The Future Realisation - New Delhi

Puranic Cosmology Updated 8

17 March 2010

In discussing Form and Essence, my intention was not to minimise the outstanding art that has come down to us from the Puranic period, a comparable quality of which surfaced in Europe only many centuries later. Rather, I would like to demonstrate how the direction of the quest – the Journey in the Veda – was reflected in art itself. To illustrate, I reproduced in Update 7 the exquisite Ankhor Vat bas-relief of the Churning Myth, certainly one of the finest sculptural renditions of its kind, as the grandest of all myths merits. Then the same tale is retold in our century/millennium in the form of what could almost be described as graphic art, in the sense that the artistic refinement of the former Age has been set aside in favour of the more graphic representation. Art today has certainly undergone a change from both the oriental and the European styles of times gone by. In itself this displays the ‘levelling’ process, if you will, a universalisation such as Aquarius demands more clearly than anything else.

Art as a representation of the collective experience and level of consciousness in any given age, we observe through this expression the same levelling in the ideologies that surfaced right at the turnover from Pisces to Aquarius. With the demise of monarchies after World War 1 as effective means of governance, and the surfacing of movements demanding larger and more comprehensive participation of the masses, the indications were that the Aquarian Age had begun. Noblesse oblige came to an end as the new Age set in; and with that we witnessed the gradual elimination of colonialism that was a natural corollary to the monarchic system, both being justified as having a sort of divine sanction that could not be questioned.

The direction of the cosmic evolutionary process has been more than clear. But equally clear is the shift of the cosmic contest to the world stage today; and, in one form or another, we observe that the struggle for supremacy between Gods and Titans has moved into a position of pre-eminence, as it were: witness totalitarianism and democracy, for example. Both advocate rule of the people (democracy), or for the people (communism). To solve the conundrum, on which the future of Earth societies hinges, understanding the cosmic sense and purpose of the Harmony provides clear lines we can follow if we truly wish the Daivic/Asuric struggle to be resolved.

To return to the Churning Myth and its various depictions – at the height of Puranic glory and its contemporary version – it is noteworthy that the two examples provided have come from lands beyond the actual Indian landmass and in what have become Buddhist nations. However, the reach of Puranic culture was so widespread and penetrating that we have a Muslim nation, Indonesia, honouring the very backbone of Vedic civilisation through the formal adoption of the Ramayana as its national epic. How else can this be explained except to state that Myth and Epic speak with the language of the Soul which is universal?

Further to be noted is that the Vishnu abode at Ankhor Vat itself finally fell into disuse and was ultimately covered over by the tropical jungles of the region not long after Buddhism had displaced Hinduism as the national culture. It was predictable in that the Soul is not given pride of place in Buddhism – if it is given a place at all; therefore, its ‘language’ cannot receive the revitalising sustenance Myth requires from time to time, as we find on the Indian subcontinent where it is alive and well even today. The contemporary graphic rendition of the Churning Myth, though of lesser artistic value is precious in that occupying centrestage at a main international airport in a Buddhist country (ironically, an unthinkable occurrence in secular, socialist India), again drives home the point that the Cosmic Spirit envelops the entire Earth and is boundary-less. It is our modern concept of Nation that has to evolve further so that we may embody the highest ideals of the Age we entered in 1926. Indeed, during the former Piscean Age passports were not required to travel from one point of the known world to another, as we demand today. Rather than drawing closer to the Aquarian one-world ideal we seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

Further, hidden in the Puranic artistic renditions of this sublime myth is a clue to the shift that was taking place at the time it was formulated, and as it has come down to us today. To put it in perspective, we need to appreciate that the very same tale is the essence, if not the form, of the Vedic ‘journey’ on the backdrop of the Sacrificial Year. In the earlier Age the question of universalism had not figured. Its time had not yet come.

This may explain the stand taken by governments in adopting restrictions which seem to close borders even tighter than had ever been done in the past, precisely as an indication that this ‘knot’ in human consciousness had to become tightened in the extreme before release can come. (In one’s individual sadhana in the practice of Integral Yoga, the same situation is often experienced: when the Yoga Shakti has decided that it is time for a certain breakthrough, the issue in question seems to arise more vehemently than ever. Then we know that with her Grace its hold over our consciousness is nearing its end, the ‘knot’ is about to be undone if we participate in the required action.)

Thus, in Vedic times the Journey was, strictly speaking, reserved for the Initiate-Warrior; the masses were not involved, except insofar as the struggle of the Initiate reflected the condition of each soul participating in the evolutionary process. But knowledge was restricted to an elite, as the Cosmic Order of the day demanded. That Knowledge was, however – and this is the point to note – passed on to the whole of Vedic civilisation through the calendar formulated by the Sages to implement the cosmic scheme, thereby uniting the energies of ALL members of the society around the Cosmic Truth (the central Axis) which is the sense and purpose embedded in the Sacrificial Year. The Initiate had to realise that Truth of the Year, that realignment, make it his or her own conquest, if the masses at large were to benefit from the struggle. But the very same process is displayed in the later Puranic Myth, though its subtlety reveals the gradual directional shift to otherworldliness that was then taking place. It seemed to be presented more as the Ideal rather than the actualisation process of the Vedic period.

Thus, the vertical/horizontal axes in the Puranic sculptures clearly reveal the ideal of a harmonised, balanced world. Moreover, placing Mt Meru as the central axis makes the position even clearer. Mt Meru is the tool without which no ‘churning’ can take place. However, equally if not more indispensable is the presence of none other than Mahavishnu to control the action according to rhythms the Time-Spirit sets in motion. Mt Meru resting on the Tortoise (Kurma Avatar following Matsya), apart from all else, indicates that the churning displayed is a movement of the Cosmic Ages – hence the perspective as mirrored in the precession of the Earth’s equinoctial plane over ‘tortoise-like’ slow-moving vast cycles of time. In this myth the question is not the individual’s transformation and participation; it is the cosmic angle almost exclusively. More particularly, it is Vishnu’s ‘play’, the understanding of which must come from Vishnu Himself through the periodic avataric appearances of his emanations.

Kurma, the avatar as Tortoise, is one of the most significant stages in what Sri Aurobindo has referred to as ‘a parable of evolution’. This second appearance is not just evolution per se. It is Order out of Chaos, the Cosmic Order. Kurma Avatar initiates the quest for the Nectar of Immortality for which the churning is required; its various stages describe with great exactitude just how order finally emerges out of a primordial Chaos. The task of Vishnu’s Avatars is to guide the evolutionary process according to the rhythms set by the Time-Spirit toward this end. No other myth presents such a superb exposition of deep cosmic workings as this one.

Vishnu is obliged to take the form of the mythic Tortoise, an amphibian creature, to prevent the Meru-churning stick from sinking relentlessly while the Devas and Asuras seek to carry out their labour of ‘accelerating Time’ – that is, to allow evolution to reach higher stages in this round of 25,920 years on the road to a full apotheosis. Kurma supports the churning stick from below, while Vishnu/Garuda enters the operation from above by restraining the measure of the rise of the churning stick until the perfect measure/stability is reached for the success of the endeavour: Time’s orderly march is established after which evolution cannot fail to manifest what is contained in the original ‘seed’ (of the Veda) that Matsya Avatar had hidden in that very Ocean for its protection. The Ocean acts as protective covering of the Seed; it is both covering and medium within which or by which the subsequent Churning can ensue.

What is clear in this mythic formula is that the Vertical is the Axis of the Avatars, in this instance involving Kurma and Matsya; the myth is clear on this point. Moreover, the link of the Vertical with Time is further corroborated because the Avatars are offspring of the Time-Spirit. We will observe further on how immaculately this arrangement has played itself out in contemporary India (Meru) with the appearance of the 9th Avatar in the last millennium, and how by the use of Number and the universal calendar (not the Hindu Calendar), and more particularly the number system India bequeathed to the world, we can APPLY what until now has remained mere ‘myth’. In the process Myth comes to be understood differently, at least in the Indian context: it is actually recurring history. Mt Meru holds the key to the past, but more specifically to the future of the evolutionary process. No other Myth in the Puranic lexicon presents such an accurate description of the cosmic process as the Churning of the Primordial Ocean, nor is there any other as prophetic. This is proven, however, only when the updating of the old cosmology takes place. But the new cosmology is not prophecy as we understand the term today. This will become clear in the course of the updating exercise centred on the Puranas.

We must view the vertical/horizontal axis in the terms laid down in Update 7: Asuras and Devas, time and space. What is displayed is the orderly harmonisation of the two in the course of the year, Cosmic or Earthly. In the Vedic Age it was the latter primarily; in the Puranic the focus was Cosmic. The sacred task of our present Age is the lived experience and APPLICATION of that harmonisation which we do experience on Earth in the progression of the year across the solstices and equinoxes. But the issue is to become conscious participants, thereby fulfilling the dharma of the Age: universal transformation.

Some in the academic world hold a similar view regarding the progression from equinoxes to solstices. For example, we note that the mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, Maurice Glaize, along with Eleanor Mannikka, a scholar who specialises in East Asian art and religion, hold the view that the difference in the number of Asuras (92) and Devas (88) depicted in the Ankhor Vat bas-relief represents the number of days between winter solstice and spring equinox to summer solstice; certainly numbers chosen not randomly but deliberately by the executors of the temple’s sacred architecture in appreciation of the cosmic vision prevalent in the Puranic period. The Ankhor Vat plan uses the Tropical Solar Year as the Measure with its equinoxes and solstices, just as in the Vedic Age and well into the 12th Century, the time when the Ankhor complex was constructed.

Interestingly, it was at this very time that Al Biruni, the Arab scholar, was travelling in India and translating Hindu texts on astrology and cosmology into Arabic. The undermining of the Vedic prescription seems to have begun then, for we have his own words to substantiate this statement: ‘The solstice has kept its place, but the constellations have migrated, just the very opposite of what Varaha has fancied.’ (India, II, p.7). Al Biruni implies what post-Vedic astrologers sustain today: Capricorn is ‘not there where once it was’; but with their floating constellations they are chasing a phantom because Capricorn is not ‘out there’, disregarding the Earth’s harmonies and rhythms. What is even more interesting to note is that through his translations of the Hindu texts Al Biruni was responsible for the adoption of the Vedic method of horoscopy in the West, while suggesting the sidereal method for pundits of the subcontinent! But the final, total eclipse of the Vedic Tropical Year in India occurred closer to our times. This was the definitive adoption of the Nirayana system in lieu of the Vedic. Interestingly, it was supplanted on the subcontinent just as Science gained the upper hand over the sacred and the division was then complete.

Advantage in carrying out the universal transformation seems to lie with the West not the East this time around, because though the subcontinent preserves a vast treasure of Myths, all of which describe the Cosmic Truth, and incomparable examples of sacred art and architecture which display that same Truth, the masses are left out of the experience. Or at least as in contemporary India’s case, 80% of the population is excluded from participation through the mis-calculation of the Hindu calendar. Originally it served to unify and draw the energies of the population into the yearly Sacrifice through the celebration of certain outstanding landmarks in consonance with the cosmic harmony. Two are of are primary importance, Mahavishuva (March Equinox) and Makar Sankranti (December Solstice), the establishment of which would ensure the right temporal insertion of all the other celebrations, festivals, pilgrimages, and so forth. These commemorations continue and are noteworthy because they make identification of the unbroken Thread traceable into our times. But equally significant is the distortion of the Vedic measure of the year, the chief protagonist of the Sacrifice, which speaks volumes of the condition of the Dharma today.

Given the present conditions, it would appear that the West is better positioned to make the process consciously lived. But what we find lacking in the occident is the age-old tradition that the subcontinent carries over from the hoary past into the present via the unbroken Thread. It is for the reader to judge which pole, oriental or occidental, would have a better chance at actualising the Dharma of the Aquarian Age: the West which experiences the solar year as it was known in the Vedic Age, but which lacks the foundation in myth and cosmic sense and purpose that we find alive and well in the subcontinent. Or the eastern end of the pole where treasures lie buried somewhere beneath the coverings of the ages. Thus the conscious participation is denied to the masses because of errors in transferring that cosmic measure to the populace. The means to do so, the proper calendar for the purpose, is opposed by those who hold the power to determine which system is to be used, Nirayana based on the constellations, or Vedic based on the Earth’s own measure.

The constant reference I am making to the erroneous Measure used for the computation of the Hindu calendar of observances is extremely important, though it might appear as a tedious repetition to readers. Be that as it may, its singular importance is twofold. First and foremost is the fact that the Cosmic Truth cannot be perceived, much less actualised or applied, on the sidereal backdrop of the current post-Vedic Nirayana system. Simply put, that Order, that Cosmic Truth vanishes in the post-Vedic system. It remains submerged in the Piscean Ocean, or imprisoned beneath coverings and ‘cobwebs’, as I call them, which demand removal if that Sense and Purpose is to be restored and the Churning Myth is to be made a reality of our contemporary world.

Next is the effect of this mis-measure on the subcontinent: 80% of the energies of the majority population continue to be dispersed rather than unified via an enlightened calendar, whose primary purpose is the fulfilment of the great ideals of Aquarius, for which the subcontinent plays a central role, as the Thread itself reveals through the Capricorn hieroglyph.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director
Aeon Centre of Cosmology

Update 7 (continued)

In the yearly circumambulation of the planets around the Sun, the Time and Space axes are brought into alignment. This process is given physical validity in the Equinoxes (space) and Solstices (time). It means that the equal cross is an astronomical fact and is our birthright as inhabitants of Earth. Logically, being so Earth-oriented, this had to be the crux of the Vedic Sacrifice, made evident by the stated ‘victory’ in Capricorn, the 10th month, the last and highest Solstice; indeed, the ‘abode’ of the Great Time himself. To appreciate that Capricorn is the ‘location’ (in time and space) of the realisation, naturally the zodiac of the Vedic Journey has to be understood in initiatic terms, bearing little resemblance to the practice of the Art in India today, or even in the West, though there the situation is somewhat improved because the proper calendar/time reckoning is used for these sacred purposes, unlike in India today. In the West the whole society moves through the Year according to the Vedic calendar. But while the alignment occurs through calendar synchronicities, what is lacking is the initiatic realisation to accompany the physical phenomenon. By the testimony of the Veda we find both supporting each other. This lasted for a time into the Puranic era as well; but due to the Ruse the focus of the ritual turned to the Beyond, and the twain became irrevocably separated. We see this clearly reflected in the exclusion of the Vedic Calendar in favour of the ‘otherworldly’ sidereal Nirayana computation employed in all temple worship and astrological configurations.

We learn from this reflection that it is not enough to follow an accurate calendar to govern a society as we find in western nations. Nor is it sufficient to carry out rituals parrot-like that have lost their ‘knowledge content’. In both cases ignorance prevails. This draws us close to understanding what the focus in this Age of Mitra/Aquarius is: the establishment of a ‘higher purpose’ in the human being where the physical joins the spiritual based on solid Knowledge.

Nonetheless, all is as it should be. If the Deluder could draw the Asura off the Vedic path so effectively, thereby enfeebling the Gods – and we have the wise words of the Puranas as confirmation – then the direction of the quest was destined to veer AWAY from the Earth. Essentially both abandoned her – one by the inability to contend with the exigencies of a creation in matter; the other out of delusion born of ignorance. Naturally the Earth’s rhythms and harmonies were doomed, central to which is the solar Vedic Year. Sooner or later this mis-direction would take its toll.

By consequence, this cosmic ‘mis-step’ had to reflect ultimately on the Vedic Sacrifice, whose efficacy depended on the precision alignment of the Year. As a result of delusion and to illustrate the loss, the Hindu calendar, which all temples and astrologers follow, is miscalculated by twenty-three days. We can seek to explain away the mis-calculation by hiding behind ‘scientific’ subterfuges and claiming that time has moved on and with it the zodiac which it propels; therefore, they advocate, Capricorn is ‘no longer there where once it was’ – i.e., joined to the shortest day of the year. The truth be told, and we tell it in the simplest terms to avoid adding to the delusion/confusion, these latter-day pundits and astrologers of the POST-VEDIC school (though they call themselves ‘Vedic’ Astrologers) are using the wrong circle. They base their deductions on the circle of constellations out in the Beyond (astronomically and yogically speaking) rather than the actual Vedic Journey through the ecliptic where our Earth finds her home. Lamentably, we will have to bring up this point off and on in this updating because it is central to the condition of things Vedic as well as Puranic in the subcontinent, which caused Sri Aurobindo to state that ‘…for the past two thousand years no Indian has understood the Veda’. And if the Veda are not understood, how can the deep sense in Puranic myths be seized, having their roots in the more ancient body of yogic knowledge?

The culminating realisation of the Veda is therefore an impossibility under the circumstances, if we agree that the Veda are cosmically rooted, as indeed they were and remain, the Deluders notwithstanding. For the simple fact is that entry into the kingdom of Swar through the 10th month gateway is barred by this mis-calculation. Indeed, the Makar Sankranti celebrated on 15 January each year cannot present the seeker or the larger community with an actual portal to enter. Access would be barred for lack of the right ‘key card’ – which is the Capricorn alignment with the December Solstice; they must click into place together for the month/door to open. But on 15 January there is no such portal to cross; it passed by 23 days earlier. Therefore, the means to effectuate the required alignment of Time and Space which the Vedic Sacrifice demands, remains unfulfilled both for the individual and the community that follow these latter-day prescriptions.

Again we note that Capricorn holds the key. That sankranti or gateway must coincide with the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere so that the experience of contraction (of the Light), its maximum compression to a point is the singularity/portal to the kingdom of Swar. But let us be clear: the Vedic swar is not the ‘heaven’ of the religious experience inherited from the Age of Pisces. Materialisation on Earth of Capricorn unequivocally reveals that Swar is of this Earth and is not found in any unprovable Beyond. The means to prove the point further will be dealt with in the course of this updating.

For now we must consider that when the terms of the Sacrifice are honoured, then Capricorn is revealed as the stage of the Journey, Vedic or Puranic, where an AXIS is forged to materialise in the Initiate the equal-bodied cross. Capricorn is the month/stage of the Initiation where this alignment/realignment is achieved. And given that Capricorn has ‘descended’ onto the body of our planet, we know that this realisation is no longer confined to the experience of an elite but is now destined to embrace the entire Earth. This is the importance – nay, the imperative requirement – of updating the Puranic Cosmology.

The whole of the Earth is experiencing the passage that brings realignment. But before the full apotheosis, residue must be dissolved, encumbrances must be shed which have been accumulated during passage through Pisces. This ‘shedding’ lies at the root of the physical stresses and strains the Earth is experiencing; but the pressure is not only confined to the physical with its constant upheavals in the form of unprecedented floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like. All parts of her fourfold being (the cross) are being ‘compressed’. To illustrate, the second part, the vital, encompasses economics, finances, trade, the suppliers of society’s need, the energy factor, and so forth, which are now globally felt because of the universalism of Aquarius. The third sector/plane, the mental, covers governing bodies and the way we elect our rulers, the military, the justice system and so on.

Last but not least, the hardest pressure is felt on the fourth body, the spiritual, for reasons I will continue to describe well into the series, since this, the highest, is the Unknown when access to Capricorn is barred. Presently it is akin to a black hole: the Light is somewhere in there but cannot be reached. For all practical purposes the withheld energy/light (the ‘cows’/rays of the Sun in the Veda) is the most potent one-quarter of the circle that we cannot tap and integrate to facilitate the emergence of the next evolutionary specimen which Sri Aurobindo calls the Gnostic Being.

The Churning of the Ocean on display at the international airport of Thailand, August 2007.
This contemporary depiction reveals more clearly Devas and Asuras on a par, tugging Mt Meru as churning stick, atop of which stands Vishnu balancing the action.

Puranic Cosmology Updated 7

15 March 2010

There is a way of looking at Time (and Space) which may be described as initiatic, but of the Vedic sort. To do so, complexity is shed in favour of a compelling simplicity that cuts to the bone of perception. If we observe how the Knowledge has come down to us from the Vedic Age in its large, sweeping design, we see clearly this simplicity actualised – but only when compared to the embellishment it underwent over the post-Vedic centuries.

To illustrate, the focal point of the Vedic Sacrifice was the vedi, simple geometric constructions; however, their geometry itself was anything but simple. Rather, Tradition reveals that the geometry used to construct the vedi was highly complex. I repeat as in Update 6, geometry was the means to imbue the arena of the Sacrifice with a ‘substance’, ethereal though it was, to uphold the endeavour in the physical dimension for the goals of the ritual. These vedi were instilled with power by the Vedic Laws of Correspondence and Equivalence.

In later times these Laws were passed on to Europe, through Egypt and then Greece, to become the basis of astrology as it is practiced still today throughout the world. It was conveyed in the Hermetic aphorism, ‘As above, so below’. Astrology does not operate on the basis of planetary influences, as erroneously believed by the scientific community to debunk astrology. It functions by the Vedic Laws as cited. But astrology suffered a decline in the Puranic Age on the subcontinent. We note the decline, if it may be so called, in the gradual change that overtook the ‘altar’ for the Sacrifice; indeed, by the time the decline had set in fully, the Vedic Sacrifice itself was in name only. The Vedic chants, the mantras continued to occupy centrestage perhaps, but, as Sri Aurobindo eloquently wrote, ‘…the soul of knowledge had fled from its coverings’.

The Hindu temple reflects a complexity that set in when the geometry of the vedi had faded into the background. It would appear to be an enhancement via embellishment; but in actual fact form had overtaken essence. The vedi were replaced by the temple’s permanent garbha griha or sanctum sanctorum. A certain densification was taking place but we see how form came to cover essence by ever grander temples. The simple geometric altar was supplanted by the elaborate temple, where geometry still exists but is not as obvious as in earlier times. It is interesting to note that this development was accompanied by the rise of Science as a separate discipline at the service of the Profane, dramatically different from the Vedic Age. The Sacred, on the other hand, went underground for its protection and preservation. Certainly it is still present in the temple, but, I repeat, covered in the complexity of Form.

If this exercise of updating is to succeed, obviously the focal point of the Tradition must find its place in this process. But this becomes complicated today given the loss of ‘the soul of knowledge’. The question is how do we retrieve that Soul, now submerged in the Ocean of Pisces as a legacy of the Age we left behind in 1926? Bear in mind, this is not a condition limited to the subcontinent. The Piscean Flood covered the entire globe with Truth ever present but increasingly difficult to ‘retrieve’ the higher the ‘waters’ reached. The experience today demands that we peal off the layers covering Truth; however, at the same time we need to accept that they are also connected by the Thread which does make sense of the seemingly negative along with the positive. Though the coverings are a legitimate aspect of the Earth’s integral evolutionary process, similar to the need for ‘ruse’, while necessary we must accept that a resultant residue is carried over and somehow needs to be dissolved if the evolutionary process is to rise to heights never before reached – i.e., the summit of the Capricorn Mountain.

If Capricorn encapsulates the essence, as demonstrated in the Thread carried over to the actual geography of the subcontinent it astrologically rules, then that ‘chosen’ location itself becomes, as it were, the Altar, the vedi of the yearly Sacrifice. What was previously confined to a sanctified point in the Vedic Age is today enhanced to cover the entire subcontinent. This reflection alone reveals that in this Age of Mitra/Aquarius, the Knowledge that was reserved for an elite can now spread across the globe from the Capricorn centre that is the subcontinent.

Just as the Sacrifice of the Vedic Age was precise and mathematical, so too the enhancement of today, which serves to update the Tradition, is equally precise. In this exercise it becomes imperative to join together what had been torn asunder. We are obliged to wed the profane and the sacred in a greater unity which heals the divide the Puranic Myth describes so eloquently in the seemingly unavoidable struggles between the Titans and the Gods for supremacy. But the most magnificent myth of all times, the Puranic Churning of the Milky Ocean, presents us with an accurate image drawn from the soul: Devas and Asuras are joined on a par in the great labour that VISHNU controls.

The exquisite Angkor Vat bas-relief of the Churning of the Milky Ocean
( Cambodia, 12th Century CE , image Wikipedia)

We may just as well describe the conflict in terms closer to our contemporary formulation. This would be Time and Space. By a simple formula that has reached us across the Vedic and Puranic Ages, we can explain how Time and Space are the Gods and the Asuras of today, respectively. But it may be simpler to view them geometrically as vertical (Time) and horizontal (Space). When the Harmony is pure and unencumbered, the symbol is thus . When it is not, when it is encumbered by the residue inherited from of the Age of Pisces, that ‘excess’ creates an imbalance and the cross of Time and Space, or Devas and Asuras, is no longer equal-bodied but off-centred and hence in conflict to regain the lost balance. Therefore, the task today is to re-align­ in our lived experience these cosmic properties of Time and Space which in the soul-language of Myth are personified as Devas and Asuras. This will perhaps help clarify why asura in the Vedas did not carry the negative connotation of the Puranic Age. The split between the sacred and the profane had not yet occurred. Nonetheless, it was the crux of the Sacrifice – i.e., to bring about the superior alignment in the Initiate/Warrior who had to face his inner demons before all else.

The same situation faces today’s Initiate; but the scope is global now, as we have seen in the localisation of the Capricorn Hieroglyph over the subcontinent. What in the Vedic Age was reserved for the Initiate, today, after passage through the Piscean Ocean and into the airy Aquarian heights, has become the Yoga for the World as the first step in the construction of the highest symbol of all, the astronomical/astrological symbol of the Sun: . To engage its Periphery the only way is through the Centre – be this in the individual or the collective: the soul each of us carries in our deepest recesses, or the Soul of the Earth which has now been unveiled through this cosmological updating to be geographical India, once known as Mt Meru.

Unveiling that Point can be done when the direction of the endeavour reverts to what it was in the Vedic Age, albeit universalised today. This means that the strategy of ‘ruse’, drawing the Demons off the Vedic path to thus enable ‘conquest’ by the Devas, has to be understood in much deeper terms than we have cared to appreciate so far. In the process the origin of the present conflicts across the world may become clearer. For the fact is the weakness of the Devas forced a reliance on subterfuge, the residue of which continues to burden the evolutionary process as played out in India, for herself and for the rest of the world. Ridding themselves of the Asuras amounted to abandoning the Earth because power was withheld by this unhealthy divisionary tactic – as in the separation of the sacred from the profane. The ultimate result has been the gradual and now seemingly definitive division between Science and the Spiritual, or Matter and Spirit. The Gods being considered the sole legitimate possessors of the spiritual in today’s world, the only direction possible, given the split, was a quest for the Beyond. This direction began to take hold from the time of the ‘magic deluder’ and has troubled us ever since.

Be that as it may, Vishnu’s intervention through his Line of Ten continues unperturbed, unrelenting. Thus, the (legitimate) 9th’s task was explicit: to reverse that mis-direction to the Beyond and the trend of otherworldliness, while establishing the Earth once more as the ‘Altar of the Sacrifice’. Thus, the Year must come again to our aid as the ‘map’ in this perilous journey ahead.

(To be continued)

Puranic Cosmology Updated 2

27 February 2010

More than their cosmological content the Puranas are known to be repositories of the countless myths of the subcontinent. Tradition has kept these tales alive for several millennia; without them what we know today as Puranic Cosmology would have neither sense nor purpose. Mythology and cosmology go hand in hand. One without the other is inconceivable to those who have been initiated into this timeless wisdom. But precisely because Myth, the language of the Soul, forms the core of the cosmology, not only is the system everlasting, it is also renewable. Herein lies its value as a constant.

In this series we shall examine in depth the reason why cosmology of the ancient school carries within a mechanism of renewal and just how this operates with a precision that has come to be ascribed only to the scientific endeavour. Mythology and cosmology have been deprived of that precision due to the separation that occurred in the beginning of the Age of Pisces between the sacred and the profane. However, when such a splintering occurs, bringing in its wake the consequences we note in the field of cosmology itself – science not ‘myth’ – the signal is given that the moment of renewal is upon us.

In the subcontinent this great Divide, let us call it, developed gradually; but by the 18^th century a hardening of the boundary between the two began at an ever increasing pace. What was only a vague influence became firm and seemingly irrevocable. The three closing centuries of the last millennium brought a culmination in this process. Interestingly, it was accompanied by British colonial rule over the subcontinent. Colonialism served to consolidate the Divide as nothing before it had. Finally occidental thought came to be considered rational, empirically verifiable, ‘scientific’, in contrast to the orient which continued to cling to the Tradition but subjected to the demeaning position beneath that of ‘real science’. It then became known as superstition. The truth be told, unless a real and not imaginary updating of the ancient way occurs, the tag of superstition must inevitably gain credence. Puranic Cosmology will live on, but only as a quaint relic of times gone by which required the redeeming grace of Science.

Attempts are periodically made by those who seek to inform the world that Puranic Cosmology does contain real science. An example would be Dr Subash Kak’s recent article in Journal of Cosmology, 2009, Vol 3 ‘The Universe, Quantum Physics and Consciousness’, under the section ‘A Scientific Coincidence’. Kak highlights the remarkable ‘coincidence’ regarding the early value of the speed of light in the ancient texts. This and similar evidence does prove that the scientific aspect of cosmology was not ignored by the ancients; however, it played only a minor role regardless of the profuse evidence available. The primary function of ancient cosmology, even as it remains so in today’s updating, is to provide the sense and purpose of the human being’s sojourn on this planet. That was the primary emphasis in the study of cosmic harmonies. And it needs to be pointed out that Harmony is the vital breath coursing through the veins of the ancient way, even as it is the essence of the current updating.

The observer was the human being on the third planet from the Sun. The principal feature of this particular location in the System is the Soul; and this is the mechanism, if it may be so called, by which that sense and purpose can be extracted from the cosmic surround. Moreover, it is not only the eternal Constant proper to this planetary location that allows for renewal, but, in addition, by its very nature it is universal. In proving this point another aspect of the Puranic Cosmology will emerge: its prophetic quality in that it was able to describe the evolution of the civilisation on the subcontinent as it was then and the exact position it would occupy in a future age by the same original methodology. But again, only after the exercise of updating has been undertaken can this be verified. It is our best proof that we are dealing with a ‘seed’ planted in the Vedic Age; it passed through the Puranic to reach us today in its full scope and glory.

Myth is the language of the soul across the globe and across the ages. But nowhere has it survived to the degree that we find in the subcontinent. Myth is alive and well in India – much to the chagrin of the secular scientist; and it is precisely myth that provides the method for updating Puranic Cosmology. This cosmology allows myth to be applicable; or better, cosmology is the application of myth. Consequently, if we wish to engage in any renewal or re-establishment of the Tradition, the methodology would have to be the same: myth taken from the cosmic harmony via the soul which each of us carries within as the birthright of all human beings on the third planet.

Thus the number 3 will occupy an important place in this discussion, and all variations thereupon. To be observed is that the Trinity or the triune balance is also a universal component of all traditions, ancient and new. Indeed, in the updated cosmology the triune powers are precisely the key required to unlock the door beyond which Puranic Cosmology stands and awaits renewal.

It may be contended that so far there have been certain assumptions made and upon which the method of renewal is being attempted. It may be held that these assumptions cannot provide a foolproof methodology. However, we must accept the facts as they stand today: myth exists and is universal and applicable in cosmology. We need no further proof than cosmology itself by virtue of the fact that it has been updated purely on the basis of the eternal language of the soul. I propose to discuss just how this has been done. It stands as it own proof, its own validation.

Apropos of which, a certain clarification or establishment of the ‘rules of the game’ are required. This cosmology is its own science. It does not require an imprimatur of the contemporary product that bears this name. Rather, to be a meaningful and definitive exposition all attempts to confine the ancient and new way into the narrow parameters of a discipline devoid of their main distinguishing features – sense and purpose – is futile.

PATRIZIA NORELLI-BACHELET

Puranic Cosmology Updated 1

20 February 2010

For a number of years I have been concentrating on reconnecting contemporary India to her Vedic roots. I believe that the exercise has been largely successful. Foremost has been the link I was able to establish between Vishnu’s Dasavataras and the Rig Veda via the hymns in praise of Vishnu in the collection, which, to my knowledge, had never been done. With the publication of Secrets of the Earth (Aeon Books, 2009) that phase of the endeavour was largely completed. There can be no doubt that the Line of Ten stretches back to the Vedic Age and does rightfully merit the description ‘backbone’ of Vedic civilisation, as I have sustained. This discovery came through a series of gnostic keys which have appeared in a number of my published works from 1974 to date.

In addition to the above, in Secrets the meaning of Vishnu’s three strides to ‘measure the universe’ has been finally deciphered, once again based on the same praises from the Rig Veda to this important Godhead. There can no longer be any doubt but that those hymns contain the true meaning of his measuring act in three strides and that they refer unequivocally to the Line of Vishnu’s Ten Avatars. The knowledge is consistent, coherent and connected. The connection or the thread running through the system has finally been revealed. It is not through a repetition of rituals, as inspiring as they may be, or by the chanting of mantras that the connection with the Veda is maintained; rather, only the thread of Knowledge can be the direct link between India today and of the Vedic Age, precisely as the word implies – veda, knowledge. That this potent word lies at the root of the civilisation surely indicates a unique destiny.

One important aspect of the Knowledge has resulted from this exercise: it is the need to return to the Vedic system of computation for the calendar of temple observances and horoscopy. This is the first step along the way to re-forging a dynamic link with the Vedic Age. Presently, because of this deviation there is only an imaginary connection. It is neither factual nor applicable today.

While emphasis was entirely on the Veda over the past several years, it is now time to carry out the same exercise regarding the Puranas – more specifically Puranic Cosmology. In this context, the situation in India and in the world prompts me to discuss ORDER – a new Order. From time immemorial civilisation on the subcontinent evolved on the backdrop of a unique pattern which made sense of many aspects of collective and individual life in India. In fact, it was unthinkable that a society could successfully evolve without such a pattern. And indeed it still exists. Its persistence lies at the heart of what is known as the Sanatana Dharma – the eternal Way, the eternal Truth.

At the outset we must be clear about a fundamental aspect of the Dharma. It is not a religion; very far from it. Rather, it can best be described as the cosmic foundation of a way of life, a culture. The fact that this Order has served as the backdrop for everything that is true and real in India is what disqualifies the civilisation from being categorised as religious according to contemporary interpretations. Something very different lies at the root of the civilisational underpinnings I propose to discuss in this series; and herein lies India’s blessing – and her bane: contemporary Indian society has carried that Order, that Sanatan Dharma into the present. But the world today is a very different place than what it was in the millennia when that superior Order had evolved and guided the people of the subcontinent. Contemporary society is largely governed by values that came through exclusivist religions. Consequently, India finds herself obliged to accommodate these factors into the ancient Order, or to find a way to carry the Dharma forward into a new phase of expression without succumbing to the limitations that affect the world today and which, in the main, are incompatible with India of the Vedic Age. Therefore a method must be found to re-establish the Order in the present conditions of our global society in spite of this incompatibility. A method has indeed been found which will be the subject of this discussion.

In the course of this series I will highlight several factors. One is precisely the question of universalism which perforce must be the underlying breath running through the new Order – indeed, the very element that distinguishes it from the old way and which gives it its vibrating, pulsating life. Next is the need to illustrate just how the pattern, ancient and new, escapes the constraints religion imposes.

And then there is the structure or pattern itself which we will dissect. In so doing it will be appreciated that the new order is simply an UPDATING of the old. The latter is not discarded but simply brought forward almost intact. Herein lies the extraordinary quality of the ancient way: it can be proven that the Order I am discussing bore an inherent mechanism of renewal, exactly what is lacking in religions and contemporary ideologies. Because of that mechanism it is known as sanatana, eternal; and because of this special and unique quality it can be demonstrated that what we know today as Puranic Cosmogony is actually prophetic in that the new cosmology is seen to build on that structure by virtue of the fact that the very same laws and methodology which we find in the Puranic cosmology forms the warp and woof of the new.

That is the issue: What is the core embedded in the system which is indestructible and is carried over across the aeons? When this is known the eternal essence is revealed on which basis the new evolves. To put it succinctly, there is a stable constant as upholder of both the old and the new. In the human being we know that constant as the Soul. The same must be said of cosmology of this special type. That unchanging quotient is the eternal support of the system, on which basis a civilisation can enjoy a blissful state of eternal Being within the Becoming. The evolutionary process provides the becoming of the being which is the stable support of the system everlastingly. But without the harmonised expression of the two there is neither sanatana nor dharma. There is just growth and decay, life followed by death.

The only civilisation this Earth has produced to escape from a morbid fossilisation of this nature is the Vedic. But we cannot expect to carry the old Puranic order into our times just as it was known millennia ago. If this were allowed we would be denying legitimacy to half the equation – the Becoming. And it is precisely the evolutionary process that eliminates the disease of fossilisation. Armed with the Core as our stable constant, we embark in this study on the discovery of exactly what must be carried over from the ancient way – but updated, failing which the civilisation that was based on the old cosmology must surely perish.

PATRIZIA NORELLI-BACHELET