 |
THE
THIRD
WAY
on Conscious Evolution
PART I
The past holds such a fascination for all of us that we are unable
to see the same thread of an ancient knowledge weaving its way
across the ages into the present. We search for the hidden,
the arcane and esoteric, and therefore we often miss the forest for
the trees, preferring to concentrate on discovering in our long lost
past the answer to who we are, where we came from and where we are
going. Atlantis, legendary or real, holds the answers we seek if we
could just locate its ruins. Or else it is Lemuria, Mu, the
prehistoric Maya or Vedic India of many thousands of years ago.
Given the lamentable state of our contemporary civilisation, the
present does not seem to be much help in discovering what was of
real and lasting value to the ancients and which we intuit may show
us the way out of our present unenlightened condition.
There is indeed evidence
of advanced civilisations having populated the Earth in ages gone by,
and a history that extends into a past far more distant than any
contemporary academic would allow us to believe. But surely the
question to ask is why we permitted this ‘sleep’, as I call it, to
overtake us so thoroughly as to cause us to forget who we are. How
did it come about, what were its causes? Above all, why do we refuse
to awaken even when faced with undeniable evidence of what was
called in the Vedic Age the ‘lost sun’?
Compared to the accomplishments
of those former times it is obvious that we are primitives seeking
the light. For instance, the Great Pyramid at Giza stands right
before us and displays a technology so far in advance of our own
wonders of this 21st century that we do not need to
search any further. It has been preserved with meticulous care and
concern – with the obvious intent of leaving clues to help us in our
search when darkness would descend. The Great Pyramid tells us what
we need to know but not about its ancient builders, – aliens from
afar or otherwise. Rather, it provides an unmistakable pointer to
the path we must follow today in order to find our connection with
the solar system we inhabit; as the ancients had done so long ago,
permitting the creation of such monuments.
Measure, alignment, precision – these
were and remain the keynotes of our quest. But the problem is that
for the past several thousand years we have been afflicted with a
spirituality which has undermined the foundation that gave
meaning to these words. Not so in the age of the Great Pyramid; or
in ancient Vedic India. The undermining began at a later date. It
remains the scourge of our times and it is the reason why technology
and science are impotent to provide us with a direction to our quest
that can give us a sense of purpose and connectedness with the
cosmic surround.
A number of centuries ago a
great sleep descended on humanity across the entire globe. It
overtook the East as well as the West. If there were wise men and
women who understood the danger, they also knew that the scourge was
inevitable. And the wise of a much more ancient vintage foresaw the
inevitable, and thus the Great Pyramid was born.
In India the Ancient Ones
also realised that a very deep sleep would overtake the civilisation,
and these wise souls did whatever was in their power to preserve the
Word. And thus was born the compilation known as the Veda, - Rig,
Saman, Yarur and Atharva. In Egypt, for reasons we will explore
further on, the preservation was in stone; in ancient India it was
through the human channel by virtue of an unbroken line of Seers who
had REALISED the truth of the way through the yogic process
described in those preserved documents, as well as in the Great
Pyramid itself. Indeed, the very same process.
These Vedic texts have
come to us only as fragments of the ancient knowledge, whereas the
Great Pyramid was designed to defy intact the ravages of time and
humanity’s destructive tendencies when faced with what it cannot
understand and must therefore destroy. The primitive state of
humanity at the end of the Pyramid age was such that it would not be
in a position to demolish the evidence this colossus would preserve
for many thousands of years up to our very own times, this blessed
Age of Aquarius, the period of revelation and completion.
Egypt of the Pyramid age
and even of the Pharaonic period is lost to us as a civilisation,
thanks to the great Sleep that allowed shadows to edge out the light
of the deep wisdom preserved in those timeless monuments. We note
though that the mysterious Sphinx was installed as a companion to
the mighty Pyramid; for one, because it was necessary to leave a
sample of the language of celestial harmonies, but above all to
demonstrate that it is eternal, truly the language of the Gods. And
as long as our solar system continues to journey through space and
time, so long will that celestial language live. However, to lose
that knowledge only a simple technique was required: an undermining
of the foundation that was indispensable to make any
sense at all of what stands before our eyes. That foundation is our
planet Earth.
In denying to measure,
precision, alignment any ‘spiritual’ substance, we deny the
truth and purpose of our planetary home in the higher scheme of
things. Thus, the sleep that fell upon us permitted a chasm to arise
in our collective consciousness, affecting the course our evolution
would take. The result has been an abysmal split that was entirely
unknown in ancient times – the divide between spirit and
matter. As time moved on and ‘science’ became the exclusive
preserve of the materialist, men and women of the spirit
increasingly took refuge in the quest for a ‘beyond’, precisely
because the Earth as base was as if covered in a thick mist due to
the constant undermining from within the ranks of the spirit itself.
The critical crossroads we have reached is expressed simply as an
imperative need to heal this divide, to bridge the chasm, to restore
a consciousness of unity wherein such a split is unthinkable.
However, this is no
simple task primarily because we do not have the right tools to help
us make the discoveries needed to construct the bridge. We turn to
spirituality of various hues for answers, little realising
that all the paths we know today are a product of the great Sleep.
All of them drive us farther and farther away from the goal we must
seek. Thus, we may make astonishing discoveries regarding the
technology used to build the Great Pyramid, exposing in the process
the pathetic state of scientific orthodoxy of our times which tries
to hide the truth; but these discoveries take us no closer to
understanding WHY that great civilisation laboured to leave this
monument on Earth for a future age. For example, we marvel at the
precision of alignment of this enormous construction; we focus on
the tools, techniques, technology to achieve this because that is
the way our 21st century minds work. We do not ask the
obvious: Why was alignment so important? What message is that
preserving for us today?
Since spirituality cannot
provide the answer because it has denied any truth to matter,
precision and measure – the things of our Earth earthly – and
embraced instead the Beyond and the after-death state for the light
of salvation, we turn to Science, entirely convinced that if we
pursue scientific methods to their logical conclusion we will
ultimately find all the answers we seek. But even the most
recalcitrant materialist has to admit that the more science uncovers,
the greater the danger of self-annihilation, be it either through
physics, chemistry, or now biology which presents the threat of a
genetic manipulation that may ultimately destroy the human race as
we know it. Our moral codes are breaking down; religions hold no
power to help us control our destructive impulses; while our
spirituality continues to undermine the reality of this material
base we call home. And so the destruction continues unabated.
Nonetheless, the mysterious
Sphinx broadcasts the message not only of the age in which it was
built but also that in the present Aquarian Age the destined time
has come to uncover a third way.
The Rig Veda
interestingly tells us the very same thing. Yet both remain enigmas,
inscrutable mysteries – the Rig Veda no less than the Sphinx. Both
have survived because of an abiding respect for the demands of our
material base: precision, measure, alignment. Both preserve the
truth of the Third Way – and for us today, a new way.
Indeed, this is a new
discovery, and it forms the core of this essay. If we respect the
demand of our planetary home for precision, measure, time and space
– unlike all the spirituality and religions we know, in spite of
their protestations to the contrary – then we learn the method to
heal the divide and bridge the chasm. We are guided to the true
unitary consciousness that was the natural state of at least an
elite in ancient times.
While our technologists
must admit that the Great Pyramid could not be built today to equal
its precision, and that a missing link exists in the evolution of
culture which left a huge gap in our understanding of past
accomplishments on this planet, there is no such admission in India
regarding the very same knowledge preserved in the Rig Veda. While
there appears to be an unbroken thread in Hinduism from the Vedic
Age right into the present, the yogic realisation is lacking
today that could permit a real and not an imaginary continuity with
the line established by the Seers of those former times. That
realisation was the bedrock or the ‘fulcrum’, as one Sanskrit
scholar has called it, of the Vedic way; yet it does not figure in
the vast collection of minutely documented paths of Indian yogas of
any school after the Vedic Age. And, lamentably, India moves farther
and farther away from attaining that lost realisation with each
passing day. This is more than a deep sleep; it is denial, while at
the same time we hear the constant refrain, ‘We are truly Vedic!’
All these remains of the
ancient civilisations we are discussing give us the same message.
Not that this was their intention – though certainly the Great
Pyramid and the Sphinx were constructed with a mind to preserve the
Knowledge for our times. The message was and remains simple: the
measure of the year, and the cardinal point alignment that
forms a part of this sacred measure. It is the Earth’s contribution
to the solar system – her own harmony, the means by which the planet
can contribute her ‘note’ to the cosmic symphony. It is what the
Earth adds to the overall scheme, with the other planets similarly
offering their own measure. And thus the Music of the Spheres arises.
From the time the
great Sleep began to overtake humanity, right up to Isaac Newton
himself, the keys to this ‘music’ have been sought. It was the
primary focus of all ancient civilisations, if the extant clues they
have left are to be believed. But all the academics who study the
matter fail to discover the obvious. They invariably focus their
search on the constellations and various stars therein; but
the Earth’s own measure in the ecliptic of her home base is
disregarded. Yet we are aware of the Great Pyramid’s near perfect
alignment to the ecliptic’s four cardinal points and not to the
constellations beyond our system. But we do not carry the discovery
forward to answer the real question: Why was orientation so
important, and what is it that was actually being aligned? Primarily
it was the Earth’s place and alignment on the ecliptic within our
solar system; and only secondarily, and as a result of the
former it must be noted, a measure involving the constellations.
Orientation was of
central importance in the Vedic Age as well. The complex geometry of
the vedi – simple brick structures based on sacred geometry
where the homam or sacrifice was carried out - honoured
before all else this same alignment. It was the basis for everything
that followed in the rituals and offerings.
In contemporary Hindu
society a pundit will commence construction of a temple or an
individual dwelling by first establishing true North and aligning
the building to as near perfect a degree as possible with the four
quarters of the ecliptic. What the pundit does is to recreate a
horoscope on the ground, just as we do when we draw up a chart for
an individual. It is called Vastu Purush, the cosmic Man. In
other words, the cosmic surround based on the ecliptic alignment is
transferred from the heavens to the site and construction begins
once that transposition is accomplished according to processes
established for the purpose.
Up to that point all is
in order. But when time is added to the process everything
collapses in the current scheme of things. The pundit or priest,
similar to the scholar, seeks the right time
measure in the constellations rather than through the Earth’s
own harmony, a point I will elaborate further on to reveal that
Hindu civilisation is, unfortunately, a far cry from its Vedic
ancestor.
The Earth in
toto is floundering, East no less than West. Advances are being made
in science that seem to border on the miraculous. But there does not
appear to be any focus to these advancements, contrary to the
ancient way. Yes, there is undeniable evidence that the builders of
the Great Pyramid possessed a superior technology; but it was not
technology for its own sake, as ours is today, - an end in itself
without a connected purpose drawing together the efforts of many
different branches of science, all supportive of a central purpose.
Yet when we observe with an Initiate’s eye the monuments and
documents of old, we perceive immediately that however formidable
the technology and science, they were a servant to something greater,
something all-encompassing, something that gave a deep and abiding
logic to everything that emerged out of the collective efforts of
those civilisations.
It is when such a
consciousness arises that the Theory of Everything (TOE), as it is
called in scientific circles, will be discovered. First a vision
of unity has to be established in the consciousness of the
observer by which he becomes one with the thing observed; and then a
unified theory emerges out of that consciousness.
This perception of unity and
oneness was a global phenomenon in very ancient times. We marvel
today at the fact that civilisations across the globe, apparently
disconnected from one another, reveal an underlying affinity. This
is precisely the point that needs to be made: they were all aware of
the means to speak in one voice – the voice of the Cosmic Truth. And
they all made use of the same tool: the circle of 360 degrees
divided into four, - i.e., the days and nights of equal measure, and
the shortest and longest days of the year, or our seasonal rhythm
due to the tilt of our planet’s axis with respect to the ecliptic.
That is the magical circle which provides us with the knowledge we
need to transform the dross that we are into pure gold. It is not
that there was a mysterious connection between these remote
civilisations; or that aliens were visiting our planet and planting
the same message here and there. This may well have been the case,
but it is immaterial to our present problem which is that we have no
such knowledge today binding our endeavours around a single purpose.
And that purpose is to find the sense in the Earth’s place in the
system and her special contribution to the music of the spheres. We
are not even aware that such ‘music’ exists, much less that we can
‘hear’ its sounds; and far less that this sacred music can provide
the means to create harmony where now only cacophony exists.
We inhabit the third planet
from the Sun in the third orbit; and it is a third way which
we are in the process of unveiling as an element that can make
cosmic sense of our existence. Currently the belief prevails
that we could be anywhere and it would all be the same since in any
case it is all just ‘coincidence’. This belief alone reveals that we
were wrenched from our planetary roots, just as we were cut
off from our ancient past when the great Sleep overcame us as a
planetary society. In fact, this sleep too is recorded in the
‘script’ the ancients left for us: the zodiac, the language the
ecliptic uses through our annual orbit of the Sun to speak to us of
things abiding and eternal.
PART II
The knowledge the ancients preserved is eternal in the sense that
the same truths of old can be discovered today. On that basis we
learn who we are and where we are headed as a civilisation. We know
our past, present and future. If the Great Pyramid preserves the
message of alignment to the four cardinal points, it is clear that
in the ecliptic which is marked off by these points we can begin to
find the clues required. But a primary ingredient in the discovery
is the measure the Earth provides. Without this ingredient that
circle tells us nothing. We need the correct Zero Point. With
that we can always find our place in the cosmic harmony; and finding
our place tells us who we are eternally. That is, we can understand
what the Earth’s purpose is and why she alone in the System houses a
species capable of conscious awareness. Above all, why evolution
is the bedrock of her planetary purpose.
Most ancient scriptures,
including the Bible, describe the evolution of the species quite
openly. Genesis for one is a perfect example. The text reveals a
continuous fragmentation of an original ‘cell’, similar to the
multiplication an organic cell undergoes as it grows to produce a
mature form. But orthodoxy has concealed this self-evident message
in the text, since most interpreters have lost the ability to
decipher the language of Symbols. Even in India, where knowledge, or
veda, is supposed to be present in its original form in an
unbroken line, we must state that around the time of the Cosmic Dawn
– that is, when there was a convergence between the Zero Point of
the Precession of the Equinoxes and the equatorial zero point of the
ecliptic, 0 degrees Aries – this line was if not completely broken
at least severely damaged. It was by then, in the third century BCE,
continuously under attack, for that was the period when the great
Sleep reached its deepest level. Contrary to popular belief, it
overtook India no less than the rest of the world. In the west it
was the abolition of Goddess worship and the ancient Mystery
Schools, which were finally replaced by orthodox religions from the
Middle East. In India the Goddess survived but yogis succumbed to an
focus on otherworldliness in contrast to the Vedic Way which was
entirely Earth-oriented.
The Precession of the
Equinoxes is produced by a slow gyration the Earth makes like a
spinning top, because of which her equatorial plane (hence a
precession of the equinoxes) traces a complete circle in
space. It takes 25,920 years for this movement to be completed, or
for this circle to close and return to the starting point. This
greater circle is also divided into twelve zodiacal sections of 30
degrees each, just like our ecliptic. And similarly, the Precession
is of no value without the correct zero point, the start of the
wheel from where we begin the count.
We must also
appreciate that, contrary to the accepted notion, this cosmic rhythm
originates on Earth as the result of her own unique axial
tilt whose slow gyration is the architect of the larger zodiac
projected onto the constellations. Out there, there is
nothing; out there we seek only one thing: a marker, a location in
the vast beyond that can serve as a sort of docking station when the
two zero points must converge. Once again it must be emphasised that
the zodiac is the key, the language that allows the Precession to
speak to us and show us our place in the cosmic harmony.
However, Hindu tradition
provided clues to help resuscitate the knowledge when the Precession
would reach the Age of Aquarius, our own times. One such important
clue is the Hindu Line of Ten Avatars. Sri Aurobindo has rightfully
called this Line a ‘parable of evolution’. Indeed, it does describe
an evolutionary process very specifically, beginning with the ‘Fish
Avatar’, an obvious reference to the origins of biological species,
and then on through the Line until the human creation emerges. With
the help of the Precession of the Equinoxes, coupled with the yearly
journey of the Earth around the Sun as the planet marks off the
cardinal points of equinoxes and solstices, we can read all
the details of that evolution we are a part of and which Hindu
tradition has preserved, though in its own place of birth that
knowledge was later sent underground. The ‘parable of evolution’
gives us the details of that retreat as well.
The key issue is
the correct Zero Point. As this study progresses and we uncover more
and more layers until the full knowledge is revealed, we will
understand why that sacred Point was essential to know. Losing that,
the Earth and her civilisations would be swimming in a vast cosmic
ocean without a goal in sight, and without a lighthouse to lead the
way. But we need not project our vision out to the
constellation-circle which the Precession deals with as it covers a
round of that larger projection of the zodiac approximately every
26,000 years. We experience the very same journey here on Earth in
our annual orbit of the Sun in twelve stages – the twelve months of
the year which the Veda sustain are the doors we must pass
through for access to the supreme Light. The smaller (in time
and space) and the larger speak in one voice: the stages of zodiacal
progression in a measure of twelve. They both describe the
evolutionary process; but while the equinoxes and solstices mark off
the yearly orbit – the Earth’s sacred measure – the Precession of
the Equinoxes allows for that annual Aries Zero Point to be inserted
into the larger cycle and by this link up to provide us with the
greater patterns of evolution. Through this means we can insert
ourselves into the flux and flow of the vast cosmic sea while yet
remaining anchored to the Earth’s zero point in time and her measure
of twelve; and thus to remain connected to the planet we
inhabit and not to seek a purpose for existence in a beyond that
bears no connection with our home base.
The Hindu line of Ten
Avatars deals exclusively with the larger cycle of twelve traced by
the Precession. Of particular relevance – from the time the great
Sleep took effect – are the last three stages covering approximately
12,000 years, or the appearance of the last three Avatars, bringing
the Line to a close with Kalki.
It was during the last
round of the Precession that the Earth was approaching a do-or-die
crossroads. The Great Pyramid arose during that round of 26,000
years and has stood as a silent witness waiting for the moment when
its own purpose would be unveiled. The Sphinx indicates that this
would be in the present Aquarian Age. She provides this information
by virtue of the zodiacal symbols of her form: Lion and Man. The
former indicates the Age of Leo as the time of construction of both
the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid, - now confirmed by geologists; and
the Man portion refers to the time of revelation, the Man sign, or
Aquarius, known in Vedic India as the Friend, Mitra. (Similar to the
Sphinx, the Rig Veda also points to our Aquarian Age as a
culmination, though this is ignored in India today because the true
Zero Point is unknown.) With the correct zero point we discover when
that Age would begin: 1926 CE; coincidentally, the same year that
the Sphinx herself was finally uncovered in the vast sands of the
Egyptian desert. Obviously it becomes important to have the correct
insight into the Precession time-frame in combination with the
yearly rhythms; otherwise we risk missing the moment, - as India is
doing because of miscalculations.
The interesting factor
concerning India is that Hindu civilisation even today professes an
abiding faith and adherence to the cosmic harmonies. All of its
culture, including music, dance, drama, temple art and architecture
arose on the basis of a cosmic perception of life and the
organisation of society according to the rhythms etched out by the
cosmic harmonies. It was a civilisation in the Vedic Age that
understood the Earth’s position in time and space, vast and small.
Out of that understanding came the outflow of a culture unparalleled
today. But unfortunately the essential item that made this grandeur
possible – the Zero Point – was lost, incredible as this may seem in
the land that gave the concept of zero to the world. Since then,
close to three thousand years ago, there has been a steady decline.
Today, as if to stress the point, there are perhaps a dozen
ayanamshas, as the zero point is called in Sanskrit, in the
different almanacs and ephemeredes employed to regulate all
individual and collective celebrations by Hindu society. None of the
pundits can agree on when the yearly orbit of the Sun truly begins,
much less on the beginning point of the larger cycles of the
Precession. The result is that the Aries starting point of the
zodiacal year is celebrated 23 days late. Aries is believed
to begin on 14-15 April, and not on the March Equinox.
One thing must be
stated, however: India does at least honour that Zero Point, giving
it its due place of reverence in the Hindu calendar, though the date
is alarmingly incorrect. I call this period of 23 days, the
measure of the Hindu civilisation’s ‘sleep’.
What do
the Veda say? And the Great Pyramid? The emphasis in both remains
the balancing points of the yearly equinoxes and solstices. That is,
the same message the Great Pyramid preserves in its immaculate
alignment to the four quarters is also central to all ancient Vedic
Scriptures on the subject. The alignment, so carefully calculated in
the Great Pyramid, was not to some elusive point in the far-off
constellations as post-Vedic Hindu pundits have determined. While a
constellation or sidereal alignment does exist for the Great
Pyramid to Orion’s Belt, it was meant to record the time of
construction – approximately 12,000 years ago. But by its
ecliptic alignment the Great Pyramid preserves the Earth’s
eternal contribution to the cosmic harmony. And on that basis we can
discover the very same knowledge the ancients had and finally we can
learn to live in the same consciousness they enjoyed.
While the Great
Pyramid records in stone the importance of the Earth’s alignment to
the four quarters of the ecliptic and the equinoxes and solstices,
Vedic texts have also laid stress on the same harmony – the Earth’s
sacred measure and her contribution to the combined harmony of the 9
planets in orbit of the Sun in a twelve-stage progression through
the zodiac. Each planet offers its own ‘note’ to make up the cosmic
symphony of our solar system; but of special significance is the
‘note’ our own planet contributes. All ancient traditions have
honoured this knowledge. It is only our technological age that finds
itself completely cut off from the sense and purpose of these
rhythms of the universe. Never before have societies the world over
been so utterly disconnected from the planetary family of our solar
system. The Earth in this situation is similar to an orphaned child.
This may well be the prophetic meaning in the tale describing the
abduction of Persephone by Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. Her
imprisonment in the region of the Dark God mirrors the dark
consciousness of our 21st century civilisation. But this
myth also gives us a clue to the zodiacal mystery since
Persephone, we are told, is allowed to spend one third of the year
with her Divine Mother in Elysium (from where she was abducted); the
remaining portion of the year she must spend ruling over the
Underworld with Pluto.
If we divide the
ecliptic in three parts, two-thirds (the period in the Underworld)
takes us to the zodiacal Scorpio; the remaining one-third begins in
Sagittarius and closes the wheel with Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.
Indeed, Scorpio is Pluto’s realm, the region of death and the dead.
In Hindu tradition the 8th in the series is Martanda, 8th
of the divine mother Aditi’s twelve sons. He is the progenitor of
our mortal human race and his name means, appropriately,
dead egg.
However, to explain more fully the meaning of Scorpio, it is the
sign of the deep Sleep, which may be more easily comprehended today
if it is known as Inertia. Death, as the mortal species experiences,
is the individual’s inability to break through the stranglehold of
the Scorpio inertia. Truly there is no ‘death’; there is no
‘end’. Death is merely a transition. However, for us in our present
stage of evolution, it is indeed an end because of the deep
sleep we experience and the plunge into complete unconsciousness and
oblivion that this brings about. Many myths of the ancient world
preserve the same knowledge.
However, more
significantly than myths, it is only the zodiac that can bring these
tales into our dynamic experience because it connects the
twelve-stage journey to time. Thus, as the Rig Veda informs us,
it is the months of the year that hold us back or else that
allow us access to Knowledge. When we see the zodiac
as the map of evolution, we understand that it contains a knowledge
unlimited by temporal and spatial boundaries. What it conveys is
eternally valid at whatever stage the human species may be in its
evolution – provided, however, that we have the correct zero point
and can find our location in the cycles the zodiac describes.
The 8th
month is therefore the stage where an irresistible inertia overtakes
the voyager; and this iron hold can come about because of the ‘sleep
that is death’. The ‘sleep’ must occur for Inertia to succeed in
holding the traveller back from completing the journey on Earth
as a continued process. In other words, we can succumb to sleep and
inertia and experience the remaining one-third ‘in heaven’; or we
can use the key the zodiac provides to unlock the doors to the
secret chamber where the Knowledge is held of our true immortal
condition. Mortal creation, the present state of the species, is one
possibility. It is the stamp in our cells by choice, as
molecular biology is now discovering. However, until this 9th
Manifestation there was really no ‘choice’ since as a species we
were never born. We were unaware of the higher potential
which is also our birthright – if we exert our right to choose.
For humanity at this 9th
stage of its evolution the choice means to be a passive victim of
Inertia and to continue arresting the journey at the 8th
stage of Scorpio, or to realise the higher potential, as the Ancient
Ones have done, and experience immortality. That is, the
transmutation of the Scorpion into the Eagle.
The 8th sign
was always known in ancient traditions as the Eagle. St. John’s
Revelation confirms this. In Chapter IV the visionary describes
the ecliptic as a ‘rainbow about the throne [the Sun] in sight like
unto an emerald’ (3). And further on in verse 6, even more clearly
the ecliptic is described as ‘a sea of glass like unto crystal: and
in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four
beasts full of eyes before and behind’. These four are then given
the same symbol-forms as the four signs of Preservation, Vishnu’s
signs, the zodiacal Fixed cross of lion, calf, man and eagle (see
the Map of the 12 Manifestations). In an even more remote age, the
Vedic Rishi used the very same symbols precisely in praise of Vishnu
the Preserver: lion, bull, man. The Seer sees Vishnu taking three
strides (not the full four). It is as if he stands with Vishnu
in the 8th position which we know of as Scorpio; and from
there Vishnu begins to measure the universe, moving as the
Precession of the Equinox does in a clockwise fashion. But from
where he stands, according to the Scriptures, the 8th
sign is his own vahana or carrier – the Eagle Garuda. The
knowledge is preserved impeccably from an age countless centuries
before St John penned his equally famous verses; and both concur
exactly to confirm the ancient knowledge.
Most Christians would not
accept this unmistakable zodiacal content of The Revelation;
but neither would Hindus, historians, or pundits accept that the
Rishi preserved the knowledge by way of the very same zodiac we use
today throughout the world. This is lamentable because that was the
basis of all belief systems and cults in those former times before
the onslaught of orthodox exclusivist religions. Only in our times
has the universal language been discarded in favour of beliefs and
dogmas that cut one off from one’s fellow creatures and from the
cosmic vastness, - this great Clock whose cogs and wheels we help to
perpetuate. We have made neat compartments and missed entirely the
underlying script that provides a purpose to our sojourn on Earth.
This universal script is so
accurate that it also speaks of the great Sleep that was to overtake
humanity as a whole, and exactly when. With the Precession of the
Equinoxes we can locate the moment in evolution when the Sleep began
and engulfed the world, west as well as east, if India’s famous epic,
the Mahabharat, is to be believed. It too accurately informs
us of the wave that overtook the orient at the same time western
cultures succumbed. Indeed, it is via a combination of the Hindu
epics and Vishnu’s famed three strides to measure the universe that
we learn what happened to the Earth; and, above all, where we are
meant to go in this collective experience once we fully awaken from
the Sleep. It all centres on Scorpio, the 8th sign, and
the transmutation of Scorpion to Eagle. It is the story of the
choice humanity can make in order to escape the hold of Inertia.
PART III
We know that the ancients had the key to transmutation because
closer to the Great Pyramid age, or the Ramayana and Mahabharat
epochs, the zodiacal Scorpio was universally known as the Eagle, a
symbolism which indicates this transmutation. Today no one knows the
8th sign by that name. However, we do have a significant
clue to the state of consciousness and being of those sages of old
in the remains found in Egypt of the Pharaonic age. Indeed, the
tombs and mummies archaeologists have unearthed are our best guide.
With these remains we can unravel the enigma, though this may not
concur with the theories prevalent today.
First of all, we must
accept that there is no connection between the Great Pyramid and the
pyramid-tombs of the Pharaohs. But what these structures in
combination do reveal is that a huge gap exists in our analysing
process based on the extant ruins of both periods. If we step out of
the cage in which scientific orthodoxy is trapped, we are forced to
acknowledge that a period of perhaps several thousand years
separates one from the other. Darkness engulfs those astrological
ages until a thread is taken up once again as the Precession of the
Equinox ‘clock’ seems to be set ticking once again.
In the ensuing period,
the 8th Manifestation, the pyramid-tombs began to emerge
and we find ourselves in the full-blown era of the Pharaohs.
Meanwhile, contemporaneously in Vedic India the same gap was closed
when the Mahabharat was connected to the Ramayana of the previous 7th
Manifestation– equally via the Precessional ‘clock’.
The reason for this
gap is clearly established by Vedic tradition in that it is always
in an Age of Preservation – Vishnu’s mode of manifestation - that
the ‘ticking’ is set loud enough for us to hear. For this reason a
later text like The Revelation also mentions only Vishnu’s
four Fixed signs of Preservation out of the twelve. They are the
symbols of most of extant sphinxes (see the crosswise section of the
Map of 12 Manifestations).
Indeed, preservation
seems to have been an obsession, if you will, of Pharaonic Egypt.
The latter’s obsession was not the thread of the Precession as it
was in Vedic India, which was lost in Egypt. Rather, it was the
actual mortal remains of the Pharaoh. This development does indeed
reveal the consciousness of the ancients more conclusively than
anything we could hope to uncover in our own peculiar obsession with
tomb hunting.
The Egypt of the Pharaohs
bears no resemblance to the Egypt of the builders of the Great
Pyramid. The only connection is that pyramids continued to be
built, but nothing more. However, they were significantly different
from the early specimens, not only in technological expertise for
their construction but above all in their explicit ‘purpose’. In the
Great Pyramid there is no evidence whatsoever that it was a tomb,
the dogmas of scientific orthodoxy notwithstanding. Yet because the
pyramids of the 8th Manifestation reveal beyond any doubt
their funerary intent, it is assumed that the Great Pyramid
must have served a similar purpose – if we could only find the
evidence, now lost, robbed, ravaged, disintegrated in the structure
or elsewhere to confirm the hypotheses. Nothing having been
discovered so far, we are forced to conclude that this is, indeed,
nothing but a hypothesis not at all substantiated.
The evidence has never
come to light. Instead the two remnants, side by side, tell their
own tale unmistakably: there is a gap, a black hole plaguing our
awareness of continuity. The gap has never been closed. However, if
we look at what IS, quite simply, dropping all the dogmas
science and scholarship have foisted on us over the past few
centuries – indeed, even from Herodotus, the noted Greek historian –
we see the obvious: Immortality was the issue. And this simple
‘obsession’ discloses that in some manner it was a physical
immortality. More than that we cannot extract from Pharaonic Egypt
because the knowledge of this superior state was long lost to these
‘descendants of the Sun’.
It was indeed a
physical state of immortality that was achieved; but similar to
Vedic India this was a ‘heaven on Earth’, if it may be so described.
That is, the alignment message of the Great Pyramid, as well as the
Rig Vedic text, are absolutely clear on this point. After the
‘sleep’ set in, this Earth orientation and a birthright of
immortality could only be interpreted as a transmutation centred
on the physical body itself. The point was entirely missed
though generations of Pharaonic ‘descendants from the Sun’ continued
to persevere in this ephemeral quest, with the results we see today:
meaningless tombs cluttered with inconsequential artefacts which
scientific orthodoxy can utilise to prove that 1) all the extant
tombs, including the Great Pyramid and its two companions, were
tombs to house a megalomaniac Pharaoh, and that 2) this reveals the
superstition and ignorance of former civilisations, however
impressive their cultural achievements.
This line of
reasoning only served to lead away from the true path of discovery.
But it did serve to convince us that our present civilisation is the
apex of the evolutionary scale, and that everything before us, be it
in the west or the east or midway between, was a long and dark age
redeemed only by science and technology. To sustain this belief, it
has been imperative to hide the truth of the technology employed to
build the Great Pyramid. Similarly, theories had to be made into
dogma regarding India’s hoary past to spread the belief that nothing
existed in the subcontinent before 1500 BCE, when pagan-worshipping
hoards from the north descended on a land devoid of any significant
civilisation and culture. Both orthodoxies have served the same
purpose: our contemporary civilisation has been brainwashed to
believe that it is the fruit of millions of years of evolution and
represents the highest level attained so far in the evolution from
ape to man. But let us explore another premise that is more in
harmony with the ground reality, and that answers question the above
theory cannot. At the same time, this premise does not diminish our
present status but rather helps us to regain a knowledge of
ourselves and of the world that has been long lost.
The Egyptian obsession with the preservation of the physical body
after death stems from the remembrance of things long past, the
memory of Immortality and the period when the Gods walked the Earth.
Whenever we find a culture with a similar obsession – such as the
ancient Inca of pre-Colombian America – we know that it is the same
memory of a lost state enjoyed on Earth that still haunts
them.
In the Rig Veda we discover the
very same ‘obsession’, which none who have studied the text can deny.
But this was not carried over to the physical in the Egyptian manner;
and through this we discover the difference in the way the decline
set in both in Egypt and India. For Egypt it was focussed entirely
on the physical, and hence the art of mummification was developed to
a remarkable degree. It came to influence even the development of an
exquisite and unparalleled art in an effort to preserve the physical
features of the deceased who was somehow to realise the same
immortality of old, if the right rules were followed. But what were
those ‘rules’?
The chasm was too
complete. It proved impossible to bridge and the anticipated
transformation never materialised in spite of trial after trial
which the extant new pyramids and the relics they contain
demonstrate. Nor did those ancient Gods reappear who could guide the
Pharaoh through the labyrinthine mysteries of the afterlife journey.
That much is indeed recorded in an age closer to ours: the deceased
was expected to meet his Guide and be ferried to the shore of the
Immortals in his very own physical body, similar to the earlier
Gods. Being ‘Descendants of the Sun’ they were expected to attain
that same state – i.e., physical immortality.
Important to note
is that in Egypt it was all centred on the physical body, not a
state of consciousness as we find in India. The reason is that there
was no such chasm, a stark before and after, as we can
clearly perceive in the Egyptian progression. The Great Pyramid and
the more recent imitative structures of Pharaonic Egypt indicate
this complete severance, which we do not detect in India and which
the Rig Veda confirms; a point we will develop further on. Perhaps
Egypt experienced the Great Flood recorded in a number of myths and
scriptures of that area. Certainly passage over the first cardinal
point in the Precession of the Equinoxes, 0 degrees Cancer, around
8000 BCE, could provide the answer we seek. And being the point of
Cosmic Midnight, and a sign of the water element in fact, it
would have presaged this plunge into the oblivion that the great
Sleep induced and which is so clearly demonstrated in the before
and after that we find today in Egypt. The accompanying
diagram can make this clear. The Precessional period we are
discussing stands at the end of the Age of Cancer (where the arrow
points), moving backwards through the signs or in a clockwise
movement. The deep night of Cancer was the signal that darkness was
soon to descend.
But in India the
decline was gradual. It was a slow and steady deviation, as
if one had introduced a gradual change in direction and the space
ship of consciousness was imperceptibly steered toward a different
location, a far-off horizon in the Beyond, an otherworldliness that
could perhaps grant the nectar of Immortality, - Soma, as it
is called in the Veda, which tradition tells us is found on the Moon.
Immortality for the yogi of the Vedic Age was a matter of an
attainment of a state of consciousness, first and foremost,
though Vedic tradition does preserve stories of physical survival
after death and in numerous instances of a conscious passage to the
other world, whatever that might be. Tradition in India records that
many Rishis had the ability to leave their bodies at will. It is a
tradition carried right into the present; there are cases recorded
today of a form of conscious transition.
Since there
is an unbroken thread to the ancient way in India, the result is
that the state of Immortality of the Gods developed into a state
of consciousness exclusively, due to the slow and largely
imperceptible change in the direction of the quest over several
thousands of years, allowing the yogi to believe that he was still
on course, as it were. The Rishis who penned the Rig Veda knew
better, however. The text very clearly indicates that there was
something missing – and these sages were fully aware of the fact.
The final verses of the famous Nasadiya-Sukta, (RV X,
129), known popularly as the Vedic Hymn of Creation, states,
Who really knows it? Who can presume
to tell it?
Whence was it born? Whence
issued this creation?
Even the Gods came after its emergence.
Then who can tell from
whence it came to be?
That out of which creation has arisen,
Whether it held it firm
or it did not,
He who surveys it in the highest
heaven,
He surely knows it – or
maybe he does not!
(Translation: Raimundo Panikkar,
The Vedic Experience, All India Books)
Time after time we encounter this sort of questioning (‘Who truly
knows?’) to indicate a lost knowledge that must be retrieved, the
‘lost sun’; and finally a perplexing exclamation at the end of a
profound revelation.
Since there was no
dramatic severance with the former culture, unlike in Egypt, the
great Sleep affected the ‘fulcrum’ of the ancient Vedic path which
was the very first step on the way to the full realisation of
Immortality. This fulcrum was hailed as Skambha, the cosmic
pillar, centre of the world and upholder of the realisation. With
the removal of Skambha the integral realisation became impossible,
covering all the planes down to the physical. Dislodging the
essential Cosmic Pillar resulted in what we have today: a
civilisation that calls itself ‘vedic’ and believes itself to be
what it was of old, but which preserves that condition only in the
four Vedas. It is not found on the ground today. In the words of Sri
Aurobindo, ‘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.’ (The Secret of the
Veda.)
If
we wish to piece together history before the great Sleep, this is
the method: we look deeply at what IS, like the Rig Veda
encourages the Aryan Warrior to do. For us today this means that we
must have the courage to dismiss the many falsehoods that orthodoxy
of all types has saddled us with over the centuries, all of which
can be proven to be coloured by motives incompatible with the
pursuit of truth. What such a penetration reveals is an Egypt where
the great Sleep resulted in an entirely physical memory, and
consequently an obsession with the preservation of corpses because
Egypt did not experience continuity through the human channel of
yogic realisation. It woke up one day and found the Great Pyramid
and the Sphinx before its bewildered collective eye. From that point
onward its wisemen began piecing together the tradition of old with
whatever tools it could find amidst the ruins at its disposal. It is
as if the great Flood had submerged the continent – indeed as the
Bible states – destroying everything but the Great Pyramid with its
two companion pyramids and the Sphinx, all of which were very
consciously built to survive the holocaust because the Precession of
the Equinoxes would have foretold what lay ahead. Thereafter, no
trace was found of the state of consciousness of the ancient
builders, the Gods who walked the Earth in a physical embodiment,
only the distant memory of things now lost. From that point onward,
when the Precessional clock began ticking loudly once more at the
onset of the Age of Taurus, or Vishnu’s sign of Preservation in the
8th Manifestation, an awakening from this induced stupor
began. The magnificent civilisation of Pharaonic Egypt did the best
that it could under the circumstances to attain the same height of
the former age of glory, copy-cat fashion. And thus countless
imitative pyramids arose to somehow bring the mummified corpse to
the promised shores where the Gods could be seen.
To sum up, the point to be made
is that, as the Precession indicates, passage over the cardinal
point of 0 degree Cancer, the Cosmic Midnight of the zodiac, brought
a complete dislocation with the former 7th Manifestation
when the Gods seemed to have walked the Earth. In the next
Manifestation, the 8th, the great Sleep (or Flood) in the
case of Egypt, whose destiny was centred on space and
on the physical, would result in an obsessive striving to regain
that former state as a reality of the Earth, and not a heaven
beyond – though ultimately, as the distance increased from the age
of the Gods, so to speak, the Earth orientation began to take on the
appearance of a location beyond our solar system and into perhaps
other galaxies.
In India, whose destiny was determined to be a voyage of
Consciousness before all else from the beginning of this last round
of the Precession (approximately 20,000 years ago), the unbroken
thread with the age in question resulted in the preservation of a
text that fully indicates the lost knowledge; ‘the lost Sun’, as it
is called in the Veda. The object of the quest described in the text
is the retrieval of that lost Sun. There can be no mistake that a
deviation set in because the Veda itself records this happening. In
exploring the verses to Skambha from the Atharva Veda, we will see
not only that the lost state was known then to the Rishi, but also
exactly what that loss would indicate for the subcontinent in ages
to come; and, with great precision, the area that would be afflicted
most by the loss, resulting in a society believing itself to be
Vedic but having lost its Vedic essence simply because the Cosmic
Pillar had been dislodged. In the Chandogya Upanishad, penned in an
age closer to the Vedic than the later Upanishads, we read in III,
12, 2-9:
‘What the Gayatri is, that indeed the earth is
also, for it is on the earth that this whole universe is established;
it does not extend beyond. What the earth is, that indeed the body
in man is also, for on it these vital breaths are established; they
do not extend beyond it. What the body in man is, that indeed the
heart within man is also, for on it these vital breaths are
established; they do not extend beyond it. The Gayatri has four feet
and is sixfold. About this a verse of the Rig Veda says: ‘Such is
the measure of his greatness, but greater still is the Man (RV X,
90).’ All beings form a quarter of him, three quarters, the
immortal in the sky. What is called Brahman, that indeed the space
outside a man is also; what the space outside a man is, that indeed
the space within a man is also; what the space within a man is, that
indeed the space within the heart is also. That is the full,
the unchanging. Whoever knows this obtains good fortune, full and
unchanging.’ (Translation: Raimundo Panikkar, ibid.)
Notwithstanding the above and to demonstrate the logical finality of
a quest centred on the Beyond and the extra-cosmic, preservation of
the corpse has not at all been a part of civilisation on the
subcontinent – right into our own times. The body of the deceased is
cremated – an adequate symbol of its ultimate fate of impermanence
and inevitable dissolution, and a return to the elements from whence
it arose. In other words, a complete contrast to Pharaonic Egypt.
Cremation is utterly in keeping with the emphasis on a swar –as
the goal is called in the Veda – beyond physicality. It is, however,
a symbol-end contradicting everything that is stated in the
Chandogya Upanishad quoted above and in countless other scriptures,
the direction having changed by 180 degrees, pointing away
from the Earth entirely.
What else does this
‘symbol’ tell us? For there is far more to discover regarding the
course both civilisations etched out for themselves over the
centuries on the fabric of time and space. There is the question of
continuity, for example. Why did every civilisation in Egypt result
in a cul-de-sac? The Pyramid Age left nothing but a few structures
behind to mark its passage; Gods or aliens, humans or divine beings
disappeared entirely leaving no trace other than these colossi. And
as for Pharaonic Egypt, after the turmoil and upheaval that befell
the land when the Pharaohs disappeared, Islam soon stepped in and
once again no traces are to be found of the magnificent
civilisations of old. Egypt today bears no similarity to anything of
its great past. And yet those cultures attained levels which may
never be reached again.
But Egypt was not obsessed with time. India
always has been, even in the most ancient Vedic Age. Consequently
India could never experience a total disconnection from any
experience it met along the way. It could only embrace the new and
absorb it into its being because of the spherical properties
of Time itself, in contrast to the linearity of Space of the
Egyptian obsession, resulting later in temples of massive size
perhaps in an effort the recapture the lost glories of the Pyramid
Age. Furthermore, India’s perennial relationship with
Mahakal¸ the Great
God of Time as Shiva is known, condemned it to a slow and steady
evolution. For it is in evolution that we find the
secret to her continuity.
In Egypt we note something of an intrusion.
The Great Pyramid is somehow out of place in time. It is
disconnected from the race that later came to inhabit the area, and
from everything else evolution seems to have attained up to that
age. This can never happen in India. There can be no such intrusion
of anything disconnected from the whole. All must evolve
organically in a process where Time is the great and immortal
presiding deity because the essence of Skambha is time itself.
And on this cosmic pillar the entire civilisation, from beginning to
end, reposes.
But the deviation took its toll and the yogic
realisation of Skambha was lost; with it came the loss of the sacred
measure of the Earth that lies at the heart of the process of
evolution, confirmed in so many of the civilisation’s
ancient scriptures. However, the multitude of scriptures which form
the most impressive array of yogic documentation the Earth has ever
known are meaningless without the realisation of Skambha, fulcrum
for all the rest.
Continuity hinging on the human channel
across the ages, it is logical that in India time and
evolution should be the civilisation’s instruments in a
continuous flow without any drastic break in the thread time and
circumstance weave through the larger or smaller cyclic movements.
Nothing confirms this assessment as well as the Puranic Line of Ten
Avatars, from the Fish Avatar through to the tenth of the present
Age of Vishnu, our current Age of Aquarius.
***
PART IV
In the 26 May 2004 issue of The Hindu, an
article appeared that is relevant to this discussion, entitled
‘Skeletons, inscriptions found at ancient burial sites in Tamil Nadu’.
The report carries details of the very latest findings of the
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) at Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu.
Over a dozen burial urns were found containing human skeletons,
dating to pre-Megalithic times; that is prior to the 3rd
century BCE.
‘…The skeletons found in two or three urns show
that prior to the Megalithic period, these
people used to enter the dead in urns
along with the items they had used. Early Tamil
Sangam works contained elaborate description of
the urn-burial custom.’
The report further states that the urns were
found in layers of soil which indicate a possible dating of the 7th
or 8th century BCE, a number of centuries earlier than
the original estimates. For the ASI the main interest is that
inscriptions were found on the urns in early Tamil Brahmi script,
previously considered to have come into usage at a much later date.
But considering our topic, of significance is the fact that
interment, of whatever form, seems to have been practiced perhaps up
to the Buddhist era, - at least in South India. It appears that some
time thereafter cremation became the means to dispose of corpses. It
was also thereafter that to take birth at all came to be regarded as
a ‘fall’, even though this was not explicitly stated until a later
date. For the Buddhist, nirvana was a means to rid oneself of
the bondage samskaras create, pinning one down to endless
rebirths which are intended to finally liberate the individual from
this incarceration. The Buddha was not as much concerned with the
illusion or reality of material creation as with liberation from the
suffering such bondage engendered. But in denying the soul any
reality in the equation because it was tied to everything that
appears to be impermanent, it was just one small step to
Advaita and Mayavada which sustain that this material creation is an
‘illusion’ engendered by maya. The latter was no longer
perceived as in Vedic times, a divine power, but rather
something similar to Eve of Judeo-Christian tradition: a temptress,
a beguiler and certainly disconnected from the higher strata of the
Spirit. Therein the only permanent reality is the Self,
extra-cosmic, transcendent.
By that time cremation would have been the proper
‘symbol’ for a cultural shift of this order from the Vedic
perception. Material substance was then awarded its just due by
complete dissolution; no importance at all was attached to that
‘sheath’ of little or no value, since transcendence was the
true goal. By the time cremation became the norm, the split between
matter and spirit was complete. Though we like to
believe that such a split is a Western affliction and finds no place
in the Eastern perception of reality, in the practical
application of the different yogas, this split exists,
just as it does in the West.
The wave that clouded the evolving human
consciousness was global. While all forms of pagan worship were
targeted in occidental cultures, and came to be replaced by the
exclusivist religions arising in the Middle East, in the orient it
was, simply put, otherworldliness. But the result was the same, East
and West: a total divide between matters of the spirit and of the
flesh. For this reason, since such a division was not engrained
in Hinduism with its roots in the Veda, it has been more difficult
for India to cope with the demands a divisive postulation of this
nature imposes, as we find in western cultures where no such
foundation exists. Therefore we witness a notable material
decline in the East and a rise of the West. India could not operate
in a world where matter was somehow separated from spirit due to a
conflict caused by this divisive perception because of the Vedic
realisation of wholeness and integrality which lay at the root of
its origin.
The result was a weakening of the inner fibre of
the society due to a diminished ‘fuel’ that was required to keep the
spaceship of consciousness directed toward the Earth. This ‘fuel’ is
released and made available only through processes of yoga and
founded on the realisation of Skambha, the ‘support’ of all
the worlds, the Point that fills the void and provides an anchor, a
stability amidst change, a centre that holds. Without this
nurturing fuel finally invasions took their toll bringing with them
a relentless denial of the earlier wisdom, similar to what was
transpiring in the rest of the world. And India, like many societies
where paganism was uprooted, succumbed to colonial rule, which not
only depleted the nation of its riches and skills and a loss of its
self-respect, but also permitted a tactical undermining of the youth
through educational institutions which are entirely based on Western
religious/cultural perceptions far removed from the civilisation’s
Vedic roots. Now the ancient hallowed Vedic texts are simply
repeated like slogans. Today they cannot inspire the
youth in a world where material accomplishments are the ultimate one
can aspire for; they have no power to guide the nation to the
discovery of a third way wherein the Veda themselves again
become the foundation on which that new world can be built.
We have these important archaeological
discoveries coming to light precisely while we are pondering over
the way human remains were treated in ancient times in Egypt and
Vedic India. This is an example in itself of the play of
circumstances becoming integrated right in the preparation of this
essay, ‘supporting’ our endeavour as ‘Skambha’, the anchor for that
play, is wont to do. Thus these archaeological discoveries confirm
our deduction that cremation was post-Vedic and is an
appropriate symbol of the different orientation of the quest and a
fixation on the Beyond rather than an apotheosis on Earth as we find
in the Rig Veda. Cremation in lieu of interment simply reinforces
the post-Vedic changed direction.
This is not to suggest that cremation is somehow less desirable and
Hindu India should return to the former ‘symbol’ (burying the dead),
to honour the physical body as one’s vahana (carrier) during
sojourn on Earth. It is simply a question of unveiling the inner
‘eye’ to then perceive these symbols within an entirely new
framework. In the third way it is not a question of a symbol
representing something else but BEING THAT VERY THING. The
symbol is the very thing symbolized, be this cow or horse, rising
Sun or nighttime sky illumined by a resplendent Moon. In a context
of the symbol being the thing symbolized, the introduction of
cremation, now the universal Hindu custom, means exactly what it is:
dissolution (nirvana) of the physical just as the seeker is
encouraged to dissolve all threads of consciousness binding one to
the physicality of an Earth-rooted consciousness.
In ancient Vedic times the quality of life was
different because the goal of the quest was different.
Immortality was sought but not by denying or undermining the base of
our quest, the Earth, as we do today however camouflaged.
The point to be made is that arcane,
hidden formulas comprehensible only to sages are not required at
this stage of evolution to understand where we are and how and why
we got there in this long and steady process of decline. All we need
to do is observe what is; but only if we reacquire the
ability to observe the world we live in through a re-made ‘lens’. We
need to bring into focus the reality before our eyes so that this
material world will no longer be seen as separate from its inner
essence. And it is that inner essence that must be allowed to speak
to us once again through all the elements of a world in time and
space. The focusing required allows us to apply the yoga of ancient
times within our contemporary society and to perceive that same
Truth in this 21st Century.
When the Becoming is integrated solutions
manifest. It is this, the play of circumstances, that must
provide the harmonious way which alone can integrate the total
reality. Then there is no choosing, as such, no exertion or
imposition of the individual will. In the true sense of the word we
are conscious instruments for the Divine Will to manifest,
through the instruments that we have become, and to thus express
Itself in material creation. This is our ‘purpose’, our sacred
birthright. If we realise this condition we do not need to flee the
world, to seek nirvana or samadhi or any other
strategy to disassociate ourselves from a world in constant
movement. By this accomplishment, our birth on Earth is not at all a
bane as religions and spirituality encourage us to believe; because
it is only in a material creation that this integral realisation can
be experienced. Thus, it is only in a body devised for the purpose
that the Absolute can BE and MANIFEST.
This is a radical departure from all the former
paths. Indeed, it is only a radical solution that can bring back the
divine Purpose into our lives and allow us to accept birth on Earth
for what it is: a sacred playing field where the human species
manifests increasingly the higher truth, the one relevant
truth – not a single Prophet or Saviour, or a one God, all of which
becomes irrelevant in this context – but the truth of what we are,
of a creation in matter which exists so that the Absolute can
manifest unceasingly. And since the play is infinite and eternal, so
are the myriad possibilities of manifestation open to the human
species until all is the Divine.
***
30 June 2004
(Map of the 12 Manifestations – see below)
Map
of the 12 Manifestations
(The Astrological
Ages)
1 Age (1 sign) = 2160 years
1 Manifestations (3 signs) = 6480 years
1 Round (12 signs) = 25,920 years
1 Great Circle (12 Manifestations) = 77,760 years
1 Greater Circle (4 Great Circles, or 144 signs) = 311,040 years
From: Symbols and the
Question of Unity, The Gnostic Circle, The New Way, Aeon Books
(1974, 1975, 1981) |
|