Reflections on the Nature of the Real – 4

The Embrace – at last!

Revolution, Indian-style

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director
 Aeon Centre of Cosmology
South India, 29.9.2014

Those who have followed my work in India since 1971 through a number of published books, and more recently also through blogs, articles and videos (aeoncentre1-youtube channel) online, can join with me in acknowledging that the Indo-American tie-up has been long overdue. I described its inevitability via perceptions gleaned on the basis of a new paradigm offered to the people of India and the world. For the first time we have at our disposal an Indo-centric applied cosmology as the background for our analyses that provides a very different understanding of world affairs, insofar as they were always viewed through the Euro-centric prism; but there are certain aspects to the current rapprochement that enhance our earlier perceptions. In this paradigm one of its outstanding features is the manner in which America is shown to form an axis with India in both time and space. To present factual examples of the applicability of the new cosmology, in Chapter 15 of The Gnostic Circle, entitled ‘The United States of America and India’, in 1974 I wrote the following, revealing far deeper commonalities between the two than simply the largest and oldest democracies:

The United States of America is of course a very important element in the Earth’s evolution at present. Together with India it forms the evolutionary axis of Cancer and Capricorn that has often been referred to in this text. Capricorn [Makar] is India’s occult sign, and Cancer is the Sun sign of the United States [based on its July 4th independence date]; these together represent the axis of Spirit and Matter which is now carrying the evolution. It is around these two nations that the future of humanity’s growth into a more divine species largely depends. Both must pass through ‘labour pains’ as described for Tibet. India must become ‘materialised’ and the United States must awaken to the Spirit. If neither of these fulfils its destiny there is no possibility of a transformation on Earth. It is also essential that the two nations realise their union and come to the point where they shall work in harmony with one another in order that the new reign upon Earth can become established, for it is no coincidence that Columbus in 1492 thought he had reached India in his travels and called the natives of the land Indians… (p.181)

Following the publication of The Gnostic Circle in 1975 this theme has run through all the discoveries I have made since then; there was nothing to change that perception – rather, it has been enhanced over the years. I had even written to leading politicians of the day in the same vein, notwithstanding the compunctions of the Cold War and the fact that Richard Nixon had just a few years earlier sent the 7^th Fleet into the Bay of Bengal in support of Pakistan in its war against India and the rebellion of its then eastern wing.

      …I spoke to you of the necessity of India and the USA coming closer. The reason for making such a statement is not some sentimental fantasy on my part, rather it corresponds to a cosmic working which, when realised, would signify the ultimate victory of Truth. To explain briefly: India and USA form a ‘pole’, occultly, cosmically and physically. This is the pole of Spirit and Matter, respectively. To those who have an inner vision of things this is obvious, but I must point out that this Pole is a world reality as well. India is of the sign Capricorn; the USA is of the sign Cancer. These are opposite signs and this would make them complements in this ‘occult’ pole. Yet this Pole is what I have called the ‘Axis of Evolution’, for it is also the very axis of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. In July, the month of Cancer, the Earth moves farthest away from the Sun. In January (Capricorn) it is closest, and this becomes then the physical axis of the orbit and hence of the evolution. We see that even in the development of our 20^th Century civilisation this has been the case. USA is the prime representative of the materialistic consciousness, of Science, of Matter. India is the prime representative, as she has been for aeons, of the Spiritual Reality, and this has been her major contribution to the world. But we must understand that Spirit and Matter are one, and it is the discovery of this oneness that the world is now experiencing. If these two countries would somehow come together in this understanding, support each other, and work in harmony and unity, it would mean that the Earth would be able to live through these trying moments and come to the true spiritual age that is before us. I must point out also that these two nations are also ends of the Pole that pierces the very planet we inhabit. They stand back to back on the globe; we could say, it is a question that now they must stand ‘face to face’ rather. USA must come ultimately to recognise the value of India and that only by giving it full support can anything truly great for the Earth be accomplished.
      The Mother has arranged things in a perfect fashion, for all the events help to bring this about. I feel that the fall of South East Asia will inevitably bring USA to reconsider its position with regard to India; it will be obliged to ‘court her’…otherwise…China? (Private correspondence dated 18.4.1975, published in Tenth Day of Victory, Volume 2, Book One, Aeon Books, 2014.)

It is one thing to jump on the bandwagon today when the efforts of past labours are bearing overt results. The most difficult part of the labour was completed long before India and the world realised what was being done, for it is not limited to India. It is important to review those efforts because they began in the late 19^th Century and continued through the 20^th, unbeknown to even close observers of the political or spiritual scenes, and have finally culminated in this 21^st Century as it transpires before our eyes in India and before the eyes of the world.
To illustrate, it was the labour of Vishnu’s 9^th Avatar, Sri Aurobindo, that made it possible for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare that ‘India would be clean by 2019’, in his recent public appearances precisely in the USA. He referred to Mahatma Gandhi in the context of his championing the cause of cleanliness – a clean India which we all deeply desire on more levels than one. However, Gandhi was in a sense jumping the gun because he did not go to the root of the problem – he could not, because it was not his dharma to do so. In his day the cleanliness situation was bad enough; therefore, he himself took on tasks traditionally reserved for certain sections of the society so as to convey the message forcefully. With the increase in population since then, the lack of sanitation and hygiene has become overwhelming. But it must be noted that while these efforts were necessary they could not bear results unless the root cause of the filth that India has become was addressed.
I have written extensively on this ‘original cause’, and since that was dealt with successfully over the past century and into this 21^st without interruption, one can rejoice today when Prime Minister Modi lauds Mahatma Gandhi and declares that he will take up the baton of cleanliness and sanitation, no doubt believing that it all started with Gandhi’s campaign.
What was the original cause?  If we follow the thread we will see that it was cemented in the spiritual consciousness of the civilisation over 2000 years ago; moreover, it lay 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.
This first cause 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. The arrival of Vishnu’s 9^th Avatar was due on the scene some 2100 years thereafter, during Vishnu’s gunaic/zodiacal period of Sattva/Preservation; more particularly, when the cosmic clock marked arrival at the borderline between the Age of Pisces and into our current Aquarian Age in 1926. From that point onward the stage was set on the subcontinent for all the elements to be put in place for India to play her destined role as centre of the 9th Manifestation comprising 6480 years – a duty for which she is eminently prepared: India is required to work out the dark patches in the collective consciousness of the subcontinent which are representative of the energy knots in the global consciousness, or in the aura of the Earth herself, if you will.
What was the original cause that finally, after two millennia, has come to be reflected in the filth that none have wished to see or to acknowledge as Prime Minister Modi has done, an individual aptly suited to the task, being born in the zodiacal sign of Virgo (see Chapter 6, The Magical Carousel, PNB, Aeon Books, where the characteristics of Virgo are embodied in none other than Miss Lily Spotless!)? 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.¹ 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. And it is eternal only because of this in-built method of renewal, because only by renewal has it escaped fossilisation.
In a nutshell, this is the task of the Vishnu Avatars. The national Epics describe the life and times of the 7^th and 8^th in the Line of Ten. Today we have the grace to be born during the period of Vishnu’s 9^th, Sri Aurobindo, some 6000 years after the last. The soil for his appearance was prepared by two spiritual giants of Bengal, just prior to his 1872 birth, Sri Ramakrishna (1836) and Swami Vivekananda (1863).  In The Gnostic Circle I drew the connection more emphatically, in the process revealing the remarkable consistency in these matters Vedic:

    …In the lives of these three there are significant dates which show us the important role they play. Ramakrishna was born with the Sun in Aquarius, in opposition to India’s new birth sign, Leo, and he left his body on August 16^th, just an hour or so after the date of India’s independence, August 15.²
    Vivekananda was born with the Sun in Capricorn, in opposition to the sign of America, Cancer, and he left his body on July 4^th, the date of the American Independence … Ramakrishna’s incarnation was necessary for India’s spiritual awakening, and Vivekananda brought the word to America and planted the seeds of Vedanta in that country. (Ibid, p.182.)

   
Only those who have experienced at close hand the labour of reversal, 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.
Bharat did survive and in spite of the degeneration could keep the thread more or less intact because of a system that allowed India to do so over vast evolutionary cycles of time – the Vishnu Line of Ten, backbone of Hinduism.
Conditions for dealing with what I have called a tendency in the human constitution were in place by entry into the Aquarian Age in 1926 – and this includes Partition, the contours of which began to take shape around that time. These conditions allowed for the 9th to begin the task of uprooting the cause of the decline. The task set before him was to reverse that trend and ultimately to extirpate the tendency of escape to realms beyond, entirely due to the state of incompletion of the human species. Therefore, together with reversal he had to establish in the evolutionary matrix what was lacking to cause the problem in the first place. This was the truth-conscious Supermind, the next level in human evolution. Each of Vishnu’s emanations has had a similar task – that is, the cementing of a particular feature of the human species in an ascending order, because of which Sri Aurobindo called the Line of Ten a parable of evolution. The consequence in India of the tendency to focus on the Beyond away from our planetary base, and thereby bringing about a de facto split between Spirit and Matter, was that the energies of hundreds, if not thousands of realised beings upon which the transformation of the human species depends, were withdrawn from the evolutionary drive. Eventually this withdrawal percolated through all the planes of consciousness down to the physical, the abandonment of which resulted in what we see today. The new, post-Vedic postulation was, simply put, all that is in motion – ergo, the material universe – is mere illusion. Up there in the Self, in the Spirit lies the only reality – a proposition significantly boosted by contemporary particle physics. Bharat thus lost a grip on the physical dimension. It was just a question of time before that physical would be abused to the intolerable level we witness today. Is it not incongruous that the nation acknowledged to have reached spiritual peaks as no other should also hold the distinction of today being the filthiest? India’s ruling zodiacal sign can perhaps give us the answer in its mystic imagery. Capricorn is depicted as the mountain goat with the tail of a fish. This image conveys the connected heights and depths. The time has come to reach a deeper understanding of the symbol when we learn that Capricorn is the sign of the Earth’s soul.

No one now sees the filth; it is just the way things are because it has been a slow and steady decline over centuries. Another aspect of the abuse is corruption, perhaps worst of all; it too is now just the way things are. For there is no store of those finer spiritual energies available, accompanied by the purposefulness required to eliminate the evidence of this abandonment. It is as if a gap exists in the human constitution through which energies are seeped away. This has allowed the physical body of Bharat Mata to display the problem for all those who have the courage to search beneath the surface debacle and reach what Sri Aurobindo called, a falsehood planted…at the very root of things, in his poem, ‘A God’s Labour’,

…A voice cried. ‘Go where none have gone!
    Dig deeper, deeper yet
Till thou reach the grim foundation stone
    And knock at the keyless gate.’

I saw that a falsehood was planted deep
    At the very root of things
Where the grey Sphinx guards God’s riddle sleep
    On the Dragon’s outspread wings.

I left the surface gods of mind
    And life’s unsatisfied seas
And plunged through the body’s alleys blind
    To the nether mysteries.

I have delved through the dumb Earth’s dreadful heart
    And heard her black mass’ bell
I have seen the source whence her agonies part
    And the inner reason of hell.

Above me the dragon murmurs moan
    And the goblin voices flit;
I have pierced the Void where Thought was born,
    I have walked in the bottomless pit…

By undoing that knot the rest could then find its place. Well meaning souls could shout till the proverbial cows come home, but until the labour of the 9^th was completed, no efforts could bring concrete results.
This work is done; the reversal stands cemented in the evolutionary matrix. In February of 2014 the final ingredient was added to the alchemy and the sacred labour was completed. A Zero-Seed was planted within the prescribed harmony of Time and Space so that, through the Vedic laws of equivalency and correspondence the poisons in the Earth sheath of the past 300 years, further compacted into 30 years, to be further condensed, by the same laws, into 3 years, and finally 3 months (February to May) – were at last extirpated from the body of the Mother that is Bharat. The external evidence was that for the first time since 1984 – precisely 30 years ago – majority rule resulted from the electoral process on May 26, 2014, a majority none expected. This was the signal of a job well done behind the scenes, so to speak; the surface, in a connected, seamless consciousness, displayed this accomplishment, to remind us once again of that underlying drive with a purpose. This is not an unconscious, mindless creation and evolutionary process: there is a divine Purpose at the root of everything material and spiritual. Thus, that compacted Vedic Zero-Seed planted at a specially selected geographic position, directly aligned with the physical source of Ganga, was a womb which, like the poison accumulated in Shiva’s throat at the great Churning, served to gather within itself the compacted poison of centuries and, once and for all, cast it out of the body of the Mother, rendering it truly sacred again.
These are facts not theories or idealistic imaginings. When the Avatar’s labour covers all four dimensions – spiritual, mental, vital, physical – only then can we proclaim the work to be done, the direction to be reversed irrevocably; and the actors are now in place who can carry the fruit of that hidden labour into the dimension that people the world over can relate to: the material plane of the physical consciousness.
This is India’s response to the Aquarian wave that has swept across the globe awakening the masses to their rightful place beneath the Aquarian Sun. It is a revolution Indian-style. In this context, the coming together of America and India is not left to governments alone. The driving force in response to the Aquarian ideal is the people of both nations, and all nations. This was amply displayed in Madison Square Garden on 28 September 2014, a drive that extends well beyond the confabulations of the governments of the day. Exactly 43 years ago on this very date the final ingredients were drawn into India to assure this great victory of the people of both continents as an inevitable consequence the gnostic wheel of Time sets in motion when its divine purpose is accepted as a legitimate part of the Earth’s fulfilment. Today one leader plays the role the Divine Shakti commands, tomorrow it will be another. Her will prevails and we are blessed to participate in the manifestation of her Power that we have just seen Indian-Americans display in the United States of America.

_____________________________

¹  Most would find it hard to accept that the origin of the need for a cleanliness drive could be connected to the concept of Nothingness, a quotient of the Nirvana realisation of over two millennia ago; or to what 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.

²  Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, 15.8.1872. 

Caste, Calendar and Cosmos - their interconnection and relevance for contemporary society

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology
Tamil Nadu, South India

Part I

I have just read an Internet posting regarding a report in circulation on Caste put out by the Hindu American Foundation. I have not yet read the report itself but I feel I must comment on a statement by N. S. Rajaram to the Foundation, carried in this posting. He used a disparaging word to describe one of the contributors to the discussion, Ramesh Rao. Since this is the same word he used to describe me in a scathing attack which was published by the Organiser in its October 23, 2002 issue, under the title, Indology: Skeletons in the Closet, I could not refrain from offering my point of view. One may disagree with my views, but to use such language damages the cause Rajaram wishes to further. This appears to be a chronic malady because though many years have passed he continues to cast the same aspersion on anyone who may disagree with his viewpoint. My impression at the time was that Rajaram had not studied my work at all.
This is not the place to contest Rajaram’s diatribes word for word, and I must repeat that I have not read the report in question, nor am I familiar with Ramesh Rao’s work. It is the disparaging attitude that must be addressed since it is does not reflect true scholarship and academic training.


In the Internet report reference was made to Swami Dayananda Saraswati regarding the same issue of caste. I was recently invited to speak at the First National Panchanga Ganitam Conference held at Tirumala, 24-26 December 2010, under the auspices of the organisation Swami Dayananda Saraswati heads.
What transpired then made me realise that the Sanatana Dharma is being held hostage to certain elements that seek to gain a monopoly over a belief system and way of life which had not succumbed to any such imposition. In fact, this is what distinguishes it from all other organised bodies, particularly those that gained ground over the past two thousand years. Any such monopoly or exclusivist leaning is anathema to the Vedic Way, the lack of which is the very factor that makes the Sanatana Dharma superior to other belief systems and more appropriate for the twenty-first century. The freedom we espouse for humanity as a whole is the very same that must prevail in our approach to a higher reality. Only Hinduism offers the freedom to know and experience God in whatever manner suited to each individual seeker, and even to deny the premise entirely.
However, this freedom is also a bane. The desired grouping of the Hindu Samaj under one umbrella, in this case the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha that claims to represent the majority, is an impossible task; yet there remains the problem of the confusion this maddening diversity creates among followers of the Dharma. The well-meaning Acharyas would like to resolve the problem since it causes difficulty of management in a world that is uncomfortable with the eclecticism of Hinduism. Be this as it may, there has always been a precise method to bring this diversity into a unique experience of unity. It is the existence of this method – an enlightened process of time reckoning – and its persistence over the millennia that renders the Dharma eternal. Lamentably, this characteristic has been disturbed over the past few centuries; the calendar has not been allowed to serve the Samaj as it had always done since time immemorial.
Interestingly, this is the same method or structure which illumines the true nature of caste, revealing it to be a superior classification entirely drawn from the harmony of our solar system. Even more interesting, when that cosmic harmony lost its grounding in veda, then both calendar and caste were precipitated into the severe decline we live with today. The key to the desired unity was lost; we are left with only a riot of diversity afflicting both caste and calendar. On the surface the connection between the two may not be readily appreciated but in the course of this treatment their interconnection will be made clear.
In view of the decline and the inability to present a single voice to counter the inroads of organised exclusivist religions during this same period – the past Age of Pisces, 234 BCE to 1926 CE – well meaning souls such as the Swami-ji have sought to create a single voice for the majority through consensus. But this has not been the Vedic Way – nor will it ever be. The calendar has always been the method to unify the grand diversity that is the Sanatana Dharma. This is not a contrived system but is taken from the actual harmony of our solar system. The Vedic legacy in Hinduism demands that the same ancient method be re-instated if unity is to be the factual and not imagined experience of the Samaj, without the imposition of any fabricated uniformity.
It was just such an attempted fabrication that I experienced at the Conference in Tirumala under the auspices of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha. The call of the organisers was for uniformity. Of interest to note is that this was the word used to describe the goal of the Conference: to bring about uniformity from among the many calendars, each with their respective ayanamshas, for the timings of temple observances and horoscopy. We are all aware of the fact that each panchanga publication puts forth a different timing for festivals and rituals. Over the years this has resulted in total confusion because the success of such publications depends precisely on the different calculations they offer the public. There are at least twenty almanacs in use, each with different timings based on their exclusive calculations. These include the calculations of Lahiri, Sri Yuktiswar, BV Raman, Fagan, Mercier, Sassanian, Hyber, and many more. If uniformity is imposed by selecting one of these as the resolutions adopted at the Conference suggested, those vested interests stand to suffer losses which cannot be regained once the true Vedic system is re-adopted. There could then no longer be space for any confusion nor the need for any arbitrary selection or imposition.
I came away from the Conference with the sad realisation that, as Sri Aurobindo stated in the beginning of the last century regarding the condition of the Veda, ‘The soul of knowledge had fled from its coverings’ (The Secret of the Veda). There was not a single participant whose speech offered the true basis for deliberations on matters of higher knowledge. There were scientists present in large numbers, astronomers and astrologers, as well as religious heads; indeed, the meetings were presided over by the Sankaracharyas. But none among these illustrious participants presented the true Vedic Way. Hence unity would never be achieved under the circumstances – or even uniformity – in this vital matter affecting the entire Samaj. Rather, when the basis is higher knowledge, it is self-evident and requires no authority for its imposition, except the authority that emanates from the realisation of that Truth.
Lamentably the yogic approach has been lacking all along, and since it does not form the basis of time-reckoning for the Hindu Samaj, calendar and caste suffer from the same cloak of ignorance because both owe their essential being and purpose to the harmony of the cosmic surround. If the right understanding of the cosmos regarding caste as also the calendar are not perceived, can there be any breakthrough given the fact that the Sanatana Dharma has its grounding in that Harmony which is the very basis of its eternal character? As long as the cosmos exists and our planetary base remains what it is, so long will the Dharma live on.
However, the cosmic surround speaks in the voice of Knowledge. Its harmonies express the most elegant and exquisite melodies to which the human consciousness can be attuned. The Rishis have bequeathed their sublime cosmic Seeings to us in the Rig Veda. It is lamentable that we find ourselves so thoroughly distanced from them that we have lost the key they left to preserve the Dharma in the face of any future adversity. When I brought this out in my speech at the Conference, the scientist who followed began his own with this statement: This is science not Veda. That he could make such a comment when attending a gathering purportedly dealing with matters of higher knowledge in itself reveals the true condition. There can be no other basis for any discussion on calendar matters but veda. And since the same cosmic harmony describes caste, I must state that scholarship and science, though admirable in their own spheres, can never reveal the Cosmic Truth that the Rishis knew. What we have today is Cosmic Ignorance – and ironically science is largely to blame for the decline though it believes otherwise, by having corrupted the means for a civilisation rooted in veda to realise a unification of its collective energies without the need for uniformity and its attending dogmas. Hence, disunity and confusion pose serious threats to the Dharma because of the condition which can be described in one phrase: the Ayanamsha Chaos.

We must start with the basics since there are no shortcuts in matters Vedic and cosmic. The basis is the cosmos as perceived from Earth. Unfortunately, this Earth-centeredness has been lost in India because science labelled astrology a pseudo-science precisely because of its Earth-centeredness. For centuries we have been fed this false notion, and one of the most sacred Arts, mother of all sciences, has been wickedly maligned. That no astrologer arose to accept the challenge and set matters right is the real surprise, for it is science that demonstrates its ignorance by condemning the Art in this manner. Astrological calculations indeed are Earth-centred because that is our position in the solar system. When the astrologer draws up a horoscope or engages in time-reckoning for temple purposes, naturally the Earth is his or her point of observation. This does not imply, as science would like us to believe, that the Ancients were ignorant of the true structure of our system, but simply that the Earth becomes the point of convergence for matters cosmic applicable to our location – i.e., the centre of the converging universe. We are not elsewhere, we are not in a distant galaxy, nor are we concerned with discovering the centre of the universe as a whole. Philosophy thrives on such speculations, as does theoretical physics; but the practitioner of the sacred arts is practical in his or her approach. Calculations are Earth-centred because it is here, on this blessed third planet that the human instrument has evolved so that we can consciously live the Harmony. We can develop our consciousness to become knowing and pure instruments through which that superior harmony is applied on Earth.
Ignorance prevails, as presently the case, when the key that unlocks the door to that heavenly vault is lost. When physical science proclaims itself the keeper of that key, then we know that the Dharma stands on the brink of what I call the Abyss of Time. Indeed, we do stand on the brink in India due to the slippage of time caused by the Ayanamsha Chaos: the Dharma either takes up the challenge to emerge restored and stronger, or it perishes forever. Since it is the channel of the Earth’s own soul-expression, when the Sanatana Dharma perishes the Earth cannot bear the loss.
The Earth’s position in the solar system is blessed indeed; the phenomenon of eclipses is enough to prove the point. But as there exists a detailed perfection for eclipses to occur, demonstrating the perfect harmony between Earth, Moon and Sun, so too does the entire system reveal an eloquent harmony in every detail when viewed from Earth. Indeed, this is the reason why consciousness has evolved instruments with an increasing ability to perceive, to see. Therefore, if we wish to honour the Earth’s role in the harmony, we must always place our planet at the centre of observation and refuse to be lured into a search for distant heavens and the static peace of a Beyond.
Our planet is circular just like all the other heavenly bodies. Therefore, this is the very first lesson of the new updated cosmology: to acquire the capacity to perceive in circles, spherically – not linearly. The difference is essential to establish and plays a prominent role in questions of caste and calendar. The failure to perceive spherically lies at the root of the problem uniformity poses vis-à-vis unity.


The first basic element of the Earth’s harmony is her balance on four pillars which we experience as the Equinoxes and Solstices. The circular graphic above illustrates the role of the Cardinal Poles as well as the necessity for perceiving spherically, just as the diagram indicates. It is divided into four quarters, each of which is marked off by an Equinox or a Solstice and consists of 90 degrees of the circle’s 360. However, most important of all to consider, particularly with regard to caste and calendar, is the circle’s zero point, or ayanamsha. But the issue is how is this point to be determined, on which hinges the entire exercise of calculating right timings? After all, a circle is a closed form which can imply that we are free to establish entry at any one of its 360 degrees. In the world of scientific relativism this freedom to choose is legitimate, but in the Vedic world that relativism is the Mother of Ignorance – Diti in the Rig Veda, the Mother of Division.
In the Earth-centred Vedic perception the Zero Point is an absolute and is never relative or subjective. The Equinoxes and Solstices dispel all ignorance in these matters and provide the indisputable ayanamsha which should be the basis for all calculations to conclusively remove the vested interests of relativism which have created the harmful confusion that the Ayanamsha Chaos has inflicted on the Hindu Samaj.
Equinoxes and Solstices constitute the supporting pillars of the Sanatana Dharma, reflected in the fact that every Hindu temple is oriented to those Cardinal points. They are astronomically verifiable, stable and constant, requiring no yearly or daily correction to render them ‘accurate’ as the current Nirayana System is believed to do, based on its subjective relativism.

The culture of the subcontinent in so many aspects reflects the incorporation of the four Cardinal Poles and their Equinoxes and Solstices. We may examine one of its expressions, which plays such a prominent role in Indian society, cutting across caste and creed. This is the classical music of Bharat, particularly of the South.
We all agree that Indian classical music is cosmic-based. We agree because we are repeatedly told this is so by the savants. Of relevance for our discussion is the prominence of the Equinoxes and Solstices in the composition and execution of the ragas: they were composed to be played only during certain seasons and even during specific times of the day. The latter involves the Earth’s daily rotation around her axis in the 24 hours of our day; the former is, of course, the result of the Earth’s balance on the four Cardinal Poles which she reaches in the course of our 365-day year for the experience of the four seasons established by the Equinoxes and Solstices. Thus, when a raga is executed, the musician brings to the audience a cosmic experience.
Though less ostentatious there is a deeper cosmic connection in Indian classical music to discover. This is provided by the drone, the very first sound by the instrumentalist, after which the others join in on this backdrop of the never-ending shruti. Similar to the four pillars of our System, the drone offers the same support to the musical composition that planet Earth enjoys through the Equinoxes and Solstices. Probing even deeper into the nature of the Shruti reveals that it establishes musically the very same portrait of Reality as the Veda. This is, in a word, fullness, the Veda’s quintessential characteristic. All else may disintegrate and fade away across the ages, but if the perception of Fullness remains, so too will the Veda because this is the true nature of a material creation. Indeed, if there is a single word that can express the ancient way it is this one; and it is responsible for the immense diversity we find in the subcontinental culture. The paths that gained ground during the last millennium have gradually distanced themselves from this concept/perception, paths such as Mayavada. They are, in fact, partly responsible for the Ayanamsha Chaos, and are certainly attuned to the relativism that plagues our society. While these paths extol the Self above all else, they have done so at the cost of the Universal Mother. It would appear to be an improvement in the apparently chaotic spirituality India offers the world, but in truth wisemen in the subcontinent simply succumbed to the wave that swept across the entire globe in the last Age of Pisces. That wave brought an end to the venerable place the Goddess held from time immemorial. Stark monotheism alone was thought to be real. All else was the beguiling work of the temptress Eve, or her eastern sister Maya, illusion. This left matters Earthly and Cosmic victims of the imposition of relativism just such a dismissal provoked.
In music the traditional position, the experience of Fullness, remains – at least structural if not in execution: ragas are seasonal and temporal in concept regardless of the fact that today their execution is not bound strictly to the seasons; for the most part they are heard at any time of the day and year. Nonetheless, the drone continues to remind listeners of the Vedic Fullness as the Womb out of which a voluptuous diversity arises. The Shruti is the true sound of silence. Silence abides ceaselessly and is not interrupted by Sound which is rather a wave, a vibration that lifts up from that essential Fullness. The two, Silence and Sound, are simultaneous, contiguous. The cosmos is not born of nothingness and the Void, but of this most sacred Fullness.
Indian classical music expresses this superlative experience of Reality. And it is a tribute to the Ancients who first ‘heard’ the Shruti that they could so exquisitely give a musical form to so elusive an essence, thereby consolidating the Vedic experience of Reality each time the Shruti is sounded – the Fullness of Silence.
But all this is lost when that Cosmic Order is disturbed by the wrong time reckoning which exists today. The Veda honour Time in verse after verse; and this connection has been carried across the ages in temple sacred architecture, while in the Puranas Time is considered to be above all the Gods. And interestingly, this is the form that the 9th/10th Avatar of Vishnu takes in this Aquarian Age of his coming. Equally interesting is the fact that time reckoning has been so disarranged that the cosmic credentials of the Avatar can no longer be read in the heavenly harmonies because the sacred keys have been forfeited, giving science a free hand in matters beyond its competence, in a field where it must follow and not pretend to lead.
We are justified in suspecting a method to this madness. The Vishnu Line of Ten Avatars is the backbone of subcontinental civilisation. Once the cosmic connection is lost imposters, interlopers, usurpers can claim the title, while the time-tested Vedic method to distinguish the real from the false is smothered in a process that can never provide the accuracy demanded of a sanatana Dharma. The conspiracy, if it may be so called, has been well planned: to use the key to unity against itself through a distortion that is the outcome of the Ayanamsha Chaos.
The Epics of the 7th and 8th Avatars are further proof and both clearly provide the proper cosmic credentials as long as the correct system is used for their deciphering. This is simply the solar system exactly as it is experienced by inhabitants of Earth as she journeys around the Sun on the ecliptic plane. She is supported by the Equinoxes and Solstices just as the drone of classical music supports the raga – another demonstration of their common cosmic source.
In the current contrived Nirayana system used throughout India there is no such ‘support’. There are no Equinoxes or Solstices in the constellations, therefore there is no absolute method to determine the correct and changeless Zero Point for the wheel of Time to begin turning and to open before us the twelve months of the year, as the Rig Veda describes,

Certain eternal worlds are these which have come into being,
Their doors are shut to you (or opened) by the months and the years;
Without effort one (world) moves into the other
And it is these that Brahmanaspati,
Has made manifest to knowledge.
(RV. II.24-5)

Time and again in the Veda the Rishis speak of one circle. Indeed, this is the simplest and most important key of all, and somehow it is the most difficult to grasp: One Circle. This means that all calculations, all divisions, solar, lunar, and so forth, have to be contained and executed within one circle. As indicated:

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

That one circle is the eternal foundation of the Dharma. For that to be applicable in a universe in constant motion, we must have a method to locate the ‘Immobile amidst the Mobile’. Our planet’s journey within the ecliptic plane that extends out from the Sun and wherein the journey of all the planets takes place, provides stability upholding change. The Earth measure is our constant – in the Veda it is the Divine Maya. She tilts with respect to that plane because of her axis and revolution around the Sun, south and north, and thus the Equinoxes and Solstices come into being. This absolute and not relative astronomical phenomenon is unchanging within the change that the entire universe experiences – without which there would be no universe. Therefore, to be appreciated is that the journey, as the Rishis called the Earth’s monthly progression through the circle of 12, cannot be experienced in the fanciful and amorphous grouping known as the constellations which lacks an equatorial plane and is therefore entirely lacking in the accuracy of a single, incorruptible ayanamsha. This stability in change, this rest in motion is a property only of our solar system as perceived and lived on Earth. The constellations of the Nirayana system are devoid of these configurations that make the Earth’s journey unique.

(Link to Part II)