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Æon Group
India and
America in the New Order
An Interview conducted by Dr Patricia Heidt, March 2008
Patrizia
Norelli-Bachelet (Thea)
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology
Patrizia
Norelli-Bachelet
Published in
Bhavan’s Journal,
15
June and 30 June, 2008 (Vols. 21 & 22)
Q: There has been a lot of news here in India on
the upcoming elections in the USA. A month ago when the primaries
began the front page of THE HINDU was full of the results, along
with big photos. In your cosmology you put the India-USA axis as a
central tenet. So how do you assess all that is happening now?
It is interesting for
me because I wrote The Gnostic Circle in l974; it was printed in
1975. In it there is a chapter entirely dedicated to the
India-America axis, as you call it. These two countries are on
opposite ends of a pole through the Earth. There is more involved of
course - their dates of independence and so forth. At the time, we
were in the thick of the cold war, and Nixon had threatened to send
his 7th Fleet into the Bay of Bengal during the 1971 war with
Pakistan. This heightened the animosity even more. India had a very
close relationship with the Soviet Union then; I believe there was a
Friendship Treaty that was in full force. This brought about some
balance and containment.
The
point is there was nothing to suggest that what I was seeing (about
this axis between the two countries) was correct. Just the contrary.
If you look at the way things were then, they seemed hopeless. But
in this cosmology you go beyond the moment, and the moment can be a
decade, two decades, or fifty years. If your seeing is correct and
based on objective knowledge, sooner or later it must come about.
You see that this axis exists, regardless of what is taking place in
the moment, and that in its own time the signs will come that it is
to be activated. That is what we are experiencing now, since about
2001 when the terrorist attacks became more significant.
I believe America was gathering friends to try to contain this
terror, and they established a closer relationship with India. Since
that time you see these two polar opposites aligning themselves via
various issues.
I want to read a letter that Sri Aurobindo wrote in July of 1926,
under the title, ‘To the People of America’ (Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Histor-ical Interest, Page 388, Sri Aurobindo
Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, 2006). There is a portion that echoes
exactly what I am saying, almost the same words. Of course I had
never read this letter; I don’t know that it was even published
until recently:
‘India and America
stand prominent at the two poles that have to meet and become one,
the spiritual and material life. One has shown a pre-eminent
capacity of realisation on the spiritual, the other on the material
plane.’
Now, Sri Aurobindo
looks at it as polar opposites, the way it has come down to us today
as Spirit and Matter. He is not looking at it from a cosmological
point of view such as I would; but we come to the same thing. I have
used those same words in many instances as well.
There is something more in this letter that is of great interest
regarding the difficulties he faced in his own work. He refers to
the Swami Yogananda Movement [in the USA], which he felt was very
much attuned to the American spirit and mentality:
‘I do not think it
would have much success in India where there is a long tradition and
in spite of much imperfection and error, the standards of spiritual
life are of the subtler kind.’
He refers to the
practical orientation that Yogananda’s work took for the American
public, so he says that in India it is of ‘the subtler kind’. He
continues:
‘The difficulties we
experience here are due rather to a widespread inability to go
freely beyond ancient ideas and forms. Plenty of money can be had in
India for orthodox religious purposes and although not on the
American scale, for Ashrams and other spiritual institutions which
take the ascetic form or repeat established and well understood
formulas. But the general mind has not yet advanced far enough from
the old moorings to form even an inadequate conception of what I am
doing here and it is easily disconcerted by the departure from old
forms, a willed absence of the customary paraphernalia and the
breaking of traditional barriers and limits.’
That is precisely what
the USA brings to the world: this ability to constantly break down
and remake itself. This is extremely difficult in countries like
India or many European countries where they are burdened with their
past. It is difficult to move forward. America has a short history,
relatively speaking. But more than the time factor, let’s say the
‘star’ under which that society was born was conducive to change, In
fact, that is its bane because it falls into fads very easily. Picks
up one thing, drops it, picks up another. Sri Aurobindo finishes his
letter, and this is the important part:
‘America
must be able to receive freely India’s riches and to give freely in
return from her own for the material organisation of a higher life
on the physical plane; this is at once a condition and her chance.
At present it is only a possibility. Let us see whether it can be
made an achieved and perfected symbol.’ (Ibid)
Now this is precisely
where we stand. You read about the nuclear deal. These are perhaps
attempts to help on the material plane, but you have so much
opposition and everybody pulling according to their own ideology. I
have not studied this matter in depth, and am not qualified to do
so. I see it from the point of view of this cosmology: these are
attempts to bring the two countries together in precisely the manner
Sri Aurobindo described, that America should give help on the
material plane.
This is what seems to be attempted here with all its
imperfections.
You wonder how things can succeed in an atmosphere of ‘politics as
usual’. I do see something happening in America today that is going
to put the nation into a better position to open to higher spiritual
values, for lack of a better word.
Q: Are you saying that
America is responding to Sri Aurobindo’s heeding that it must open
itself to India?
Not necessarily to India, but to a NEW way, to the new power that is
manifesting in the world. He secluded himself for 24 years in order
to make this possible in the whole world, each country in its own
way. We are talking about these two countries that have very clear
destinies written out for them: India and America. I’m not going
into the African nations or even the European countries. I myself am
interested in these two because around this coming together hinges
the future of the world in a more enlightened condition. We have to
see how we get there.
Q: So what is happening?
Precisely what you see in the electoral processes going on now. It
is unthinkable in India that you can spend two years campaigning and
it will be three years before the actual election takes place in
November. That’s all we’ve heard. But, as I have pointed out,
it is
the process that is important right now. The campaign is the
important thing now: you yourself referred to the fact that this is
front page news in India. This country prides itself on being a
democracy, but it cannot compare to the American experience where
the democratic process reaches all sectors of society, with its
disadvantages and advantages. The disadvantage is that everybody is
wrapped up in this, with the result that you have a lame duck
presidency, but how can it not be? No one is interested in what is
going on in Washington because they are more interested in this
electoral process taking place right now. I do not recall it like
this in past elections. It is this particular election, and what
does that tell you? The time has come; the things foreseen or
prophesied are ripening and coming to fruition.
Q: What’s really being
worked out in this electoral process?
That is the interesting part. It gives you a key to the real
position these two nations occupy. They are not on opposite ends of
a linear pole, but they are within a circular movement. There is a
Centre and then there is a circle around it (as in the astronomical
symbol of the Sun (), the periphery. America is comfortable within
the periphery. You could say the spiritual light, or the Supramental
Light according to Sri Aurobindo’s definition, is what is located at
the Centre - and that is the New Way. That is what is being
established right now.
You have the two roles: India at the central point and then the
outer circle which is embodied by the American spirit to an
extraordinary degree: change, change, change. But if America can get
onto something of greater value and depth, then you have what is a
key feature of the Supramental Manifestation: the harmonisation of
the Being and the Becoming, or the central point and the
multiplicity (periphery), the unity and the diversity. This is what
needs to happen, and it is happening.
America is taking care of that outer flutter which India gets lost
in – it is not capable of dealing with that at all. This brings up
the point Sri Aurobindo made when he wrote that India has difficulty
in letting go of the old and ancient forms. That was his labour of
all those years while he was embodied, to open up to the new and to
shake off some of the baggage. I have continued in the same process.
It is essential to both civilisations in order to do their job. This
is taking place now in the electoral process, and the American
experience is being raised to a higher level.
We haven’t seen anything in India like this. We have not seen any
sign of an opening to the Supramental Manifestation as yet. We can
discuss this later and I will show how it has worked, but nobody is
aware of it; and that is why it got done. It would have been
destroyed or pulled down by the old baggage.
Q: Your observations
indicate that the USA electoral process is helping America to raise
its consciousness to a higher level. How are the candidates doing
that?
In America you see that the two candidates on the Democrat side -
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - expose the main prejudices that
stand in the way of a higher expression, - that is, gender and race.
You have to see this as being organized by the Supramental Shakti,
or by a higher power, however you want to call it. One is forced to
see it like that because the candidates were perfectly fashioned for
the job they have to do, - well before any of this came to the fore,
and well beyond the human ability to devise.
Barack Obama not only represents the Black community but he himself
is an example of white and black, a perfect mix, half and half. How
can it be that he is such a perfect example of the possibility of
harmonizing these two and bringing them together? In his own being
that is what he has done or attempts to do, however imperfectly or
misguided, in a sense, because he attaches to it the old labels; and
you can see the mess he’s gotten into with his ‘former pastor’, as
he refers to him. He seems not to have enough courage to really
break out. So what does he do? He gets into a new united church; he
is fishing around for where he can find his place more comfortably
given his ‘mix’, shall we say.
It is exciting to see what is taking place: it is an historical
moment, as many commentators have declared based on his last speech,
the one dealing with the furore that arose from his pastor’s sermon
against America, basically against everything that America
cherishes. So that brought up the possibility in this inspired man
to speak his piece and in the process to raise the whole discourse
to a higher level.
‘Politics as usual’ is going to try to pull this
speech apart and that is good – they play their role in forcing him
to deal with these issues within himself, to hone, to articulate, to
formulate. And that is always beneficial.
On the other hand you have Hillary Clinton who is the gender
candidate. She brings up all that. She is brilliant and many of her
qualities Obama does lack, but with her comes the old baggage. In a
sense she does represent womanhood; they are burdened with the
stereotypes that most women will not let go of. She herself cannot
play the role that Barack Obama plays. She feels she has to rely or
lean on the old establishment. So you have in these two candidates
this bringing to the surface everything that blocks America from a
higher expression. Therefore I say the final result is of lesser
importance, whether McCain, Hillary or Obama. America has the
capacity to move along with the times now, and you see extraordinary
things happening which you do not see in India.
I have been living here 36 years and I have not seen anything like
this happening. The electoral process is of course only 45 days. But
there is more to it: you have a huge mass of the population that is
illiterate, which you don’t have in America. So the ways that have
to be worked out for India are totally different and they relate to
its being the Centre of this New Age.
Q: What about India? You
say America is now rising to its higher destiny during this
electoral process. Where does India stand?
India does not rely on the population being carried along in the
same way as the American. In America it is the collectivity that is
important – it always has been and always will be (‘…A government
for the people and by the people’…). That’s what makes these two
societies so totally different. Here things go on as usual and there
is a pretense of carrying the populace along with you, but it really
doesn’t happen. Everybody knows this and that’s why there is
cynicism in India; far more than America could ever imagine.
Here people are cynical because they see that the institutions have
little value. They are intrinsically valuable but in the operational
sense they cannot function because they can never come to fruition,
to completion; there is too much interference. So even if one gets a
court order, one doubts. I’m sure everybody who reads the newspapers
feels the same thing: Oh, this will never come out; this conviction
will never hold. In America cynicism to that degree is unthinkable.
The moment the populace really comes to understand that their
courts, their executive branch, and so forth, cannot deal with a
problem, they try to change society.
Q: But you are describing
India as the harbinger of a new world order; how, if the system
doesn’t work?
How? It works out according to laws prevailing for the Centre. In
other words, it is a vertical descent that takes place.
Visualise it
as the astronomical symbol of the Earth
with its four quarters
delineated within a circle, you can understand what I mean. You have
the vertical, and the horizontal. What is required for the Centre to
come into being (for the entire globe) is a perfect meeting point of
these two ‘directions’. That is where the USA comes in as the
horizontal, the space element, the field. In India it is the
vertical, - which America cannot provide, and is not meant to
provide. You can look at it as the vertical being the spiritual
element, the horizontal the material, to use Sri Aurobindo’s
definition. It is the same thing and that is what this cosmology
describes, each with its own ‘laws’.
When we go into these things deeply you realize that in this symbol
of the equal cross you have described the very same thing, but using
different terms – the vertical for one, and the horizontal for the
other. This cosmological terminology is more ‘secular’ and therefore
perhaps more acceptable to a larger section of the population.
The vertical means that things get done here as commanded and set in
motion by the higher Power; and it has to be unknown to elements
that might obstruct the happening. Yet at the same time it must make
use of what is here on the ground, in the field. So you have the new
independent India to come up and you have things arranged, as I am
able to show in my written works, that from long ago a particular
‘line’ was established through whom this axis of India’s essential
being is to be rooted in the Earth, and in the particular spatial
point that this country occupies, - that is, the centre.
Q: In India things are set
in motion by a higher power – that’s the vertical descent – and the
rooting of this power in the country is what is taking place now. Is
that what you are saying?
In a certain sense this is an updating of what in ancient times were
known as the Lunar and Solar Dynasties. The main difference between
the two lies in the fact that monarchies and their dynasties are
obsolete. A ‘new way’ is required for the contemporary setting.
Thus, you have this family arising long before anything was known -
what I call the Lunar Line – and before they themselves even had a
sense of their own destiny. Admittedly, everyone had ‘a sense of
destiny’ around the time of the Independence Movement because
obviously that’s when they were all committed to and driven by a
single aim. Many today lament the fact that that spirit is gone, and
of course it is – it cannot last. But what happens when these things
take place unconsciously is that other forces jump in and corrupt
the atmosphere; and that is one reason why you have such rampant
corruption in the country.
Most of what I am going to describe is hidden, except for what has
appeared in my books since the mid 1970s. It all took shape without
violating anything of what was being established as the New India –
that is, the political process, the democratic process - without
violating that but making use of it without anyone’s knowledge. If
it had been known it would have been torn to pieces before maturity.
So you have the Lunar Line furnishing a descending numerical
sequence or formula of 9-6-3-0/1, which is the key to the entire
process. And you have the Nehru family embodying that sequence
through their births; that is to say, they cement those
number-powers in the fabric of India’s temporal being. I won’t go
into greater details for now. Suffice here to state that you start
with Motilal Nehru, then you go to Jawaharlal Nehru and then to
Indira Gandhi, and these fit that 9-6-3 pattern accurately.
Q: The first three members
of the Nehru family, or what you call the Lunar Line, are the 9, the
6, and the 3 of your cosmological formula. How do you arrive at
that?
The sequence of their births with their respective number
equivalents is according to the ancient system I called the
Mathematics of Unity – that is, by reducing through addition each
sequence to a single digit. The harmony works both vertically and
horizontally as below:
There are criticisms, often legitimate, about the role these
individuals have played in the destiny of the fledgling nation. But
you have to remember that they were constrained by the prevailing
conditions of the times. Jawaharlal Nehru was a Fabian Socialist who
saw that for India the only hope was the socialist order, and he
passed this on to Indira. Now this seems absurd; we have moved away
from certain basic tenets of socialism and are embarking on a very
different course through the process of free-market globalisation.
It is obvious that the tag of Socialist Republic as Indira Gandhi
had inserted into the Constitution in the 1970s doesn’t make much
sense today. Yet we cling to that label because it serves a certain
political purpose for the government of the day, - such as, a system
that works for the people, and only for the people. How accurate
this may be is another question.
Having at this point no choice in the matter, we must accept the
existence of this arrangement for the nation, called the Lunar Line
for very specific reasons in this cosmology, but which must not be
confused with a ‘dynasty’, as is commonly understood simply because
it follows a biological configuration. Furthermore, the Line ends at
the fourth level, and only the fourth; after that it is ‘politics as
usual’! If all was centred on a particular political party it is
simply because during that whole stretch of many decades, it was the
only party that covered all of India. Things are quite different
now. The cosmological pattern is very exact and it has played itself
out to perfection.
Q: The Lunar Line ends
with the fourth member, or the numbers 0/1. That would have been
Rajiv Gandhi?
In this arrangement there are FOUR stages, 9/6/3-0/1. Once these
number-powers are cemented in the nation’s destiny as a sort of
axis, then the actual political process takes over; the descending
movement reverses itself (at the Zero level) and a new direction is
assumed: the horizontal proper. That is when the political process
can take full shape. It is the level of the number-power 1, as here
indicated:
Rajiv Gandhi 20.8.1944
= 1
After that fourth level the movement, as stated, is reversed and the
horizontal and multiple take over. Therefore, it is entirely
understandable that coalitions should come into prominence now.
This was meant to take care of the ‘outer circle’, something on the
order of a relay station connected to the HEART of the new order
which is the Solar Line. Metaphorically, we can view the arrangement
as a pulsating heart (the Solar Line) setting in motion a ‘pulse’ to
be carried through the Body (the nation) via its veins and arteries
(the Lunar Line). Each one was elected and re-elected according to
the demands of India’s fledgling democracy without violating those
demands; but, I repeat, taking into consideration the prevailing
circumstances, as well as the personality traits of each member of
the Line, both Solar and Lunar. For example, Indira Nehru-Gandhi was
the third in the Lunar Line. As a woman she had to work within the
constraints her gender imposed, similar to Hillary Clinton today.
Any woman who tries to come up knows the difficulties very well.
Indira was no different.
Each one had a personality to deal with, we cannot ignore this fact.
And they are going to accommodate themselves to the field they find
when they take birth to accomplish their task.
All of this had to be respectful of both the existing conditions and
the cosmological requirements for making of India the centre of the
new Age, of the new world Order. I cannot pretend to describe all
this in a brief interview but please note that this is very
different from the label, superpower. I have explained it exactly as
it is in the three volumes of my series, The New Way. It is a deep
study that needs to be made. The point I wish to make here is that
if it had been spelt out originally… if Sri Aurobindo had spelt out
exactly how it was to take shape through the Solar and Lunar Lines,
it would have been destroyed. Forces would have intervened to make
sure it did not happen.
Q: Are you saying there is
a corresponding Solar Line, which also follows the same numerical
pattern of the 9, 6, 3, and 0/1?
Yes. The Solar Line is the main factor, the
creative power working
from ‘behind’.
These incarnations are often obliged to work day after day without
the full understanding of how the process is going to take shape. I
come along at the third level of Sri Aurobindo’s work, and things
are much clearer for me. We‘ve gone through the 9 and 6 of their
Solar Line, in harmony with the Lunar, albeit with a different
function. But we see the same thing happening. You see that Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother, the 9 and the 6, were able to do their
work largely because nobody bothered about them. Even Sri Aurobindo
did not spell out exactly what it was he was doing. Yet in his
symbol its central Lotus, known as the Lotus of the Avatar, contains
the Formula: two rows of petals, 9 and 6, respectively; and then 3
leaves. The way the Mother designed his symbol was exactly
descriptive of the way it actually took shape. In the symbol the 9
and 6 are together (in time) and attached to each other; then there
is a gap (in time) and the 3 leaves complete the sacred Formula,
which in the symbol stand alone and unattached.
This is a beautiful example of ‘Prophecy through Symbols’, which can
be read only by those initiated into this unique language. I say
‘prophecy’ because the final ingredient of three leaves reveals a
gap (in time) since the birth described by this arrangement took
place many decades after the symbol’s creation and was unknown to
all concerned.
Almost like a relay station, the Nehrus did their part on the
periphery; but then you see what happened toward the end - the
assassinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. When things have to be
done unawares, unconsciously, it allows for forces to come up and
interfere.
You can’t say the course of things changes, but this indicates where
you are in the process and how much remains to be done. Unless a
certain proportionate group takes cognisance of what the new Harmony
actually is, and for which purpose, those forces do take advantage
of these ‘empty spaces’.
This is where India stands today, the role it is to play in the
world had to be devised with nobody knowing what was taking shape.
Q: What do you mean the
role it is to play in the world?
The role it is to play as the Centre, the central point to this
circle which is the world, the Earth. It is a cosmological fact of
our times that can be verified objectively; or better said
‘mathematically’ – but the new Order brings its own ‘science’, a new
language to accommodate the new energies sent abroad upon the world.
Q: These are very powerful
statements. You say India is the centre of the world?
No, not exactly. It is a temporal measurement we are discussing, the
Centre of this 9th Manifestation which covers 6,480 years from 234
BCE. India is the centre for this period and it must provide
everything that is required of such a Centre.
Q: Does India know this?
Sri Aurobindo made it very clear that the baggage of the old is very
real. This is what he and the Mother had to deal with. I also had to
deal with something on that order, but of a different nature; and I
was very much protected in the beginning of my work. Really, it is
only now that I am ‘coming out’, so to speak – because I had to
spend decades perfecting this process and its cosmology to the point
where it can be given out.
Nobody can take advantage of this higher knowledge; you cannot
misuse it, you cannot do anything with it now that would obstruct
the process. You accept that there is a power arranging things
beyond the scope of the human being; you learn to see it operating
in the world and you realise that it can transform the world. If we
wait for all human beings to respond – well, you tell me if that is
realistic? India, because of her ancient traditions, should have no
difficulty with that; cognisance of the reality as it has been
arranged ‘from above’, so to speak, has not yet happened in India on
a large scale. Hence there are usurpers.
There have been interferences; there have been - I can’t call them
delays, because everything is so controlled by the inexorable arrow
of Time - but there have been burdens to carry, and great
difficulties in trying to inch forward, inch forward, to fall only
to rise again and still move forward, you understand.
I think if people were to realise the existence of this harmony,
this pattern that works for India, this 9, and 6, and 3, it would go
a long way to easing the pain that arises precisely out of
Unknowing. It has worked out to perfection because nobody knew of
its existence. But at this point, at the third level of course it is
possible to describe things previously left untold because they are
largely seen by hindsight. Most of the protagonists involved have
passed on, their work having been completed. One can now discuss
what it all means because there is no possibility of interfering.
The work, in large part, is done.
If you only knew the
magnificence of the 3, 6, and 9
then you would have a key to the universe.
Nicola Tesla
scientist/inventor
1856-1943
Patrizia
Norelli-Bachelet 2008
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