Movement for the Restoration of Vedic Wisdom

Have Auroville’s Failures made it a Danger to India and the World?

2011-08-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

By Robert E. Wilkinson ©

‘Thousands of years ago we were already being promised the advent of a new consciousness, a new world, something divine that would manifest on Earth, but all that was really said was, “it will be, it will be.” [Well]… the Miracle has happened... A new world, yes, a completely new world is born and here. Yet even now, there are very few people who are aware of its birth and of the difference it brings into the world.’ The Mother

As the Age of Pisces drew to a close the Mighty God Vishnu, preserver of the universe, took human birth as the 9^th in his Line of Ten Avatars. Under the impeccable control of Mahakala, the Time Spirit, his Avatar was born in Calcutta, India on August 15^th, 1872. The birth of Sri Aurobindo, as he was later known, marked the beginning of the most important series of events in the history of our planet. It was, said the Mother, ‘a decisive action direct from the Supreme’ heralding the advent of a new consciousness and a completely new world.

During their time on earth, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother worked tirelessly to bring down this new consciousness and create appropriate forms for its physical manifestation. The most important of these forms was the Mother’s plan for a Vedic Temple which was to be built according to the ancient science of ‘Vaastu Vidya’ at the center of the microcosmic world, which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had founded in Pondicherry; the point where its axial power could establish itself and bring harmony to the earth. But owing to the ignorance and bad faith of her disciples the Mother’s plan for her temple was systematically destroyed. One by one the elements of its sublime design were altered until not one was left intact. ^1. And when this abomination began to take form in concrete and steel, its mutilated dimensions began to produce calamitous effects in the field of its occult influence generating disunity and a palpable distortion of consciousness that continues on to this very day. The disciples who rejected the Mother’s plan and those who continue to live under the toxic influence of the aberration built in her name, express an almost blind resistance to the new Supramental consciousness. And because of the tamasic intransigence of these so-called devotees who have usurped control of Sri Aurobindo’s work and message, Vishnu’s Line remains unrecognized and unacknowledged and its incomparable influence on the earth’s evolution is virtually unknown.

Today the ‘City of Dawn’, named for Sri Aurobindo and designed by the Mother to be the living embodiment of this new consciousness, has failed utterly to live up to its promise. Rather than being a microcosm of human unity under the governance of the Divine, Auroville has become a botched experiment, a ward of the State and a stronghold of dogma and orthodoxy working at cross purposes to Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s express commands. What was intended to be the soul of their New Creation and cradle of the Supramental Being has instead become a wasteland of consciousness radiating confusion, distortion and disunity throughout India and the World. And if Sri Aurobindo has said, ‘whenever a single soul is realized, there is a tendency to an extension of the same divine self-consciousness in other individual souls of our terrestrial humanity’, what kind of extended terrestrial effect might we expect from Auroville’s obfuscation of the Gnostic realization for the last 43 years? Anyone familiar with the occult principles which the Mother observed throughout her life, and of which she was the greatest adept, will immediately recognize why Auroville’s continuing failures have made it a danger to the world and a willful impediment to Indian unity.

As we explore the genesis of Auroville’s failures we find that it follows an old and familiar pattern found in many spiritual communities. It is a well known fact that lesser mortals rush to fill the void and absence of authority once the guru departs. What inevitably follows is the formation of a cult that seizes the guru’s teachings and crystallizes them into a rigid mental dogma over which they preside as ‘owners’ of the new truth. It is widely known that this is exactly what took place after the passing of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. What was intended as a place for the realization of human unity, unending education and an aspiration for the highest truth quickly became a closed camp. Realization soon gave way to dogma and instead of the hierarchy of consciousness that the Mother envisioned, rule by the many of the lowest calibre became the norm. Qualities of goodwill, sincerity, a constant aspiration to know the truth and a willingness to submit to it, aptitudes demanded by the Mother of those living in Auroville, were supplanted by a rigid mental tyranny stamping out any opposition to the orthodoxy imposed by the usurpers. ^2. Under this cultish oppression all discussion stopped, thoughtful challenges to the ills of orthodoxy were rejected out of hand with the added insult that whoever disagreed with them was ‘deluded’, ‘schizophrenic’ or worse.

To illustrate just how intolerable this situation has become, one of Sri Aurobindo’s more thoughtful devotees, Harish Kumar, wrote an Open Letter to the entire Aurobindonian community asking why there is such a lack of meaningful discourse among serious students of Sri Aurobindo’s life and Yoga. Citing an article by Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet) regarding the revelation of the Supramental Formula contained in Sri Aurobindo’s very own symbol, Kumar writes:

‘…Thea's cosmology has proven empirically that Sri Aurobindo is Vishnu's 9th Avatar according to rigorous Vedic prescriptions, she has proven that Sri Aurobindo's most conclusive victory was the process of his death and return, what exactly that means in the Supramental Manifestation, and why it was necessary. She has presented the Formula he cemented in his own symbol and shown how it has worked meticulously in India particularly through two Lines, Solar and Lunar, and how the entire development of the new independent India has taken place according to His Formula.

Yet, we neither see an enthusiastic acceptance nor an informed criticism of her works. Why exactly are her prescriptions wrong? What exactly is the mechanism of the operations of Supermind, if not the one explained by Thea? We do not hear anything on these lines. Instead all we hear is mindless accusations levelled against her, ad hominem attacks, false charges and accusations of self-glorification from self-styled spokespersons of the community…’

To read the Full Text of Harish Kumar’s ‘OPEN LETTER TO THE AUROBINDONIAN COMMUNITY’

http://www.the-mountaintop.blogspot.com/

To date, there has been no response to Harish Kumar’s letter. His important observations and questions have been answered by the Aurobindonian community with a stunning silence. Of course, having rejected the existence of a Supramental empiricism and its attendant symbol language the community of devotees has NO UNDERSTANDING and NOTHING TO REPLY. This is the pathetic state of those claiming to be at the forefront of the most important spiritual work in human history. Yet these same people continue to hold themselves out as the final authority on Sri Aurobindo’s work and message. ^3. Their unexamined self-importance proceeds from an arrogant intellectual egoism that sees nothing yet thinks it knows all. It is the same brand of mental hubris that provoked the Mother to write the following about the disciples who rejected her temple plan:

“…what they see is all mental, They do not know. Who is there that knows? It is only when one sees. There is not one of them who sees...’ The Mother, Matrimandir Dialogues

It goes without saying that nothing has changed since January 1970 when the Mother made this remarkable observation. Today, no one in Auroville SEES and to disguise this self-evident fact, they have closed ranks and adopted a strategy of stonewalling and denial. And since the takeover by the Indian government in 1988, they are now accountable to no one. But the predictable fate of any ‘closed system’, as Auroville has now become, is a terminal collapse. Like a stagnant pond, its atmosphere has become toxic and grows more poisonous every day. And without the constant aspiration for and vibrant exchange of knowledge that the Mother demanded, it is simply impossible to keep the surrounding environment alive. The most poignant example of this stagnation malaise is revealed through Auroville’s failure to its children. In a 2010 report written on the youth of Auroville by Carissa Devine, a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, we find the following statement:

'...Auroville has not reached where it is supposed to be, and despair is a constant threat to its citizens, especially to its own children. Children are amenable; they are curious and teachable. That being said, they are a vivid reflection of the living culture in which they grow. But instead of having faith in Auroville, it seems that most of its offspring are barely holding on to hope… The old won’t let go, they won’t let the youth make their mistakes...Workshops and dialogue seem futile, we have done this. It is something bigger. We have gone through this process and the stubborn dogmatic attitudes stay....Even if you have six months training [to join an influential committee], they dogmatize you; if you don’t understand like them, you’re out!” Instead of feeling empowered and encouraged to express their creative will, they are feeling the weight of bureaucracy, a deadly stagnation for any society.’

‘Losing faith in faith: A brief examination of the youth in Auroville’, Carissa Devine - Fulbright Nehru scholar, 2009‐2010 [bold emphasis mine]

The thoughtful comments of this exceptional scholar testify to the unhealthy atmosphere in Auroville that is afflicting its children with hopelessness and despair. But Ms. Devine’s honest and objective appraisal of the situation barely scratches the surface of the underlying problem because the author does not have the keys to that Gnosis which would allow her to understand the situation at its core. For the most thorough analysis of Ms. Devine’s observations I have included a link to Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet’s commentary for students of the New Way.

A Commentary for students of the New Way on:

LOSING FAITH IN FAITH:

a brief examination of Carissa Devine’s report on the youth in Auroville

To read the Full Text of Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet’s commentary

http://pnb-questions-answers.blogspot.com/2011/07/auroville-gropes-in-dark-after-having.html

One could go on and on cataloging the problems of Auroville, its lies, fraud, and disobedience but the basic facts remain that after the passing of the Mother in 1973, there was a complete breakdown of order. Unremitting conflict between the SAS (Sri Aurobindo Society) and other factions led to charges of fraud, misuse of funds and lawsuits that finally concluded with the management of Auroville being taken over by the Indian government through a 1988 act of Parliament. This was against the explicit wishes of the Mother who had written earlier:

‘I do not know who told you that – but there is a misunderstanding somewhere because to hand over the Management of Auroville to any country or any group however big it may be is an absolute impossibility.’ The Mother, in a handwritten note, 1970, Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, p. 10.

But by this time, the Mother’s wishes were routinely ignored and Auroville was fully under the control of forces of deception, distortion, and misdirection that had lodged themselves at the heart of her new creation. In the years that followed every publication that issued from the Ashram or Auroville misrepresented the epochal work that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had come to achieve. And because it represented such a dire threat to their pretentions of authority, Auroville’s new rulers vehemently denied the continuation of Sri Aurobindo’s line and fostered the perception that He and the Mother had failed in their missions. In spite of their irrefutable bona fides, any mention of a Third and a Fourth in their line were and continue to be denied, suppressed or ridiculed by the Auroville elites. With only the blind to lead the blind the ignorance and toxicity of the community grew progressively worse. This fact was recently highlighted by the controversial book written in 2008 by Peter Heehs entitled The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. In the pages of this shameful text the author reduces his Guru to a ridiculous caricature and de-contextualizes his life and work in virtually the same manner that the Mother’s disciples systematically destroyed her temple. ^4. This has made it abundantly clear that nothing of truth or value can emerge from the black hole of consciousness that Auroville has now become.

On February 28, 1968, over 5000 people from 121 countries and 23 Indian states assembled in what was then the outskirts of Pondicherry and listened to the Auroville Charter being read out by the Mother. Today, the utopian township that was designed for 50,000 citizens has now dwindled to an adult population of barely 1,700 residents. ^5. We must ask ourselves WHY has a community that began with such promise failed so miserably? WHY are the children of Auroville suffering from hopelessness and despair? WHY were the disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who so generously supported their work defrauded of over 35 crores of rupees ($8 million USD) poured into the construction of a Matrimandir which was knowingly misrepresented to the public as faithful to the Mother’s original design? And WHY were the repeated attempts by persons of knowledge to correct this travesty and hold open and transparent hearings on the sacred dimensions of the Mother’s temple stonewalled and denied by the Auroville elites; people with vested interests who feared having their deceitful activities exposed to the light of day? The unavoidable answer to these questions is that for 43 years Auroville has been under the influence of ignorant forces hostile to the success and fulfillment of the Mother’s vision. If it were otherwise, given the incomparable wisdom that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother brought into the world, Auroville would be the most successful spiritual center on earth. But the facts do not lie, what we see in Auroville today is the truth of WHAT IS. And this leaves us no option but to agree with the Mother’s disgust and the statement she made about Auroville shortly before her passing.

‘Auroville will become what it must be: only if and when the people living there will stop lying.’ The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, 1973.

One of the great Sufi teachers of our time made a prescient statement that goes to the very heart of the issues raised in this paper. Describing the complex challenges of our times, Bulent Rauf, known to his students as Hamid wrote:

‘...It is those who have reached the knowledge of their essential unity with God who will forge the way and build a new world. Before this new world can be brought into being, however, it is said that there are to be two confrontations. The first confrontation will be between those who know and those who do not want to know and the second will be between those who know and those who will have to know.’ Hamid [bold emphasis mine]

The first of Hamid’s confrontations between those who know and ‘those who do not want to know’ is going on now with Auroville and the Aurobindonian community. The second confrontation, with those ‘who will have to know’ must be with the leaders of India.

As one of the greatest seers of all time, the Mother had a unique insight into the occult realities of India and the godhead that it represents. India is the natural habitat of Vishnu’s avatars and, as the center of our Aquarian age, the one place on the earth that could extend their yogic achievements out into the world. Looking deeply into India’s soul the Mother wrote the following:

‘INDIA is a divinely chosen country with a unique spiritual heritage. She is not the earth, rivers and mountains, nor simply the collective name for the inhabitants of this land. India is a living being, conscious of her mission in the world and waiting for the exterior means of its manifestation… India alone can lead the earth to peace and a new world order.’ The Mother: Words of the Mother. [bold emphasis mine]

But for India to realize this unique destiny and embrace her mission as light of the world, her leaders must be willing to open themselves to the incomparable wisdom that Sri Aurobindo and his line have unveiled. They must also discover the truth of India’s more esoteric realities and apply this knowledge toward the recovery of her true dharma. The first step of this journey must begin with a clear understanding that the origin of India’s destiny and the means of its external manifestation is written in her ancient Soul. As Thea, third in Sri Aurobindo’s line explains:

‘The destiny of India is guided by a power that descends directly from the world of the Truth-Consciousness; but unless the nation recognises this, it can only respond to a leadership of a lesser force and suffer the ensuing consequences.’ Thea, The New Way, 1981.

An indispensable part of the recognition that Thea mentions is an appreciation of the principles of a new Indo-centric Cosmology by which India is revealed as the Soul of the Earth. When the dynamics of this New Cosmology are understood, Auroville and the Ashram will immediately be recognized as microcosmic examples of the disunity and corruption that presently afflicts India herself. Moreover, they will be SEEN as a cautionary tale of the fate that befalls an individual, state or nation who rejects the truth and imperatives of their own Soul. If this degradation is to be corrected, Auroville must be brought into line with the demands of Truth and the needs of Indian Unity. There must be an immediate end to the obstruction and lies and full and open hearings must be held on the Matrimandir that has been so disingenuously put forward as true and faithful to the Mother’s original Vedic plan. The consequences of continuing inaction in these matters raises the spectre of a wider calamity for Auroville, India and the World. As the Mother warned:

‘Before dying, falsehood rises in full swing. Still people understand only the lesson of Catastrophe. Will it have to come before they open their eyes to the truth? I ask an effort from all so that it has not to be. It is only the truth that can save us; truth in words, truth in action, truth in will, truth in feelings. It is a choice between serving the truth or being destroyed.’ A message issued by the Mother on 26 November, 1972

Any thoughtful person cannot help but recognize that we have reached a major evolutionary turning point. We are living through the terminal stages of an old and dying world. But the New World is born and here, just as the Mother said, only it remains unknown, unrecognized and unattainable for most because the obscurantists in Auroville have suppressed the very knowledge that makes that New World visible. What is required for its realization is a determined effort from all to secure this new knowledge and move joyously into the future as conscious collaborators with Earth's emerging Soul.

******

For a full and comprehensive analysis of the New Cosmology, India’s unique role in the world and the means of its global manifestation, I have included a link to my article:

INDIA & The New Cosmology

An Analysis of Critical Present Events in the Light of Gnosis

To read the Full Text of Robert E. Wilkinson’s essay:

http://indiacosmology.blogspot.com/

Notes & Comments:

1. The Matrimandir and the History of its Deformation: - The Matrimandir Dialogues 31.12.69-17.1.70: http://www.aeongroup.com/momtem.htm While the facts of the destruction of the Mother’s Vedic Temple plan are beyond dispute, her devotees continue to hide behind a wall of impenetrable dogma refusing to discuss the issues that are indispensible for and provide access to the entire Supramental revelation.

2. Tyranny of Orthodoxy: In 1971 Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet moved from Rome to Pondicherry where she worked in close proximity to the Mother absorbing the supramental knowledge that She was giving out and that finally culminated in the plan for Her Temple. Patrizia was an active member of the Ashram, writing books, teaching classes, contributing articles to Mother India magazine and developing important relationships with many of the older sadhaks involved in Sri Aurobindo’s work. After the Mother’s passing in 1973, Patrizia became intimately involved in the activities surrounding the construction of the Matrimandir and in 1977 she wrote a 48 page memorandum for Ashram circulation only entitled ‘What is wrong with Matrimandir – A survey of its first six years, the effects it has produced and their world wide implications’. This memorandum detailed the entire Matrimandir saga from its inception with the Mother’s explicit instructions as to its meaning and construction as well as a chronology of Her followers systematic destruction of the Mother’s plan. Patrizia’s refusal to accept the distortions to the Mother’s true design earned her the enmity of the Auroville elites who, to this day, have done everything in their power to eliminate any mention of Patrizia from the ‘official’ historical record. In spite of her 16 books and hundreds of articles on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the Supramental Cosmology, Sacred Architecture and the Vedic scriptures, many of which have been warmly received by the Ashram Trustees and made part of the permanent record of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, you will find no mention of Patrizia on any of the Sri Aurobindo websites or the lengthy historical record of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s work carried on Wikipedia. After numerous attempts to correct the Wikipedia record and cite Ms. Norelli-Bachelet’s indispensible and ongoing contributions to their work, her students discovered that their carefully documented and respectful postings were systematically deleted by Wiki editors. In discussions that followed it was learned that members of the Auroconference group openly hostile to Ms. Norelli-Bachelet and her work had influenced much of this dismissive activity with regard to postings about Ms. Norelli-Bachelet.

3. Example of Authoritarian Hypocrisy: In 2007 Lynda Lester, president of the Sri Aurobindo Association and a member of the All USA Meeting (AUM) Continuity Committee co-hosted a panel discussion at the California Institute of Integral Studies entitled ‘Facing the Challenge of Integral Yoga Fundamentalism’. Her opening remarks read as follows, ‘Sri Aurobindo and [The] Mother did not want to found a new religion… but we do see a few examples of fundamentalism …’. Lester then proceeded through a list of four offenders the last of which is ‘a small but aggressive group of people following Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet who are into esoteric numerology and claim the Matrimandir is a temple of falsehood because the measurements are wrong.’ A conference billed by AUM as an opportunity for greater transparency to heal divisions, and build bridges of trust became yet another occasion to demean, denigrate, and deny anything that would reveal their long standing incompetence and bad will. Ignoring the Mother’s own criticisms that her followers, ‘… do not know... There is not one of them who sees’, Lester continued in that tradition by glibly rejecting an entire field of knowledge that the Mother singled out in her Agenda as essential to making the Supermind knowable. When the Mother wrote in her Agenda of the Supermind being intelligible through ‘Number, Planets and Principles’, she was referring of course to the ancient language of cosmology. But today, those of us who have bothered to study Plato and Pythagoras and appreciate how PNB has raised this sublime knowledge of measure to the level of a non-speculative Supramental empiricism, are considered by Lester and her cronies to be ‘fundamentalists’ and outside the bounds of Aurobindonian orthodoxy. It should also be noted that Number theory, while important as the Mother suggested, does not constitute the whole of PNB’s work as Lester tries to imply. Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet is the most prolific and widely published author on the subject of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in the world today. She is one of the world’s leading authorities on the Rig Veda and has published 16 books and hundreds of articles on Yoga, Myth, Time, Cosmology, Geo-politics, Sacred Architecture and the Vedic scriptures, many of which have been carried in India’s most prestigious newspapers and journals. She has been a keynote speaker at conferences around the world and also at a number of Indian national conferences on Vedic Culture and Cosmology, most recently the 2010 First National Conference on Panchanga Ganitam, sponsored by the Hindu Dharma Archarya Sabha. This is hardly the CV of a fundamentalist as Lester would have us believe. For Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet’s full curriculum vitae see: http://patrizianorellibachelet.com/TNWblog/?page_id=42

4. The Heehs Betrayal: In an attempt to defend the shoddy scholarship behind The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, Peter Heehs excuses himself from what should have been the only genuine concern of his biographical research by claiming that the revelation of Sri Aurobindo as the 9^th Avatar of Vedic tradition was a distracting hagiographic idealization in which he had no real interest.

‘…What about the assertion that Aurobindo was an avatar? I can’t say that the question interests me very much. Aurobindo never claimed the distinction for himself, and I don’t think anyone alive is in a position to say one way or the other…’ (Peter Heehs, from the Columbia website)

For persons of knowledge, the arrogance of this statement is simply breathtaking. Unfortunately it reflects a long standing attitude of the Auroville Brahmin who claim to ‘adore Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’ while simultaneously suppressing their work. It is as if the Vedic tradition of the Avatar is meaningless, even though it is sanctified by the Gita in Sri Krishna’s own words, and Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s as well. Moreover, Heehs’ contention that no one alive today is in a position to say one way or another belies an embarrassing lack of research on his part or, more likely, a calculated decision to ignore the volumes of objective proofs that have been published by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet and accepted as part of the permanent record of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives; an organization which lists Heehs as one of its founding members.

Given the voluminous and non-speculative proofs of Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric credentials on file in the Ashram Archives and Heehs ready access to this material, his only reason for making such a disingenuous statement is that he, like his cronies in Auroville, know that the Supramental proofs of Sri Aurobindo’s avatarhood also include the irrefutable credentials of the Third in the line as well as the details of Sri Aurobindo’s rebirth as the Fourth. Moreover, they know that any acknowledgement of these objective proofs would mean an immediate end to the rule of orthodoxy and its stultifying dogma that has reduced this most important spiritual work of the age to an arrogant, fundamentalist and elitist cult.

It is as if a cadre of hard line Tibetan Buddhist fundamentalists had taken over the Potala Palace and refused to acknowledge the rebirth of the next Dalai Lama so they could continue to indulge their self-important pretentions as the unchallenged leaders of their faith.

It is clearly time for this ignorance and hypocrisy to come to an end. For a detailed introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric credentials, see: http://circumsolatious.blogspot.com/2011/06/sathya-sai-baba-counterfeit-avatar.html

5. Census: - Auroville population June 2011 - http://www.auroville.org/society/av_population.htm

Response to Sameer Thakkar’s ‘The Max-Muller Syndrome: Distorting Hinduism’

2011-07-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

By Robert E Wilkinson

Debate and discussion of spiritual and esoteric philosophy is a time honored and established tradition in India and throughout the world. Its goal is to question, dispute, and continually challenge established dogma in order to arrive at a greater, more current, and integral truth. As someone who regularly participates in these debates and discussions I am used to the rough and tumble dialogue that arises from people with strongly held opinions and beliefs, but Sameer Thakkar's article goes beyond the bounds of intelligent discourse into fear mongering, misrepresentation, and lies. Instead of responding to issues of knowledge made in my original article, Sathya Sai Baba: the Counterfeit Avatar, Thakkar has introduced passages from my older articles, quoted completely out of context, in order to make Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet) and not me, the true focus of his attack. Why he would wish to do this becomes evident as we examine his claims.

Beginning with the title of his article, ‘The Max-Muller Syndrome: Distorting Hinduism’ Thakkar seeks to invoke the spectre of a colonial Christian missionary agent bent on the abuse and distortion of the Hindu religion. But curiously he makes no mention of Max Muller in his article. He immediately shifts his attention to a woman, Wendy Doniger, the controversial writer and Indologist who, according to Thakkar, is out to distort and demean the Hindu scriptures. He compares Ms. Doniger’s scholarly work to that of Christian missionaries and pseudo-mystics who wish to ‘exploit the tolerance of Hindus, deceive, manipulate, instill inferiority complexes, psychological slavery, hate, and the abuse of Hindu literature’. His attempts to cultivate an attitude of fear and distrust of foreigners was at first confusing but in the pages that followed It becomes clear that his intention is to associate in his reader’s mind Doniger’s unspeakable treason to Hinduism with another foreign woman, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet who he also wishes to demonize. While this may serve to inflame his readers, it is a specious comparison made by someone with no appreciation of the profound differences in consciousness that distinguish a scholar from a sage, let alone the quality of their work. But in either case Thakker, is plainly threatened by ideas and interpretations that run counter to his own rigid dogma and has an abhorrent distrust of foreigners and women in particular especially those in positions of authority.

Contrary to Thakkar’s backward beliefs, Hinduism is not a rigid monolithic system. It is a multi-faceted, constantly evolving, many staged quest of the human spirit seeking new and more complete aspects of the Divine consciousness. ‘It rejects nothing’, said Sri Aurobindo, ‘but insists on testing and experiencing everything and when tested and experienced turning it to the soul’s uses.’ This process is the very heart of Yoga and an indispensable necessity of the evolution. Indeed the whole edifice of Hinduism was built on the sacrifice, testing, realization, and experience of impeccable souls like Shankara, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Paramahansa Yogananda, Ram Chandra and more recently Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea. Each of these great realizers have produced numerous volumes of written works describing their discoveries and new application of their knowledge. What, we might ask, has Sameer Thakkar produced?

It is clear however, especially with regard to Vedic knowledge, that there is more to be done. The evolution continues and there are many more discoveries to be made, as Sri Aurobindo explains:

‘…because we do not understand the Vedas three-fourths of the Upanishads are a sealed book to us. Even of the little we think we can understand, much has been insecurely grasped and superficially comprehended.... For want of this key profound scholars have fumbled and for want of this guidance great thinkers gone astray.’ Sri Aurobindo, India’s Rebirth

For those of us who have bothered to study Thea’s works on the Veda and applied her incomparable knowledge to our own lived experience, it becomes self-evident that her cosmological discoveries will be the crown jewel of future spiritual realizations. She has unveiled that ‘Key’ to the mysteries of the Veda and opened the door to its greatest treasures. Because of this she speaks with the same confident authority and power as Swami Vivekananda did when he was challenged by a Madras pundit objecting to something he said that went beyond the teachings of Shankara. Vivekananda shot back, saying to the pundit, ‘Shankara does not say so, but I, Vivekananda say so’. Sri Aurobindo later pointed out that, ‘…what to the ordinary eye may seem as the Himalaya of egotism is not what it seems. It is the truth of Vivekananda’s spiritual experience, and the attitude of the fighter who as the representative of something great cannot allow himself to be put down or belittled.’

Religious fundamentalists like Sameer Thakkar who live in fear and suspicion, nursing old hatreds and prejudice find this kind of authority both threatening and infuriating. They believe that by attacking a Sage with accusations and ridicule they can undermine their authority and somehow elevate themselves. Producing nothing of their own, they find a kind of perverse power in the suppression, distortion and destruction of the achievements of others. Over the years I have come to think of these kinds of people as living reflections of our own darkness and negativity to be given no quarter and no basis for existence. Like the legendary vampires they hide in the shadows where they can wreak their havoc unobserved, but drag them out into the light of day and they will sputter and spit and burst into flames.

Moving on to Thakkar’s charges that my articles constitute a battery of assault on Lord Buddha, Sathya Sai Baba, Ken Wilber, Deepak Chopra, and David Frawley, it is evident from his comments that he has not bothered to read any of them. What we see instead throughout Thakkar’s article are unfounded accusations and innuendos that seek to discredit anything I might write and excusing anyone from actually reading it. But for those who insist on facts and want to make up their own minds about Thakkar’s veracity, here are the links to the articles on Deepak Chopra, Sathya Sai Baba, and David Frawley. Read them and draw your own conclusions. I will be happy to respond to any serious questions about their knowledge content. Contrary to Thakkar’s accusation I have written nothing that can be construed as an attack on the Buddha and my conversations with Ken Wilber took place on the pages of his own magazine, ‘Quest’. It was hardly an assault but rather a discussion of Wilber’s misunderstanding of Sri Aurobindo and his epochal work.

The Error of the Buddha - http://www.quantumyoga.org/ErroroftheBuddha.html

Sathya Sai Baba: the Counterfeit Avatar - http://www.rigvedacos.blogspot.com/

Reply to David Frawley’s “Call for the Intellectual Kshatriya” - http://www.quantumyoga.org/David-Frawley.html

Perhaps one of the most glaring examples of Thakkar’s limited knowledge is his treatment of a passage from one of my postings about the objective cosmic credentials of the Avatars. His complete lack of understanding of what was written about Time and Number is a perfect example of how certain higher truths can appear unintelligible to the uninitiated. Most scholars familiar with the writings of Plato and Pythagoras are aware of their profound discoveries in Number theory. ‘Numbers’, said Plato, ‘are the highest degree of knowledge’. Pythagoras went a step further saying that ‘Numbers constitute the true nature of things and set a limit to the limitless’. Thakkar, on the other hand, ridicules this knowledge as ‘exotic magic formulas of numbers, contrived theories and fancy terminologies ripped off from Sri Aurobindo’s work, designed to make his [rw’s] theories look intelligent’, and he makes this appalling statement with such unabashed authority. He appears to have no understanding whatever of the deeper function of number and their relation to the very structure of creation. Like Pythagoras and Plato before them, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother both acknowledged the symbol powers of Number and their relation to Sacred Geometry and Vedic Architecture. The basis of their Supramental Formula; the numbers 3-6-9, were also discussed by the scientific genius Nicola Tesla who once wrote, ‘If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have a key to the universe.’

When you weigh the wisdom of Plato, Pythagoras, Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Nicola Tesla against Thakkar’s statement that the numbers 9-6-3 are ‘nothing but an absurd formulae to predict the nature of the inconceivable Brahman’, you may begin to understand the depths of his ignorance. He has been through no initiation, engaged in no practice of yoga and yet he considers himself a credible authority equal to the greatest souls in human history.

Throughout the pages of his article Sameer Thakkar has viciously attacked and slandered Ms. Norelli-Bachelet and her work. I will not address his comments as she is quite capable of responding to this and has done so herself. Her reply may be found on: http://circumsolatious.blogspot.com in a posting entitled ‘An Interview with Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet regarding accusations that she is 'Distorting Hinduism'

Finally I would like to comment on Mr. Thakkar’s unsupported and erroneous claims about Sai Baba’s age and the reputed prediction of his own death. Any astrologer worthy of the name can look at Sai Baba’s true horoscope based on the date of birth in his original school records (October 4^th, 1929) and see the correspondences to his actual life. In astrology this process is known as ‘rectification’. In his true horoscope Baba had the planet Saturn at 24 degrees Sagittarius, a placement that indicates a problem with the bones of the hip and thigh, the part of the body ruled by Sagittarius. It is well known that Baba had a serious hip injury on August 9, 1988 when he slipped on the soap in his bathroom. On that day, the transiting planets Saturn and Uranus were both conjunct Baba’s natal Saturn, an event that only happens once every 28 and 84 years respectively. On June 4^th, 2003 Baba fell in his bathroom once again, this time breaking his hip in three places and requiring a surgical hip replacement. Once again, transiting Saturn and the progressed position of Uranus were in a malefic aspect to his Natal Saturn indicating further problems with the bones and hip. When you can see these kinds of events (not one but both) within the context of measurable astrological transits, there can be no question that October 4^th, 1929 was Baba’s actual birthday. You see none of these indications in a chart dated November 23, 1926. In addition you can also see the deaths of Baba’s siblings in the October chart as well as his own death in 2011 when Pluto, the planet of Death progressed into an exact conjunction with his natal Sun. Thakkar will no doubt dismiss this as simply another contrived theory but it clearly and scientifically establishes Sai Baba’s age at 81 instead of 85 and refutes the mind-boggling claim in a recent Chakra News article that his 85 solar years map out at 96 lunar years fulfilling Baba’s prediction of his own death.

I could go on and on pointing out the errors and inconsistencies in Mr. Thakkar’s article but I believe that I have given his readers more than enough information to expose his hidden agenda and counter his lies and misrepresentations. His article does not rise to the level of even mediocre scholarship. It is rather a fundamentalist tantrum, a disrespectful rant, full of denial, ignorant opinions, faulty logic, and unexamined prejudices. He offers no knowledge, no facts, no clarity yet he expects his readers to accept him as a credible scholar. This evidently is what now passes for the new level of philosophical spiritual discourse. When opinion is taken for wisdom and sensationalism poses as scholarship, when religious pathology becomes the accepted norm, and psychological projection is welcomed as objectivity, when slander and ridicule become the new standard of journalistic integrity, you may know without the slightest doubt that a great reckoning is at hand.

July 2, 2011

Notes:

For those who may be unfamiliar with the controversy surrounding Sai Baba’s age I am including the relevant passages from my article, ‘Sathya Sai Baba: the Counterfeit Avatar’. A copy of his original school records may be found at: http://77.170.120.22/ex-baba/engels/articles/schoolrecord.html

‘…After predicting that he would live for 96 years as his present avatar, Sai Baba died in April, 2011 at 81 years of age. This was the last of a mind boggling web of lies spun by Sai Baba to convince his followers that he was the living embodiment of Vishnu and the Avatar of the Age...

Sai Baba never missed an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. He took great delight at playing an Avatar, appropriating their sacred symbols such as Kalki’s White Horse and Shesha, the Aeonic serpent which he had made into a bed. But his most outrageous stunt by far was deceitfully insinuating himself into one of the most important events in Indian spiritual history. On 24 November, 1926, after a lifetime of yoga, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother sent word to their sadhaks asking them to assemble in the upper verandah of the Library House in their Ashram in Pondicherry to hear about something of supreme importance that had happened in the history of the Earth and Universe. On what was later to become known as ‘Victory Day’ or the day of Siddhi, Sri Aurobindo announced that Krishna, the Overmental Godhead had descended into the physical, meaning Sri Aurobindo himself. As the Mother explained, ‘…Krishna consented to descend into Sri Aurobindo’s body – to be FIXED there. Then I saw him – I saw him with my own eyes (inner eyes, of course), join himself to Sri Aurobindo’.

With the integration of the Overmental consciousness begun by the 8th Avatar Krishna, Sri Aurobindo could now retire to his rooms and begin the establishment of the Supramental Consciousness-Force. This event marked the true beginning of his mission, the platform from where he could carry the evolution to greater heights. Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi Day coincides with the close of the Age of Pisces and the beginning of the Aquarian Age that year. It was a victory for the whole world, because without it transpiring right on time, the Avatar could not have begun his transformative mission to bring down the Supermind. Upon learning of this momentous event many years later, Sai Baba changed the date of his birth from 4 October, 1929 to 23 November, 1926 and claimed that Sri Aurobindo was obviously referring to Baba who was supposedly born on the previous day (Nov. 23), and that he (Sri Aurobindo) had taken voluntary retirement after handing the reins over to the new God incarnate. While his followers continue to insist that November, 23, 1926 was Baba’s true birthday, a horoscope cast for 4 October, 1929, the birth date on Baba’s original school records, removes all doubt by indicating his passing in 2011 when Pluto, the planet of death, moved by progression into a conjunction with his natal Sun.’

The supporting charts mentioned in the article above may be found at:

http://www.quantumyoga.org/images/SaiBabaHip1.jpg

http://www.quantumyoga.org/images/SaiBabaHip2.jpg

http://www.quantumyoga.org/images/SaiBabaDeath.jpg

Sathya Sai Baba: the Counterfeit Avatar

2011-06-05T05:19:00.000-07:00

By Robert E. Wilkinson

With the recent death of India’s most controversial ‘godman’, Sathya Sai Baba, it was not at all surprising to see Tina Sadhwani’s articles on the Chakra News (http://www.chakranews.com), eulogizing her guru in the most superlative tones. The passing of someone that one believes to be the physical incarnation of God is an understandable blow to an individual who has become identified with the worship of such a vital and charismatic being. Barely a week had passed before Ms. Sadhwani began to publish the lines of a complex mythology and dogma that would encourage the faithful to turn their unquestioned devotion to Sai Baba into a religion. This kind of embellishment often happens following the death or departure of one’s spiritual teacher, but Ms. Sadhwani’s excessive and idealized account of Sai Baba’s importance and her liberal use and distortion of Sri Aurobindo’s words to support her contention that her guru was one of Vishnu’s final Avatars demands to be answered in the most specific and unequivocal terms, for it is one thing to mythologize one’s guru out of all proportion from an abundance of devotion but quite another to deceive the public on matters of indisputable knowledge in the hope of converting them to a common belief.

Given the critical importance of Vishnu’s appearance in our present Aquarian age, there can be absolutely no mistakes about his identity, his position in the Line of Ten Avatars, and his evolutionary mission. Tina Sadhwani’s unsupported claims that Sai Baba is an Avatar simply do not rise to that level of knowledge and cheapen the meaning and purpose of the Dasavatars and their inextricable link with the Sanatana Dharma and its renewal. In order to fully understand who and what the Avatar is, we must return to the font of Indian myth and spirituality and, like scientists, explore the irreducible principles that give rise to such a preeminent legend.

Indian Myth and Legend of the Avatar:

India is the only nation in the world that can lay claim to a recurring history, eternally relevant and faithful to her ethos and cosmic culture, and the Vedic tradition of the Avatar is one of the most important symbols of her periodic renewal. Her Gods, Goddesses and creatures of the Vedic pantheon contain a profound knowledge of the dynamics of creation, beyond even the comprehension of modern science. Her principle deities, Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu, the Preserver and Shiva, the Destroyer, are the very embodiments of the cosmogonic forces behind the operations of the universe and their myths tell us how reality came to be. Vishnu is the preservation aspect of the trinity and represents that all-pervading power which maintains the universe and the cosmic order. He is the personification of goodness and mercy and periodically intervenes in terrestrial evolution by descending to earth in a human incarnation known as the Avatar.

When and Why Vishnu takes human birth is a matter of supreme cosmic importance involving vast cycles of time and profound archetypal influences. His periodic appearance not only punctuates the stages of our collective becoming, but radically alters the course of human events. In the 4^th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna explains to his student Arjuna some of the external circumstances surrounding his periodic appearance:

‘…Knoweth thou this, O Prince, that whenever the world declineth in virtue and righteousness; and vice and injustice mount the throne - then cometh I, the Lord, and revisit my world in visible form, and mingleth as a man with men, and by my influence and teachings do I destroy the evil and injustice, and re-establish virtue and righteousness. Many times have I thus appeared; many times hereafter shall I come again.’ Lord Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita, Part IV, Spiritual Knowledge

In her articles, Ms. Sadhwani has quoted this familiar passage to support her contention that Sai Baba was an Avatar but can she make that distinction simply on the basis of a predicted return during a time of social disequilibrium? If the term ‘Avatar’ is ever to become anything more than a meaningless honorific given indiscriminately to anyone’s guru, as Ms. Sadhwani has done with Sai Baba, it must be defined by an infallible and integral knowledge that allows us to identify Vishnu’s incarnations beyond any shadow of a doubt. In chapter 11 of the Gita, Lord Krishna reveals his ‘Supreme Countenance’ to the trembling Arjuna giving him a glimpse into the nature of that higher knowledge and the means by which it might be attained:

'The greater Form that thou hast seen is only for the rare highest souls. The gods themselves ever desire to look upon it. Nor can I be seen as thou hast seen Me by Veda, or austerities or gifts or sacrifices; it can be seen, known, entered into only by that bhakti which regards, adores and loves Me alone in all things.' Lord Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad Gita , Part XI, 52-54, The Universal Manifestation

In this passage it is made abundantly clear that a vision of Krishna’s ‘greater form’ is only for the rare highest souls, Initiates who have entered into that most coveted knowledge through a process of identity or ‘Gnosis’. Only those with eyes to see, said Sri Aurobindo, ‘can bow down and confess the Avatar’. Initiatic knowledge cannot be attained through logic, reasoning, diligent study, or scriptural interpretation, it is based on Self knowledge gained through the revelation of a lived spiritual experience. Its most fundamental feature is a consciousness of Unity, forged in the fires of a life-long tapasya, that allows us to rise above the separative consciousness of our present mental species and see from a poise that casts no shadows. Part and parcel of this Self-knowledge is the nature of one’s relation to the Cosmic Harmonies and the innermost mysteries of Time. This is the highest truth, the truest perception, the Vision of visions reserved only for those rare highest souls, because it is Time itself which reveals the cosmic credentials and true identity of Vishnu’s Evolutionary Avatars.

The Scheme of Avatarhood:

In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna says to Arjuna, ‘I appear millennium after millennium’, but exactly when in these millennial cycles does he take birth? The matter is made clear in the Rig Veda 1.154 with Vishnu Trivikrama’s three steps to measure the universe. According to the Veda, his first step is like a Lion (Leo); the second step is a Bull (Taurus); and his third and highest step is the Friend (Aquarius). For those with eyes to see, Vishnu’s strides take him through the Fixed signs of the Cosmological Ages. Being the Preservation ‘Guna’ of the Trimurty, these are Vishnu’s own zodiacal signs and represent the exact points/ages in the cosmic cycle when he descends to Earth as the Avatar. What is truly remarkable is that Vishnu’s steps are given in a backward moving order which parallels the Earth’s backward movement through the signs in a phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes. This is a clear indication that the Vedic Rishis had a far more advanced understanding of cosmology than was previously believed. By measuring the Earth’s movement through the 25,920 year Precessional cycle, we discover that Vishnu intervenes in terrestrial evolution every 6,480 years by descending to earth in the form of the Avatar. He incarnates on the earth in the signs of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and our current Age of Aquarius and comes at a time when the earth is under the influence of dark and evil forces.

When the scheme of Avatarhood is observed from these millennial heights it becomes apparent that Vishnu’s incarnations mark out meaningful points of progression in the Earth’s consciousness, a ‘parable of the evolution’, to quote Sri Aurobindo. But how does this evolutionary design correspond to the Line of Ten Avatars and what determines the order of their appearance? In order to fully appreciate this evolutionary parable, one must first understand the nature of the ‘INVOLUTION’ and, most importantly, exactly what is involved in the first place.

Involution, the Supreme Mystery:

We are told by a seer of impeccable credentials that the greatest mystery of creation, the means by which the Unmanifest enters into the Manifestation of itself is through a process of contraction and compression to a Seed, that precious bija, that miraculous Hiranyaretas known in the Veda as Agni. All of the attributes that we can conceive of in the Transcendent Divine are drawn, by its own power of manifestation, into the Seed of Itself. Because of this and from the beginning, writes Sri Aurobindo, ‘the whole development [of the universe] is predetermined in its self-knowledge and at every moment in its self-working - it is and moves to what it must be by its own original Truth, and will be at the end that which was contained and intended in its seed.’ This involutionary principle which all things must obey from literally the first instant of creation is none other than TIME as it evolves in our material universe from the seed of itself.

The process of human birth follows this very same principle with all life evolving from an original seed or embryo. The gestation of the human being occurs over a period of nine (9) months culminating with the birth of that which was originally involved. We find this same pattern of correspondences described in the Vishnu Purana in the form of the ‘Nine Creations’. And if we look at the Line of Ten Avatars within this context, we can easily see that the evolution of consciousness follows the same pattern. As Sri Aurobindo tells us, ‘Evolution is an inverse action of the involution…what was original and primal in the involution is in the evolution the last and supreme emergence’.

The Vedic Yoga:

The nature of Evolution in Time is an indispensable knowledge for those who would plumb the deepest mysteries of the Veda. Its secret wisdom, obtained through practice of an ancient yoga, reveals that the initiatic journey of the Rishis is not a journey through Space as many believe, but a journey in Time through the Year and its Twelve Months, the central figure of the Veda around which the Sacrifice is conducted, and it too follows the pattern of a nine month labor with a victorious birth in the tenth, as Sri Aurobindo explains:

‘...In other words, it is when the nine-months’ sacrifice is prolonged through the tenth, it is when the Navagwas become the ten Dashagwas by the seven-headed thought of Ayasya, the tenth Rishi, that the Sun is found… but what is meant by the figure of the months? For it now becomes clear that it is a figure, a parable; the year is symbolic, the months are symbolic. It is in the revolution of the year that the recovery of the lost Sun and the lost cows is effected, for we have the explicit statement in X.62-2… “by the truth, in the revolution of the year, they broke Vala”…’

‘The expression in the hymns, daso maso ataran, indicates that there was some difficulty in getting through the full period of ten months. It is during this period apparently that the sons of darkness had the power to assail the sacrifice; for it is indicated that it is only by the confirming of the thought which conquers Swar, the solar world, that the Rishis are able to get through the ten months…’

‘I hold for you in the waters the thought that wins possession of heaven by which the Navagwas [nine] passed through the ten months…’ (V.45-11)

‘This victory is won in twelve periods of the upward journey, represented by the revolution of the twelve months of the sacrificial year, the periods corresponding to the successive dawns of a wider and wider truth, until the tenth month secures the victory…’ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, 1915.

The Vedic sacrifice, as Sri Aurobindo reveals it, follows the same line as the Avataric parable because each of Vishnu’s incarnations represents an unveiling of a particular involutionary stage; ‘their periods corresponding to the successive dawns of a wider and wider truth’. Since the journey of the Individual and the appearance of the Line of Ten are both interrelated expressions of the same transcendent Being, it is through the lived yogic experience that one is initiated into the mysteries of the Avatars and by Usha, the Dawn Goddess.

Once possessed of this higher knowledge of Time and Divine Alchemy, the identity of the Avatars is no longer a matter of speculation and guesswork. Just as a competent scientist knows the position of each element in the Periodic Table based on its atomic properties, electrons and protons, and can even predict the discovery and proper position of new elements, the seer has realized a greater face of truth which of itself sets each piece in its rightful place. With this realization we are able to identify the time of the Avatars appearance, his position in the Line of Ten and the details of his evolutionary mission. Moreover, it becomes abundantly clear who is and who is not an Avatar.

The Cosmic Order of the Avatars:

If we apply this knowledge to the most renown of Vishnu’s emanations, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna, it is clear that they are the 7^th and 8^th Avatars of Vedic tradition. Lord Rama was born in the 7^th Manifestation some twelve thousand years ago in the Age of Leo. He was what is called a ‘Solar’ manifestation and details of his epic, the Ramayana, reveal him to be the IDEAL or Sattvic man. Lord Rama’s purpose was to fix for the future the possibility of an order proper to the sattvic civilized human being who governs his life by reason, the finer emotions, morality, and higher Mental ideas. The story of the Ramayana Epic revolves around Rama’s love and devotion to his wife Sita, an unmistakable theme of the 7^th zodiacal sign, Libra. The plot of the epic involves the abduction of Sita by the demon king Ravana. In his pursuit to rescue Sita, Rama assembles an army of allies who attack Ravana’s army, slay the demon king and reunite Sita with her loving husband, thus restoring balance and order to the world.

Lord Krishna, the 8^th Avatar was the Overmental Superman. He was born in the 8^th Manifestation around 3,100 BCE in the Age of Taurus. He was a ‘Lunar’ manifestation as the meaning of his name ‘the dark one’ implies. The most important document of Sri Krishna’s teaching is the Bhagavad Gita, revealed during the battle of Kurukshetra. The discourse between Krishna and his student Arjuna centers around War, Duty and Death, an essential knowledge for the ‘Kshatriya’ or Divine Warrior. As all initiates know, the subjects of War and Death are the preeminent themes of the 8^th zodiacal sign Scorpio, a sign ruled by Mars, the God of war.

Following this progression of Time and Archetype we would naturally expect the 9^th Avatar of Vedic tradition to appear in the 9^th Manifestation in the Age of Aquarius. He would be a Solar manifestation and the overarching theme of his life and mission would correspond to the 9^th sign Sagittarius, which represents a body of higher knowledge. Since we are told by a member of Sri Aurobindo’s own line that Vishnu’s 9^th Avatar would immediately return as the 10^th, in keeping with the Rig Veda injunction, we must view their appearance in the context of the culmination of the Vedic journey. What makes these final incarnations so absolutely unique is that they represent the last and supreme emergence of that original involutionary principle, Time. While Ram and Krishna prepared the soil for the conquest of Time, it is not until the concluding members of the Line that we see the complete apotheosis of Time as the ultimate feature of an integral Gnosis. We must expect therefore that their teachings would represent a radical reversal of an old transcendental spirituality whose strategy involved a complete denial of Time and Matter in order to reach the opposite pole, Spirit. Moreover we would expect Vishnu’s final Avatars to open an entirely new path for humanity, one that can at long last resolve the ancient paradoxes and unite the poles of Spirit and Matter through the instrumentality of Gnostic Time.

Our expectations of the 9^th Avatar are overwhelmingly realized in the person of Sri Aurobindo. He was born in the 9^th Manifestation and ushered in the Aquarian Age. He was the epitome of the Solar manifestation, born under the sign Leo which is ruled by the Sun. Considered to be one of India’s greatest sages, not simply of this age but of all ages, Sri Aurobindo fulfilled his Sagittarian mission by producing hundreds of volumes of an all-embracing and profound philosophy that has been described as a contribution to human thought the equivalent of which has not been attained by any other known thinker. Any serious student of Sri Aurobindo’s life and yoga will immediately recognize that his work represents a radical departure from all previous spiritual paths. It challenges thousands of years of traditional wisdom that believes a transcendence of the physical world to be the highest possible attainment. In an epochal reversal of direction, Sri Aurobindo and his line have presented humanity with a New Way, an entirely new direction that foresees the possibility of A MATERIAL UNION WITH THE DIVINE, one that takes us into the core of this world of matter and the innermost mysteries of time. The principal feature that unites these two realms within a single Integral Vision is a New System of Measure, a non-speculative formula that reveals the utter perfection of a Supramental Consciousness as it deploys itself on the Earth.

The coming of the Avatar, the sole purpose of his birth, is to renew the eternal truths and restore the Cosmic Order. That ‘Order’ is unmistakable in the lives and missions of the 7^th, 8^th and 9^th Avatars whose epic adventures reveal a seamless progression in consciousness from the Mental, to the Overmental, and finally to the Supramental Creation. With each of Vishnu’s ‘steps’ dawns a wider and wider truth revealing that the ‘spiritual evolution’ follows the same principles of the ‘biological evolution’, a progressive unfolding in time revealing new and more complete aspects of the Divine consciousness. Because of this orderly clockwork, each Avatar was bound by the constraints of the Time Spirit and could only complete his mission within the context of a stage in a larger evolutionary plan. As Sri Aurobindo explained, ‘…the whole development [of the universe] is predetermined in its self-knowledge and at every moment in its self-working’.

Rectification of the Ages:

Knowledge of this progressive unveiling of consciousness is invaluable when applied to the differentiation of historical spiritual teachings loosely defined as the ‘Perennial Philosophy’. It allows us to sort through what has been lumped together under the heading of ‘Enlightenment’ and put these disparate realizations in their proper category and order. This also permits us to follow the vector of the evolution and locate the dimensions of being under the greatest pressure for change. The great majority of Hindus, for example, believe that the Buddha was the 9^th Avatar. But we know that he was not and could not have been one of Vishnu’s sequential incarnations because he was born around 560 to 550 BCE near the beginning of the Age of Pisces. In the early centuries of that age the evolving consciousness of the race was founded on three rather than four pillars of being; the Physical and Emotional in the service of the Mental. The highest, (Spiritual) was completely lacking or dormant. At this ‘station’ of development, the great sages of the Piscean era including the Buddha were limited in their higher perceptions by the vibrational limitations inherent in the Mental consciousness. Despite their sincere aspirations, their discoveries could never admit of anything higher than a dissolution of the nexus of consciousness which held them in the world. Buddha called his experience of dissolution ‘Nirvana’ - a state of pure Being, equanimity and peace; an emptiness without form that grants liberation from this so-called ‘illusory world of becoming’. Lao Tze, the Chinese sage who lived around the same time, expressed his realization in much the same vein calling it, ‘The Nothing that is All’, and we find this same transcendental language later on in the teachings of Shankara, founder of the Advaita Vedanta school, who described ‘Moksha’ as a realization where one does not feel oneself any longer to be an individual with a name or form, but an infinite, eternal, space-less consciousness. From the limited evolutionary perspective of these renowned sages, life has no meaning or purpose. It is an illusion – ‘Maya’ that can only be remedied through a strategy of escapism based on a denial of oneself, the soul and the world. According to these teachers, Salvation, if it exists at all, may only be found in the transcendence of the world in some after-death ‘Heaven’, Advaitan ‘Moksha’ or ‘Nirvanic’ Void. When Sri Aurobindo was asked to comment on the efficacy of these paths of dissolution he replied, ‘…A great extinction is not God’s last word…[Nirvana] is not as many believe the ending of the path with nothing beyond to explore, it is the end of the lower path and the beginning of the higher evolution’. Kalki, said Sri Aurobindo, will come to correct the error of the Buddha.

As we move forward in time some 2,000 years we come to the Age of Aquarius, Vishnu’s ‘highest step’ and the appointed time for the appearance of the 9^th Avatar. With the continuing evolution of our species new and greater spiritual heights have opened to our view, The Mental has given way to what Sri Aurobindo and his line have called the ‘Supra-mental’. But our global society is still dominated by the nihilistic religions formulated in the Age of Pisces and because of the burdens of these past beliefs, our modern world teeters on a razor’s edge between madness and catastrophe. Each passing day bears witness to a world arrested by the atavistic beliefs of religions long past, with many still locked in some form of convert or kill mentality. It is clearly time for Vishnu to mount the throne and restore the eternal truths that will re-establish the dharmic path of virtue and righteousness. But, says Krishna, ‘…as the years have passed, the noble teachings have declined and their light has grown dim’. Who is it that can SEE the bringers of the light and how do we recognize them?

The Counterfeit Avatar:

As the Age of Pisces came to a close some of India’s most impeccable souls took birth to usher in the new age. Two of her brightest spiritual lights and forerunners of Sri Aurobindo’s own mission were Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and his student, Swami Vivekananda. Together with the likes of Sri Ramana Maharshi and Paramahamsa Yogananda they inspired a vibrant renewal of Indian spirituality that literally circled the globe. It was a period of palpable light and energy that renewed the Age and paved the way for Vishnu’s final Avatars. But where there is extraordinary Light, there are also extraordinary Shadows and those who would usurp these emerging energies for their own dark designs. The Veda calls them, ‘…sons of darkness who have the power to assail the sacrifice’. And for Victory to be assured, these pretenders must be brought out of the shadows and into the light where they may be exposed for who and what they really are. This brings us full circle and back to the matter of Sathya Sai Baba, the supreme poser and usurper of the light. After predicting that he would live for 96 years as his present avatar, Sai Baba died in April, 2011 at 81 years of age. This was the last of a mind boggling web of lies spun by Sai Baba to convince his followers that he was the living embodiment of Vishnu and the Avatar of the Age. In order to discover the truth or falsity of his unsupported claims, let us examine his life and teachings in the light of gnosis.

Unlike the iconic spiritual teachers listed above, Sai Baba presented himself as a gaudy caricature of an Indian godman. From the age of 13 he began to make the most outlandish claims about his incomparable divinity as well as his past and future lives. By his own account, he is the God Avatar of an entire Aeon, the embodiment of Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, and Shakti all in the same body, and there has never been another like him. Being a consummate showman, Sai Baba never missed an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. He took great delight at playing an Avatar, appropriating their sacred symbols such as Kalki’s White Horse and Shesha, the Aeonic serpent which he had made into a bed. But his most outrageous stunt by far was deceitfully insinuating himself into one of the most important events in Indian spiritual history. On 24 November, 1926, after a lifetime of yoga, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother sent word to their sadhaks asking them to assemble in the upper verandah of the Library House in their Ashram in Pondicherry to hear about something of supreme importance that had happened in the history of the Earth and Universe. On what was later to become known as ‘Victory Day’ or the day of Siddhi, Sri Aurobindo announced that Krishna, the Overmental Godhead had descended into the physical, meaning Sri Aurobindo himself. As the Mother explained, ‘…Krishna consented to descend into Sri Aurobindo’s body – to be FIXED there. Then I saw him – I saw him with my own eyes (inner eyes, of course), join himself to Sri Aurobindo’.

The Danger of Miracles:

According to The Hindu, one of India’s leading newspapers, Baba’s early reputation was built on a series of miracles. He is reputed to have had the ability to produce vibhuthi (holy ash) or rings or miniature Shivalings out of thin air. An occasional wrist-watch was also ‘manifested’ for his more generous worshipers, each curiously bearing a factory-imprinted serial number. Baba never tired of telling his followers: ‘My power is immeasurable; my truth is inexplicable, unfathomable. All of the conceivable powers of the universe are resident in this palm’. But whether he had an actual siddhi or produced these so-called miracles through sleight of hand as the watches suggest is a moot question. Every genuine realized being since Patanjali, (c. 250 BCE - founder of the Yoga system of philosophy), has warned against the ostentatious demonstration of miracles as a dangerous distraction to both the performer and his followers. Sri Ramana Maharshi said that ‘powers’ such as these were ‘below the plane of Self-realisation’ and warned that they were more likely to inflate the ego than eliminate it. And Swami Vivekananda ruthlessly looked down upon so-called miracles as the greatest stumbling block in the way of truth. When the disciples of a genuine realized being told him of a man who had performed a so-called miracle and showed him the bowl he had produced, he took it, crushed it under his feet and told them never to build their faith on miracles again, but to look for truth in everlasting principles. From these examples, we can see that there is universal agreement among genuine enlightened beings that there is a plane of consciousness, a dangerous zone of transition between the ordinary consciousness and the realization of true yogic knowledge. Sri Aurobindo called this the ‘Intermediate Zone’ and describes in detail the pitfalls that can befall the unsuspecting traveler:

‘…Overwhelmed by the first rush and sense of power of a supernormal condition, they get dazzled with a little light which seems to them a tremendous illumination or a touch of force which they mistake for the full Divine Force…[one] feels himself freed from the normal limits…filled and enlarged and exalted; what comes associates itself with his aspirations, ambitions, notions of spiritual fulfilment and yogic siddhi; he is carried away by the splendour and the rush, and thinks that he has realised more than he has truly done, something final or at least something sovereignly true…one may take up one's abode in this intermediate zone, care to go no farther and build there some half-truth which one takes for the whole truth or become the instrument of the powers of these transitional planes’. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga

Anyone who has followed the career of Sai Baba cannot escape the conclusion that he is wholly a creature of the Intermediate Zone and has become an instrument of vital beings whose sole purpose is to usurp the higher truths of the Supramental age through a process of distortion, misrepresentation, and lies. It is additionally known by experienced occultists that one of the costs of maintaining one’s power on that vital plane is a huge increase in one’s sexual appetites. The heated controversy surrounding Sai Baba’s alleged pedophilia has been taken up elsewhere but it bears pointing out that when the United Nations, the British Parliament and the U.S. State Department all issue warnings of inappropriate sexual behavior involving youths and children by a prominent local religious leader at an ashram located in Andhra Pradesh, these charges are undoubtedly true. But owing to a timid Indian media, cowed by Baba’s wealth, power and influence, the facts of these appalling events, including the 1993 murder of four young boys in his bedroom, were either suppressed or explained away as if they never happened. The children, who had come to confront Baba on the matter of their sexual abuse, were summarily executed by a hail of bullets from the Puttaparthi police. Immediately following this tragic event, the entire murder investigation was closed down by a confidential government order with no charges registered and no official report. One can only wonder how a man like this has managed to convince tens of millions of people that he was Vishnu’s highest manifestation, the God Avatar of an entire Age.

Gurus and Pretenders:

Spiritual personalities are complex and difficult to understand. Their claims of divinity, knowledge and power come from such a subjective level of experience that they confound all objective proofs. Only those at the same or a higher level of development can know the total pattern of their behavior. But according to Sai Baba, he is utterly unique and there has never been another like him, so how can we evaluate the validity of his claims? For most devotees this is an impossible dilemma and they are forced to fall back upon unquestioned belief which results in the loss of identity, personal power, and ultimately, responsible consciousness. Given the powers of conviction that arise from the unconscious projection of one’s own divinity onto an external god figure and the peer pressure of other members of the cult, the unwitting devotee finds himself overpowered by a commitment en masse that overrules all common sense. The result is blind obedience and a complete identification with the myth of the group. We can see an example of this devotional fervor in Ms. Sadhwani’s recent articles that glorifies Sai Baba out of all proportion without a shred of evidence to support her dogmatic claims.

For persons of vision however there is a tried and true method of evaluating the competence and spiritual bona fides of someone claiming to be God. The evidence lies in the quality of their teachings and the profundity of their knowledge. But to find the unvarnished truth, the architecture of their philosophy must be examined with the precision of an engineer, dismantling layer after layer until the core of their realization stands revealed. Only then can it be understood within the context of an integral spectrum of knowledge. When we apply this test to the written works of Sai Baba, we can see that his teachings are broken down into two subcategories; fully half of his message falls in the category of meaningless self promotion, with the balance being an eclectic mix of Advaita Philosophy and a patchwork metaphysic reminiscent of the age of Pisces. There is nothing new, nothing original and absolutely nothing that might justify the title of Vishnu’s Avatar.

Time and the Supermind:

In an earlier part of this article the Line of Ten Avatars was discussed in relation to the evolution of consciousness on earth. Sri Aurobindo had told us that the Evolution was simply an inverse action of the Involution. Since Time was the original element and factor in the involution, it would be, in the evolution, the last and supreme emergence. Indeed, the 10^th and last of Vishnu’s Avatars is known as Kalki, a name that derives from the Sanskrit root word ‘Kal’ which means Time. There can be absolutely no question that an identifying hallmark of the Supramental Avatars would be a new revelation of Time. We see nothing of this newness in the teachings of Sai Baba. His discussions of Time hearken back to the realizers of the Piscean era who saw it as an illusion and an impediment to spiritual liberation. But for Sri Aurobindo, Time was an obsession which he pursued until his passing in 1950. He was seeking the consolidation of a formula which might reconcile the Timeless Infinite and the Time Spirit deploying itself and organizing all things in time. He carried us to the portals of this discovery in his epic text, The Synthesis of Yoga and closed the book with a chapter entitled, ‘Toward the Supramental Time Vision’. What Sri Aurobindo ultimately revealed was that the last and supreme emergence of the Time spirit, its final unveiling, was the basis of a Supramental Gnosis.

‘The nature of Supermind is that all of its knowledge is a knowledge by identity and oneness. The Spirit is one everywhere and always. It knows all things as itself and in itself and therefore knows them intimately, completely, in their reality as well as their appearance. By concentrating on anything whatsoever, we are able to know that thing and make it deliver up its concealed secrets. This is the faculty of Essential Cognition, it always cognizes the essence, the truth. There is not even a trace of false knowledge.’ Sri Aurobindo

To the eye of Gnosis, the whole creation in its act of becoming reverberates with meaning and purpose and it is Time that makes this vision intelligible. Contrast this with the nihilistic teachings of Sai Baba:

‘…the world is maya (illusion), The cycles of birth and death are all fanciful weavings, illusory agitations and unreal appearances…. The ultimate refuge for man, the goal he ought to seek, the thing that I have come to give you is liberation itself…man will at last endeavor to know the secret of permanent joy and peace, that is to say, of moksha, liberation from the cycle of birth and death’. Teachings of Sathya Sai Baba

According to Sai Baba, there is no meaning and purpose in the world. The highest goal of human life is spiritual liberation, known by such names as moksha, nirvana, and mukti. These phrases which characterize Baba’s entire realization have been lifted word for word out of the age of Pisces some 2,000 years ago. And because of his ignorance of Time and the cosmic harmonies, his teachings on the Veda are irredeemably flawed. While he extols the Veda as the highest possible knowledge and a direct path to God, he cannot tell you the first thing about how to follow that path.

‘…Mother Veda has been kind to her children - the human race. To sanctify its cravings and to uplift the race, she has posited the concept of Time - and its components, the years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds. Even gods were declared to be bound by Time. The individual or Jiva is caught in the wheel of Time and Space and rotates with it, unaware of any means of escape. But, really he is beyond the reach of Time and Space. The Veda is bent upon the task of making him know this Truth, and liberating him from this narrowness.’ Sathya Sai Baba, Eternal Truths

The Vedic Calendar:

Another indication of Baba’s immature realizations about time and the Veda may be seen in the ashrams and temples that bear his name and the errors in their ritual Calendar. According to the Rishis, the Vedic truth-consciousness is grounded in an experiential awareness of the sacrificial year and its twelve months:

‘Certain eternal worlds are these which have come into being, their doors are shut to you (or opened) by the months and the years. Without effort one world moves in the other, and it is these that Brihaspati has made manifest to knowledge’ Rig Veda (II.24.5)

The sages carefully prescribed ritual celebrations that were designed to bring about an experiential awareness of the cosmic truths through a process of repeating and reliving precise points in the sacrificial year. The most important of these points in the ritual calendar, the heart of the Vedic mysteries, is the ‘Makar Sankranti’, a time when the gods and goddesses can touch our world and revitalize our very souls. The true cosmological point of the Makar Sankranti begins with the change of the Sun’s direction from the Lower Hemisphere (Daksinayana) to the Upper Hemisphere (Uttarayana) and its movement into the 10^th sign Capricorn and house of the 10^th month victory. The Makar Sankranti is also the Winter Solstice, the perihelion of the Earth’s annual orbit of the Sun and the shortest day of the year. It is an astronomical fact, known by every school child, that the Winter Solstice falls on December 21, yet most celebrants, including Sai Baba and his followers, observe the Makar Sankranti on January 14^th some 23 days after the fact. If Sai Baba is the fullest manifestation of the Time-Spirit and has come to reset the cosmic clock, why did he adhere to a discredited Nirayana calendar system which has literally dissolved the sacred and eternal truths of the Veda into the mists of Sidereal time? He may boast that he is the very incarnation prophesied to restore the Sanatana Dharma, but he has, in fact, led his millions of followers on a path of Adharma.

Sai Baba’s complete lack of understanding of the Vedic yoga and its deepest cosmological mysteries bears testimony to one of Sri Aurobindo’s most revealing statements about the limitations of the Piscean realization : ‘...for some two thousand years at least no Indian has really understood the Veda.’ His statement confirms what has been written here about the unveiling of the Veda’s highest truths being an event that can only begin with Vishnu’s Aquarian Avatars and their Supramental realization.

In Conclusion:

From the preponderance of the evidence presented here, even the most skeptical reader must agree that there is simply no possibility of Sathya Sai Baba being one of Vishnu’s Evolutionary Avatars. Despite Ms. Sadhwani’s specious claims, he bears none of the identifying qualities unique to the Line of Ten. On the contrary, he bears all of the qualities of a poser, usurper, and denier of the light. Sai Baba lied about his birth, lied about his death and almost everything in between. While the real Avatar was in the thick of an evolutionary yoga designed to bring down the Supramental light, Baba was busy building a cult following of millions of people through which he amassed a fortune of billions of dollars. His extraordinary success was the result of decades of shameless self promotion to easily impressed, superstitious and disillusioned people desperate for an experience of cheap grace. Now that he is dead, his millions of followers have to come to terms with an uncomfortable truth: if Sai Baba was not who he said he was, or perhaps even worse, did not know who he truly was; who is this person that they have projected their hopes, dreams and indeed their own divinity upon? To their own terror many will soon discover that they have been led down a centerless Piscean path leaving them vulnerable to the play-out of an old and dying world. There will be no ‘Prema Sai’, or third incarnation of the ‘Sai avataric lineage’ prophesied to uplift mankind in the dawning of a new golden age. In the light of Gnosis this prediction is a complete and utter fantasy designed to distort and obscure the New Supramental Creation that has already descended. In his 824 page Epic poem, Savitri, which is to the Aquarian Avatars what the Ramayana and Mahabharata were to the 7^th and 8^th, Sri Aurobindo describes something of this extraordinary event.

‘In Matter shall be lit the spirit's glow,

In body and body kindled the sacred birth;

Night shall awake to the anthem of the stars,

The days become a happy pilgrim march,

Our will a force of the Eternal's power,

And thought the rays of a spiritual sun.

A few shall see what none yet understands;

God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep;

For man shall not know the coming till its hour

And belief shall be not till the work is done.’

Savitri -- A Legend and a Symbol), Page: 55

Indeed God has grown up while ‘wise men’ like Sai Baba talked and slept. And those of us who SEE are bound by a sacred trust to maintain the purity of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s truth by exposing the forces of deception, distortion, and misdirection who would usurp the descending light and drag the world back into a medieval darkness.

It is doubtful that the true believers of Sai Baba will be open to any criticism of him no matter how well intentioned or carefully documented. Like the Indian newspapers who published glowing obituaries, they prefer instead to focus their attention on Sai Baba’s philanthropic works and his simple spiritual homilies. Indeed, how could a man like this be anything other than what he claims? It never occurs to them that behind the miracles and powers taken on their face as divinity, there is a dark vital force in revolt against the truth, although they have been given ample and frequent confirmation. But having chosen belief over real knowledge, like all cults, they have become enchanted by their own projection and can see only what will support and enhance the illusion. Baba’s well documented lies, perversions and distortions are brushed aside, dismissed as unacceptable distractions to the always just out of reach promise of Liberation. Had they chosen knowledge over mere belief, they would recognize the obvious contradictions in Baba’s teachings. For how can someone who claims time and again to have come to bring us the final goal of life, the ultimate refuge; liberation into a permanent joy and peace beyond the snares of time, space and form, also claim that he is here to restore the Sanatana Dharma. The two statements are mutually exclusive. Sanatana Dharma literally means ‘Eternal Law, Truth and Order which holds everything together’, a definition that begs the question; law, truth and order of What? It is obviously not a formless truth beyond the portals of time and space. Sanatana Dharma deals with the truths of this world and can only be restored as an expression of Time, Form and Measure. As Sri Aurobindo reminds us in his commentaries on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, ‘…it is time alone that makes the ordering of the universe in space possible’. These eternal laws and principles are encoded in India’s ancient DNA and form the ‘Core’ or Soul of her being. Any talk of a glorious Indian Renaissance must begin with the recovery and renewal of her Dharma and Soul. But how is this ever to occur through Sai Baba’s nihilistic strategies of Liberation and ‘moksha’? This is the supreme lie, the greatest falsehood, and the root of all of India’s problems for the last 2,000 years of her history. A true renaissance cannot arise from a center-less Piscean void. To the eye of gnosis Sai Baba’s teachings are full of these half-truths and errors willfully designed to pervert and distort the very foundations of the Dharma. And yet we see Baba’s followers mindlessly parroting his baseless claims that he came to accelerate the long overdue restoration of the Sanatana Dharma. But if the world is Maya or illusion as Baba claims, what is the point?

Most of Baba’s devotees are likely to ignore the issues of knowledge made here, dismissing them as meaningless philosophical rhetoric overshadowed by personal feelings, visions and illuminations gained through their guru’s presence. But with Baba’s recent death the object of their worship and center of their spiritual universe is no more. What they will soon come to realize is that they have followed Baba’s path of Liberation at the forfeit of their own souls. Without the physical presence of the guru to sustain the projection of their own divinity, belief will give way to doubt and their faith and confidence will begin to crumble. In her articles Ms. Sadhwani tries to rally the faithful saying that, ‘…every Sai devotee bears a greater responsibility now in joining forces for upholding and carrying forward this majestic vision and world-transforming mission’. She attempts to focus their attention on the future, on the promise of Prema Sai and a new world order, but this too is a ruse, a diversion put forward to redirect their original projection toward a mental religious ideology without any real knowledge to sustain it. The predictable result is an existential crisis brought about by an untenable conflict between belief and reality. The millions of Sai devotees who formed the ranks of a global spiritual cult will gradually succumb to doubt and disillusionment and without the financial support of the faithful and their ability to proselytize new converts, the organization will collapse. Devotees need only watch what happens in the months and years ahead. Without its iconic leader, Sai Baba’s empire will slowly implode. This has already begun with a bitter battle for control of his money and his myth. And soon, Baba’s $5.5 billion dollar foundation will likely be confronted by the same tardy justice that rocked the Roman Catholic church costing them over $3 billion in sexual abuse claims. And in the end, all of those open to the light will learn who and what Sai Baba truly was; a cautionary tale proving to us that we should not seek miracles or visions or lights or etheric forms, we should instead pursue a solid path - the Vedic way of Knowledge and Realization. We must BECOME light and SEE IN UNDERSTANDING.

June 5th, 2011

Notes:

(1.) In the spirit of full disclosure it should be noted that Ms. Sadhwani has lodged a strong objection to the following statement:

‘…This kind of embellishment often happens following the death or departure of one’s spiritual teacher, but Ms. Sadhwani’s excessive and idealized account of Sai Baba’s importance and her liberal use and distortion of Sri Aurobindo’s words to support her contention that her guru was one of Vishnu’s final Avatars ^1.demands to be answered in the most specific and unequivocal terms…^’

Her objection is as follows:

‘…Now nowhere in my articles have I claimed that Sai Baba was the final avatar of Vishnu. Neither
have I mentioned the Vishnu Puran's dasavatars that Wilkinson keeps referring to. I have provided my own conceptualization of the Avatar that has nothing to do with the Purans and on the contrary I have even linked Sai Baba as the Shiva-Shakti avatar.’ Tina Sadhwani

Despite Ms. Sadhwani’s claims to the contrary, she uses the term ‘Avatar’ repeatedly in her articles, a concept which is unique to Hinduism and defined as ‘a manifestation of the deity Vishnu, in human, superhuman or animal form’. Vishnu is that All-Pervading essence that supports, sustains, and governs the Universe and originates and develops all elements within. He is also called 'Preserver of the universe' and is always discussed in conjunction with the Cosmic Order and ‘Line of Ten Avatars’ as I have done in my article. Since there is wide agreement that there have been Eight (8) Avatars, any reference to present incarnations of Vishnu involves the completion of the line through his final Avatars.

Ms. Sadhwani’s claims that she is using her ‘own conceptualization of the Avatar’ is simply not true. This is clearly evident in her citations of the Bhagavad Gita where she quotes the passage where Krishna gives a discourse to Arjuna describing his periodic return and purpose as being to rejuvenate the Dharma. As any good Hindu knows, this is a function exclusive to Vishnu as described above. She goes on in her article to present other attributes of the Avatar as contained in the language of Hinduism:

‘…It has been said that at every turning point and every great epoch of the earth’s existence there has often been one extraordinary being standing at the leading edge of light, unravelling the consciousness in which the transcendent descends into the physical, in which the cosmic pulse of the universe converges to a point, to a singularity that is at once human with its manifested boundaries, as well as suprahuman, displaying its infinite capabilities. Both heaven and earth have collaborated in the sacred alchemy of such a creation and in the divine birth of such an extraordinary being. In the language of the Hindus, such a sacred being is referred to as the Avatar. He is the direct, super-conscious descendent of the same force that shapes the universe and renders it its harmonies and balance. He symbolizes the unity of all existence and the pinnacle of the divine intelligence that is diffused in all things.

To many around the world who have experienced him, Sri Sathya Sai Baba, is the living embodiment of such a force and spiritual descent, that unifies all the planes of existence, from the cosmic to the planetary and finally to the individual, guiding humankind to the next stage of evolution, signifying the ultimate transformation and alchemy of Spirit and opening us to the possibilities of a higher dynamism, a higher principle by which we may actualize our own greatest potentials.’ Tina Sadhwani - Sathya Sai Baba, the Divine Alchemist, Chakra News April 19th, 2011

For Ms. Sadhwani to say that has been misinterpreted is pure nonsense. She defines ‘Avatar’ using the exact terms that describe the essence of the Godhead Vishnu. She then attributes these divine qualities to Sai Baba for the purpose of bearing up his own ridiculous claims that he is Vishnu’s avatar, that he was Rama and Krishna, and that he is Kalki. If she has mentioned 'avatar' it has nothing to do with Shiva or Shakti, it means the Vishnu Line of Ten. Sai Baba himself made this perfectly clear by having a photo shoot of himself as Kalki, white horse, sword and all. And then, if this wasn’t enough, he fashioned his bed as if he were Vishnu laying on Shesha. All this simply bears up the point made in the article that Ms. Sadhwani is misleading the public in important factual matters for the furtherance of her own personal agenda. For me to state that Ms. Sadhwani has ‘distorted Sri Aurobindo’s words to support her contention that her guru was one of Vishnu’s final Avatars’ is unequivocal and factually correct. RW

(2.) A detailed account of how Sai Baba attempted to usurp the epochal events of Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi Day on 24/11/1926 by changing the date of his birth from 4 October, 1929 to 23 November, 1926 and then claiming that Sri Aurobindo had taken voluntary retirement after handing over the reins to Baba. http://allchoice-barin.blogspot.com/2008/07/day-of-victory.html

(3.) Documentation and relevant links concerning the Sex Abuse claims against Sai Baba as noted by UNESCO, the UK and the US State Department. < http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/14/

A number of important documents are listed (and/or scanned) here which bear relevance to the exposure of Sathya Sai Baba and the crimes of which he stands accused by alleging victims and others.

UNITED KINGDOM PARLIAMENT EARLY DAY MOTION on Sathya Sai Baba and the sexual abuse of children.

U.S. DEPUTY OF STATE WARNING TO TRAVELLERS In 2001 The US State Department issued a warning to travellers in Andhra Pradesh - which officials confirmed related primarily to Sathya Sai Baba. This warning has never been revoked, though since 2007 it ceased to figure in the official document. http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/14/India%20-%20Consular%20Information%20Sheet.htm

UNESCO MEDIA ADVISORY WARNING AGAINST SATHYA SAI BABA This advisory was issued by UNESCO when it withdrew its intended participation in a Sathya Sai Education Conference due to serious allegations of sex abuse investigated thoroughly by UNESCO officials.

Misc.

In a passage from a manuscript of one of the Mother’s students, Satprem, we find a record of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram's ‘bright period’ in 1926, when the Mother had made an Overmental creation and the gods were beginning to manifest. Satprem quotes the Mother as saying: ‘In 1926, I had begun a sort of Overmental creation, that is, I had brought the Overmind down into matter, here on earth (miracles and all kinds of things were beginning to happen). In the end, Sri Aurobindo told me it was an Overmental creation, not the Truth. These were his very words: 'Yes, it's an Overmental creation, but that's not the truth we're seeking; it's not the truth, the highest truth,' (The Supramental). I made no reply, not a word: in half an hour I had undone everything—I undid it all, really everything, cut the connection between the gods and the people here, demolished absolutely everything. Because you see, I knew it was so attractive for people (they were constantly seeing the most astonishing things) that the obvious temptation was to hang on to it and say, 'We'll improve on it'—which was impossible. So I sat down quietly for half an hour, and I undid it all. We had to start over again with something else. But I said nothing, I told no one about it except Sri Aurobindo. At the time I let no one know, because they would have been completely discouraged.’

*****

‘Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth, -truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result, instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half-truth, half-error. It is this that some of the ancient thinkers like Shankara, not perceiving the greater Truth-Force behind, stigmatised as Maya and thought to be the highest creative power of the Divine. All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives in only a half-knowledge. Therefore it is called the Ignorance. Falsehood, on the other hand, is not this Avidya, but an extreme result of it. It is created by an Asuric power which intervenes in this creation and is not only separated from the Truth and therefore limited in knowledge and open to error, but in revolt against the Truth or in the habit of seizing the Truth only to pervert it. This Power, the dark Asuric Shakti or Rakshasic Maya, puts forward its own perverted consciousness as true knowledge and its willful distortions or reversals of the truth as the verity of things. It is the powers and personalities of this perverted and perverting consciousness that we call hostile beings, hostile forces. Whenever these perversions created by them out of the stuff of the ignorance are put forward as the truth of things, that is the Falsehood, in the yogic sense, mithyii, moha.’ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Book I, Section Six: The Divine and the Hostile Powers, December 2, 1946, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1946.

Bibliography and Suggested Reading:

India’s Most Sacred Texts:

The Rig Veda: The Vedic Experience, by Raimundro Pannikar. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1997.

The Vishnu Purana: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition (Translated from the Original Sanskrit) by H.H. Wilson, Dec 31, 2010.

Bhagavad-Gita: The Song of God by Swami Prabhavananda, Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley Jul 2, 2002.

Ramayana Valmiki by Swami Venkatesananda and Valmiki, State University of New York Press; Concise edition, May 1988.

Mahabharata: The Greatest Spiritual Epic of All Time by Krishna Dharma, Torchlight Publishing, August 15, 1999.

Selected Works by Sri Aurobindo:

Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1940.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, 'Toward a Supramental Time Vision', Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1976.

Sri Aurobindo, The Upanishads, 'The Great Aranyaka', Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1971.

Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1972.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, December 2, 1946, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1946.

Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga: ‘The Process of Evolution’, Volume: 13, Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings, September 1909.

Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, 1995.

Sri Aurobindo , Savitri: A Legend & A Symbol - Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India, 1951.

Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga: ‘The Yoga and Its Objects’, Volume: 13, Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings, September 1972.

Sri Aurobindo, India’s Rebirth, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 2001.

Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo On Himself: The Present Darkness and the New World, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, India 1950.

Selected Works by Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet)

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), The New Way – Volumes 1 & 2, Æon Books, New York, 1981.

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), The New Way – Volume 3, Æon Books, 2005.

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), The Gnostic Circle, Æon Books, 1975.

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), The Hidden Manna: Being the Revelation called Apocalypse of John the Divine, Æon Books, New York, 1976.

Thea (Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia), Time and Imperishability, Æon Books, April 1, 1997.

Thea, The Vishaal Newsletter, ‘The Capricorn Factor: India’s Lost Measure and its significance for the world’, October 1987, Volume. 2, Number 4.

Thea, ‘The Nine Nights of Durga: the Destiny of India across the century in a new Cosmological Paradigm’, 17 November, 1999.

Thea, ‘Secrets of the Earth: Questions and Answers on the Line of Ten Avatars of Vedic Tradition’, March 2009

Thea, ‘Cosmology in the Rigveda - The third premise’ published in 'The Hindu', 9 July, 2002.

Thea, ‘Sri Aurobindo and the Condition of Vedic Wisdom in India’ The Movement for the Restoration of Vedic Wisdom, 2 February, 2007.

Thea, ‘A Calendar that Unifies: Questions and answers on reforming the Hindu Calendar’ 6 March, 2009.

Thea, The Vishaal Newsletter, ‘Culture and Cosmos - 3: The Evolutionary Avatar in the Cosmic Harmony and in Contemporary Vedic Culture’, Volume 7, Number 6, February, 1993.

Thea, ‘An Interview with Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, India’s True History Is In Its Myths’, Published in Bhavan's Journal (English) Volume 54 Issue Number 1, 15 August, 2007.

Selected works of Sathya Sai Baba:

A Compendium of the Teachings of Sathya Sai, Charlene Leslie-Chaden, Sri Sathya Sai Towers Pvt Ltd, March 7, 1997.

Online Selections of Sai Baba’s Writings - Sri Sathya Sai Baba Divine Teachings, http://www.saibaba.ws/teachings.htm

Articles by Tina Sadhwani:

Sathya Sai Baba, the Divine Alchemist, Chakra News, April 19th, 2011

The Sai-Evolution, A Dharmic Odyssey, Chakra News, May 3rd, 2011

http://www.chakranews.com/the-sai-evolution-a-dharmic-odyssey/1238,
http://www.chakranews.com/sathya-sai-baba-the-divine-alchemist/1213)

Supermind and the Calendar – any Connection?

2011-01-23T08:08:00.000-08:00

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet

Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology

January 22, 2011

Those who follow the websites dedicated to Sri Aurobindo and the supramental Yoga may be puzzled reading Lori Tompkins’ latest contribution, failing to see any connection between the calendar and his work. Actually there is no other area of contemporary Indian life that better reflects the need for his intervention than in matters relating to the Hindu Calendar in use today and officially established by a group of scientists under the auspices of the Government in 1953. What transpired then in this issue crucial to society as a whole, reflects better than anything else the hold of the old spirituality over the civilisation. And certainly we realise that one of the main objectives of Sri Aurobindo’s mission was to loosen that hold and finally to introduce the new ‘direction’, as I call it.

The problem surfaced then because Jawaharlal Nehru realised that a unifying calendar was required for Hindus and he believed that science had to take the lead to cement further the division between astronomy and astrology, the latter being synonymous with superstition in his eyes. This slow distancing between the two began a millennium earlier with the system propagated by scientists finally overtaking the world of higher knowledge several centuries ago; the result is that a total confusion exists in matters that had always been crystal clear.

The word cosmos means order. This is certainly not applicable to the cosmic connection in post-independence India, thanks to the intrusion of science in matters beyond its purview. Rather, the truth is that time reckoning, as it stands today, has lost all claim to higher knowledge because of what I call the Ayanamsha Chaos. The discovery of the correct zero starting point of the circle (ayanamsha) of time measure is the most important element for establishing Order in these matters. At the same time the chaos we find in this area displays the same corruption that plagues Indian society on numerous levels due to vested interests of various sorts. The only difference is that we would never expect to find this disease in sacred matters.

I realised this very early on when I saw the confusion perpetrated by the numerous almanac writers in order that by the ‘uniqueness’ of their respective ‘more accurate’ ayanamsha they might further the sale of their ephemeris by gathering more followers for their system over others. This unfortunate situation, a virtual commercialisation of the Sacred, was displayed at the Conference to which I was invited to speak;[1] it seemed to encapsulate everything that needs to be transformed if India is to rise to the occasion and fulfil her higher destiny as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and confirmed by the new cosmology. Interestingly, this fulfilment hinges on putting order in matters cosmic insofar as this civilisation is the only one surviving that can still trace a connection to the ancient past before orthodox and exclusivist religions did away with that Tradition in the first millennium. With that dismissal any hope of a continued cosmic connection was lost, since the Feminine Principle stands at the heart of any discipline wherein the Divine Maya, or Measure, is required. And the new faiths dismissed the Feminine with concepts that equated it with evil; or, as in Advaita, a beguiling temptress to be resisted and finally dismissed as mere insubstantial illusion. India held on to the connection for several centuries, but eventually succumbed to the wave that swamped the entire globe during the first millennium. The current Hindu calendar entirely reflects the hold systems like Advaita or Mayavada have over the psyche of the civilisation.

What has this to do with Sri Aurobindo’s work? Certainly mention of the Divine Maya should make at least the first step in drawing the threads together easier for the student of Sri Aurobindo’s work to grasp. And from that first lead we arrive at the core of the matter which is his avatarhood. The connection between Supermind and the calendar is not suspected because most of his followers do not realise that he was Vishnu’s 9^th Avatar. As tradition tells us, the Vishnu Avatar comes when the Dharma has reached its lowest ebb, certainly the current situation. His task is to re-establish that Dharma. But herein lies the root of the confusion because we all have different ideas of what that might be and what it might entail for contemporary society. But if we study carefully his life and work – factual and not only devotional – the method to carry out the transformation, in this case embracing an entire society and civilisation, becomes clear.

This is where an enlightened calendar becomes essential. There has to be a means to carry all of India (its majority population in fact) forward on a single course; but insofar as the universal calendar in use throughout most of the world is the same used in the Vedic and Sangam eras, it is evident that wisdom prevailed when at Independence that was the calendar adopted for civic purposes. In so doing the forefathers took the nation closer to its Vedic and Sangam roots – and thereby closer to the fulfilment of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s goal. At this point it must be mentioned that this was the calendar used in their Ashram in Pondicherry from its inception until today – and not the Hindu calendar governing temple observances and horoscopy. Some might argue that this is because they wanted to distance themselves from ritual and even astrology; but this was not the case. They did so because the Hindu calendar is wrong and needs to be discarded.

The result of the Ayanamsha Chaos is quite simply to divide-and-rule; a very clever and almost invincible tactic in fact. The only method to unite 80% of the energies of contemporary Indian society is by the adoption of the calendar Sri Aurobindo and the Mother used as the basis for all their observances: the universal calendar which is also the one explained in the following verses from the Rig Vedic:

Twelve spokes, one wheel, navels three.

Who can comprehend this?

On it are placed together

Three hundred and sixty like pegs.

They shake not in the least.

(Rig Veda 1.154.48)

At this point I must be more specific. It would not have been possible to establish the cosmic credentials of Sri Aurobindo as the 9^th Avatar in the Line of Ten with the current Hindu Calendar – which should make it obvious why this was the favoured strategy of the Ignorance to keep the truth of the Supramental Avatar’s credentials from being discovered. It can also reveal why there are so many ‘avatars’ today since the system adopted for temple rituals and horoscopy can be termed ‘relative’, to suit the relativism of contemporary science; whereas when the Vedic cosmic credentials exist there is no place for relativism which allows for imposters and confusion to abound. Those credentials are discernible only via the universal Vedic calendar.[2]

If we study the happenings surrounding the Vishnu Avatar’s work over the past three decades – i.e., from the time of the Mother’s passing – we note that the seeds of undermining took root then and have developed into hardy trees. The same confusion we observe in the nation we observe in Ashram and Auroville affairs. Certainly it is not far-fetched to look for a single root cause, especially since Sri Aurobindo’s work seeks to bring about a transformed India and the world. Thus the state of the nation cannot be overlooked, nor the condition prevailing in the laboratory of his work. And if this exercise is carried out from 1970 to today, culminating with the First National Conference to reform the Hindu calendar, the correspondence is all too clear.

However, the connection with Sri Aurobindo’s work would not at all be clear without the Mother’s contribution – again, factual not imaginary. Enter the calendar that makes applicable what would otherwise remain trapped in the transcendence of philosophy.

I realise that introducing, as I must at this point, the Mother’s original plan of the Inner Chamber of the Matrimandir will raise the hackles of Aurovilleans. But since this is the decade of exposure, none can escape this fate. Exposure is the divine Strategy to loosen the hold of the Ignorance over the world. Therefore, the truth of the matter is that without considering her contribution, not the revised version of the architects, I would not have been able to link conclusively the calendar controversy to their work by having offered the most complete documentation possible of the original plan to prove the point. Whoever has studied that documentation (Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, www.matacom.com) cannot fail to appreciate the connection – and, more importantly, the solution.

The Mother’s plan is Vedic to the core – though not many so-called Vedic Astrologers would agree since they would not recognise hers as being in any way a true Vedic temple.[3] In fact, the Mother’s is the new Indian temple architecture for the new Age. It does not destroy the earlier foundation, which is still valid in spite of the latter-day Ayanamsha Chaos, but it builds on those foundations without any need of tearing down the great accomplishments of the distant past. The need of the hour is to remove the ‘cobwebs’, as I have called them, that have accrued around the truths of the Vedic Age. At the same time an updating is demanded to APPLY the sacred sciences to contemporary society precisely by introducing the new cosmic language the Mother left us before her passing. That is, the process has to be creative and not destructive, if it is to be revealed as supramental, as the fruit of a truth-conscious inspiration.

The means to do so creatively is to re-establish the same foundation and point of conver-gence as in the Vedic Age – that is, the Year. This was the focal point of the Vedic Sacrifice; it is the very same focal point of the Mother’s original plan of her Chamber. More astonishingly, the Ray – gau/cow of the former Age – has materialised the Divine Measure before our eyes today since as per her original plan, the length of the Ray (gau) corresponds exactly to the Year of 365 days. This is the first time in the history of the sacred sciences that we find the harmony of Time and Space captured in architecture. These remarkable facts can be ascertained through the tho-rough documentation on the Matrimandir Action Committee’s website: www.matacom.com. They leave no doubt that the Mother has brought the Vedic Temple into our new Age, given it a new and transformed Body as it were, in a way that can satisfy both science and spirituality. Her original plan contains all the details of that third way beyond both science and spirituality, which she described as the solution to the conundrum of their polarity. Regarding the Chamber’s core, where opposites are supramentally reconciled, she declared it to be the symbol of the future realisation. Those who deny her this ability and accomplishment have played right into the hands of the Underminers.

The Mother’s inner chamber locates the two ‘years’ that we must use for time reckoning in an evolved society: the space year which begins with the Spring Equinox (northern hemisphere) of March, and the time year which is situated in the calendar year on January 1^stas per her mathematical plan. That most of the world observes these Vedic dates, except India thanks to the Post-Vedic Astrologers, indicates how much penetration Supermind has made in the evolutionary matrix, though vested interests in India refuse to follow its enlightened lead, just as they refused to accept Sri Aurobindo’s superior approach to the Veda.

When it is understood that the same vested interests on the occult plane that opposed the Mother’s original plan are determined to oppose any reform of the Hindu calendar, linking contemporary society to the Vedic Age, we realise that there is a method to the madness of the Ayanamsha Chaos. And interestingly, approximately 60 temples in Tamil Nadu have introduced the Vedic method of time reckoning to follow the Avatar’s lead in the very Tamil land where he lived and fulfilled his mission. There has been a concerted effort to oppose adoption of the Mother’s original plan for the Auroville construction. Similarly there is a concerted effort to block adoption of the true Vedic calendar. History has repeated itself because they both contain the same key to Gnostic Time that unifies rather than divides. And just as there is an impeccable coherency in the developmental arc of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s work, a clearly discernible thread running through the years during which they carried out their joint mission of transformation, so too there is a similar discernible coherency in the opposition to their work.

Finally, it is a question of the chicken or egg conundrum. If the nation had adopted the universal calendar for sacred purposes at Independence, as it did for civic matters, the Mother’s original plan would have been irresistible. But as facts not fiction reveal, both failed; and in both arenas confusion prevails with no solution in sight. There is no ‘centre that holds’ in Auroville and the Ashram; likewise there is no centre that can unify all the energies of the Hindu Samaj to live the dictum diversity in unity.

The Year is similar to an axis in a heavenly body. Certainly it is elusive because that is the nature of Time, the fourth aid in the integral and supramental yogas. It is when we reach the Age of Supermind that this issue becomes essential to grasp because by its very definition there must be a method whereby the three foundational principles of the Yoga are integrated to form a society expressing the Divine Maya, as the Mother indicated in her original plan and as expressed in Sri Aurobindo’s own symbol. There we find the key to the calendar and to gnostic Time: the descending petals of the Avatar’s Lotus numbering 9 (Transcendent), 6 (Cosmic), and 3 (Individual/Soul). The Formula based on 9 (his symbol) combines with the 12 (her symbol) in the Chamber to reproduce in matter the time year(9) and the space year(12) – or vertical and horizontal cosmic directions. This is the essence of the Chamber’s core, for which reason she called it the symbol of the future realisation.

Sri Aurobindo wrote in The Secret of the Veda that the ‘soul of knowledge had fled from its coverings’ when describing conditions surrounding the Veda at the time he wrote his opus magnum. Nothing but empty ritual remained. This occurs when the key to gnostic Time is lost because it is Time that adds gnosis to Form – otherwise we have inert Shiva, awaiting the impulses from the divine Shakti to engender movement, to set in motion the Becoming as equal to Being in the deployment of Supermind on Earth. The Year as the body of Time is the means to make a connection with that Gnosis, today as in the Vedic Age. We are blessed on Earth to occupy this third orbit in our solar system where we can be conscious participants in the ‘journey’ through the Year, just as the ancient Rishis did so very long ago. But if we study what unfolded at the Conference, there was no higher knowledge in evidence there as one would expect at such a meeting, the very heart of which is everything most sacred to the Tradition that India has managed to preserve in spite of all divide-and-rule tactics – and in this I include the Ayanamsha Chaos.

When the speaker who followed me, an astronomer I believe, stated ‘This is science not Veda,’ in an attempt to belittle my emphasis on the higher aspects of the issue, it was a confirmation that the ‘soul of knowledge’ had indeed taken flight. This is the area we must concentrate on because without the proper field wherein the higher things can be established – a field that is generated through the fourth aid of the Yoga – nothing of those true things can take root. Time is akin to the soil where an occult ‘seed’ is planted. With the Knowledge contained in the Mother’s original plan we are given the key to the harmony of soil and seed, or Space and Time. Indeed, that future realisation.

This is what the Mother sought to do by insisting on the adoption of her plan for the inner chamber (‘…Now I have seen, I don’t need anyone’). This is what I sought to do by revealing in very minute detail just exactly what she had done, what she had brought down from the supramental plane. But just as vested interests blocked a nationwide adoption of the Vedic system of calendrical time reckoning, so too did vested interests succeed in blocking the materialisation of the Mother’s vision in Auroville. To be born in mind, however, is that time moves on, and when Gnostic Time is one’s ally the supramental Truth-Consciousness cannot fail to overtake the Field it itself has produced and nurtured. Then the dictum of Aeon Centre of Cosmology is validated: All, negative and positive, serves the purposes of the One. What transpires before us today is impeccably correct if we have eyes to see. That is where the new cosmology enters. It unmasks those vested interests we find everywhere, contaminating everything, with little regard for human sentiments just as the Time-Spirit displayed in Arjun’s vision when he desired to see his Friend’s true form. But Arjun belonged to another Age, the period of the 8^th Avatar, and therefore he could not bear that terrible and awesome vision. In this age of the 9^th, however, it is precisely the 9 and the Time-Spirit that hold to key to Time’s gnostic workings as Sri Aurobindo’s symbol informs us. The Mother materialised the Supramental Formula encoded in Sri Aurobindo’s symbol. In so doing she has offered India the plan for the proper calendar that elevates and unites what would otherwise remain hopelessly divided, degenerating further and further into mere superstition. This is the goal of science in these sacred matters, the essence of which it ignores: to oppose that Formula so that India can never fulfil her destiny in which all things find their proper place, science included.

[1] The First International Conference on Calendar Reform, Tirumala, 24-26 December 2010.

[2] Readers may be confused by calling the calendar Vedic insofar as the propagators of the current calendar in use describe it as ‘vedic’ or themselves as ‘Vedic Astrologers’. The truth of the matter is that they should be referred to as Post-Vedic. Then there would be no confusion.

[3] This is similar to Sri Aurobindo’s remarks regarding the experience the Mother had on 26.11.1915, which he stated was Vedic ‘but not one that would be recognised as Vedic’ by those who practice the new yogas, calling them Vedic.

THE SUPRAMENTAL JNANA

2010-05-26T06:06:00.000-07:00

By: Robert E. Wilkinson
26 May, 2010

Any serious student of Sri Aurobindo’s life and yoga will agree that his work represents a radical departure from all previous spiritual paths. It challenges thousands of years of traditional wisdom that regards a transcendence of the physical world to be the highest possible attainment. In an epochal reversal of direction, Sri Aurobindo and his line have presented humanity with a New Way, an entirely new direction that foresees the possibility of a material union with the Divine, one that takes us into the core of this world of matter and the innermost mysteries of time. In his 1915 letter to the Mother, Sri Aurobindo discusses this new creation which derives from, ‘... the union of the “Earth” of the Veda with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images’. The principal feature that unites these two realms within a single Integral Vision is a New System of Measure, a non-speculative formula that reveals the utter perfection of a Supramental Consciousness as it deploys itself on the Earth. In order for us to perceive the workings of this new consciousness, one that unites the Spiritual and Physical in a seamless view, the Mother commanded that we abandon the old paths in their entirety. She insisted that there could be absolutely NO MIXTURE with the partial and incomplete teachings of the past that might contaminate the new way. What we see instead, from people claiming not only to be devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, but leaders of their cause, is a complete dismissal of some of the most critical aspects of their teachings and a willful disobedience of their most inviolable commands. Nowhere is this more evident than in the veritable orgy of MIXTURE now taking place on the Deshpande blog, ‘Mirror of Tomorrow’ http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org .

For the past several months ‘Mirror of Tomorrow’ has published a serialization of David Johnston’s articles on the works of the famous Swiss psychologist, Carl G. Jung. In this series, Johnston, who claims to be first and foremost a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, makes every possible effort to insinuate Jung into their work to justify his own intellectual theories which place Jung's experiences on an equal footing with Sri Aurobindo’s. He does this in spite of Sri Aurobindo’s letter to Dilip Kumar Roy in 1932, in which the master characterized Jung together with other Western psychologists, as: ‘children scrutinizing spiritual experiences with the flicker of their torch-lights’. Not content with Sri Aurobindo’s unequivocal statement on the matter, Johnston condescendingly opines that the reason the Avatar was so mistaken about Jung was that he was pre-occupied with his own journey and had no time to devote to a serious study of Jung’s works. Johnston’s outrageous presumption provides a perfect example of someone desperately trying to Mix the old with the New in order to justify his own pet theories. He has become so completely invested in Jung’s psychology that he cannot rise above the dogmatic mental filter that prevents anything from entering that does not reinforce his old and limited point of view. This is MIXTURE in its most insidious form, and like his cronies in Auroville, Johnston is only too willing to misrepresent and distort Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s teachings in order to flatter his ego and prop up his grossly unfounded beliefs.

One of David Johnston’s most glaring errors in judgment is his belief that Jung’s Individuation process is in some way equivalent to, or a preparation for the Aurobindonian transformation. From what he writes, he wants us to believe that ‘Self’ in Jungian terms is the same realization that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother identify as the ‘Psychic-Being’. This is clearly impossible since Jung and his followers seek the Self through a psycho-mental process designed to take one downward, just below the threshold of consciousness. The ‘Psychic-Being’ as Sri Aurobindo describes it is not simply the unconscious psyche but the foundation of the Supermind and its realization demands a process of Centering that may only be achieved through a long and rigorous yogic sadhana.

‘There are in fact two systems simultaneously active in the organisation of the being and its parts: one is concentric, a series of rings or sheaths with the psychic at the centre; another is vertical, an ascension and descent, like a flight of steps, a series of superimposed planes with the supermind-overmind as the crucial nodus of the transition beyond the human into the Divine.
First, there must be a conversion inwards, a going within to find the inmost psychic being and bring it out to the front, disclosing at the same time the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical parts of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts.’ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, p.251

In the Jungian context, Self is merely an idea, an archetypal hypothetical center of the unconscious. But for Sri Aurobindo, ‘Self’ is Agni, the individualized Absolute giving to the being Knowledge, Vision, and Stability of Purpose. The realization or unveiling of this Divine presence may only be achieved through an act of Surrender and the practice of an integral yoga, not psychotherapy as Johnston prefers to believe. I am in complete agreement with Thea who writes, ‘…Western psychology no matter how evolved cannot be equated with Indian systems of Yoga’.

This distorted Jungian view of Self Realization is being hotly debated on the Deshpande blog between David Johnston and Paulette Hadnagy, an Aurovillian ideologue. By their own admission, neither of these individuals has actually realized the Self, yet they go on and on arguing about what the ‘Psychic Being’ is and how to achieve it. The sad fact is that neither has any understanding about the true nature of the Soul and this is precisely why they have been denied the realization. They cannot understand it because they are using instruments and seeking old paths that cannot comprehend it. As the Mother wrote, ‘...It cannot be understood: It must BE. When you become it, then you will be it, that’s all, there will no longer be a problem.’ But how does one become the Self? What turn of awareness can bring about such a profound existential shift that one realizes immortality, eternity, and infinity as immediate qualities of consciousness? Clearly it is not something new to be obtained because one already is the eternal Self. It is simply the REALIZATION of something that one already is. So what can one do or perhaps un-do to bring about this realization? Is it possible to realize the Self, as David Johnston believes, through the pursuit of a Jungian ‘Individuation’? Unquestionably NO! Carl Jung’s discoveries, grounded as they are in the old ‘Anatmic’ schools of dissolution, are not designed nor are they able to provide the inner alignment from which genuine Self-Realization can arise. The very pursuit of Jung’s psychology is a deviation from the principles of Jnana designed to bring about the Soul’s realization and moreover creates a binding for consciousness that leads the seeker into a further accumulation and compounding of that ignorance. In Paulette’s case, which applies to all of the so-called Auroville elites, a similar problem arises due to an outright rejection of the Supramental Jnana. Having abandoned the contributions of the Cosmic and Individual powers of the Supramental Line, they are left with only a fragment of the Supramental formula and virtually no way to access the Psychic Being. Simply put, they have locked themselves out of the house of the Spirit and have thrown away the KEYS. Both have denied the natural lineage of the Solar Line from the Transcendent to the Cosmic and finally to the Individual Soul where the mysteries of Self Realization are given out in full. David seeks to substitute Jung and his colleague Marie Louise Von Franz for the Third member of the Line while Paulette vehemently denies even that there is a Third. In each case there is a distinct absence of Jnana which bars the way to any real progress. The consequences of this arrogant rejection of legitimate guidance and knowledge is that both are destined, to quote Emerson, ‘…to live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they can never enter, and with their hand on the door-latch they die outside.’ But for those more mature seekers who have the wisdom and humility to obey the Mother’s commands and rise above the old and partial systems of knowledge that obscure the Supramental vision, let me lay out the lines of the New Jnana prescribed by Sri Aurobindo the Mother and Thea for the realization of the Psychic Being.

Anyone familiar with Sri Aurobindo’s work must agree that Jnana, the Yoga of Knowledge, is an indispensable element of the Integral Yoga. It is based upon the understanding that Realization comes with the full conformity of the mental mode with reality itself. In other words, the more the mental mode conforms to the eternal truths of reality – Sanatana Dharma, the more organic and spontaneous the realization. One might even say that the whole of realization is based upon Alignment, and one of the most important areas of this alignment, one that contributes directly to the realization of the eternal Self, is an awareness of the mysteries of Time. In fact, the Bhagavad Gita affirms that it is Mahakala, the Time-Spirit who holds the grandest truths and its realization is the highest accomplishment that the seeker can aspire to in his or her lifetime. But what can Time have to do with the Psychic Being or Self and what has Sri Aurobindo written about this supremely important subject?

To better understand this unbreakable bond between Time and the Soul we must listen to the voices of the ancient Sages letting their words sink deep into our being. We can begin with the writer of the Katha Upanishad who tells us:

“A being, the size of a thumb, like a flame without smoke, dwells deep within the heart. He is the lord of time, past and future, the same today and tomorrow. Having attained him, one fears no more. He, verily, is the immortal Self.” Katha Upanishad

In this brief but revealing passage the sage tells us that the Self, located in the lotus of the Heart, is the ‘lord of time, past and future, the same today and tomorrow’. What exactly does he mean? Sri Aurobindo explains that one of the primary attributes of the Soul is the triple time knowledge ‘Trikaladristi’, held of old to be a supreme sign of the seer and the sage, not as an abnormal power, but as its normal way of time knowledge. It is precisely through this triple time knowledge that one acquires an irrefutable consciousness of Unity and the capacity of changing the individual destiny into a higher spiritual destiny and eventually extending that capacity towards the change of the destiny of the collectivity and the race. Do we find any mention of this extraordinary yogic capacity in the teachings of Carl Jung? Absolutely not!

Let us move on then to the Rig Veda where the Rishi reveals the ‘secret of secrets’, a Time Jnana that leads the seeker to the realization of ‘Swar’ or the Truth Consciousness.

‘Certain eternal worlds are these which have come into being, their doors are shut to you or opened by the months and the years. Without effort one world moves in the other, and it is these that Brihaspati has made manifest to knowledge’ Rig Veda (II.24.5)

Again we find a promise of an eternity of Time opened to us by the ‘months and the years’. This is a familiar refrain in the Vedic hymns that speak of the fruits of a ‘sacrificial year’. In his ‘Secret of the Veda’ Sri Aurobindo explains the occult symbolism of these revolutions of time through which the victory is won:

‘...when the nine-months’ sacrifice is prolonged through the tenth, it is when the Navagwas become the ten Dashagwas by the seven-headed thought of Ayasya, the tenth Rishi, that the Sun is found… but what is meant by the figure of the months? For it now becomes clear that it is a figure, a parable; the year is symbolic, the months are symbolic. It is in the revolution of the year that the recovery of the lost Sun and the lost cows is effected, for we have the explicit statement in X.62-2… “by the truth, in the revolution of the year, they broke Vala”…’

‘The expression in the hymns, daso maso ataran, indicates that there was some difficulty in getting through the full period of ten months. It is during this period apparently that the sons of darkness had the power to assail the sacrifice; for it is indicated that it is only by the confirming of the thought which conquers Swar, the solar world, that the Rishis are able to get through the ten months…’

‘I hold for you in the waters the thought that wins possession of heaven by which the Navagwas [nine] passed through the ten months…’ (V.45-11)

‘This victory is won in twelve periods of the upward journey, represented by the revolution of the twelve months of the sacrificial year, the periods corresponding to the successive dawns of a wider and wider truth, until the tenth month secures the victory…What may be the precise significance of the nine rays and the ten is a more difficult question which we are not yet in a position to solve.’ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, pp. 176-177.

In this passage, perhaps one of the most recondite in the Vedic texts, Sri Aurobindo explains the Cosmological process by which Vala, an Asura of the Rig Veda, in the form of a stone cave, was broken to liberate the cows (light) hidden in the cave of the Panis. To my knowledge, no one in Auroville or the Ashram, least of all David or Paulette, has been able to address the supreme knowledge contained in this commentary on the Veda. Even Sri Aurobindo himself admits in the text that he is not yet in a position to solve this riddle of time. He would later write, ‘the tail of the Supermind is descending… my formula is working out rapidly…now I have the hang of the whole hanged thing…like a very Einstein I have got the mathematical formula of the whole affair and am working it out figure by figure’. His Supramental Time Vision was to have been explained in the last chapter of the ‘Synthesis of Yoga’ but, as we know, it was never finished. The ‘formula’ remained a mystery until 1975 when Thea, Third in the Line unveiled the Supramental knowledge contained in the Mother’s plan for her temple and published her discoveries about the nature of Time (the months and the years) in a cosmological framework known as the ‘Gnostic Circle’. The immensities of knowledge that open to the touch of this cosmological key are simply breathtaking and yet almost none of Sri Aurobindo’s many devotees have bothered to read this groundbreaking text that reveals the connections of Time with the Soul. On the contrary, Paulette has even boasted of burning Thea’s books.

The cosmological ideas in the Veda that Thea has revealed have eluded some of the greatest spiritual figures of all time. Even the great Swami Vivekananda was compelled to admit his non-comprehension of Vedic cosmology. But it is abundantly clear that in our new age, the Supermind, in order to be intelligible, demands a system of measure capable of embracing, measuring and limiting, one which moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and makes knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and makes measurable the Limitless. And Thea’s Gnostic Circle is the ruler by which we can now measure what has been previously considered un-measurable because of its otherworldly ‘location’. As Thea explains:

‘The cosmological model used in this exposition is the same known in ancient Vedic times. Hence so much importance was given then, as we note from the Hymns and Scriptures that have been handed down, to the phenomenon of the seasons, the measure of the Day and of the Year. Particularly revered was the shortest day of the year, or the beginning of the Winter Solstice, Capricorn (Makar). A scrutiny of the Shastras discloses various formulae specifically for determining this special point in time. We can safely say that the ancient Rishi was obsessed with Time, for Time regulates these movements which find their perfect harmony in the figure of the Year. Thus the sacrifice is known to be experienced in twelve stages, culminating in the Tenth, which is the 10th month, Capricorn, the period of the victory of the Aryan Warrior. Capricorn from most ancient times has been considered by all schools of astrology to rule India. It is this same tenth-month victory that we celebrate this year, 1999, as the culmination of the centenary Navaratri. In the Map we see that the hieroglyph of the tenth (month) zodiacal sign whose origin is so ancient that it is lost in the mists of time, can be accurately superimposed on the body of Akhand Bharat. This superimposed symbol is the seal of the Supreme.’ Thea, The Nine Nights of Durga – the destiny of India across the century in a new Cosmological Paradigm. November, 1999.

The student will find specific examples of the application of Thea’s cosmology in her blog, Puranic Cosmology Updated (http://puraniccosmologyupdated.blogspot.com/).

If we will simply follow the accomplishments of the Solar Line, they form a self-evident descent of Knowledge and Force out of the subtle planes and into the physical. Sri Aurobindo spoke of, a UNION with ‘the “Earth” of the Veda, said to be above our earth...the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images’ His words echo the Mother’s statement that, ‘…the whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifest here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions.’ Both acknowledge that behind the apparent reality there exists a more essential occult reality that defines the true context of external events and organises their outcome in accordance with a kind of formulaic super-logic moving always toward greater order and harmony. Sri Aurobindo called this super logic ‘The Mind of Light’, a consciousness that pierces the veil of appearances and SEES into the underlying web of causality that manifests as our individual and collective life. It is not a vision that seeks the transcendence of Time and Space but one that embraces them in a ‘New Way’ revealing an unerring Divine ‘plan’ in the cyclic patterns and cosmological measurements that accompany the Supramental Creation. In her Feb. 5^th, 1969 Agenda, the Mother spoke of the supramental descent as a force ‘imposing itself and commanding the action on earth’. She described this supramental action in terms of ‘numbers, groups of figures and planets’. And perhaps most importantly, she goes on to say, ‘...Not only does it express this thing (the supramental action) but it has a power for realizing it’. Within a year after her Feb. 5^th discussion, the Mother incorporated her realizations in the sacred geometry of her Vedic temple, a structure that she defined as, ‘a symbol of the Future Realization’. It fully contains the Time Jnana that Sri Aurobindo described in his ‘Secret of the Veda’, a knowledge that Thea has revealed in its entirety in her numerous books and articles. The knowledge given out in her temple not only expresses the dynamics of the supramental manifestation but, as she said, IT INCLUDES THE POWER FOR REALIZING IT. Contained in the sacred geometry of the Mother’s Inner Chamber is the cosmological formula that Sri Aurobindo, like a very Einstein, was working out figure by figure, and this is the key to the realization of the Soul or Psychic-Being. Is there anything comparable to this supramental cosmology in the psychology of Carl Jung? Absolutely not. Neither David nor Paulette has even the slightest understanding of Supramental Time and yet they go on representing themselves to the community of devotees as credible authorities on Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s work.

This simply cannot go on. For those serious students of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who wish to see their work come out of the shadows and take its proper place in the world, the time has come to take a stand. We can no longer tolerate the hypocrisy of those self appointed authorities who make the hollow claim of loving Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and who then go right on distorting their teachings and disobeying their commands. They must be called to account. If they believe that they are in possession of some advanced level of realization, let them speak up and answer the points I have made in this article in particular Sri Aurobindo’s unequivocal statements about the role of Time in his yoga.

"...Time is the remaining aid needed for the effectivity of the [Supramental yoga].

Time presents itself to human effort as an enemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument. But always it is really the instrument of the soul.’...‘To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument ..." Sri Aurobindo; The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 61.

When we see pundits like David or Paulette boldly putting themselves forward as authorities on Sri Aurobindo’s work and message while, at the same time conflating their teachings with whatever strikes their fancy, you can be absolutely sure that they are mired in Mixture and have no idea what they are talking about. It is simply not possible to speak authoritatively about Sri Aurobindo’s work while, at the same time, ignoring the importance of Time, the Mother’s Inner Chamber or Thea’s updating of Vedic Cosmology. Indeed, the goal of this work is not an Individuated psyche or a rigid evolutionary ideology as David or Paulette would have us believe, it is Gnosis grounded in a New Seeing capable of transforming both the Individual and the World. To suggest anything less, to quote Thea is, ‘ignorance, pretension and empty words’.

Examples of a Truncated Formula:

2009-08-22T06:45:00.001-07:00

Applications of the New Cosmology

I would like to provide a somewhat different perspective to the campaign we are presently engaged in to counteract the propaganda machine of the agents of the Status Quo. The problem of the preponderance of the Ignorance has to be understood through the very ‘formula’ Supermind requires for its deployment. There are four integers in the formula. Three are given in Sri Aurobindo’s symbol itself. So, in a sense this is not my revelation but his and the Mother’s since we know that she designed their symbols.

If the Law of Three has been cited by Robert, it is not enough to give a list of when and where this Law has been used or referred to in the past to the present. We need to provide living examples of its necessity applied to our work as well as this on-going discussion. To that end there is no better example than the condition of the two ‘fields’ Sri Aurobindo and the Mother established which most assume were meant to be the official representatives of their joint mission, entrusted with the task of carrying their work forward into the future. Given that the formula has been rejected in these representative ‘fields’ and that the Third Factor (or integer) has been excluded, of course there is no such formula to apply as taken from his own official symbol. This should suffice to convince any observer that there is ‘trouble in paradise!’

The result of this exclusion is that we are left with the Old Way, the dual formulation of reality – He and She, or Purusha and Prakriti. What is lacking in this arrangement is the power of impulsion, or renovation, or a forward drive. Or else, to borrow from the Puranas, we have Shiva lost in meditation of the transcendent heights from where he refuses to descend. To save the Earth Brahma concedes to send Parvati in order to draw him back to Earth and engage in its very special Lila. She brings the Formula to the mix, in the form of the three gunas. Thus the Earth was saved because out of their dalliance was born the Son-Conqueror who defeats the mighty Tarakasura [see Secrets of the Earth, Part 8]. In every Age of Vishnu the hostile force that must be dealt with will always be an agent of the status quo since every appearance of Vishnu’s emanations introduces a new level of consciousness and a progress up the ladder of evolution. Thus, it necessarily stands that the third ‘integer’ and its representative will be the most combated, because without that Third there is no dynamism.
A system saddled with duality as the basis of its perception of reality cannot experience dynamism; and there is one certainty of the Supramental Manifestation: its dynamic quality, for even the experience of Peace in the practice of the Integral Yoga must be dynamic. In his Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo has made this clear time and again. I need not labour the point further. But I will continue to discuss the living examples of what occurs when that dynamism is absent, the essence of the Third Principle. Without the Law of Three stagnation is predictable and unavoidable. Lamentably, this is the condition of both the Ashram and Auroville. They have been engulfed in stagnation due to rejection of the very Formula Sri Aurobindo himself laid down. In fact, Auroville’s membership has not increased for three decades; a township that was meant to house 50,000 has barely 2000.

In a further application which involves both Sri Aurobindo’s mission and the Sanatana Dharma (indeed they cannot be separated), we find the three gunas which describe the same process conveyed in the 9/6/3 of Sri Aurobindo’s symbol. These are the cosmic properties required for the expression and manifestation of that Dharma. Elimination of any one of them is unthinkable for the very fact that if the Dharma is ‘eternal’, sanatana, it must bear the Law of Three and be structured accordingly [ibid, Part 2].

Supermind carries the process to greater heights by updating the Line of Ten Avatars in that today’s applications are far more precise and verifiable. Thus the incarnated members of the Solar Line, by their birthdates and hence the zodiacal signs in which they were born, present us with both the number-powers of the Avatar’s Formula as well as the three gunas, rajas-Capricorn (3), sattwa-Leo (9), tamas-Pisces (6). Note that Rajas-3’s elimination is imperative when the objective is to cling to the dual power-base. As such, the renewing thrust of Rajas is entirely missing, resulting necessarily in stagnation. We may thereby state that the simplest way to recognise asuric forces in the Ages of Vishnu is when they are seen to channel their energies to the elimination of the Third at all costs. This is not an imaginary scenario; it has been the proven goal of elements in both the Ashram and Auroville.

Another example can be provided by the Gunas and the manner in which they figure in the Capricorn symbol-map. Therein the threefold harmony has been broken up because of the partitioned state of the Indian landmass at Independence; this can be verified by observation of the map where Pakistan and Bangladesh (Rajas and Tamas sections) have been carved out leaving gaps where energy seeps through, thus weakening the nation. Such being the case, the resultant three nations have been unable to unite their energies for the expression of a triune harmony which, by its very nature, is rendered invincible. Contemporary subcontinental history describes for us the result of such a truncation.

To prove the validity of Supermind’s Formula as it appears in Sri Aurobindo’s symbol, we are given these living situations which explain the necessity of the Harmony of Three. Particularly today in this time of acceleration, clinging to old formulas can only further the status quo and therefore the programme of the Asura to arrest the forward march, which if allowed to continue can only make manifest what the Truth-Conscious ‘seed’ contains that the Avatar and his Line have planted in the Earth’s consciousness-soil.

Next there is the prominent role of time in the New Way. We take the three phases of time – past, present, future – in the application of the same Formula. Again, our example must be factual and not theoretical: 9 is the future; 6 the past; 3 the present. Carried over to the members of the Solar Line, apart from the gunas each one embodies, they are Sri Aurobindo 9 (Transcendent-future); the Mother 6 (Cosmic-past); the Third 3 (Individual Soul-present). The time mechanism has been (apparently) impaired due to, precisely, rejection of the 3 of the equation. The Ashram and Auroville provide examples of the Past and Future disconnected in their temporal expression because the Bridge of the Present joining one to the other – bridging the abyss of Time as it were – is missing as an integrated experience for the two communities. As noted, there cannot be any fruitful outcome as a result of this temporal truncation. The truncated symbol-map reveals the spatial condition of the nation where Supermind is to be rooted; the former symbol-fields reveal the same, but in time, a temporal truncation in place of a unity of time.

There remains perhaps the most important part to discuss: vertical and horizontal directions. The Solar Line in this particular Age of Vishnu adds the Vertical Direction which is made factual through time’s measures. Thus, as previously indicated, 9/6/3 when applied to actual births in time as measurable in the universal calendar, describe an involution that is then imprinted in the evolutionary matrix through Yoga. In a sense we could state that each birth of the three members of the Formula stakes claim to a time slot. More precisely, each one adds that temporal ingredient to the ‘seed’ of the supramental Truth-Consciousness which the Age of Vishnu requires for its goals to be achieved. Sri Aurobindo’s symbol provides the basic Formula; and we have seen how each member of his line does bring the required number-power into the ‘seed’. Then with the forward march of Time the involved ingredients of the supramental Seed evolve through the agency of Mahakala and become permanent evolutionary imprints.

Once the three are involved through actual births (otherwise how could the Formula become operational?) to truly make this 9th/10th manifestation of Vishnu different from all his other appearances in previous Ages, a fourth element is demanded. This fourth stage is where time and space become integrated; it is the mysterious ‘conquest’ of the Aryan Warrior in the Rig Veda, the formula of which is revealed in the text [ibid, Part 7].

The complete Formula beyond the essential trinity of 9/6/3 is logically another triad added (remember, it is always the Law of Three); then we reach the Zero. This Zero is the actual ‘seed’, in the Veda known as Agni. When this integer is added we come to know that Zero as FULLNESS because it bears the compact triadic formula in its core, similar to the atom which also bears a triad in its nucleus. Contrast this supramental Zero with the Zero that has reached us after Buddhism and Advaita: shunya, emptiness. Restoring that Fullness of Vedic tradition is precisely the ‘error of the Buddha’ which had to be corrected, according to Sri Aurobindo.

And so, we now have 9/6/3/0 – four stages. But still the work of ‘correction’ is not complete. If the process is to be supramental and its symbol is the Square (as in Sri Aurobindo’s own symbol where its innermost square holds the Formula) the 0/4th must somehow take us from the descending involution (0) to evolution (1), for only then can Agni become ‘the leader of the hosts’ and make sense of his description as Usha’s vahana, the white steed. This occurs through a reversal that takes place at that fourth level. The Zero must give forth the One out of the impacted, involved Seed of itself. And so it has been, so it has come to pass.
When this point in time is reached (literally the first point in space to ‘fill the void’), then evolution through and from the Seed begins. Applied to the ongoing discussion, this comes to pass through the Third who gives birth to the Fourth who is the One. In terms of the allocation of ‘fields’ for their Yogas, the Third’s is the centre as provided for her by the Mother in her original blueprint of the Inner Chamber. It is part of the vertical direction, or descent. The Fourth’s is symbolically represented by the horizontal expanse from the central Point – i.e., the City. That is, the Fourth reverses the movement and initiates EXPANSION when the descending CONTRACTION is concluded.

It needs to be understood that these ‘fields’ are not the actual physical temple and city in Auroville. They served for a time as representative focal points for the Yoga of the Third that was to bring into being, through the allegiance of Mahakala, a centre in its fullest cosmological sense. Once completed the representative field was no longer required. The collection, Chronicles of the Inner Chamber (www.matacom.com) makes the process clear: Knowledge displaces Ignorance. Or better, Gnosis makes sense even of the Ignorance by instilling it with ‘purpose’. Thus it is transformed by the dynamics of the New Way to ‘serve the purposes of the One’.

We may now apply what I have described so far to the Indian landmass.

The horizontal direction is India proper where, as its present condition indicates, the Capricorn truncated landmass allows for energy to be drained off. The Supramental Manifestation integrates time and space through the vertical descent of the members of the Solar Line; but in the present condition of the nation a depletion of energy exists in the spatial/physical expanse where this descent is to take root and from where it can envelop the entire globe. Therefore, with the completion of the vertical descent there still remains the question of integration at the fourth stage of the process.
This is achieved through a method that can help to integrate and make whole the Body of the Mother. Hence the Movement (MRVW) initiated a campaign to bring into operation a proper calendar that can achieve this integration in the horizontal field which covers the whole of India, affecting approximately 80% of the population. The present calendar in use by Hindus is a classic ‘divide and rule’ tactic of the Asura. To emasculate Hinduism the simplest means is to impose a calendar that disperses energies rather than unites them; that is, 80% of the nation’s energies. The depleted amount is proportionate to the quantity of landmass that was carved out of the country at Partition [see The Origins and Nature of Hindu Decline]. In such a situation how can Mahakala give his allegiance? When the object under discussion is an integrated whole – in a sense an applied and not theoretical space/time continuum – the problem can be measured by the tools the New Way offers to reach an exact quantum. The question is then, How to make whole what has been torn asunder by the Ignorance?
These factual examples prove one thing conclusively: the indispensability of the birth of the Third and through her the Yoga that adds the 3 to the involved supramental Seed so that with dynamism the agents of the status quo can no longer rule the day. It all hinges on the third integer, without which there is no birth of the One, the conquering victorious Fourth. Without the Third the Son in the old formulation stands ‘crucified’: Death is forever after the inescapable finality for the human species in evolution on Earth. By deduction, Sri Aurobindo’s mission can then be said to have failed, as many in the old fields do contend by their acts, if not their words. Thus this is what the agents of the Status Quo insist upon: the elimination of 3, for with the impulsion she brings and the Fourth’s power of integration, the victory of the One is certain.

The great rahasya, the secret of secrets lies in the supramental formula 9/6/3/0-1 just as Sri Aurobindo announced, for it alone tells us the precise manner in which the Transcendent (9) is made Immanent (1) through the applicable formulas of the new cosmology. The entire process has been superbly transcribed by the Mother in her original plan of the temple’s Inner Chamber, every item of which the agents of the Status Quo have defiled in the Auroville rendition. May we ask, if the value of the Mother’s vision and plan could not be appreciated and respected in the old fields, can we expect guidance on matters of the Integral and Supramental Yogas to come from those retrograde quarters?

The Mother’s vision was the litmus test. The results of that exercise cannot now be wished away [ http://www.matacom.com ].

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~ Secrets of the Earth ~
Questions and Answers on
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The Triune Formula of the Supermind

2009-08-21T05:41:00.000-07:00

By
Robert E. Wilkinson ©

In my recent article, ‘The Unravelling of the Auroville Cult’, I wrote about the Vedic ‘Law of Three’ and the absolute necessity of a Third to complete the Supramental Descent begun by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. I gave examples of this eternal principle in some of its most revered forms and expressions such as the Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the Tridoshas of Ayurveda, the Three Gunas of the Bhagavad Gita, and the Christian Trinity. I even included Sri Aurobindo’s comments on these three powers of the eternal manifestation, by which, he said, we come to understand existence itself. This was immediately rejected by Savitri Era’s Tusar Mohapatra who said that this immutable law, upon which the whole edifice of Vedic knowledge is built, was ‘beyond his comprehension, unverifiable, and thus a piece of fiction.’ How can it be that the same person who would make such a stunningly backward statement has been entrusted with the sacred duty of promoting Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s knowledge to the world.

Evidently, the many thousand year old Vedic tradition, extolled by Sri Aurobindo in his ‘Secret of the Veda’ as the highest spiritual knowledge of which the human mind is capable, is not sufficient for Tusar. He needs more and verifiable proofs. So let us examine the many ways that the Law of Three appears in Sri Aurobindo’s work as a fact of objective knowledge.

In her Agenda of 5 February, 1969, the Mother explained that the Supermind would be intelligible through ‘Numbers, Planets and Principles’. Like Plato and Pythagoras before her, she understood that Numbers are ‘living things’ and contain the highest possible knowledge. Her mention of Planets refers of course to the ancient language of cosmology. But then she makes an astonishing statement: ‘...Not only does it (numbers and planets) express this thing, but it has a power for realizing it.’ Sri Aurobindo affirmed this view saying that the cosmological ideas of the Vedantin were indispensable to a realization of the Great Vedic Ideas in their totality. And in Savitri, he confirms this same knowledge as being the ‘self-known’ content of the human Soul.

‘All that the Gods have learned is there self-known.
There in a hidden chamber closed and mute
Are kept the record graphs of the cosmic scribe,
And there the tables of the sacred Law,
There is the Book of Being's index page;
The text and glossary of the Vedic truth
Are there; the rhythms and metres of the stars
Significant of the movements of our fate:
The symbol powers of number and of form,
And the secret code of the history of the world
And Nature's correspondence with the soul
Are written in the mystic heart of Life.’
Book One, Canto 5, The Yoga of the King

As we pursue these hidden correspondences, we need look no further for evidence of the Law of Three than Sri Aurobindo’s own symbol. In it we can see the Triple world of the Veda and Puranas expressed in the interlaced triangles of the three-fold divine principle of Sachchidananda: Existence, Knowledge and Bliss and the threefold mundane principles of Mind, Life and Matter.

In addition to the expression of the Triple Principle, Sri Aurobindo’s symbol contains an equally important expression of Number harmonies in the petals of the Lotus. As we can see, there are 9 petals at the top of the lotus, 6 petals in the middle and 3 petals at the bottom, resting on the 7 waves. For those who SEE, this arrangement of the lotus is itself an unmistakable expression of the Law of Three and a Number Harmony that will be repeated throughout this work. The importance of these numbers, 9, 6, and 3 are not exclusive to Sri Aurobindo’s work but represent a universal key that helps us to understand the occult dynamic by which Spirit becomes Matter. The numbers 9, 6, 3 represent the involutionary formula, a Tri-fold point which lies at the core of matter as well as the octaves of a descent from the Formless into Form. As the great Nicola Tesla once wrote:

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

Since the manifestation of the Avatars is determined by their inherent association with the Time-Spirit, their three-staged descent upon the earth occurs within an exquisite Geometry of Time that cannot possibly be concocted. It can only be arranged by the Supermind and thus becomes the basis of their objective cosmic credentials. One of the most fascinating examples of this Supramental formula, which may be found in the original Temple architecture, is the way it appears in the dates of births of the members of the Solar Line. As revealed below, these numbers appear in the exact order of the actual descent.

Sri Aurobindo was born in 1872: 1+8+7+2 = 18 = 9
The Mother was born in 1878 1+8+7+8 =24 = 6
Thea, ΘΕΑ, was born in 1938: 1+9+3+8 = 21 = 3

The Mother once wrote that the whole earth and everything it contains is a kind of concentration, a condensation of something which exists in other worlds invisible to the material eye. Each thing manifest here has its principle, idea or essence somewhere in the subtler regions. The triune formula of the Supermind allows us to follow the descent of these principles, ideas and essences as a condensation of consciousness from the formless into forms that ultimately manifest as our material reality. In the scheme of the Supramental Descent we observe that this process has three stages: the Transcendent 9, the Cosmic 6 and the Individual Soul 3. These octaves of descent may be observed through an understanding of certain laws of correspondence and equivalence that are expressed in the Hermetic axiom, ‘As above, So below’. As we follow these eternal principles in their descent from the higher planes into material manifestation they manifest first as Cosmic and Planetary harmonies before reaching a highly specific individuation on the Earth.

This sacred formula is impeccably expressed in the life and work of each member of the Solar line. Sri Aurobindo’s role as the TRANSCENDENT Principle - 9, was largely concentrated on planting the integral seed of the Supramental creation. He remained on the Transcendent heights rarely even coming out of his room for over 24 years. His work on the inner planes bore the nature of a vast and total spiritual action as expressed in his epic poem, Savitri. As the power and force of the Solar Line descended from the Transcendent to the COSMIC plane - 6, the Mother worked tirelessly preparing new material forms which could accommodate and contain the Supramental consciousness-force. Toward the end of her life the knowledge was brought down and unveiled in material creation as the original plan for her Temple. It was a New Model of the Universe, a Cosmos in microcosm representing the Soul of the Earth and what she called ‘the symbol of the Future Realization’.

As we follow the actions of each member of the Solar Line, we find that Sri Aurobindo's work on the transcendent planes is almost never revealed. The Mother's work on the occult planes is somewhat clearer yet even she was not inclined to explain the details of what she did and saw. It isn't until the Third level of the work that these details become revealed because that is the nature of the Third, precision in truth and the ability to APPLY the knowledge. As the work of the Supermind reaches the Third stage, the realization of the INDIVIDUAL Soul – 3, we begin to perceive this precision because the action is observed from the most intimate dimension the human consciousness can experience, the 'center' or individual Soul that Sri Aurobindo described so beautifully in Savitri. Through the work of the Third, what before in the old spirituality could only be expressed in terms of paradoxes and irreconcilables, can now be perceived in a vastly truer light. This is the level of the Gnostic Being and the evolutionary goal of the Supramental Manifestation. With the ‘keys of knowledge’ unveiled by the Third, which ‘not only express the Supermind but also provides the power to realize it’, seekers are granted a direct experience of the Supreme within the physical manifestation and the means to KNOW and not merely BELIEVE that the Truth-Consciousness has descended and is now manifest upon the Earth.

We could go on and on with these objective proofs. The 3, 9, and 6, have a correspondence with the Gunas: Rajas, Sattva and Tamas or as they are known in cosmological terms, Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable. These energy flows are also expressed as the Speaker, the Voice and the Word. Notably, each member of the Solar Line was born in the sign of one of the Three Gunas: Sri Aurobindo, a Leo – Fixed Guna, the Mother, a Pisces – a Mutable Guna, and the Third, a Capricorn, a Cardinal Guna. We even see these numbers expressed in their names: Aurobindo has 9 letters, Mother has 6, and ΘΕΑ (Thea) as it is properly written has 3.

The sole purpose of these number, energetic and planetary harmonies is the expression of WHOLENESS and INTEGRALITY. As much as Tusar and Paulette might protest, you simply cannot have wholeness with a partial manifestation of just Sri Aurobindo and the Mother any more than you could have a complete manifestation based on only two Gunas. THREE are required. It is an immutable law: The Law of Three.

The Unravelling of the Auroville Cult

2009-08-13T05:44:00.000-07:00

By
Robert E. Wilkinson ©

Decades of Soul-numbing dogma have finally taken their toll as we watch the predictable collapse of the Auroville cult and its famous ‘spin machine’. What was once an organized opposition to the Line of Supramental Descent is now coming apart at the seams. Internecine feuds and bitter betrayals signal the long expected implosion of a community built on the unstable foundation of connivance and lies. Its dénouement, predicted by Sri Aurobindo himself, is a direct result of the Supramental Force and its unrelenting demand for Truth as it presses more and more in its descent toward matter. What we are seeing today in Auroville and its internet propaganda machine, ‘Savitri Era’, are the final throes of decades of usurpation of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s work by an Aurovillian mental elite who, for over thirty years, have attempted to obstruct the Supramental Descent and entomb its living message. Through a rigid Aurobindonian Orthodoxy of their own design these usurpers have managed to suppress the descent of a Knowledge unparalleled since the Vedic age. But for those who SEE, it is clear that their long reign of darkness has finally come to an end. Let us review the facts:

When the Mother was asked to describe Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary work, she wrote:

"The consciousness is like a ladder: at each great epoch there has been one great being capable of adding one more step to the ladder and reaching a place where the ordinary consciousness has never been... one more step to the ladder without losing contact with the material (consciousness)... to reach the Highest and at the same time connect the top to the bottom... To go up and down and join the top to the bottom is the whole secret of realisation, and that is the work of the Avatar.”

The evolutionary task of Sri Aurobindo and his line was to bring about the descent of the Supreme Truth Consciousness and to prepare for its general manifestation on the earth by becoming the rungs of that ladder and the living embodiments of that descent. Each of the four members of the ‘Solar Line’, as they are called, represent a specific stage or field of yoga which unites the contiguous planes of Spiritual, Mental, Vital and Physical, incarnating the complete evolutionary spectrum in human form and thereby revealing the deepest secrets of creation. Those familiar with the revolutionary nature of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga will appreciate that it is a complete "reversal" of the old yogas which for millennia sought a transcendence of the physical reality through the realization of a Timeless, Boundless and Ineffable Brahman. The work of the 9th Avatar of Vedic tradition represents a radical departure from traditional Indian spirituality and turns upon a DESCENT and ultimate transformation of the Vital and Physical planes. Sri Aurobindo explains:

“The goal is not to lose oneself in the Divine Consciousness. The goal is to let the Divine Consciousness penetrate into Matter and transform it.” Sri Aurobindo - The Mother 15: p.191

Through the yogic efforts of Solar Line, the Supreme consciousness and knowledge was brought down in what he termed ‘the descent of the Supermind’. Truth was no longer “up there” in an ineffable indescribable Transcendent but brought down by Sri Aurobindo and his line in what is demonstrably the ultimate and conclusive reconciliation of Spirit and Matter. The ontological duality of Purusha and Prakriti of which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were the living embodiments was transformed into a seamless continuum through the addition of a Third principle which resolved this ancient polarity through a process of Synthesis and Becoming. The absolute necessity of a Third to complete this process follows a fundamental principal of Vedic knowledge known as “the Law of Three”. It is the expression of an irreducible truth that at the heart of the creation lies a tripartite harmony of energy or “seed” from which the entire cosmos evolves. The three principle gods of India, the “Trimurti” of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are representative of this essential truth and reflect its supreme importance. The ancient tradition of Ayurveda honors this essential harmony of Three as the “Tridoshas” (the three energies), the primary factors of the human body that govern our health. In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna describes this occult law as the “Three Gunas” which he praised as the basis of an Ultimate Wisdom. And in Christianity this eternal formula is simply known as the “Trinity of God.” In more modern times this sublime principle was reconstructed by the philosopher G.W. Hegel to describe his dialectical process of Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. With the overwhelming evidence and tradition supporting this eternal principle one is simply dumbfounded that the Auroville cabal could so glibly dismiss the Third as irrelevant to the Supramental design. Was it not Sri Aurobindo himself who wrote:

“While the Divine is One, it is also manifold... It is at once Transcendental, Cosmic and Individual. By knowing the eternal unity of these three powers of the eternal manifestation, God, the Cosmos and the Individual self, and their intimate necessity to each other, we come to understand existence itself.…” Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga

With the contribution of the Third, ‘Thea’ as she is known, the formidable work of Synthesis was accomplished. The Supreme Truth was no longer simply a matter of Being and its correspondences but also embraced Time and the Becoming. For the first time in the history of spirituality an Integral harmony of Spirit and Matter, Being and Becoming and Time and Eternity was REALIZED and with it, an entirely new language by which these formerly inexpressible truths could be known, communicated and most importantly, APPLIED. With the discoveries of the Third we are finally able to move beyond speculation into an ‘objectively verifiable knowledge’ which forms the basis of a Supramental Gnosis which Sri Aurobindo described as,’ free from doubt, self-evident, self-existent, irrefragable and absolute’.

In Book Two, Canto Six of Savitri, Sri Aurobindo describes the impossible task of the Third as, ‘catching the boundless in a net of birth, casting the spirit into physical form, lending speech and thought to the Ineffable, finding new bodies for the Infinite, and images of the Unimaginable’. For the last 40 years Thea has worked tirelessly to accomplished that task, producing a prodigious body of work unequalled in the history of spirituality. And what has happened to those published works which reveal this Divine Measure by which the ultimate reconciliation of Spirit and Matter may be known? They were rejected out of hand and banned from the official list of titles by the same Aurovillian intelligentsia that had only years earlier destroyed the Vedic content of the Mother’s plan for her Temple. The details of this distortion and deception have been discussed elsewhere and need not be dealt with here, only the result of this infamy which is now being played out before our eyes in the acts of Peter Heehs, Tusar Mohapatra, RY Deshpande and Andrew Cohen among others.

It is a well know fact that lesser mortals rush to fill the void and absence of authority once the guru departs. Given the history of modern religions, one might even argue that this kind of usurpation and dogmatic entombment of the guru’s teaching, once they have died, is in the natural order of things. What inevitably follows is the formation of a Cult that seizes the guru’s teachings and crystallizes them into a rigid mental dogma over which they preside as ‘owners’ of the new truth. It is widely known that this is exactly what took place after the passing of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. And if their work had followed the pattern of traditional Indian spirituality the dogma which formed around their teachings would doubtless have become the greatest religion in the world. But the Supramental descent did not end with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The Line continues on today, albeit behind the scenes, with its Third and Fourth levels and supported by those ‘few who shall see what none yet understands’. In their infinite wisdom Sri Aurobindo and the Mother knew that their work would be usurped and distorted by some of their closest disciples. He warned us about this in Savitri calling them, ‘the wise men who talk and sleep’. But they also had an inviolable faith in the unconquerable power of the Supermind working relentlessly towards its final apotheosis.

When the Mother’s closest disciples rejected the impeccable vision of her temple’s Inner Chamber and destroyed the greatest feat of sacred architecture yet to be realized upon the earth she did not insist on imposing her will. Instead, she said:

“…what they see is all mental, They do not know. Who is there that knows? It is only when one sees. There is not one of them who sees. I do not believe in exterior decisions. I simply believe in one thing only: the force of the consciousness which is making a pressure like that (crushing gesture) and the pressure goes on becoming greater… which means that it will sort out the people. So since there are not many who can understand, I say nothing, I look and I wait.’ The Mother, Matrimandir Dialogues

Sri Aurobindo expressed the same unwavering confidence in that Supramental Force taking his work to completion when even the most skeptical would be obliged to believe what the few already see. He wrote:

“ In Matter shall be lit the spirit's glow,
In body and body kindled the sacred birth;
Night shall awake to the anthem of the stars,
The days become a happy pilgrim march,
Our will a force of the Eternal's power,
And thought the rays of a spiritual sun.
A few shall see what none yet understands;
God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep;
For man shall not know the coming till its hour
And belief shall be not till the work is done.”
Savitri -- A Legend and a Symbol), Page: 55

What we are witnessing today in the disintegration of the Aurovillian intelligentsia is precisely that Force of Consciousness. Having rejected the contribution of the Third in the line, a knowledge that would reveal the imperishable truths of the entire Supramental Descent, Aurobindonians are left floundering in the half-light of a religious consciousness, vacillating between belief and doubt and unable to articulate a believable defense of who Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were and the utter uniqueness of their teachings. Opting for a truncated version of the Supramental Descent by excluding the Third and Fourth members of the line, the faithful have no other choice but to conclude that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother failed in their stated mission or else cling to the fragile hope that history will eventually provide evidence of their success hundreds of years down the road. Having rejected the higher knowledge, they have forfeited the opportunity to KNOW and not just BELIEVE that the Supermind has descended and that its operations can even now be measured with a precision and exactitude that grants the individual a direct experience of the Supreme within the physical manifestation. Lacking the Realization that such a vision confers, most find themselves stuck in an unsatisfying and untenable situation and forced to come to terms with an over-idealized image of a possibly failed guru with which they have now become completely identified.

With the increasing pressure of Consciousness brought on by the Supermind, devotees are feeling the crushing contractions that the Mother predicted. Cracks are beginning to appear in the public face of the cult dividing its members along the lines of belief and doubt. Those who can no longer justify the all-consuming psychological projection onto the guru will naturally seek a means to humanize him, simultaneously releasing themselves from the obligations of selfless servitude and giving full flower to their vital ego. There can be absolutely no doubt that this is the underlying dynamic behind Peter Heehs’ book, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. Through his efforts to humanize and de-contectualize Sri Aurobindo, Heehs has set in motion a process of disillusionment that has churned the psyches of Aurobindonians around the globe. Because of this he has been branded a traitor, an enemy, a scoundrel and much worse. And while every attempt has been made by the faithful to distance and dissociate themselves from his literary heresy, it cannot be overlooked that he arose from and is a product of the Ashram and the Auroville culture where he has lived for many years. Indeed, he is not an ‘outsider’ but simply a more visible example of the pervasive lack of realization that has turned Sri Aurobindo’s work and mission into a distorted caricature of itself. Since he has also rejected the contribution of the Third, Heehs is unable to communicate the most basic meaning of Sri Aurobindo's appearance on the earth as the 9th Avatar of Vedic tradition. The only course left to him is a disingenuous dismissal of Sri Aurobindo’s Avatarhood as a distracting hagiographic idealization in which he had no real interest.

'...What about the assertion that Aurobindo was an avatar? I can’t say that the question interests me very much. Aurobindo never claimed the distinction for himself, and I don’t think anyone alive is in a position to say one way or the other...' (Peter Heehs, from the Columbia website)

To persons of knowledge, Heehs’ comments are simply outrageous. It is as if the Vedic tradition of the Avatar is meaningless, even though it is sanctified by the Gita in Sri Krishna's own words, and Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother’s as well. Moreover, Heehs’ contention that no one alive today is in a position to say one way or another belies an embarrassing lack of research on his part or, like the Auroville gang, a calculated decision to ignore the volumes of proofs that Thea has produced. Since these numerous and non-speculative proofs of Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric credentials have been accepted and catalogued by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, an organization which lists Heehs as one of its founding members, there can be simply no doubt that he has misstated the facts.

Those remaining devotees who have also rejected the knowledge but who nevertheless revile Heehs and consider his book a betrayal of Sri Aurobindo are left no choice but to embrace a greater religious fervor and a heightened idealization of the guru. When one is dealing with disillusionment in the absence of real knowledge how can they continue that level of commitment? Their gurus are gone, their teachings are being plagiarized and distorted by outsiders. People they respected and looked to for guidance have betrayed and abandoned them. The only option is to deny the facts and idealize the beloved out of all proportion. Tusar Mohapatra has provided us with an unmistakable example of this view when he writes:

“ The divine manifestation of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo is an unprecedented phenomenon which can't be explained by past mythological instances or received metaphysical formulations. Parameters of perennial philosophy or speculative prophecies like eternal recurrence fall flat here. All talk of the Messiah, the Tirthankar or the Avatar is idle intellectual approximations.
The mystery of their physical life, meeting, and work on earth is nothing in comparison to what is yet untold about them and their global action to unfold. When the shackle of the ramshackle past religions shall start crumbling then we may witness a gigantic backlash. The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have already accomplished the metaphysical victory. The praxis, alas, is but to follow to the peril of all ancient castles.
The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have already imbibed the leap in their embodied existence the consequences of which are simply unimaginable. Why and how their integrality is in the process of engulfing the whole world in spite of terrible defiance and resistance will be an interesting spectacle in the years to come. Savitri Erans must lift their flags high enough for others to spot and be a sport.” TM

This is a classic example of someone taking their own unfounded hagiographic inflation to extremes. What is most revealing is Tusar’s desire to get away from all formulation, mythic or otherwise which allows him to believe whatever fantasy he likes without the inconvenience of having to deal with proof of his claims and the facts that support them. He does so by putting them “up there” on the Transcendent heights beyond the reach and explanation of mortal man. This is a perfect example of how devotees with no yogic experience and realization attempt to turn this epochal spiritual work into a Religion. What remains are un-provable pronouncements about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother solely derived from Tusar’s subjective devotional fervor. His hopes are pinned on the ‘years to come’ and any fellow disillusioned Aurobindonians who might rally to his flag. In a work characterized by objective knowledge and precision, this kind of unqualified ‘new age’ response is simply unacceptable. By placing Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on incomparable, unreachable Transcendent heights, Tusar believes that he is doing them a service but in fact, as we have discussed in this paper, he is contradicting the very purpose they came to achieve. If joining the top of the ladder to the bottom is the whole secret of realization and the work of the Avatar, Tusar has just yanked the ladder out from under them and made their stated evolutionary goal of the divinization of matter a virtual impossibility.

I don’t mean to single Tusar out because, as the demands of Truth increase, the inability to produce a meaningful and accurate explanation of this work is being repeated by many of Auroville’s so-called wise men. In a recent posting on his blog “Mirror of Tomorrow”, (note that with these folks it is always about tomorrow) entitled ‘India’s Independence and Spiritual Destiny’, R. Y. Deshpande wrote a moving lament about India’s unfulfilled destiny and how things might possibly change for the better. He writes:

‘…Our hope lies in being open to the subtler nuances of the working of the forces of life that operate always within and around us. In the totality of our approach we will have to perhaps move from the rational to the luminous intuitive modes and tools of knowledge and action. Fortunate we will be if we can accept, understand and apply what has been given to us by the Seer of the New Age.’ RYD

I found his nonsensical comments curiously ironic because Deshpande has made a mission of distorting and suppressing the very knowledge that would allow for India’s rise. The luminious knowledge that he hopes someday to find has been set forth by Thea chapter and verse. It is precise, it is objective and resides in every curve, every line, and every centimeter of the Mother’s original temple plan. But every attempt to explain and discuss it has been met by Deshpande, Tusar and others in Auroville and the Ashram with denial, disbelief, negation, and rejection. And what do they offer in its place… distortion, falsification, meaningless speculation, pious platitudes and empty hope. His every word consolidates the view that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and even India have failed in their mission. And yet he continues with pretentions of authority and knowledge as if he had the imprimatur of Sri Aurobindo himself. Deshpande goes on with an unconvincing mea culpa:

‘…we are entrenching ourselves more and more into falsehood and fraud. We are strengthening falsehood and fraud more and more… It seems there is no end to our stupidity…. because we had no conviction in the words of the Avatar. One recoils despicably when there is the disregard for things that come from knowledge founded on the workings of the spirit.’ RYD

On this we are in total agreement, but what unbelievable hypocrisy. This very ‘knowledge founded on the workings of the spirit’ has been offered time and time again only to be roundly rejected by Deshpande and his cronies. The ‘tools of knowledge and action’ that he imagines as a saving grace have been given out by Thea since the early 70’s. But thanks to Deshpande and his colleagues, her dozens of books and hundreds of articles on Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and India have been arbitrarily withheld from the Integral Yoga community for over thirty years.

Is it any wonder then that with this kind of incompetent leadership Spiritual dilettantes like Andrew Cohen rush to patronize and diminish Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s stature so he can brand himself and his ‘EnlightenNext’ magazine as the leading authority on “Evolutionary Spirituality”. As Carter Phipps writes, ‘…the offices of EnlightenNext believe that the reason Sri Aurobindo’s work is not more celebrated is because his followers ‘view his work in such mythic and messianic terms’ regarding him as a flawless saint or Avatar.’ According to Phipps, students of Aurobindo and the Mother have a tendency to take this kind of hagiographic inflation to extreme heights. Given his limited understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s work and unfounded devotional hyperbole, Tusar plays right into this characterization.

Because of their rejection of the Third and Fourth levels of the Supramental Descent and the consequent inability to speak knowledgeably about Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s mission, their most ardent followers sit idly by while some of the major themes of the yoga have been plagiarized and distorted by opportunist like Andrew Cohen. He is even now conducting a seminar in Tuscany, Italy on “Being and Becoming”. According to Cohen’s brochure, he is inviting his students to immerse themselves in the ‘empty ground of Being’ and to practice the art of Meditation. Those of us familiar with the jargon of the old spirituality and its buzz words recognize immediately that Cohen, like Ken Wilber and others in the so-called Integral movement are trying to capitalize on Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary themes only to carry them back into the confines of an old and partial metaphysic that seeks Emptiness and Transcendence as its highest goal. The idea of the Vedic Fullness which lies at the heart of the Supramental knowledge is completely lost on these people who, like their counterparts in Auroville, continue to distort and deceive with impunity because no one dares to call them to account or expose their corruption of Sri Aurobindo’s message. This sad state of affairs simply cannot continue.

After the passing of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, there was a complete breakdown of order in Auroville and unremitting conflict between the various camps competing for authority over the Guru’s teachings. Because of mismanagement, lawsuits, and infighting between these various factions, Auroville had to be taken over by the Indian government in 1988 against the Mother’s express command. Since then it has been governed by the Auroville Foundation whose board is appointed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The Mother’s ‘City of Dawn’, meant to be a ‘Center’ for the realization of human unity, was thereby reduced to the status of an arrogant fundamentalist and elitist cult that has operated for decades with the de facto approval of the Indian government. Under their auspices, crores of rupees have been raised for the construction of a Matrimandir which was knowingly misrepresented to the public as faithful to the Mother’s original design. Numerous attempts by persons of knowledge to correct this travesty and hold open and transparent hearings on the sacred dimensions of the Mother’s Vedic design have been rebuffed by those with vested ego and financial interests who fear having their deceitful activities exposed to the light of day. Auroville, the one point on the earth where the Mother said that ‘Truth can and must reign’ has been occupied for decades by forces of deception, distortion, and misdirection. This cannot, will not go on. If India is to recover her divine birthright and fulfill her role as the Light of the world, Auroville and the Ashram must be brought into line with the needs of Indian Unity and there must be an immediate end to the obstruction and censorship of Thea’s written works. Moreover, full and transparent hearings must be held on the Matrimandir that has been so disingenuously put forward as true and faithful to the Mother’s Vedic plan.

Given the increasing pressure of the Supramental Consciousness pushing our world to the edge of collapse there is only one possible course, as the Mother said, ‘It is a choice between serving the truth or being destroyed.’

2009-08-09T06:34:00.000-07:00

As those who read this blog will know, it is dedicated to the Restoration of Vedic Wisdom. The fine article below by Lori Tompkins is vivid testimony to the forces opposing such a restoration. Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, “Thea” as she is known, is one of the world’s most prescient seers. Over the last forty years she has produced a body of Vedic knowledge unequalled in its scope and specificity and thoroughly grounded in a non-speculative and verifiable cosmology. What she has revealed of the ancient Veda carries the power of renaissance and represents a fatal blow to the forces of atavism that would keep India in the dark ages. Today we are witnesses to the struggle between darkness and Light with the future of India and the World hanging in the balance.
RW

2009-08-09T06:08:00.000-07:00

The ‘Inconvenient Necessity of Producing Evidence’:
The Deportation Case Against Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet

By Lori Tompkins
4 August 2009

The Times of India announced on 30 July 2009 that the Indian Government will release a special postal stamp on 4 April of next year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s arrival in Pondicherry, where he narrowly avoided arrest and deportation by British authorities who considered him a dangerous spoiler of their colonial rule. Coincidentally, the 31st of July 2009 happened to be the 100th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s ‘Open Letter to My Countrymen’ which he wrote in response to his year-long imprisonment (May 1908 – May 1909) and the persistent threat of deportation from Indian soil. The letter began:

‘The position of a public man who does his duty in India today is too precarious to permit of his being sure of the morrow. I have recently come out of a year’s seclusion from work for my country on a charge which there was not a scrap of reliable evidence to support, but my acquittal is no security either against the trumping up of a fresh accusation or the arbitrary law of deportation which dispenses with the inconvenient formality of a charge and the still more inconvenient necessity of producing evidence.’

Surely some find it interesting that in the same month the government announced their plans to celebrate Sri Aurobindo’s arrival in the safe haven of Pondicherry, they sent police to the door of Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, telling her she had four and a half days (two business days) to leave the country or she would be arrested. Ms. Norelli-Bachelet, a resident of India since 1971, is recognized by many in India and throughout the world as an essential continuation of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga, and especially as an extension of his will towards uplifting the Sanatana Dharma and the true Vedic idea that has been lost on Indians and the rest of the world alike for aeons. During her nine years of residence at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry (1971-1980) she published seven books: The Magical Carousel – A Zodiacal Odyssey, September Letters, Symbols and the Question of Unity, The Gnostic Circle – a Synthesis in the Harmonies of the Cosmos, The Hidden Manna, and The New Way – a Study in the Rise and Establishment of a Gnostic Society. The knowledge found in these books is its own proof that Ms. Norelli-Bachelet’s yoga and consciousness is a seamless continuation of the ‘Supramental Descent’ as initiated by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The methodology is clearly and meticulously revealed by which India and the peoples of the world can outgrow their cosmic ignorance, self-ignorance and discordant consciousness, and gain a higher, more integral vision of self and world affairs.

In 1980 Ms. Norelli-Bachelet moved to the Palani Hills of Tamil Nadu where she continued writing books and established the Aeon Centre of Cosmology as well as a dairy farm and the Carossel cheese factory. Her centre, dairy and modest cheese factory has employed and improved the lives of many nearby Indians, and students come from all over India and the world to study with her, assist her and be in her substantial presence.

So why is it that this commendable woman who has only enhanced India and been a true heroine in the Movement for the Restoration of Vedic Wisdom has been so abruptly asked to leave the county? [1] In the news we find few answers. A brief article appeared in the Times of India on 18 July 2009 titled ‘Chile president’s aunt asked to leave India’. Many readers were probably scratching their heads on that day wondering why the India-loving aunt of Michele Bachelet was being forced to leave after 38 years of uninterrupted residence. Whose boat did she rock too much? Is her opinion of Sri Aurobindo too high? Where is the pressure for expulsion coming from? Who wants to discredit her by sending her packing? Who has she ticked off to this extent?

A few days later on 21 July the Chennai Times of India published an article by Radha Venkatesan titled ‘Chilean Prez kin asked to leave India: Patrizia, Director of Yoga Center in Kodaikanal, Found To Be OverStaying’. This article adds a few interesting details to the story. Venkatesan reported that Ms. Norelli-Bachelet was directed to leave India for “overstaying” her visa which expired on 31 December 2008. She wrote, ‘District officials refused to elaborate on why the police objected to her visa renewal. However, the police said the local people living near Patrizia’s cosmological centre had opposed her stay. In 1992, a case related to a land dispute was filed against her, but she was acquitted, police said.’

If the reporter had done a bit more research she may have found out that not only did some of Ms. Norelli-Bachelet’s neighbors ‘oppose’ her stay, a group of 30 villagers had actually attacked her and two of her associates with baseball bats in 1992.

Questioned about the ‘land dispute’ mentioned in the Chennai Times article Ms. Norelli-Bachelet responded, ‘This is totally false. It was a murderous assault. [The policeman’s] intention is to show how I was creating trouble locally. He would not like to cast light on the real happening because two policemen were indicted and punished for their mischievous behaviour. I petitioned the National Human Rights Commission and a top-notch investigator was sent (1995) on a five-day investigation of my complaint to Kodaikanal. He found FACTUAL details proving everything I stated, such as disappearance of all material evidence, photos of the injured, and so on. The police had made it disappear. We were attacked by a gang; 30 armed with baseball-like carved bats against three of us. Several years went by and when no further action was taken by the NHRC, enquiries were made. They then gave the findings as pertaining to a ‘land dispute’ only. Most probably the original report filed by the investigator also vanished. But I do have a copy. There was no land dispute at all.’

Robert E. Wilkinson, vice president of Aeon Group, gives the following account: ‘The story goes that the locals had been provoked to attack Skambha [Aeon Centre] on the contrived story of her diverting the flow of water from the river and depriving the people downstream of the water for their crops. This was a complete lie which I documented on film when I was there.’ Mr. Wilkinson also remembers that one of Ms. Norelli-Bachelet’s associates was tied up and nearly thrown off Skambha’s waterfall in the 1992 attack.

After this episode failed to kill, scare off or tarnish Ms. Norelli-Bachelet, an international human rights campaign was launched against her by the same group. Letters accusing her of human rights abuses were sent ‘by the hundreds’ to the Indian Home Ministry mainly from certain European countries where Pax Christi, the organization which supported the campaign, is based. ‘At that time the agents of this organisation operated only with local support from the police and petty officials,’ says Ms. Norelli-Bachelet. ‘They had no support either in Chennai or even less in Delhi. Now it is different. These agents are everywhere, so they can secure an exit order from the Union Home Ministry itself, making sure that giving me only four days time I had no chance to get a stay. A manoeuvre of this sort had to be from someone high up.’

One might reasonably ask, ‘Why in the world would Pax Christi (or anyone) be so intent on getting rid of this woman?’ One would have to be familiar with the cohesive yoga and mission of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Ms. Norelli-Bachelet to understand the comprehensive threat that the only living member of this trinity poses.

With this in mind, some readers might appreciate the following synchronicity. On the same day Ms. Norelli-Bachelet was given her abrupt notice to leave India, the first chapter of her latest book, Secrets of the Earth – Questions and Answers on the Line of Ten Avatars of Vedic Tradition, was published in Bhavan’s Journal. This book discusses Sri Aurobindo as the 9th and 10th in the Line of Ten Avatars, as well as the fallacy and inconsistencies of the Nirayana zodiac system which many Indians rely on to organize and understand their lives. Ms. Norelli-Bachelet writes that knowledge of the true avatar of our age and knowledge of the true Vedic sacrifice – i.e. the Earth’s twelve month year as discussed in Sri Aurobindo’s The Secret of the Veda –, are both essential for cultivating the consciousness that will establish ‘a new heaven and a new Earth’.

A woman furthering Sri Aurobindo’s ideas of ‘The Life Divine’ and teaching of the true significance of Vedic symbolism and cosmology is certainly a pesky obstacle to certain agencies who thirst to ‘harvest souls’ via whatever trick or financial incentive. The very success of their ‘mission’ (by whatever name they call it) depends on how well and how completely they can separate millions of Indians from the living and livable significance of their Vedic roots. However if the investigation into ‘where is the pressure for expulsion coming from?’ and ‘who wants to discredit Ms. Norelli-Bachelet by sending her packing?’ is limited to evangelists who consider Hindu rituals and the Vedic sacrifice to be akin to devil worship and barbarism, many antagonists of Ms. Norelli-Bachelet’s yoga would skirt under the radar and the story would remain incomplete.

Certainly the Nirayana astrologers, and all who calculate their calendars and temple celebrations by the Nirayana system, would be thrilled if Ms. Norelli-Bachelet, who praises the Tropical or Sayana zodiac and discredits their own floating measure of the year as an anathema to Vedic wisdom, is ousted from her Indian seat. She has pointed out that the four fixed or ‘preservation’ signs of the Tropical zodiac and other cosmological symbols are not only found in the Bible, a fact which most Christians like to ignore; but also in the Rig Veda, specifically in the hymn to Vishnu the Preserver. This observation, which is not subjective at all, is basically ignored and buried by Vedic historians and scholars. In ‘Cosmology in the Rig Veda – the Third Premise’, Ms. Norelli-Bachelet discusses this particular impasse:

‘Indian scholars will contend that these zodiacal figures are equally “imports”, similar to an “imported civilisation”. Therefore, those who seek to support their theories of an indigenous culture will argue that the zodiac as we know it today was brought to India by the Greeks, long after the Rigveda was penned; and that therefore its symbols cannot possibly be found in the Veda.’ [2]

So one is left to wonder, who among those who will be greatly relieved and even happy to see Ms. Norelli-Bachelet banished from her home in Tamil Nadu, is truly pulling the strings? What is the real conspiracy of circumstances that has led to this juncture in which a veritable Indian national treasure, who will eventually be celebrated (despite the color of her skin and her non-Indian place of birth) as being equally instrumental as Sri Aurobindo in helping India rise to the call of its destiny and its greatness, is facing deportation 100 years after Sri Aurobindo’s own trials and tribulations at the hands of the British government? In this current drama it is apparently Ms. Norelli-Bachelet who is ‘highly dangerous’ to the rule and status quo of ignorance that keeps Indians from rising up and organizing themselves by the power of their own Sanatana Dharma.

Now many more than five days have passed since the notice to leave was served on the 15th of July and Ms. Norelli-Bachelet is still in-country (thankfully not in a jail cell). Friends in high places have apparently intervened. Radha Venkatesan reported in the Chennai Times article, ‘The state home department has asked the police to await further orders from the external affairs ministry.’

According to Ms. Norelli-Bachelet the Indian government has a file with her name on it that is chock full of false accusations of illegal, suspicious or otherwise offensive behavior that has been built up by her detractors over the decades. She is now demanding that her file be fully investigated and purified of its bogus contents. In the words of Sri Aurobindo (as per his 31 July 1909 ‘Open Letter’ to his countrymen), she is demanding that the Indian government observe the ‘inconvenient necessity of producing evidence’ to support the charges or judgment against her. Will her countrymen and women support her in this very reasonable demand, or voice no concern as she is thrown to the wolves of vested interest or vested ignorance?

[1] The Movement for the Restoration of Vedic Wisdom, Manifesto: The Zero, the Veda and the Divine Measure of the Year; MRVW Yahoo Group.
[2] ‘Cosmology in the Rig Veda – the Third Premise’ as published in The Hindu, 9 July 2002

2009-07-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

In his recent series, “Buddha and the World”, Deepak Chopra puts forward a 2500 year old ‘spiritual’ tradition as the most reasonable solution for our complex modern problems.
While I have the greatest respect for Dr.Chopra, on this account he could not be more wrong.

The Error of the Buddha

By
Robert E. Wilkinson ©

“The goal is not to lose oneself in the Divine Consciousness. The goal is to let the Divine Consciousness penetrate into Matter and transform it.” Sri Aurobindo - The Mother 15: p.191

One of the most troubling developments of our modern age is the inverse relationship between Knowledge and Belief. The less people know about an issue, the more they are willing to believe without questioning. This has led to some tragic social and political consequences but nowhere is this lack of discrimination more problematic than in the conflicting religious beliefs that are presently driving our world to the brink of destruction. If we are ever to turn the tide of this mounting chaos, we must be willing to stop and take a long hard look at the beliefs and suppositions that underlie our collective religious life. Only then can we move forward together with a healing Knowledge.

In his series, “Buddha and the World”, Deepak Chopra has given us a splendid opportunity to do this, to ask the difficult questions rather than simply accept his propositions as undisputed fact. I am most grateful to him for his efforts and hope that he will join in this discussion and respond to the points that are raised.

At the beginning of his article Dr. Chopra writes of a world teetering between madness and catastrophe, a problem he blames in large part upon the burden of past beliefs, a fact plainly evident today in the widening Shia-Sunni conflict in the Middle East. The solution to these complex global problems, says Chopra, are the teachings of the Buddha.

I could not disagree more. Chopra raises the central issue of ‘the burden of past beliefs’ yet he is somehow unable to recognize that Buddhism itself falls into that very category. Does he not see that the most urgent problem of our time, underlying all the rest, is that our whole conception of Spirituality indeed Reality, is based upon teachings that are over 2,000 years old? We would not tolerate this kind of dogmatic intransigence in our scientific endeavors so why do we continue to cling to the notion that God spoke to man over 2,000 years ago through Buddha, Jesus and a few others and has remained silent on the question of spirituality and the human condition ever since? This makes absolutely no sense but each passing day bears witness to a world arrested by the atavistic beliefs of religions long past, with many still locked in some form of convert or kill mentality.
Our attachment to these old religions naturally begs the question: Are the teachings of Buddha and others who lived over 2000 year ago still relevant to our Twenty-first Century society? Chopra will certainly claim, as many have, that Buddha’s teachings are based upon eternal and unchanging truths. But let us carefully examine this claim.

It is a widely accepted but erroneous ‘myth’ that there is but One Eternal Truth realized by all sages at all times though it may vary in form from one culture to another. This ‘One Truth’ is static and unchanging and many believe it represents the most exalted heights that human consciousness can attain. There is however compelling testimony to the contrary, a more integral and enlightened view which holds that Spirituality is a progressive movement, same as the biological evolution, constantly revealing new and fuller aspects of the Divine Consciousness.

All of us today live in a self-evident evolving reality. Does it seem at all reasonable that the spiritual realizations gained over 2,000 years ago by sages limited to an earlier phase of human evolution could be applied without revision to our complex modern culture? Certainly not! The facts are clear. The limitations inherent in the Mental consciousness when Buddha and others of that period made their discoveries could not admit of anything higher than a dissolution of the nexus of consciousness which held them in the world. 1. Buddha called his experience of dissolution “Nirvana” - a state of pure Being, equanimity and peace. The Nirvanic realization, we are told, has the quality of an infinite Zero, or Emptiness without form that grants liberation from this so-called ‘illusory world of becoming’.
It is certainly no coincidence that Lao Tze, the Chinese sage who lived around the same time as Buddha expressed his ‘spiritual’ realization in much the same vein calling it, “The Nothing that is All.” We find this same language later on in the teachings of Shankara, founder of the Advaita Vedanta school, who described his realization as ‘Moksha’ or liberation, where one does not feel oneself any longer to be an individual with a name or form, but an infinite, eternal, space-less consciousness. Clearly these extraordinary beings had reached the heights of the mental consciousness available to them at the time but with the continuing evolution of our species for over 2,000 years, new and greater spiritual heights have opened to our view. The Mental has given way to what Sri Aurobindo 2. and his line have called the “Supra-mental”, as Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, 3. Third in that line, explains:

'Supermind is the faculty that is now changing the human being's capacity to observe and measure. What before in both science and spirituality could only be expressed in terms of paradoxes and irreconcilables, can now be perceived in a vastly truer light. Mind indeed deforms the experience when it is used as the highest instrument of perception. And in both approaches Mind has been the tool, with its resultant language, insufficient and inadequate to express the higher reality in anything better than paradoxes. With the advent of Supermind this limitation is no longer felt; and with it comes the perception of the true nature of creation, - in particular with respect to that which moves and hence to time and matter.'
The New Way, Vol . 3, 1983, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet

Let us continue for a moment with Buddha’s realization and go more deeply into what it means for the individual and the world. There are two poles of Universal Being, one is Spirit (Purusha) and the other is Matter (Prakriti). The Buddhist view of reality is based upon an irreconcilable split between these two poles and a strategy that that posits one pole, (the Material), as an illusion in order to reach the other. Following Buddha’s realization of "Dukkha" (suffering) as the first great truth, his solution to the dilemma of existence was to seek liberation by declaring the unreality of the world. And this is exactly what Dr. Chopra is advising us to do in his article, …to become detached from the self and realize that the Individual self and the World are an illusion. In a recent interview with Atlantis Rising (May/June 2007) he told the interviewer:

“ I enjoy the illusion of it all. I’m standing in an apartment in New York City on the 69th floor overlooking the city and I know it’s not “real”, but I can appreciate it.”

However much he may enjoy the illusion, this is plainly a life-negating view that has no power to heal the wounds of fragmentation inflicted on our modern world by the reductive linear mind and its nihilistic religious forms. It is simply a continuation of an old patriarchal consciousness that denies the Feminine Goddess principle, Matter and our collective Becoming in favor of a remote static peace that has negated the lives and creative possibilities of hundreds of millions of human beings.

If we take an unvarnished look at what Buddha taught, not the kind of humanism it has morphed into today, it can only be understood as a strategy of escapism based on a denial of the World, the Sacred Feminine and the Human Soul. Sadly this path has found a willing following in many of the world’s religions which teach the faithful that salvation, if it exists at all, may only be found in the transcendence of the world in some after-death Christian ‘Heaven’, Advaitan ‘Moksha’ or ‘Nirvanic’ Void. A contemporary example of this retrograde view may be found in the popular works of Eckhart Tolle who writes:

”…The ultimate purpose of the world lies not within the world but in transcendence of the world.”

Dr. Chopra simply does not understand that when our highest spiritual wisdom declares the world to be meaningless, purposeless, unreal, and irredeemable, these nihilistic perceptions invariably play themselves out in our individual and collective life. This fact is undeniable in the tragic symbolism of children blowing themselves up in the service of fundamentalism based upon the deceitful promise of a paradisiacal afterlife. Likewise, if our earthly existence is conceived as only a meaningless passage to some higher reality then a certain restraint is removed on the unconscionable exploitation of the environment not to mention each other. Surely he cannot deny the overwhelming evidence of a looming environmental and human catastrophe, but who would ever have imagined that it was a direct consequence of these old nihilistic religious beliefs that disenchanted the natural world.

There are numerous other contradictions and points in his article to which I take great exception, particularly his comments on the corrupting influence of Time and his remarks on the human Soul. This is understandable since he espouses a path that seeks the obliteration of Time rather than to know its Power of Integration. But do not be deceived by his comments that Buddha was any kind of ‘physician of the Soul’. His very teachings are the basis of the Soul’s extinction. On this point I bow to Sri Aurobindo who has exposed the flaws of the Nirvanic experience for all time in his epic poem Savitri, Bk. 3; canto 2 – The Adoration of the Divine Mother:

“Thou hast reached the boundless silence of the Self,
Thou hast leaped into a glad divine abyss;
But where hast thou thrown Self's mission and Self's power?
On what dead bank on the Eternal's road?
One was within thee who was self and world,
What hast thou done for his purpose in the stars?
Escape brings not the victory and the crown!
Something thou cam'st to do from the Unknown,
But nothing is finished and the world goes on
Because only half God's cosmic work is done.
Only the everlasting No has neared
And stared into thy eyes and killed thy heart:
But where is the Lover's everlasting Yes,
…A huge extinction is not God’s last word.”

Having seen Dr. Chopra interviewed many times, one cannot doubt his heartfelt concern for the suffering of the world. He is indeed a Bodhisattva and an inspiration to millions of people. If Buddhism is Chopra’s chosen path, one can only respect his decision.
At the same time problems in the world are growing worse with each passing day. Solutions elude us because we continue to look to past traditions that negate and divide us instead of embracing a New Way that offers a knowledge that integrates and heals. This situation simply cannot continue.

Robert E. Wilkinson
robtw@sprynet.com

*****
Notes:

1.) In the early centuries of the Piscean Age the consciousness of the race was founded on three rather than four pillars of being. The Physical and Emotional in the service of the Mental. The highest, (Spiritual) was lacking or dormant. The great sages of that era including the Buddha were limited in their higher perceptions by the veil of mind whose nature is to reduce and fragment what spirituality and quantum physics tells us is inherently whole and interdependent. The bicameral mind thinks and sees in terms of polarities and is insufficient and inadequate to express the higher reality in anything better than bi-polar oppositions, paradoxes and irreconcilables such as Time and Eternity, Spirit and Matter, Being and Becoming, Good and Evil and so on. When mind tries to move upward beyond its vibrational limits, it is obliterated in Nirvana which is mistaken as the Spiritual. As Sri Aurobindo explains:

“One does not rise up when one passes into Nirvana, one pierces a hole and goes out. It is not as many believe the ending of the path with nothing beyond to explore, it is the end of the lower path and the beginning of the higher evolution. Nirvana in my consciousness turned out to be the beginning of my realisation, a step toward the complete thing.” Sri Aurobindo - Letters on Yoga

2.&3.) Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) is regarded as having made a contribution to human thought the equivalent of which does not seem to have been attained by any other known thinker. Together with the Mother of Pondicherry, he laid down the lines of a new Supramental Yoga which reveals the limitations of the old spirituality and corrects the error of the Buddha. Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea) (1938- ) Third in the Supramental line has brought synthesis and continuity to their yoga. Her work as director of the Aeon Centre of Cosmology has been to unveil a body of applied cosmological knowledge unequalled in it scope and specificity which, for the first time, offers us the tools to heal the schisms of the mental creation and integrate the Spiritual and Material planes. She has carried Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s work to completion, rebuilt the ‘Cosmological Bridge’ lost for millennia and has given us a New and Integral Way to embrace our collective becoming. For more on her evolutionary knowledge see: http://www.aeongroup.com