A Cosmological Perspective ‒ Conclusion

[Web editor's note: For unknown reasons, this conclusion wasn't published in 2014 with the rest of the series.]

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet 

Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology,

August 2014

[Link to Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 & 4.2]

What has been recorded in this series is an effort to carry the seeker into a zone normally closed to researchers — that is, certain deeper levels of the universal manifestation that have been relegated to the category of myth in its acquired sense of fanciful imagination. The practitioner of certain advanced Yogas can access the areas of human consciousness-being where the core of what we know as ancient mythologies can be experienced; but this requires recognition and acceptance of the role the Soul plays for the species in evolution. Time and again I have stated that myth is the language of the soul. I have also stated that periodically an updating of that perennial knowledge is required. This series has been an exercise in the act of updating — i.e., the present observed on the backdrop of certain timeless keys of knowledge. The great good fortune of India is that a method was in-built in her tradition from very ancient times that provides an orderly, organic system of updating, respectful of everything that is of value for the future evolution as we move higher and higher up the ladder toward an apotheosis of unimaginable depth and beauty. There are, however, difficulties on the way to this culmination.
First and foremost is the current state of civilisation, often referred to as a global society. We are aware how it comes to pass that civilisation is almost a universal phenomenon, to the point that the oft-quoted phrase from the ancient scripture vasudhaiva kuțumbakam (the world is but one family) seems so very contemporary. But to really abide in that consciousness of Oneness, as the Sanskrit words suggest, great effort must be made to shed the baggage we carry that impedes this attainment — a condition that plagues the spiritual realiser as much as the scientist and the layman.
The Time-Spirit of the Age of Aquarius demands a universalised consciousness — not only on the individual level but more especially on the level of the societies we create. We are burdened with the baggage of fragmentation and divisiveness — so aptly reflected in the 4.5 Orbit of our solar system when we view the Gnostic Circle as a blueprint of the human consciousness-being, as indeed it is. For centuries the human being has been cajoled into believing that this particular passage through the System can be avoided. Sri Aurobindo has described this ‘error’ for his disciples:

‘According to both Buddha and Shankara liberation means laya of the individual in some transcendent Permanence that is not individualised — so logically a belief in the individual soul must prevent liberation while the sense of misery in the world leads to the attempt to escape.’ (Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo, CE, p.66)

In another letter his perception of the human condition has been captured in the Gnostic Circle when he refers to a ‘Higher Path’ after the experience of the Buddhist Nirvana. This would be the path the seeker embarks upon when escape is rejected. The ‘higher path’ is known as the ‘higher hemisphere’ in astrology, where we find Uttarayana; it begins at the 4.5 Orbit (Libra) and culminates in the highest Cardinal Pole, Capricorn/Makar. 

‘Nirvana cannot be at once the ending of the Path with nothing beyond to explore and yet only a rest house or rather the beginning of the Higher Path with everything still to explore. The reconciliation would be that it is the end of the lower path through the lower Nature and the beginning of the Higher Evolution. In that case it would accord exactly with the teaching of our yoga.’ (Ibid, p.67) 

Of all contemporary realisers, Sri Aurobindo is the only one who has emphatically stated that what has been sought in a Beyond, in a timeless, spaceless realm can and must be brought down here on Earth — what he has often referred to as ‘a life divine’. The issue is, how do we effectively reach the point where we can participate consciously in the establishment of a far better world than has ever been known on this blessed but beleaguered planet we have the good fortune to inhabit? Baggage has to be shed.
The next question to ask is, how can we distinguish between the Eternal and the temporal, between the Infinite and the finite — for hasn’t spirituality been hammering into our consciousness that only the Eternal and the Infinite are worthy of our efforts; the rest is simply an illusion, a ‘play’ of some remote God whose mysterious ways we can never understand, at least while in this third orbit. From here, we have been told, we must shed whatever pins us down to this material abode. We must destroy that network of time in space we have woven since our first individual breath at birth. Only then, we have been assured, can we be released from repeated births until the ultimate liberation whereby we disappear forever from the face of a planet that knows only the way of war and destruction of every sort — from physical to psychological in an unending display of all that opposes the good, the true, the real.
The truth of the matter is that this very promise of a better Beyond, however we call it — for we do project our prejudices and biases to that Beyond as well — is responsible for the lamentable condition of our now-global society.
In this series I have attempted to present a means to re-position ourselves on the planet so that we can live the experience of the Eternal and the Infinite right here, and nowhere better than here. The purpose of evolution, poised on our soul-vahana, is to know those divine Principles in material creation, those very same properties, transcribed for us here on Earth via the harmonies of our solar system, as simply the densification or the materialisation of that which not only transcends but which evolves, using time and space as its sacred instruments. A science that can inculcate this experience of Oneness in our youth is the only science worth teaching.
To date this science has not been in the forefront. It is covered in veils that must now be lifted. This series, as all my publications, seeks to reveal just how those Divine Principles fare in this material dimension as seen and experienced from Earth. Above all how our planet contributes her part in enhancing the experience by the splendid diversity she exhibits in all aspects of the evolution she houses: change, movement do not diminish but rather they increase the delight — which we may consider to be the heart and soul of material creation, its purpose of being. For if there is one truth none can deny it is the truth of diversity, of multiplicity, of exuberant displays by the greatest artist of them all — Mother Nature.
Mother indeed. This principle or mode of being lies deeply beneath those heavy-laden veils now in need of lifting. For sure civilisation needs to be feminised; we all know it, we all aspire for a softening of our culture, divesting it of what has come to be associated with a masculine, heavily- testosteroned societal aberration. But how do we carry out this transformation? How do we carry at least a collective representative grouping to that realisation of Oneness?

All we need for now is to observe the trends displayed in this very society we judge to be in serious decline, and which we intend to remould into whatever ‘image’ we cherish the most. As things now stand, given the hardening of barriers across the globe, we can be certain that that ‘image’ will be in conflict with another’s. We see that there is a breakdown of traditional structures which until now have sustained certain patterns very effectively during the early stages of the process, particularly the stark male/female divide. In Hinduism we find support for this biological stage of evolution in the Shiva/Shakti tradition, or more specifically, the divine couple, Parvati and Shiva, and in the coupling of all the Gods. The result is that given our rapid pace of development, a divide of this nature, so efficient during the less mature stages of evolution, has become an encumbrance and is impeding progress to something beyond these divides that are now a burden. Try as we might to maintain or impose them, time moves on, we cannot reverse its inexorable march. But what we can do is to assess the signals projected before the collective eye of contemporary societies the world over with a re-focused lens, as it were, widened to include what had hitherto been hidden beneath veils, awaiting the time when they could be removed as a part of an organic process.   
We have reached the point where our perceptions of the division between the male and female contributions to society are pressing for change. We have reached the point where the way we express our love for one another is pressing for change — same-sex marriage issues are one example. It would be naive to believe that such expressions are a contemporary aberration and indicate the decline of our civilisation and had never occurred in the past. What we must admit is that for some reason this state of affairs seeks to be legitimised as perhaps a sign of things to come, a Love liberated from atavistic constraints alone. This and many other demands troubling democratic societies simply reflect what the human consciousness knows instinctively: Oneness and not sameness, not uniformity but the oft-repeated but seldom attained diversity in unity.     
There is a place on the globe that bears the responsibility of shedding the baggage of dogmas — both spiritual and scientific — that are now impediments to attaining true diversity in unity in this 9th  Manifestation. It is the Indian subcontinent, for the simple reason that it is in India where we find an unbroken thread in the web of Time that joins the present to the past regardless of the distortions that have crept in along the way but are easily removed. For instance, the realisation of Oneness that seeks universal expression now is a state depicted in Hindu iconography carried over from a distant past. It is the image of Siva Ardhanarishvara, half male, half female. The same condition is echoed time and again in the Rig Veda where we find hymns to the ‘twins’ that seek to join the One. It is the foundation of zodiacal tradition with its feminine and masculine signs, all part of the ONE CIRCLE extolled in the Veda. In other words, if we can trust the Hermetic aphorism, As above, so below, the journey through the 12 signs/stages of the tropical zodiac, unveils what each human being on planet Earth embodies: an essential oneness of being. This condition is just in its initial stages of manifestation. 
We need to go a step further and understand more pointedly where that eternal Vedic journey is headed. Is it intended to fortify the baggage we carry that divides us more and more — part of which is the dogma of exclusivism, resulting in a constricting stagnation the Earth had never known until we crossed the threshold of Cosmic Dawn in 234 BCE? We then plunged into the deep cosmic sea of the Piscean era, whose dark purpose has been the consolidation of certain obscure trends inherent in a consciousness in evolution. These consolidations carried humanity far away from a more enlightened condition as we find in the hymns of the Rig Veda, or the iconography of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The upshot was the complete denial of that former condition — and of Form in general; more specifically, of the Mother in all her exuberant manifestations. At that point the only recourse was to seek escape in one form or another, to abandon this hapless planet to her own devices — and at this we have proven ourselves to be masters.
This mastery is, of course, an illusion. Nature knows best how to tame this wayward species: Ganga’s responses are an example of the way the Mother makes her will known when a certain threshold has been crossed and humanity can no longer be left to its own devices. Interventions are then required, ruthless as they may appear; we witness their increase across the globe.
A mature civilisation does not consider these reprimands by Nature as mere superstition; we have done this for far too long in the effort to justify our greed, insensitivity and ego-centricity. On the other hand, the pragmatists throw the baby out with the bath water and turn to Science for the answers. Can there be a higher synthesis that accommodates both positions by accepting the laws of Nature that have been transgressed, individually and collectively, not as punishments of a wrathful Power but rather an awareness of the consciousness-being of the Earth herself? We do seek to transform those tendencies common to all human beings; the question is, how do we go about the task? If we continue to ignore the hidden in favour of only that which can be measured by our contemporary scientific yardsticks, we will never reach that synthesis.
Those who do not shy away from the ‘deep thought’, as Sri Aurobindo had described it in the early part of the last century, or the supreme Vision as presented to Arjun of the Bhagavad Gita, fearlessly observe the trends society unequivocally offers for scrutiny. Feminisation, yes of course — but is this the preserve of only half of the human creation? Is this what Siva Ardhanarishvara conveys?
I have always sustained that women are responsible for their own unfortunate plight because they themselves have not realised Shiva Ardhanarishvara. They have found a way to accommodate themselves to an increasing darkness by leaning on the male and forfeiting their responsibility to stand at the forefront of Time’s forward march. But this too is fast changing, much to the chagrin of the chauvinist.
In this grand transitional phase we live in, the obvious challenge is to acquire a finer discrimination whereby we recognise what needs to be shed to lighten our burden in order to be able to reach those lofty heights that stand before the human race as a realisable goal. The past is preserved only insofar as we can discriminate in the prescribed manner — that is, when we are able to carry into the present the residue of former ‘churnings’, shorn of the accoutrements that were required in former times but which are now encumbrances that slow down our march. However, the process of universalisation presents difficulties as intuitive historians recognise if they are to shed their ideological baggage or prisms through which they observe the past. Our world today, given our transitional stage, presents us with a One World perspective thanks to the thoroughness of past geographical exploits on land, on sea, leading up to the present and the stunningly beautiful photographs of the globe from outer space, borderless and whole. This is the new icon: the Earth as an integral Whole. This is what can inspire children across the planet in a new way.
But the pace of evolution as experienced in different parts of the globe varies — some are more materially advanced than others; therefore less mature societies are confronted with impositions of material advancements shorn of the tempering wisdom known to the Ancients. This situation is confined to a certain ‘swathe of time’ during which those imbalances will surface through negative displays until the globe is cleansed of the useless and obstructionist.
Indian news channels, for the most part, are displays of just what society needs to shed by the biases their conditioning constraints foist on the public. Presently [late July-early August] what occupies the news space is the fact that in Gujarat there is sought to be an imposition of a fast- receding culture. This appears outrageous to a section of contemporary Indian society, particularly because the books in question extol the attainments of the Ancients which these intellectuals have neatly closeted away as mere fiction — imaginative but misleading myth.
I do not seek to add fuel to the fire raging for the moment, but I do wish to call attention to the true, the real, the eternally abiding Dharma that India holds as her most cherished foundation but which requires updating from age to age. This methodology has been carefully nurtured across the ages in the Epics and sacred literature preserved from those former times. However, to seek to interpret the verses and myths today proves an almost impossible task, given the distance in time and circumstance from the civilisation we seek to analyse. We are burdened with countless disciplines or specialisations answering to whichever of the numerous ideologies that burden the human consciousness as it stands today. I will provide just one example of the difficulty in interpreting the mystifying verses of the Rig Veda. This is the work of Dr. B.G. Sidharth, director general of the Birla Science Centre. He has sought for a specific ‘code’ in the Veda that can enlighten researchers today not only about the civilisational moorings of India but of the factual (not mythical) content of the verses. According to his study they are explicitly astronomical, provided their symbolism is understood.     
I just came across Dr. Sidharth’s book, The Celestial Key to the Vedas (Inner Traditions, 1999), and his more recent publications on the theme via his website. Sidharth’s deductions prove what the Rig Veda itself very clearly explains: there is an exoteric layer as well as a more hidden, secret dimension to the hymns. Being a trained scientist Dr. Sidharth has quite naturally analysed the symbolism from his perspective. To provide one example by which the seeker can judge whether or not the verse in question is understood properly, on page 42 of his book, Sidharth quotes from the Veda the following:

What pathway leadeth to the Gods? Who knoweth this of a truth, and who will now declare it? Seen are their lowest dwelling places only, but  they are in remote and secret regions. (RV 3.54.5)

When I read this verse I nodded in approval; it seemed clear beyond dispute. But I understood the hidden regions not to be a part of the advances in astronomy of the Rishis but of the way in which they bridged the subtle and the material by following the path (of the year) as prescribed in the Scripture. For Sidharth the enigma is solved once we accept that the Rishi was simply revealing that in the Vedic Age the distances between the stars that shine brightly in our night sky was well known, an astronomical fact that eluded the early Greco-European astronomers. (For Sidharth the Gods are the code for ‘stars’.)
I have no doubt that the Vedic Rishis had material as well as supramental knowledge, and on that basis the chants flowed from their lips displaying the fact of Oneness in verse after verse. Having stated that, to one who has taken the same ‘journey’, the Rig Veda encourages the seeker to embark upon it consciously. Therefore the Ancients, while not judging which is right or which is wrong, highlight the fact that there is a ‘hidden’ aspect that is made known only to those who embark upon that journey into those secret recesses, into the esoteric dimension.
There is another verse that amounts to the same exhortation but which is even more interesting in this regard. On page 41 Sidharth quotes the following line from the Veda: ‘Who hath beheld him as he sprang into being, seen how the boneless one supports the bony?’ And his comment follows: ‘Rendered less literally, the boneless and the bony are understood to indicate the insubstantial, or feminine, and the substantial, or masculine. That is, Nature supports the manifested or material world. On the other hand, the respected German scholar Hillebrandt surmises that “the boneless” is the Sun, and “the bony”, the Moon. Reason suggests that “the boneless” would indeed imply the Sun, because it is gaseous, but that “the bony” would mean the Earth, because it is, in contrast, solid and rocky. The hymn says in other words, “The Sun supports the Earth.” Now, apart from being meaningful, interpretations should also be consistent. Can the heliocentric theory in the Rg [sic] Veda be deduced from other straightforward statements?’
Sidharth goes on to quote the verse I have noted above regarding the hidden and secret regions. It does seem obvious that this verse refers to the Unmanifest and the Manifest. According to the new cosmology the Unmanifest (‘unsubstantial’ of Sidharth’s reading) is the masculine Transcendent, while the Manifest (‘substantial’) is feminine — the opposite of his interpretation.
The point to note is that astronomy was not the central concern of the composers of the hymns. Furthermore, Sidharth has an aversion to astrology and he makes no ‘bones’ about it (pun intended!). In my view it is only astrology that can give the right interpretation of bony and boneless, especially in view of the fact that a separate discipline, which we have to contend with today, did not  exist in the Vedic Age and well into the Piscean era. There was only astrology, considered by many as the mother of all sciences — the point being that what most interested the Ancients was the logic of the spheres, much the same as I am stating in these pages. And this is what we find lacking in contemporary science that seeks only the how of material creation and not the why and wherefore. The Vedic Journey shorn of that sense and purpose is meaningless. Let me use bony and boneless as an example of how astrology even today can explain the verse, though admittedly it is a knowledge that, as Sri Aurobindo wrote early in the last century, ‘has fled from its coverings’. We are left with a science, an astronomy that seeks to penetrate those ‘secret regions’ without having taken the same Journey! It is as if to say that we can criticise quantum and relativity without the knowledge of contemporary physics.
Taking the words within the context of the astrology of the day — to appearances a system of 6 planets plus the Sun — we need to interpret the verse on the basis of the knowledge of those early times, and not foist upon them a ‘science’ entirely alien to the consciousness of the Rishi from where the hymns were emitted. Therefore, the zodiacal lore that is still intact across the globe (lost in post-independent India’s astrology but preserved in her temples and myths), understands that the 6th and last planet of the old order, Saturn, rules the bones — that is, the most material element of the human structure, the part of our constitution that never dies or that is, for all practical purposes, immortal. Organic flesh withers and is ‘insubstantial’. Not the skeleton of the human being. Saturn would have represented the final stage, the goal of the journey which was immortality.
The point made is that only an intimate knowledge of what supports the manifest, material dimensions can lead to an immortal state of being. The rest of the verse encourages the initiate to understand that even this most material part of his being is supported by that which sustains it beyond this materiality of the external regions, or the ‘lowest dwelling places’.
Another example of the multi-dimensional approach is the usage of hieroglyphs in astrology inherited from a very distant past — the same today as then. For instance, the glyph for the 5th sign Leo (the Lion) is . The exoteric interpretation is simply that it is a stylised image of the lion’s tail. But deeper reflection sees the symbol as more precisely what astrology has handed down across the ages as the characteristics of the 5th sign — paternity, the masculine principle, and so forth. In that light the glyph is clearly a representation of the male sperm, wiggling tail and all. There will be predictive howling from the historian’s quarter: The sperm was only ‘seen’ with the modern invention of the microscope! And thus the deeper levels will be passed off as either coincidence or fiction. As always, the choice is the observer’s to make.
The problem is that in seeking to uncover the value of the tradition inherited from ancient times, we run the risk of doing so without the proper preparation. I can confidently state along with Sri Aurobindo that there is no one who can understand the Veda in India today; but the fault does not lie with Science; it lies in a spirituality that sought only those ‘hidden regions’ and abandoned the Earth to those who focus only on the material disconnected from the true foundational support ‘on the other side’[1]. Astrologers in the subcontinent have followed suit.
Youth today cannot be satisfied simply with what is seen as an imposition of a tradition that is meaningless in today’s context. But, I repeat, the Vedic Tradition is fortunate to have an in-built system of renewal, the potential of an updating from age to age, just as the Bhagavad Gita proclaims. This is not mere rhetoric; it is factual; provided the effort is made to understand that from time to time there is a need to update, to re-evaluate the scripture within today’s context. If we accept that Time’s becoming is as meaningful as its being, that what is involved in the Seed is as precious and relevant as the growth that proceeds from that compactness, then we have found the path to an unveiling that can satisfy the scientist as well as those inclined to the less apparent. The only demand is sincerity in the quest, and an acceptance of the fact that destiny has provided India with a connection to the ancient tradition that is unbroken though ‘hidden’. The many temples that preserve this Tradition stand all around us. It is unfortunate to state that contemporary science itself is responsible for that ‘lost knowledge’, that soul which, in Sri Aurobindo’s words, has fled from its coverings.
________________________________
[1] See Beyond Contemporary Scientific Paradigms (PNB), for a presentation of the manner in which the two dimensions can be unified in a seamless operation that does not negate the material or the ‘insubstantial’.

© Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet 2014

Swacch Bharat - The Epic Task of Cleaning Up India's Epic Mess

by Lori Tompkins

30 October 2014

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the occasion of the 67^th anniversary of India's Independence on the 15th of August 2014 to announce several initiatives towards bettering India, not only for the benefit of the country itself but for the benefit of the world.¹  He underscored this message with words once spoken by Swami Vivekananda:

'I can see before my eyes Mother India awakening once again. My Mother India would be seated as the World Guru. Every Indian would render service towards welfare of humanity. This legacy of India would be useful for the welfare of the world.'

In his speech Modi also noted that the 15^th of August was the birth anniversary of 'Maharishi Aurobindo'² who also recognized that 'the divine power and spiritual heritage of India will play an important role towards the welfare of the world.'

One of the initiatives Modi laid out towards this goal of uplifting India to her world-illuminating nature, is the work establishing cleanliness in India which he states is a primary concern of his administration.

'... [A]fter so many years of independence ... we still want to live in filthiness? ... If one hundred and twenty five crore countrymen decide that they will never spread filthiness, which power in the world has ability to spread filthiness in our cities and villages? Can't we resolve this much?'

As a hopeful answer to this question for all of India, Modi announced the Swacch Bharat or Clean India campaign to be launched on 2 October 2014 in honor of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi who had 'cleanliness and sanitation closest to his heart'. The intention set by Modi was for Indians 'not to leave a speck of dirt in our village, city, street, area, school, temple, hospital, and what have you, by 2019 when we celebrate 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.'

Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet) has recently discussed the need for Indians (and those concerned with India's role on the world stage) to understand the root cause of India's mess in Part Four of her series 'Reflections on the Nature of the Real'.³ She points out that whereas Gandhi himself was not actually in a position to understand and effectively address this root cause of the pervasive mess, Sri Aurobindo was in such a position and he did get to the root or cause of the problem. Hopefully after reading this article, readers will better appreciate the fitting coincidence of the Swacch Bharat initiative being announced on Sri Aurobindo's birth anniversary considering that his mahayoga was an important and primary step for India towards her illumination and organization. Thea writes:

'.... [I]t was the labour of Vishnu’s 9th Avatar, Sri Aurobindo, that made it possible for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare that "India would be clean by 2019"....

'This first cause [of the filth in India] was a pernicious undermining in the spiritual domain that began approximately around the time the world entered the 9th Manifestation in 234 BCE, marking a stark departure from the realisations of the Rishis in the Vedic Age.'⁴ ... [This departure lays] at the basis of every successful invasion and colonisation ever since. This understanding is reached today only if we manage to enlarge our view of evolution to include matters of the spirit as well as material. Both evolve, pari passu in fact. The evolution of the Spirit is the driving force of the material. Without it we would, as an evolving world, collapse into the ‘nothingness’ Science and even certain spiritual greats cherish dearly. ...

'The cause lay in the direction yogic and philosophic systems cemented in the spiritual consciousness of the civilisation as the be-all and end-all of every quest from the time of Gautam the Buddha. Simply put, it was Otherworldliness. A ‘seed’ was planted  that undermined the Earth-centred quest of the Vedic Age as described in the Rig Veda, the world’s oldest scripture and the bedrock of the civilisation even today, though it has moved so far away from that Earth-centred direction to find itself unable even to satisfactorily decipher the treasure left to us by the Rishis. The good news is that this decline, this degeneration that has become so evident in the physical through the filth that we cannot ignore and that welcomes every visitor to India today, is part of the system of renewal and re-establishment of the eternal Dharma.

'... Sri Aurobindo wrote in the first half of the last century that the task of Kalki, tenth in the Vishnu Line, would be precisely "to correct that error". The bedrock of Fullness was slowly displaced when Otherworldliness became the goal over two millennia ago, thus leaving the work incomplete, or only "halfway there", in his view.

'Only those who have experienced at close hand the labour of reversal [accomplished by Sri Aurobindo], as I have called it, can understand what a colossal task this has been. It entailed reversing an otherworldly goal and positing that as the ultimate attainment of any spiritual quest, because that created a split in an area that had never suffered a severance of this order. The Vedic Age was characterised by a seamless unity between Spirit and Matter. There was recognition of the various planes of consciousness, or sheaths that constitute both the individual and collective consciousness-being, but never a linear, polar positioning. It is to be noted that this linearity has plagued not only the subcontinent but the entire world. Those ancient civilisations that shared the unity poise in time and space, all succumbed to the same undermining in the Age of Pisces as India has; none survived, none were able to fend off the onslaught of Otherworldliness until finally this projection culminated in some of the major religions of the world, all of which arose in the past Age of Pisces, all of which enjoin their followers to aspire for salvation and ultimate fulfilment in heaven after death. In other words, this planet can never provide that fulfilment.'

Thea, a maharishi in her own right, acknowledges that Sri Aurobindo's reversal of this inevitable decline and departure from the unified truth-consciousness and vision of the Vedic Seers was not some minor or casual work or yoga, but rather the work, the duty and task of the Avatar of Vishnu, the Preserver in the Age of Aquarius.⁵  He exposed the old seed of division and disharmony ˗ the emptiness or void at the heart of our manifestation and civilization, and established the seed of the luminous truth-consciousness and solar world of the Vedic Rishis in our midst, in our age ˗ the seed of unity, harmony and fullness.

The truth is, the more conscious people become of the roots of their problems and of the true keys or seeds of recovery, the quicker the recovery will be accomplished. With that in mind, even while enacting and celebrating the tremendous task of Swacch Bharat under the spectacles of Mahatma Gandhi, perhaps Indians can find it in their hearts and minds to duly appreciate Aurobindo-avatar for laying the ground work and establishing a higher field of possibilities for India, within which Bharat Mata may come back into unity and harmony and shine as an example and guru for the entire world, reeducating the world as to the true nature of yoga which seems to be another primary concern of Prime Minister Modi who concluded his speech to the United Nations General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York City on 27 September 2014 with a reminder and call to the world:

'Yoga is an invaluable gift of our ancient tradition. Yoga embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and the nature. By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help us deal with climate change. Let us work towards adopting an International Yoga Day.' [bold emphasis added]

In his 2014 Independence Day speech to India, Prime Minister Modi invoked a Vedic mantra, Sangachchhdhvam Samvadadhvam sam wo manansi jaanataam, translated as, 'We walk together, we move together, we think together, we resolve together and together we take this country forward.' This mantra, taken from Mandala 10, Sukha 191, Verse 2 of the Rig Veda,⁶ is a mantra of the common yajna, the common yoga, the common sacrifice and evolutionary journey of all beings on Earth as organized by the all-bearing and all-harmonizing divine fire of the soul, Agni. Sri Aurobindo's translation of Sukha 191, found in Hymns to the Mystic Fire (i.e. Hymns to Agni) reminds us that real togetherness is born from this singular hub, navel or seat of real knowledge.

1. O Fire, O strong one, as master thou unitest us with all
things and art kindled high in the seat of revelation; do
thou bring to us the Riches.

2. Join together, speak one word, let your minds arrive at
one knowledge even as the ancient gods arriving at one
knowledge partake each of his own portion.

3. Common Mantra have all these, a common gathering to
union, one mind common to all, they are together in one
knowledge; I pronounce for you a common Mantra, I do
sacrifice for you with a common offering.

4. One and common be your aspiration, united your hearts,
common to you be your mind,—so that close companionship
may be yours.

This verse and mantra is, of course, not just for India. Sri Aurobindo's revelations in The Secret of the Veda and elsewhere in his works, make it quite clear that the discovery of and journey within this common unified field (yajna) and evolutionary path was the central theme of the Vedas. Indians might wish to consider the real possibility that, without beholding this secret or key given by Sri Aurobindo, they have not yet fully understood the meaning and power of this Vedic mantra and hence are not yet in a position to understand how such a harmonious Sangha or state of togetherness truly comes into existence and truly holds together.

And so if Sri Aurobindo has given India and the world its key to understanding the Vedic gnosis of togetherness, hopefully Indians at least will proceed to recognize and celebrate this accomplishment. It is not simply a matter of giving credit where credit is due (which is important in its own right), it is a matter of acquiring knowledge ˗ a matter of cultivating a unified consciousness ˗ by identification with THAT, and hence being able to begin the process of dismantling and reversing the damage of the 'falsehood ... planted deep at the very root of things'⁷ causing disharmony and fragmentation in our individual and collective fields of being and becoming. Because if it can't be done individually, it can't be done collectively.

Sri Aurobindo understood this grand task as a 'God's labour'. No doubt, the more people who understand this labor and accomplishment of his, and thereby understand the path laid out for our own labor, the farther along we will be in our ability not only to clean up our ill-born messes, but to become living examples of a truth-born organized field of unity consciousness. How wonderful it would be if Sri Aurobindo's 144th (1 + 4 + 4 = 9) birthday anniversary in 2016 (2 + 0 + 1 + 6 = 9) was accompanied by an Indian-wide acknowledgement of his ground breaking work towards not only an independent India, but a luminous and pristine India as well. Perhaps Indians will find it in their hearts to celebrate the victory of the 9th Avatar of Vishnu in this coming 9 year (2016), a victory which has laid the way for India's restoration as a field and center of Gnosis or Truth-Consciousness in our current age.

It is through the life, work and yogic lineage of Sri Aurobindo that the Hindu mythology of the line of Ten Avatars (Dasavatara) of Vishnu is uplifted from its current status as an obsolete and inconsequential myth into a jaw-dropping display of the manner in which our Vedic ancestors intricately understood our unified field at least 5,000 years ago. A recent article entitled 'Time and Torsion in a Conscious, Holographic Universe' by Brendon D. Murphy points to this 'unified tapestry' of our universe currently being explored and acknowledged by some modern scientists:

'... we are all entangled at the most fundamental level of reality—which is a unified field of consciousness itself.

'... we have this incredible universe permeated with intelligence at all scales, the holographic principle demands that these different expressions of consciousness must be integrated and woven together in a unified psychic tapestry; interconnected in ways unrestricted by space-time (nonlocally).

'... we can see now that the ever-present “past” is always nested within the now, meaning that time is indeed “holographic” (whole in every part) and unfolds in a “fractal” self-referencing manner.'

Indians can be rightfully proud that the Vedic culture was so advanced as to know these essential, all-organizing and all-harmonizing truths of our existence and to be able put them into practice through their own methods and measures of time and space (and our evolution in it) so very long ago.⁸ The fitting catch-22 is that Indians have to understand and acknowledge the truth and applicability of these methods and measures in the REAL world. Otherwise, it will prove rightfully impossible for India to rise to the role of World-Guru (i.e. bearer of truth-consciousness) on the basis of her much esteemed Vedic foundation if that foundation or altar remains effectively desecrated, negated, dis-empowered and collapsed ... null and void within the self-destructing field and age of our dim-lit mental consciousness.

With all of this in mind, readers are invited to read a letter Sri Aurobindo wrote to his brother Barin in 1920 which underscores the newness of his yogic mission as well as the old nature of the 'partial' yogas which coincided with India's degeneration and loss of power by which 'a whole race should become lifeless, void of intelligence, sunk in deep Tamas'.

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LETTER TO BARINDRA KUMAR GHOSE

by Sri Aurobindo, 7th April 1920

I have received your three letters, but up to now I have not managed to write an answer. It is a miracle that even now I sat down to write, because letter writing for me takes place once in a blue moon — especially writing in Bengali which I have not done for five or six years. The miracle would be complete if I could finish this letter and put it in the post.

First about your Yoga. You wish to give me the charge of your Yoga and I am willing to take it, that is to say to give it to Him who is moving by His divine Shakti both you and myself whether secretly or openly. But you must know the necessary result will be that you will have to follow that special way which He has given to me and which I call the integral Yoga.

What I began with, what was given to me by Lele, that was a seeking for the path, a wandering around in this and that direction touching this or that in all the old partial Yogas; lifting it up, taking it in the hands and scrutinising it and, having had some kind of complete experience of one thing, running in pursuit of another.

        Afterwards, when I came to Pondicherry, this unsteady condition ceased. The Guru of the world who is within us gave me the complete direction of my path, its full theory, the ten limbs of the body of the Yoga. These ten years He has been making me develop it in experience. But it is not yet finished. It may take another two years, and as long as it is not finished, I doubt if I shall be able to return to Bengal. Pondicherry is the appointed place for my Yoga siddhi, except one part of it — that is, the action. The first centre of my work is Bengal, although I hope that its circumference will be all India and the whole earth.

I shall write to you afterwards what is the way of Yoga, or if you come here I shall tell you about it. In this matter the spoken word is better than the written word. At present I can only say that its root principle is to make a harmony and unity of complete knowledge, complete work and complete bhakti, to raise this above the mind, and to give it its complete perfection on the level of gnosis above the mind. The fault of the old Yoga was this, that it knew the mind and knew the Spirit and it was satisfied with getting the Spirit expressed in the mind. The mind can grasp only the division, it cannot completely grasp the infinite, the indivisible. In order to reach it, sannyasa, moksa, nirvana are the mind's means. One man or another can get this featureless Moksha, but what is the gain? The Brahman, the Self, God, are always there. What God wants in man is to embody Himself here in the individual and the community, to realise God in life. The old way of Yoga would not make the harmony or union of the Spirit and life. It dismissed the world as Maya or a transient Lila. The result has been the loss of the power of life and degeneration of India. It is said in the Gita "These people would perish if I did not do works" and in fact the people of India have truly gone down to ruin. What sort of spiritual perfection is this, that some Sanyasins and Vairagis should be saintly, perfect and liberated, some Bhaktas should dance in restless ecstasy or love and emotion and Ananda and a whole race should become lifeless, void of intelligence, sunk in deep Tamas; one must first get all the partial experiences on the mental level, flood them with the spiritual delight and illumine them with the light of the spirit and then rise above. If one cannot rise above, that is, to the Supramental level, it is hardly possible to know the last secret of the world. The problem of the world does not get solved. There, the ignorance of duality between spirit and matter, the spiritual truths and life, disappears. There one need no longer call the world Maya. The world is the eternal Lila of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. There it becomes possible to fully know and fully possess God — as it is said in the Gita, "To know Me integrally".  

The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind and Ananda, these are the spirit's five levels. The higher we rise the nearer we get to the condition of the highest perfection of Man's spiritual evolution. By rising to the supermind it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. There is a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and Infinite Ananda. Not only in the timeless Akshara Brahman, but in the body, in life, in the world. The full Being, the full Consciousness, the full Ananda, blossoms out and takes form in Life. This is the central clue of my Yoga, its fundamental word. 

This is not easy to do. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this Siddhi is complete I am absolutely certain that God will through me give Siddhi of the Supermind to others with less difficulty. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in God's appointed time, I am not disposed to run widely and leap into the field of work in the strength of my little ego. Even if I did not succeed in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but God's. I will listen to no other's call. When God moves me then I will move.

I knew well that Bengal is not really ready. The spiritual flood which has come is for the most part a new form of the old. It is not real change. Still it was needed. Bengal has been awakening in itself the old Yogas and exhausting their sanskaras, extracting the essence and fertilising the soil. At first it was the turn of Vedanta: the Advaita, Sannyasa, Shankara's Maya etc. What is now taking place is the turn of the Vaishnava Dharma — the Lila, love, intoxication of the emotional delights. The merit of Vaishnava is that it keeps a connection between God and world and gives a meaning to life. The tendency to create sects which you have noticed was inevitable. It is the nature of the mind to take the part and call it the whole and to exclude all the other parts. The Siddha who brings the Bhava, although he leans on the partial Bhava, yet keeps some knowledge of the integral, even though he may not be able to give it form. The bundles will open of themselves. All these are the signs of the incompleteness and unripe condition. I am not disturbed by it. Let the spiritual power play in the country in whatever way and in as many sects as there may be. Afterwards we shall see. This is the infancy or embryonic condition. It is the previous hint, not even the beginning.

I do not want a society founded on division. I want a Sangha which is the image of spiritual unity and founded on spirit. You will say, what is the need of a Sangha I will be free and remain in every vessel. Let all become one without form, let whatever must be happen in the midst of the vast formlessness. That is true but only one side of the truth. Our business is not with the form-less spirit. We have to keep life in motion. There is no effective motion of life without form. The taking of life by the formless, the assumption of name and form is not a caprice of Maya. It was needed. We do not want to leave anything of the world. Politics, industry, society, poetry, literature, art, will all remain. But we shall have to give them a new soul and a new form.

Why have I left politics? Because the politics of the country is not a genuine thing belonging to India. It is an importation from Europe and an imitation. At one time there was a need of it. We also have done politics of the European kind. If we had not done it the country would not have risen from its sleep, and we too would not have had the gain and full development of experience. There is still some need of it, not so much in Bengal as in the other provinces of India. But the time has come to no longer extend the shadow but seize on the reality. We must get to the soul of India and make all its works in the image.

People now talk of spiritualising politics. Its result will be, if there be any permanent result, some kind of Indianised Bolshevism. To that kind of work also I have no objection. Let each man do according to his inspiration. But that is not the real thing. If one pours his spiritual power into all these impure forms — the water of the causal ocean into raw vessels — either that raw thing will break and the water be spilt and lost or the spiritual power will evaporate and only the impure form remain. In all fields it is the same. I can give the spiritual power but that power will be expended in making the image of an ape and setting it up in the temple of Shiva. If the ape is made powerful by the putting of life into it he may play the part of the devotee Hanuman and do much work for Rama, so long as that life and that power remains. But what we want in the temple of India is not Hanuman but the God, the Avatar Rama Himself.⁹ 

I can mix with all, but in order to draw all into the true path keeping intact the spirit and form of our ideal. If we do not do that, we shall lose our direction and the real work will not be done. If we remain individually everywhere, something will be done indeed, but if we remain everywhere, as parts of a Sangha, a hundred times more will be done. As yet that time has not come. If we try to give a form hastily, it may not be the exact thing we want. The Sangha will be at first an unconcentrated form. Those who have the ideal will be united but work in different places, afterwards giving it some form like a spiritual commune and making a compact Sangha. They will give all their work a shape according to the growth and need of the age, not a bound and rigid form, not an acalāyatana but a free form which will spread out like the sea, take different wave-forms and surround this, over flood that and take all into itself. As we go on doing this there will be established a spiritual community. This is my present idea. As yet it has not been fully developed. All is in God's hands, whatever He makes us do that we shall do.

You write about the deva sangha: "I am not a God, I am only some much hammered and refined iron". No one is a God but in each man there is a God and to make Him manifest is the aim of divine life. That we can all do. I recognise that there are great and small Adhars (vessels). I do not accept as accurate your description of yourself. Still whatever the nature of a vessel be, once the touch of God is put upon it, once the spirit is awake, great and small, all that does not make much difference. There may be more difficulties, more time may be taken, there may be difference in the manifestation, but even about that there is no certainty. The God within keeps no account of all these hindrances and deficiencies. He breaks his way out. Not our strength but the Shakti of God is the sddhaka of this Yoga.

Let me tell you in brief one or two things about what I have long seen. My idea is that the chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection, nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality, nor dharma but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the Motherland of knowledge. Everywhere I see inability or unwillingness to think, thought incapacity or thought-phobia. Whatever may have been in the middle ages this state of things is now the sign of terrible degeneration. The middle age was the night, the time of the victory of ignorance. In the modern world it is the age of the victory of knowledge. Whoever thinks most, seeks most, labours most can fathom and learn the truth of the world, gets so much more Shakti. If you look at Europe, you will see two things, a vast sea of thought and the play of a high and rapid and yet disciplined force. The whole Shakti of Europe is in that. And in the strength of that Shakti it has been swallowing up the world like the tapasvī of our ancient time, by whose power even the Gods of the world were terrified, held in doubt and subjection. People say Europe is running into the jaws of destruction. But these revolutions and upsettings are the preconditions of a new creation.

Then look at India. Except for some solitary saints, everywhere there is your "man on the street", that is, the average man who does not want to think and cannot think, who has not the least Shakti, only a temporary excitement. In India, you want the simple thought, the simple word. In Europe they want the deep thought, the deep word; an ordinary labourer or artisan thinks, wants to know, is not satisfied with surface things but wants to go behind. But still there is this difference, that there is a fatal limitation in the strength and thought of Europe. When it comes into the spiritual field its thought power no longer proceeds. There Europe sees everything as a riddle — nebulous, metaphysical, yogic hallucination. They rub their eyes as in smoke and can see nothing clear. Still in Europe now some effort is being made to surmount even this limitation. We have already the spiritual sense owing to the merit of our forefathers and whoever has that sense has near at hand such a knowledge and Shakti as with one breath might blow away all the huge power of Europe like a blade of grass. But to get this Shakti one must be a worshipper of Shakti. We are not worshippers of Shakti. We are the worshippers of the easy way. But Shakti is not obtained by the easy way. Our forefathers, swimming through a sea of vast thought, gained a vast knowledge and established a mighty civilisation. As they went on their way, fatigue and weariness came upon them. The speed of thought diminished and with it the strong current of Shakti. Our civilisation has become an acalāyatana, our religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of religious intoxication. And so long as this sort of thing continues any permanent resurgence of India is improbable.

In Bengal this weakness has gone to extreme. The Bengali has a quick intelligence, emotional capacity and intuition. He is first in India in all these qualities. If to these were added depth of thought, calm strength, heroic courage and a capacity for and pleasure in prolonged labour the Bengali might be a leader not only of India but of mankind. But he does not want that, he wants to get things done easily, to get knowledge without big thinking, the results without labour, Siddhi by an easy Sadhana. His task is the excitement of the emotional mind, but excess of emotion, empty of knowledge, is the very symptom of this malady, after it there comes fatigue and a tamasic condition. All the time the country has been gradually going down, the life power has diminished and finally what has the Bengali become in his own country? He cannot get enough to eat, or clothes to wear. There is lamentation on all sides. His wealth, his trade and commerce, his land, his very agriculture has begun to pass into the hands of others. We have abandoned the Sadhana of Shakti and Shakti has abandoned us. We do the Sadhana of love — but where knowledge and Shakti are not there, love does not remain. Narrowness and littleness come and in a little and narrow mind, heart and soul, there is no place for love. Where is love in Bengal? There is more quarreling, jealousy, mutual dislike, misunderstanding and faction there, than anywhere else even in India so much afflicted by division. In the noble, heroic age of the Aryan people, there was not so much shouting and gesticulating but the endeavour they began, remained steadfast through many centuries. The Bengali endeavour lasted for a day or two in the system, and in all its movements. In the sea of Shakti the extension of the rays of the sun of knowledge and in that luminous extension the steady ecstasy of an infinite love, delight, and oneness. I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, empty of petty egoism, who will be instruments of God. I have no faith in the customary trade of the Guru. I do not wish to be a Guru. That at my touch or at another's some wake and manifest from within their slumbering Godhead and get the divine life — this is what I want. It is such men that will raise the country.

You must not think from all this lecture that I despair of the future of Bengal. You say that what is needed is the Bhava intoxication of feeling, to excite the country with the ideal. In the time of Swadeshi we did all that in the field of politics, but what we did is all now in the dust. Will there be a more favourable result in the spiritual field? I do not say that there has been no result. There has been. Where there is movement, there will come out some result, but it is for the most part of the nature of an increase or possibility and hardly to actualise it. There is not the right method. Therefore I wish no longer to make emotional excitement, Bhava, in any intoxication of the mind the base. I wish to make a large and strong equality the foundation of the Yoga and, established on that equality, a full firm and undisturbed Shakti.

What do they say? That this time a great light will manifest itself in Bengal? I too hope, still I have tried to show the other side of the shield. Where is the fault, the error, the deficiency? If these remain, the light will not be a great light and it will not be permanent. The meaning of this extraordinarily long letter is that I too am tying my bundle, still I believe that this bundle is like the net of St. Peter, all the catch of the infinite is crowded into it. I am not going to open the bundle now. If I do that before the time the śikār might run away. Neither am I going back to Bengal now. Not because Bengal is not ready but because I am not ready. If the unripe goes amidst the unripe what work can he do?

[Bold emphasis added above]

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Endnotes:

¹ 67 is the correct count of anniversaries of India's Independence in 1947, not 68. From the zero point of India's Independence to 15 August 2014, 67 years have passed. Considering it is the Vedic rishis from who our world inherited the zero point as the beginning or alpha point of the measure of our number system and of our movement in time, it is important to measure anniversaries from the 0. Link HERE for a full transcription (in English) of Prime Minister Modi's speech.
²  Maharishi means 'great seer'.
³  Part Four of 'Reflections on the Nature of the Real' is posted on PCU.
⁴  For more information on the subject and timing of the 9th Manifestation (beginning with the Age of Pisces in 234 BCE), see The Gnostic Circle by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet.
⁵ Aquarius itself is of the four "preservation" signs of the zodiac, in terms of the trinity of creation, preservation and dissolution  (rajas, sattva and tamas in the Hindu tradition). For more on this subject, see Secrets of the Earth - Questions and Answers on the Line of Ten Avatars of Vedic Tradition by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
⁶  Mandala 10, Sukha 191 is available online in Sanskrit at www.sacred-texts.com
⁷  From Sri Aurobindo's poem, 'A God's Labour', 31 July 1935.
⁸  These methods and measures are still utilized today throughout the world today in the form of the 12 month measure of the Earth's year, the 360 degree measure of the circle and our 0/9 number system, but they are utilized unconsciously, generating no knowledge of true self ˗ the One Self in all selves. If utilized correctly, consciously, the measure and rhythm of the year generates self-knowledge, soul-knowledge and knowledge of the whole, called soma or nectar of immortality by the Rishis. In many of her written works, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet discusses how exactly these measures are to be applied or used, consciously, towards cultivating this so-called nectar or supramental gnosis, and why it is so important to accurately measure the zero point of our individual and collective journeys.  
⁹  Rama-Avatar was the 7th Avatar of Vishnu.