The 9, the 0, the Unified Multiplicity and the Divine Mother
‘Thea mentions in her biography that in the early 1970s, she realized the integral nature of numbers. During her initiation with the Mother, she was told the nine `is creation in matter`. What followed was a deep realization of the nine and the meaning of the zero.’ – Dr. Patricia Heidt, ‘Growing Into the Gnostic Circle’, Life Positive, February 2003
On 28 February I posted 'The Circle and the Point ... the 9 and the 0', which featured excerpts from Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet's (Thea's) Symbols and the Question of Unity. I have found more of Thea's writings on the significance of the 9, the 0, the Circle and the unified multiplicity. These writings speak of a profound revelation which are best understood within the context of Thea's books, but still, I think those interested in the circle, in the 9/0, in the zodiac, in the enneagram, in connecting spirit/matter, in Being and Becoming and in cultivating integral gnosis will enjoy these excerpts.
Excerpts from The Tenth Day of Victory (2004)
(Referring a 9.9.72 letter written by Thea to the Mother)
‘… I wrote to the Mother, symbols were no longer simply abstract figures. They lived. There was no separation between what they ‘stood for’ and the actual figure. I had penetrated a realm in which these separations do not exist. I had entered a state of consciousness in which unity is the foundation. But more than that, I had finally reached the Source of every symbol, of everything in creation in fact. And that Source was the Divine Mother. She was that Circle, that ‘symbol’, denoting the All in its essential unity: all symbols emerged from the Circle. It was only one more step and that All could be reduced to Number. The number of the circle was 9. The 9 was the Divine Mother.
‘But there was the Zero, the Point. This followed the realisation of the 9 and the Circle. With the Zero the Knowledge was complete. And out of That came the whole of creation. This Silence was a fullness and no void. The void was an illusion. Only fullness was Reality.’ – p. 206-207
‘For over a year I had been baffled, perplexed, sometimes even tormented by the phenomenon of the 9. Before leaving for India I wrote to the Mother and begged her to tell me what that number meant and why it was pursuing me in such a persistent manner. Her answer reached Rome after I had left, but it was forwarded to me at the Ashram. Her reply was that the 9 signified ‘creation in matter’.
‘This made no sense to me at all. What other creation could there be if not material, even though this might be of a subtle material substance? Yet these new experiences forced me to understand the great wisdom in those three simple words: creation in matter.
‘When the veil had been rent and I entered the realm where symbols have their ‘being’, I ‘saw’ the 9 as Matter, as the opposite pole to Spirit. I ‘saw’ the 0 as Spirit. But my seeing came in such a way as to allow me to realise the unity of the two. And this was what so revolutionised my consciousness, and later provided me with an entirely new basis on which to build a new cosmological synthesis. This foundation was captured in one simple geometric design: a circle with a central point. That design has always been the symbol of the Sun. And the Sun is the symbol of the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness.’
‘Indeed, as I had written to the Mother, all the threads had come together. I found myself plunged into a state of consciousness where all the symbols Sri Aurobindo had given for the Supermind became living things: the square, the sun, even the colours of the supermind, for they were the material substance of that truth-conscious Sun. Yet none of this was static. There was silence, true, but it was not static nonetheless. And the dynamism that I perceived as one with statics was provided by Number. And number was the measure of Time. Time was the dynamis, Time was the power of the Divine Mother, the kinetic expression of that Divine Consciousness. …
‘This seeing resolved all the paradoxes. I had then the formula, a workable structure that harmonised the unity and the multiplicity. This too was the essence of the Supermind: the simultaneous realisation of the One and the Many. The circle was that Many, and it contained, within itself, one with itself, the Point. This was no linear design. The vision was of a spheric wholeness and an implicit simultaneity; and this rendered the circle the symbol of a unified multiplicity, because its foundation, its inner truth was the 0, the point. …’ – p. 208-209
‘When I had the realisation of the essence of the 9 as ‘creation in matter’, I simultaneously understood the 0 and with it the entire scale from 0 to 9. This was indeed a further outcome of my September breakthrough: the scale of Number starts from the 0 and not the number 1, contrary to all esoteric teachings in which the 1 is the cipher of unity. Likewise, the scale ends with 9 and not 10. But this key too the Mother had held from her disciples, yet it formed the basis of the new synthesis, the truly esoteric significance of Number.
‘By starting from 0 and ending in 9, I found the invaluable key to that spheric wholeness which could never manifest in a system (or a world) where the linear movement from 1-10 prevailed. The difference was revolutionising for it drew the cosmic manifestation back to its source in the Feminine Principle and away from the Masculine where it had been disfigured entirely. But it was not even that. Rather, each thing was put in its place for the first time. This, perhaps more than anything else, would be my single most important contribution to the study of cosmic harmonies.’ – p. 226
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Excerpts from Symbols and the Question of Unity (1974)
‘The key to understanding the Zodiac and other symbols lies ultimately in an understanding of the sphere, and the key to understanding the sphere lies in the number 9, and the key to understanding the 9 lies in the Divine Mother. But the Divine Mother is not a symbol, – she is to be experienced.
‘All symbols, no matter which, spring from the circle; it is this that upholds their movement. That is, there can be no relation of lines which do not fall within the sphere, and this in turn can be ultimately translated into one numerical value, the 9. In India it has long been the number connected with the Divine Mother, as, for example, the Sri Chakra of the Tantra reveals, which is composed of 9 triangles. Also the whole system of predictions in Indian Astrology is based on the divisions of 9, of the Zodiac; the Figures attributed to each Yuga are all multiples of 9. One finds this reflected even in the simplest items such as the 108 beads used in the practice of certain rituals, and then revealed in the Gita, of the 18th book of the Mahabharata (of 18 volumes) which speaks of the 18th day of the war, itself containing 18 chapters, the Maha Puranas and the Upa Puranas of 18 books, and so on. In India the most popular feast of the Divine Mother is the Navarati, where on the 9th day Durga slays the Asura. …’
* The Circle and the Point ... the 9 and the 0
* 'The Vedic Circle of 9 and 0'
* The Gnostic Circle
* 'Spiral Dynamics - The Swirl of 6 and 9'
* 'The Geometry and Superstructure of Time'
* 'The Zero, the Veda and the Divine Measure of the Year'
* 'Being and Becoming'
T O S H O W E R T H I S B L O G / P O S T with W E B L O V E S U B S C R I B E ( v i a R S S ) and / or
S H A R E IT using A N Y of the I C O N S below
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