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The malaise of our civilisation is not an inchoate or unpredictable development. Rather, it is the logical, foreseeable result of thousands of
years of partial and ineffective spiritual visions and incomplete philosophical systems.
These have always been the driving force behind the evolution of higher mental forms.
Therefore, if our civilisation stands at a critical juncture at present, it is not in the
secular and scientific domain that we must search for the cause of the decay. We must
discover what has been lacking in the dimension of existence that moulds the more external
and material patterns which condition life on this planet.
Once the root of the problem is located in its true area of
causation, necessarily a change must be introduced in that sphere before the more external levels can be influenced. Thus if we can locate the root cause of the decay in that more
essential domain, our task of bringing about a change in the individual and in society and
of establishing a new world order on Earth is greatly facilitated.
Indeed, the crux of the problem lies here: for thousands of years
sages, saints, yogis, philosophers, and men and women of wisdom have described the purpose
of birth on this planet as simply a passage to a reality beyond not only our planetary
home but entirely out of the cosmic dimension. The course our civilisation has taken can
therefore be directly connected to this factor. The influence a vision of this nature has
wielded has been devastating--for it has carried the planet and its multiple societies to the brink of total annihilation.
We may call this development a conspiracy of the spiritual elite
which gradually influenced the whole tenure of life on Earth, spreading its tentacles of
influence through religions and philosophical systems during the past several thousands of
years, but now through scientific, political and socioeconomic systems. The latter can
invariably trace their inspiration to some spiritual or philosophical source. For even our
most material ideologies that apparently deny the higher realities of existence and focus
entirely on the physical dimension, have done so by virtue of a reaction to those more
metaphysical postulations.
Many profound thinkers throughout the world have perceived that
it is only a spiritual renaissance that can save our civilisation. Only if we attain a different consciousness, rooted in some higher seeing, can there be any real change, they
feel. This may well be true, but what is not appreciated is that the present chaos is a
direct outcome of our past mystic and spiritual perceptions. There are two aspects to this
development. One is the course spirituality took in the West, which founded itself on a
certain form of negation of life; and the other is the Eastern orientation, in its own way
equally a denial of life.
In the West, out of denial and suffering there developed a
certain strength. Believers had been encouraged to accept suffering as a way to God and the means to attain a heaven beyond this life. Indeed, life on Earth came to be considered
a prison and the fall of the soul. Salvation, through negation of life, could only come in
a beyond, namely in some transcendent Heaven. The final outcome of this negation has been
the materialistic philosophies and political ideologies which the West has given to the
world. Presently there is a clear dichotomy on the planet, whereby western civilisation
has aligned itself clearly and decisively with what has come to be called in spiritual
circles the 'materialistic consciousness'.
However, in the East we find a similar denial of life, also as an
outcome of its spirituality. Interestingly, this negation took hold of the consciousness
of eastern wisemen at about the same time that a similar denial caught hold of their western counterparts. About the end of the first millennium Indian spirituality veered
fully toward a quest for otherworldliness: the philosophies of the day made the conclusive
proclamation that all creation in matter was an 'illusion', a deceptive veil that seekers
of Truth must tear through in order to reach the immutable, immobile, transcosmic and static Brahman; or a Self devoid of all relations in this material web of time and space.
Thus at approximately the same period in history, the stamp of
otherworldliness and denial of life and the planet's own truth of being and purpose as a
home of an evolving species, became firm pillars of our civilisation. This conditioned everything. This denial coloured all our perceptions and gradually moulded every pattern
we evolved for the regulation of our individual and collective life. And what we are faced
with today is simply the ultimate display of that denial and negation of life. The human
being has carried the formula of this negation to its fullest extremes: What was seen as the highest spiritual poise has been carried over to the material realm, or the stage upon
which all the ideals and more ethereal concepts of humankind are played out; with the
predictable result that now science has furnished the race with the ultimate powers for
its own destruction. If the only purpose of life on this planet is to escape it somehow,
never more to return, then we are wholly justified in seeking means to destroy this
springboard base as the ultimate and conclusive 'solution'.
It is important to see clearly that the root of this problem is
directly connected to the religious dogmas and spiritual visions that have conditioned our
living since time immemorial. Spirituality is not a static expression. It has evolved pari
passu with the material evolution. In fact, there is only ONE evolution, one principle
evolving through the myriad forms that constitute our world. This 'consciousness' has two
facets, material and spiritual. But both respond to the same underlying energy and drive.
Consequently, to posit the ultimate solution in either the
spirituality we know today or in materialism, with its own brand of denial of life, is inadequate. Indeed, such attempts have consistently failed. Spirituality can only offer
old solutions which were themselves largely the causes of the decay. Likewise,
materialistic answers are prisoners of the same insufficiencies; and continuing as we are,
they will drive us to a total destruction in order to play out the drama of denial of life
that spirituality has constantly espoused in one form or another, under one disguise or
another.
To accurately assess the situation it is required that we examine
the problem deeply, in an effort to reach the core of the matter and discover the fount from which both science and spirituality receive their driving force. Therefore, it is
necessary to perceive what stands behind the play of forces; and to do so we must come to
a more enlightened understanding of the evolutionary process itself. This will provide us
with a more holistic assessment of the condition of the highest instrument nature makes
use of for the purpose of the evolution of the species, in order to effect this upward
march to ever better forms of consciousness and life: the mental human being.
For this is the self-evident purpose of evolution. It is to bring
forth evermore perfect forms in order to create more complex and sophisticated networks or
patterns of structured energy that can express more harmonious states of
consciousness-being. 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 human instrument, an intrinsic part of the solar system and
the universal harmony, is structured energy just as any other microcosmic or macrocosmic
body. The human being has its 'axis' also, around which the individual frame is organised and because of which a separate entity can come into existence and sustain itself without
dispersion, adding to this magnificent display of multiplicity within unity, which is the
key feature of our material world. But because we are as yet merely a transitional
species, albeit evolving to a higher form, the present 'axis' and its location within the
body, which has come into being in accordance with certain evolutionary laws, encourages
atavism as the single most important driving force of the species.
Over the ages, wisemen, philosophers, seers, mystics, have sought
through various means to alter this condition. In place of the inertia of atavism they have sought to install a higher purpose. But the inadequate condition of the instrument
through which perception is made, provided only a partial understanding of the problem;
and hence the techniques which were devised in order to help the human being to find
release from this limiting function were in themselves inconclusive and did nothing to
alter in any way conditions on the planet. Matters progressively worsened, until finally,
seeing the gravity of the situation, all those who in some way have been concerned with
this problem, came to a dramatic impasse. Finding that it was apparently impossible to
change this evolutionary determinism, all spiritual and religious paths proffered methods
of escape from the 'coils of this corruptible flesh' as the only way to salvation, and to
seek dissolution of the consciousness in a transcendent Beyond or a nirvanic Void. Not
only has this done nothing to change conditions on Earth, it has complicated the task of
discovering the solution. And finally we find ourselves, as a species, facing possible
annihilation.
Let us demonstrate the subtle ways in which this notion of
irredeemability has penetrated the thinking of even those philosophers whom one would
expect to perceive the position differently, primarily because they are indefatigably
engaged in the task of instructing men and women the world over on the ways to a better
life. But a better life where? If it is here, on this planet, then the flaws that emerge
in these teachings must be pointed out, which will serve to expose the fact that on the
basis of just such erroneous visions the human condition is what it is and cannot hope to
change. Rather, the condition becomes compounded.
To illustrate, we may quote a statement of one of the most
eminent thinkers of our times, the late J. Krishnamurti:
"Truth cannot be exact. What can be measured is
not truth." (Krishnamurti's Notebook, Harper & Row, 1976, p.24.)
This declaration is sure to appeal to all those who have become
disenchanted with life in the body and in the material universe of which measure is the
salient feature, and who have subsequently posited the goal of their quests in some
extra-cosmic heaven or transcendent Beyond. For, what is Krishnamurti really stating?
It is simply this: the higher reality is not of this world,
measurable in time and space, and any such attempt to find truth within this material (measurable) universe is futile. Hence this statement is a denial of life and fosters a
totally divisive consciousness (certainly not the aim of his teaching efforts on the
surface), whereby truth is OUTSIDE of time and space and hence beyond our world. God, the
supreme Reality, or Truth is not, according to Krishnamurti, found in what is measurable.
It is this sort of postulation that has carried us to the point
of such a tremendous evolutionary crisis. And lamentably, it is men and women concerned
preeminently with the spiritual well-being of humankind who have contributed most to this situation, either by encouraging the faithful to live rightly and morally--but only for
the purpose of reaching 'heaven' after death; or else by subtly and more often
unknowingly, as in the case of Krishnamurti, consolidating the perception of an untransformable, irredeemable material creation, into which the soul and spirit of the
human being has fallen and out of which some form of escape must be found in order to know
truth in its transcendent, pristine and uncontaminated purity.
Krishnamurti, provides us with another example of the way in
which this vision has permeated the intelligentsia, in quarters that one could not have anticipated. Of late two books have appeared with transcripts of his conversations with
the physicist David Bohm. It is interesting to observe that Krishnamurti succeeds in
carrying Bohm, a physicist and hence a person supremely trained in the art of Measure,
into his vision of a featureless void, in which time is an illusion and there is no
becoming. A portion of their conversation will suffice to illustrate the nature of the
problem:
JK: I am asking you as a physicist, is this universe
based on time?
DB: I would say no, but you see, the general way...
JK: That is all I want. You say no! And can the brain,
which has evolved in time ... ?
DB: Well, has it evolved in time? Rather, it has become
entangled in time. Because the brain is part of the universe, which we say is not based on
time.
JK: I agree.
DB: Thought has entangled the brain in time.
JK: All right. Can that entanglement be unraveled,
freed, so that the universe is the mind? You follow? If the universe is not of time, can
the mind, which has been entangled in time, unravel itself and so be the universe?
And further on, Krishnamurti makes this revealing statement:
"...to be free of becoming? That is the root of
it. To end becoming...Of course, there is only complete security in nothingness!" (The
Ending of Time, Harper & Row, 1985.)
This clearly, is the perception that must change if at all a new
species and a new world order can safely take their place upon the planet for which they
are destined. This calls for a complete readjustment in the 'lens of our seeing',
precisely our 'instrument of measure', whereby the Earth comes into focus not as some
eternal, irredeemable Hell that a chastising Creator has condemned us to, but rather the
planet that serves a noble purpose in the cosmic order. This purpose is to evolve continuously higher and better forms of life. At present the human being is in transition
toward a new condition. The breakdown we witness about us, inclusive of the marvels of
technology that the human mind has brought into being, is an indication of that new order
that is arising. The axis of the human instrument is being encouraged to shift to a higher
pivot, whereby the present atavism is no longer a rigid cross to which we are nailed as a
race. Rather, the new species is liberated from this compelling drive and begins then a
more conscious participation in this grand act of Becoming through which a new instrument
is being wrought. But for this to occur, the orientation of our quest and its consequent
goal, based on a truly new perception of the higher reality of existence, must shift. The direction must cease to be otherworldly, no matter how camouflaged this may be, as noted
by the example furnished above. The answer lies here, on Earth, in the body--but
transformed by the power of a new seeing.
How is this achieved? The new axis is not metaphysical. It is a
pivot that comes into being in accordance with precise evolutionary laws involving time.
By working with time in a particular manner, it is possible to restructure the
consciousness, and ultimately the physical being, around a higher pivot. This cannot be
accomplished while religions and the old spirituality block the process by emphasis on a metaphysical experience that disengages the human being from any spiritually and
materially meaningful contact with the physical world, and consequently absolves him from
any responsibility therein. According to these now outdated ways, the purpose of life was
to somehow find escape from it, to either expiate one's sins and reach heaven, or to work
out a karma and thereby become freed from taking birth again on this woeful planet. In the
midst of such a conditioning, it was not possible to alter the evolutionary pattern,
insofar as the means to do so, in particular a conscious work with time, were denied their
truth and the part they played to attain a higher reality.
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 secretand 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.)
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'.
There is a tested method to establish this new blueprint. It
utilises time as the creative power for this revolutionary activity. By a specific
knowledge of the mechanics of our solar system and the relation of the planetary harmony
to time, as experienced on Earth and in the human body, a shift is brought about in the
consciousness-being of the individual practitioner, whereby a new pivot is established in
the body, no longer prisoner of atavistic drives but responsive to a higher purpose. On
that basis a truly new harmony establishes itself within the individual and his society.
There is no longer a collapse of energies but rather a sort of mini-solar system manifests
as a nuclear compound from where new influences emerge. Gradually these accumulate and
extend and eventually draw into the orbit of the new System an increasingly wider sphere;
until finally the entire planet becomes the home of this higher planetary society.
What evolves is therefore neither a new spirituality nor a new
science or material ideology. It is something beyond all these known methods but that
miraculously harmonises and integrates all the expressions of mind, life, and matter in a
splendid act of synthesis. The truth of our world is a magnificent manifoldness,
expressing an exquisite diversity. But-this multiple diversity is upheld and sustained by
a power of integration and arises in a field of oneness, --just as our solar system is an expression of a superb manifold harmony within an integrating oneness.
This is an evolutionary process which respects the being as well
as the becoming. Hence it does not seek to obliterate the cosmic harmony which is rooted
in time and is the instrument for the Becoming. Rather, it evolves by the aid of those laws. Thus we can applaud Ilya Prigogine when he declares:
"I want to feel the evolution of things. I don't believe in transcending, but in being embedded in a reality that is temporal." (OMNI,
May, 1983)
The critical crossroad we have reached is mirrored in the
expansion of this very solar system to the observing eye of humankind. During the past several hundred years we have seen the System increase by three planets. While over this
same period, pari passu with this expansion, the consciousness of the species and the
condition of our civilisation have also undergone singular alterations. An acceleration in
the evolution of consciousness never before witnessed has set in during this period,
particularly heightened in our century. But what is required now, that 'choice of destiny', as Sri Aurobindo has called it, is a conscious collaboration with this process.
Prior to this critical juncture the human being was carried along on the crests of the
evolutionary wave in an unconscious fashion. But now, with the birth of a new
consciousness and species, poised differently, centred on the higher axis of being, the
possibility arises that we may collaborate consciously, guided by the harmonics of the
very cosmos we inhabit and stand in awe of: an applied cosmology, not another speculative
theory.
In the midst of the chaos we see about us a sublime cosmos
emerges. Its life does not depend upon the old in the midst of which it stands. It emerges
as the old crumbles, uncontaminated by the morose suggestions of purposelessness that
vitiate the atmosphere of this dying world. It emerges because the conditions for it are
determined by higher evolutionary laws, and is hence a thing inevitable in the history of
our planet's time; even as the present mental being was an unavoidable and necessary
circumstance, a step along the way but nothing more, and nobly played its role in the evolution of consciousness. The foundations of this new and higher species are solidly
laid in the stratum that is indestructible. But not disengaged from material creation.
Rather, these new foundations are rooted in matter and they form the basis for a new
species and society. By Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Ms. Norelli-Bachelet lives in southern India,
where she presides over the operations of the Aeon Centre of Cosmology. She has produced
numerous published books and articles on the working of this new evolutionary force in the
world and may be reached through Aeon Group, P. O. Box 396, Accord, New York, 12404 (845)
658-3068 or E-Mail at caurant@msn.com
Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet is the most perceptive
seer-cosmologist in the world today. She is one of those rare individuals who has the
ability to'see' into the core of the collective chaos of modern civilization and expose
the root cause of its problems. In her books and articles she has proven beyond all doubt
that the malaise, purposelessness and confusion which define our modern world is the
direct outcome of our past mystic and spiritual perceptions.
Over the last 25 years, she has
developed a formidable body of knowledge demonstrating that man's spiritual development
does not culminate in an eternal and transcendent poise as it is traditionally conceived,
but follows the same principles as the biological evolution, a progressive unfolding in
time revealing constantly new and fuller aspects of the Divine consciousness.
The primary feature of her work and
the character of its newness lies in its recognition of the power of Time as the driving
force behind this evolution. "Time", says Norelli-Bachelet, "is continually
pushing mankind toward a higher stage of development. It is the primary element involved
in the gestation of a new and superior consciousness-form in the material creation."
Her realizations concerning the
nature of Time are based upon a direct experience of an objective order which she has
extended into a cosmological framework known as "The Gnostic Circle". When its principles are applied to our contemporary society it demonstrates that, as a
collectivity, we are poised for an evolutionary leap beyond the limitations of our
predominantly mental species into an entirely new condition of consciousness. Our present
stage is merely one step along the way, albeit a decisive one. We have reached a major evolutionary turning point and before us lies a totally new way of life and by consequence
a new world order.
Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet lives at
"Skambha", her estate in the mountains of southern India where she conducts the
operations of the Aeon Centre of Cosmology. Aeon Centre is a microcosmic laboratory where
she observes and records for publication the direct collaboration of the Time Spirit
acting to unveil this new principle of order in the world.
Her evolutionary work is a
continuation of the Supramental Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother of Pondicherry.
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