India and America in the New Order

An Interview conducted by Dr Patricia Heidt, March 2008

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea)
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Published in Bhavan’s Journal,
15 June and 30 June, 2008 (Vols. 21 & 22)

Q: There has been a lot of news here in India on the upcoming elections in the USA. A month ago when the primaries began the front page of THE HINDU was full of the results, along with big photos. In your cosmology you put the India-USA axis as a central tenet. So how do you assess all that is happening now?

It is interesting for me because I wrote The Gnostic Circle in l974; it was printed in 1975. In it there is a chapter entirely dedicated to the India-America axis, as you call it. These two countries are on opposite ends of a pole through the Earth. There is more involved of course – their dates of independence and so forth. At the time, we were in the thick of the cold war, and Nixon had threatened to send his 7th Fleet into the Bay of Bengal during the 1971 war with Pakistan. This heightened the animosity even more. India had a very close relationship with the Soviet Union then; I believe there was a Friendship Treaty that was in full force. This brought about some balance and containment.

The point is there was nothing to suggest that what I was seeing (about this axis between the two countries) was correct. Just the contrary. If you look at the way things were then, they seemed hopeless. But in this cosmology you go beyond the moment, and the moment can be a decade, two decades, or fifty years. If your seeing is correct and based on objective knowledge, sooner or later it must come about. You see that this axis exists, regardless of what is taking place in the moment, and that in its own time the signs will come that it is to be activated.

That is what we are experiencing now, since about 2001 when the terrorist attacks became more significant.
I believe America was gathering friends to try to contain this terror, and they established a closer relationship with India. Since that time you see these two polar opposites aligning themselves via various issues.
I want to read a letter that Sri Aurobindo wrote in July of 1926, under the title, ‘To the People of America’  (Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest, Page 388, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, 2006). There is a portion that echoes exactly what I am saying, almost the same words. Of course I had never read this letter; I don’t know that it was even published until recently:

‘India and America stand prominent at the two poles that have to meet and become one, the spiritual and material life. One has shown a pre-eminent capacity of realisation on the spiritual, the other on the material plane.’

Now, Sri Aurobindo looks at it as polar opposites, the way it has come down to us today as Spirit and Matter. He is not looking at it from a cosmological point of view such as I would; but we come to the same thing. I have used those same words in many instances as well. There is something more in this letter that is of great interest regarding the difficulties he faced in his own work. He refers to the Swami Yogananda Movement [in the USA], which he felt was very much attuned to the American spirit and mentality:

He refers to the practical orientation that Yogananda’s work took for the American public, so he says that in India it is of ‘the subtler kind’. He continues:‘I do not think it would have much success in India where there is a long tradition and in spite of much imperfection and error, the standards of spiritual life are of the subtler kind.’ He continues:

‘The difficulties we experience here are due rather to a widespread inability to go freely beyond ancient ideas and forms. Plenty of money can be had in India for orthodox religious purposes and although not on the American scale, for Ashrams and other spiritual institutions which take the ascetic form or repeat established and well understood formulas. But the general mind has not yet advanced far enough from the old moorings to form even an inadequate conception of what I am doing here and it is easily disconcerted by the departure from old forms, a willed absence of the customary paraphernalia and the breaking of traditional barriers and limits.’

That is precisely what the USA brings to the world: this ability to constantly break down and remake itself. This is extremely difficult in countries like India or many European countries where they are burdened with their past. It is difficult to move forward. America has a short history, relatively speaking. But more than the time factor, let’s say the ‘star’ under which that society was born was conducive to change, In fact, that is its bane because it falls into fads very easily. Picks up one thing, drops it, picks up another. Sri Aurobindo finishes his letter, and this is the important part:

‘America must be able to receive freely India’s riches and to give freely in return from her own for the material organisation of a higher life on the physical plane; this is at once a condition and her chance. At present it is only a possibility. Let us see whether it can be made an achieved and perfected symbol.’ (Ibid)

Now this is precisely where we stand. You read about the nuclear deal. These are perhaps attempts to help on the material plane, but you have so much opposition and everybody pulling according to their own ideology. I have not studied this matter in depth, and am not qualified to do so. I see it from the point of view of this cosmology: these are attempts to bring the two countries together in precisely the manner Sri Aurobindo described, that America should give help on the material plane.This is what seems to be attempted here with all its imperfections.
You wonder how things can succeed in an atmosphere of ‘politics as usual’. I do see something happening in America today that is going to put the nation into a better position to open to higher spiritual values, for lack of a better word.

Q: Are you saying that America is responding to Sri Aurobindo’s heeding that it must open itself to India?

Not necessarily to India, but to a NEW way, to the new power that is manifesting in the world. He secluded himself for 24 years in order to make this possible in the whole world, each country in its own way. We are talking about these two countries that have very clear destinies written out for them: India and America. I’m not going into the African nations or even the European countries. I myself am interested in these two because around this coming together hinges the future of the world in a more enlightened condition. We have to see how we get there.

Q: So what is happening?

Precisely what you see in the electoral processes going on now. It is unthinkable in India that you can spend two years campaigning and it will be three years before the actual election takes place in November. That’s all we’ve heard. But, as I have pointed out, it is the process that is important right now. The campaign is the important thing now: you yourself referred to the fact that this is front page news in India. This country prides itself on being a democracy, but it cannot compare to the American experience where the democratic process reaches all sectors of society, with its disadvantages and advantages. The disadvantage is that everybody is wrapped up in this, with the result that you have a lame duck presidency, but how can it not be? No one is interested in what is going on in Washington because they are more interested in this electoral process taking place right now. I do not recall it like this in past elections. It is this particular election, and what does that tell you? The time has come; the things foreseen or prophesied are ripening and coming to fruition.

Q: What’s really being worked out in this electoral process?

That is the interesting part. It gives you a key to the real position these two nations occupy. They are not on opposite ends of a linear pole, but they are within a circular movement. There is a Centre and then there is a circle around it (as in the astronomical symbol of the Sun),

the periphery. America is comfortable within the periphery. You could say the spiritual light, or the Supramental Light according to Sri Aurobindo’s definition, is what is located at the Centre – and that is the New Way. That is what is being established right now. You have the two roles: India at the central point and then the outer circle which is embodied by the American spirit to an extraordinary degree: change, change, change. But if America can get onto something of greater value and depth, then you have what is a key feature of the Supramental Manifestation: the harmonisation of the Being and the Becoming, or the central point and the multiplicity (periphery), the unity and the diversity. This is what needs to happen, and it is happening.
America is taking care of that outer flutter which India gets lost in – it is not capable of dealing with that at all. This brings up the point Sri Aurobindo made when he wrote that India has difficulty in letting go of the old and ancient forms. That was his labour of all those years while he was embodied, to open up to the new and to shake off some of the baggage. I have continued in the same process. It is essential to both civilisations in order to do their job. This is taking place now in the electoral process, and the American experience is being raised to a higher level.
We haven’t seen anything in India like this. We have not seen any sign of an opening to the Supramental Manifestation as yet. We can discuss this later and I will show how it has worked, but nobody is aware of it; and that is why it got done. It would have been destroyed or pulled down by the old baggage.

Q: Your observations indicate that the USA electoral process is helping America to raise its consciousness to a higher level. How are the candidates doing that?

In America you see that the two candidates on the Democrat side – Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – expose the main prejudices that stand in the way of a higher expression, – that is, gender and race. You have to see this as being organized by the Supramental Shakti, or by a higher power, however you want to call it. One is forced to see it like that because the candidates were perfectly fashioned for the job they have to do, – well before any of this came to the fore, and well beyond the human ability to devise.
Barack Obama not only represents the Black community but he himself is an example of white and black, a perfect mix, half and half. How can it be that he is such a perfect example of the possibility of harmonizing these two and bringing them together? In his own being that is what he has done or attempts to do, however imperfectly or misguided, in a sense, because he attaches to it the old labels; and you can see the mess he’s gotten into with his ‘former pastor’, as he refers to him. He seems not to have enough courage to really break out. So what does he do? He gets into a new united church; he is fishing around for where he can find his place more comfortably given his ‘mix’, shall we say.
It is exciting to see what is taking place: it is an historical moment, as many commentators have declared based on his last speech, the one dealing with the furore that arose from his pastor’s sermon against America, basically against everything that America cherishes. So that brought up the possibility in this inspired man to speak his piece and in the process to raise the whole discourse to a higher level.‘Politics as usual’ is going to try to pull this speech apart and that is good – they play their role in forcing him to deal with these issues within himself, to hone, to articulate, to formulate. And that is always beneficial.
On the other hand you have Hillary Clinton who is the gender candidate. She brings up all that. She is brilliant and many of her qualities Obama does lack, but with her comes the old baggage. In a sense she does represent womanhood; they are burdened with the stereotypes that most women will not let go of. She herself cannot play the role that Barack Obama plays. She feels she has to rely or lean on the old establishment. So you have in these two candidates this bringing to the surface everything that blocks America from a higher expression. Therefore I say the final result is of lesser importance, whether McCain, Hillary or Obama. America has the capacity to move along with the times now, and you see extraordinary things happening which you do not see in India.
I have been living here 36 years and I have not seen anything like this happening. The electoral process is of course only 45 days. But there is more to it: you have a huge mass of the population that is illiterate, which you don’t have in America. So the ways that have to be worked out for India are totally different and they relate to its being the Centre of this New Age.

Q: What about India? You say America is now rising to its higher destiny during this electoral process. Where does India stand?

India does not rely on the population being carried along in the same way as the American. In America it is the collectivity that is important – it always has been and always will be (‘…A government for the people and by the people’…). That’s what makes these two societies so totally different. Here things go on as usual and there is a pretense of carrying the populace along with you, but it really doesn’t happen. Everybody knows this and that’s why there is cynicism in India; far more than America could ever imagine.
Here people are cynical because they see that the institutions have little value. They are intrinsically valuable but in the operational sense they cannot function because they can never come to fruition, to completion; there is too much interference. So even if one gets a court order, one doubts. I’m sure everybody who reads the newspapers feels the same thing: Oh, this will never come out; this conviction will never hold. In America cynicism to that degree is unthinkable. The moment the populace really comes to understand that their courts, their executive branch, and so forth, cannot deal with a problem, they try to change society.

Q: But you are describing India as the harbinger of a new world order; how, if the system doesn’t work?

How? It works out according to laws prevailing for the Centre. In other words, it is a vertical descent that takes place.Visualise it as the astronomical symbol of the Earth 

 with its four quarters delineated within a circle, you can understand what I mean. You have the vertical, and the horizontal. What is required for the Centre to come into being (for the entire globe) is a perfect meeting point of these two ‘directions’. That is where the USA comes in as the horizontal, the space element, the field. In India it is the vertical, – which America cannot provide, and is not meant to provide. You can look at it as the vertical being the spiritual element, the horizontal the material, to use Sri Aurobindo’s definition. It is the same thing and that is what this cosmology describes, each with its own ‘laws’.
When we go into these things deeply you realize that in this symbol of the equal cross you have described the very same thing, but using different terms – the vertical for one, and the horizontal for the other. This cosmological terminology is more ‘secular’ and therefore perhaps more acceptable to a larger section of the population.
The vertical means that things get done here as commanded and set in motion by the higher Power; and it has to be unknown to elements that might obstruct the happening. Yet at the same time it must make use of what is here on the ground, in the field. So you have the new independent India to come up and you have things arranged, as I am able to show in my written works, that from long ago a particular ‘line’ was established through whom this axis of India’s essential being is to be rooted in the Earth, and in the particular spatial point that this country occupies, – that is, the centre.

Q: In India things are set in motion by a higher power – that’s the vertical descent – and the rooting of this power in the country is what is taking place now. Is that what you are saying?

In a certain sense this is an updating of what in ancient times were known as the Lunar and Solar Dynasties. The main difference between the two lies in the fact that monarchies and their dynasties are obsolete. A ‘new way’ is required for the contemporary setting.
Thus, you have this family arising long before anything was known – what I call the Lunar Line – and before they themselves even had a sense of their own destiny. Admittedly, everyone had ‘a sense of destiny’ around the time of the Independence Movement because obviously that’s when they were all committed to and driven by a single aim. Many today lament the fact that that spirit is gone, and of course it is – it cannot last. But what happens when these things take place unconsciously is that other forces jump in and corrupt the atmosphere; and that is one reason why you have such rampant corruption in the country.
Most of what I am going to describe is hidden, except for what has appeared in my books since the mid 1970s. It all took shape without violating anything of what was being established as the New India – that is, the political process, the democratic process – without violating that but making use of it without anyone’s knowledge. If it had been known it would have been torn to pieces before maturity. So you have the Lunar Line furnishing a descending numerical sequence or formula of 9-6-3-0/1, which is the key to the entire process. And you have the Nehru family embodying that sequence through their births; that is to say, they cement those number-powers in the fabric of India’s temporal being. I won’t go into greater details for now. Suffice here to state that you start with Motilal Nehru, then you go to Jawaharlal Nehru and then to Indira Gandhi, and these fit that 9-6-3 pattern accurately.

Q: The first three members of the Nehru family, or what you call the Lunar Line, are the 9, the 6, and the 3 of your cosmological formula. How do you arrive at that?

The sequence of their births with their respective number equivalents is according to the ancient system I called the Mathematics of Unity – that is, by reducing through addition each sequence to a single digit. The harmony works both vertically and horizontally as below:

There are criticisms, often legitimate, about the role these individuals have played in the destiny of the fledgling nation. But you have to remember that they were constrained by the prevailing conditions of the times. Jawaharlal Nehru was a Fabian Socialist who saw that for India the only hope was the socialist order, and he passed this on to Indira. Now this seems absurd; we have moved away from certain basic tenets of socialism and are embarking on a very different course through the process of free-market globalisation. It is obvious that the tag of Socialist Republic as Indira Gandhi had inserted into the Constitution in the 1970s doesn’t make much sense today. Yet we cling to that label because it serves a certain political purpose for the government of the day, – such as, a system that works for the people, and only for the people. How accurate this may be is another question.
Having at this point no choice in the matter, we must accept the existence of this arrangement for the nation, called the Lunar Line for very specific reasons in this cosmology, but which must not be confused with a ‘dynasty’, as is commonly understood simply because it follows a biological configuration. Furthermore, the Line ends at the fourth level, and only the fourth; after that it is ‘politics as usual’! If all was centred on a particular political party it is simply because during that whole stretch of many decades, it was the only party that covered all of India. Things are quite different now. The cosmological pattern is very exact and it has played itself out to perfection.

Q: The Lunar Line ends with the fourth member, or the numbers 0/1. That would have been Rajiv Gandhi?

In this arrangement there are FOUR stages, 9/6/3-0/1. Once these number-powers are cemented in the nation’s destiny as a sort of axis, then the actual political process takes over; the descending movement reverses itself (at the Zero level) and a new direction is assumed: the horizontal proper. That is when the political process can take full shape. It is the level of the number-power 1, as here indicated:

Rajiv Gandhi    20.8.1944 = 1

After that fourth level the movement, as stated, is reversed and the horizontal and multiple take over. Therefore, it is entirely understandable that coalitions should come into prominence now.
This was meant to take care of the ‘outer circle’, something on the order of a relay station connected to the HEART of the new order which is the Solar Line. Metaphorically, we can view the arrangement as a pulsating heart (the Solar Line) setting in motion a ‘pulse’ to be carried through the Body (the nation) via its veins and arteries (the Lunar Line). Each one was elected and re-elected according to the demands of India’s fledgling democracy without violating those demands; but, I repeat, taking into consideration the prevailing circumstances, as well as the personality traits of each member of the Line, both Solar and Lunar. For example, Indira Nehru-Gandhi was the third in the Lunar Line. As a woman she had to work within the constraints her gender imposed, similar to Hillary Clinton today. Any woman who tries to come up knows the difficulties very well. Indira was no different.
Each one had a personality to deal with, we cannot ignore this fact. And they are going to accommodate themselves to the field they find when they take birth to accomplish their task.
All of this had to be respectful of both the existing conditions and the cosmological requirements for making of India the centre of the new Age, of the new world Order. I cannot pretend to describe all this in a brief interview but please note that this is very different from the label, superpower. I have explained it exactly as it is in the three volumes of my series, The New Way. It is a deep study that needs to be made. The point I wish to make here is that if it had been spelt out originally… if Sri Aurobindo had spelt out exactly how it was to take shape through the Solar and Lunar Lines, it would have been destroyed. Forces would have intervened to make sure it did not happen.

Q: Are you saying there is a corresponding Solar Line, which also follows the same numerical pattern of the 9, 6, 3, and 0/1?

Yes. The Solar Line is the main factor, the creative power working from ‘behind’.
These incarnations are often obliged to work day after day without the full understanding of how the process is going to take shape. I come along at the third level of Sri Aurobindo’s work, and things are much clearer for me. We‘ve gone through the 9 and 6 of their Solar Line, in harmony with the Lunar, albeit with a different function. But we see the same thing happening. You see that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the 9 and the 6, were able to do their work largely because nobody bothered about them. Even Sri Aurobindo did not spell out exactly what it was he was doing. Yet in his symbol its central Lotus, known as the Lotus of the Avatar, contains the Formula: two rows of petals, 9 and 6, respectively; and then 3 leaves. The way the Mother designed his symbol was exactly descriptive of the way it actually took shape. In the symbol

the 9 and 6 are together (in time) and attached to each other; then there is a gap (in time) and the 3 leaves complete the sacred Formula, which in the symbol stand alone and unattached.

This is a beautiful example of ‘Prophecy through Symbols’, which can be read only by those initiated into this unique language. I say ‘prophecy’ because the final ingredient of three

leaves reveals a gap (in time) since the birth described by this arrangement took place many decades after the symbol’s creation and was unknown to all concerned.
Almost like a relay station, the Nehrus did their part on the periphery; but then you see what happened toward the end – the assassinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. When things have to be done unawares, unconsciously, it allows for forces to come up and interfere.
You can’t say the course of things changes, but this indicates where you are in the process and how much remains to be done. Unless a certain proportionate group takes cognisance of what the new Harmony actually is, and for which purpose, those forces do take advantage of these ‘empty spaces’.
This is where India stands today, the role it is to play in the world had to be devised with nobody knowing what was taking shape.

Q: What do you mean the role it is to play in the world?
The role it is to play as the Centre, the central point to this circle which is the world, the Earth. It is a cosmological fact of our times that can be verified objectively; or better said ‘mathematically’ – but the new Order brings its own ‘science’, a new language to accommodate the new energies sent abroad upon the world.

Q: These are very powerful statements. You say India is the centre of the world?

No, not exactly. It is a temporal measurement we are discussing, the Centre of this 9th Manifestation which covers 6,480 years from 234 BCE. India is the centre for this period and it must provide everything that is required of such a Centre.

Q: Does India know this?

Sri Aurobindo made it very clear that the baggage of the old is very real. This is what he and the Mother had to deal with. I also had to deal with something on that order, but of a different nature; and I was very much protected in the beginning of my work. Really, it is only now that I am ‘coming out’, so to speak – because I had to spend decades perfecting this process and its cosmology to the point where it can be given out.Nobody can take advantage of this higher knowledge; you cannot misuse it, you cannot do anything with it now that would obstruct the process. You accept that there is a power arranging things beyond the scope of the human being; you learn to see it operating in the world and you realise that it can transform the world. If we wait for all human beings to respond – well, you tell me if that is realistic? India, because of her ancient traditions, should have no difficulty with that; cognisance of the reality as it has been arranged ‘from above’, so to speak, has not yet happened in India on a large scale. Hence there are usurpers.
There have been interferences; there have been – I can’t call them delays, because everything is so controlled by the inexorable arrow of Time – but there have been burdens to carry, and great difficulties in trying to inch forward, inch forward, to fall only to rise again and still move forward, you understand.
I think if people were to realise the existence of this harmony, this pattern that works for India, this 9, and 6, and 3, it would go a long way to easing the pain that arises precisely out of Unknowing. It has worked out to perfection because nobody knew of its existence. But at this point, at the third level of course it is possible to describe things previously left untold because they are largely seen by hindsight. Most of the protagonists involved have passed on, their work having been completed. One can now discuss what it all means because there is no possibility of interfering. The work, in large part, is done.

If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6, and 9
then you would have a key to the universe.

Nicola Tesla,scientist/inventor
1856-1943

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea) 2008