Posts
The significance of his appearance
for the Hindu Samaj
Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea)
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology
South India, 10.10.2010
Caste and the Cosmic Order
Daily we are told in the media ‘India has moved on’ – that is, Ayodhya is no longer of any interest to young India born after 1992 (the Demolition). This youth wants opportunities, education, jobs, material well being. In other words, an even more self-centred life than what the disease of corruption has provided. Of course the State must provide material well being through various areas of development, but that must not be mistaken for food for the soul, individual or collective. In our legitimate efforts to separate religion and state we are adopting a model that has proven inadequate elsewhere. The European Union is one example. Unity is sought to be achieved through the binding force of economic integration with its undeniable benefits. But this has shallow binding power; therefore, try as it might the EU cannot match the power of the United States of America whose own unity arose long before economics came to rule the world. It was a struggle to unite and integrate the fledging nation on the basis of higher goals, more all-inclusive – unlike Europe of today.
Economic success cannot make a nation great and powerful. That is only one slice of the fourfold pie – the Vaishya slice of the ancient cosmic order. Rather, all four must exist in harmony which means in their rightful place. This is the key. That order continues to exist though under a different name. Contemporary society worldwide has the same four levels just as they existed in India of old: 1) labour, artisan skills, agriculture, 2) economics and supplier of people’s needs including energy, 3) military and governance, and 4) the highest strata which today has come to be equated with science, academia and religious figures, while in ancient times the fourth was reserved for the Rishi, the seer-sage. Thus, call a rose by any other name, it is still a rose.I provide below a diagram of the fourfold order taken directly from the cosmic harmony. And since it arose in the consciousness of the Rishi millennia ago, it does not allow itself to be easily extirpated. Should we not ask why, rather than seek to suppress the un-suppressible which just refuses to go away? Instead of bemoaning its continued influence on society let us try to carry the discourse to a deeper level. Again the Circle holds the key. The diagram provides us with the answer. It is a circle divided into four equal parts, just as we divide the cosmic surround into four sections resting on the four pillars of Equinoxes and Solstices.But what happened to that Order for it to become a divisive rather than an integrating tool? The answer is simple enough: the circle (B) itself faded from the consciousness of the nation and the image that replaced it was the triangle (A), also divided into four segments.Note the difference between the two: the triangle (the current degenerated form of caste) has lower and higher rungs as in a linear ladder; but to reach the apex one must move through those segments. There is no direct access of the lower rungs to the Apex, they are compelled to move up the scale through the other segments. In other words, admission to that highest goal, of whatever order, is only through an intermediary. Naturally this triangular arrangement goes against the egalitarian tenets of contemporary society.And so, the cosmic order of caste is sought to be eradicated in an attempt to throw the baby out with the bath water. The cosmic basis of Vedic civilisation is comprehensive, all-inclusive, precisely because it emerged from the realisation of the Circle – i.e., unity – by the ancient Rishi. If that Vedic experience is intended to defy the passage of time and remain steadfast as the foundation of India, then Time itself has to be the tool to forge renewal and re-establishment. This is not in the least sectarian and divisive: it is a renewal that affects all levels and segments of Indian contemporary society. Time and Cosmos are impartial, neutral as it were.This is what the periodic appearances of the Evolutionary Avatars provide, precisely the key to the Zero Point of the cosmic circle. With that simple boon the evils born of linearity are eliminated.The realistic position for this new age, though ever based on the ancient perception, is explained by the Circle where all of the four segments in equal measure (equal opportunities) have direct access to the Centre, or the Divine, or whatever goal we establish as the highest, individually or for society as a whole, with no intermediary required. Thus caste takes on a completely different meaning and function. It is simply the orderly cosmic arrangement of a society that has the ability to ‘put each thing in its place’ – the meaning of cosmos, order.
It may be difficult to believe when I state that Ramlala has given us the key to rectify matters cosmic in their origin and to make them applicable today. That key is precisely the Circle. What was finally lost to allow entry into the Circle (and hence equal opportunity) was the key that Ramlala has given by his appearance as and when it took place in 1949. Simply put, it is the key to the correct 0 Point required for access to the Circle and all that it implies. The former comes through Knowledge of the Vedic kind; whereas the triangle requires no effort at all but an inertia that is maintained when renewal is denied. Only with the correct key can we enter the world of the Rishi where the Circle, with its ‘centre that holds’ (in this case Ramavatar), gives us the unifying spherical perceptive capacity so lacking today. As proclaimed by the Rishi millennia ago, these four segments of society are the Cosmic Body of the Divine Mother; today, just as they were in the ancient Vedic and Sangam Eras, with no variation at all. This indeed is the foundation and the eternal character of the Dharma. And just as the cosmos is in constant motion and evolution, so too does the society based on its principles enjoy a sound mechanism of renewal. The Vishnu Avatars set that mechanism in motion when they appear on the scene. Ramlala is guiding us to that knowledge.
We are caught in linear perceptions upon which we base our models, but it is entirely possible to demonstrate how Ramlala establishes new rules, applicable today within the context of the new India, respecting all the demands made by contemporary society. Indeed, his Appearance has validated this very premise; again dismissing any attempts at fossilisation and regression into the past. The present holds all that is most sacred to Vedic civilisation. We simply need to make use of the key Ramlala provides in the midst of the play of circumstances of which he is the ‘centre that holds’.The loss of the key was a gradual process that began around 2000 years ago. It has taken that long for it to become recognisable in contemporary Hindu society. In the interim Vedic civilisation has lived through the most trying and difficult experiences of its long history. We know that history well enough and need not elaborate. The partitioned condition of the Mother’s Body is sufficient testimony. But the point I wish to make is that the root cause lies in the lost key at the heart of the system, rather than any outside source. To put it bluntly, if invasions and mayhem were inflicted on this great and ancient Mother, the blame lies within. Therefore, it is only from within that strength can come, first of all to retrieve the Key, and then to open the door to ‘the soul of Knowledge’. In the process, through the tri-part partition of the Ayodhya land it cannot be denied that the original Partition of the Mother’s Body is somehow recalled. Can it be that Ramlala had this intention in mind: to work out that larger Partition in the smaller? That would reflect fully the Vedic system of cosmic harmonies where correspondences and equivalences form the methodology. The smaller ‘represents’ the larger. But this ‘correspond-ence’ comes into being only by virtue of the sage’s capacity to determine what that smaller might be that can reflect or have a bearing on the larger. This capacity is not available to the common man. It requires years of dedicated sadhana such as Ramlala’s 36-year isolation (Jan.1950-Feb.1986).This is what Ramlala has given to the Hindu Samaj. The meaning is neither metaphoric nor symbolic. It is factual based on science; and it is precisely the Appearance that restores to the system the basis of veda – on its own terms without seeking to confine its high truth to a contemporary version that lacks the essential ingredients of the Vedic jnana, unity and integrality, and respecting its laws of correspondence and equivalence. Together let us unlock the innermost door to his sanctum sanctorum. I will use the entire history of Ramlala since Independence to prove the point. I will not appeal to sentiment or even to bhakti alone, though we do recognise that real power arises when love is coupled with knowledge:
‘For painting is the way to know the maker of all
marvellous things, and this is the way to love so great an
inventor. For in truth love springs from the full knowledge
of the thing that one loves; and if you do not know it,
you can love it but little or not at all.’Leonardo da Vinci
Public opinion across India sees the Ayodhya issue as related to Hindu/Muslim affairs, the divide that may exist between the two, and the need for reconciliation. In this light it appears that the problem is purely one of secular civil rights of sorts. If such were the case, the call to keep politics out of the dispute seems illogical since political parties in a parliamentary democracy are supposed to represent the collective will of the people. Likewise, the Hindu/Muslim slant ends in the dead end of majority/minority which politicians have sought to bridge by equal appeasement to both. Of course this has not worked because certain issues defy this sort of balancing act.The core lies deeper within the collective psyche where appeasement strategies never reach. In fact, Ayodhya is not a question of reconciliation at all. The entire denouement from 1528 (and long before) to the present pertains entirely to the Hindu Samaj. It has nothing to do with the Muslim community or religion but rather the condition of Hinduism in and for itself. It is weakened from within and this is what Ayodhya displays: a point of convergence for the Hindu Samaj to have displayed unmistakably what ails it from its innermost depths. Undermining, corrosion at that deepest level is what permitted and gave rise to everything that has transpired around contemporary Ramlala of Ayodhya.The recent High Court judgement was brilliant in that it addressed that Core – which some call belief or faith – and did not lay emphasis to any appreciable degree on the torts of the Muslim and Hindu communities. Rather, the judgement brought the issue back to that core in reinstating the role of the Icon or Idol in a Vedic civilsiation. In this sense it strengthened that most essential element of ancient and contemporary Hinduism.I am carrying that judgement a step further by stressing also the core values of Vedic civilisation but also by revealing the applied cosmology that is directly involved in the Ayodhya issue and should not be ignored. In doing so a renewal of the cosmic harmonies and foundations come about with Ramlala the Idol as the central protagonist with his garbha griha, just as the judgement sustains based on the prevailing law of the land; because the only way that renewal can take place for a civilisation based on veda is, precisely, Knowledge – of the order that Ramlala is revealing. This re-establishes the most important element in temple/idol worship: Time, without whose allegiance no Idol would have the power to do what Ramlala of Ayodhya is doing.The focus of the dispute must be seen differently as purely a matter internal to Hinduism which has lost the allegiance of Time because it has lost the key to the Zero Point that Ramlala holds. The Muslim community and other sections of society stand as a mirror to facilitate the exposure of what demands renewal, but they play no further role in this particular affair. Hindus must set their house in order by the key Ramlala of Ayodhya offers: the inseparable unity of the Makar Sankranti and the December Solstice – that is, the reformed calendar for Hindu observances where this Sankranti is precisely the key to the correct connection with the cosmic surround, a knowledge that was lost decades, perhaps centuries ago. All during the period of greatest tribulation, the Makar Sankranti could not serve the Hindu Samaj as it is meant to due to the lost measure of its unity with the December Solstice. But Ramlala of Ayodhya has played the role the Evolutionary Avatars are meant to play: he has restored the measure of things Vedic and eternal.It would seem simple enough: reform the Hindu calendar and bring order back into what is supposed to be cosmos (order) and eliminate the present undeniable chaos. A calendar is the means to unite society. In India Hindus are subjected to a calendar that divides and can never unite. It was truly a brilliant strategy so as to divide-and-rule at the innermost core regarding the factor that is central to every ritual performed in every temple: Time. But the unexpected contingency plan to counteract the divisive strategy was Ramlala appearing exactly on the December Solstice, thus bringing with him the knowledge of all that is good and true of this Vedic Civilisation. However, to reform what needs to be reformed, to bring about ‘reconciliation’ and ‘reunification’ (as in the Body of the Mother), the obstacles are almost insurmountable – far greater than the apparent divide that exists between Muslim and Hindu because this demands a surrender to Ramlala and to his implacable Will. This has nothing to do with anything external to the Samaj.
(To be continued)
