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).

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 Arcane Symbolism in Sri Aurobindo´s Work, I Part

This article is a bit complex, but it's the only open door I know to something Sri Aurobindo considered so relevant to justify the Revelatory Vision.
It is indispensable you get first on my post https://sriorobindo.blogspot.com.es/2013/10/the-vision-of-savitri-i-part.html of which the following is an explicative work.

Please follow it and excuse me in advance for not being able to explain it in simpler words, they are concepts totally new even for myself.
But as I understand, it is of fundamental importance for any student of the Integral Yoga, or even better of an Integral Truth, and it would certainly elevate our understanding of the Supermental Realization.
I offer it to you as a service to the Masters and your beloved hearts.

As you will see, in the mentioned post of the Vision, we have a cube surmounted by pyramids on all its sides with Savitri entering in it.

fig.0 this image is only indicative.



So this article is not a speculation of my own, as it results far evident that the Master was representing his own symbol but in a three-dimensional shape.
Why this?
To explain it is the aim of this post.

fig.1

There is only one place in the extensive  work of Sri Aurobindo where his wisdom was laid down without the use of a single word. (fig.1)

When we observe the emblem of Sri Aurobindo: an open lotus floating in a pond enclosed within a square, and the square within an ascending and a descending triangle, we have no doubts it conveys a subliminal, spiritual meaning.

We probably think of the ascent of the human being or of Matter itself, and the descent of the Supramental Consciousness, and the blossoming of the inner Self centered as the lotus in the pond.
All of this sounds reasonably true and probably is, and yet, there´s the possibility that something else remains concealed in the symbol.

It would be sufficient only with a superficial look to be persuaded of the similarity of the Sri Aurobindo´s emblem with that of the kabbalistic tradition, (fig.2)

                                                                              fig.2

though we found it as a recurrent symbol, carrying almost an identical meaning, in the context of different arcane cultures, as for instance the vedic. (fig.3)

                                                                             fig.3

                                                                  a vedic yantra

We positively know that the substantial difference between the star of David and that of Sri Aurobindo is the direction of the triangles: while in the Star of David the ascending triangle is the Spirit and the descending represent Matter, in that of Sri Aurobindo it is the reverse.

So that there can be hardly any doubt that Sri Aurobindo purposefully represented the sense of his work connected with the ancient traditions by using their very symbols and meaning the same principles.
And if we admit such a cultural/spiritual link for the triangles, there is no reason why the square would represent the exception here, as, every single element of the emblem has its own explication. On the contrary,the square had stupendous reasons to be there, describing so to say a pan-cultural trajectory, a comprehensiveness of traditions, a mystical circle around them all.

And it was not for any geometrical or aesthetic solution to contain the lotus and the pond that the square appear, as for that purpose, even a circle would suffice or nothing at all.
Instead, we have the introduction of an additional emblem. The Square. (fig.4)

                                                                                fig.4


And the Square takes us directly to another ancient tradition, that of the sacred geometry.

We can truly say that if it was not for the square in the middle of the triangles, there would be little or no distinction from the kabbalistic symbol. Though it has nothing of casual, the square ought to be there too.

But after all, what was contained in the humble square to be adopted not only as a graphical sign but as the device for, as we will see, a new dispensation of His Work and a farther discover for ourselves?

There were a number of good reasons why the star of David was implemented with a square.

Since the most ancient times the Arcane Symbolism  utilized four lines parallel and convergent (the square), to symbolize the Four Elements of the Chaos Naturae.(fig.5).

The square was considered the proper symbol of the interrelation of the four elements and each of them had in the square its own corresponding place and movement: fig5

fig.5 representation of the Chaos of Nature ( 4 Elements ) as an ordered movement: Ascending Fire, Descending Water, Upper Air, Lower Earth.

It is but evident for anyone that the four elements develop their activity within a three-dimensional world, not in a two dimensional one, so that the true representation of the works of Nature is

fig.6


the Cube, and the Square a devise, a symbol of it.

We can truly say that the Cube is the inner soul of the square, to which the square silently points.
And truly was so in the ciphered language of the ancient Initiate.

There should be hardly any dissension about it, because we know the cubic stone was carved by the ancients with the name of the divinity and ceremonially placed as cornerstone of the sacred buildings. (The foundational stone in public buildings in our modern era is a remnant of that ancient tradition).

fig.7 the kan (the Square) ancient Egyptian instrument of masonry

With his Kan the Egyptian Mason gave measure and dimension to the formless and irregular stone ( which was to him the chaos of nature) taking order out of disorder (by giving shape to its secret soul, the cube), rendering it apt for the edification of the Temple.

We reach a first human attempt of reducing to an ordered movement the otherwise unresting and uncontrolled forces of Nature, and we reach a first emblemization of the Work. (emblemization: symbolical representation of an esoteric-spiritual work or of a concept).

As well, the synchronization of the 4 Elements, produces and sustains Life. So that in first instance the square is a dynamic and not a static symbol, and in second instance, the elements act into three dimensional space, so that the true representation of matter and life becomes intimately connected with or rather shifts from the exoteric square to the esoteric cube.
It is the cube which explains life, not the square.
(In the Vision, the Water ascends and forms a cube which Savitri enters, and is Savitri which justify the cube, not the reverse. So to say, is the last element that enters which explains all the others. In Evolution, it would be the involved spirit finally deploying itself in matter, as for Sri Aurobindo's vision of Evolution).

While the square is the representation of the sum of the works of Nature, the cube is its inner sense.

And it is the square and not any other symbol, because in the square there is the symbolic representation of the four elements by means of lines comprehensive of the whole manifestation and activity of Nature operated from their respective directions and locations: fig 8

To the eyes of the ancient Initiate the Square or the Cube were not empty.

When we unite the lines appears the square

fig.9

with the fifth element delimited by it and delimiting it, its secret Matrix, the Lac Virginis of the Alchemist, the invisible Etheric Light support and container of all the existing, the Prana of the Rishi.

So that in last terms is the Cube and not the square what really symbolizes the activity of the four Elements.
So we can see that if we allow such a treatment to the square, and if the square and the triangles were meant to mean something, the whole emblem of Sri Aurobindo would synthesize within a few lines the core of the relevant traditions both of the East and the West.

....end I part
.