Showing posts with label december. Show all posts
Showing posts with label december. Show all posts

14.12.12

Ramlal and the Makar Sankranti – revisited



[On 3 December 2012, the Wall Street Journal began an in-depth series titled, 'Ayodhya, The Battle for India’s Soul' discussing the first appearance of the Ramlal Idol in the then Babri mosque on 22 December 1949 and its subsequent impact on India. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the appearance, December 22, 2009, Thea wrote a paper entitled Ramlal and the Makar Sankranti – revisited. Now approaching the 63rd anniversary of the appearance, we would like to present this article for our Puranic Cosmology Updated readers, given the Journal’s recent interest and because the points Thea made then are still relevant now.]



Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology
25 November 2009

On the 21st of December this year [2009], we will participate in a homam at Skambha, at the exact time of the Solstice and entry into Makar/Capricorn – close to midnight – 11:07 PM for all of India, and 10:47 for Skambha.1 

This is a very special observance because it marks the 60th anniversary of the epiphany of Ramavatar as Child at Ayodhya in what was known then as the Babri Mosque, built by the conqueror at the site millions of Hindus believe was the birth place of the 7th Avatar of Vishnu. We may not have proof of the birth, no ‘certificate’ as such. But we do have cosmic credentials to support whatever transpires regarding this special incarnation in the history of Bharat. And we do know that there was a temple on the site which was replaced by a mosque, a custom widely practised in those days of conquest and rule throughout the world. In India especially targeted were temples sacred to Vishnu Avatars, because the Line of Ten forms the backbone of Hinduism from the Vedic Age to the present as proven by the new Indo-centric cosmology.
Recently I have laid out the pertinent facts in two publications: Secrets of the Earth, PNB, Aeon Books 2009, which reveals the truth of Vishnu Trivikrama and his very precise ‘three strides’ to ‘measure the universe’, or the 7th, 8th and 9th Avatars of his 10; and in a publication of restricted circulation from Aeon Centre of Cosmology, The Partition of India (September-October 2009) where, on the basis of this cosmology with its keys of higher knowledge, it was possible to dissect Partition with amazing results. Both publications are available at the Centre (aeon1@eth.net).
In Partition I commented in the very beginning that the dismembering of India is a problem that refuses to be laid to rest. The same may be said of Ramlal’s epiphany at Ayodhya. Once again the controversy surrounding his birth site – legendary or real, it makes little difference – has erupted. Parliament is in an uproar, the news channels are having a feast engaging in their favourite pastime, Hindu(tva)-bashing; and the few intrepid souls who dare to voice an opinion contrary to this onslaught have to be considered real heroes of the cause. Aggressively guilt is sought by all means to be instilled in the hearts of Hindus throughout the land, accompanied by shame, and, hopefully, repentance. How successful they have been, remains to be seen. Ramlal may have other ‘plans’, other ‘conspiracies’.
As might be expected, I see in the most recent brouhaha a process very similar to what takes place when Partition, for some reason or another, makes the headlines. I repeat what I wrote in the first paragraph of my analysis: it is a problem that just refuses to go away. Why? Apart from the fact that in each case the core of Indianness is touched, there is an element common to both, with a cosmological binding power. It is, precisely, the Capricorn/Makar Sankranti. In The Partition of India the application was largely spatial: the Body of the Mother was measured based on the keys the new cosmology provides. In this case it is largely temporal. It was the timing of the Epiphany that resulted in exactly what Makar Sankranti means – that is, when a ‘seed’ is planted that then uses Time to carry it forward to fruition on the wings of the cycles it produces. This means that when an event takes place in harmony with the true entry in Makar, it simply cannot die or be wished away. It has its own in-built mechanism for survival; similar, indeed exactly, like the whole of Vedic civilisation which was born with the same allegiance of Time.
Now we have reached the 60th anniversary of the ‘miraculous appearance’. This particular cycle is especially appreciated by Hindus because it marks the completion of the fifth circum-ambulation of the Sun by Jupiter/Brihaspati. This 60th birthday is often celebrated by Hindus individually; how much more so for Ramavatar? He appeared in 1949 in the form of a child, precisely to allow us to appreciate the fact that as time presses forward he will grow; and given the rightness of things temporal and spatial, he is indestructible.
   
In 1991 I brought out a special issue of our newsletter Vishaal, dedicated to the epiphany of Ramlal at that magical moment, the Makar Sankranti of 1949, just days after the new Constitution of India had been adopted which, need I remind you, took place to coincide exactly with the date of birth when Vishnu’s 9th Avatar would return as the 10th and therefore bring to a conclusion the Dasavataras? This was 26/11. These are now iconic numbers, similar to 9/11 in America; and also similar to the American experience, 26/11 in more ways than one marks a before and after.
Ramlal’s growth presses on. The play of circumstances, or the circle’s periphery of which he is the binding centre, generates the events which will continue to prove that the only Makar Sankranti is the December Solstice and not the falsehood presently considered to be the beginning of Capricorn/Makar, 15 January, 23 days after the entry has passed. Isn’t it significant that Hindus, unlike the rest of the world, celebrate this most important festival LATE? But we are reminded again and again of the what and when of the true Sankranti. Tradition records that Bhisma also understood its importance by choosing to leave this plane on that date and no other. His case is the most precise confirmation of the innermost secret of the December Solstice, for apart from being the moment when a reversal takes place and the compression of the Light (cows/rays) begins to increase, its import for a Vedic Rishi and Initiate is that the Light experiences the same ‘death’ as the human being who faces his own death: one’s consciousness-being is compressed to a ‘point’; and through this method of extreme contraction a portal is reached which alone can give us entry to Swar – not ‘heaven’ as we wrongly understand the word today, but the dimension of immortality, the home of the Immortal Ones. From Swar, the Earth-bound dimension, those Immortal Ones continue to oversee the destiny of Bharat. Bhisma understood and timed his journey accordingly.
This is the profound meaning of Makar Sankranti and why its timing must be celebrated at the moment of the year’s shortest (compressed) day. Ramlal gave this instruction to the Hindu Samaj when he appeared at Ayodhya at that precise and sacred moment. But apart from the Sankranti there are other noteworthy configurations surrounding his 1949 epiphany which I discussed in the special December Solstice issue of Vishaal. I have decided to present here the entire section on Ramlal from the series featured in Vishaal entitled, Culture and Cosmos, cosmic harmonies in Hindu civilisation and society. Since the newsletter was prepared for students of the New Way cosmology, it may be somewhat difficult for the layperson to follow; but its relevance now is important. Therefore, I am presenting here the entire sub-section, and with footnotes added when required.

Ramlal of Ayodhya: the Retrieval Conspiracy

Though the Knowledge has been well preserved in myth and epic, as well as in the realisations of certain Yogis throughout the Ages, the element that was lost in the vision was the correct key to Time which I sometimes refer to as the ‘0 Point’, – time, that especially elusive substance which was itself the focus of the Manifestation after the Egyptian Space Conquest was drawn to a close.2  In the intervening years, Ram and Krishna prepared the soil for the full conquest of Time – or rather its integration into the complex workings of the cosmic manifestation – in the 9th  Manifestation3 in which indeed the number 9 would play a most significant role. But more than the 9, the 0’s discovery was the single most important factor to allow for this ‘conquest’. To briefly summarise why this was so, in all schools of higher knowledge the only scale known was the Space Scale of 1 to 12. This could provide utilisation of the horizontal/space dimension, but the VERTICAL or the Time dimension was left out of the process. Hence, it was not an integral manifestation. To incorporate Time as an ‘ally’ in the process, the first prerequisite is knowledge of the 0 because the Time Scale consists of 10 ‘notes’ but beginning from 0 rather than 1. This is what allows it to be considered a ‘vertical’ dimension. The true description, however, is a ‘seed’ unfolding from within, drawing out from itself the 9 notes which it contains in unextended form. These 9 notes are thus the 9 planets of our system. The 0 of the system is the Sun. It is only in this way, with the discovery of the Zero, that the Sun can be accommodated in its proper position as centre of the solar system.
This ‘shift’ signified the most important breakthrough in the study of cosmic harmonies for many hundreds of years. At the same time, it is through the Time Scale’s 0 to 9 that the planetary structure could be connected to the calendar. Thus Time would become the ‘ally’ by virtue of the fact that its operations could be ‘measured’ in our flow of Earth-time and its power could be utilised to build elements of the new order through the medium of the individual/collective consciousness. Hence the Strategy of myth/epic and the individual realisation would be of foremost importance in such an operation.
Concurrently, this shift introduced the need for a very great precision which hinged on the correct assessment of that 0 Point. Without that knowledge there could be no effective means to utilise Time in a non-speculative manner, nor could processes be initiated and monitored to permit a much greater conscious participation of the individual in the process of transformation. I repeat, none of this was possible before the discovery of the Zero. And it is an extraordinary confirmation of the premises of the new Cosmology that having established the fact of an Egyptian ‘space conquest’ and the shift to India for the ‘time conquest’, and that for the latter the 0 would be indispensable, it was precisely India that gave to the world the concept of the Zero. With this accomplished the work could begin.
We need not review here the history of this ‘lost measure’, as I have called it. Indeed, it would be apt to state that this was the ‘ray/cow’ concealed by the hostile Panis of the Rigvedic ‘journey’, in the cave of the 8th sign/Manifestation, Scorpio.4 I have discussed this matter in depth in VISHAAL in the series, ‘The Capricorn Factor’. Let me simply state that the sacred Capricorn hieroglyph [see its reproduction at the end of this article], the very landmass of Bharatmata, holds the key to that divine and true Measure. For the real and essential question to ask is, When, in effect, does the Sun truly move into that special time-space of Capricorn, India’s own [astrological] ruler and an entry which, in spite of the loss, continues to be celebrated throughout the country each year? In Sanskrit it is called the Makar Sankranti, or the Capricorn Gateway. But given the decline of the Knowledge, the loss of the correct connection between time and cosmos and the Earth, this entry point has slipped back as if the civilisation’s pulse were skipping vital beats here and there. Finally, in this Age of Aquarius of our 9th Manifestation [begun in 1926], the loss consists of a full 23 days in terms of the year; regarding the cosmic age – the same circle extended to embrace larger cycles of time – it amounts to hundreds. The Makar Sankranti is celebrated on 15 January rather than the true date: the solstice of 22-23 December [or 21-22, depending on the motion of the Earth].
Be this as it may, conforming to its role of preserver of the highest cosmic Knowledge and land of the new order based on that Vedic Truth, the nation does continue to foster the true things simply by openly celebrating an event cosmic and zodiacal. In the West this date is camouflaged in the tale of the birth of the Christ-Child: 24-25 December. Closer to the mark indeed, but still imperfect, it was adopted as the birthday of Jesus simply because it fell in the traditional Festival of Light, perhaps the most auspicious and universal of all celebrations in antiquity. It was associated with the ‘light’, entirely due to a cosmic/planetary configuration: the Capricorn solstice marked the point when, from its period of longest ‘imprisonment’ (in the cave of the Panis?), the Sun would pass into the experience of increase of its light. This would be reflected in the increase of the length of the day from that moment onward. Hence, the Festival of Light was a celebration of a cosmic event and to locate this ‘gateway’ at any other point in time than the one which would indeed identify the exact beginning of the increase, would make no sense at all, if we place value on the physical harmony and the lived experience. Yet this is what has come to pass in India – largely because that physical reality came to be looked upon as ‘illusion’. Thus, the Yogis of old who should have been responsible for maintaining that correct link with time and cosmos, saw themselves drawn away from their duty by this concept which gradually undermined the act of seeing to the measurable degree of ‘23 days’. Thus that ‘gateway’, which bears no relation to the true entry into Capricorn, is the Makar Sankranti we know and celebrate today. Nonetheless, I repeat, it is indeed respected though the significance and measure may have been lost. The impact of the Vedic Seeing was just too powerful and electrifying to be ignored.
Yet, the Avatars do carry on with their work and in spite of the loss they even contrive to rectify matters, similar to the Egyptian sages, and locate the Makar Sankranti at the real Gateway where it belongs in the divine Measure. This occurred in post-Independence India. I refer, once again, to Ayodhya.
Thus, on the night precisely of 22-23 December, or the Capricorn solstice of 1949, that sacredmost moment when the Festival of Light begins as the Sun enters Capricorn and its light starts to increase, Ram made his miraculous appearance in the Babri Mosque in the form of the divine Child, or Ramlal. It was a night of 3 number-power [22+12+1949=3]. It was Ram’s confirmation in his traditional birthplace that this date is the true Makar Sankranti and the restoration of the lost Measure would coincide with the reestablishment of the ancient Dharma, all of which is the meaning stored in the Capricorn hieroglyph. That hieroglyph would thus prove to be the seal and sanction of the Supreme when revealed. And it would even disclose the true physical dimensions of India.5 Its revelation – that is, the time when the hieroglyph would first be ‘seen’ superimposed on that landmass – would mark the beginning of a process which would shape the new India in accordance with this true Measure. Its revelation or unveiling would draw together the two cosmic properties of time and space – the former through the correct and gnostic time-measure or 22-23 December, and the latter through the spatial dimensions of the landmass precisely in accordance with that sacred symbol. This revelation occurred in May of 1974.
But a quarter of a century prior to this geographical/zodiacal discovery, Ram ‘corrected’ or retrieved the Lost Measure. After the glorious epiphany of the Child on the night of 22-23 December 1949, in the Babri Mosque, its doors were locked in 1950.6 None were permitted entry. Thirty-six years, or a completed cycle of 4 x 9, were required for the Child to mature in solitude. Thus, when the full 36 were completed, it was on 5 January 1986 that the process was started to unlock the doors of the Mosque. The Congress Party was then in power. A meeting was convened for that very special day – that is, the zodiacal point of the Soul of India and the close of the Festival of Light – to explore the possibility of shifting the mosque to allow a temple to be built on the site in honour of the divine Child Ram. The proposal was rejected. Shortly thereafter, on 1 February 1986, now of 9 number-power, the court ordered the mosque to be unlocked. Appropriately, at 5:19 PM, Ramlal was ‘liberated’.
We are concerned with the lost divine Measure above all else, retrieval of which can permit the new India to be truly born. Ram conspired not only to rectify the position of the cosmic dial by appearing on the very night when in the true Measure Capricorn does indeed begin, but, also connected to his miraculous appearance then, Ram contrived to provide the full measure of the Festival of Light. Ancient tradition has always located this period in the first 15 days of the Capricorn month – from the solstice of 22-23 December to the mid-point of the sign, 5-6 January, or the 15th  degree of Capricorn. In all there are 15 days involved. The orbital reason for this location has been explained previously, and why it was held as sacred. But for India the period is far more sacred than for any other country or civilsiation because Capricorn is the sign of her soul and its hieroglyph delineates her physical form. It can be appreciated therefore that the correct location in zodiacal/calendrical time and geographical space of this sacred sign is the single most important discovery in the history of Vedic civilisation in terms of India’s expression of her higher destiny.
Is it any wonder then that, in perfect attunement with the revelation of the new way Cosmology, Ram should have ‘chosen’ to appear in such a manner and at such a time so as to rectify or at least draw attention to India’s lost Measure? And that exactly 36 years later his power should make itself felt on 5 January, again in perfect attunement with gnostic time, to disclose the last day of the Festival of Light and the degree/day of India’s own soul? Who was ‘responsible’ for this occurrence? A political party? Who ‘surreptitiously’ placed the child-figure in the Mosque? Who, or what ‘power’ stood behind the opening of the Gate on 1.2.1986 – again, a 9-power day? And complying with whose ‘design’? Was it a political manoeuvre, a communal aberration, a zealot’s madness?7   
These questions are irrelevant when it is known, as India knows, that the Time-Spirit works through human instruments. It moves the human consciousness in any direction it wills; however, in accordance with and determined by its higher Purpose. The real miracle is the conspiracy with gnostic time. Can there be a more exquisite display of the universal truth India holds, which in this one act unveiled the Cosmic Truth underlying countless tales of the birth of the sacred Child? Can there be a more profound confirmation for the location of the true Gateway to Capricorn than this divine Epiphany of Lord Ram, precisely coinciding with that entry in the very heavens at the time of his ‘surreptitious’ appearance? Similarly, if I state that myth and epic are universal, this ‘surreptitious’ epiphany, because of its timing, does indeed reveal the universal content in myth in that both in the ancient world and the Christian era, this date was always connected to the sacred Birth. Indeed, Ram the Child has appeared to restore things universally sacred, divine and true.
Finally, the mosque in which the Child Ram chose to appear stands on Plot # 159. In the December Vishaal (6/5), on page 11, I wrote that these were the numbers via the Greek letters TH-E-A, which allowed me to discover the Map of the 12 Manifestations. It is this Map that holds the knowledge of the Line of Ten Avatars.  It is this Map which reveals that 1-5-9 are the numbers of the Manifestations…that fall in the last quarter of the wheel where our present Age of Aquarius is located. Plot #159 is precisely the ‘disputed’ one at Ayodhya upon which the whole controversy is centred and on whose very soil the Child appeared. With this background, I leave it to the reader to decide whether the Epiphany was ‘lawful’ or ‘unlawful’, ‘real’ or ‘surreptitiously contrived’. After all, according to which ‘law’? And with whose connivance?

30 October 1991
Aeon Centre of Cosmology at Skambha



The Capricorn/Makar symbol
and the map of Akhand Bharat


Postscript

For those of you who do not or cannot follow the Indian news but who have read my recent piece, ‘Ramlal and the Makar Sankranti - revisited’ an important point may have been missed. It is, in fact, the most important aspect to the whole exercise.
In the recent events politicians engaged in the usual ‘blame-game’, as the current jargon has it. One party blames another, and back and forth it goes. That is their job, this one-upmanship. In this particular case, two major parties were involved, the Congress and the BJP. So, this involves a sizable quantity of the representatives of the people. The blaming focuses on, of course, the demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya, and naturally the Sangh Parivar has come under attack. On their part and quite legitimately, the Parivar has sought to bring up the ‘history’ of what actually caused the ire of whoever did the demolition. Thus, the Congress Party has come under attack since it was, as I pointed out, during that Government’s rule under Rajiv Gandhi that Ramlal was ‘liberated’ and the doors to his modest (but powerful) sanctum sanctorum were opened. Then followed the Brick-Laying ceremony, under the same Government.
Of course these events are important, particularly their timing, as I have written. But what is missed and I trust that my article will make clear, those were all ‘measured’ on the basis of one factor, or seeding. This was of course the Makar Sankranti of 1949 when the idol mysteriously appeared in the then mosque. That was the true beginning and everything thereafter must be measured from that single point in time. But of course, it is an event we would all prefer to ignore!
The most interesting aspect to this entire unfolding is that because no one knows who actually placed the idol there, it is impossible to engage in any blame-game! Of course, as I also pointed out, Mahakal does use human instruments to accomplish his deeds in accordance with gnostic Time. That is a valid point, but it is immaterial to the situation. The fact is history cannot lay the blame on anyone or any political party! We assume that this group or that did the deed, but we have no certainty. Actually, the only ‘blame’ must necessarily fall at the feet of Ramavatar himself, and his faithful companion, Mahakal, the Great God of Time.
This situation perfectly describes the difference between India and the rest of the world. It is also a lesson for not only the Sangh Parivar but the entire spectrum of political parties in the nation: The unfolding of India’s destiny lays in the hands of the Great God, regardless of all the protests this may engender and the disbelief of all those who cling to the image of a reformist Indian civilisation. The Vedic Seeds are indestructible; and when Time matures and the unfolding starts, it is useless to seek to suppress the un-suppressible.

Thea
Aeon Centre of Cosmology
at Skambha
27.11.2009


Footnotes
1 Individuals interested in knowing the exact timing may verify the above through the Indian Astronomical agencies.
2 This refers to the 7th Manifestation with its focus on Egypt, circa 12,000 years ago. That civilisation’s wisemen had the task of ‘conquering’ spatial implications for the evolution of consciousness; witness their extant constructions which were virtual colossi.
3  The 9th Manifestation is our own, 234 BCE to 6480 CE.

4  This would be Vishnu Trivikrama’s second stride, indicating the 8th Avatar’s time of appearance on Earth
5  See The Partition of India and the symbol-map at the end of the article.
6  These numbers, 1-9-5-0, in themselves hold the message of the appearances of Vishnu’s Avatars.
7  Currently (November 2009), the controversy surrounding the demolished disputed structure has arisen from the dead. It is interesting to note the then Chief Minister’s response to the uproar and finger-pointing: he was the very first to come forward and has stood firmly by his role in the affair, more staunchly than any other person(s) involved at the time, and now. Could it be that he derived his strength of conviction from the fact that his own birthday is 5 January – the soul-point of India? There was another participant in the affair, who held a significant post at the time, the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party. As we would expect, his birthday too falls on 5 January.
8  And also the true ‘measure’ of Vishnu Trivikrama’s three strides.      

© Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet 2009

30.12.10

The Importance of Makar Sankranti in Hindu Calendar Reform - PART ONE



A treatment in three parts
presented at the
First National Conference on Hindu Calendar Reform

Tirumala, 24-26 December 2010


Prepared by
Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea)
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology
Tamil Nadu, South India

© Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet 2010





In 1915, Sri Aurobindo wrote the following in his masterful book,
The Secret of the Veda:

The letter lived on when the spirit was forgotten;
the symbol, the body of the doctrine, remained,
but the soul of knowledge had fled from its coverings.

Sri Aurobindo
The Secret of the Veda

The paper I am presenting at this landmark Conference will differ significantly from others by the illustrious attendees. The basis for my approach is quite different; it is yogic. Consequently, my understanding of the Sacred Arts has not been through a scrutiny of the Scriptures, or even from an in-depth knowledge of Sanskrit – which alone would have occupied me for a lifetime. It is purely through the realisation of what the Sanskrit Scriptures contain but have been left for us to discover on the basis of certain precise practices. This has always been the tradition in matters initiatic.
Language, even the most sacred to us, is not the main tool of discovery because it is essentially time-bound. Rather, in the case of a calendar for Vedic observances and horoscopy, the tool is the ancient hieroglyphic Script that has been preserved over the millennia. It is universal and unbound by both time and space. Together with these hieroglyphs there is sacred geometry which is part of the language of Initiates. Bharat has always excelled in these Arts, but now that tradition seems to have faded because they must constitute the basis of the ability to devise a proper calendar to serve the Sacred. Starting with this Conference we must retrieve that ‘soul of knowledge’, because what we are left with is simply its external ‘coverings’. I feel confident that my presentation will prove this point.
Consequently, my paper will sound unfamiliar to most. But if attention is lent with this background, it will soon be evident what a calendar for Vedic Observances and Horoscopy must be, and what the basis must be for this understanding to come about. In my view, and after a lifetime of dedication to these Sacred Arts has revealed, there is no other basis to know, without speculation and relativism, just what needs to be retained and/or discarded of the current calendar used by the Hindu Samaj.

PNB
Tirumala
December 24 2010





PART ONE


First we must establish just what the role of a calendar is in society. In civil society its function is obvious and need not be elaborated, except to state that the present universal calendar, which was also adopted for independent India, is one of the most enlightened methods of time reckoning. This is because it is the most natural, based as it is on the Cardinal points of Equinoxes and Solstices – or the Earth’s own measure, her contribution to the celestial harmony. This natural calendar follows the four seasons that are experienced throughout the world.
Interestingly for the purposes of our discussion, this was the calendar used in ancient times – in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome, and of course in the Vedic and Sangam ages. Many in India, primarily those of the Nirayana School, believe that this universal calendar is Christian in origin. But this is not at all true. The universal calendar based on the Equinoxes and Solstices, predates Christianity by many centuries. Perhaps because of this bias left over from colonial times, Hindu pundits looked elsewhere for a solution to time reckoning for temple rituals and horoscopy. Contemporary science came to their aid and the notion of a scientifically-accurate calendar was foremost in their minds.
It was then that an unfortunate mistake was made: science introduced the idea that there had to be a separation between rasis and the fourfold measure of the ecliptic plane where the planets including Earth circumambulate the Sun – that is, a separation between the Equinoxes and their corresponding zodiacal signs, Aries/Mesha and Libra/Thula. This is an aberration that persists until today. In the effort to be ‘scientific’, given the predominant role of astronomy when it became separated from astrology, the method of time reckoning of the ancient world, including Vedic India, was discarded in favour of the new model based on the contemporary discipline, astronomy.
To be precise, the ‘accuracy’ this new method introduced is fictitious. Indeed, it is this FICTION that lies at the root of the dozens of ayanamshas in use today, each one claiming to be the correct Zero Point, wherefrom the time wheel is set in motion.
Those who know astrology in depth realise that the Zero Point, or ayanamsha, is the single most important element to establish if any sort of accuracy is to come about. Having a dozen or so to choose from, each one followed by some segments of the Hindu Samaj and eschewed by others in favour of another pundit’s calculation, has led to the chaos that exists today in matters astrological and ritualistic.

The objective of this Conference is to bring about some sort of order in this chaos. After all, since ‘cosmos’ means order, it is clear that for a society such as the Vedic, which boasts of an unbroken tradition over thousands of years – and, above all, one rooted in the cosmic harmony – any confusion in astrological time reckoning, as we find today, would mean that the thing which we boast most of – the cosmic connection – is actually an illusion.
The issue before us is to retrace our steps and to recover that Order once again. Fortunately, this is not at all difficult and can be done immediately. The cosmos we are a part of is, for all practical purposes, eternal. The harmony today is exactly what it was in the Vedic Age; it moves, its rhythms multiply, they rise and fall, but its basic structure remains unchanged within which these variations occur. The key to understand the cosmos is to experience rest and motion as simultaneous, eternal principles. This underlying constant is the fourfold balance on the Equinoxes and Solstices, the measure of 365 days of our Earth Year, the phases of the Moon, and so forth. There are other more subtle rhythms, but for the purpose of establishing a foundation for our discussion, they can be ignored for now. Thus, forging a connection with that eternal Constant is the single most important objective of a cosmic-based civilisation. By inference, to lose that connection would mean the disintegration of that eternal dharma which the cosmic harmony describes so accurately for India, unique among all other nations.
All of this hinges on the correct Zero Point. And it must be recalled that India gave the concept of Zero to the world – which is the same Plenum that the ayanamsha holds in time reckoning, provided of course that it is rooted in the Cosmic Truth and not the Cosmic Ignorance. The former is Fullness of the Vedic Order; the latter is the Void, a concept completely at variance with the Vedic core of the civilisation. To remove Fullness and replace it with emptiness, the strategy would be the method as it exists today: the chaos of multiple ayanamshas.
This is what this conference must address.

The Importance of Makar Sankranti in Hindu Calendar Reform - PART THREE



A treatment in three parts
presented at the
First National Conference on Hindu Calendar Reform

Tirumala, 24-26 December 2010


Prepared by
Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea)
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology
Tamil Nadu, South India

© Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet 2010




PART THREE


I have established essential points in Parts 1 and 2; the most important of all is that Makar Sankranti and December Solstice are inseparable. In this final portion I will use visuals to elucidate the point to a greater degree.
Hinduism stands weakened today because it is weak within. But how does it become strengthened in view of the difficulties its character of diversity presents? This diversity is both its blessing and its bane. The current situation is a bane because unity is lacking. The motto being Diversity in Unity, it is implied that there is an underlying unity within which this pleasing array of diversity finds its place and support. In a maddening diversity such as we find in India, there must be a means to UNIFY that diversity regardless of each one’s preferences and prejudices. In spite of our failings and intransigencies, the Vedic Calendar unifies through Time and harmonises what would otherwise remain separate and discordant. That is the purpose of a Calendar that Unifies – unlike the one currently in use which is inherently divisive. It is an effective tool to divide-and-rule. And since we are considering consequences for 80% of India’s population, immediate measures should be taken to bring about order in this current chaos.
Thus, the eternal background for the cosmic play – as experienced on Earth – is that Vedic ONE CIRCLE of ‘twelve bands’ and ‘360 pegs’, our Earth Year in which these are ‘firmly riveted’.
There is another essential point to bear in mind when reform is considered: for a cosmically-based civilisation such as the Vedic, ALL measuring is Earth-centred. We are placed on this third planet of our solar system and nowhere else. The blessing this position itself offers is that this is the key to right comprehension and application of the cosmic harmony insofar as all measuring can and must be done from Earth. From this point we measure outward and beyond, not the reverse as is presently the case since the Nirayana system of time reckoning has imposed a measure from beyond our world, outside of our solar system. Indeed, for all practical purposes of application, the Earth becomes the centre of the universe, the point of convergence of the entire cosmic surround.
The Nirayana Post-Vedic system currently used does just the opposite. It ignores the Earth’s divine Measure and has imposed upon Hindus a very great error. Its measuring is carried out in the constellations of distant stars light years away from our solar system; above all, with no fixed point of reference except those illusory floating ayanamshas, dozens of them.
The measure of the Earth is easily recognised and determined. No great psychic powers or complicated mathematics are required: we live the Measure with every breath we take – the Year, the Month, the Day, all set within the ecliptic where the symphony of our solar system is played, the Music we hear, we know, because we are THAT. Consequently, can we ignore what and where we are in favour of a ‘beyond’?


The graphic above explains the position. This drawing of several circles describes the current confusion. The innermost with the zodiacal signs (spelt out) is the ONE CIRCLE extolled in the Veda, with its fourfold division marking out the four Cardinal points of Equinoxes and Solstices and their respective signs, Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. These are stable and unchanging and, for all practical purposes, eternal.
The next circle (hieroglyphs) describes the one currently used by Nirayana pundits which is actually the constellation of fixed stars far beyond our solar system. Around it are placed the zodiacal animal and human figures fancifully projected onto that distant vault of heaven, also called zodiac by astronomers. They are divided equally though they do not correspond to the 30˚/30 days of the Tropical Zodiac. This is a distinction unknown to most because of the common nomenclature, to further confound the issue. The name would be correct provided it were a projection onto the circum-scribing cosmos of the same Vedic ‘12 bands’ and ‘360 pegs’ of the Tropical Zodiac. Then it could correctly be called by the same name. But try as they might the 12 containing the 360˚ simply do not fit as noted in the graphic. These constellations of astronomy vary vastly in size. Thus they cannot legitimately be equated with the zodiac of our Earth measure. Yet this is the equivalence that astronomers and Nirayana astrologers wish us to accept.
The One Circle (tropical/ecliptic) of the Veda has been replaced by this amorphous cacophony of uneven measure; and they try their best to establish some form of starting point in this indistinguishable and undefined vastness by arbitrarily selecting one degree or another as ayanamsha. Bear in mind that given the distance, we are dealing with vast cycles of time. For instance, a variation in calculation of seconds of degrees of celestial longitude will work out to days and even to years on Earth; hence the wild variations foisted on an unsuspecting public simply because there is no legitimate, unchanging, absolute starting point in the Constellations. It has to be arbitrarily selected according to each one’s fancy.
But the secret to unlock the wisdom contained in our solar system is that our planet, through her movements in space, her position in the System, her balance on the four points of the ecliptic, gives rise to the natural and eternal Zero Point. Without our Equinoxes and Solstices we would never know. We would be free to roam endlessly about submerged in that unknowing – which is the definition of the Cosmic Ignorance.

The next point, for which I will provide visual evidence, involves the important role of zodiacal imagery in Vedic culture. Most scholars, historians and Nirayana astrologers, reject any mention of those pictographs and hieroglyphs as being inherently Vedic. They claim, for the most part, that the zodiac used throughout the world was brought to India by the Greeks, and the Veda predate these incursions by many centuries, perhaps even millennia. With the evidence I will provide, this claim cannot hold. In my view, the zodiac, as we know it today, was like an alphabet in the Vedic Age. Its ‘language’ courses through the Veda like a sustaining vital fluid, as if it were such common, wide-spread knowledge that it needed no explaining. But its presence is easily detected when the secret doctrine of the Rig Veda is unveiled; that is, when the ‘journey’ is undertaken en route to the culmination in uttarayana, the Sun’s highest point of Makar Rasi. Similarly, only when the hidden doctrine also of the zodiac is known can the similarity between the two be appreciated. But in both cases, the Veda and zodiacal tradition, that knowledge has been lost.
The loss of the exact Knowledge complicates matters, for which reason Sanskritists and even yogis cannot fully understand the Rig Veda. Can this be the reason why the key to the cosmic harmonies has been lost and un-Vedic substitutes have emerged?
The discussion regarding the origin of the zodiac is like the question, what came first, chicken or egg. We can only study the reality of today. The first observation we make is that all temple art and architecture reveals that same zodiacal ‘alphabet’. The incidents are too numerous to detail here, but the point I wish to make is simply that had it been a ‘foreign import’ as certain nationalists claim, how could it have influenced temple matters so thoroughly and consistently?
Again I must refer to Makar Rasi. Though in temple observances and almanacs, the Sun’s apparent entry into each rasi is dutifully noted – yet abysmally incorrect by 23 days – as well as the planetary movements from sign to sign, today the circle of these sacred images is essentially being replaced by the Nakshatras. This seems to have come about due to the fact that with the 23-day inaccuracy the zodiacal script has lost its meaning, even though it continues to permeate myths and temple art and we regularly honour these sacred passages. But there is no higher knowledge in the Nakshatras, constellational or otherwise. Those distant stars serve only as markers for computation of the larger cycles of time.
However, the ‘Circle is One’ is our mantra. Therefore the Nakshatras, when used, should also be measured within that ONE CIRCLE as per the mean daily motion of the moon, 13˚20.

Whatever the origin of the zodiac and its hieroglyphs might have been, we have clear evidence that the Seer who first had the vision of the sacred Twelve must have been on the order of the famed Bhrigu Astrologers who read a horoscope for a present-day client from ancient papyrus leaves handed down across the centuries – yet, mystifyingly the ancient horoscope contains details of contemporary life unknowable when the leaves were prepared in so distant a past. I present below proof of the same capacity in the Seer who discovered the zodiacal ‘alphabet’:


This is the ancient zodiacal hieroglyph of the tenth sign of victory, Makar/ Capricorn, known significantly as the Name of God in astrological lore. Since this is also unanimously known as India’s zodiacal ruler, we are not surprised to discover depths never before plummeted about this design. We discover that it actually delineates with precision the geography of the subcontinent before independence and partition.


We are justified in asking how this can be. The precise origins of the hieroglyphs are unknown; we know only that they have been with us perhaps since pre-history. And yet this sacred-most of all symbols delineates the subcontinental landmass as one single body, though it dates from a time when cartography as we know it did not exist.
Whatever the answer to this enigma may be, the point I wish to make is simply to reveal an applied Veda, valid and meaningful in our new Age, and how this application itself provides the proof we need to render to the Veda its rightful place in a new cosmology. This means that we must, before all else, restore the synchronicity of December Solstice and Makar Rasi.

Conclusion
For every nation a calendar serves to unite its citizens; conversely, it can be a divisive tool. But in India’s case a calendar is much more. Because of Vedic observances for which Time is essential – the correct temporal ingredient, that is – the unification of collective energies released when a real and not imaginary cosmic connection is forged creates an atmosphere that not only brings energies together on a mundane level, the release is far more significant and purposeful in subtle dimensions. Such observances draw together various planes of consciousness, from the dense physical to the more subtle and rarified, those hidden as well as apparent to the naked eye. The power generated is therefore magnified. It is as if a shield would come into being, a protective energy field.
Since the West uses the Vedic calendar to regulate civic life, we might ask whether or not that shield exists over those nations. The point is that though the calendar may be correct there is no cosmic connection in those countries. Above all, having eschewed the Gods and Goddesses and their Idols from their culture, any such connection is impossible because they are personifications of those cosmic energies which we invoke in every ritual. Imagine how much more potent our observances would be if the true Circle and the correct temporal computation were used for the purpose; and if the zodiac images were once again restored to the special place they held from time immemorial on the subcontinent?
To illustrate the point, here is Gangadevi on her vahana. Of course, since she is preeminently the River of Capricorn, which can be proven through the Capricorn Symbol-Map whereby her position is measured longitudinally to locate her source at 12˚ Capricorn and mouths at exactly 0˚, she has been given the Makar/Capricorn vehicle by the ancient Tradition. Capricorn 12˚, measured in the Tropical Zodiac, corresponds to January 3rd. That would be the date of ‘birth’ of heavenly Ganga, through which portal in calendar/zodiacal time she descends onto Bharat. What would occur on the subcontinent if the millions who gather for the Kumbha Mela could worship the Goddess in harmony with Mahakala in the true order of things temporal and cosmic?


Unity of the Knowledge, which makes these images come alive today even more meaningful than they ever were, is what is lacking because of the Ayanamsha Chaos and the lost cosmic connection. It is our duty to help unify the energies of 80% of the population so that the greatness that once was can be restored.
In this task the Vishnu Avatars come to our aid today. Therefore, in closing I must dedicate this effort to Ramlala of Ayodhya, in gratitude for the help he has given by his contemporary appearance as Child. To make the Tradition vibrant and applicable today, he has placed his seal and sanction on this task by having timed his appearance post-independence exactly on the night of the Solstice of 1949: December 22-23 – that is, the true Makar Sankranti.
His message to the Samaj could not have been clearer,
or the ‘key’ provided by his timing more precise.


Websites:
Puranic Cosmology Updated: www.puraniccosmologyupdated.com
Chronicles of the Inner Chamber: www.matacom.com
Movement for the Restorationof Vedic Wisdom: www.movementfortherestorationofvedicwisdom.com
Official website: www.aeongroup.com