Recovering the Ancient Light and Amrita of the Vedas – Part II

"Painting on paper (circa 1820) depicting the Churning of the World [or Churning of the Milky Ocean]. This remarkably detailed painting shows the Samudramanthana episode. At the centre of the composition is mount Mandara, identified by an inscription in English. As usual in South Indian painting, at the top of the mountain a temple's golden kalasha is visible. Just above it, Viṣṇu is emerging half bust from a cloud, carrying the amrita vessel in his hands. The densely forested Mandara, inhabited by gandharvas playing musical instruments, rests on [Kurma, the Turtle form of Viṣṇu], duly identified by an inscription: 'Kurm raja'. Coiled around the mountain is the serpent Vasuki, identified as 'Vasuka', whose tail end is held by the dikpalas, here identified as 'Asuras' and the head by the asuras, here labelled 'Suras'. … [In] this painting it is Viṣṇu who carries the amrita to the devas. In the left upper corner of the painting Viṣṇu as Mohini, identified by an inscription 'Narayana', is doling out the amrita to the assembled gods seated opposite the asuras...." [See full description in WikiCommons]  

I am glad to see that my last post “Recovering the Ancient Light and Amrita of the Vedas” has been well shared on Facebook. It has the second highest readership of any of my posts, closely following my July 2018 post, “Finding the Saraswati River & Restoring the Flow of Her Vedic Wisdom”. Comments, though largely positive, range from “Great work. A must read” to an angry face emoji. Many readers have requested more simple explanation feeling like what I am conveying is beyond the grasp of normal intellect; and one concluded that what I have presented is “of no consequence”. Whereas this last comment really represents the mind’s seemingly infinite capacity to diminish that which it doesn’t understand, it also represents the necessary task or challenge of conveying the importance (consequence) of unveiling the long-lost Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom, when most people have no understanding of Vedic Wisdom precisely because the keys and context of its language have been long-lost. Circa 1908 Sri Aurobindo began addressing this loss and contributed to the restoration of the “secret” of the Veda throughout his writings.

I believe [the] Veda to be the foundation of the Sanatan Dharma; I believe it to be the concealed divinity within Hinduism, — but a veil has to be drawn aside, a curtain has to be lifted. I believe it to be knowable and discoverable. I believe the future of India and the world to depend on its discovery and on its application, not to the renunciation of life, but to life in the world and among men.  ‒ Sri Aurobindo, India’s Rebirth (written circa 1910-1914), pp. 256-57 

Religious movements and revolutions have come and gone or left their mark but after all and through all the Veda remains to us our Rock of the Ages, our eternal foundation…. Yet for some two thousand years at least no Indian has really understood the Vedas. ‒ Sri Aurobindo, India’s Rebirth, pp. 265-66

Sri Aurobindo understood the importance of recovering the veiled and lost secrets or keys of the Vedas, and it is evident that both he and Thea (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet) made significant progress in this task of recovering Vedic Wisdom, but it is also clear that much needs to be done in terms of helping people understand, integrate and utilize what has already been recovered. One commenter on my “Recovering the Ancient Light and Amrita of the Vedas” post wrote: “What is Vedic wisdom? I understand there is a key to understand it. But what is to be understood?” I responded:

Vedic wisdom is wisdom contained in the Vedas, i.e. wisdom conveyed and veiled by the Vedic Rishis, knowledge of the Vedic Yajna (Sacrifice), which is measured out into 12 months by the radius and vesica piscis of the 360 degree circle. I think of the wisdom or knowledge of the Vedic Yajna (of the Vedas) as knowledge of the unified field of Time and Space. The main thing to be understood is that the Rishis used myriad symbols to discuss the radius, vesica piscis and circle which are the basic building blocks of sacred geometry, sacred measure of the Yajna. Knowing this (i.e. utilizing this key of the Rishis' symbolic language) the Vedas will make new sense to those who are concerned with what the Rishis were trying to transmit in their cryptic language. It's not all that complicated. The Rishis embedded their gnosis of sacred geometry (and the geometry of the Vedic Yajna/Year) into their veiled symbolic language. The recognition of this geometric key of the Vedas should help to illuminate our world’s understanding of the Vedas which in turn should help to illuminate much of the world’s mythologies, religions and symbols. Hopefully people that are interested in the subject will do their homework and read what I have already written about it all in length in my book and on my blog and all the links I have provided on the book page on my blog. [Bold emphasis added]

In the spirit of trying to help people understand I will try to back up a bit and explain some basics. Our modern world’s conception of religion, yoga and spirituality (including the practice of Astrology) originated in ancient times. Most of our modern civilization’s ideas of divinity and sacred ritual or practices can be traced back to the Rig Veda, a collection of ancient hymns composed as a series of ten mandalas or books, each made up of hymns and verses. Veda means Truth (in the sense of True Vision or Seeing) and Rig mean song or praise. The Rig Veda is thought to have been transmitted orally until it was written down in India in Sanskrit circa 300 BCE. Some believe the oral tradition of the Vedas began circa 1,500 BCE and place its beginnings much further back in time (12,000-4,000 BCE) due to the astronomical and geographical references in the hymns, such as references to the Saraswati River which is thought to have dried up circa 4,000 BCE. The Vedic Rishis or composers of the Vedic hymns make many references to ancient forefathers or seers before them, thus the real antiquity or age of this tradition of sacred knowledge is unknown. David Frawley’s definition of Vedic Wisdom (from his website) may be helpful for people who know nothing of this subject. [1] 

The Vedas are a vast set of spiritual teachings dating from the dawn of history. They consist of the mantras of numerous great Himalayan yogis and seers, who were said to have founded the spiritual paths for humanity at the beginning of this world-age over ten thousand years ago. The Vedas are the origin of Hindu religion and culture and have influenced religions and philosophies all over the world. The Vedas contain the basis for the spiritual traditions of India that arose in the Himalayan region, including those of Yoga, Vedanta, Puranas, Tantra, Ayurveda and Vedic astrology. The Vedas also contain keys to the Pre-Christian traditions of all Indo-European peoples – the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Germans and Slavs – whose ancient languages and cultures resemble the Vedic. The Vedas reflect the ancient solar religions and enlightenment traditions that once dominated the world from Mexico to China. 

As such, the Vedas represent the ancient global spiritual culture and yogic approach to life behind the earliest mystical traditions of the world and our deepest spiritual heritage as a species. The Vedas are centered in the deepest spiritual and self knowledge – the unity of the individual soul with the Divine. They teach us that there is only One Self in the universe….

As Sri Aurobindo wrote, the knowledge contained in the Vedas was hidden by the Rishis via a “veil of symbols”, only to be understood by initiates.

[The Mystics had an enormous influence on] early civilisations; there was indeed almost everywhere an age of the Mysteries in which men of a deeper knowledge and self-knowledge established their practices, significant rites, symbols, secret lore within or on the border of the more primitive exterior religions. This took different forms in different countries; in Greece there were the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries, in Egypt and Chaldea the priests and their occult lore and magic, in Persia the Magi, in India the Rishis. …If men entered into [the occult knowledge of the Mystics] without a severe test and training it would be dangerous to themselves and others; this knowledge, these powers could be misused, misinterpreted, turned from truth to falsehood, from good to evil. A strict secrecy was therefore maintained, the knowledge handed down behind a veil from master to disciple. A veil of symbols was created behind which these mysteries could shelter, formulas of speech also which could be understood by the initiated but were either not known by others or were taken by them in an outward sense which carefully covered their true meaning and secret. This was the substance of Mysticism everywhere. It has been the tradition in India from the earliest times that the Rishis, the poet-seers of the Veda, were men of this type, men with a great spiritual and occult knowledge not shared by ordinary human beings, men who handed down this knowledge and their powers by a secret initiation to their descendants and chosen disciples. It is a gratuitous assumption to suppose that this tradition was wholly unfounded, a superstition that arose suddenly or slowly formed in a void, with nothing whatever to support it; some foundation there must have been however small or however swelled by legend and the accretions of centuries. But if it is true, then inevitably the poet-seers must have expressed something of their secret knowledge, their mystic lore in their writings and such an element must be present, however well-concealed by an occult language or behind a technique of symbols, and if it is there it must be to some extent discoverable….  

[To] make this discovery will be the sole way of getting at the true sense and the true value of the Veda. We must … accept the Rishi’s description of the Veda’s contents as “seer-wisdoms, secret words”, and look for whatever clue we can find to this ancient wisdom. Otherwise the Veda must remain for ever a sealed book; grammarians, etymologists, scholastic conjectures will not open to us the sealed chamber.  ‒ Hymns to the Mystic Fire, CWSA, Vol. 16, pp. 6-7 [All emphasis added; [Click HERE for more on Sri Aurobindo’s discussion of the veiled secrets and symbols of the Veda ] 

Our world’s fragmented (and disharmonious) array of religions, spiritual paths and yogas is a result of millennia of compounded misunderstanding of the veiled gnosis of ancient Sages. Clearing up these misunderstandings is a crucial step towards helping the world progress beyond its fragmented egoic consciousness, towards the Unity consciousness (i.e. the Divine consciousness) spoken of in various ancient texts. [2]

Sri Aurobindo began the important process of unsealing the “sealed chamber” of the Veda; and based on his work, Thea made great progress in uplifting the hidden secrets or truth therein. And now, based on what they both revealed, I have made some additional progress in this arena which will hopefully be of use to others (whether in the present or future) who are in alignment with this mission of restoring the Eternal Wisdom of the Vedas in our world. Sri Aurobindo recognized that the central theme of the Vedas is the Yajna or Sacrifice.

The sacrifice is also a journey; indeed the sacrifice itself is described as travelling, as journeying to a divine goal; and the journey and the sacrifice are both continually spoken of as a battle against the dark powers.… …[T]his journey, if principally of the nature of a quest, the quest of the hidden light, becomes also by the opposition of the powers of darkness an expedition and a battle.  -- Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, CWSA, Volume 15, p.183

This Sacrifice (Yajna) is the forgotten basis of Yoga and Religion. 

The whole of karma yoga, or any yoga for the matter of that, is centred round this principle governing all life and existence – the principle of yajna, sacrifice.  Swami Krishnananda, The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita (1982), p. 33

Sri Aurobindo recognized that the Vedic Sacrifice is equivalent to the evolutionary journey (the evolution of consciousness) lived out on Earth, and that the Rishis saw, understood and characterized this journey in terms of the twelve months of the Earth’s Year.

[Now it becomes clear that] 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, ṛtenābhindan parivatsare valam, “by the truth, in the revolution of the year, they broke Vala,” or, as Sayana interprets it, “by sacrifice lasting for a year.” Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, CWSA, Volume 15, p.177

Vala, meaning enclosure or cave, is a symbol of the enclosure of Ignorance, or the demon of Ignorance in the Rig Veda. From this verse above, and many others which make clear reference to the measure of the Earth’s year, Thea saw that the Zodiac is a central key or pillar of the symbolic language of the Veda, a key without which the meaning of symbols remain largely misunderstood.

“[T]he Vedic ‘journey’ just as it is described in the Veda, [is] based on the revolution of the Earth around the Sun, along the ecliptic within the tropical zodiac; above all the zodiac because that is where we find the secret language. The central protagonist of the Veda is the Year – the sacrifice lasting 12 months.” – Thea, “A Calendar that Unifies”, bold emphasis added].  

“The year, divided into twelve months, is one of the basic pillars of the Veda. The great victory of the Gods, which the illuminative hymns describe, is always associated with the flow of Time; and [with] the mighty conquest, the release of the seven Rivers withheld by Vritra….”  – Thea, The New Way, Vols. 1&2, 397

I will not attempt to give a full account of what Thea illuminated about the 12-month Zodiac as an essential key or pillar of the Veda; but it is necessary to emphasize here that she understood the Vedic Yajna or Year (i.e. Tropical Zodiac) as a microcosm and map of the evolution of consciousness, each month representing progressive stages of development in the soul’s manifestation or realization of the Divine Self. She recognized that the final quadrant of the Zodiac, comprising the signs of Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces) was called Swar by the Rishis, representing the realm of Truth-Consciousness, beyond the falseness and division of the Mental stage of evolution (the third quadrant of the Zodiac). She taught that knowledge of one’s movement within the cycles of Time (i.e. within the Vedic Yajna) serves to uplift consciousness from the fragmented mental-egoic consciousness towards the Integral and Supramental consciousness, progressively revealing the hidden treasures of the Divine Self. Her groundbreaking teachings on the usefulness of the Vedic Yajna toward the uplifting of consciousness can be verified by any who apply them to their own journey in Time, or to our collective evolutionary adventure on Earth. In other words, she not only recovered the hidden Zodiacal basis of the ancient Vedic Yajna or Yoga, she recovered and demonstrated its applicability and usefulness towards the transformation of consciousness. She also understood, as Sri Aurobindo did that the true purpose of the Yajna – and thus the real essence of Yoga/Religion – is not to transcend, escape or liberate oneself from manifestation or birth in Time and Space (as many have sadly come to believe the goal of Yoga/Yajna/Spirituality), but to become (i.e. fully realize) the Divine manifest in the world. 

A synthesis of the Circle of 9 & 12,
  called the Gnostic Circle by Thea.

Thea saw that the triadic basis of the Vedic Rishis’ Yajna and of their gnosis and 0/9 number system could only be properly seen in terms of the 360° Circle and 360° cycles of Time. She also shed light on the Vedic origin and sense of the Divine Trinity, which in terms of the Rishis’ 0/9 number system, are the numbers 3, 6 and 9. She saw and illuminated the sacred math and measure by which the Transcendent Divine manifests itself in the Cosmos, in the Earth, and in the Individual, and by which the Individual can come to see the Divine or Supramental consciousness-force in the movements of life. She also recognized that the Mother’s twelve-pillared Temple was a symbol of the Vedic Year. [3]

Three vesicae piscis (one colored in grey),

dividing the circle into three 120 degree 

sections; shown here marking out the Fire 

Trine of the Zodiac. See: Geometric Keys

of Vedic Wisdom, p. 27.

In February of 2016 I began to see the role the vesica piscis played as the foundation stone or geometric basis of the measure of the Yugas and the Vedic Year. With this seeing, came the sense that the vesica piscis is an important key in the restoration of the Eternal Law (Sanatana Dharma) of the ancient Vedic Rishis. In March of 2016, I came to see that the mythology of Vishnu’s Ten Avatars (the Preservers of Sanatana Dharma, and thus of the Vedic Sacrifice) is firmly based on the geometry of the vesica piscis and the geometry of the Zodiac. Thea had already seen the long-forgotten connection between Vishnu, the Zodiac and the Yugas, but she did not see the geometric component and proof of this connection. I tell the unusual story of how I came to see this in my book and will not repeat it here. What I will share is that my first understanding of the geometric basis of Vishnu’s avatars came in the form of Vishnu’s second Avatar Kurma [the Turtle] who is said to have upheld Mount Meru (aka Mount Mandara) in the Churning of the Milky Ocean mythology by which the cosmic order is preserved and the Nectar of Immortality (Amrita) is generated. Vishnu/Kurma then assumes the female form of Mohini and secures the Amrita for the enjoyment and empowerment of the Gods, preventing the Demons (i.e. the Ignorant) from drinking it.

Left: Kurma (Vishnu as the Turtle) supporting Mt. Meru/Samudra; 

Right: 4 arcs of the vesica piscis drawn out from the four Cardinal 

Points of the Earth's Year, forming the four "legs" of Vishnu's 

Kurma form, a modification of my images in GKVW, pp. 61, 70, 123.

I saw that the shell of Kurma is the circle of the Zodiac, and his four legs were formed by four arcs of the vesica piscis from the four cardinal points of the Earth’s Year. These “legs” complete the 12 division of the 360° Circle/Year and encompass the four preservation signs of the Zodiac (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius) which Thea equated with Vishnu the Preserver. After seeing this, it was easy to see that the first avatar Matsya [the Fish] was a symbol of the vesica piscis itself, and subsequently the geometric basis or foundation of Vishnu’s other avataric forms became clear.

Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom, p. 123.

This World supporting Turtle (Vishnu) also shows up in Mesoamerican iconography in various ways. In my mind the most notable instance of this iconography is an image in the Madrid Codex which shows the Mayan lore of THREE CREATION STONES [hearth or FIRE stones] sitting on a turtle’s back. One look at the image of the three stone-shaped vesicae piscium that mark out the three fire signs of the Earth’s year (symbolized by the Turtle) should illuminate for the reader what these three hearth stones are. The symbols above the Turtle and Three Creation Stones are recognized as symbols of the Sun and the Ecliptic plane of our Solar System. Another example of Vishnu mythology in Mayan iconography is shown below. 

Left: Vishnu as Kurma; Right: Turtle-Man or God from the Dresden Codex.

The point I wish to make here is that there is a long-held tradition or belief in India that the God Vishnu returns from Age to Age (Yuge Yuge) to preserve and restore the Eternal Wisdom on Earth, and in 2016 it became fully apparent to me that the vesica piscis is a central key not only to the symbolism of Vishnu mythology, including the mythology of his three steps (trivikrama) across the universe, but is also a central key of restoring (and thereby preserving) the Eternal Wisdom of the Ancients in our current Age of Vishnu – the Age of Aquarius. Thea recognized Sri Aurobindo as the incarnation of Vishnu the Preserver of our Aquarian Age. Most will think this is just fantasy and that mythology and prophecy have no real counterpart in reality, and yet in the dawn of our current Age, the sacred Eternal Wisdom that is to be the basis world harmony is being restored through the impetus of Sri Aurobindo’s Supramental Gnosis. The Turtle is an ancient symbol of this fixed basis of the Harmony of all life on Earth. In the Indian Churning of the Milky Ocean mythology the Turtle (i.e. Vishnu as Kurma) upholds Creation [below left], and in Mayan mythology this same Turtle upholds the World Tree (Wacah Chan) [below right].

While working on my book in March of 2017, I found an 2015 email from a colleague at Thea's Aeon Center of Cosmology (aka "Skambha"), which emphasized the importance of Kurma's role in stabilizing the Earth's "Churning" process and in the reinstatement of the Eternal Truth of which the Turtle forms the basis or foundation.

[Thea] says there is so much churning going on in the Earth, and this is necessary; but there is NO AXIS... no churning stick. Vishnu the avatar (kurma) is lost.  It's everyone spewing out their thoughts and ideas, etc. etc. ...but nothing to hold it in place. One gets a sinking feeling because the turtle/kurma is not holding it up, supporting the discussion. That is what [Skambha/Aeon Centre of Cosmology] is about.…There has to be a reinstatement of the Dharma....  – Patricia Heidt, Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology, December 14, 2015 [emphasis added, as found in Geometric Keys of Wisdom, pp. 61] [4]

Seven Rivers (seven vesicae piscium)
of the Zodiac, Geometric Keys 
of Wisdom, p. 202.

After writing some 180 pages on the topic of the vesica piscis as the key of Vishnu’s preservation and restoration of Sanatana Dharma, I then came to see that the arc of the vesica piscis within the circle of the Zodiac is depicted as a RIVER in the Rig Veda. This geometric key pierced and quickly dismantled the “veil of symbols” the ancient Rishis used to occult or hide their sacred gnosis, and I could see a whole layer of the Vedic hymns that had been hidden (lost) for multiple millennia. I could see that the sacred form of the vesica piscis was depicted via hundreds of symbols, not just as the sacred rivers or waters of the Veda, but as the sacred cow, the Amrita (the nectar of immortality) of the gods, the food (manna) or wine of the gods (Soma), the Dawn goddess, the River goddess, the flight of a Falcon or Eagle, the gallop of a Horse, and as the sacred word, thought, song and prayer of the Rishis. Seven days after receiving the vesica piscis as the geometric key of the Vedas, Thea left her body after a long battle with Cancer. I was stunned by the play of circumstances that deposited this crucial key into my consciousness in conjunction with Thea’s passing, 144 years after Sri Aurobindo’s birth. [5] I could see how various mythologies prophesied the eventual piercing of this ancient veil of symbols, including the mythology of release of the seven rivers of the Veda, and the release of the seven vials of St. John’s Revelation. 

I will discuss the release of the Seven Rivers and Seven Vials of the Vedas and St. John’s Revelation in a future post. Here I wish to help readers SEE more clearly that, as I wrote in my last post, the Amrita ‒ the immortalizing food of the Gods of the Vedas to be recovered or attained by Vishnu, equivalent to the Manna of Biblical lore (and the immortalizing drink contained in the Holy Grail/Chalice of Arthurian lore) ‒ IS a veiled symbol of the vesica piscis. The correspondence between Amrita and the vesica piscis is clear in R.T.H. Griffith's translation of Rig Veda 4.58, wherein the Amrita is depicted as “a wave of sweetness” seen together with its stalk or Golden Reed which are both symbols of the radius, as is “the Gods’ tongue” located at Amrita’s center.

Forth from the ocean sprang the wave of sweetness: together with the stalk it turned to Amṛta, that which is holy oil's mysterious title: but the Gods’ tongue is truly Amṛta's centre.  Let us declare aloud the name of Ghṛta, and at this sacrifice hold it up with homage. So let the Brahman hear the praise we utter. This hath the four-horned Buffalo emitted. Four are his horns, three are the feet that bear him; his heads are two, his hands are seven in number. Bound with a triple bond the Steer roars loudly: the mighty God hath entered into mortals. That oil in triple shape the Gods discovered laid down within the Cow, concealed by Paṇis. Indra produced one shape, Sūrya another: by their own power they formed the third from Vena. From inmost reservoir in countless channels flow down these rivers which the foe beholds not. I look upon the streams of oil descending, and lo! the Golden Reed is there among them. 

Two circles joined by a
common radius, forming
the vesica piscis. 

In this hymn, the vesica piscis is not only portrayed as “the wave of sweetness” and Amrita, it is also the Holy Oil (Ghṛta), the reservoir, the countless channels and the rivers/streams of oil. In addition to the stalk, the Gods’ tongue and the Golden Reed, the Bull and other masculine figures (gods) of this hymn are also symbols of the radius which dwells within and creates the eternal forms of the Circle and the vesica piscis. The triple shape of the oil and the triple bond of the Steer (Bull) are references to the three vesicae piscium that perfectly divide the 360° Circle/Year into three 120° segments (each equivalent to 432,000 arc seconds). [6] The Cow in which the triple shape of the oil is laid down and the Ocean from which the "wave of sweetness" springs forth in this hymn are symbols of the entire Yajna or Year. This “oil in triple shape” corresponds to the Three Creation Stones of Mayan lore, just as the “four-horned Buffalo” is equivalent to the symbol of the four-legged Turtle (both symbols of the Earth’s Year).

Many naturally will ask “So what?”, “What does all this mean?”, or “How does this all help anything or anyone?” Well initially it should wake people up to the fact that our world’s knowledge of its own ancient lore and mythology has been greatly hobbled by long-standing ignorance of this important hidden piece of the scrambled puzzle of our ancient history and our present predicament on Earth. It is a key, as is the Zodiac, of seeing the lore, symbols, mythologies and religions passed down through large spans of Time on Earth from an Integral or Holistic perspective, i.e. seeing the larger picture and framework of how the fragments or puzzle pieces of our past and present actually fit together as a cohesive whole. The narrow and dominant lens of Eurocentric scholarship has greatly underestimated and diminished the intricate language and rituals of the Ancient Rishis. The intelligence it took to compose (and orally transmit) the Rig Veda is mind-boggling. Mankind may still have a long way to go towards fully understanding the Rishis’ cohesive and occult system of Gnosis, and thus the real sense of Yoga and Religion, but many crucial keys of this system of Gnosis have already been recovered. As Sri Aurobindo taught, this recovery coincides with a great shift forward in the evolution of consciousness, from Mental to Supramental Consciousness as he described our world's transition into Unity Consciousness, Truth Consciousness, or Divine Consciousness.

We are at a time in our evolution where our narrow, fragmented and distorted views (understandings), our history, our language, our mythology, our symbols, our existence and our Divinity must be shattered and dissolved so that the Oneness of our journey or Yajna (Yoga) in Time and Space can be collectively experienced and celebrated, not as the superficial or superstitious religious beliefs or religious celebrations (holidays) of our modern-world but as the real knowledge (gnosis) and real expressions of our common Divinity which we have the potential to fully realize on Earth. 

[This article was written during the 2018 Diwali festival, a festival honoring the goddess Lakshmi and celebrating the victory of Light over Darkness. i.e. Knowledge over Ignorance.]

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Endnotes:
[1] David Frawley is the founder of American Institute of Vedic Studies. Though he is a prominent Vedic scholar, he perpetuates the idea that the practice of measuring the sacred Zodiacal Year according to the Sidereal (Nirayana) measurement of the Earth’s Year is Vedic. Thea saw this Nirayana measure of the Zodiac as a Post-Vedic distortion or mismeasure of the true Vedic measure of the Earth’s year – i.e. the Tropical Zodiac (the Earth’s Solar Year) based on the four pillars of the Earth’s Equinoxes and Solstices. I agree with Thea’s assessment of the need to correct this widely held and perpetuated post-Vedic distortion (mismeasure) of the Vedic Year/Yajna. For more on this subject see:

• The Origins and Nature of Hindu Decline [Thea, 2006]
• A Calendar that Unifies - Questions and answers on reforming the Hindu Calendar [Thea, 2009]
• A Collection of Thea’s Articles on Makar Sankranti
• A Message to Astrologers [Thea, 2012] 
• A Delegate’s REPORT on the First National Conference on Hindu Calendar Reform  (Thea, January 2011)
• Miscalculations of Post-Vedic Astrologers & Resetting the Balance & Measures of the World 

[2] Recommended reading: Sri Aurobindo’s book The Synthesis of Yoga (free PDF).
[3] For more on Thea’s teachings on the Vedic Yajna and the symbols of the Rig Veda, see The Gnostic Circle and The New Way, Vols. 1&2. For the story of how the gnosis of the Mother’s Temple was discarded and misconstructed in Auroville, see The Flawed Auroville Matrimandir-A Distortion of the Mother's Supramental Vision.
[4] Unfortunately, Dr. Height and the current residents and board of Aeon Centre of Cosmology/Skambha have thus far rejected what I am bringing forth about Kurma/Vishnu's recovery of the vesica piscis (the Amrita of the Gods) as a crucial piece of the reinstatement of the Sanatana Dharma in our current Age of Aquarius. Thea passed (in October of 2016) before I finished my book, and thus never gave any stamp of approval on what I have come to see and understand about these matters, and now seemingly half of Thea's small inner circle of students think that what I am bringing forth is 'my own thing' or a tangent, separate from the yogic lineage and mission Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea. In October 2018 the President of ACC's Board of Trustees, who appears to be the only member of ACC's board who is supportive of what I am bringing forward, has been asked to resign, citing alignment with me as one of the reasons for this request. In my experience, there is no separation between the Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom that I have been given to introduce and the lineage/mission of the Supramental Yogis. For me, the 'stamp of approval' that I am on the right track is the dramatic expansion of knowledge this key has catalyzed in my own consciousness and all of the treasures of Gnosis it has given for me to see, integrate and share.
[5] 144 is a sacred number in India. It is 12 squared, but it is also one-third of 432, the sacred number associated with the radius of the sun, the Kali Yuga, the Rig Veda and the measure of the vesica piscis as I have demonstrated elsewhere. My book Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom, contains more elaboration on the importance of this 144-year span (circle) of Time in terms of the Supramental Yoga.
[6] As Thea discussed in her writings, 432,000 arc seconds is the measure of Kali Yuga (mismeasured/misunderstood by much of the world). She understood that the 432,000 measure of the Kali Yuga corresponds to one-third of the Great Year (the 25,920 year Precession of the Equinoxes), equivalent to four astrological Ages. See “Revisiting the Measure of the Yugas [Parts 1 and 2]”.