the condition of the soil and other environmental factors, the emergence of a parasite can more or less be predicted. Thus, given the conditions prevailing at the time of the independence movement (for I consider that we must study the matter from approximately 1857, the year of the Sepoy Rebellion and not just the actual year of Independence), the growth of this ‘parasite’ was easily predicted. Its forecasting required no special occult powers or clairvoyant capacities.
India stands at a crossroads of her destiny. The parasite this nation/tree bears is flourishing and threatens to destroy its host altogether. Indeed, the stronger the host grows the more nourishment and vital sap is made available to the parasitic appendage. At some point a drastic measure must be taken, for when the critical threshold is reached, to continue feeding the host tree simply means giving more and more power to the parasite to destroy the host or the element that sustains it and gives it its life.1 This becomes a self-defeating exercise. In the day-to-day functioning of a nation, a development of this sort is perceived in a number of ways, but the common characteristic of them all is the constant presence of a sense of waste, of pouring resources into what appears to be a black hole in the national field of consciousness-being, a bottomless pit, as it were. Over-population, of course, is an easy tool for this insatiable and destructive drainage. But there are many more, over-population being simply the most obvious.
This is a mathematical occurrence. The development follows organic lines, albeit of an order which the ordinary intelligence cannot perceive or accept, because these laws involve the play of forces, of energies which constitute the ‘body’ of a nation – any nation. Physical, to be sure, but a ‘body’ also animated by a vital force and held together by a ‘purpose’ which is lodged deep within the nation’s innermost psychic essence. A leader can be considered outstanding to the extent to which he or she is able to reach and draw out the nectar of that ‘purpose’ from the deep recesses of the nation’s soul.
Considering this play of forces – a unique combination for each nation – the pattern of India’s higher destiny has evolved. And according to this pattern, and no other, the nation’s political life has taken shape, particularly in these 42 years of its independent life [1989]. But the structure within which this superior model has had to express itself has been inadequate.
Put more simply, there is an essence and a form to all things in this material universe. In a world of disharmony such as ours, ruled by the Ignorance and the Falsehood (and I purposefully use these terms capitalised to lay emphasis on their cosmic origin and hence the evolutionary limitations imposed upon a species which must grow according to a certain cosmic tempo and a largely predetermined pattern), a cleavage exists between the two. Essence is always pure and true, but in a material universe, that same essence must be provided with the proper FORMS to express itself uncontaminated, undistorted and, above all else, not subjected to any imposition from external quarters which bear scant relation to that unique essence of being. Indeed, the single most indicative factor which allows us to identify the consciousness that reigns on Earth as one of Ignorance and Falsehood is that to one who sees, to one who has the capacity to penetrate beneath outer layers and see the soul-essence, it is apparent that along its evolutionary way, in the course of the development of these ‘limbs’ or forms, externals have oppressed that essence and it therefore does not find any fitting vehicle to express itself according to the truth of its essential being.
_______________
I have shown in minute detail how the Measure of 9 and its inherent formula 9/6/3-0/1, has been active in the Indian subcontinent. But in India too in spite of this remarkable display of the power of gnostic time, the old order persists and we find no spirit in the nation bold enough to introduce the new. Consequently, we hear unending laments from the political opposition about the ‘dynastic rule’ of the Nehru family. I, for one, have often referred to the need to discard or drastically modify the actual parliamentary system of government precisely because its continued use OBLIGES this ‘dynasty’ to perpetuate itself. But the Opposition (as well as the ruling party) silences or disregards any voice that calls for a change in the system, often to the extent of accusing the innovator of wishing to introduce a dictatorship via, for example, the adoption of a presidential form of government. (How a presidential system can be equated with dictatorship is difficult to understand.) The result is that due to this resistance a thoroughly inadequate political structure must somehow serve as the vehicle for the Measure of 9 to hold the nation together.
India inherited its present system from the British. Many of the ills the nation suffers from can be traced to this factor: a ‘foreign’ system has been imposed upon a country which has not been allowed to breathe its independent breath and follow its own rhythms and expressions. This is easily appreciated in an assessment of the Indian model of parliamentary democracy compared to the British image of which it is meant to be a somewhat modified version.
To begin with, in Great Britain we have a true dynasty, a real and healthy monarchy. The monarch in England is not elected of course; he or she is a part of a lineage which cuts through time and is therefore independent of the uncertainties of political fortunes. Consequently, the enviable qualities of stability and continuity arise. They are not fictitious; they are real components of the national heritage.
However, this is not the Indian reality. Every effort has been made to create this situation in India via the office of President, which is meant to provide the same qualities of stability and continuity by being out of the political struggle of the various parties, whose members are elected to parliament approximately every five years on a representative basis. In this way the President stands outside of the political arena; and this, coupled with the fact that his election to office by members of Parliament ordinarily follows a different cycle than the parliamentary polls, is meant to provide that stability and continuity which the British system enjoys via its monarch.
However, we know that this is not the case. The British monarch and the Indian president have little in common because the former is not a construed but a real component based on a quasi organic, evolutionary fact. In contrast, the office of the Indian president is a fabricated imposition in an effort to mimic the British system by introducing a form of government which is supposed to produce the same results but without those legitimate components underlying the arrangement. Continuity and stability are characteristics which cannot be imagined or mentally devised. They come into being by virtue of a series of circumstances which organically confer these conditions in a process of natural development. They are not accommodations but come into being in harmony with certain essential ingredients found in the national psyche. When these conditions exist then stability and continuity become pillars for nation building.
Since this has been lacking in India the line of prime ministers – contrary to Great Britain – has had to serve as the element of continuity. Indeed, the most politically uncertain period India has known since independence was certainly the 2½ years of Opposition rule, from 1977 to end 1979, when there was no member of the ‘Nehru Dynasty’ in office.
Thus in opposing change to some other form of government which would better accommodate this legitimate need for a vehicle capable of providing continuity and stability, the Opposition is condemning itself to continuous defeat at the polls, inasmuch as the Nehru Lunar Line is the means to hold the country together, given the inadequate system India has adopted for her political expression. This is an example of the failure to recognise and appreciate the true character of a nation and the measure of its individual pulsation.
A development of this nature was seen as inevitable, from the cosmological point of view. The most revealing hint of it was the date of Independence itself. Though significantly falling on Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, I have often pointed out that the number-power of the day was 8, just one short of the complete cycle of 9. This fact reveals that full independence from the British had not been attained on some levels. More was yet to come to bring the movement to the 9, or the completed process. Sri Aurobindo himself, in his message to the nation at the time of Independence commented on this very fact: Independence had occurred on his birthday and was a confirmation of his work, but the partitioned condition of the nation had to be healed to make the movement worthy of his highest aims.
The prominent position of the 8 also reveals that there is a residue of a sort which does not easily allow the movement to complete itself. This is explicitly the problem India now faces.
We see that British rule left this residue in the new Indian nation in the form of a political and administrative system which has in its general character no REAL connection with the national spirit. It was an imposition from outside, the result of colonial rule. The bureaucracy, for example, was devised to serve that rule rather than self-rule. Out of this, bearing no harmony with the true pulse of the nation, laws and methods of governing were imposed which to this day hinder rather than further the free and forward-moving thrust the country needs to faithfully fulfil its noble destiny along the lines arising from its own individual web of destiny. One specific aspect of this residue is the increasing chasm between the bureaucracy and the public, as if the public were the enemy of the administration rather than the elements to be served. The explanation for this lamentable situation is simply the fact that indeed the ‘natives’ were the enemy of the Raj and the administration was arranged in such a way as to permit that native populace to be effectively ruled by suppression of its any aspiration and effort at upliftment. The situation in India today, with the almost complete lack of openness (at a time when even the Soviet Union has opened its society) and the nefarious secrecy which characterise the Indian system are the inevitable outcome of the residue the country inherited and which she refuses to shake off.
However, this situation in a very profound sense mirrors the condition of our entire civilisation – east and west. The new must arise amidst the old; but for the true new way, it must somehow come into being uncontaminated by the old. Throughout the world nations and individuals face the same dilemma. We are born into a particular structure or environment. We must evolve within that, bearing the limitations which our heritage may foist upon us. Yet in the midst of these very ‘fields’, and no other, new structures must nonetheless arise.
India is no exception; indeed, her task is perhaps more complex than that of any other nation. But in spite of this limitation she has played out for over a century the patterns of her higher destiny which the new cosmology describes so thoroughly, regardless of any existing limitation. Nonetheless, it is precisely these limitations, this ‘residue’ which is burdening the nation at this critical crossroads of her destiny.
We do not place in doubt that India’s higher destiny is being fulfilled despite the inadequacy of the system within which this superior pattern must draw its lines. We cannot doubt insofar as the facts prove the victorious existence of this higher pattern which, like it or not, has been the pattern the nation has been made to adhere to. However, the 8 makes its presence felt constantly by a certain ‘baggage’ which the country totes on its back. Thus that extraneous element acts as a corrosive agent. It contaminates everything. It is like a parasite draining the host tree of its most vital substance. And as the tree grows, so does the parasite grow. Until a threshold is reached. Then either the tree develops sufficient strength to throw off the parasite, or the latter succeeds in destroying the tree which permitted its growth in the first place.
By examining certain original components such as the health and the condition of the soil and other environmental factors, the emergence of a parasite can more or less be predicted. Thus, given the conditions prevailing at the time of the independence movement (for I consider that we must study the matter from approximately 1857, the year of the Sepoy Rebellion and not just the actual year of Independence), the growth of this ‘parasite’ was easily predicted. Its forecasting required no special occult powers or clairvoyant capacities.
India stands at a crossroads of her destiny. The parasite this nation/tree bears is flourishing and threatens to destroy its host altogether. Indeed, the stronger the host grows the more nourishment and vital sap is made available to the parasitic appendage. At some point a drastic measure must be taken, for when the critical threshold is reached, to continue feeding the host tree simply means giving more and more power to the parasite to destroy the host or the element that sustains it and gives it its life.1 This becomes a self-defeating exercise. In the day-to-day functioning of a nation, a development of this sort is perceived in a number of ways, but the common characteristic of them all is the constant presence of a sense of waste, of pouring resources into what appears to be a black hole in the national field of consciousness-being, a bottomless pit, as it were. Over-population, of course, is an easy tool for this insatiable and destructive drainage. But there are many more, over-population being simply the most obvious.
This is a mathematical occurrence. The development follows organic lines, albeit of an order which the ordinary intelligence cannot perceive or accept, because these laws involve the play of forces, of energies which constitute the ‘body’ of a nation – any nation. Physical, to be sure, but a ‘body’ also animated by a vital force and held together by a ‘purpose’ which is lodged deep within the nation’s innermost psychic essence. A leader can be considered outstanding to the extent to which he or she is able to reach and draw out the nectar of that ‘purpose’ from the deep recesses of the nation’s soul.
Considering this play of forces – a unique combination for each nation – the pattern of India’s higher destiny has evolved. And according to this pattern, and no other, the nation’s political life has taken shape, particularly in these 42 years of its independent life [1989]. But the structure within which this superior model has had to express itself has been inadequate.
Put more simply, there is an essence and a form to all things in this material universe. In a world of disharmony such as ours, ruled by the Ignorance and the Falsehood (and I purposefully use these terms capitalised to lay emphasis on their cosmic origin and hence the evolutionary limitations imposed upon a species which must grow according to a certain cosmic tempo and a largely predetermined pattern), a cleavage exists between the two. Essence is always pure and true, but in a material universe, that same essence must be provided with the proper FORMS to express itself uncontaminated, undistorted and, above all else, not subjected to any imposition from external quarters which bear scant relation to that unique essence of being. Indeed, the single most indicative factor which allows us to identify the consciousness that reigns on Earth as one of Ignorance and Falsehood is that to one who sees, to one who has the capacity to penetrate beneath outer layers and see the soul-essence, it is apparent that along its evolutionary way, in the course of the development of these ‘limbs’ or forms, externals have oppressed that essence and it therefore does not find any fitting vehicle to express itself according to the truth of its essential being.
1 This is evident by the increase in corruption pari passu with the upsurge of the economy beginning in the early 1990s and steadily rising. [2010]
No comments:
Post a Comment