Time as an integrative mechanism through which order and purpose are expressed in the world

Sacred and Secular Science - A Unifying Paradigm by Robert E. Wilkinson

According to the "Vedic Hymn of Creation", the universe came into being from a "Golden Embryo" - not a black hole. Contained within this 'embryo' is an ultimate causal principle which exists prior to the creation of the universe; an ordering self-knowledge which all things must obey from literally the first instant of creation. It is like a SEED, which holds within itself the entire unfolding of its predetermined future growth. The Vedic hymns describe this 'seed' or singularity as the source of all creation, and call it

"...the compressed Transcendent, upholding like a pillar the material universe and, by its 'self-law', giving birth to that which was contained and intended in its seed. Without this 'ordering self-knowledge', said Sri Aurobindo the universe would be shifting chaos, leading only to a play of unbounded Chance."

Clearly the most important feature of Vedic cosmology is that it begins with fullness and unity and proceeds from there to establish an integral web of causation. Science, on the other hand, begins with Chaos and disorder and tries [unsuccessfully] to reconstruct a prior principle of order through extrapolation to an earlier time. Their lack of success in this direction has led to the apparent conclusion that there is no underlying order to the universe, only coincidence - a view that has been roundly denounced by some of its more enlightened critics.

"In theoretical physics," writes Peter Plichta, "coincidence has been accorded the status of a demi-god. From the - so apparent - coincidence of all processes in the electron cloud it was rashly inferred that all processes in the universe were caused by coincidence. A comfortable substitute had thus been found for God. From the natural constants to the human mind - everything is a coincidence." - God's Secret Formula, Deciphering the Riddle of the Universe and the Prime Number Code

But there is no coincidence, says Sri Aurobindo,

"...From the beginning the whole development [of the universe] is predetermined in its self-knowledge and at every moment in its self-working - it is and moves to what it must be by its own original Truth, and will be at the end that which was contained and intended in its seed."

All material creation proceeds from this original involved 'seed' as involutionary forms move across the event horizon, extend themselves, multiply, and grow, in accordance with the laws of causation and the principles of time. In the language of scientific cosmology, this point or seed is the 'singularity' from which the universe exploded into being. In Vedic metaphysics it is the sacred syllable "OM", the primordial vibration or sound out of which the creation emerges and has its origin.

Sri Aurobindo's realizations of this Seed and its underlying order formed the lines of a new and integral Yoga which he and the Mother developed over their 36 year collaboration. It represented a revolutionary departure from most extant spiritual systems which conceived the world as a painful illusion from which one should attempt to escape. Their new Yoga envisions a world in which the polarities of Spirit and Matter, Being and Becoming, Time and Eternity are harmonised in an integral vision. If our destiny is prefigured in the seed of things, said Sri Aurobindo, it is by understanding Time and Becoming that we will arrive at an integrating truth and a Life Divine.

Time became an obsession for Sri Aurobindo which he pursued until his passing in 1950. He was seeking the consolidation of a formula which might reconcile the Timeless Infinite and the Time Spirit deploying itself and organizing all things in time. He carried us to the portals of this discovery in his epic text, The Synthesis of Yoga and closed the book with a chapter entitled, Toward the Supramental Time Vision. Although he had unveiled the possibility of a unifying Time vision, he was never able to complete its exposition. It was not until the 1970s that Sri Aurobindo's Time vision could be brought to completion and fully articulated by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet. 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.

While Sri Aurobindo gave us a broad overview of the Vedic knowledge, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet takes us into the innermost secrets of Time. Her ability to see with such detail comes about because she has pierced into the most intimate dimension of human consciousness, the 'center' or individual Soul. This realization, known in the Veda as "Swar", yields an immediate awareness of the occult laws and correspondences which exist between the Individual and the Cosmos. Moreover it allows for a verification of these Vedic truths through a profound self-knowledge: "As above so below" said the Rishi. An exquisite correspondence exists between the Macrocosm and Microcosm; a sacred and eternal order is hidden in what appear to be the random cycles of a human life.

In the past, Alchemical or occult knowledge was accomplished through the realization of these correspondences and equivalencies which joined the individual and the macrocosm and extended him horizontally into the world. All emphasis, however, was placed upon the static realization - Being and its external correspondences. Little was known of the vertical realization symbolized by the axis mundi which joined the individual to the higher planes. Being and becoming were thus antithetical because there was no means of alignment and integration with these higher dimensions of consciousness. But the new paradigm is one in which both the being and the becoming are harmonised in a single vision. 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... 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. - Sri Aurobindo

Ms. Norelli-Bachelet's cosmology represents this quantum leap beyond the partial realizations of the past because she has reconciled precisely what they declare cannot be reconciled. She has resolved these age old paradoxes by piercing into the deepest truths of Reality which include the Being as well as the dynamics of the Becoming. "Time," says Norelli-Bachelet, "is the vehicle, the medium for the Absolute or Supreme Consciousness to Be and to Become and it is knowledge of this principle which integrates the Spiritual and Physical dimensions." It is this integral vision, or gnosis, which grants the individual a direct experience of the Divine within the physical manifestation.

Ms. Norelli-Bachelet's discoveries have revolutionary implications for both science and spirituality because, for the first time, they establish a connection between man and the universe he inhabits through the revelation of a common center. Moreover, her cosmology extends that connection into a means of alignment with the higher planes by demonstrating the time harmonies which join the higher with the lower. This new knowledge overturns religion's long-standing perception of Time as 'the destroyer' and offers an entirely new awareness of Time as an integrative mechanism through which order and purpose are expressed in the world.

Her new cosmological vision represents a radical challenge to most traditional religious forms because it posits Self-knowledge as the basis of order and meaning in the universe. Moreover, it proves beyond all doubt that the unveiling of the Individual Soul is the single most important attainment in the lifetime of a human incarnation. This is sure to be a revolutionary if not threatening possibility for those religious traditions which espouse a strategy of believing in God in order to reach 'heaven' after death. And it will be even more disturbing for those esoteric religions who encourage a meditative path which seeks to obliterate Time. . . . For entire article LINK HERE [Lori Tompkins lotus@saber.net]