A Message for Astrologers

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology
Tamil Nadu, India
3 March 2012

I am often outspoken about the poor level of astrology practiced today, particularly in India. But now my criticisms take on a different character. Because of recent calendrical developments, I find myself defending these ‘errant’ astrologers, perhaps better than they could do themselves. The question these calendars raise is which system is Vedic or closer to what the Rishis intended. Interestingly, though the so-called Western Astrology is lambasted by certain sections of Indian astrologers who consider themselves ‘vedic’, and with exclusive rights over the title, ironically it is western astrology that must be seen to be closer to the ancient roots when both are analysed on the basis of certain fundaments of astrology. Astronomy has no place in this discussion, it must be established from the outset. In the course of this message, I will provide a few illustrations to prove the point.
My reason for sending out this message to astrologers is that calendars have appeared which are held by their creators as the true and only Vedic calendars; yet in my view their shortcomings are very serious and will necessarily contribute to distancing the art from those roots to an even greater degree perhaps than the Nirayana system. As you all know, the Nirayana system uses the distant sidereal circle of the heavens to construct a horoscope or to determine the time for rituals. In my experience while discussing this aberration I have come to realise that I stand perhaps alone in realising this simple digression from the Vedic path: measurements are done in the wrong circle, thereby throwing the entire exercise off its Vedic moorings. It may be that the confusion arose some centuries ago when astronomy decided to name the constellations the same as the signs of the tropical zodiac. Be that as it may, the fact stands that the tropical/solar wheel has been set aside in favour of the very distant constellations (of the same name unfortunately). My main protest in this regard is that the measure the Earth offers to the system is completely ignored and rendered irrelevant.
There are two areas of western astrology that reveal its Vedic roots more significantly. One is called the Progressed Horoscope (still in use today); the other is the Mansions of the Moon – a division of the zodiacal wheel in 27 parts, each segment measuring 13 degrees 20; or the annual mean motion of the Moon. In India these sections have been given the names of the Nakshatras; they are not known as the Mansions of the Moon at all, though the 13degrees20 is still honoured. I will return to this particular topic further on in discussing the ‘vedic’ calendars in question because this development is the main theme of my message in that astrologers are criticised for these equal divisions by astronomers who measure them in the constellations, rather than in the tropical zodiac of the ecliptic. In the former we do find that the famed Nakshatras, without a doubt the most important feature of Indian astrology, do not measure an even 13degrees20. My complaint is that no astrologer in India today is able to counter these criticisms cogently, based on the Vedic approach to astrology. This is surely because they have moved very far from the Vedic methodology, but not in the way the champions of the ‘true Vedic Astrology’ would have us believe.
In the distant past, when astronomy separated from astrology, astronomers gave an imaginative twist to the zodiac. They projected the twelve signs onto the constellations of fixed stars in a fanciful exercise that is totally arbitrary. Astronomy used the stars as dots with which to draw the zodiacal figures in the heavens, similar to the children’s game of ‘joining the dots’, but far less real. Naturally any such image is non-existent; but the fact remains that in so doing these contrived figures when completed do exceed the even 30 degrees of the traditional signs of the tropical zodiac, or fall far short. This excess or shortcoming is sought to be corrected by the ‘true Vedic astrologers’. I will return to this subject further on when discussing the Mansions of the Moon.

The Vedic approach is essentially one of equivalency and correspondences. I never tire of explaining this self-evident fact. The Hermetic axiom is of the same order: As above, so below. Therefore, the question would be to understand these laws and how to apply them. One such law is more than clear in its character of equivalency: One year for a day. I know that even the champions of Hindu astrology, which they hold to be superior to the western counterpart, must acknowledge that this axiom/law comes directly from the Veda and though not employed in India it is a firm pillar of western astrology. Most predictive astrology is based on this single Law. A horoscope is ‘progressed’ after birth with one day being equivalent to one year of life – i.e., the tenth day after birth would provide details of the life of the individual in his tenth year. Of course astronomers cannot appreciate this basic nature of astrology and Vedic methodology. They have a hard enough time trying to understand how planets can ‘influence’ anything or anyone at all; hence this question of a totally non-physical relationship is beyond their scope. And yet we do have nuclear physicists telling us that particles are related even at vast distances, or have their counterpart many light years away. However, when it comes to astrology that millennia ago realised these basic truths of our universe, they cry PSEUDO-SCIENCE!
In an interview given to Unesco Courier in May 1993, the French scholar, Charles Malamoud, refers to this practice of old and distinguishes it from the Buddhist approach:

‘…Such correspondences exist, but it is up to humans to discover them, to become aware of them, to formulate them – and in so doing, to confirm them. Solving the Vedic riddles…involves linking similar elements from the different levels of existence… A ritual object, a particular moment in a ceremony, is thought to have a replica or counterpart in some specific spatial or temporal element of the universe…
‘This network of correspondences is not static. The Vedic authors…gave much thought to finding new, more refined and complex equivalences. Several Sanskrit words convey this idea, words that mean “connection”, “link”, even “kinship”. In Vedic India the idea of correspondences is more important than the concept of causality – whereas Buddhism insists on sequence of cause and effect…’

The correspondence between a day and a year is simple enough to explain. It concerns the axial rotation of the Earth in 24 hours and her annual rotation around the Sun in 365 days. Within both measurements, the Earth’s relation to the luminary by correspondence and equivalency is the same in terms of experience.
Regarding the Nakshatras, the problem lies in the fact that similar to the double up of names for the signs of both the tropical zodiac and the constellations, confusion has arisen. A ‘star’ of the Nakshatra is taken as the name of that particular segment of 13degrees20 of the wheel. So naturally astronomers howl – and along with them the ‘true’ Vedic astrologers howl: The Nakshatras OUT THERE are not an even 13degrees20 of the full celestial wheel as they figure in the constellations. They vary enormously in size so that this neat 13degrees20 cannot possibly be ‘science’. But anyone who knows the laws of equivalency has no difficulty in understanding the division. Moreover, and this is most important to note, the place in the zodiacal wheel where each segment ends is known as a ‘critical degree’. A planet or other important feature of a horoscope must be within one degree of these 13/20, as measured from Zero Point Aries, through to the 360^th degree of the zodiac, the last, to be considered ‘critical’ – i.e., having significant importance in the life of an individual. Only a proficient astrologer can make use of the system of equivalency adequately, and such an astrologer can verify that planets falling on these critical degrees are extremely significant when analysing a person’s horoscope. It is not a question of influences emanating from planets – which plays no role in Vedic Astrology; rather it is simply the Harmony of Measure.
The real issue is not at all astronomical measurements of the zodiac figures projected onto the constellations and how large or how small they may be, which in any case is relative and arbitrary. Rather, the real Vedic astrology deals with the various divisions of the ‘one circle’ extolled in the hymns. There is the basic division of 12 (equal to 30 degrees of the circle), of 9 (= 40 degrees), 144 (= 2.5 degrees); or else 27 (= 13+ degrees) as in the famed Nakshatras. These magical divisions of the one wheel display the brilliance of the Vedic methodology. They have nothing to do with the arbitrary ‘zodiac’ of astronomers projected into the Beyond. To seek to impose this fiction on astrologers in India is to move definitively away from the Vedic poise in favour of a relativism that was absent when the fundaments of astrology arose in the consciousness of the Rishi.

Twelve spokes, one wheel, navels three.
Who can comprehend this?
On it are placed together
Three hundred and sixty like pegs.
They shake not in the least.
(Rig Veda 1.154.48)

One is the wheel; the bands are twelve;
three are the hubs – who can understand it?
Three hundred spokes and sixty in addition
have been hammered therein and firmly riveted….
(Atharva Veda X, 8)

The Rig and Atharva Vedas insist that all measuring must be done in the one circle. Then only can equivalence and correspondence form the basis of Vedic astrology. But with that comes the real question: Where does that one circle begin? What is its Zero Point, its ayanamsha – that ‘shakes not in the least’, that is ‘firmly riveted’? To discover what is permanent, and eternally valid, we need the Equinoxes and Solstices – which do not exist in the constellations. This is the only item that requires immediate reform: the coincidence of Makar Sankranti with the solstice, and the beginning of the zodiacal year with the Equinox. All the rest is superfluous and meaningless with this basic reform that does away with the arbitrary 23-day late Sankranti imposed by astronomers and that finds no sanction in the Veda.
Thus, the issue of 13degrees20 is not to be brushed aside so lightly, as Shri Briijendra Shrivastav has done in the SMKATP calendar recently issued by Shri Lokesh Darshaney. He emphatically states ‘…Thus equal division was adopted by the then lazy [sic] forecasting astrologers who never look at the sky for verification even in the modern days of telescopes and it is time to correct and update it now.’ This statement is as given here, in bold, to make sure his message comes across. Lamentably the Editor of the calendar has added his bit by upholding the noted scientist’s views ‘…These notable lines have come out from a learned personality in the field of astronomy. I hope astrologers will take a serious note of it and deny acceptance of all (only 27 instead of 28) nakshatra’s [sic] being equal and equal to 13°20.’
I beg to differ. We may have here a ‘notable’ astronomer, but he is definitely not an astrologer. What he states is correct in terms of the imaginative measurements he makes in the constellations, but it has nothing to do with the zodiacal wheel on which all astrology – and especially VEDIC astrology – is based. Further, what he states shows ignorance of the very basis of Vedic astrology which is this question of equivalency and the harmonies of our solar system.
For this reason I have stated time and again that the real problem arose in astrology not when its practitioners went ‘lazy’ as the noted astronomer claims, but when they were faced with the onslaught of an emerging astronomy SEPARATE FROM ASTROLOGY. The entire world suffered the same scourge. We live with the results of that separation even today when a completely materialistic consciousness has displaced the wisdom of the ages to the extent that astrologers themselves have been undermined and are no longer in a position to defend their sacred and noble Art. The problem became solidified when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru established a Calendar Reform Committee in 1953 to set matters right for Hindus, seeking to bring the faithful under the umbrella of a more ‘scientific’ perception which, he felt, would eliminate the prevalent superstition and inaccuracies – such as the noted astronomer Briijendra Shrivastav has supplied. In closing his message to the Committee, Pandit Nehru wrote, ‘I hope that our scientists will give the lead in this matter [calendar reform]’. The problem of interference from those in total ignorance of the sacred sciences was compounded by his and other authoritative statements. But again my complaint is, where were the astrologers at the time who could defend their Art from the onslaught of men in total ignorance of astrology?
And so, we have Shri Lokesh Darshaney evidencing the same confusion though he seeks to correct the current reliance on the Nirayana system with its 23-day late Makar Sankranti, when he interprets the Veda according to his convenience. His efforts at reform are to be applauded, but to some extent he downplays the role Equinoxes and Solstices play when he insists on establishing the beginning of the year in February (Chinese influence?) which he contends is the beginning of spring and therefore more in line with the Veda which, in his view, uphold a seasonal calendar. The seasons are certainly important but where I live in India spring is not in evidence in February, as his interpretation reads. We are in March and there are no signs of the ‘Vedic Spring’ he believes should initiate the calendar! And if ‘observation’ is the call of the hour, to quote the learned Shri Shrivastav, in the effort to eliminate superstition, then simple observation indicates that February is mid-winter across the northern hemisphere.
Shri Darshaney does emphasise that Makar Sankranti and the December Solstice introduce Uttarayana, or the northernmost point of the year. But then he sets aside the Cardinal Points, of which Makar Sankranti is the fourth, when he starts his calendar on 20-21 February. The reason why this cannot hold, particularly if you are advocating a seasonal calendar and holding that alone as ‘vedic’, is because astrology is very clear on the issue. A season is introduced by the Rajas Guna. It cannot begin with a Sattwa or Tamas Guna, as his calendar advocates. The real seasons fall in line perfectly with the Gunas, or Qualities as they are called in the West. These are three in number and are repeated four times in the course of the 12-month year.
But here is the rub: Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable (the astrological Qualities) in their cosmic application must be established (seasonal and cosmic) in this corresponding order: Rajas, Sattwa, Tamas. Today the order is commonly recited as Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. We are free to do so when we want to emphasise the Sattwa Guna as superior to the rest; but for a cosmic application that order is not appropriate. Indeed, we cannot apply the formula to the cosmic harmony if we do so. We would never think of saying Preservation, Creation and Destruction. At least we hope and pray that this cosmic aberration never takes place because it would mean the dissolution of our world! Why then do we commit this aberration in our review of the astrological arts?
Perhaps the most important dimension of zodiacal wisdom lies in the application of the gunas in a horoscope, or in reading the destiny of nations and individuals. This formula is widely understood in the West; in India I know of no astrologer that makes use of the Qualities or that understands their relationship to Rajas, Sattwa and Tamas, or to the Trinity creation, preservation, destruction. Therefore I say to Shri Darshaney, rethink this issue. Begin your calendar and the year on Mahavishuva – the March Equinox. That is the beginning of the zodiacal ‘journey’ as it figures in the initiation documented in the Rig Veda.
However, there is more to this aberration than a simple misplacement of the seasons. The noted astronomer would be pleased with this development because according to him it is observation of phenomena that is the issue – completely ignoring the real Vedic premise of equivalency and correspondence: The Rishi looked within and there he or she found the entire universe with which he could identify. No matter how deeply the astronomer peers through his telescope, no matter how potent these become, he can never identify with the harmony of the cosmos and the cosmic consciousness of the Seer whose vision is based on unity ever and always, on interconnectedness and on a perception of Oneness. The astronomer’s observation is always external and into the past. On the other hand, the Rishi’s inner universe offers the seer trikaladrishti, a comprehensive perception of simultaneity: past, present and future.
Humanity has been bearing the weight of this loss ever since the sciences were divested of their sanctity in favour of a meaningless and purposeless ‘observation’ that sees nothing but shouts the loudest. Astronomers must stay out of astrology which is far beyond their purview. They criticise, issue statements, condemn everything they do not understand as ‘coincidence’ at best and superstition at worst. But the real cause of superstition is precisely because astronomy poked its nose into sacred matters and divested them of all meaning. They proclaim that astrologers are only after money for which they fleece a gullible public. But I hold that scientists are the real culprits because knowing absolutely nothing of the sacred they are bent on undermining those who do.
It is time for astrologers to stand up straight and defend this Mother of all Science. She is the favourite child of Mahasaraswati. We must never forget that.
My heart goes out to the astrologers of this country – the land that gave the sacred art to the world millennia ago, only to have it become veiled and hidden in the place of its origin. Now they must find the sacred once again because only that knowledge can inform us what the divine Measure must be; in lay terms, what exactly must be measured and why. Currently this is the reigning confusion: what should we measure, where and why? Astrologers have the right form of things; but, as Sri Aurobindo stated so well, the soul of knowledge has fled from its coverings.
It is time to remove those coverings and re-appropriate what was once India’s own. Not in the way of a fanatical capture that isolates and divides and cuts India off from both cosmos and world, but through love of Mahasaraswati, thankful for the grace she has showered on this land. Those forms are the right ones – be not fooled by those who do not know. But the duty of the astrologer is to reach the heart of Knowledge that gives meaning to those chosen forms.
Astronomers are not Initiates; the real astrologer is. The scientist needs to see the shape (form) of the zodiacal figures projected far beyond into the heavens, in a fanciful imagery that has no basis in the reality that is. The seer finds those figures within, where reality lies. The Rishi did not project those figures which describe his initiatory rites into a distant Beyond, unrelated to the divine Measure of the Earth. They exist within. They are etched in the soul and can be accessed when we enter that secret chamber using the right Keys the Earth herself provides: the measure of the year, as we follow the Sun with our inner Eye, one month leading into the next along the Initiate’s way.

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 in the other, and it is these that
Brahmanaspati makes manifest to knowledge.
RV, II.24.5.

© Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet 2012

The Partition of India, its cause, its purpose - PART NINE

An analysis based on the new Indo-Centric Cosmology
3.9.2009 – 13.10.2009

Lest a misunderstanding arise, there is a fundamental point to clarify. It would appear that India’s problem of ‘fault lines’ occurred or began at the time of Partition. However, the opposite would be the case. Partition could occur because integration of the Mother’s gunaic play had been lost much earlier, long before the political division took place in 1947. The actual physical dismem-bering could happen because of atrophy through disuse of her limbs.
Many centuries earlier those gunas were disassociated from the Body by an easily detectable method. A clear signal that this had happened was the disarrangement in the sequence of the gunas themselves. To connect them to the cosmic harmony (and they have no other purpose, it must be stated) as revealed in this series, the progression must be Rajas, Sattva, Tamas. However, as of the past 2500 years, or with the close of the Vedic Age, spirituality on the subcontinent began to incorporate principles of un-Vedic systems. This was then reflected in the order of the Gunas. All scriptures and spiritual texts penned – not necessarily the lived experience – over this post-Vedic period will bear evidence of a certain contamination. At first the infiltration was minimal; but then, as we moved into the 9^th Manifestation (234 BCE) and its first astrological age of that 6480-year period, the Age of Pisces, the ‘slow poison’ eventually turned into an unstoppable flood. Spirituality in India came fully under the influence of reformist systems such as Buddhism. And with this development all subsequent philosophies and systems of yoga fell under the same compelling influence. This is reflected in Independent India whose national flag and seal are composed of venerable Buddhist symbols.
The single word to explain the aberration is otherworldliness. Time and again we have provided factual evidence of this development. But in this series the focus is on Partition from the perspective of the new cosmology. No better means have been provided to drive home the point that this contamination, stretching back at least 2000 years, is the direct cause of Partition. And no other discipline but the new cosmology lays bear the truth of what was actually contaminated and its methodology. By a slow and steady poison, the revolutionising method to follow the flow of time and destiny so that the truth of oneness and unity can be manifested, even in negative happenings, was successfully undermined. Indeed, similar to the role of hostile forces in our development as aids along the way (see Part Seven), we note that the means to discover factual proof of the organisation of supramental formulas has been precisely through the negative display of those harmonies. In this manner the aphorism of the New Way is constantly illustrated: the Negative and the Positive serve the purposes of the One.
In this light Partition takes on a profound meaning. Its defining moment occurred twenty-one years after crossing the time demarcation between the former Age of Pisces and the new Aquarian Age (1926). In fact, the serious demands for partition into separate states began, as historical records prove, with the onset of that new age. Sri Aurobindo’s seclusion precisely from 1926 revealed that intense concentration was required on his part to see the passage through successfully, difficult as he knew it would be. And from that time the call for an independent Muslim state became louder and finally irrepressible as the world moved farther and farther into the Age of Aquarius.
This definitive crossing and the resultant dismembering of the once whole Body signalled that Supermind had reached maturity. The labour of the 9^th Avatar and his co-worker, the Mother, had succeeded in bringing down the anticipated Formula. The time had arrived when this numeric pattern could become cemented in the Earth atmosphere [see Conclusion] to make possible the extremely difficult Vedic passage, ‘the 9 becomes the 10’. This occurred in the years following Sri Aurobindo’s passing in 1950.
After 1950 another twenty-one years transpired when, as a signal that his mission had been completed successfully, in 1971 the supreme Vedic rahasya could begin to be unveiled. The details of this passage and its results have recently been published [Secrets of the Earth, Aeon Books, 2009] and need not be repeated here. Suffice to state that shortly thereafter, in 1974, the Capricorn symbol-map was revealed. On this factual basis we are able to decipher the extraordinary and unique destiny of Bharat. And above all to reveal just how ancient Akhand Bharat really is. It did not date from the period of the British Raj; rather, that conquest simply brought the destiny fully into the new age by providing an easily comprehensible language to explain the position, – contemporary, but not for that un-Vedic. On the contrary, the new cosmic language is proof that Supermind creates its own conditions for its manifestation. Nothing provides better proof than the Symbol-Map by which falsehood itself can actually be measured.

Before all else we must accept the fact that the process of dismembering was long, slow and steady. Partition in 1947 was simply the signal that the Age of Supermind had arrived, carrying with it the unmistakable proof of its truths and methods which have become our superlative aids – precisely for making whole what the Ignorance had torn asunder.
Foremost in the rectification is the correct understanding of the Gunas, their proper order and the imperative need to understand that they are threefold. Any dislocation and, above all, any elimination of one or the other from the harmony can only result in collapse. They cannot stand alone in the cosmic structure. We find the living proof in Bangladesh and Pakistan. They do manage to survive as independent states, to be sure, but always propped up from the outside, unlike India; failing which they would have collapsed long ago.
It is an interesting exercise to note just how both gunas have operated on their own over the past half a century. The case of Bangladesh is more than clear. It was India that won independence for the erstwhile East Pakistan. In addition, as an independent body it cannot survive without a steady and sizeable influx of foreign aid. This is necessitated largely because of the regular ravages of Mother Nature in this ‘armpit’. The Tamas Guna is inherently connected to the mode of Destruction of the trinity. Without the support of a triune harmony, destruction plays havoc since it is not tempered by energy expressions that can keep it in check, if not entirely transformed into its higher mode of dissolution.
Since 1971 and independence, we see Bangladesh making full use of its character of Tamas. In spite of itself it will fall back on this natural tendency for survival, especially after the formal consolidation of that entry point for invading forces. Thus the British made their way into Akhand Bharat through this Tamas gunaic point. It was not a bombastic entrance as occurred time and again on the western front, – that is, always by military penetration and conquests. Rather, in keeping with the nature of Tamas, infiltration was in a sense camouflaged and deceptive. First came the East India Company – traders not warriors. Finally when the penetrating trade route was secured, the Raj followed and remained as the sole ruler over Akhand Bharat, the ancient land of the Mother. From that time until today Tamas has coloured the area. There was no need for incessant battles and the destruction of symbols of Hinduism as in the West. The method was simply a steady undermining: seeds were planted in the consciousness of the people to destroy confidence in themselves, their culture, their spiritual attainments and the ancient truths; above all their unity under the Vedic banner. This relentless activity took a precise form: the most important educational institutions during the Raj were occidental/Christian, introduced if not by the Raj itself but allowed because of the gap in the Tamas Guna.
An example of how thorough the undermining became is given by Sri Aurobindo’s upbringing in Bengal, right at the entry point. His father sent him to Great Britain for education, as many Indians did during the Raj, but with a telling proviso. The young Ghose brothers were to have no contact with their Indian brethren, or even with Indian culture and languages. Thus, the young Aurobindo spent from the ages of seven to twenty-one completely cut off from India and anything Indian. He was brought up initially in the home of a Christian minister, to add the final touch of anti-Hinduism, whose ‘superstitions’ the British were helping to rid the nation of!
The same methodology is in evidence in the North East today on an increasing scale. Apart from the fact that the area has been thoroughly Christianised, infiltration from across the border is the tool of undermining today. Silent and deceptive, it is there and active before one can even realise its presence; and difficult to locate because it is so all-pervasive and easily camouflaged. The demography has been altered to an almost irreparable degree, and India is forced to stand by as a mere spectator while hordes of hostile forces penetrate, making full use of the Tamas character of the area to conquer by means of collapse, of caving in and a self-destructive turning back on itself as the last guna must indeed do as indicated in the Capricorn symbol-map itself. However, the Symbol-Map also presents a complete gunaic harmony; in which case, the tail-bending (loop) turning back is not a movement against itself; rather, the Capricorn hieroglyph indicates a perfect contained and balanced play of energy because the central body is not a void but a most vital part of the system – indeed, right where the vital organs of the Body are found. Therefore, it has the capacity to sustain the triadic play, just as we would expect of Sattva and Preservation, the supporting quality of Vishnu. To be the Centre of the Earth requires that the Gunas be harmonised and integrated within a contained space, as if in a seed. We will observe further on how this sustenance is lacking and therefore the Tamas section stands cut off and alone, a secure area of penetration for forces hostile to wholeness, to unity, to oneness.

We now turn our attention to the western border and the Rajas Guna, bearing little similarity to the east. If this Guna Map had been available at the time when India was carved up, it would have been obvious that West and East Pakistan would ultimately prove incompatible. Developments on the subcontinent, accelerated by the impulsive Rajas in the west, brought a definitive severance: Rajas and Tamas went their separate ways. As K. S. Munshi explained to Sri Aurobindo (Part Four), this certainly did allow both segments ‘to develop their own separate ways’. But what these ‘ways’ have revealed is that at least where Pakistan is concerned, its energy flow is eastward, and will always remain so. In other words, Pakistan cannot help being obsessed with India from whom it seeks sustenance, as a child from its mother. We note that even its foreign aid is channelled toward creating contentions with India in some form or another. India provides the excuse for all its policies and utilisation of the huge foreign aid it receives, mainly from the USA and China.
With the supramental Keys of Knowledge in this study, the relations between Pakistan and India permit analyses of a very different order than current methods. Of course we realise that the ‘proof’ presented here is not acceptable to academics across the spectrum of various disciplines which, until the formulation of the new cosmology, had been the sole methods utilised. In our view, these methods only skimmed the surface of what India is and means for the world. Their inadequacies are constantly being exposed, the latest being the Jinnah book. Regularly publications appear, sometimes causing a flutter, but they are unable to present that Big Picture as it is hoped this study can do. For this purpose we have turned to the cosmic harmony solely, but of course armed with the proper tools to be able to make sense of that Harmony. Because that sense was lost, degeneration set in. When spirituality veered from its Vedic moorings to become focussed on otherworldliness, the subsequent collapse became inevitable. That collapse is consistent, coherent and revelatory. From all angles we are drawn to the same conclusion: the Earth-centred discipline of the Vedic Age, upon which an entire civilisation found support, gave way to the lure of the Beyond and the tactic of escapism. This shift became consolidated further on in what was always the most binding element for all major civilisations, past and present: the calendar used by the majority of the population and which governs, above all, its collective cultural experience. In India’s case it would be the calendar used by over 80% of the population; it is reasonable to note that the area most susceptible to the final and definitive coup-de-grâce was the method and rationale behind its calendar computation. Indeed, this did come to pass and efficiently dispersed the energies of the majority. Truly, divide-and-rule!
Historic records indicate that in Al Biruni’s time the true Vedic calendar was still in use. This was the 12^th Century. But his recommendations seem to have set in motion its final demise. Today 80% of the population cannot ‘get its act together’, even in so simple a matter as the correct Makar Sankranti. Moreover, all have lost sight of what the true function of a calendar must be. Hindus have been systematically undermined to become second-class citizens in the very country where they are in the majority, by this strategy of a calendric divide-and-rule. Indeed, the degeneration and loss of a higher understanding appears to have been so thorough that when presented with facts that suggest the need for a return to the time-tested Vedic measure, complaints are heard that the actual calendar reflects more accurately the ‘wonderful diversity that is India’! Any attempt to introduce what these champions of ‘diversity’ equate with uniformity is vehemently opposed.
Lamentably, this has been the attitude of nationalist forces as well, those who we would expect to champion these Vedic prescriptions. Instead they label our struggle as somehow ‘anti-Hindu’! They oppose vociferously these campaigns on the grounds that this is another infiltration of a ‘foreign’ power to undermine Indian culture! None have the depth of thought to grasp what this ‘phobia’ against change and all things foreign really means and the harm it has done to India. Thus, the Vedic calendar is opposed because it is thought to be of Christian origin, a false premise in itself. Nor is there in evidence a consciousness of unity that allows one to distinguish between unity and uniformity. The country is confused by distortions of all sorts, of all values that were once known to be right and true. There are twists, knots and paralyses, all of which undermine attempts at bringing back a higher order based on eternal values free from the contamination we observe today. Those values and principles are watered down to become all things to all men. But the Vedic Way is absolute, though not at all dogmatic and closed to change according to the demands of the Time-Spirit.
Higher issues such as the right calendar for Hindus must be left to persons of proven higher knowledge and not to the vested interests of almanac publishers who can be easily misled because of, precisely, those infamous vested interests.
Entries through Rajas by conquering armies brought also the seeds that set in motion the destruction of the Vedic Calendar, as we have noted. Yet India is caught in a bind in the effort to be ‘secular’. Thus, military conquerors like Babar are given pride of place in history. Monuments such as mosques erected after destroying temples in certain key places as the birthplace of none other than Ramavatar are a case in point. No one questions why Hindus were so incensed by the mosque at Ayodhya, above all others. However, in a society where truly all are equal, the Hindu lament would have been heard long ago and places sacred at least to the Epic Heroes would have been understood for what they are. Erecting a monument of conquest at those sites seems to have been intended to deal a fatal blow at the heart of the civilisation. Babar was not a holy man; he was a general, a military man, a conqueror. His mosque at Ayodhya struck a blow deep into the Hindu psyche. Yet, why is he honoured more than Ramavatar? Why is this not understood?
If such had been the case, if eternal truths had not been sacrificed at the altar of the shallowness of a contemporary secularism, the forceful destruction at Ayodhya would never have occurred. A monument of conquest cannot be equated with a holy site sanctified by the consciousness of perhaps a Sufi or a Muslim saint or savant who might have inspired its construction, as we find in so many cherished places on the subcontinent. Thus, Ayodhya, the legendary birthplace of Ramavatar, has become synonymous with shame rather than glory. But how will history pass judgement when all sides will be heard including this new cosmology? It could have been a rallying point for a conclusive reconciliation to compensate for hegemonic acts by those rajasic forces that saw it fit time and again to trample upon the most extraordinary repositories of the cosmic harmonies ever conceived by the human mind – the Hindu temple, some 30,000 of them. One for thirty thousand? That seemed a fair enough deal by any standard.
The nature of the Rajas Guna when it stands alone does not require further elaboration. We have historic evidence in the form of Pakistan since Partition to assess how Rajas acts when it pretends to be sufficient unto itself. Particularly important to note is the direction of the gunaic flow eastward, which can explain Pakistan’s obsession with India and its insatiable desire to treacherously snatch up more territory from the main Body – once again seeking to add salt to old wounds by claiming just ownership rights over Kashmir simply because its population is now mainly Muslim, – that is, after relatively recent conquests, conversions, and now relentless ethnic cleansings. But this ‘majority right’ covers only the briefest period of the evolution of consciousness on the subcontinent. From ancient times into the present, Kashmir has been perhaps the most sacred portion of India. After all, it is the abode of Mahakala, of Shiva himself. And it contains the invincible Eye of Shiva (76º longitude) from where the Dharma receives its sustenance [see Kashmir and the Convergence of Time, Space and Destiny, Aeon Books, 2004]. However, for India to hold her own in the face of Pakistan’s perfidy, she must first be convinced of these ancient truths, and she must realise that the Avatar in this 9^th Manifestation comes as Shiva. Perhaps this will help us understand why Kashmir is so hotly contested, and also why India must never relent, and take back what is rightfully her own.
As for the Tail of the Symbol-Map fully within Tamas, briefly, the closed and cut-off condition of Burma is consistent with the fact that a tail is moved by the body to which it is attached. Burma is as if in a state of limbo. Without a connection, however loosely, to the rest of the Symbol and integrated with the other Gunas, it is simply trapped by its own irrelevancy.
To conclude, we must discuss the Sattva Guna, most of which falls in central Bharat. Succinctly, if we wish to comprehend India’s infirmities, her inability to ‘win the peace’, her almost complete paralysis in the face of that bombastic rajasic force hurled at her time and again, we have to lay the blame at the feet of Yogis who came at the close of the Vedic Age and inculcated securely the notion of Escape. Thus Sattva was per force extolled above all others, and then came to displace its companions in the threefold harmony. The result of this spiritual misstep is exactly what we have today: an India of only Sattva, both in the dimensions of its evolving collective consciousness as well as its physical contours. She has no one else to blame for this sorry state of affairs but her own ‘wisemen’ who, in the words of the poet, ‘shall talk and sleep’ as ‘God grows up’… [Savitri, Sri Aurobindo: ‘God shall grow up while the wisemen talk and sleep.’].
Arms have been severed from the multi-limbed Goddess. How then can she guide her own children and the world successfully through these tumultuous times without those indispensable limbs and a body whole and complete?

6 October 2009
© Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet

Link to Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, or Conclusion

The Partition of India, its cause, its purpose - PART SEVEN

An analysis based on the new Indo-Centric Cosmology
3.9.2009 – 13.10.2009

No longer mysterious are the ways of the Divine, for when Vishnu’s Incarnations descend, particularly the 9^th and 10^th of his line, the most profound mysteries of creation are laid bare. It is not out of the Lord’s compassion that this is so; rather, the clarity with which we are able to disclose the highest truths of creation and the Earth’s destiny is determined by the fact that having reached the 9^th Manifestation and the Age of Supermind, the only way we can face the challenges of these trying times is by the conscious participation of at least a certain percentage of the Earth’s population. Ignorance can no longer be tolerated; ignorance has carried us to the brink of destruction. The only method to reach the other shore of Destiny intact, beyond the misery we know today, is by the descent of a higher knowledge unparalleled in the history of our planet.
India is pivotal to the unfolding of a higher destiny. As the Earth’s one and only cosmological Centre, the proportion required to transform our planet into the home of a life divine must occur in India. Only from this Centre can the Earth make the crossing safely. The unconsciousness, disorder and violence of the 20^th Century reveal the true extent of the danger. Unlike any other period in history, the century we left behind in the year 2000 was certainly unequalled by any other for its legacy of strife and inhumanity. The two World Wars bear testimony to this statement. And out of those conflagrations of such colossal proportions in terms of human lives lost and unprecedented material devastation, we are left with the most lethal store of destructive power ever amassed. Before us lies Destruction or Creation.
The 9^th Manifestation is the period of Shiva/Mahakala. While the Avatars are all said to be emanations of Vishnu this is because their descents can only occur during his astrological ages – or the Ages within each Manifestation of the quality of preservation. However, each of the ten may express a different energy, a type required for a particular task to be accomplished.
The Trinity is the essence of not only the metaphysical and psycho-spiritual reality but the cosmological as well. The zodiac, for example, is constructed on a triune foundation – groups of three repeated four times, 3 x 4 = 12. Each of those four segments or quarters consists of the triune powers of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. In astrological tradition they are known by different names but remain the same energy: Brahma=Creation, Vishnu=Preservation, Shiva=Destruction; the respective astrological nomenclature is Cardinal (Brahma), Fixed (Vishnu), Mutable (Shiva). The correspondence is unequivocal and without this basis our study cannot reach any firm conclusion. More particularly, we cannot become conscious instruments or facilitators of the avataric mission in this cycle unless the triune expression underpins the cosmological data.
Moving through each of the quarters wherein the triune energies are grouped in their correct sequence, the last of each segment would always belong to Shiva the Destroyer. Our current 9^th Manifestation is the last sign of the third quarter, Sagittarius, therefore of Mutable/Tamas/Destruction energy – Shiva’s expression. But there is an important shift at this 9^th stage because the Line of Ten comes to an end in this special Manifestation. It is elaborated in the Puranic tales regarding Shiva and Parvati with eloquent precision. Thus, we are privileged in this Aquarian Age of Vishnu to be instruments for the most important play-out of the Harmonies to have been experienced in a period of 77,760 years. The final thrust of approximately 12,000 years is described accurately in the Rig Veda in the special verses to Vishnu when he ‘measures’ the universe in three strides. It is later picked up again in the Epics: the final descents, starting with Sri Ram’s 7^th, through Sri Krishna’s 8^th, and then Sri Aurobindo’s 9^th, are described by Vishnu in his Act of Measuring and transposed to the Epics. But the jewel of the crown is set in place in our present Age of Vishnu when the injunction found in the Rig Veda is actually made a lived experience not just for its Initiates but for the entire Earth. This injunction is the mysterious ‘9 becomes the 10’. Indeed, it was when the final veil was removed from Guha and the 9^th Avatar himself was revealed to be the 10th in an unbroken line of time that the full Knowledge descended in torrents. This occurred in March of 1976. Therefore, ignorance can now no longer be our refuge. To borrow from Sri Aurobindo’s style of aphorisms, Ignorance was the helper, ignorance is now the bar.
Though there may be few on Earth today, the initiate of the true Vedic Way understands what it means when ‘9 becomes 10’. The details of this culminating realisation need not be repeated here [see The New Way, Volumes 1, 2, & 3, 1981; Secrets of the Earth, 2009, Aeon Books]. The 9^th Avatar undertook the very difficult passage for India and the world. But significant to note is that to the lay person what transpires after this ‘reversal’ might appear as the unfolding of a miracle when this equation becomes a lived reality. The most apparent and obvious result is the transformation of our experience of Shiva himself from being the Destroyer to the Dissolver. This transformation of the final energy mode of the triad is the grace that can save the Earth.
‘Destruction was the helper, destruction is the bar’. Without that transformation the Earth and all her creatures would be doomed. The planet could not bear the full descent of the power of Mahakala as Destroyer. It is described artfully in the myth of the descent of the heavenly Ganga whose impact was lessened when the sacred waters tumbled into the matted locks of Shiva to mitigate the rushing power of the Goddess. Once again we meet Ganga in our analysis, for in this Manifestation she is directly connected to the geographical Makar Sankranti via the location of her numerous mouths where Ganga rushes to meet the ocean and the world. The measure she provides is thus a vital clue to the problems Partition poses. Therefore we are able to use the 0 degree of Capricorn – the mouths of Ganga according to the zodiac/ecliptic Ruler – once again to confirm that both Partition and the current Nirayana Calendar of Hindus are indicative of the wounds that must be somehow healed. Ganga sets the measure.
The Makar Sankranti – 0 degrees Capricorn/December Solstice – is currently celebrated 23 days late, or 23 days AFTER the actual Solstice. The argument proffered by the Nirayana Pundits for this aberration is that ‘Capricorn is no longer there, at that same point where it was centuries ago but has shifted 23 degrees’, they argue. As absurd as it may seem, they make the mistake of using the wrong circle for locating this crucial point in the heavens, using only the sidereal constellations and not the Tropical Zodiac along the ecliptic as was the custom in the Vedic Age and even throughout the world today. Since that ‘circle’ is hundreds of light years away and bears only scant relation to our solar system, its 0 Point in that distant space is largely unverifiable; hence total confusion prevails: one pundit gives a particular time for the passage, the second gives another, and a third yet another.


All are wrong. Capricorn is always equal to the December Solstice and never shifts, as they claim, because it is the last of the four ecliptic Cardinal Poles that form the verifiable, scientifically measurable structure of our solar year – today as in the Vedic Age without any shift or change, or, what I call a ‘slippage of time’.
Let us put aside discussion of their incompetence and return to the true measure of things cosmic. We move from Ganga’s 0 degree point in the ‘armpit’ of the zodiacal map-symbol and cross back through the body of India for those ‘lost’ 23 degrees (days) of longitude. The result is, amazingly, another confirming miracle of the manner in which even the negative proves the truth of the new cosmology and India’s very special destiny. 23 degrees from 0 Capricorn carries us exactly to the westernmost tip of India as she stands today in her dismembered condition (above). Thus the false Makar Sankranti points out the falsehood of Partition via India’s present longitude expanse in the measure of those lost 23 days from the true Makar Sankranti, or 14-15 January in calendar time.
If this were the whole tale it would be remarkable enough. But there is more. If we use the same latitude ruler of the Earth and count from 0 degrees latitude, 23 takes us right to the Tropic of Cancer – again directly to that same westernmost tip of present-day India. In both directions, vertical (time-longitude) and horizontal (space-latitude) we end up at this same point, above which lies the whole of Pakistan, torn out of the Body of the Mother in 1947. The other measure, 0 degree Capricorn in the ‘armpit’ was also torn out of Bharat Mata at Partition. These two most sensitive areas, west and east, are today outside of the main Body, wrenched out due to ignorance of these eternal truths of Akhand Bharat. And we cement, we ‘feed’ both falsehoods, each time we celebrate the Makar Sankranti on 14-15 January instead of at the December Solstice, 21-22 December.

Let us now examine more closely those torn-out portions of Akhand Bharat. In this exercise we will discover an entirely new way of analysing contemporary history. In India’s case, with a destiny mapped out so clearly in the cosmic harmonies, the result of analyses according to the accepted methods today is not sufficient to convey just what that destiny might be. Thus, all political and historical analyses are trapped in ideologically-induced conclusions. The brouhaha over a recent book on the founder of Pakistan is sufficient proof of the correctness of this statement. The book sought to uncover the real culpability of Partition and its agents; but the result has proven once again the point made in this series: there is no single individual or group of individuals or any single political party responsible for the dismembering of Akhand Bharat. There is simply the totality of conditions at any given moment or period of history which, in their totality, compel individuals to play the roles they must play in order that the contours of that destiny be shaped according to the reality THAT IS.
This is the message of the Bhagavad Gita: Arjun must slay because the victims are already slain. And since this sacred text has shaped the mind of India for centuries upon centuries, India has great difficulty in conforming to contemporary models of governance that might conflict or present obstacles to giving shape to the injunctions of the scripture.
This is especially noticed in the area of jurisprudence. The injunction of the Gita puts anyone sitting in judgement over another in a very difficult position indeed. For example, can a murderer really be held guilty when, like Arjun, he was simply the instrument to fulfil destiny, by whose hand the victim ‘met his fate’?
The dilemma is very real – and the difficulty judges face in India is obvious to any careful observer. The solution will come only when we understand that a new way must evolve in and for India that reconciles both the sacred and the profane. This reconciliation of course reveals that it is really with the establishment of a superior consciousness, more God-like, that the way ahead to solve the many inadequacies of global jurisprudence will actually come about. It lies in the understanding that, yes, the victim’s fate was indeed ‘sealed’: destiny was inevitable, death was unavoidable, inescapable. In addition, the higher vision as per the Gita causes us to realise that the slayer was also bound by the same fate to slay as the slain. However, reconciliation would come to pass when both the slain and slayer accept their responsibility – not in the current terms of justice ‘done and seen to be done’, but with a broader vision that questions why it was this particular murderer and no other. That is, the slayer’s totality of conditions forming his or her consciousness-being, when known would reveal that there was no other instrument possible to carry out the designs of destiny at that particular moment in time. What brought both parties together at that fateful moment? What macabre play of circumstances? What flaws, above all, exist in the consciousness-being of the murderer to assure that he would be the proper channel for the act?
This perspective does not freeze us into in-action, which would be the unregenerate Tamas reaction, so prevalent today in India and for which reason cases upon cases, files upon files pile up and remain forever unresolved. Rather, the results of such a vision would carry us to a very different conclusion where our justice systems are concerned. Punishments meted out would necessarily take into consideration the inevitability of the situation and not freeze us into non-action but point us in the more all-inclusive direction of the transformation of the conditions within the murderer that brought him to be the ‘chosen’ instrument for the act. This is responsibility within a more all-inclusive vision of the slain, the slayer and the parameters of destiny that brought the two together on that fateful day. To bear responsibility for one’s acts is the key; but newness lies in securing different methods of analysis which would inevitably produce different results when judgements are passed.
It is to be noted that in a sense attempts are made to reform prisons and correctional institutions with a view to transform individuals rather than simply to punish. This may be adequate for the world at large, but our analysis is focussed on India and her obligation to set new standards first within her own borders and, while being the Centre of the Age and obliged to take the woes of the world into her bosom, to assist in or to facilitate the establishment of new ways to solve these long-standing problems beyond her borders. It is to be borne in mind that what is good for the goose may NOT be good for the gander! India lives by the tenets of the Sages in the true spirit of the Veda. Her task is different, her responsibility lies elsewhere.
To provide an example and to demonstrate once again how Akhand Bharat and the Capricorn hieroglyph contain the answers we seek, let us deal with the question of that unregenerate Tamas Guna which is the scourge of India today. To do so we must present further details of the ‘Name of God’ glyph which reveal how the three energy manifestations are contained in the ancient script. This being the case, the occidental esoteric name given to Capricorn must necessarily be altered to read the Name of the Goddess, for the map below reveals that her three energy modes are contained in the Capricorn script. But the order of the Gunas has undergone a deformation over the years, like everything else. To be cosmologically applicable they must be known to move from Rajas to Sattwa to Tamas. Only then can the Gunas be connected to the Trinity in the correct sequence.

We shall discuss this in depth further on to demonstrate not only how the Gunas manifested in the nation’s destiny at Partition but how they continue to undermine the advance of Bharat Mata to occupy the centrestage in global affairs. While gaps where energy is drained away remain, Sri Aurobindo’s words are prophetic: ‘…The partition of the country must go...For without it [unity] the destiny of India might be seriously impaired and frustrated. That must not be.’

1 October 2009
© Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet

Link to Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, or VIII