Seeing in Understanding ⁓ The Symbols & Sense of 2020 ⁓ Part Two
"[W]hat evolutionary Nature presses for, is an awakening to the knowledge of self, the discovery of self, the manifestation of the self and spirit within us and the release of its self-knowledge, its self-power, its native self-instrumentation. It is, besides, a step for which the whole of evolution has been a preparation and which is brought closer at each crisis of human destiny…." – Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine1
⁓ Part Two ⁓
Our Evolutionary Crisis, From a Yogic Perspective
In Part One I discussed some of the symbols of the Covid-19 pandemic that come into view when looking at unfolding circumstances of our collective evolution as “part of an extremely precise play of forces”2 in which the positive and the negative both serve towards the same awakening or birth of the Higher Self. In Parts Two through Four I am presenting a compressed view of the Supramental Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea, which is the foundation of coming to appreciate and experience (or “see in understanding”) humanity’s many “crises of destiny” via the higher Light and Truth of the indwelling Soul.
Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea wrote extensively about the critical evolutionary step or awakening that is currently pressing upon our world – the step wherein our own indwelling divine truth emerges out of the dark womb of our previous “trimesters” of evolution: Physical, Vital and Mental. Their collective yoga and writings essentially served to establish and illuminate the foundations of this evolutionary shift for humanity, providing a larger and positive context for the progressive destruction and transformation of life on planet Earth as we know it.
Below are a few passages from the writings of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea that will hopefully help readers better understand the evolutionary forces at play, not only in the present Covid-19 pandemic, but in all of our modern-day world crises or labor pains which serve to quicken our collective awakening.
"[It] is only by the descent of supermind and the fulfilment of mind and life by their self-exceeding that this secret intention in things, this hidden meaning of Spirit and Nature can become utterly overt and in its totality realisable. This is the evolutionary aspect and significance of supermind, but in truth it is an eternal principle existing covertly even in the material universe, the secret supporter of all creation, it is that which makes the emergence of consciousness possible and certain in an apparently inconscient world and compels a climb in Nature towards a supreme spiritual Reality. It is, in fact, an already and always existent plane of being, the nexus of Spirit and Matter, holding in its truth and reality and making certain the whole meaning and aim of the universe.” – Sri Aurobindo, "The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth", CWSA Vol. 13, p. 582
***
“Mental nature and mental thought are based on a consciousness of the finite; supramental nature is in its very grain a consciousness and power of the Infinite. Supramental Nature sees everything from the standpoint of oneness and regards all things, even the greatest multiplicity and diversity, even what are to the mind the strongest contradictions, in the light of that oneness; its will, ideas, feelings, sense are made of the stuff of that oneness, its actions proceed on that basis. …the supramental, the life divine is a life of essential spontaneous and inherent unity.’ – Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, “The Gnostic Being”, CWSA, Vols. 21-22, p. 1000
***
“The previous [evolutionary] descent was a mental one, while this is what Sri Aurobindo calls a "supramental descent"; the impression is, a descent of the supreme Consciousness infusing itself into something capable of receiving and manifesting it. Then, out of that, once it has been thoroughly kneaded (there's no knowing how much time it will take), a new form will be born, which will be the form Sri Aurobindo called supramental – it will be ... anything, I don't know what those beings will be called. What will be their mode of expression? How will they make themselves understood and so on? ... In man, it developed very slowly. Only, mind has done a lot of kneading and, after all, has made things move faster….
“[W]hen man emerged from the animal, there was no way to record – to note and record the process; now it's quite different, so it will be more interesting.” – The Mother, The Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 8, 22 November 1967
***
“It would not seem to be possible … for the mind to anticipate or indicate what a supramental being shall be or how he shall act; for here mental ideas and formulations cannot decide anything or arrive at any precise definition or determination, because they are not near enough to the law and self-vision of supramental Nature.
“At the same time certain deductions can be made from the very fact of this difference of nature which might be valid at least for a general description of the passage from Overmind to Supermind or might vaguely construct for us an idea of the first status of the evolutionary supramental existence.
“This passage is the stage at which the supermind gnosis can take over the lead of the evolution from the overmind and build the first foundations of its own characteristic manifestation and unveiled activities; it must be marked therefore by a decisive but long-prepared transition from an evolution in the Ignorance to an always progressive evolution in the Knowledge. It will not be a sudden revelation and effectuation of the absolute Supermind and the supramental being as they are in their own plane, the swift apocalypse of a truth-conscious existence ever self-fulfilled and complete in self-knowledge; it will be the phenomenon of the supramental being descending into a world of evolutionary becoming and forming itself there, unfolding the powers of the gnosis within the terrestrial nature. This is indeed the principle of all terrestrial being; for the process of earth-existence is the play of an infinite Reality concealing itself first in a succession of obscurely limited, opaque and incomplete half-figures which by their imperfection and character of disguise distort the truth of which they are in labour, but afterwards arriving more and more at half-luminous figures of itself which can become, once there is the supramental descent, a true progressive revelation. The descent from original supermind, the assumption of evolutionary supermind is a step which the supramental gnosis can very well undertake and accomplish without changing its own essential character. It can assume the formula of a truth-conscious existence founded in an inherent self-knowledge but at the same time taking up into itself mental nature and nature of life and material body. For the supermind as the truth-consciousness of the Infinite has in its dynamic principle the infinite power of a free self-determination. It can hold all knowledge in itself and yet put forward in formulation only what is needed at each stage of an evolution; it formulates whatever is in accordance with the Divine Will in manifestation and the truth of the thing to be manifested. It is by this power that it is able to hold back its knowledge, hide its own character and law of action and manifest overmind and under overmind a world of ignorance in which the being wills on its surface not to know and even puts itself under the control of a pervading Nescience. But in this new stage the veil thus put on will be lifted; the evolution at every step will move in the power of the truth-consciousness and its progressive determinations will be made by a conscious Knowledge and not in the forms of an Ignorance or Inconscience. – Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, CWSA Vols. 21-22, pp. 1001-02 [Bold emphasis added]4
The following excerpt, on this same subject is from Thea’s 1987 article “The Emerging Cosmos”:
“Our present stage is merely one step along the evolutionary way, albeit a decisive one. We have reached a major evolutionary turning point. There is a choice: Before us lies a totally new way of life and by consequence a new world order. For this, a finer, more refined instrument has to manifest. And this is the major focus of the present crisis. We are in the process of evolving a human instrument capable of sustaining the greater cosmic forces at play through life and matter on this planet, without experiencing destructive collapse of energies or succumbing to the old ways of escape through outdated solutions and methods the world has known until now.
“The human instrument as it is presently constituted pivots a void. At its centre lies a 'black hole' into which energies collapse, cave in, dissolve; resulting ultimately in decay and death. And out of this condition of the instrument, through which the human consciousness perceives the reality beyond, came the projection of a world in chaos and collapse and hence the perception that salvation, of whatever order and under whatever guise, lay beyond this material universe and, above all, away from this woeful planet Earth. The demon of the drama was seen to be the senses, which wisemen understood to be the limiting factor which distorts a reality that somehow could be disconnected from the body and experienced separately, free from our physical organs of perception and hence disengaged from the world of material creation, out of which and within which these senses have evolved. Thus, ways were devised to liberate the seeker from the physical, sensual instrument, limited by its own apparently untransformable insufficiencies.
“To be more specific, such projections and perceptions of our condition are the logical outcomes of a species ill-poised, but for reasons quite different than those given in current religious, mystic and spiritual explanations. The human being has an off-centre pivot of his bodily instrument, which results in a distorted perception of our world; but which is, paradoxically, caused by the perception itself. Consequently, to alter that perception it is required that concurrently we shift this axis of being ‒ in the species ‒ and allow evolution to carry us to a new and higher destiny….
“The new world is a world in which both the being and the becoming are harmonised in the vision. Therefore Sri Aurobindo describes the choice of destiny that faces mankind at this crisis point as an accepting and embracing precisely of the becoming, as the means to attain the ultimate apotheosis, an evolutionary leap to a totally new status:
'The significance of our existence here determines our destiny: that destiny is something that already exists in us as a necessity and a potentiality, the necessity of our being's secret and emergent reality, a truth of its potentialities that is being worked out; both, though not yet realised, are even now implied in what has been already manifested. If there is a Being that is becoming, a Reality of existence that is unrolling itself in Time, what that being, that reality secretly is is what we have to become, and so to become is our life's significance.’ (The Life Divine, Chapter 28)5
“While the old degenerates into chaos and begins its collapse, there is simultaneously a work in progress to evolve a new species. The process entails, however, a laying of correct foundations. That is, a new 'blueprint' is being evolved, the lines of which are drawn by time, the power of evolution for the gestation of any new form.
“The new 'blueprint' being established at present is a pattern of harmony. Indeed, its inspirer is the closest, most complete pattern of harmony that we can observe and of which we are an intrinsic part. It is the solar system‒seen with a new eye and an entirely new and different instrument of perception and measurement. This blueprint of a new consciousness-being will provide the basis for a new world order. The outcome is a planetary society, inspired in its governance by the very harmonics of our System and in particular founded upon a vision that sees and accepts the Earth as the place where upon this progression is destined to occur.
“But foremost in this evolutionary leap is the question of the purpose of evolution; and by consequence the purpose of our planetary home within the scheme of the cosmic order. It is clear that while we continue to turn to the old spirituality for solutions to our present state of collapse, we are only compounding that collapse, insofar as all spirituality considers life in this cosmos to be a fall and posits salvation in some form of a Beyond, unevolving and static. The dramatic shift that is required is then the complete refocusing of the lens we are provided with for evolution on Earth, and the resultant consciousness that introduces an entirely new direction in our perceiving. We cease to deny life and material creation as channels for expression of the highest truth principle. Rather, we see these as instruments on Earth of what Sri Aurobindo has called, the 'life divine'.” – Thea, “The Emerging Cosmos” [A paper prepared by Thea for a symposium on THE HUMAN CONDITION; New Delhi, Dec. 1986, and published in The Vishaal Newsletter in May 1987.]
The Apocalypse or Revelation of Truth-Consciousness
Whereas the full material expression or evolution of this indwelling Divine Consciousness is not something that the egoic mental consciousness can fully fathom, sages and prophets of the past have discussed the unveiling or “apocalypse of truth-conscious existence” in terms of the establishment of an illumined or Golden Age on Earth. In the Vedas, it is the attainment of the all-luminous Swar realm.6 In St. John’s Revelation it is portrayed as a “new heaven and new earth”. Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea discussed it as the progressive and transformative manifestation of the Divine on Earth, entirely reversing and dismantling the long-held collective idea that the spiritual goal of life and yoga is transcendence or liberation or escape from life and birth on Earth (via nirvana, moksha, ascending to heaven, etc.).
“[T]he spiritual assertions of the past [insist]: "If you want to live fully conscious of the divine life, leave your body – the body cannot follow." Well, Sri Aurobindo came and said, "Not only can the body follow, but it can be the base that will manifest the Divine."” – The Mother, The Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 8, 22 November 1967
“The old spirituality was an escape from life into the divine Reality, leaving the world just where it was, as it was; whereas our new vision, on the contrary, is a divinization of life, a transformation of the material world into a divine world. This has been said, repeated, more or less understood, indeed it is the basic idea of what we want to do. But this could be a continuation with an improvement, a widening of the old world as it was ‒ and so long as this is a conception up there in the field of thought, in fact it is hardly more than that ‒ but what has happened, the really new thing, is that a new world is born, born, born. It is not the old one transforming itself; it is a new world, which is born. And we are right in the midst of this period of transition where the two are entangled ‒ where the outer still persists all-powerful and entirely dominating the ordinary consciousness, but where the new one is quietly slipping in, still very modest, unnoticed ‒ unnoticed to the extent that outwardly it does not disturb anything very much, for the time being, and that in the consciousness of most people it is even altogether imperceptible. And yet it is working, growing ‒ until it is strong enough to assert itself visibly.” –The Mother [Bold emphasis added. This quote is attributed online to The Mother’s Agenda, with no date given. I haven’t found it therein.]
In St. John’s Revelation, this shift toward the New Earth or New World is portrayed as a great upheaval and destruction via the opening of the seven seals of the long-sealed book of knowledge by the Lion/Lamb of God, and the subsequent pouring out of the seven vials or “bowls of God’s wrath”. In Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom I have written about this long-foretold destruction in relation to the 2016 recovery and release the geometric and zodiacal sense of these seven vials or bowls.7 These seven vials or bowls are entirely equivalent to the seven rivers of the Rig Veda which are liberated from the cave or covering of Ignorance (Vala) and poured out by the Vedic heroes.8 This same Vedic gnosis is found in the seven waves of Sri Aurobindo’s symbol wherein the “Lotus of the Avatar” rests on seven waves.
The recovery, revelation and pouring out of the truth of these seven vials, bowls, rivers or waves (the truth of what they actually symbolize) is indeed destructive, but only in the sense that it promptly, like a bolt of lightning, dismantles thousands of years of compounded Falsehood and crystallized Ignorance surrounding this ancient prophecy and other ancient sacred texts, symbols and lore.
The recovery, revelation and pouring out of the truth of these seven vials, bowls, rivers or waves (the truth of what they actually symbolize) is indeed destructive, but only in the sense that it promptly, like a bolt of lightning, dismantles thousands of years of compounded Falsehood and crystallized Ignorance surrounding this ancient prophecy and other ancient sacred texts, symbols and lore.
Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Thea wrote that the amount of destruction to be experienced on Earth corresponds to the Ignorance which needs to be dismantled, as well as to the resistance imposed by the forces of Ignorance. The following excerpts from their writings should provide readers with a sense of how they saw and discussed the necessary destruction or dissolution of forces and structures of Ignorance in our world by the birth, unveiling or apocalypse of the Soul and Consciousness of Truth in our World.
“There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God's bounty. Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction.
“In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again, even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward.
“But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered.” – Sri Aurobindo, “The Hour of God”, in Essays Divine and Human, CWSA Vol. 12, p. 155
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“Behind all the destructions – the big destructions of Nature – earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones, floods, etc., or the human destructions – wars, revolutions, riots – there is always Kali's power and upon earth Kali works for the hastening of the terrestrial progress. Whatever is Divine not only in its essence but also in its realisation is above these destructions and cannot be touched by them. In all cases the extent of the damage gives the measure of the imperfection and must be taken as a lesson for indispensable progress.“ – The Mother, The Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 6, 10 March 1965
***
“Humankind stands poised to exceed itself. This achievement is central to the present travails and must not be lost sight of. But the Kurukshetra9 of our times is overtaken by the forces of Ignorance and Falsehood. We must take back that field; we must dislodge those forces from their commanding hold over the physical dimension, a plane that had been relinquished when spirituality and religions across the globe chose the heaven beyond material creation, rather than the realisation of oneness that respects the sanctity of the Earth and her place within the divine scheme of things. In so doing, they forfeited the right to guide future generations into the light of the new consciousness.
“In this new Mahabharat War, while weapons of destruction may be used, there is only one ‘weapon’ that will finally conquer. This is the Power of Knowledge and Truth on which the new supramental consciousness stands poised. With these, one becomes that positive instrument. Gradually, as the knowledge spreads and dispels the darkness, the negative will be transformed and nothing but the Light will occupy the one material plane or field….
“There is only one destiny for the planet because the Earth has a special role to play within the solar system. The more aware we become of her role, her place within the System and the demands placed upon her during this crossroads of her destiny, the easier will the passage become and the more certain we can be that destruction will not be the method used to attain those lofty goals before us. The only choice we have is whether or not we will reach those peaks of destiny via destruction, or else through its higher expression, dissolution. Regardless of the means, baggage must be shed at this point.
“We have encumbrances which are impeding a forward thrust according to the pace imposed by the Time-Spirit. Destruction comes about when the pace exceeds the capacity available to nations and individuals because encumbrances hold the movement back. These are the forces of Inertia. In critical crossroads such as the present passage, those tools of Inertia have to be either dissolved or destroyed. They have no further purpose in the play of energy that constitutes the planet’s evolution to a higher level. Thus, by one means or the other, they will be shed at this point in time. The only question is, will this be through the process of destruction or dissolution. The symbolism in the vaporisation of the Twin Towers as they collapsed to the ground [on 11 September 2001] would indicate Dissolution as the way ahead.
“Dissolution implies a conscious action. Only in this way can wholesale destruction be avoided. During this passage, to be conscious implies that special knowledge of ‘supermind’s application for Earth use’, as Sri Aurobindo had envisioned. When that knowledge is the foundation of all action, it constitutes the ancient Vedic realisation, the Immobile amidst the Mobile. In the battlefield, or wherever one may be called upon to serve, positively, the divine purpose of the One. – Thea, September Trilogy – Collapse of the Old, Part 1 [Bold emphasis and text in brackets added]
Also worth mentioning in the context of the destruction or dissolution that is catalyzed by the Supramental Descent is Sri Aurobindo’s prophetic 76th Aphorism, which he never explained. The Mother’s secretary Satprem asked her about this aphorism on 11 December 1971 and their exchange was as follows:
S: I'd like to ask you something about one of Sri Aurobindo's aphorisms. When the aphorisms were first published in the “Bulletin,” you had said to omit this one. It's a rather mysterious aphorism – which I must say I would like to understand correctly. So, since we are going to bring out a complete edition of all the aphorisms, I would like to know if we should publish it or not.... Sri Aurobindo says this:
76 – Europe prides herself on her practical and scientific organisation and efficiency. I am waiting till her organisation is perfect; then a child shall destroy her.
...
The Mother: A “child”.... What did he put in English, at the beginning?
S: “Prides herself.”
The Mother: Prides herself....
(silence)
The Mother: I'd put it in.
S: But what did he mean?
The Mother: I don't know. Of course, only the power can be destroyed, because the earth isn't destroyed. Yes, you don't destroy the earth, but a civilization can be destroyed.
S: Yes.
The Mother: Well, he says “Europe will be destroyed.” Yes.... But what child? What child? (Mother sits absorbed) Right now, I don't know.
I have the feeling that it came as something absolutely true, an absolutely true prediction – but I don't know.
S: Earlier you had said it was better to omit it.
The Mother: But now, on the contrary, my impression is that it SHOULD be said. But I don't think the time has come yet – I mean “come” for the realization; the time has come to say it but not for its realization.
S: “A child...” maybe it's the child of the New World?... with a smile, he'll bring it all down.
The Mother: Yes, quite possible – quite possible. (silence) It contains a frightening power.... Something staggering. You can't imagine the power contained there, it's really like the Divine Himself saying: “I am waiting”.... He put “I am waiting”?
S: Yes.
In The New Way, Vols. 1&2, Thea wrote:
“The child [Sri Aurobindo] speaks of in this 76th verse is the Fourth [the reincarnation of Sri Aurobindo] whose number is 19 (1)”. (p. 143)
“The numbers 9, 6, and 3 total 18, and the fourth in line is one after 18, thus his number is 19, or 1. As the number One, after 9, 6, 3, he is the firstborn of the gnostic race.” (Ibid.)
I will briefly discuss how Thea came to this conclusion in Part Three. Also worth mentioning along the lines of this conquering “Child” [the Divine Flame, Agni of the Vedas] is something the Mother wrote during her four-year residence in Japan (after first meeting Sri Aurobindo in 1914). She wrote "Do not come too near [the child] because you will get burnt." Her discussion of this instruction is found in her 27 November 1965 Agenda entry (following the 39th anniversary of “Immortality Day” by one day).
“[T]he Flame ... When the Flame lights up, everything becomes different. But this Flame is something totally different; it's totally different from religious feeling, religious aspiration, religious worship (all that is very fine, it's the summit of what man can do and it's very fine, it's excellent for humanity), but this Flame, the Flame of transformation, is something else. Oh, I remember now that Sri Aurobindo reminded me of something I had written in Japan (which is printed in Prayers and Meditations), and I had never understood what I had written. I always tried to understand and asked myself, "What the devil did I mean? I have no idea." It had come like that and I had written it directly. It was about a "child" and it read, "Do not come too near him because you will get burnt." (I don't remember the words at all.) And I always wondered, "What's this child I am referring to?... And why should one take care not to come too near him??" And suddenly, only yesterday or the day before, I understood; suddenly he showed me, he told me, "It's this: the 'child' is the beginning of the new creation, it is still in its infancy," so don't touch it if you don't want to be burnt – because it burns….
“Sri Aurobindo continues to tell me things.... It's truly very interesting.
“There is a sort of instinct which wants everything to be in agreement with the experience one has. But that is a tendency to uniformity, the Supreme's uniform oneness, which is the nonmanifest Supreme, eternally unchanging, in opposition to the innumerable multiplicity of all the expressions of that Oneness; and instinctively there is always a recoil (gesture) towards the Nonmanifest, instead of (Mother opens her two hands) an acceptance of the manifestation in its totality. It's very interesting.
“And it's the first effect of the return to the Origin.
“The first effect of the return to the origin is simplification, identity, the One – the identical One. And then there is the movement of the manifestation (gesture of expansion): the multiple Immensity.” – The Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 6, 27 November 1965 [bold emphasis added]
In 2006 Thea wrote a message entitled “Prophecies of the Old World” to a study group of her students, emphasizing that in the supramental yoga, or rather from the viewpoint of the supramental truth-consciousness, the evolutionary crisis of our modern times is not a story of doom and gloom. It is rather the story of the birth of a new world which can be seen, understood, experienced and appreciated by those who possess the “keys of knowledge” provided by the avatars of the Supramental Descent and Supramental Manifestation which Thea referred to as the “Solar Line”, consisting of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and herself and "the Fourth".
“Civilisation is in a state of flux. From all sides the indications seem to be that we are headed for a major turning point, a point of no return as it were. But are we approaching that definitive moment, or have we already passed it? There are other signs to indicate that we have passed that point and there is no longer any question of choosing. Indeed, this `choicelessness' has added to the confusion, for accompanying these developments are signs of another nature – prophecies of doom and gloom. For example, some predict that the end of the world is at hand, the end of time; vast cosmic cycles, they say, are converging on some sort of final judgement. There are the Maya end-world prophecies, supposedly pointing to 2012 as a finality of something; the Hopi prophecies of the close of the 4th world and opening of the 5th, whatever that might mean. Nostradamus has added to the confusion with his quatrains that can be interpreted anyway one likes, in support of whatever one wishes. Equally open to endless interpretations is the 11th Century Irish monk Malaky's prophetic list of 111 popes, a count which, coincidentally, ends in our very times with the unnumbered Benedict, last of them all. The issue seems to be that if we scrutinise all these visions they will agree on one point: we have reached an ‘end’, and this will take place early in the 21st century. But what does end mean? And is there a beginning to follow this closing in of time?
“What is evident in the convergence indicated by these old world prophecies is that none of them provide insights into the purpose of the breakdown we witness across the globe in all spheres of life, much less of what is to follow, if anything at all. This is because, as the Mother stated in 1957, it is a NEW world that is being born:
‘...What has happened, the really new thing is that a new world is born, born, born. It is not the old one transforming itself, it is a new world which is born.And we are right in the midst of this period of transition where the two are entangled - where the one still persists all-powerful and entirely dominating the ordinary consciousness, but where the new one is quietly slipping in, still very modest...unnoticed...'.
“In Sri Aurobindo's work there is no expectation of doom and gloom; rather, he provided minute details of the new order that is a logical and organic next step along the evolutionary way. It is neither an end nor a beginning from a zero point; rather, there is a seamless continuity.
“The work of the Solar Line has left maps to help us live the experience with a far greater understanding of exactly what is transpiring on this planet we inhabit. These keys of knowledge help us navigate the tempestuous seas of unknowing with a calm certitude of victory.
“The turmoil across the globe tends to strengthen the perception that only very few are blessed with knowledge of this new world and the special and superior order it introduces. We are indeed blessed to be part of that conscious movement and we aspire to be ever more conscious instruments so that we may provide an anchor, a stable point amidst the dissolution of the old world that makes way for the new.
“The process became irreversible as of 1983. Those who see do understand that we have no choice now. The time of apparent choosing has passed. What is required now is to enlarge our vision, enhance our awareness so that we can indeed be conscious instruments of that new world the Mother announced.
“The purpose of this study group is to help its participants see in understanding; and to realise that the old world, with all its dogmas and belief systems of half-light, no longer serves any purpose. None of the old ways, including the spirituality of east and west, can accompany us in this journey of discovery and unfolding. For this very reason these old world prophecies carry humanity to the portals of the 21st century, but no further. They do announce an end, and rightfully so: the end of the old order of which they are a part. How can their prophets see beyond that collapse?
“Our work begins where their visions end.” – Thea, March Equinox, 2006 [Bold emphasis added]
Thea’s purpose or goal of helping her students to “see in understanding”, was of course not limited to that study group. The keys of gnosis or keys of seeing that Thea introduced in her writings are not reserved for a select few. They are available to “the masses” (at least to anyone who can afford to buy her books or anyone who can access them through a local library or friend), towards the goal of a collective uplifting of consciousness and a corresponding “pandemic” dissolution of catastrophic Ignorance in our world.
‘Our goal during this Age … is to enlighten the masses and render them capable of seeing the Reality. We are faced with the task of eliminating the Ignorance, and this can be done only by first seeing properly.’ – Thea, The Gnostic Circle (1975), p. 8
⁓ End of Part Two ⁓
Endnotes:
1 CWSA, Vols. 21-22, p. 1096.
2 The Mother, The Mother's Agenda, Vol. 3, 17 November 1962.
3 This measured course of time is the Earth’s 12 month solar Year or Zodiac, which is macrocosm of the Earth’s Day and a microcosm of larger cycles of time, including the 12 Age Precession of the Equinoxes (the Great Year), the Maha Yuga cycle, and what Thea referred to as the Greater Cycle consisting of 12 Precessional cycles.
4 I sent this quote by Sri Aurobindo to Thea in an email exchange (July 2011) and she responded:
“[T]his quotation is extraordinary in its prescience. Truly Sri Aurobindo wrote from the Transcendent Plane and saw it all in its vastness (but not the details), and we are in the process of carrying that Vision forward in the Becoming. It is so astonishingly accurate of my own experience, where I had to cut back, as it were, for such a long time, so much that I knew – the complete thing for this stage – so that it could gradually mould the environment to make itself acceptable. Only after the new millennium began have I started to state matters as they stand more openly. And particularly after 'The Day of the White Peacock'. But even with the last [Sameer Thakkar] business. In that 'interview' I also let certain masks drop. And think of it, we are just in the beginning stages – but the beginning holds the Seed of all the rest. It is our foundation; on this we build.” – Thea, 14 July 2011, from a private correspondence. [Another excerpt from this correspondence will be featured further along in this series. Bold emphasis added].5 CWSA, Vols. 21-22, p. 1052.
6 Swar “is
a supramental heaven, the heaven of the supramental Truth, of the immortal
Beatitude, and that the light which is its substance and constituent reality,
is the light of Truth. But at present it is enough to emphasise this point that
it is a heaven concealed from our vision by a certain darkness, that it has to
be found and made visible, and that this seeing and finding depends on the birth
of the Dawn, the rising of the Sun, the upsurging of the Solar Herds out of
their secret cave.” – Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, CSWA, Vol. 15,
p. 152. This “upsurging of the Solar Herds” is equivalent to the pouring out or the release of the seven cows/rivers from
the mountain cave. “The seven rivers that descend from the Truth-plane, here called avanayaḥ, which has the same root-sense as dhenavaḥ, the fostering cows.” [Ibid, p. 548] “The seven rivers or movements which descend from the superconscient being and fill the conscious ocean of our existence. They are called the Mothers, the fostering Cows, the Mighty Ones of Heaven, the Waters of Knowledge, the streams of the Truth, etc.” [Ibid. p. 431]
8 “[S]even rivers of the luminous world … descend from heaven when Indra, the God-Mind, has slain the enveloping Python; they descend full of the light and the heavenly abundance, instinct with the clarity and the sweetness, the sweet milk and the butter and the honey.” – Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, CWSA, Vol. 15, p. 391. Elsewhere in the Vedas, Agni, the victorious Child, conquering Divine Son or Divine Flame, is said to be brought to birth by these seven rivers, also called seven mothers, cows, ecstasies, etc. [Ibid, p. 391]
9 Kurukshetra is a reference to the field (kshetra) of the Kurus which is the battlefield or field of action of the Mahabharata War.
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