The Third Avatar

written by Robert E. Wilkinson <rew@mhv.net>

Sometimes...a force appears to which we can no longer apply the description of genius without being hopelessly inadequate in our terminology. Then those who have eyes to see, bow down and confess the Avatar. For it is the work of the Avatar to typify already, partly or on the whole, what nature has not yet effected in the mass or even in the individual, so that his passing may stamp it on the material ether in which we live."

Throughout the millennia the Supreme Godhead has sent emissaries to the Earth in the form of Divine Incarnations or Avatars. In its native language, this title refers to one in whom the Supreme Consciousness has descended into human birth for a great world-work. The Avatar is a realizer and an establisher of something essential and radical needed for the terrestrial evolution.? Over the last century, not one, but three of these Divine beings have appeared on the Earth, each with a unique gift for mankind. The first two of this line, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, have come and gone, the Third, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet remains, enhanced by the achievements of the her predecessors and bearing her own gift of Gnostic Time.

The Solar Line as they are known represent a full and conscious descent of the Transcendent Godhead into our material world. It began with the birth of Sri Aurobindo, who came to initiate an entirely new dimension to man's spiritual quest. His work represented a complete reversal of those ancient traditions which sought in their entirety an escape from the physical reality into the comforting transcendence of an after-death heaven or nirvanic liberation. "The Divine", explained Sri Aurobindo, "is not only Transcendent but also Cosmic and finally Individual. It's power and force must be brought down into the world in order to effect any real transformation in the earth-consciousness". Together with his collaboratrix, the Mother, Sri Aurobindo formulated a new and Integral yoga to prepare mankind for the descent of the Supramental consciousness-force.

The work of the Supramental line has now reached the Third stage, the realization of the Soul or Individual Divine. It is achieved through a harmonization of the Being and the Becoming through an awareness of Supramental Time. The Third Principle reveals for the first time the lived experience of the Divine consciousness in its dynamic aspect. She was driven to see this power in everything. Never allowed a comforting release into nirvanic transcendence, Ms. Norelli-Bachelet was compelled to undergo the yogic process in ordinary consciousness. Her lived experience evoked a shift from the usual poise of being to a new central axis granting an immediate and integral perception of Truth. Her realization of the Soul disclosed to Her vision a world pregnant with the Divine presence arranging and controlling every aspect of human life. Her work with Time and Vedic Cosmology offers for the first time, a non speculative means by which the seeker can monitor his spiritual development and consciously participate in the establishment of a Life Divine on the Earth.

Like Sri Aurobindo and the Mother before her, the work of the Third represents a radical departure from the traditions of the past and an entirely new spiritual paradigm. She has developed a formidable body of knowledge demonstrating the evolutionary character of of man's spiritual development. Liberation or enlightenment, writes Norelli-Bachelet, does not end 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. In 1986, for a seminar on "The Human Condition" held in New Delhi, Ms. Norelli-Bachelet addressed this fundamental problem.

'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 therefore can be directly connected to this factor ...lamentably, it is men and women concerned preeminently with the spiritual well-being of mankind 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 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...'

She goes on to explain the implications of this nihilistic view of the material creation.

'This denial [of life] 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'.'

Ms. Norelli-Bachelet describes the evolutionary response to thousands of years of life- negating spirituality as a collective movement toward a new condition of consciousness, an integral transformation characterized by a new kind of 'seeing'.

'...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 of '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. But for this to occur, the orientation of our quest and its consequent goal based on a truly new perception of the higher reality must shift. The direction must cease to be otherworldly, no matter how camouflaged this may be. The answer lies here on Earth - but transformed by the power of a new 'seeing'...'

The Emerging Cosmos, 1986, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet

In her books and articles Ms. Norelli-Bachelet describes the principles of this evolutionary process in a new cosmological paradigm. The primary feature of her cosmology and the character of its newness lies in its recognition of the power of Time as the driving force behind the evolution, continually pushing mankind toward a higher stage of development. 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 cosmological principles are applied to our contemporary society it demonstrates an evolutionary readiness to leap beyond the limitations of our present mental species into a new world order.

'The Gnostic Circle is merely the combination of the zodiac - the occult circle which contains the knowledge of the evolution - and the structural pattern of the solar system. The Circle of 12 is the zodiac, and the Circle of 9 is our actual solar system, each orbit representing one year of Earth life. The joint harmony of these two, superimposed or synthesized in one circle, is what constitutes our key to the evolution and flowering of the seed of the Spirit. In fact we can say that the Gnostic Circle is mainly for this purpose: it shows mankind the ultimate and ideal perfection that can be attained during this particular phase of the evolution, during this great transition point from animal-mental to the more divine mankind.'

The Gnostic Circle, p. 159, 1975, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet

One of the most important themes throughout Ms. Norelli-Bachelet's work and the essence of its 'newness' is her emphasis on the 'Act of Becoming' as the 'Supreme Principle of Creation'. This view represents a revolutionary departure from most spiritual paths which considered a timeless state of 'Being' to be the highest possible realization. Using the example of Indian philosophy she illustrates the profound difference between these two views and explains their impact on the evolutionary process.

...'Skambha' (the 'pillar', 'support') of the Veda is clearly the Supreme Principle of Creation. Yet very little is understood of Skambha. Moreover, it seems no one since the Vedic Age has actually realised Skambha, though its eminence stands beyond doubt. Today we consider the Brahman as the principle of Unity and therefore the Supreme Principle, or the umbrella covering everything else. The goal of all Indian spirituality is to attain that Brahman consciousness; or to dissolve one's small 'self ' in that larger Self whose essence is Brahman which transcends the lesser.

Yet Skambha haunts us. The sublime verses of the Atharva Veda leave little doubt that the composer of the hymn had realised Skambha intimately and confirmed it to be the foundation of creation - the 'fulcrum' as one researcher has called it.

The new cosmology of the supramental yoga clarifies the matter. Brahman is THAT in its transcendent form (9); Skambha is THIS in its immanent form (0-1). In between stand two powers/principles, 6 and 3. They represent the process whereby THAT becomes THIS.

In ancient times (Skambha) was known, realised. But at a certain point, when the realisation had become commonplace, shall we say, transformation of THAT into THIS was superseded. The realiser leapt from unity to unity, as it were. As a result, the intermediate passage fell into obscurity and was soon considered irrelevant. The Brahman was known to permeate everything, but how it had become the all was a mystery. The Multiple therefore lost its direct and immediate touch with that Unity and the cleavage between THAT and THIS was complete.

We pick up the threads of this development today, some two thousand years later, and must reconstruct that very process, that very passage, if at all we are to understand anything of reality in its true nature and divested of the falsifications brought about by the limitations of our perceptive capacity which suffers from seepage of energy required to carry out the process. The immediate problem the human being faces in attaining that increased capacity is precisely one of concentration, accumulation of energy to serve as fuel. The transformation of the human species to a higher echelon requires knowledge of the process whereby THAT becomes THIS. Failing which essential features of the experience are not CONSCIOUS; hence no concentration and immobility accompany the action.

The common perception in spirituality today is that it is all 'one', all a 'unity'. But there are different aspects to that 'one', that 'unity', which we ignore and our ignorance is therefore stamped on everything we do, everything we create; on the whole of our civilisation. A simple means to illustrate, though the connection may appear far-fetched, is cheese. We know that the underlying essence of cheese is milk. This is its substance, its foundational base, its unity principle. But milk (unity) is not cheese. Something else intervenes to alter that essential unity while ever retaining the original substance. That 'something else' is the process whereby milk becomes cheese.

Likewise, THAT, the Absolute or Brahman, is the overall Unity. While retaining that essentiality, something occurs to embed that principle, that essence in creation, for which reason alone the yogi can proclaim that 'all is one'. Yes, it is one, but THIS is different from THAT. The process is the Becoming. Hence [the philosopher-sage] Sri Aurobindo can rightfully state that to become is the highest truth of our existence. We are the process. Material creation is Brahman becoming Skambha, the 'point' of itself. The process is the movement of THAT to transmute it to THIS. Hence in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad the Horse and its speed is the great symbol of this act of Becoming. The Horse is indeed Agni, first of the Vedic Gods and foremost figure of all the hymns. He is that first point of space, the coming into being of which requires two cosmic powers: contraction and expansion. And these are in turn the 6 of the new cosmology, who compresses That into the point, or who creates conditions for the compression; while the 3 gives it birth or creates the bridge from plane to plane for the manifestation of That. The 6 is rightfully speaking the Mother, the Cosmic Womb. She is the great Placenta which feeds the process, whence all energies are drawn. The 3 draws from that womb and carries out the labour, as it were. In our material creation, in this particular 9th Manifestation, it is therefore that harmony of 9 that sets the tone, similar to a human gestation.

What had been missed throughout the thousands of years of the Age of Pisces are the details of that operation, that passage. Thus, in the final stage of the Supramental Descent, it is necessary to live and to explain the process of this Becoming. The Third thus defines and adds precision to the process. She 'puts each thing in its place'. 'Truth, or each thing in its place', The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 8/5 Dec. 1993, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet

The problem of a perceptual split between Spirit and Matter as illustrated in these passages is not exclusive to Indian spirituality. It exists today in all of the world's spiritual traditions and is the principal cause behind the rise of a 'religious consciousness' which has lost touch with real spiritual knowledge. The dilemma of modern religion is that it struggles to maintain a position in the present which is wholly conditioned by the perceptions of the past. Since it has no immediate knowledge of the Divine within the physical manifestation, it must organize itself and its followers around traditional beliefs and dogma which insist that man's ultimate salvation lies beyond the material world. As a consequence, birth on earth became equated with the fall of the soul and this life negating view gradually began to influence the more secular aspects of our civilization.

Cosmology and Modern Science:

In the field of the physical sciences for example, which deals specifically with measure and the material realm, modern physicists hope that they will eventually discover a complete unified theory which will describe the nature of matter, the relationship between consciousness and cosmos and the order of the universe. What holds scientists back from a full understanding of these critical questions is the influence of an 'old' spirituality and its ignorance of the process of creation. Ms. Norelli-Bachelet's cosmology goes to the heart of the creation and proves conclusively that order and organization in the material universe are only possible because of contours, limits, and boundaries; or the space within which the Time energy evolves from an initial involution or compaction into the seed of itself.

'If we wish to formulate a succinct albeit unorthodox definition of a cosmos or a cosmic manifestation, it is surely the act of putting boundaries on the Infinite. A cosmos comes into being by virtue of this action of setting up boundaries, limits, and confines. Within that, once the Boundless is closed within boundaries, the energies thus enclosed experience a process of ordering... Order arises because of limits, containment... '

The most important feature of this process of ordering, says Norelli-Bachelet, is the emergence of a 'center', out of which arises an 'axis'. And it is this axial alignment which, when a certain threshold is reached, can hold or gather systems to itself, be this a Cosmic, Universal, or Galactic Solar system or a nation, race, or individual.

'...thus a cosmos is a body. Likewise, each form in the universe is a cosmos within a cosmos. But more specifically the human being is a microcosm equal to the macrocosm in that he or she houses a soul, or a centre which holds this cluster of energies together. The body is thus a precious vessel that serves to set boundaries within which this amalgam of energy may find a field appropriate for the act of harmonisation, or ordering. Hence the unveiling of that soul-centre is undoubtedly the single most important attainment in the lifetime of a human incarnation...'.

'Supermind and the Language of Gnostic Symbols', The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 9/3, August 1994, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet.

This means that all creation evolves from a singularity or 'center' out of which emerges an axis which then produces a boundary be this of a cosmic, global or individual system. All have boundaries within which Time evolves through the nexus of a 'center' or Soul. In order for scientists to recognize and accept the reality of this 'center' and its nature, quality and specifics, they would be obliged to recognize that same 'center' or Soul as the core of themselves and by extension, the human being. What we see instead is the undermining influence of a misaligned and truncated spirituality which denies the soul and fosters the view of an irreconcilable polarization of Spirit and Matter. In the language of science, an excellent example of this bipolar influence may be found in the work of the late David Bohm, a leading theoretical physicist who developed the theory of the 'Implicate and Explicate Orders'. In his work, Bohm postulated a relationship between the Spiritual and Material dimensions, but what is significantly lacking in his theory is the means to effectively link the two and this is due to the fact that he, along with most other scientists, continues to be influenced by a 'spirituality' which basically denies Time and hence the Individual Soul. In this sense, Science can be said to be facing the same crisis as spirituality and must make a definitive leap into a new integrative paradigm in order to experience a meaningful continuity of existence. Ms. Norelli-Bachelet's cosmology addresses this issue directly because she has dealt with what, for centuries, has been disconnected from traditional spirituality, the question of Time and Measure. Her cosmology discloses the deepest truths of Reality which include the Being as well as the dynamics of the Becoming of that same Being. TIME, says Ms. 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 and makes it possible for one to achieve a harmonious state of Becoming.

'It cannot be denied that Time is a major feature of our material universe. In consequence, it stands to reason that when spirituality decides that the universal manifestation is unreal and illusory, Time is immediately shunned and the seeker is required to go ?beyond time?, i.e., to the experience that appears to obliterate Time. Conversely, if we are engaged in a path that seeks a transformation of matter and an experience of the highest planes of reality in this material creation we are obliged to accept the instrumentation of Time. Furthermore, we must seek a means or a key by which Time itself becomes the element utilised in the gestation of a new and superior consciousness-form in the material creation. Hence a new harmony of time results, the essence of which is contained in the Gnostic Circle.'

The New Way, Vol. 3, 1983, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet

Fortunately there are some theorists who recognize the problem and while they do not have specific answers, they have nevertheless agreed that the next great paradigm shift in science will be a cosmological revolution, because Cosmology, once the mother of all science, describes the principle underlying order and organization in the Cosmos and must contain the foundations of a grand interdisciplinary unified theory of reality. Ms. Norelli-Bachelet's Gnostic Circle defines that cosmological order and the proof of its integrality lies in its ability to cover all fields from molecular to chemical to organic, even the development of life, and mind.