September Trilogy – plus One
The state of the world
according to the New Way Cosmology,
in view of the events of 11 September 2001
by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Collapse of the Old
Part I
September 15, 2001
In the midst of the tragic circumstances of our times, I have received a number of communications, different appeals put out by different people across the globe, even from a prominent spiritual leader of Indian origin in the USA. But I see these documents as appropriate and valid only on a certain level, a more superficial level, I might add. They do not go deep or wide enough. There has to be a more total vision at this point, more all-encompassing. This is what has not been in evidence.
A specific and lengthy preparation is required to attain a poise that can allow one to ‘see’ in the midst of upheavals such as the world is experiencing. One has to be centred and realigned. From this new poise, perception can come about that is not influenced by these very legitimate and understandable human emotions, those waves that are thrown up from the vital and cover the higher centres. It is only when that poise can be attained and maintained that the play of forces on the world stage can be assessed in this new vision. It requires immobility, amidst the mobility of our physical world, as it has been described in the Rig Veda.
I do not refer to particular groups or individuals, but rather to a cosmological process. Individuals, groups are the instruments for this Play. As such they do bear a responsibility for the events they set in motion. There is certainly accountability for the acts of terrorism, regardless of historic reasons that have extracted such brutal responses from certain individuals and groups. But to understand the purpose of the present happenings, which takes us far beyond the scope of the ordinary consciousness, there has to be a very different poise. To an extent, this poise has been described in the Bhagavad Gita, mainly by the circumstances or the setting of that Scripture. Its contents are valid of course, but even if we ignore the text itself and observe the setting provided to Sri Krishna to express perhaps the most profound thoughts ever recorded, this observation can explain this new poise of consciousness. Krishna instructs his friend and disciple, the Pandava Warrior Arjun, in the midst of a raging battle, on the plains of Kurukshetra. There are several salient points to his teachings that are affected by this setting, all of which are profoundly applicable to our present circumstances.
The first to bear in mind is that Arjun is expressing to his mentor the very sentiments I have noted in the various appeals put out during the tragic happenings in New York. Like Arjun, all, especially those who are considered to have attained a high degree of spiritual achievement, express abhorrence at what is transpiring; not only the acts of terrorism but the anticipated ‘response’ from the affected nation, the United States of America. They preach PEACE; or else that we must all recognise the part we have played in the present happenings, be this either historical, at the level of government policy; or else individually by nurturing the emotions that spiritual leaders believe have resulted ultimately in those very policies.
On a certain level this is indeed true. There have been policies of governments as abhorrent as the acts of terrorism we have been witnessing for the past 30 years; and those policies have been devised by individuals put in their positions of authority by other individuals who feel an affinity with the minds that have created these policies. In other words, the people get the government they deserve. Or rather, governments are an outcome of the reigning collective consciousness. Once more, this is true, but only partially.
Individuals gather in groups and communities and nations because they have been drawn into this cosmic cauldron of forces to serve a certain purpose; they cluster together in groups, such as the Pandavas and the Kauravas of Krishna’s Mahabharat Age, for reasons that can be known only through a very deep understanding of destiny. That is not the purpose of the present analysis.
This document will deal with the larger play of forces and the goal of the present play-out. What truly lies at the bottom of the happenings on the world stage, and how can we cope or contribute to a resolution that will fulfil the highest destiny of the Earth?
This brings me to the second point made in the Gita. Krishna instructs his pupil to engage in the War in full consciousness; it is his duty to do so. Further he tells him to ‘slay, because they are already slain’. On the higher plane of destiny, it has already taken place, it is written, decreed. That is, it is their destiny to die at his hands, in that battlefield, on that day. Arjun is simply the instrument for this play of destiny. He cannot shy away from engaging in the war, but, above all, he must not be attached to the results or the outcome. He must simply do his duty, fulfil his dharma.
This must surely appear to be unspiritual in the eyes of many of the world’s spiritual luminaries. To set the teachings in the midst of a battlefield is in itself unconventional in terms of our traditional ideas of where a spiritual discourse might best be given. Or else, as some have done, there is an attempt to give the setting only a symbolic significance: the battlefield is the field of the human consciousness with all its conflicts and destructive tendencies. But a more profound understanding of the Gita and the body of knowledge that gave rise to this exemplary document indicates that the ‘symbol’ is the very thing symbolised. The war is a physical war, the battlefield is a physical battlefield. But this does not exclude the other applications. It simply means that all is one. There is no separation between material and spiritual. If it were otherwise, there would be no sense to the confirmed experience of so many realisers throughout the ages of unity and oneness.
The third message is that Arjun, when he asks Krishna to reveal his true Self, his Godhead, cannot accept the vision Krishna presents of himself as the Time-Spirit, the Destroyer and Creator of the worlds. Or rather, he cannot bear the power of the vision and its implications. Again, he reveals an all-too human poise, a tenderness of heart and softness of nature that rejects the highest vision of God, the secret of Secrets that Krishna grants his pupil. He begs his Lord to stop, to take back the vision and to become again what he knows of his more human friend and mentor; for that is what his consciousness can bear.
What we gather from this episode is the understanding that the full impact of God as Time-Spirit can be grasped perhaps only by the warrior of another, future age. Indeed, that future age is upon us. The Avatar in this 9th Manifestation embodies the attributes Arjun could not accept. This means that we have to exceed the qualities of even the noble Arjun, if we are to be conscious instruments in this new Age.
It is therefore an entirely new spirituality that is required. Or rather, a knowledge that carries us beyond both spiritual and material, that carries us to an entirely new seeing, a seeing in understanding, as the New Way envisions. We must stand in the midst of the battlefield as immobile instruments of Knowledge; ignorance cannot carry us through this phase of evolution. To attain a higher level, a perception beyond what the known spirituality of all schools offers, has to be our tool.
Let us apply these points to the present happenings and the different responses that are surfacing. Let us also apply the laws of the New Way to the current crisis and see in understanding what lies at the root of the present terrible play of forces in these final stages of its activity. One of the foremost ‘laws’ of the New Way dictates that the negative and the positive serve the purposes of the One. This means that there is a plan, a control, a divine strategy, behind these horrendous occurrences. It is a divine Plan. But we must understand that the field is one. This means that this higher Purpose has to operate within the one field that is presently the home of the Ignorance. It is still the contaminated field of the old; and it is that old world within that One Field that is collapsing. To bring this about the method adopted must operate within the limitations of that old consciousness. This means that negative instruments and mechanisms have to be employed; but they will also serve the purposes of the One, just as the positive does. The difference between the two is to be noted, however.
‘Positive’ as opposed to‘negative’ in this context has a very specific meaning in the New Way. An instrument is ‘positive’ when it is conscious. An instrument is ‘negative’ when it acts in darkness, in ignorance. But, we do not judge actions as positive or negative – for example, violence/negative, non-violence/positive. It is simply the poise Krishna calls forth, that very special awareness and the courage required to fulfil one’s dharma. Again, conscious in this New Way does not mean the awareness extolled by most spirituality, or a particular belief system. Or even a belief in God. It is an instrument that acts in knowledge. In the present context, what is required to be in the positive scale of the balance is that ability to see. When this special vision is attained, one stands together with Krishna in the battlefield, and one does not shy away from the forces of destiny that we may be called upon to serve. One is able to contain the vision of God as Time-Spirit, or Mahakal. The Avatar of this Age is Siva as Time-Spirit, as the devourer and creator of the worlds.
Sri Krishna gave Arjun the vision of the next avataric descent in the 9th Manifestation. He was a central element in the 8th, the Manifestation of Scorpio, eighth sign of the zodiac; over 6000 years ago. Hence, the setting for the highest teaching of that Manifestation was a battlefield, and war its central theme. For these are indeed attributes of Scorpio, ruled by Mars. The evolutionary process that is described in the twelve signs of the zodiac – or what in the Rig Veda is called ‘the journey’- carries us through these different stages of humanity as it moves up the scale to the attainment of the highest heights for the human species.
Humankind stands poised to exceed itself. This achievement is central to the present travails and must not be lost sight of. But the Kurukshetra of our times is overtaken by the forces of Ignorance and Falsehood. We must take back that field; we must dislodge those forces from their commanding hold over the physical dimension, a plane that had been relinquished when spirituality and religions across the globe chose the heaven beyond material creation, rather than the realisation of oneness that respects the sanctity of the Earth and her place within the divine scheme of things. In so doing, they forfeited the right to guide future generations into the light of the new consciousness.
In this new Mahabharat War, while weapons of destruction may be used, there is only one ‘weapon’ that will finally conquer. This is the Power of Knowledge and Truth on which the new supramental consciousness stands poised. With these, one becomes that positive instrument. Gradually, as the knowledge spreads and dispels the darkness, the negative will be transformed and nothing but the Light will occupy the one material plane or field.
It is imperative to have a wider understanding of the forces at play in this trying moment. If not, despair must necessarily plague the observer because of the dangers that loom very large and very real before us. We are dealing with irrational forces that do not respond to any mental logic or reasoning from that plane. They are largely driven by vital, not mental, impulses. But if one has a clear perception of the goal humanity is striving to attain in the midst of these painful periods of history, that light can be our guide and we can weather these moments in a different poise of consciousness that will allow us to be true instruments of the New Way.
From all that has been written, together with the appeals for measured or non-violent responses from spiritual leaders, it is quite obvious that none are acting with knowledge of that goal. What we are experiencing is a critical moment of evolution. It is not even an historical moment but a passage that is stamping a new principle in the evolutionary fabric of the species.
In this critical passage, or ‘crossroads of destiny’, as Sri Aurobindo has called it, we must understand what this truly means for the entire Earth. To do so, it is necessary to see the entire planet within this evolutionary passage, as a conscious being herself. Nations on this Earth have specific roles to play. Similar to individuals, nations can be instruments of the positive or the negative. The divine Plan will play itself out, this is certain. But nations can be positive elements in this great change, or they can be negative – while still serving the purposes of the One.
Needless to say, when we observe the actual state of affairs, no nation can be said to be a positive instrument at this junction. None are governed, led forward in this singular march to a higher destiny, by leaders with knowledge of this Supramental Manifestation they are nonetheless a part of. It is a ONE EARTH we are discussing. There is no nation with a separate destiny. There is only one destiny for the planet because the Earth has a special role to play within the solar system. The more aware we become of her role, her place within the System and the demands placed upon her during this crossroads of her destiny, the easier will the passage become and the more certain we can be that destruction will not be the method used to attain those lofty goals before us. The only choice we have is whether or not we will reach those peaks of destiny via destruction, or else through its higher expression, dissolution. Regardless of the means, baggage must be shed at this point.
We have encumbrances which are impeding a forward thrust according to the pace imposed by the Time-Spirit. Destruction comes about when the pace exceeds the capacity available to nations and individuals because encumbrances hold the movement back. These are the forces of Inertia. In critical crossroads such as the present passage, those tools of Inertia have to be either dissolved or destroyed. They have no further purpose in the play of energy that constitutes the planet’s evolution to a higher level. Thus, by one means or the other, they will be shed at this point in time. The only question is, will this be through the process of destruction or dissolution. The symbolism in the vaporisation of the Twin Towers as they collapsed to the ground would indicate Dissolution as the way ahead.
Dissolution implies a conscious action. Only in this way can wholesale destruction be avoided. During this passage, to be conscious implies that special knowledge of ‘supermind’s application for Earth use’, as Sri Aurobindo had envisioned. When that knowledge is the foundation of all action, it constitutes the ancient Vedic realisation, the Immobile amidst the Mobile. In the battlefield, or wherever one may be called upon to serve, positively, the divine purpose of the One.
Collapse of the Old
Part II
The birth of the New
September 24, 2001
I have chosen to use the Mahabharat Age of the 8th Manifestation and Krishna Avatar’s teachings on the battlefield of Kurukshetra in discussing the present conditions in the world. True, its war setting makes it relevant and applicable. But beyond the obvious there is a deeper level involved.
The 8th Manifestation covered many thousands of years. Krishna’s appearance on Earth took place within that Manifestation, during the Age of Taurus about 6000 years ago from our present Aquarian Age. As of 234 BC, we are within the 9th Manifestation; and, as in all cases where the cycle of 9 is involved or somehow prominent, ours is a time of ‘birth’. That is to say, the prioreight Manifestations the Earth and her civilisations have experienced were simply the long and laborious ‘gestation’ of this Child that is being born in our very times, in our Manifestation, and in our own Age of Aquarius.
Nothing of the true, legendary Golden Age could be known before this age of Birth. Our religions and spirituality, our more mundane advances in technology, or our ideologies of a political, social and economic order, have been nothing but a gestation of the ‘foetus’ to reach the critical moment of Birth in the midst of an attendant labour.
Though cosmic in nature, this has nonetheless been a gestation; and like all gestations the foetus is covered as it were in veils until it emerges, and protected by its dark habitat. This means that we have not yet ‘seen the light’. The Child is only now in this Age of Aquarius beginning to emerge from the darkness of its cosmic Womb.
The Mahabharat, India’s great epic of the last avataric appearance, describes conditions the Earth’s civilisations would have to endure surrounding that Birth. Indeed, we note that darkness fell during that Manifestation of the sign Scorpio, eighth of the zodiacal twelve. Or better, what had been until then known as the sign of the Eagle fell to its lower symbolism and became the lowly and poisonous Scorpion. Until that time, as evidenced in the world’s oldest sacred text, the Rig Veda, the 8th was known as the sign of the Eagle. The labour pains of these intervening 6000 years, between the Age of Taurus and our Age of Aquarius, explain the cosmic process of transforming the lesser symbol to restore the higher.
Until the Age of Taurus in the last 8th Manifestation, men and women of wisdom were carrying forward a very ancient teaching. During the previous seven Manifestations, covering approximately 45,000 years, the full Knowledge was not a part of our evolution as a guide for humanity. We have only known fragments. In some cases, as we find in Hinduism, those fragments were and are significant and voluminous. But still they are only fragments.
However, what was common to all ancient schools was a single cosmic language and base. It is this foundation that has been preserved and that constitutes the Eternal Truth, – or the Sanatan Dharma, as it is known in Hinduism. But it must be clarified that India, like all other ancient civilisations, lost that Knowledge at about the same time that this misfortune overtook all the old civilisations across the globe. It was lost in India to such an extent that none in her contemporary halls of learning, of either the sacred or the profane, have detected this Script in the Rig Veda though it is unmistakably present (see the verses to Vishnu, RV, I, 154); its wisdom permeates the entire text. I have dealt with this issue in numerous publications, which can be consulted if more details are desired. I may simply add here that the ancient-most Knowledge is still alive in India in that it is the only ‘pagan’ country on the planet, in the fullest dimensions of this Western label. That is, it is the only civilisation that actively worships the Gods and Goddesses that constitute the cosmic energies which are related to that same Cosmic Script.
It must be emphasised that there is no nation or civilisation on Earth today that can be looked upon as a leader on this path to the supreme Light. Nor are there any schools of wisdom, Vedic or otherwise, that contain this Knowledge in its undiluted form. All contain only fragments, the Vedas included, because the Birth of this cosmic cycle of thousands of years is meant to reinstate a Knowledge that belonged to an earlier round of 77,760 years. Thus, the ruins of ancient civilisations, which so obviously point to a very different consciousness having inhabited our planet, are simply means to keep alive the Cosmic Script from generation to generation in different systems across the globe, and are themselves only fragments. The civilisations that created these extant fragments never had the full Knowledge.
Hinduism is a case in point and serves us well as an example. The message of the Mahabharat, the epic of the Manifestation prior to ours, is that a great darkness would befall India (and indeed the entire globe). The Eagle would be replaced by the Scorpion at the end of that Age when, as the Epic describes, relatives, kinsmen turned on each other, compelled by complex cosmic imperatives. There was total devastation from a war that was the mother of all wars. This indicated that India, which was destined to preserve the sacred thread of that long line of Knowledge, would herself fall into darkness because after the 8th Manifestation the luminous Child would be born in the 9th. Indeed, the darkest hour before the Cosmic Dawn. Only thereafter would the Earth come into the full Light and fulfil her highest destiny.
India lost the Cosmic Script then, as predicted in the Mahabharat, where the Eagle became the Scorpion as kin turned upon kin in the most dramatic and compelling tale of destruction and devastation the world has ever known. After that cloak of darkness fell, the Script was lost. It returned to the subcontinent with Greek travellers in the first millennium, it is believed, as a thing alien and new, though more likely it was India herself that in previous Manifestations had sent the sacred knowledge with all its symbols and hieroglyphs beyond her borders.
In India it was as if a great sleep had descended, amnesia of sorts. But the ‘pagan’ system survived and the knowledge took refuge thereafter in myth, the language of the soul, where it is still to be found today. The reason is that the Birth of the 9th Manifestation would take place in India. For this, the cosmic foundation had to survive in some manner.
This ‘pagan’ foundation has been uprooted everywhere else on the globe. There have been numerous attempts by new-age groups to revive this paganism. For example, by devising rituals in worship of the Mother Goddess; or else by referring to God as ‘she’ in order to convey a more all-encompassing belief system, somehow liberated from the constrictions imposed by an immature patriarchal dogmatism. Many today recognise these limitations to which survivors of the Sleep are subjected. Yet these attempts are artificial, mental constructs. They are not born of Knowledge, hence they have no power. They will therefore change nothing of the old, much less be the harbingers of the Birth.
In India, however imperfect, we do encounter a truer expression, a real cosmic connection – though the more complete Knowledge has been lost. This is noted by the loss of the Divine Measure (of time) without which true power cannot attend the Vedic rituals that have been handed down through the centuries. At this point in time, India stands on the brink of a total collapse into the abyss of the ages; the threat of a complete submergence in darkness of this only survivor from ancient times is very real. It is the secret operation beneath the travails our civilisation is experiencing. In other words, the outer cannot be successful unless the deeper, determining processes are carried out successfully. That moment of Truth, decisive and final, is upon us.
There is, however, a specific reason for the cloak of darkness to have descended after Krishna’s time. Without that deep sleep India could not give birth to the divine Child. This Manifestation will not produce a creature pieced together with fragments of the old ways. It is a new Birth. A new Way. Without that sleep India could not fulfil her destiny as the ‘womb’ whence the Child would be born.
I am stating in this brief summary that India is the centre of our 9th Manifestation; and because in the cosmic harmony she represents the soul of the Earth, the final stage of labour pains have drawn the play-out directly to her shores. This development was foreseen as early as 1976 – with all its ramifications involving the nuclear dimension as well. Indeed, as a major component. But ever central to this play-out, at the root of the entire cosmic birth process lies the question of the Divine Measure she lost so many centuries ago.
Let us deal now with specific details, pertinent to our own times. This necessity of ‘sleep’, if it may be so-called, is also reflected in the fact that the Avatar of the 9th Manifestation, Sri Aurobindo, spent 12 of his most formative years, from 7 to 21, in England. At the express wish of his father, he was entirely shielded from any contact with Hinduism, or even India’s native languages. When he returned to India at the age of 21, the discovery of his roots began, but within this virgin soil of his consciousness, as it were. Likewise the Mother and the Third of the same Line were born and raised in the West. They too brought a virgin field into the play at the momentous time of the new Birth.
This virgin soil was a fundamental piece in the cosmic design so that a true new way would take birth on Indian soil, which for millennia had been nourished by the Sanatan Dharma. Though the Thread was maintained, her deep slumber did allow for critical encumbrances to accumulate, which cannot form a part of the New Way and which must now be shed. Only then can India fulfil her higher destiny.
The analysis thus far can help the reader discover an important feature of our times, so central a component of the new cosmology. It is that all the details attending the Birth have been meticulously arranged. There is a patent control in evidence; but a familiarity with the new way cosmology is required to be able to follow its mechanisms. Because of the existence of this controlling power the Birth of our times presents a cosmos and not chaos. The tragic circumstances of today can be used as visual examples of this power operating in the world. The key to this operation is found in the New Way dictum, the symbol is the thing symbolised.
The appropriately named Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre are a perfect example of this control, as well as the above-mentioned dictum. To illustrate, it must be borne in mind that central to everything that is now transpiring is the collapse of the old. But what exactly is that oldness, which we realise is crumbling by every headline that appears in our newspapers, just as the Twin Towers crumbled before our eyes? Succinctly, it is the end of the Binary Creation. This is what the total collapse and vaporisation of the twin buildings indicates when the symbol is the thing symbolised.
In 1983-4, a new balance came into being as a result of a realignment and centering process involving the cosmic forces of contraction and expansion. To be brief, this set in motion an undermining of the structure of our world, as it had been evolving for thousands of years. Our human species is a binary construct; hence it bears all the limitations attendant on this specific polarity: a central void, because of which the ego can usurp the commanding position of the soul, while the sex centre imposes its atavistic drives in place of a ‘higher purpose’. Examples of the Binary Creation can be found throughout our society, from its loftiest products to its lowliest. Our justice system is an example of that Binary Creation. Our morals, our codes of conduct, and even our wars, are its products. In a word, everything that we know is born of that binary consciousness. Indeed, everything that now seems threatened with collapse. This is so because the Binary Creation has come to an end.
At the time of that yogic process of centering and realignment there was a definite hardening of the structure to the point where some great nuclear holocaust seemed likely. And yet, we must again refer to that controlling power because the Binary Creation was protected by the weapons of mass destruction of its own inventiveness. The two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, formed an axis of tension that safeguarded the Earth. A nuclear holocaust could not occur while the structure was binary and balanced on this pole of tension.
In 1976, the formulas of the New Way were largely completed. On that basis it was then seen that no such holocaust would come about since the two-nation system protected the Binary Creation by the tensions that maintained the structure intact. A very delicate ‘balance’, needless to say. But what was seen then was that India would be the future centre of the nuclear play-out, whatever that would be. The backdrop for this pre-vision directly involved the Divine Measure India had lost thousands of years earlier. This has been the subject of numerous books and articles I have written over the past 30 years and need not detain us at this point.
Eighteen years ago, through the act of centering and realignment, a dramatic shift was felt. This yogic process reverberated throughout the globe, as if the Earth’s subtle axis had been shifted. It produced a precarious situation and carried the Earth to the brink of her destiny. The world was entering the final 13.5 years of a 27-year ‘action plan’ that began in 1971. At the exact midpoint, the end came about of the Binary Creation. Thus from 1983-4 onward, only a new way, a new structure, a realignment of forces corresponding to an entirely different formula could save the planet and her civilisations and carry the world to a new consciousness and the threshold of a new world.
We must note that immediately following this centering and realignment of 1983-4, which I had recorded in The New Way, Volume 3, in November of 1983, events on the world stage confirmed this process. For example, the collapse of the then USSR and the consequent dismantling of the binary pole of tension. The ‘purpose’ of the species had changed. It was no longer subservient to a binary compulsion. Rather, a unitary component had been introduced with a divine Purpose at its core. This means that no solutions that do not take this factor into account can carry us through the final stages of the great Labour. Indeed, the Binary Structure has collapsed just as the Twin Towers indicated. That image of collapse and vaporisation will be forever engraved in the consciousness of humanity and will be known someday for what it was: the collapse of the old under the aegis of an impeccable power of control. In other words, a contained area within the One Field, at the heart of the old binary system. They were indeed symbols of America’s economic might whose devastating and almost instant collapse revealed the fragility of the old balance. Thus, a sacrifice of some for the salvation of the Earth and a furthering of the birth of a new world.
This has its repercussions all the way down the line. Our world affairs will indeed never be the same after 11 September 2001. But we can survive this passage if knowledge accompanies us, a knowledge informing us that the Avatar of this 9th Manifestation is Mahakal, or the Time-Spirit, the great Controller. The Child lives on though in its infancy as yet. But it nonetheless has the power to bring down the old merely by its sacred presence on Earth, in the midst of this new Kurukshetra:
‘Europe prides herself on her practical and scientific organisation and efficiency. I am waiting till her organisation is perfect; then a child shall destroy her.’
What did Sri Aurobindo mean in his 76th Aphorism? For Europe’s ‘organisation’ indeed seems now to be complete. Is this destruction as of old, as in the Mahabharat Age, to be followed by a sleep even deeper than before? Or is this descriptive of a power in its infancy that will demolish the structures of the Old World and introduce the new? We must not lose sight of the fact that the New World is leading the Old World in this perilous passage. Indeed, all the details in this Birth are significant and sustain the dictum, the symbol is the thing symbolised.
A New World is Born
Part III
September 27, 2001
Except to state that our 9th Manifestation is the period of Birth after a long gestation of approximately 50,000 years; and to refer to its Avatar as an embodiment of the Time-Spirit, little has been discussed about this Manifestation, and in particular of our present Age of Aquarius within that period. Before all else, it must be pointed out that the signs of the zodiac describe a single, connected ‘journey’, as it was called in the Veda. The development, be it for an individual or the evolution of the species, begins in Aries ruled by Mars, and ends twelve stages or signs later in Pisces. The wisdom of this arcane script is not grasped unless this unity is perceived.
The transmutation of Mars from its destructive properties such as war to a higher expression must be dealt with in passage through Scorpio. It is then no longer the sign of Death but that of a new life, a second birth according to many ancient traditions including the Vedic. Even today in India, Brahmins are known as the ‘twice born’, according to this same path of Knowledge. Then the Eagle arises and the poisonous fumes from the Scorpion’s haunt are dissolved: from pivoting the sex centre, the twice born raises the axis of being and experiences a new poise. The Eagle soars to the mountaintops in a majestic flight of freedom leaving below the old and the diminished energy base.
Applied to the work of the Zodiacal Ages, our 9th Manifestation is the critical span of 6480 years for this special transformation, of which more than 2300 have already passed. But only since 1926 could the actual birth process begin to take shape and reveal itself as an accomplishment affecting all of humanity. Since the Mahabharat provides us with details of an unredeemed Scorpio, we must study the 9th sign, Sagittarius, to learn what can be expected of this 9th Manifestation. We have an Epic for the 9th, similar to the Ramayana and the Mahabharat of the 7th and 8th Manifestations respectively.
The 9th Avatar himself has left us the Epic for this Manifestation; and it too, similar to the 7th and 8th, is zodiacal in structure and content. Apart from the obvious fact that it contains twelve Books/Chapters and that these can be easily related to the twelve signs, the entire theme of the Epic is most revealing for it explains the evolutionary leap that is to be made in our very times.
Scorpio, as tradition holds, is the sign of Death. In Sri Aurobindo’s epic, Savitri, the 8th Book is also the Book of Death. Faced with this dark finality, the Goddess Savitri pursues Death into his realm where mortals must not venture, since from there they can never return. This realm would be the Sagittarius 9th stage after the Scorpio 8th. Briefly, the theme of this new-age epic-poem is her indomitable courage and determination to retrieve the soul of her beloved Satyavan and to bring him back to life, back to Earth. This poignant myth explains one of the most important features of Sagittarius: extension of the boundaries. The species as a whole must exceed its limitations and venture ‘where humans have never gone’. Our space exploits are one example of this 9th Manifestation characteristic. But the true adventure, which allows for all the rest, is the acquisition of a new level of consciousness-being.
In examining the characteristics of Sagittarius more closely, we can discover the goal of this 9th Manifestation for the human species, stretched over 6000 years and ending in the traditional Golden Age of Capricorn, after Aquarius. There is a duality in its symbol – the Man/Horse, or the Centaur, as it is commonly known. There are two signs connected by opposition to each other on the wheel, forming an axis; they describe a critical flaw of our species. Or rather, those ‘boundaries’ that have to be exceeded. At one end of the pole is Gemini, also a dual sign, and at the other, Sagittarius.
The duality of Gemini is vertical, as its hieroglyph indicates: o, a split down the middle. Whereas the duality of Sagittarius is horizontal, upper and lower as its Man/Horse symbol depicts. Or else, a NORTH and SOUTH hemispheric divide. Gemini is the sign of MIND and whereas there is some sort of integration albeit split in two, this is not the case with Sagittarius. Gemini presents a diminished energy base by this vertical division or polarisation, so typical of the mental function; indeed, so typical of the brain itself. But being the sign of Mind, which in turn is characterised by duality, there is a certain harmony in Gemini’s duality. Whereas in Sagittarius the divide is between lower and higher, with apparently no connection between these two hemispheres of being. The (higher) mental and (lower) vital are disconnected. This is important to note because it can explain certain aspects of the present unfolding in a clearer light.
For example, earlier I used the Twin-Tower Collapse as a universal symbol in that it has imprinted on the human consciousness, the frailty of what were thought to be our most solid structures. Our entire existence is ‘balanced’ on fragile foundations, which we believe to be unassailable. This image of the ‘twin’ collapse (Gemini/Mind) describes the human condition better than a thousand words: we orbit a Void and function in life on the basis of ego and not the soul as the central pivot. Realignment and centering are the means to correct this flaw of the species in evolution. The Twin Towers, as reproductions of the symbol for Gemini (Mind), indicate the limitations of its duality as the guiding faculty of the species. We must go beyond Mind now.
In contrast to the vertical, the hemispheric split of Sagittarius is veritably a NORTH/SOUTH divide. And this is what was also captured in the collapse and dissolution of the North and South Twin Towers. It was truly the 9th Manifestation symbol of a dying world, second only in imprinting power to the first photographic images of the Earth from outer space, with its undivided wholeness that inspired an entire generation, and many to come. In Sagittarius the incongruous situation arises that the lower does not know what the higher is doing! There can be a complete, almost schizophrenic split. Indeed, we note this in our dealings among nations involving the same NORTH/SOUTH divide. So-called globalisation is not able to bridge the divide between the rich (North) and the poor (South). Many believe that this is what really lies at the heart of the present unrest. The hardening of these two distinct positions, between developed and developing nations, seems to have reached a point of no return. Some call it a civilisational crisis, and in a sense this is true. But there is more involved which zodiacal wisdom can help to clarify. If there was a need to display this Collapse so poignantly, so dramatically, in a way that will remain forever engraved in our collective memory, then we must go deeply into the symbolism.
The emphasis in this unified perception is thus on Mars – the transmutation of that special energy. Our entire human saga of this zodiacal round of the 12 Manifestations is centred on an alchemy involving Mars. Indeed, it is Mars at the forefront of the present tragic happenings because the critical moment has been reached for a definitive breakthrough. When the President of the USA states that it is ‘a new war’ to be fought, he is stating a greater truth than he may realise.
The ‘old war’ was the theme of the last Manifestation, the 8th or the sign Scorpio, also ruled by Mars. In other words, the zodiac begins with a sign of Mars rulership (Aries) and, eight signs down the line, it becomes the ruler of Scorpio, traditionally the sign of Death.
Aries, the first Mars sign, is of the Fire Element; Scorpio is Water. Clearly this indicates a conflict. Mars, the red planet, would have affinity with Fire, not Water. It is precisely this transmutation that must occur: the Water/Mars combination leaves the stamp of mortality in our cells, primarily composed of water. Carried further, it is the combination that produces some of the horrors we are now experiencing due to improper energy balance, release, utilisation. Accordingly, at the level of the human species, another function of Scorpio and untransformed Mars comes into play: the sex drive. The atavistic evolutionary drive of procreation can survive as the ‘purpose’ of the species only on the basis of an untransformed Mars.
This same wisdom is found in the Rig Veda, the oldest sacred text in the world. The ‘journey’ starts with Agni, first of the Gods and leader of the Aryan Warriors on the path to Immortality. In Hindu tradition even today Agni is known as Mars, his colour is red, his carrier (vahana in Sanskrit) is the Ram. Above all, standing in the forefront of the Gods, leading the way as he does, Agni is the first of the stages or signs. And this of course is Aries, the Ram.
One of the Rig Vedic references to Scorpio is interesting. In the myth, Aditi, the supreme Goddess, bore twelve sons. Her eighth in the series is named Martanda, literally meaning the ‘dead egg’ in Sanskrit. And it is from this 8th, this dead egg that our human species is said to have sprung. However, Scorpio/Martanda is not the end of either the Vedic journey or the zodiac. There are four more signs in the progression, four more ‘sons’, – Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces, all of which comprise our 9th Manifestation. (See The Gnostic Circle, The New Way, Volumes 1 & 2, Aeon Books.)
This ‘new war’, the President says, has to be fought with new weapons. The conventional armaments, as deadly as they now are, cannot conquer the threat civilisation faces. This too is truer than the President realises.
The momentous saga we are living – as a global experience due to contemporary communications media – is the final and decisive transformation of that Mars energy. The 8th Manifestation left the imprint of its deadliest aspects before the great Sleep. We awaken now to find ourselves in this 9th Manifestation Sagittarius, faced with the residue of that deathly experience and the obligation to move forward to a new way, not necessarily a new war, if at all the human species is to continue its evolution into a higher expression of itself.
In the yearly progression the signs are experienced in a counterclockwise series, whereas because of the phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes, the Manifestations/ Astrological Ages are clockwise. They are the same signs and the same symbols and hieroglyphs; but due to the Earth’s different rotations, these clockwise and counterclockwise directions create a sublime harmony or music of the spheres. But it is the zodiac that provides a meaning, a sense and indeed a goal to this ‘journey’: the cosmic musical score has a particular theme, a ‘libretto’, whose language is universal. The zodiac is our map of the evolution of the human species. With its help we can know our place and role in the saga of life on this planet, the work accomplished thus far, where we now stand in this on-going voyage, and indeed how to cope with the immensely difficult circumstances we face today, demanding an ‘extension of the boundaries’. (See the Map of 12 Manifestations, where the relevant diagram is found.)
One point needs to be stressed. We cannot get off this forward-moving wheel of Time. However many escape mechanisms we devise, such as obliteration of the consciousness in nirvanas, in samadhis, or somniferous illusions of heavens after death in some nebulous zone beyond all this suffering and tribulation, humanity’s task is to complete the journey. It has to evolve beyond this Dead Egg affliction, for that is its destiny. This is the essence of the 9th Manifestation’s divine ‘purpose’ which, it is hoped, this analysis will make clear.
In this light, we can better understand that the experiments in biotechnology, genetic manipulation, cloning, and the like, are responses to this pressing evolutionary ‘purpose’. Procreation as we know it is under stress. The ‘dead egg’ indeed needs to be transformed. The question is what is the correct method and what is the final goal?
Speed, a key feature of Sagittarius, is the issue. While we extend and exceed our boundaries, we need to assure that certain devices control the pace. To avoid destruction, this ‘speed’ must take into account the consciousness factor, first and foremost. If not, genetic manipulation, for example, will produce the same result as our nuclear energy manipulation: we will produce further tools for our own destruction.
Earlier, I mentioned that humanity, as the custodian of this evolutionary purpose, bears encumbrances, which slow down its forward movement. In a sense they can be understood as regulators. They control that speed. I also mentioned that at certain critical points, a readjustment is demanded so that these encumbrances can be shed and the forces of Inertia, which were utilised for regulating the movement, can be superseded. I also stated that destruction is often the only means at our disposal to introduce a different ‘speed’, so to say; or else to balance out the two forces, contraction and expansion. That is the message of the Mahabharat and the Great War; and true to the imperatives of the sign Scorpio, humanity’s higher perceptive capacities were put to sleep.
During that period of ‘sleep’ a very different course was taken by men of the Spirit, traditionally the custodians of the ‘consciousness factor’. It was during this long slumber that numerous methods of Escape were devised, not to extend our boundaries but rather to deaden consciousness. The human consciousness could not deal with Time, Circumstance and Destiny. To bear the full vision of the Time-Spirit as both creator and destroyer, all the faculties have to be awakened. Thus all spiritual paths from the time of Sri Krishna devised methods to carry practitioners into greater degrees of sleep with the promise of ‘enlightenment’ in a realm beyond the physical. This coincided with the gradual denigration of the ‘pagan’, and finally the total abolition of the Goddess from the prominence she had always enjoyed. With this, the material plane was left void of precious energies and this abandoned field was overtaken by the ignorant and the false. This has been our ‘spiritual heritage’, the reason for which we stand on the brink of annihilation and the physical plane has been the arena of so much destruction, strife and pain for such a very long time.
It was also during the period of Sleep that organised religions came into existence, all born in the same area on the globe. The rise of these young and zealous proselytising faiths and their affinity for war in the name of God attests to a critical moment having been reached in the evolution and the need for a radical transformation of humanity’s energy base. Indeed, Mars is the planet in the scheme representing energy. In the Middle East we observe ‘knots’ in the subtle energy sheath of that area. Civilisation’s main energy support comes from the area where this ‘knotting up’ is perceived; and this is so indicative of its insoluble problems, as well as an inadequate resource. ‘Black Gold’ too is a part of the dying old world.
From the Age of Krishna to the present, humanity has known nothing higher than the mental principle as a guiding tool. Together with Aries and Taurus, Gemini (Mind) forms the three of signs of that 8th Manifestation. But Mind cannot withstand the impact of the Time-Spirit as Destroyer as well as Creator. It has to die to itself, obliterate itself in trance, samadhi, nirvana, or the other ‘escapes’. That incapacity, as the Gita informs us, was the legacy of the Manifestation of Scorpio.
Everything we know today, every aspect of our civilisation is a product of a species that has had any light higher than Mind blotted out, put to sleep, closeted away so that this principle could rule the day; and in so doing to exhaust itself.
This is not the place to enter into any greater detail regarding the connection between the Mental Principle and Mars. In my published works the subject has been treated extensively. Suffice to state that the 8th sign is ruled by Mars – but it is Mars of the ‘dead egg’ humanity. It is Mars as yet untransformed. When the journey ends in death and the 8th stage, there is no higher principle, no greater light than the Mental. The result is kin turning upon kin and a total destruction followed by a deep sleep, the oblivion of death, and spirituality divorced from the material. The scourge we bear today, cause of all our woes, is this separative consciousness, legacy from the former Manifestations.
However, if indeed the zodiac is a map of humanity’s evolution, we know then that the task of the signs beyond Scorpio is to introduce or to establish that higher principle as the new power governing evolution on Earth. In other words, Mind is not the highest principle. There is another at our disposal. Indeed, this is the new power that controls the happenings of our times, to all appearances so deeply tragic, yet in a more all-encompassing vision, they are the very signs indicating that we are ready for a great change.
I have described something of a new alignment and a centering that occurred in 1983-4. Centering, dislodging the binary, is the first step in opening humanity to a higher principle and light. The Binary System and its ‘dead egg’ species cannot embody that higher principle’s power because it requires a spherical and not a linear poise. The axis in question, Gemini and Sagittarius, third and ninth signs respectively, in opposition to each other in the wheel, are contained in the Twin Tower symbolism. While the ‘death’ of Scorpio prevails and the Eagle does not rise, we can know only Gemini, the vertical, and Mind as the inadequate highest principle of a ‘dead egg’ human species.
When the labour of the 9th (Sagittarius) succeeds, an entire new range of possibilities opens before us because Sagittarius marks entry to the hitherto unexplored last quarter of the zodiac, thus completing the circle of 12. This completion can be attained when centering and realignment are accomplished. Until then the final quarter, though known and accounted for, was simply a nebulous region humanity could never reach in its binary condition. In religions and even Eastern systems of yoga, it became ‘heaven’, life after death (Scorpio). To enter that region in full consciousness without succumbing to the Death imposed upon humanity by Scorpio, centering and realignment producing a spherical consciousness and being, are the only way. This sphericality then influences every aspect of life – subtlety, quietly transforming everything. It is this ‘new way’ that is operating in full in the world today. The circle is complete, hence we can state, a new world is born.
Out of the development in 1983, it was ‘seen’ that world wars similar to the two of the last century would no longer be the tool for that regulatory mechanism to balance speed and availability of energy. They were a part of the old creation, as it were, prior to the turning point of 1956. From that time, a process began that would gradually establish a principle higher than Mind, which Sri Aurobindo has called Supermind, or the Truth-Conscious Gnosis. The Mother called the singular event of 1956, the Supramental Manifestation. This process entered an accelerated phase in 1971, covering 27 years thereafter, during which period the foundations of this new creation were completed.
However, the transmutation of Mars being incomplete, it was ‘seen’ in the realignment and centering experiences of 1983 that constant eruptions would be required to ‘let off steam’ as it were. These would be relatively minor, regional conflicts, rather than global. It would be similar to regular volcanic eruptions by which the planet itself releases a pent-up energy into the atmosphere, easing an inner tension. The key feature in what was to follow was the unmistakable presence of the great Controller. In other words, in a spherical system, contrary to the linear, all serve the purposes of the central One. All lines converge on a single Centre. Nothing is excluded, everything is contained in the One Field where harmony and integration are the key words.
This treatment of the tragic events of our times may be considered too arcane, esoteric, or even illusory. Nonetheless, let us continue to apply the formulas of the new way Cosmology to demonstrate that this newness is now affecting every aspect of life. It is particularly evident in the current events occupying the world’s attention. The question looming before us is will the ‘response’ anticipated from the Coalition trigger a Third World War. The unequivocal answer is no. There is a different mechanism now, indeed a ‘new war’. To understand this fully it is necessary to refer to the basic formula of the new Cosmology:
9/6/3/0-1
This simple string of numbers represents ‘Supermind organised for Earth Use’, which Sri Aurobindo anticipated as a fundamental necessity for the coming transformation. It has many applications. If we apply it to the last century’s wars, for example, we must draw a line between the first two numbers, 9 and 6, and the last two, 3 and 0-1. The reason we do this is because they are indeed paired in the descending equation in this manner when the formula is applied. (The full method is explained in my books, The Gnostic Circle and The New Way.) On this basis, let us carry these paired numbers over to the World Wars of the last century in the descending order.
The 9 and the 6 would be the two World Wars of the 20th Century. As students of the New Way know, these numbers refer to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, respectively, in the formula. They form a part of a descending Solar Line, as it is known in the new Cosmology. And as number powers, they are related to each other. Indeed, the two World Wars of levels 9 and 6 were also related in that the common enemy in both was Germany. It would appear that what had not been concluded in the first was done in the second.
We entered the Aquarian Age in 1926. The new Supramental Creation could begin to take shape only then. AsI have explained in many of my published works, the Evolutionary Avatars can only appear in the Astrological Ages of signs of FIXED QUALITY – i.e., Scorpio, Leo, Taurus, Aquarius. Indeed, in the Rig Veda we find confirmation in the ‘three steps’ of Vishnu by which he ‘measures out the universe’, each of which is one of these three signs, first Leo, then Taurus, and last of all, the ‘highest step’, Aquarius of our times.
Thus, the First World War occurred before the new age set in. However, in this cosmology it is to be noted that 9 years before a turning point of a year of 9 number-power (1926, for example), and 9 years after, are all part of the same turning point. If the turning point were 6 it would be 6 years, 3 would mean 3 years; for example, the turning point of 2001 would begin to be felt as of 1998. Applied to the entry into the Age of Aquarius in 1926, it means that as of 1917 elements of the new Age would begin to surface. These will be examined further on.
The First World War came at the very end of the Age of Pisces, in a sense a final ‘release’. This ‘release’ played itself out through certain key features of the sign: sacrifice, self-giving, self-undoing, a strong component of destruction and waste, on its more negative side. Pisces as the zodiac’s closing sign involves a shedding of residue. It was thus a war of elimination, of closure. This was a massive human sacrifice the likes of which had never been known. Scores of young men were sent to the frontlines as plain and simple human fodder. They were massacred by the thousands.
It was, to be exact, Sri Aurobindo’s war because the 9 is his number in the scale of the descending Solar Line. It could be termed the first-level war (of a four-level transformation of Mars). He faced it alone since the Mother came to him in India in 1914, only to leave in 1915 because of the outbreak of the war. It was a release and sacrifice essentially to clear the atmosphere and prepare the soil, at least partially, for the coming new Age. Exactly on schedule, nine years later in 1926, and after a major yogic breakthrough, Sri Aurobindo withdrew to his room to ‘bring down the Supermind’, the next evolutionary principle. He spent the remaining 24 years of his life in seclusion, concentrated on this endeavour. However, he was always concerned with world affairs and the ‘new order’ that he knew would come to replace the old, once this principle had penetrated the atmosphere. He was born under the sign Leo, which astrologers know to be the sign of kings, monarchs, and royalty. If there was any clear result of his ‘first-level war’, it was the crumbling of monarchies throughout Europe, so central to Leo. Those that remained were in large part rendered impotent. The new times were about to dawn, the new Aquarian Age which would demand a different political structure to accommodate the Aquarian ideals which indeed have come to shape our world since its onset in 1926.
When the war came to an end, the Mother returned to his side in 1920, and together they gave a formal structure to their work as of 1926, exactly when the new Age had dawned. Not only was a joint mission indispensable, but an entire string of births was ordained, in order for the work to be completed. As the Mother once remarked, a line of births in time and space.
As for 1917, the last 9-power year of the Age of Pisces, it was then that the decisive element surfaced which would shape the entire century. Namely, the rise of Communism and the Soviet Union.
However, massive release was still necessary. There was yet much to be done to liberate the Earth from the clutches of certain powers that threatened to impede civilisation’s march into the Light. The four-level transformation of Mars was just beginning. Thus, the Second World War was, according to the descending formula, the Mother’s War, or the 6, the second-level war. Though physical, its main sustenance was from the occult planes. It was in that dimension that the victory came about, to then play itself out in the physical. The 6 in the scale corresponds to the Cosmic Principle.
These two World Wars of the 9 and the 6, or the first and second levels, were still part of the old creation, as indeed both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had taken birth before the new Age commenced. Their joint mission can be viewed as a digging, deep and profound, through the many layers of soil that have accumulated like a mantle, covering the Earth in ignorance and falsehood, the mantle of Time’s energy as a residue of inertia from the deep Sleep and abandonment of the material plane. The movement through the Ages is a constant progression without any disconnection. The 9 and 6 of the Solar Line had the onerous task of digging foundations in that very soil of the Ages into which the new foundations could be laid. This hard task is beautifully depicted in Sri Aurobindo’s poignant poem, A God’s Labour.
In the Mother’s second-level war the powers of Light defeated the forces of Darkness. Since the Mother embodied the 6 in the scale, equivalent to the Cosmic Divine, certain characteristics in the Second World War were indicative of a cosmic component. This is a contrasting dualism, a stark divide: Light and Dark, the light and its shadow. The Second World War was notorious for this display of a clearly definable good and evil. Such is the cosmic nature of things and all that it spawns when integration of all the planes is absent. Then ‘things fall apart’, for there is no common ‘centre to hold’.
These two World Wars had certain characteristics in common. They were indeed global conflagrations. The entire world was drawn into the destructive processes of Mars, unlike at any other period in history. This is because we were entering the Aquarian Age of universality and the lofty ideal of a united humankind. The term ‘coalition’ would take on an ever wider and deeper meaning as we progressed deeper into the new Age. The League of Nations arose and fell, perhaps because it belonged as yet to the Age of Pisces. Indeed, only when the full Aquarian Age was in progress could the United Nations emerge; in spite of its imperfections and weaknesses it endures because it is in accord with the Time-Spirit’s Aquarian goals.
As mentioned, a great turning point was reached in 1956, the Supramental Manifestation. Thereafter a new principle began to work itself into the evolutionary fabric, with clearly visible signs from 1971 onwards. This date was significant in that it marked the beginning of a 27-year ‘action plan’, as I have referred to earlier in this series. It would be completed in 1998. The first 72-years of the Aquarian Age came to an end that year, completing passage through one degree of the 30-degree sign.
As mentioned, after the Second World War a balance was maintained by the two Superpowers. Another global war was avoided on this basis. But in 1971 the process began that would bring about the new alignment and centering. The work of those 27 years had another outcome: everything was drawn into the physical, compressed into the One Field. Whatever was to be played out would be experienced in full view in the physical dimension, since the key to our existence on this planet is to redeem material creation by uncovering its inherent divine Light. In other words, Supermind had been rooted in the consciousness-soil of our Earth and on this basis the formulas for its application on Earth could be revealed. By the halfway mark into those 27 years a ‘new war’ could be waged.
Thus, the Gulf War of the third level of the transformation of Mars was the Third’s War, coming as it did after the 1983 breakthrough of the Third. The present contest is the Fourth’s. That is, they correspond to the 3 and the 0-1 levels on the descending scale, 9/6/3/0-1. The last two, 3 and 0-1 belong fully to the new creation. The work of the Third has been to lay the actual ‘foundation stones’, composed of this new cosmology and the body of knowledge surrounding Supermind’s applied usage for the Earth, in the trenches dug by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother during their years of hard labour. The 27-year ‘action plan’ can be visualised as the period during which that indestructible foundation was completed. By 1998 the edifice proper began to rise above ground level, visible to all who choose ‘to see’.
While the first and second levels of the Descent are taken as joint components; the same holds for the third and fourth. We have noted that the adversary in the First and Second World Wars was the same, indicating a work carried over from one conflagration to the next. The same can be said of the Third’s War, and now the Fourth’s. Indeed, as a confirmation we note that George Bush Senior was involved in the first, and his son, George W. Bush, the next. Certainly an unusual happening in politics, though ‘logical’ when seen in the New Way Cosmology. Indeed, in spite of all the confusion surrounding his election, it would seem to have been a foregone conclusion that Bush Jr. would be President to complete a task his father left undone, according to the new Power operating in the world. At the same time, both conflicts harbour similar characteristics where the word ‘coalition’ has been central. The ‘enemy’ is also the same.
But while energy was the issue in the third-level war, because the Third’s ‘field’ or domain of action is the vital dimension, supplier of our ‘energy’ – the fourth-level is the physical proper. More on this in the next and final part of this series.
However, there is another important difference involving all four levels. It must be borne in mind that the formula 9/6/3/0-1 stands for a descent, or a vertical, axial shaft. To be precise, the first three numbers are the vertical axis. Two have completed their mission and have left. With the present level of the 3 and the successful completion of that work (1971-1998), the 0 then comes into play. The Third constructs the bridge for this purpose. At which point the direction shifts. It moves from vertical to horizontal. From the compact fullness of that Zero, the One is then born, expressed in the formula as 0-1 (It may also be noted how significant a numeric symbol of our times this 0-1 has become, since computer technology is based on these very digits.) In metaphysics, this 1 born from the 0 is the principle of the divine Son, while the 3 is the divine Daughter. Both Principles have been active in our times in an unmistakable manner. Their work involves the keywords harmony(3) and integration (0-1).
Thus, applied to the present circumstances, the Third’s (Gulf) War in which Bush Sr. was the commander-in-chief, was a part of the vertical, descending axis. At its successful completion the interesting phenomenon arises that reaching the 0 of the equation we hit rock bottom, as it were, and the end of the vertical. The Third’s ‘bridge building’ has allowed for the shift, or from contraction to expansion. The 1, or the ‘son’, arises in a field of expansion/horizontal. It is a connected process demonstrated so accurately in the father/son team, but the forces operating are different for George Bush Jr. in this question of direction.
Thus, son Bush can experience a greater success in drawing in coalition partners than father Bush did because the horizontal direction in the play allows him to do so by virtue of its inherent nature of expansion. Circumstances must conspire to fulfil this design based on the new way Formula of vertical/contraction, horizontal/expansion. There cannot be a more accurate and indisputable example of the application of this cosmology and the control in minute detail of all elements involved than this pattern Third/Daughter, Fourth/Son, their connected missions and the wars corresponding to their levels in the scale; and then a similar connection carried over to the unusual circumstance of Bush son completing the task his father was engaged in a decade earlier. This then is the formula of the Solar Line transposed onto the world stage, moulding the circumstances of life to fulfil its Design.
This may be a new war, but it is also a new way. In 1956 a new world was born which changed everything. To deny this, to disregard the cosmic harmony and the formulas of the Supermind that control our world in function of that newness, is to wilfully chose darkness and sleep instead of the light of a new way.
We are only at the start of this great adventure, however. The mechanism is functioning well but we face trying times. In the next and final portion of this analysis, I will present further applications of the Formula, particularly involving the intriguing though distressing need for collective grieving which as yet our untransformed Mars energy imposes on the vital sheath of our world. We have witnessed three such wrenching experiences on a global scale over the past few years. In analysing them, it will be seen with an even greater accuracy how the 3 and the 0-1 powers are active in our lives; and we will see in understanding the necessity for these tragic experiences which, in the light of the New Way cosmology, are perceived as the very means to expand those former constricting boundaries of a ‘dead egg’ humanity on its path to conquering death and destruction.
In the next and final portion, we will deal with Ground Zero.
A New World is Born
Part IV
October 5, 2001
If I have not discussed the Pentagon tragedy so far, it is because only at the fourth level can we begin to understand that event in the context of the new cosmology.
With this article, the series has covered four levels of correspondences. The fourth and final involves Mars proper, as the fourth planet. While we have discussed the level where a shift occurs and the progression changes from vertical to horizontal, there is much more involved which the Pentagon disaster can help to reveal. For example, it is at the level of the Fourth Power/Principle that the question of nuclear power comes into prominence and assumes vital importance. Indeed, given the developments on the world stage over the past decade, we are well aware that a serious threat is now posed to our civilisation. The next catastrophe could well be nuclear.
Equally relevant to the fourth level and its number equivalent in the new way Formula, 0-1, is the fact that when its time comes, as now, there is an accelerated contraction or convergence. Given the existence of a centre – after the process of 1983 – this centrality determines all the rest. Everything thereafter serves its divine Purpose contained in that single ‘centre that holds’. The only way to stop its unfolding would be to destroy the Seeing Eye of humanity by a complete collapse into the dark abyss where time is no more. That is, similar to a plunge into some ominous Black Hole, humanity can arrest the movement and impede the apotheosis only by a total annihilation. This is the acute danger we face. Then we must begin a long and laborious march through the Ages until Time and Circumstance draw the species to the same level of maturity where we now stand and the Earth’s higher destiny can be fulfilled. Or else, the work may be done elsewhere if destruction is so complete as to disallow a renewed evolution of the species.
Though the peril we face is real and imminent, such a dismal course is unlikely. The reason I can make this statement is precisely because of the latest USA tragedy. The ‘hand’ of the Controller has been so evident in the unfolding of events and in the logic of the process that it is unlikely unforeseen developments out of the sphere of its control will occur. Indeed, nothing lies beyond its reach. When the centre and new axial alignment come into being, it means that out of the chaos of the former old way a cosmos has emerged. There is then only one centre, similar to the Sun of our solar system. No other possibility is possible since both negative and positive must ‘serve the purposes of the One.
This brings me to another result of the 1983 centering; such a process establishes order. On the individual or collective level, or for the planet herself, the future is ‘ordered’, rendered a cosmos or a single entity wherein everything is in its place. There are no longer galaxies of possibilities out there, down the corridors of Time. There is, indeed, only one corridor, not many. No labyrinths to meander through, no multiple exits or entries. There is only one course to follow. All roads for the first time in our long and troubled history finally converge on this one Centre. That is, we move from the Overmental stage/plane to the Supramental; from the linear to the spherical. Related to our previous discussion, the Overmental was the cosmic affirmation of the 8th Manifestation. It was the domain of Krishna Avatar, 8th in the Line.
When Sri Aurobindo established the Krishna Consciousness in himself at the very beginning of the Aquarian Age, he drew into his physical being the compact residue of that former Overmental Manifestation. This is not the place or the time to go into greater detail in this regard. Suffice to state that our spiritual and religious legacy from that Manifestation and the great Sleep of Scorpio is from that Overmental Plane, below the Supramental. We entered the new Manifestation with that residue in tow.
The Book of Genesis having originated in that period, it reveals that the signature of the Old Creation is fragmentation. When the full impact of the Solar Light cannot be sustained, parts of the being are put to sleep to accommodate this structural insufficiency; only then in the process of fragmentation can these rays be sustained. This means that our highest collective aspirations have been expressed by these separate ‘rays’, – organised religions, for example. Foremost to observe is the direction they assume.
As mentioned, given the great Sleep spiritual endeavours assumed a different direction: escape routes were devised and ‘exits’ from the cosmic dimension became the norm. In fact, there were no such ‘exits’. However, due to the great Sleep it did appear that one could disconnect oneself from all things temporal and spatial and thus attain liberation from the drag of the physical that pinned one down to this cosmic, material dimension, with all its limitations and constrictions. The world could then go its own way and continue to be ensnared in endless entanglements producing untold grief and despair; while the spiritual realiser was ‘free’, disconnected, uninvolved. This abdication eventually allowed the vital and physical dimensions to be overtaken by forces with no light higher than Mind as the guiding beacon. As a result, Mind being itself divisive and incomplete, this inadequacy was displayed in all that the great Sleep spawned.
The fragmentation of Overmind gave rise to the organised religions of the world, all of which have been born in one area of the globe. The present contest between these separate ‘rays’ seems to be producing the acute stresses of our times. Without a doubt, tensions in that area are causing reverberations on the world scene, but the point to bear in mind is that given the direction of these emanations, or rays, there is no likelihood of any convergence taking place between them.
The cosmic dimension of the problem can be explained by visualising the Overmental expanding in all directions, indeed as if casting out rays from a single source. Those rays, as time evolves, move out from this source in a process of expansion. If we take the original Source to be the Old Testament, for example, we observe that several different ‘rays’ sprouted from this one source of light. As time moves on, they grow as separate rays, farther and farther away from each other.
Centuries down the line, the distance between the rays is vast. Worse yet, a crystalisation takes place as an organic corollary and there is no meeting ground possible. Each one has the one Truth and cannot accommodate the others. Or else, attempts are made within their ranks to impose an original purity, as it were, a return to the Source. But this is problematic because the direction is outward from the Source and a return would mean a reversal of this direction. Given the hardening of Time’s residue over the centuries during its unchangeable forward march, this could only take place through the process of destruction to correct the problem. In terms of the ‘symbol being the thing symbolised’, we have this problem clearly depicted in Jerusalem. The centre for these faiths, or these ‘rays’, is a contested field. Which one is to prevail, or how can a harmonious resolution come about to satisfy all demands?
It is for this reason that religious tensions are never solved. While we cling to religious identities there can be no solution. These have to be given up and purely secular, political or diplomatic means must be used to unravel the existing ‘knots’, which indeed are becoming tighter with each passing day, to the point where they will soon defy any attempt at unravelling. Indeed, then only destruction becomes the ‘solution’. The dangers apparent in such a drastic turn of events are obvious. When civilisation produces weapons for its total annihilation, we know that the time has come in the evolution of our species to find a new way.
The ‘solution’ lies elsewhere. The Middle East entanglement is only peripheral, though most would believe it to be central. Indeed, the question involves centrality: the Earth’s own true ‘centre’. This is not the Middle East. The present happenings have surprisingly drawn our attention to the real area on the globe that can lay claim to the position of centre. And while we locate the danger zone east of Jerusalem, we also realise how much labour is still required and how far we are as yet from any sort of victory. When President Bush states that the ‘new war’ being waged will be long, perhaps very long, again his statement is applicable at much deeper levels than he may realise.
Let me proceed step by step in drawing attention to the main theme of this analysis: the transformation of Mars. Since Mars is central to the latest tragic developments, it is not surprising that the Pentagon was the second target, sustaining very serious structural damage with significant loss of lives. In this new way Cosmology and the control it reveals, we observe interesting features of the attack as far as Mars in concerned. First, the building housed the military administration – indeed, a fully Mars occupation. All war strategies where the USA is involved emerge from this building. It is therefore an important symbol involving America’s military strength and predominance, – the ‘mind of Mars’ as it were; while the World Trade Centre was the symbol of its economic power. It seems the final count of deaths in the Pentagon tragedy is 189, or the number of nations belonging to the United Nations.
There are two planets involved in this symbolism, Mars and Jupiter, fourth and fifth from the Sun. The Pentagon therefore incorporates Mars by way of the function carried out in the building, and Jupiter, the fifth planet, because of its pentagonal shape. Thus Mars and Jupiter, taken together, are the focus of this ‘symbol being the thing symbolised’ in this final portion of our study.
What we need to note is that these two orbits flank a most important and unique component of our solar system: the Asteroid Belt. The shattering or fragmentation in that orbit indicates a dramatic reversal of some sort, resulting in a breakdown of perhaps a great planetary object into millions of bits and pieces. In my published works I have discussed this orbit extensively, since it plays a very significant role in the New Way.
In this cosmology the Asteroid Belt is ‘home’ of the Fourth Power/Principle, having affinity with both Mars, and hence War, and Jupiter. In mythology he is indeed known as the War God, and the divine Son in the descending line, Father, Mother, Daughter, Son – a scale comprising all the metaphysical principles of our world. This sequence has surfaced in a very poignant manner over the past several years involving the last two principles, Daughter and Son, or 3 and 0-1; or the last two paired numbers we discussed earlier regarding the ‘new wars’.
I mentioned in closing Part III that as the Earth required regular eruptions which were regional, minor wars to release tension, thus avoiding a major conflagration that would necessarily be nuclear if played out in full, so too the vital/emotional sheath of the planet requires a similar release. This has played itself out in a collective grieving, very much controlled and calculated to relieve stresses involving these two powers/principles that stand upfront in the transformation process the Earth now is experiencing. This became an essential part of the mechanism once an acceleration set in as the ‘action plan’ neared completion in 1998. The first collective grieving involved the Daughter Principle or the 3; indeed, the Earth herself as the third planet from the Sun. Since the 3 was the focus and the Daughter Principle, the metaphysical corollary is the soul in evolution. Our planet does indeed contribute this unique ingredient to the harmony of the solar system.
In 1997, because of our global communications network, the entire planet grieved together with inexplicable intensity over the untimely and tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Her representative role as symbol of the Third Daughter Principle is obvious. What may not be so obvious is that the wave of grief that swept across the Earth was a form of release from tensions in the vital/emotional sheath. To this day, analysts, commentators, observers of the world scene, cannot make sense out of the enormity of grief expressed across the globe for a figure essentially of importance only to Great Britain. It was almost a play out of the Demeter/Persephone myth where the Divine Mother Demeter loses her most precious daughter Persephone to Pluto, God of the Underworld. Thereafter, Demeter roams the Earth and in her grief withdraws her grace, thereby threatening to bring civilisation to an end.
The correspondences are very clear if we wish to draw a parallel. Diana met her fate in an underground (Underworld) passage. Since the 3 and the Soul Principle are central, we may note that the bridge under which she was struck down (and carried to Pluto’s Underworld of the Dead) is called Alma, or soul in Spanish.
More astonishing is the fact that no sooner was this collective grieving over, as if an enormous reservoir had been emptied, than the world laid the incident to rest along with Diana’s body. Grieving was over, intensive and all consuming as it had been, the experience on a collective level was completed and the world moved on. At the time, none could imagine that such an outpouring would have been so easily and quickly forgotten. Indeed, each subsequent anniversary of the occurrence draws less and less attention. Yet when it happened it was even thought that her death would somehow weaken or even bring an end to the monarchy, so overwhelming was the public’s response. The spontaneous practice of offering flowers, notes, lighted candles by the thousands, amidst intense emotion and grief, started then and has continued as a sort of a new occidental cultural expression.
No, Diana’s death was not intended to bring down or weaken the monarchy. The real and sole purpose of so tragic and untimely a demise was to provide release in the form of a massive wave of collective grieving, engulfing the entire planet for entirely cosmic purposes involving the Third Principle, – those of acceleration.
It is as if the planet has her own karma to be worked off, given her special place in the solar system. When the time of acceleration arrives, the encumbrances (residue/karma) must be rapidly shed. This was one such shedding. It was a ‘sacrifice’ to speed up the process safely, so as to avoid destruction. This corresponded to the third-level Mars transformation, and the vital sheath – or the emotional body.
No sooner had this been laid to rest than the fourth-level came into play. This involved another ‘junior’, similar to Bush junior and the fourth-level war. It was John F. Kennedy Jr. and his equally untimely and tragic demise. By now readers can draw the parallels between JFK Jr. and the fourth principle/power themselves, for they are as clear and unequivocal as Diana’s, This is indeed the Son, last in the descending scale.
JFK Jr.’s only claim to fame was his identity as son to a famous father; otherwise the world would have ignored his death. This was his main contribution to the ‘symbol being the thing symbolised’. In his demise there is no underworld/underground involved, no soul element proper, as with the 3 and Diana. But this ‘son’ produced the same intense collective grieving, clearly connecting the two deaths; though there ought to have been no connection at all. Again flowers and notes and candles were collected in his memory by a grieving populace. And while, similar to Diana, grief was overwhelming and all consuming, after he was laid to rest the memory of the tragic event followed him, and the Earth moved on. This too was a play-out of the descending scale in the four-level Mars transformation, this time involving the final level, the fourth, the son, the 0-1. Residue, encumbrances were shed.
Important to note is that the grieving over JFK Jr.’s death was confined almost entirely to the USA, particularly drawing the process to New York City.
It must be stated that these two individuals were foci for the collective experience of grieving, or release of tension in the vital sheath of the Earth. They were not themselves, in their own lives and level of consciousness or development, particularly outstanding. There could well have been other more worthy candidates to play these roles; but the element of universality was required, hence the necessary wide popularity of the two figures and the extensive coverage their lives commanded. To draw in the whole world through extensive media coverage, the drama had to involve top ‘stars’. And so it was that our civilisation lived its myth, in its own unique manner and true to the compulsions of our Aquarian Age.
What these episodes further reveal is that myths or the cosmic principles on which they are based are deeply embedded in the collective and individual soul. We are in the Aquarian Age of universality. The myths of our times are therefore played out on a global scale in which all of humanity participates – a sort of collective Mystery Rite. They are experiences common to all, shared by all.
However, these two events were part of the vertical/descending/contracting process – hence solitary, single ‘sacrifices’ were involved. The new direction, expansion, has other demands. We reach ‘rock bottom’ with the last ‘myth’ to be played out, the final grieving-release of the vertical descent. The Son joins subtle to physical and deposits us at ‘ground zero’ where he lived and was so deeply mourned.
The fourth-level grieving, being largely confined to the USA, unlike Diana’s case, displays an intense zeroing-in as it were. Up to 1998 the focus of this cosmic operation was to establish a centre. This was a contracting process down a vertical line of Time; until at the fourth and final stage, the 0 receives the distilled ‘gold’ of the work of the previous components of the Line. Out of that ‘gold’ the One is born who is the fourth in the Line. In the Supramental Formula this is expressed as 0-1. The 0 is akin to a womb, while the 1 is its product.
The other special feature of the last level of the Descent is that the 0 is the actual physical dimension, or the physical centre. This means that the ‘bridge’ constructed by the Third links the vital to the physical. The 0 is then the point of convergence. When the Bridge touches the physical dimension it is the final stage – ‘rock bottom’, so to speak. Reversal is the result due to this compaction in the physical, with, in a sense, no escape possible, no place to go, no ‘time’ left since the Third draws the condensed movement into the present in an intense process of contraction.
This was displayed in JFK Jr.’s death in that the compaction or convergence of that level happened to be New York City. This could have been understood as a signal that the fourth-level transformation of Mars would take place there or that in some way NYC would play a role in the future developments. In some way the process on the physical level could continue at that point on the globe.
The zone between Mars and Jupiter, the Asteroid Belt, corresponds in the new cosmology to nuclear power. The fragmentation observed in that orbit displays the enormous power contained in the fourth level. When the transformation of Mars begins and the fourth level is reached, we know that this tremendously destructive power is also to become prominent in some way. And so it happened when the horizontal direction set in after 1998 and nuclear power began to play a prominent role in the unfolding of events: two more nations that very year were added to the nuclear tally. The stage was then set for the Fourth’s contribution.
It is therefore not surprising to note that the devastation in New York City came to be called ‘Ground Zero’. Two elements that call our attention are captured in this designation: the Zero (of the Son 0-1), and the nuclear element. Indeed, the potency of the destructive power has been equated with a nuclear blast.
This is true, the power of the 4th when prominent points to nuclear energy in its most destructive form. But what has to be noted, and indeed what is the most awesome feature of this tragic event, is that Ground Zero presents us with the distinct image of containment. It was as if from the 0 centre a tight circumference was drawn and the power unleashed was not permitted to go beyond that demarcation. To further prove this point, when the cloud containing the dissolved particles of the catastrophe did move beyond the circumference of Ground Zero, covering lower Manhattan in this waste, as if it were a condensed ‘fall out’, unseasonal rains set in to wash away this noxious substance. At the time, those rains were viewed as a further misfortune to compound an already enormous calamity, hampering the rescue operation of hundreds if not thousands who were thought to have survived beneath the rubble. But this was not so. The blessed rains cleansed New York City of this ‘fall out’. And as for the survivors, there were none. The act of Dissolution had absorbed them all in the great Sacrifice that spared the USA, and indeed the entire world, from a nuclear devastation.
The collective grieving continues but it is notably different from the previously discussed experiences that involved single individuals drawing to themselves a collective swell of grief to provide release during the contraction mode. Once into the expansion/horizontal, the Sacrifice entails many in the expanded field. However, the key element ever present is the infallible hand of the great Controller.
In her mournful wanderings throughout the Earth in search of her beloved Persephone, Demeter comes to a royal household and is employed there as nursemaid to the royal heir. She nurtures this boy in the manner of the Gods, over the sacred Fire, to imbue him with a divine immortality. This royal Son then goes forth to ‘spread the message’ as Triptolemos, his Greek name signifying ‘of the three wars’. Thus this tale in its own quaint manner confirms the new cosmology of this analysis and the three wars that have taken place before reaching this fourth-level transformation of Mars, the position of the Son.
Triptolemos is War God, nurtured on the fires of Mars, and he does indeed carry abroad in the new horizontal direction the ‘message’ of the former three. His fourth level is the more deadly phase because his power is nuclear, born of the Zero. At his level it is either creation or destruction.
Thus, we must note that the ‘new war’ of Bush Jr. is indeed characteristic of the new cosmic direction the Earth is experiencing. Up to the third level, which was still in the realm of the vertical/contraction, there was a centrifugal movement expressed in the fact that the enemy was a single figure. That third-level war could still conform to the former concepts because of an easy identification of the enemy and the ability to wage the old-style war.
However, we must also bear in mind that while the Third’s keyword is harmony, the Fourth’s is integration. In the wars corresponding to each, these qualities come to the fore. The first of the last stages was a harmony among the points on the circumference, which join in a common endeavour such as the Gulf War. But the same quality is carried to its fullest expression when integration is added. Then, not only is there a coalition taking shape to a greater degree than previously experienced, all focused on a single ‘enemy’, the element of integration manifests in the manner in which these components of the periphery are drawn into an integral process. Indeed, what was left undone in the third-level conflict is attended to and drawn to completion in the fourth. For it has to be born in mind that the Third and the Fourth are joint powers, just as the First and Second were.
However, now the ‘field’ is notably different. It is an expanded, horizontal network, or fabric of nations, together forming an integrated harmony. The ‘enemy’ is also characterised by this shift in that ‘he’ is woven into and through the entire expanded network/field. As an added ingredient, the integrating factor makes itself felt in a compelling set of circumstances that force a new and universal interaction and collaboration. The common enemy spread through the fabric of nations obliges governments to join in the highest expression of the Aquarian ideal of a true unity of nations.
Finally, the most revealing facet of the current events is the confirmation of the New Way ‘law’, all, negative and positive, serve the purposes of the One. To provide an example, this is clearly demonstrated in the Pakistani ‘change of policy’, forced indeed by a set of circumstances bound to a central compelling ‘purpose’. The very creator and protector of the terrorist operation has now been obliged to undo its own creation and join the coalition of nations to root out the common enemy. There is certainly an element of divine Strategy here, if not irony.
The fourth level acutely involves the Centre. This is why the focus has shifted entirely to South Asia, insofar as the Indian subcontinent is the Centre, in its deepest cosmological sense, of the 9th Manifestation. By consequence, the entire four-level Descent has been centred on India from the beginning, over a century ago. All four participants have been involved with working out problems India faces in fulfilling her noble role for the Earth – the planet’s ‘centre that holds’. The former work has crystalised now in the fourth-level transformation of Mars and this final play-out involving integration.
It is not possible in this short space to discuss everything connected to India as centre of the Age. My books deal with this subject extensively. Also, there are articles carried on our website that add deeper dimensions to this study, if the reader chooses to continue ( I would just like to mention here that the convergence onto a nuclear play-out was foreseen in March of 1976. This ’seeing’ directly involved the Fourth and the 0-1 – that is the One born of the Zero. Given the loss of the Divine Measure in India, and all possibility of rectification having failed via a ‘new model of the universe’ provided expressly to avoid the present dangers, the nuclear play-out had to be drawn to India. (See The New Way, Vol 1&2, Aeon Books, for details.)
In 1976 there were few who would have agreed. Attention was entirely on the Cold War and the entangled Superpowers. But, as stated earlier in this series, while the Binary Structure remained intact, the pole of tension between the two was also maintained. It was therefore clear that the Superpowers would not be involved, as everyone had imagined; at least as long as that tension prevailed. But when that Binary Structure ceased to prevail, the role of the Centre was thrust into prominence and all lines began to converge on that single Point. To compound matters, India drew the nuclear play-out to her shores by failure to correct the divine Measure (of Time). In a word, Ignorance ruled the day. Circumstances from that moment conspired to fulfil what this failure determined.
Be this as it may, after ‘contingency plans’ brought about the 1983 centering and re-alignment, clear signs pointed to the inevitable. It was shortly thereafter (1985) that a break-up of one pole began, the USSR, and was completed in 1989. Indeed, a new alignment forced a break-up of the old, and the former Non-Aligned Movement became another casualty.
At the root of this monumental evolutionary crossroads is the residue of the great Sleep of Scorpio – that is, the Overmental Consciousness and the separate Rays it has spawned down the centuries. This divisiveness was drawn to the physical Centre of the Age via the divide-and-rule policy, which culminated in the partition of the sacred body of India because of the so-called two-nation theory. That is, identity, culture, civilisation entirely based on a particular religion, a situation unknown to India before the great Sleep. This was how the landmass delineated by the Capricorn Hieroglyph [see our website for the image] came to be broken up, losing an age-old wholeness based on the Sanatan Dharma, or the Eternal Truth. India is obliged to work this dualism, based on an Overmental affliction, out of her system. And this is the crux of today’s crisis which has drawn in the entire world, a crisis centred on the sub-continent. Both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers now. This increases the dangers we face and the imperative to succeed in this fourth-level war, or the transformation of Mars, if we are to avoid a nuclear holocaust.
India and the USA are partners on a cosmic axial shaft of both time and space. They are destined to work together for the greater good of the world. (See The Gnostic Circle, Chapter 15, Aeon Books.) The time has come for this partnership to enter a new dimension, a testing ground hitherto unimagined. Material strength and power lie with the USA; India must provide the ‘centre that holds’, with all that this signifies cosmologically.
It is particularly interesting to note that the first name given to the military operation now in progress was The Noble Eagle. Later, for unknown reasons, it was changed to Infinite Justice. After protests, this too was changed and it is now Enduring Freedom. Needless to say, the first name rings truer than the others in view of the issues discussed in this series. The Eagle is central, the redemption of Scorpio the imperative, and the Earth made the planet she is destined to be where the flight of the majestic Eagle can indeed continue in an enduring Freedom.
Sri Aurobindo identified certain essential ingredients for the coming new world order. Two have come forward in a prominent manner in the present crisis: freedom and unity. The fact that these are keywords on everyones’ lips, together with an emphasis on a ‘new war’ where freedom is considered to be the single most important principle to defend, helps us to understand that we are at a critical crossroads of destiny. Indeed, a unity of nations is occurring to defend this cherished freedom, the likes of which has never been experienced during civilisation’s contemporary history. These happenings help us to understand that we are embarking upon a way new to the world, for its time has come.
© Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, 2001
