Vivekananda & Sri Aurobindo's Supramental Vision of Time

An Open Letter to Philip Goldberg, author of  American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West.

 ****

Hi Philip, I just read your January 5th Huffington Post article on Paramahansa Yogananda, Swami Vivekananda and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, – the 'Three Gurus Who Changed the Face of Spirituality in the West', – all who were born the week of January 5-12.

I believe another yogi will eventually be added to that list, though it may take a while for people to see what it is that she has accomplished through her life and yoga and how it illuminates Eastern and Western spirituality alike. Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (born January 5, 1938) has picked up where Sri Aurobindo and the Mother left off in their Supramental and Integral Yoga, focusing mostly on developing what Sri Aurobindo called a ‘Supramental Vision of Time’, and the restoration of Vedic Wisdom, especially in relation to cosmology.

For you, a self-proclaimed 'astrology-agnostic', it may be a challenge to appreciate her work/yoga because she discusses the Tropical Zodiac as inseparable from the Sanatana Dharma [the Eternal Truth of Being and Becoming]. But for a moment, try to hold back any astrology-bias you have and consider the following.

You may have noticed 'news' reports in January claiming that the Sun Signs are no longer what we thought they were, and that everybody in the WEST has been mislead by the current Tropical Zodiac, because the months are suppose to be determined by the 'shifting' position of the constellations (as held by most astrologers in INDIA). Well this is actually a really big deal if one considers for a second that the Vedic Rishis were accurate when they wrote that the 12 months and four seasons of the sacred year are the real framework of a very real journey to higher realms of consciousness. Ms. Norelli-Bachelet has dedicated much of her yoga and life to correcting the current Indian/Hindu trend of separating the Sacred or Vedic Year (i.e. the Zodiac) from the Earth's Equinoxes and Solstices. On December 25th 2010 she spoke at the First National Conference on Panchanga Ganitam (Calendar Reform) at the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in Andhra Pradesh, to an ALL-INDIAN assembly of spiritual men who were firming up the dates of the Sacred Year. She told the assembly, and anyone watching via the live global webcast, that it is absolutely wrong to calculate the Sacred/Vedic calendar (i.e. the zodiac) on the basis of the constellations. She spoke loudly and clearly, that it is the so-called WESTERN, i.e. Tropical Zodiac that is actually VEDIC, and that the current astrological practice and calculation in India is an anathema to the Sanatana Dharma because it excludes the very real dynamics, structures and measures of Mother Earth. [See Video Clip]

From my point of view, there is a certain symmetry between the yoga of American-born Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, and Indian-born Vivekananda. 117 years after the United States achieved Independence from England (1776), Vivekananda came to the United States to introduce Americans to the Sanatana Dharma; and in turn 117 years later, Ms. Norelli-Bachelet, delivered a momentous speech at one of the most important temples in India, to the effect that it is the Westerners who have the correct measure of the Vedic Year right, not Indian/Hindus. However, whereas Vivekananda, I believe, traveled twice to the USA, first at age 30, for a total stretch of some four years; Ms. Norelli-Bachelet, now age 73, first arrived in India at age 33 and has lived in India for 40 years. There is even more symmetry if you consider Ms. Norelli-Bachelet's discussion in The Gnostic Circle of India and the United States as physical manifestations of the Capricorn-Cancer axis that runs not only through the zodiac, but also through the Globe/Earth. [1] Anyone who takes notice of numerical symmetries will be interested to see that both 1893 and 2010 (the years of Vivekananda and PNB’s speeches) are 3 years in terms of Theosophical Addition. 1776 and 1947, the years United States and India achieved Independence from England, likewise reduce to the number 3.

Also, considering the number 234 figures prominently in Ms. Norelli-Bachelet’s teachings concerning the zodiac, the yugas, the Precession of the Equinoxes, and the astrological ages [2], it is hard not to be impressed by fact that, not only was her Tirumala speech given 234 years after the United States achieved independence from England, but that the mid-way point of 1776 and 2010 was precisely 1893, the year of Vivekananda gave his landmark speech in Chicago.

I do understand that most people, even the most recognized spiritual thinkers of our day, are currently unaware that these matters are of grave importance to the World and its spiritual and material progress, [see 'Restoring the Soul of Knowledge in the Aquarian Age'], but you have to admit, if you suspend your belief that astrology has nothing to do with Sanatana Dharma or the evolution of consciousness, that the world will eventually have to add another important Capricorn Yogi to their list of those who have changed the course of Spirituality .... for both the West and the East. For the West because through Ms. Norelli-Bachelet’s yogic teachings, people will begin to see and learn about the Vedic roots and wisdom that underlie not only our much-eroded and misunderstood modern-day astrology, but our mathematics, systems measure, navigation, mythologies, and religions as well; and in the East because in light of her yogic teachings, India’s spiritual practices and spiritual ego will have to undergo a huge overhaul in order to be in concert with, in harmony with the Sanatana Dharma of the Earth's Year. In due time (the sooner the better) it will no longer be spiritually wise to consider the sacred measure of the Year to be disconnected from the Earth and her own processes; nor wise to consider our cycles in time to be illusory or inconsequential to the evolution of our consciousness.

Best of Light, Lori Tompkins

[Update: I forgot to add that Vivekananda died on on America's Independence date, July 4th, 1902, in the sign of Cancer, stressing his connection with the U.S, his connection with the work of Ms. Norelli-Bachelet, and the Cancer-Capricorn axis of the Zodiac. July 4 and January 5 are at opposite ends of the Cancer-Capricorn axis.]
____________________________

[1] 'India occupies the 'Spiritual' pole of the Capricorn-Cancer axis which cuts through globe to its 'Material' counterpoint; the United States of America (born on July 4th, the mid-point of Cancer). Each of these countries represents the epitome of their archetypal identity as the poles of Spirit and Matter and together they form the evolutionary axis of the earth.' - Robert E. Wilkinson discussing Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet's seeing of the cosmological basis of the Indian-US connection www.aeongroup.com. PNB discusses this connection at length in The Gnostic Circle.

[2] ‘The Yugas and the Precession of the Equinoxes’

____________________________

Related Post: 'Sri Aurobino, Vivekananda and Voices of the Supramental Shakti' (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet's comments on 'Vivekananda’s Guidance to Sri Aurobindo in the Alipore Jail: a Crafty Misrepresentation in The Lives of Sri Aurobindo' by Sandeep Joshi, posted on R.Y. Desphande's Mirror of Tomorrow blog on February 3, 2011 (2.3.4)

Also see PNB's 2014 article: "Revolution, Indian-style (Reflections on the Nature of the Real – Part 4: The Embrace – at last!)", 2 October 2014

Comments