Additional commentaries to the symbols of the Vision

(follows to "The Arcane Symbolism etc.")

After the Vision, what most intrigued me was the blue-water cube surmounted by pyramids and a God-like living figure -Savitri- inside it.
But I was blank.

Evidently Sri Aurobindo attributed it an extraordinary importance (as anything would, coming from him), there was evidently a shift of his emblem from bi-dimensionality to three-dimensionality, but why was that?

I "knew" it was carrying a message, but could not grasp into it though I´d made some personal studies on religious-esoteric and alchemical symbolism.

I could have given the vision as it was, without explaining the symbols, but it wouldn´t have been a fair trick, it resulted evident to me that the Master 
wanted -me- to understand and to explain it, as much as I myself felt an imperious need to solve the mystery.
It took me a few years more to decipher the symbols.

The shift of the emblem (what we call the symbol of Sri Aurobindo) from two to three dimensions is not of secondary importance in the intention of the Master, and I assume, as evident from the tenor of the vision, that he meant it to reach every student for several reasons, that I was exploring.

The most important was that it acted to me as a mental egregor, it has never faded away, I could, and still can concentrate on it and fly over it to more subtle intuitive levels of perception where I still learn from the vision.
It is not meant for a rational mind to analyze it and forget it, it is a living message always able to open new doors to the understanding.

I used to visualize the tri-dimensional emblem in meditation, spreading my consciousness all over its sides within and without at the same time and see
it resulted a peculiar mental pattern, as the reciting of a mantram or visualization of a yantra would generate, after all, it -was- a yantra, a three-dimensional one.
That was the first thing I understood, the first of the presents coming from the Master to all of us.

In the post explaining the symbols of the vision, I have mentioned the (tendencially) descending Water rising and floating in the Air.
It is one of the most important elements of the Vision, because you know the water may only descend and lay down on earth, and if we change the proper place and direction of one of the Elements, then automatically all the other positions and movements drastically change into its contrary, so that we have too a descending Fire (though we know the fire has an ascending nature), and the same is valid for the Air and the Earth, which become Lower Air and Upper Earth.

Of course, you have certainly realized the vision is far from referring to material elements, or even better, not only material, and we have to assume rising Water is representing here the Mind or mental principle*, which raises at the same time that Fire descends, involving in their turn position and movement of the remaining two: Air and Earth. 

Ayurveda makes of Water-Earth but one only principle, kapha, so that whenever Water rises, it does it together with Earth, which I consider here representing the most material principle or even matter itself, and the rising of Earth at a place corresponding to Air, means per force a subtilization of the Earth principle, otherwise it cannot remain in that higher place.

I´m not sure of the meaning of the Air principle here, but I guess we may safely assume it refers to the living principle, because Life, material life, is absolutely impossible without air.

We have seen that Savitri enters the cube when this "revolution" of the elements has taken place, not before. And I "read" in the Vision, Sri Aurobindo is suggesting us to put in motion this "revolution".
The method? 
It is a peculiar one: to transform a settled "bi-dimensional "teaching (the Sri Aurobindo´s emblem) into a living Truth.

I do not pretend having solved any possible meaning, I only offer some lines of thought which can help any farther investigation on your side.
Giving the nature of the Vision to be of common property and its purpose, which was to render available it to the students, it is possible that other people may discern in it meanings I didn´t perceive or  developed at lenght.

* The "Spirit above the waters" of the Genesis should be read "the (perpetual) consciousness above the (yet) unconscious mind of Nature". The association of water (and the blue colour) with mind was a reknown symbol all along the trajectory of western esoteric. The mantle which covered Isis was blue-starred, showing the black naked body of the goddess only to the initiates, and there are traces everywhere that the mind was associated to a femenine principle via  moon/emotions, considered these probably the first nucleus of an instintive intelligence/reaction. Mind as a recipient for the fecundating (male principle of the) Spirit was else considered of a femenine polarity.
Mother sometime mentioned Satprem some blue-shaded being of the mental world she could see. We can extrapolate a -blue mental world-, anyway I could often confirm for my own understanding  such extreme , as in the post "The Hour of the Toiling Gods" (08/10/13).

Clarifying the Vision: Conscious Sleep

The experience of conscious sleep has been told a difficult task, and certainly one has to agree with that.
I went in it almost spontaneously and without great efforts, and being myself an observer I realized that were not for certain given conditions it would have been almost impossible to achieve.
In fact I realized that whenever that conditions changed, the capacity to experience
conscious sleep changed automatically.
To start with, before experiencing conscious sleep I had resided some three years in a natural environment. A convinced macrobiotic, my diet was basically vegetarian and used water from a local spring, I was active and often took sun bathes, exposing the body to the action of the elements, earth included under the form of clay.
This promoted a process of constant regeneration which I felt as an almost inexhaustible physical energy, a conspicuous peace of mind and emotions, and even my sleep changed, I could sleep four or five hours and feel completely restored, waking up with an extremely clear mind and a calm strength of the body.
Due to a fortuitous accident to an eye I applied Aloe Vera and I would quite often end by rubbing my body with the remaining pulp of the plant and even eating it.
I discovered that eating the pulp of the plant increased my clearness during sleep,
it had an evident influence in promoting lucid dreams, as I had become somehow more conscious during sleep, at wake could easily recall in full details any dream I had.
Farther researches in Ayurveda and elsewhere corroborated my assumption that the plant could have a beneficial influence on the brain and in all its conscious or subconscious activities, and I wonder if it could be beneficial in such cases as Alzheimer.
Obviously one doesn´t need to repeat exactly the described conditions, but whenever I tasted meat, had alcohol or increased the use of industrial food, it proportionally increased a certain dumbness of mind before sleeping and at wake, coming to the conclusion that the use of such substances may be a serious obstacle in the way of experiencing conscious sleep or the sensibility to the subconscious activity during sleep. In fact I could remember not only the dreams but that there had been spaces among them or a complete absence of any subconscious activity, a condition in which I was purposelessly conscious.
I was quite intrigued by those episodes in which tough sleeping, I suddenly become conscious during sleep, so I decided to investigate though I had not any method for it.
I concluded I should be more careful to the process of sleep itself and how it happens, I used to observe the process of the mind while I was falling asleep.
I observed that between the vigil and the sleep there was a third condition, a kind of
 no-man´s land among them, it lasted only few brief moments before falling totally unconscious.
Subsequently I tried to be more aware of that third condition, trying to remain conscious of the process and somehow colonizing it, increasing the time I was conscious in that third position.
Invariably I would shift in dumb consciousness, but in a memorable occasion I clearly noticed that my whole consciousness had shifted through the process without any loss,
my physical body felt asleep, but instead of falling into dumbness I found myself perfectly conscious.
At first I had not a clear control over it, some night I would just fall unconscious and/or with sudden and short episodes of consciousness.
Knowing the positive influence on the brain of the affirmations, before sleeping I mentally repeated myself that I wanted to be conscious of the whole process, and I noticed that the combined affirmations and my conscience directed on and through the third condition, effectively produced a result because some time later I had no need anymore of such practices, shifting instead effortlessly through the whole process and while the physical body would fall asleep, I would found myself perfectly awake, not without surprise at first, but later I got used and it become just another ordinary activity.
This condition did not at all influenced the routinary restoring process of sleep of the physical body, nor had influence either on the subconscious activity in form of dreams, I was standing in between as a third power, a third condition: a mental being perfectly conscious in its mental body.
I consider that especially gifted individuals or having a peculiar strength of mind may easier succeed in experiencing conscious sleep, but for the average people is probably needed a purifying diet, reasonable activity and exposure to the elements.

The Arcane Symbolism in Sri Aurobindo¨s Work II Part

The reason why the Ascending Water is a symbol of relevant importance in the Vision we are considering may be concealed in a previous moment in history.

We have a singular declaration of another Avatar: The Christ.

During the Last Supper it is openly mentioned the descending fire ( the Fire/Holy Spirit) descending upon the head (or mental principle) of the Apostles.
 

The apparent contradiction which distinguishes Sri Aurobindo´s emblem (the pond and the lotus cannot be contained within a bi-dimensional square, but only within a three-dimensional cube), we find again in the words of the Christ, which is certainly aware of the natural propensity and movement of the fire, whether material, symbolic, or spiritual, to gravitate towards the heights. This do not impeach him to express a contradiction in terms as that of a descending fire.
 

But this is only one half of the truth the Christ said there,  as concealed in the very words there was the necessary answer of Water/Mind to the action
 of the Spirit: the ascending Water would be the implicit result of a descending Fire.
 

Where this true, we should found somewhere later in history a statement (from any other Avatar of course) about ascending Water-Mind and Matter.

And we have it.

Sri Aurobindo has explicitly mentioned ascending Matter and descending Spirit. (Remember the ayurvedic axis Water-Earth, which is water-mind and matter. Mind in ayurveda is rather mostly related  to Vata/Air, but here we are considering the mental principle and not any brain function).

 

Which was the reason for the Christ to let concealed the second half of the truth he was communicating?  Was it by chance the knowledge that though the descending fire was a reality of his times, yet the answer of the ascending matter was not yet a reality?

Was humanity to wait till the necessary conditions and time for Matter´s ascent where expressed by another Avatar?

It is possible.

 

We may ask if at that moment of evolution there was not yet the understanding, or the vision, of the necessity of the directions of Fire and Water to be inverted, and, if that possibility started with the Christ, and reached its whole completion with Sri Aurobindo.

That moment in time was closer to another emblem, the seal of the King Solomon, two triangles, but in this case the upper triangle is the Spirit and the lower is matter, their directions do not meet or are not inverted, so to say, each gravitate on his own side, The Spirit above and Matter below, which makes the difference with the emblem of Sri Aurobindo, where the descending triangle is Spirit and the ascending is Matter.

 

 

 

The Solid Metatronic

If you were interested in the Vision Sri Aurobindo provided me, you may have noticed one of the initial symbolic elements of the Vision, (see "The Vision" Part II) it was when the Water which flows at the feet of Savitri start to levitate in the Air forming a giant blue solid cube of water surmounted by quadrangular pyramids on all its faces.
It took me little to understand it was a tri-dimensional transposition of the
 bi-dimensional symbol of Sri Aurobindo, especially when Savitri entered in it dancing in an ecstasy of joy and freedom.
I recognize it took me quite a few years more, instead, to understand how it fit with the tradition of the Solid Metatronic.
The reasons why there is a transposition from bi-dimensional to tri-dimensional reality of the symbol of Sri Aurobindo is object of a next article, here I should mention only this peculiar solid of the Vision in relation with the Metatronic one.
First of all, there is the essential need of the Vision to express his teaching under the symbol of a solid geometric, a polygon, which is directly related with the works of the Supermental Light, which in other traditions is called Metatronic diamond, jewel etc. of Light.
This symmetry of teachings is real and was sub-intended in the Vision.
(Just a little mention is needed to say we are referring to the original tradition and not any other speculation or manipulation it may have undergone).

So that the works of the Light are effectively expressed trough polygons, which is the inner semblance of that work, the semblance open to our human vision. That is, when we finally can see it.
It is undisputed that the solid metatronic relates with an Angel of that name, Metatron.
There is no solid metatronic without the presence of the Angel there to vivify it.
Necessarily, the Supermental Light is, at least in the theory, related with that Angel of the Presence of God, which is said to be the closer outer manifestation of God Himself, the first born of a generation of hierarchies of angels which extend till the human beings.  Metatron is the closest Presence to the Source.
Knowing myself that the Vision provided me from Sri A. was authentic, I searched for correspondences and farther information on the Solid Metatronic, though most of it seemed coming from evident speculations on the movement order and position of the pyramids and a confused understanding of their connection with the Elements, with which the solid is strictly related, as the solid is not a theory but the factual manifestation of the work of that Light within the Elements of Nature and Matter.  As much as within ourselves. It is an orderly process related with the positions and movements of the Elements.
Because you have seen  in the Vision that for Savitri entering the Solid, the Element Water which is below has ascended, this means Air has descended, and if Fire descends  Earth rises.
Fire here is the Supermental Fire.
This transposition of Elements is the Supermental manifestation.
Of course, is a bit more complicated than that, and I should try provide you of some elements as far as myself understood them.

Mind, Vision and Ayurveda

Unlike in Occident, mind is considered in Ayurveda an instrument of perception equalled to the senses, so in the vedic system there are six senses and not five as in Occident.
This basic difference is of extraordinary meaning in yoga and self discovery, and was observed by ancient doctors which were themselves yoga practitioners, so that anyway their conclusions are worth a look for any yoga practitioner, especially when reaches the need of a thoroughly understanding of its own mind in order to produce the integration of the instruments of search, integration so wisely envisioned by that ancient realizers.

Later experience with subtle perception would proof the vedic doctors where in the right.
In fact, after the mental ego discovers its limits, and only then, a ray of the inner soul may reach that mind and transform it for its purpose.
In the course of time, which depends only on the opening to that soul at work, all bodily functions are reset, and mind too.
All the super-senses to appear will appear in the mind, because are not productions and transformations of the body but the <natural senses of the soul> of which the physical senses are but a gross reproduction, and they will start to be there while the progressive manifestation of the soul takes place.
Invariably a visionary nature has to depend on such processes, as the Vision is the result of a certain tuning of the mental faculties.
Naturally, a mind which hasn´t realized that inner alchemy, is absolutely unable to understand what a mind infused by its own soul is. And that is the limit of the teaching, as at a certain point there came the need for self-experience. Mere mental knowledge of the process which opens the mind to its inner soul is not equal to effective experience of it, luckily enough, this field is totally free from any unfit mental irruptions.
When things proceed smoothly, to all this transformations which happen at mental level, there is an unperceived progressive establishment, in the heart area, of the soul.
Of course, I´m not theorising or teaching anything, I´m simply offering the result of objective observations, as I just said teaching has its limits.
This is when you get out of theory and you start to need effective experience, then you are in a good position to appreciate my observations.
Somehow we need to know the experiences of other people in this field so to mirror our own experiences, but it is not indispensable, it helps.
Of course, as it seems I have to re-state it again time by time, there is not any personal will in releasing the results of my observations (which I was indipendently keeping for my own purpose of study) but it was as a consequence of a direct request from Sri Aurobindo himself.
I do not have even idea of how they should benefit a reader, I simply answer to that request and do not overcharge my head with speculations.
So if you like you take them if not, just leave them, but they remain objective observations which I lay at His feet.