Claude de Warren
December 2024
Original English text: Ilion, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 2018
Book Two
The Book of the Statesman
Every time a new truth has attempted to manifest upon earth, it has been immediately attacked, corrupted, and diverted by pseudo-spiritual forces – which did represent a certain spirituality at a given time, but precisely the one that the new truth wants to go beyond. To give but one example of those sad “spiritual diversions” which clutter History, Buddhism was largely corrupted in a sizeable part of Asia by a whole Tantric and magical Buddhism. The falsity lies not in the old spirituality which the new truth seeks to go beyond, but in the eternal fact that the Past clings to its powers, its means, and its rule. As Mother said in her simple language, “What’s wrong is to remain stuck there.” And Sri Aurobindo with his ever-present humour: “The traditions of the past are very great in their own place, in the past” …
Satprem[1]
It is worth remembering that the action takes place in the final days of the Trojan War, which symbolises a great reversal of the yoga, from the one which only aimed at the liberation of the spirit – either considering the world to be a perfect illusion, or judging the divinisation of matter to be impossible –, towards the new yoga which must strive for the divinisation of matter within the unity of Spirit and Matter.
According to the ancient Greek masters of wisdom, this reversal occurs when the adventurer of consciousness, already well established in the illumined mind, under the pressure of his aspiration, seeks to ascend to the plane of the intuitive mind.
Indeed, the royal dynasty of Troy belongs to the plane of the illumined mind, in the line of descent from the Pleiad Electra (See Diagram 16). But the plane towards which Agamemnon and Menelaus, heroes in the lineage of Tantalus “the aspiration” (See Diagram 15), is that of the next plane, the intuitive mind or intuition, because these two kings respectively took as their wife Clytemnestra “a renowned wisdom” and Helen “the evolution towards more freedom or more light”, two sisters belonging to the lineage of Taygete, which represents the intuitive mind (See Diagram 13).
It should be noted, however, that the corresponding yoga incarnated by Agamemnon and Menelaus was rather established based on the higher mind since Hippodamia, “the vital mastery”, was their grandmother, whose mother or grandmother was Sterope, symbol of the higher mind. Everything happens as if the entrance in the illumined mind, which assumes the mental silence, leaves open the possibility of a lack of discernment of the evolutive process. This is confirmed by Sri Aurobindo who said that the light from intuition embodied by Laocoon is blinded by fate: “fate-darkened seer of Apollo” (Ilion, Book III, verse 6).
Let us briefly recall what Sri Aurobindo said about these two planes of the higher mind: at the level of the illumined mind, the Truth penetrates the mind in a continuous and stable flow of light rather than in sporadic flashes. There emerges a power of direct knowledge of the Truth resulting from a more perfect union with Reality. It is no longer a question of “thought” but of “light” of the spirit, which can be associated with vision. This is why ancient sages were called “seers”.
Then come the higher regions of the intuitive mind. On this plane, the activities of the mind have come under the direction of the Intuition and can operate in four ways, which Sri Aurobindo describes as follows: “Intuition has a fourfold power. A power of revelatory truth-seeing, a power of inspiration or truth-hearing, a power of truth-touch or immediate seizing of significance, which is akin to the ordinary nature of its intervention in our mental intelligence, a power of true and automatic discrimination of the orderly and exact relation of truth to truth, — these are the fourfold potencies of Intuition.”[2]
It should be noted that the seeker also sometimes makes inroads into the overmind, because according to the Iliad, Thetis, the mother of Achilles, “often revealed to him the mind of Zeus”.[3]
The Trojan War is an inner struggle in order to discern which is the best path to greater freedom/light brought about by an access to the intuitive mind: that is the pursuit of the yoga in the separation of spiritual and material life (the Trojans) or that of the purification of the depths combined with a powerful aspiration (the Achaean coalition supported by Achilles’ Myrmidons). How-ever, it is still the aspiration to improve the present mental man that is being sought (Agamemnon), and not a complete transfor-mation of human nature towards a goal not yet determined.
The Trojan camp corresponds to what Sri Aurobindo ex-presses, i.e. that until now the seeker who united with the divine consciousness in the spirit could not manifest this union in the planes of manifestation because these limited planes brought not only their limitations but also the distortions inherent in duality. The conclusion that had to be drawn was that union could only be fully realised if creation was cancelled.
The Mother confirms this in the agenda:
“There is a whole side of human thought which has held the conception that identification with the supreme Consciousness could only come through the abolition of the individual creation, but in fact Sri Aurobindo said it was possible WITHOUT doing away with the creation. They hold the conception that the creation must be done away with because they don’t take the creation beyond the human creation—it’s impossible for man, but possible for the supramental being. And that will be the essential difference of the supramental being: being able, without losing a limited form, to unite his consciousness with the supreme Consciousness.
But it is impossible for man. That I know. As I said, you have it [union with the supreme Consciousness], but as soon as you want to express it, it is finished, it becomes again… (gesture as if enclosed in a box). That means the substance we are built with is not sufficiently purified, illumined, transformed (anything, any word) to express the supreme Consciousness without distorting it.”[4]
The situation at the start of the war can be summed up as follows:
“A previously established psychic mastery is very desirable as that creates a general responsiveness and inhibits the revolt of the lower parts against the Light or their consent to the claims of the Ignorance. A preliminary spiritual transformation will also reduce the hold of the Ignorance; but neither of these influences altogether eliminates its obstruction and limitations: for these preliminary changes do not bring the integral consciousness and knowledge.”[5]
According to mythology, the initial deviance occurred when the seeker, well settled in the higher mind, aspired to stabilise the illumined mind by perfecting “liberation” (Ilus), “peace” (Assaracus) and “joy” (Ganymede). There was a lack of consecration or surren-der to the Divine, as illustrated by Laomedon’s two perjuries.
The first was to refuse to pay the gods the wages agreed when the citadel of Troy was built. This was a refusal to acknowl-edge divine action. Most probably, we can understand that the seeker has not yet completed the second stage of yoga as described in the Bhagavad Gita: even if he has renounced the results of the action, he has not yet fully detached himself from the belief that he himself is the author of the action, at least in part. There is still an attachment to the action itself.
The second was to refuse Heracles the immortal white horses promised by Laomedon in exchange for the release of his daughter Hesione, who was bound to a rock at sea to be offered as food to the sea monster Ceto. These immortal white horses symbolise the powers acquired through yoga. Since Heracles is the hero who embodies the yoga or tapasya (spiritual discipline) that must be pursued until divinisation, this refusal shows that the seeker is not completely ready to abandon certain realisations of the past to go even further.
In Book I, Sri Aurobindo clearly posed the question that he intends to examine in Ilion: namely, what can be preserved from the outer forms (the moulds)[6] of the old yogas in the new yoga? This new yoga concerns the totality of the being, integrating spirit and matter (spiritual and material life), from the heights of the mind down to the smallest cells of our body. It gives priority to Truth over the quest of Love. In Book II, after recalling the ultimatum issued by Achilles through the mouth of Deiphobos, Sri Aurobindo tackles the problem from the perspective of the highest rajasic-sattvic wisdom with the discourse of the wise Antenor.
Although we have no documents that would enable us to link Antenor to a Pleiad, we can assume that he represents the plane of the enlightened or spiritualised higher mind. He belongs to the generation of Trojans that was “redeemed”, that of Priam. In fact, he is one of the city’s wise elders who, because of their old age, can no longer take part in the battle.
However, the seeker has gained access to mental silence with Teucer, as mentioned below: They out of Ida sent into Ilion Pallas Athene; secret she came and he went with her into the luminous silence. The higher mind can no longer be the guide of yoga, which would explain why Antenor is “fallen”.
It should also be remembered that the energies that sup-ported the first steps in the illumined mind and contributed to the power and radiance of Troy have, over time, become mixed with other influences. The structures that were valid at the beginning have become rigid due to a lack of adaptation to the movement of Becoming, i.e. a lack of fluidity.
Let us recall the story of Tithonus, brother of Priam, studied in Book I: Eos had asked Zeus to grant Tithonus immortality, but she had failed to request eternal youth as well, resulting in the latter being reduced to a larva. When the adventurer of consciousness limits his quest to the sole realisation of the static impersonal Divine, forgetting the evolutionary Divine, his realisation loses its radiance and its power over time.
To approach the second chapter, we need to situate the adventurer of consciousness in his spiritual progression. There are two main opposing tendencies in the most advanced part of his consciousness, which is represented by the Trojans.
The first is symbolised by Antenor, symbol of the highest thought, that of the enlightened higher mind, the plane after that of the intellect. On this plane, intuition already plays a major role, as Antenor speaks the word that the gods have breathed in his spirit.[7] But it is still a yoga based on a logic that spiritual realisations are the direct consequences of specific practices, as Sri Aurobindo describes this hero: “Take these steps, and your heart will be given what it desires”.[8]
But this highest thought has been set aside, if not rejected, with the attainment of mental silence (Teucer), supported by a will of evolution towards Love (Aeneas) and the detachment acquired through renunciation (Paris). The Trojans no longer regard Antenor as a guide.
The importance of the mind of light is illustrated in the Trojan camp with the support of Apollo, the god of the mind of light, the extreme limit of the overmind, just before the supramental. To understand this designation, we refer the reader to the reviewed version of the chapter on The Twelve Gods of Olympus, and more specifically to the section on the god Apollo. This god is neither a descendant of Hyperion, who characterises the supramental plane, nor of Helios, the supramental light, nor is he linked to the planes of mental consciousness, unlike Hermes, who is the god in charge of the growth of the overmind in humanity.
The second tendency is therefore represented by Apollo’s seer, Laocoon. But the light or truth that could have been perceived is distorted because Laocoon is the fate-darkened seer of Apollo.
The judgement of Paris, by which the shepherd prince chose the goddess of love as the most beautiful, introduced a new form of deviance into the yoga. The seeker, and humanity in his wake, came to regard Love as the primary evolutionary necessity, relegating the search for and the establishment of Truth to the background. This is why Aphrodite supported the Trojan camp.
This pre-eminence of the quest of Love over the one of Truth becomes, at some point, an evolutionary error. Sri Aurobindo tells us that Aeneas, son of Aphrodite, gives advice that wisdom hates (see line 332). This error is rooted in the judgement of Paris, who considered Aphrodite to be the most beautiful and therefore the truest on the evolutionary level, to the detriment of Athena, the goddess who oversees the growth of the inner being and the mastery of the outer being, and of Hera, the goddess of the right evolutionary movement.
The inner conflict is therefore essentially at the level of the illumined mind, represented by the Trojan royal line. The stake in the war, Helen, belongs to the even higher plane, that of the intuitive mind.
In Books II and III, Sri Aurobindo develops each line of thought based on a particular experience to its conclusion, thus granting them their fullest significance. This approach mirrors the logic of the overmind, as he exemplified in Savitri. Antenor’s discourse is very well argued and easily won over by the reader. Yet, Sri Aurobindo only reveals its flaws at the end.
While Antenor’s speech is very satisfying for the mind, Sri Aurobindo reveals at the end that this enlightened higher mind remains tethered to his convictions of supremacy of the spiritual path symbolised by Troy, as established by its founders. He bets on the eventual demise of the Achaeans, predicting that they will engage in a fratricidal struggle between the Achaeans of the North and those of the South.
Antenor advises insincere acceptance of Achilles’ offer. Under the guise of a conciliatory speech, the seeker clings to the certainties on which Troy was founded, namely the improvement of the current mental man in the unity of spirit and matter. He blames the Trojan deviances that led to the split between mind and matter. This is a part of the seeker who relies on an enlightened higher mind but who does not yet consider a more complete transformation, a divinised matter.
If Antenor’s position lacks long-term vision, the perception represented by Laocoon, which will be developed in Book III, is also tainted by errors, for Sri Aurobindo tells us that it has been darkened by fate.
Sri Aurobindo sums up these two tendencies as follows: Neither the thought of the statesman nor the dream of the prophet is decisive (Ilion, Book III, line 358). Both have their flaws: either an attachment to old conceptions or a lack of purification of intuition. Inevitably, the victors will be the Achaeans, as decreed by the gods before the war began.
The forces of the overmind will take advantage of the seek-er’s refusal to engage in a profound purification of the vital – the strike of Achilles – to force him to carry out a very large number of purifications on all planes prior to the great reversal of the direction of the yoga (from the ascension to the descent), illustrated by the death of many heroes.
It is only when the Trojans have reached the vicinity of the ships, when the situation seems hopeless for the Achaeans, that the changeover can take place.
It is the seeker’s willingness to undergo a purification of the deep vital that will allow the reversal to take place. For the seeker can only rise in proportion to the purification and transformation carried out in the lower planes.
On the other hand, we must always bear in mind that the poem Ilion concerns not only the adventurers of consciousness but the whole of humanity in the present period of evolution. Humanity too must purify and transform its outer nature and embody the Truth by rising above the intellect.
However, one might ponder whether Achilles’ offer could have been accepted. Is there a way out of the inner conflict, ac-knowledging that the evolutionary truth requires a purification of the lower planes alongside a profound aspiration towards greater freedom, while retaining the ancient structures and practices of yoga? Can Troy be saved from destruction and its inhabitants spared?
We shall see that this is not possible because all attachments, even to the old realisations, must cease, and Truth must reign in humanity before Love can manifest itself.
Finally, we might ask why the decision belongs to the gods – the powers of the overmind – and not to one of the two camps. At the very beginning of this chapter, we read: So over Ilion doomed leaned the yearning immense of the sunrise.
If it is the gods who decide, and Zeus in particular, this means that the seeker has not yet succeeded in integrating the forces of the overmind within him and that he is still partly their plaything.
So, even if Antenor had won over Laocoon, Aeneas and Paris to convince the Trojans, the gods would have arranged one way or another for Troy to be destroyed.
Sri Aurobindo gives us the justification for this, both for the seeker and for humanity as a whole: How could greater light come if twilight were not followed by night (Ilion, Book VIII, line 228).
We should also note that, according to Apollodorus, Heracles killed all the sons of Laomedon except Priam, which would show that the seeker has already worked hard to erase the error symbol-ised by Laomedon’s perjuries (the lack of greater consecration). However, Homer mentions the three sons still alive among the old men present at the end of the war, a sign that the error is still very much present.
Summarised analysis
Book II concerns the speech made by the Trojan Antenor in response to Achilles’ offer. Let us take a quick look at what he represents:
He is the symbol of the spiritualised higher mind, still largely based on thought, before the seeker has realised mental silence. In other words, he is the symbol of an ancient realisation. Being a head of state, he is a man of power, and therefore the representative of a yoga that imposed mastery from above, not transformation.
He accuses the Trojans of having gone down the wrong path, of having abandoned the fundamentals of the spiritual quest: while it should lead to union in the spirit, these foundations did not mean renouncing yoga in life. What led to the founding of Troy was a yoga that did not separate matter from spirit.
He accuses the Trojans of following a direction that develops the spiritual ego and of pursuing the quest for love which is distorted by enslaving religions.
He states loud and clear that the overmind (the gods) is waiting for a complete annihilation of the ego, once mastery of the external nature has been realised (For the gods seek a nation, one that can conquer itself after having conquered the world).
However, this spiritualised higher mind does not suggest that the Achaean position be definitively accepted, i.e. to seek further liberation of the vital and of the body, convinced that this leads nowhere, that liberation of the nature is not possible.
At the beginning of Book II, the supramental Light of Truth – the sun Helios – acknowledges the great realisations of humanity over the past millennia in its quest for the Divine in the spirit. But it also knows that the forms of the past must be shattered so that new paths can be opened through a complete refoundation of spirituality. The realisations in the higher mind and the illumined mind accomplished at this stage of yoga cannot allow the seeker to perceive this, because the perception of the right path of evolution has been obscured by the spiritual forces which ensure that nothing is left behind and that all movement continues to its fulfilment (Laocoon is the fate-darkened seer of Apollo).
Sri Aurobindo confirms this in The Divine Life: “It is, moreover, the nature and claim of any Force in the manifestation to be, to survive, to effectuate itself wherever possible and as long as possible, and it is therefore that in a world of Ignorance all is achieved not only through a complexus but through a collision and struggle and intermixture of Forces.”[9]
Sri Aurobindo then lists the high realisations embodied by the Trojan senators and the royal lineage.
Then Deiphobos, “he who destroys fear”, speaks. He is one of the sons of Priam and Hecuba, the royal couple of Troy. Since the death of Hector, their eldest son, he has been regarded as the leader of the Trojans. Although he does not clearly state in his speech whether he is for or against the continuation of the war, we understand that he embodies the “courage” that has made many realisations possible. This part of the seeker fears not only the loss of realisations on the planes of the higher and illumined mind, but also of all the breakthroughs made on the higher planes of the intuitive mind and the overmind.
Deiphobos once again states the message of Achilles, this time in greater detail: nothing can stop the forward march of the forces that govern the world of forms and the evolutionary cycles they impose. What in the seeker strives for a deepened purification within the depths of the vital (Achilles) invites that which in the adventurer supports the goals and practices of yoga, that have enabled the vast realisations in the spirit, to renounce the separa-tion of spirit and matter in order to move towards greater freedom and to expand by integrating wider forms of spirituality.
At this final stage of the inner struggle, the seeker is still ready to find a compromise in a spirituality which, while recognising the need for purification for the purpose of a greater liberation, would retain the practices and realisations of the past.
Achilles therefore asks the Trojan chiefs to unite Asia with Greece, by returning Helen and giving up a great deal of wealth.
Asia joins with Greece, one world from the frozen rivers
Trod by the hooves of the Scythian to farthest undulant Ganges.[10]
The seeker is aware that there is no turning back, for this part of his being (Achilles) has committed himself in front of the Divine to accomplish his task of purification, whatever the cost. He even knows inwardly that victory over the forces still obstructing the great reversal is certain.
It is then that Antenor speaks. Being the most knowledge-eable of the Trojan orators, he represents not only “the highest intelligence” with the ability to convince, a spiritualised higher mind, but also a realisation in the yoga of divine work for he was a great warrior. He symbolises the realisation that Sri Aurobindo describes in his Essays on the Gita: “To arrive at the sattvic way of the inner individual Swadharma and of the works to which it moves us on the ways of life is a preliminary condition of perfection.”[11]
The seeker knows that what expresses itself in him is not only intellectual wisdom and high thought, but also a mind in which the intuition that expresses the truths of the spirit worlds already plays an important role (he speaks the word that the gods have breathed in his spirit). It represents a certain irruption of light into the higher mind, hence the term spiritualised higher mind.
This sattvic wisdom of discernment and the search for bal-ance has long guided the yoga, bringing numerous experiences and realisations. But the acquisition of mental silence and psychic transformation have relegated it to the background. This discern-ment, however, perceives that the “vision” or intuitive perception of right evolution has become obscured and is leading to a gradual loss of the previous realisations of the yoga of the liberation of the spirit (Antenor accuses Laocoon of ruining Troy).
Then he tells us that the worlds of the spirit await a man (a group of men or even humanity) who can totally overcome his ego, i.e. the consciousness of being separate, right down to the depths of the vital and the body. Indeed, mastery of the external being imposed from above is a first necessity (this is the phase of liberation of the spirit). But it is then necessary to be able to annihilate the ego in perfect humility and total surrender to the Divine, For they [the gods] seek a nation, one that can conquer itself after having conquered the world, but they find none.[12]
It is only on this condition that man will be able to integrate the forces of the overmind without faltering, i.e. to integrate the opposite and complementary forces of the overmind, the opposite extremes (None has been able to hold all the gods in his bosom unstaggered)[13].
After giving a brief description of the progression of the illumined mind, Sri Aurobindo expresses what is for him an indis-putable evolutionary truth, namely that Truth must be incarnated in humanity before Love can manifest itself there (Antenor respects Aeneas as a man but not in relation to the assembly).
He then insists on the fact that at the beginning of this phase, all the most advanced quests and yogas worked together, which is no longer the case. He reminds us that yoga must be done with what is available to us in everyday life, in the smallest details, and not in some escape into the heights of the spirit.
This ancient wisdom, which has proved its worth and is well anchored in matter, therefore urges the rest of the being to turn away from experiences in the mind alone and, armed with courage and discernment, with patience and sustained attention, to work with what everyday life offers in the smallest details.
It maintains that it is also in incarnation that the work must be done, and not in the pursuit of the heights of the spirit alone, to which they are incited by an ability to see that is “darkened” because it is veiled by evolution (Laocoon).
Twice already, he says, the overmind has given the seeker the opportunity to redirect the yoga in the right direction, but in vain. The yoga of purification of the depths cannot be rejected by the yoga of spirit and love. In his evolution, man is a product of matter and not a mere creation of the spirit. Like the ants, he must work to purify his being down to the very depths of his bodily nature and down to the smallest detail.
Only absolute faith in the Divine, endurance, and total and unconditional consecration can enable a progression beyond the present miserable human unconsciousness and the acquisition of an illumination of the different parts of the being.
Antenor concludes by saying that trials never last indefinite-ly and, however unbearable they may be, they are always followed by resurrections. This is not the first “night” that the seeker has faced. After enduring the previous “night of the spirit”, he had won the luminous silence. If he knows how to wait for the evolutionary movement of consciousness to do its work of purification, he can be sure that the yoga of love associated with union in Spirit will once again become the essential movement of evolution.
This spiritualised higher mind therefore maintains that the path represented by Troy, the path of the primacy of love as it has developed in its aims and practices, is the only valid one. This is with a view to perfecting present-day man, and not by following an aspiration for greater freedom with the aim of liberating Nature.
Detailed analysis
Before turning to the discourse of the statesman, Sri Aurobindo, in a long introduction, gives us a detailed description of the Trojan realisation.
Now from his cycle sleepless and vast round the dance of the earth-globe
Gold Hyperion rose in the wake of the dawn like the eyeball
Flaming of God revealed by his uplifted luminous eyelid.
Troy, he beheld and he viewed the transient labour of mortals.
All her marble beauty and pomp were laid bare to the heavens.
Sunlight streamed into Ilion waking the voice of her gardens,
Amorous seized on her ways, lived glad in her plains and her pastures,
Kissed her leaves into brightness of green. As a lover the last time
Yearns to the beauty desired that again shall not wake to his kisses,
So over Ilion doomed leaned the yearning immense of the sunrise. 10
In the opening lines of this book, Sri Aurobindo seems to be giving a poetic description of the rising sun. However, there is every reason to believe that he is evoking here the influence and action of the supramental and its light on the earth up to this precise moment in the yoga. In fact, the sun is Helios, symbol of the “supra-mental light of Truth” or “illuminating principle of the supramental” (see family tree 4). He is the son of the Titan Hyperion, “the con-sciousness that is above”, who embodies the highest supramental consciousness on the plane of creation. Remember that this Titan is also the father of Selene, the moon, whom we understand as the realising principle of the supramental, and of Eos, the goddess of the Dawn, of the Eternal New.
However, ancient Greek poets also used the name Hyperion to designate the sun, Helios.
With the rising of the sun, a new and important pressure of this “supramental light of Truth” begins, which also follows vast cycles, but in full consciousness, because it is sleepless. The great human movements, both individual and terrestrial, are thus punc-tuated by the influence of supramental consciousness and forces. The “Light of Truth” is both a light that illuminates and a light that “sees”, an omniscient light because it is like the eyeball flaming of God. And even that which hides this light from man can be perceived by him, for this veil is itself luminous, a luminous eyelid.
This supramental light or consciousness, which already knows everything by virtue of its omniscience, “contemplates” the most advanced spiritual realisation and “sees” all that human labour has achieved over the past millennia in its quest for the Divine (Troy he beheld and he viewed the transient labour of mortals). These spiritual realisations and constructions, however beautiful and elevated they may be, are only an evolutionary stage and not the ultimate end, because human labour is “transitory”.
To this omniscient Truth-Consciousness nothing can be hidden: It contemplates both the truth frozen in these most accom-plished spiritual forms – goals and practices – and their splendour (All her marble beauty and pomp were laid bare to the heavens). It sees the most beautiful manifestations of love and rejoices in them (lived glad in her plains and her pastures).
But it knows that the fate of Troy has been decided, that the city is doomed to destruction, that the forms of the past must be destroyed. Just as a lover leans over for the last time in the morning to awaken his beloved, from whom he is about to be separated, with his kisses, this Truth-Consciousness manifests the immense attraction of Spirit for Matter, which is also an immense expectation (So over Ilion doomed leaned the yearning immense of the sunrise).
On an individual level as much as on the level of present humanity, it is a recognition, by the creative power, of the evolu-tion it has accompanied for millennia, of the forms it has helped create but which must now be destroyed so that new paths can be opened through a complete re-foundation of spirituality.
She like a wordless marble memory dreaming for ever
Lifted the gaze of her perishable immortality sunwards.
All her human past aspired in the clearness eternal,
Temples of Phryx and Dardanus touched with the gold of the morning,
Columns triumphant of Ilus, domes of their greatness enamoured,
Stones that intended to live; and her citadel climbed up to heaven
White like the soul of the Titan Laomedon claiming his kingdoms,
Watched with alarm by the gods as he came. Her bosom maternal.
Thrilled to the steps of her sons and a murmur began in her high-roads.
Life renewed its ways which death and sleep cannot alter 20
Life that pursuing her boundless march to a goal which we know not,
Ever her own law obeys, not our hopes, who are slaves of her heart-beats.
Sri Aurobindo then goes on to describe these spiritual structures corresponding to the highest realisations of humanity in the quest for liberation of the spirit. He compares them to a frozen but superb form, like a marble memorial that can only dream compared to what is to come (She like a wordless marble memory dreaming for ever). The Mother speaks of this several times in the agenda, for example in these texts from 1961:
“Even mastery can be achieved – it is quite easy to do from above. But for the transformation one must descend, and that is terrible…. Otherwise, the subconscient will never be transformed, it will remain as it is. One can even pose as a superman! (Mother laughs) But it remains like that (gesture in the air), it is not the real thing. It is not the new creation; it is not the next step in terrestrial evolution.”[14]
And a few days later:
“All our aspirations, all our seeking, all our ascents always remind me of that flower I gave you the other day: it is something like that (Mother makes a vague, ethereal gesture), vibrating, vibrating, vibrating, very luminous, very delicate, essentially very lovely… (silence) but it is not THAT (Mother again turns her hand over to indicate an abrupt reversal). It is not That.”[15]
And these spiritual structures, built to access the worlds of the spirit and now frozen, can only bear witness to the past of human evolution, which we must respect with gratitude, without it being necessary for them still to play a role (like a wordless marble memory).
And that which turns towards the highest light – the light of supramental truth – can be understood according to Sri Aurobindo’s Aphorism 238, “Break the moulds of the past, but keep its gains and its spirit, or else thou hast no future”[16], in which “the moulds of the past” are its perishable part – the structures and practices of the quest – and ”its gains and its spirit” its immortality (Ilion lifted the gaze of her perishable immortality sunwards). The immor-tal realisations of the past must also recede into the background of evolution for a time, in what may appear to be a disappearance, a death.
What testifies to the aspiration of past millennia and still aspires in the same way is seen in the light of supramental con-sciousness (All her human past aspired in the clearness eternal).
We saw in the study of the first book that Sri Aurobindo had introduced a hero, Phryx, “he who burns”, the eponymous hero of Phrygia, and had made him the founder of Troy. But we have found no trace of a temple dedicated to him. For Dardanos, the founder of the lineage, there may be a reference to the sanctuary of Samothrace. Dardanos is indeed known to be one of the two legendary heroes who founded the Samothracian Mysteries which gave the initiations at the beginning of the spiritual path. However, these can be seen as symbolic structures that support and celebrate “the inner fire”, Agni, and “the move-ment of union towards the heights of the spirit” when the latter began under the influence of the supramental (Temples of Phryx and Dardanus touched with the gold of the morning).
The Columns triumphant of Ilus are those of the temple consecrated to Athena to house the Palladion. This statue, made by Athena in the effigy of Pallas – a young girl accidentally killed by Athena during their games (sparring match) – was placed next to Zeus and later thrown down from Olympus by him. Ilus, the founder of Troy and a symbol of yoga with a view to “the liberation of the spirit”, found it in front of his tent and built a temple to honour her, thus making the city impregnable as long as the statue was there, i.e. as long as the stabilisation of a great light in the spirit had not been completed (Pallas).
The seeker is convinced of the greatness of these firmly es-tablished spiritual forms and he wishes to keep them alive (domes of their greatness enamoured, stones that intended to live).
It must also be remembered that the citadel of Troy was built by Laomedon with the help of the gods Apollo and Poseidon. At that point, this hero represented a pure-souled seeker of con-sciousness who, through an appropriate yoga, set out to conquer the high realms of the spirit – the illumined mind, the intuitive mind and the overmind – which he claimed were also man’s realms. In this work, he was supported by Apollo and Poseidon, the forces that work respectively towards the advent of the mind of light and the mastery of the subconscious (her citadel climbed up to heaven white like the soul of the Titan Laomedon claiming his kingdoms).
But the gods were “alarmed” that men might soon be their equals, not because this was something they really feared, but because man was not ready for it (Watched with alarm by the gods as he came).
A similar image appears in biblical Genesis, but on a com-pletely different level, when Yahweh drove out of the Garden of Eden the first couple who had entered into discernment: “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Hebrew Genesis III: 21-24). In fact, Laomedon’s descendants represent those who have taken from the tree of life and have climbed the mental ladder up to the illumined mind, thus approaching the overmind, the plane where the gods dwell.
The spiritual forces are not ready to give up their supremacy until humanity has sufficiently purified itself (See further on, verse 290: none has been able to hold all the gods in his bosom unstag-gered).
Then everything continues as before, in ignorance of the new vibration. For the seeker, the “spiritual structures” are like a reassuring, comforting mother’s bosom. And if we consider that sleep is the domain of the subconscient and death that of the inconscient, then neither the subconscient nor the inconscient have any hold on the “habits” or habitual yoga practices put in place over the millennia (Life renewed its ways which death and sleep cannot alter). For nature moves according to its own laws towards a goal that we are unaware of, and plays on our hopes for a better world.
Then as now men walked in the round which the gods have decreed them
Eagerly turning their eyes to the lure and the tool and the labour.
Chained is their gaze to the span in front, to the gulfs they are blinded
Meant for their steps. The seller opened his shop and the craftsman
Bent o’er his instruments handling the work he never would finish,
Busy as if their lives were for ever, today in its evening
Sure of tomorrow. The hammers clanged and the voice of the markets
Waking desired its daily rumour. 30
In this passage, Sri Aurobindo describes different parts of the being – or perhaps even yogas – that are unaware of the change to come and remain subject to the habits and limits imposed by the powers of the overmind (men walked in the round which the gods have decreed them). These are, for example, laws of limitation, of repetition of processes set up by nature, of so-called “impossibilities” based on the habits of millennia of evolution, or of unconscious submission to cosmic cycles.
Usually, when they are not busy with a task that demands their attention, people are incapable of living in the present, always bringing the past into their present or projecting their hopes into the future. They often live in “eagerness” (impatience) and in a vibration of “trepidation”, which the Mother often lamented about.
They turn towards the illusory goals that attract them, they follow their desires and attach themselves to the act and its fruits, chained to their work (Eagerly turning their eyes to the lure and the tool and the labour). They have only a limited vision-consciousness and a very restricted understanding of the course of events, incapable of seeing the abysses towards which they are marching (Chained is their gaze to the span in front, to the gulfs they are blinded meant for their steps).
Twice, Sri Aurobindo was able to see men rushing blindly towards the abysses of the two great wars (Let us recall that the poem Ilion was begun in 1909). And as these lines are being written, in the summer of 2018, when all the lights are flashing red, warning that serious threats are hanging over the survival of humanity, this must seem obvious to anyone with even the slightest awareness.
Returning to an interpretation centred on the adventurer of consciousness, the poem tells us that each part of the outer being, or rather each form of the Trojan yoga, continues its activity, blind to what is coming, living as if it were eternal, whether in relationships and exchanges (the merchant) or that which creates forms (the craftsman).
Nor only the craftsman, 30
Only the hopes of the earth, but the hearts of her votaries kneeling
Came to her marble shrines and upraised to our helpers eternal
Missioned the prayer and the hymn or silent, subtly adoring
Ventured upwards in incense. Loud too the clash of the cymbals
Filled all the temples of Troy with the cry of our souls to the azure.
Prayers breathed in vain and a cry that fell back with Fate for its answer!
Men always hope to improve humanity in order to create a superman who would be an improvement on the present mental man, a summit of mental humanity. But Sri Aurobindo explained to us that the mind cannot surpass itself. He therefore worked for another humanity, a gnostic humanity of the future, supra-mental, of which only a few outlines are sketched in his work and in Mother’s Agenda. These earthly hopes which rely on external transformations or evolutions to improve humanity are therefore in vain.
But here, we are talking about the craftsmen of Troy, and therefore symbolically about forms of yoga, practices linked to everyday life.
With the same idea in mind, the devotees of Ilion would express the yoga of devotion here. But the soul receives no conso-lation in this great spiritual crisis. The adventurer who has devoted his entire being to the Divine may well have prayed to the spiritual powers that accompanied him in his yoga, or, having silenced his outer being, set off in a trance towards the heights, but he receives no inner response, only that of the destiny that seems to govern the world. (Prayers breathed in vain and a cry that fell back with Fate for its answer).
Children laughed in her doorways; joyous they played, by their mothers
Smiled on still, but their tender bosoms unknowing awaited
Grecian spear points sharpened by Fate for their unripe bosoms,
Tasks of the slave in Greece.
Pursuing the same idea, the children would represent what is developing in the yoga of ascension, new goals and practices. But these realisations in the making would either be suddenly abandoned in the reversal of yoga, or forced to develop with less freedom. The new goals and practices of development of the spirit will have to submit to the yoga of matter (Tasks of the slave awaited them in Greece).
Like bees round their honey-filled dwellings 40
Murmuring swarmed to the well-heads the large-eyed daughters of Troya,
Deep-bosomed, limbed like the gods, —glad faces of old that were sentient
Rapturous flowers of the soul, bright bodies that lived under darkness
Heavily massed of their locks like day under night made resplendent,
Daughters divine of the earth in the ages when heaven was our father.
Pursuing the same line of interpretation, the daughters of Troy represent the most beautiful directions of the seeker’s yoga, stemming from the high Trojan realisations in the field of the yoga of “liberation of the spirit”, for Troy is the symbol of a conquest of the realms of the spirit. We should remember that young girls generally symbolise new goals in yoga which, until they are married, are not yet really developed. Here, they are Trojan and therefore expressions of high realisations in the spirit.
The large-eyed daughters evoke the abilities of vision, the realisations of seers.
Being deep-bosomed probably alludes to wide and calm breathing, deep peace, or a state of profound joy. And limbed like the gods, to a capacity for action purified of all traces of ego.
These goals/realisations are the most beautiful manifes-tations (flowers) of the soul which has developed an extreme sensitivity and enthusiasm for the Divine in the Greek sense of this word enthousiasmos (ενθουσιασμος) which originally meant “inspiration or possession by the Divine” or “presence of the Divine within oneself” (Rapturous flowers of the soul, bright bodies that lived under darkness heavily massed of their locks like day under night made resplendent).
These goals and realisations seem even more luminous in the context of the Trojan error here pictured by the dark locks; the hair being linked to the intuitive perception of Truth. In Greek mythology, blond or red hair indicates an intuition that is, if not exact, at least on the way to being so.
They were humanity’s most divine realisations, when its mission was to conquer the realms of the spirit, to go towards the father-sky (Daughters divine of the earth in the ages when heaven was our father). In the era that is now beginning, the aim of which will be the divinisation of matter, symbolically “the earth (divine matter) will be our mother”.
They round Troy’s well-heads flowerlike satisfied morn with their beauty
Or in the river baring their knees to the embrace of the coolness
Dipped their white feet in the clutch of his streams, in the haste of Scamander,
Lingering this last time with laughter and talk of the day and the morrow
Leaned to the hurrying flood. All his swiftnesses raced down to meet them 50
Crowding his channel with dancing billows and turbulent murmurs.
Xanthus primaeval met these waves of our life in its passing
Even as of old he had played with Troy’s ancient fair generations
Mingling his deathless voice with the laughter and joy of their ages,
Laughter of dawns that are dead and a joy that the earth has rejected.
Still his whispering trees remembered their bygone voices.
Hast thou forgotten, O river of Troy? Still, still we can hear them
Now, if we listen long in our souls, the bygone voices.
Earth in her fibers remembers, the breezes are stored with our echoes.
These goals/realisations are compared to the most beautiful surrender in the plant kingdom, flowers, which give thanks to the energies of the morning, to the new (They round Troy’s well-heads flowerlike satisfied morn with their beauty). White feet could indicate a major purification in contact with matter.
The Scamander is the symbol of a current of forces that opens or expands human mental consciousness, breaks down limits, directing towards separation to allow individuation. It is a force for progress.
The name Scamander is constructed with ΣΚ, Μ and andros (ανδρος, genitive of the word ανηρ, man). The group ΣΚ indicates an opening of the mental consciousness, and in our time that of the intellect, hence the word skaios (σκαιος) which means “to the left” or “ignorant”, for the intellect provides knowledge of approximation and therefore ignorance.
When this consciousness opens up to consecration and intuition (with the character Μ), then it allows a movement of indefinite extension. This is why this river is called the “golden yellow” Xanthe by the gods, because it leads to freedom of the spirit. From the human point of view and in the Trojan context, it is the stream of consciousness that leads the seeker to aspire to total and definitive immersion in the one infinite existence. From a higher point of view, that of the overmind, it is the current of consciousness that leads to a more perfect freedom.
In the first volume, we saw that Sri Aurobindo associated the Scamander with the fundamental desire for freedom, with the aspiration to break through limits (Head first, unable to suffer Space and its limits, Time and its slowness, the thundering Xanthe rushed to the stormy waters in the distance). This evolving force seems to be rushing forward, impatient. The Scamander is one of the two rivers of the Trojan plain, the other being the Simois, which rather represents a receptive, balanced, and more intuitive consciousness. While the Scamander is a force for progress, the Simois is more a force for stabilisation.
This reminds us, in Savitri, of the “Two sun-gaze Daemons witnessing all that is” and who stand above the dwarf trinity of the mind. It is about “a power to uplift the laggard world”, “Iconoclast and shatterer of Time’s forts, overleaping limit and exceeding norm”.[17]
In the four lines that follow, Sri Aurobindo refers to the Scamander by the name given to it by the gods, the “golden yellow” Xanthe. From the point of view of the gods, of the overmind, this river is a force acting for the inner evolution of man in order to realise the identity of high/low, spirit/matter, towards greater freedom. Sri Aurobindo moves from one era to another to invite us to contact that stream of consciousness that has left traces in our subconscious memory, a memory of happy times when ad-venturers of consciousness opened paths of joy that later closed. (Laughter of dawns that are dead and a joy that the earth has rejected).
The seeker can allow the happy times, in which these real-isations had brought the joy of union, to rise from his depths if he listens to his inner being for long enough, for the body as well as certain subtle regions of the spirit still remember them (Still, still we can hear them now, if we listen long in our souls, the bygone voices. Earth in her fibres remembers, the breezes are stored with our echoes).
As far back as 2,800 years ago, Hesiod lamented the fact that he belonged to the fifth race, the iron race, in the following terms: “Thereafter, would that I was not among the men of the fifth generation, but either had died before or been born after-wards. For now, truly is a race of iron.” He also mentioned a fourth race, a race of heroes which he too called up in his memory, “a god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods” (who had realised a union in the spirit). “Grim war and dread battle destroyed a part of them, some in the land of Cadmus at seven-gated Thebe” (for the purification of the seven chakras), “when they fought for the flocks of Oedipus” (for the benefits of an advanced purification), or “in ships over the great sea gulf to Troy for rich-haired Helen’s sake” (to restore the right evolutionary direction).[18]
Over the stone-hewn steps for their limpid orient waters 60
Joyous they leaned and they knew not yet of the wells of Mycenae,
Drew not yet from Eurotas the jar for an alien master,
Mixed not Peneus yet with their tears.
These new yoga goals/realisations relied on structures re-puted to be indestructible to tap into the pure, easily accessible currents of energy (Over the stone-hewn steps for their limpid orient waters).
However, in the future, these new directions/realisations were to lose their lightness and submit in spite of themselves to the aims or influences of the new yoga, symbolised by the following elements:
- Mycenae, “a mighty ardour”, the city of which Agamem-non, “a powerful aspiration”, is king.
- The river Eurotas, “a vast widening of the spirit”, which rises in Arcadia and waters the plain of Laconia and the city of Sparta, “that which is engendered”, which is the kingdom of Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon and hus-band of Helen.
- The river Peneus, “the evolution of equality”, which pro-duced a daughter Stilbe, “she who shines”, loved by Apollo, the god of the mind of light.
These goals/realisations would endure “suffering” and “sorrow” in the near future due to the reversal of yoga. This reversal implies that the most recent realisations must undergo a difficult adaptation to serve another purpose: the purification of the lower layers of the being to move towards greater freedom (Helen).
From the clasp of the current
Now in their groups they arose and dispersed through the streets and the byways,
Turned from the freedom of earth to the works and the joy of the hearth-side,
Lightly they rose and returned through the lanes of the wind-haunted city
Swaying with rhythmical steps while the anklets jangled and murmured.
Silent temples saw them passing; you too, O houses
Built with such hopes by mortal man for his transient lodging;
Fragrant the gardens strewed on dark tresses their white-smiling jasmines 70
Dropped like a silent boon of purity soft from the branches:
Flowers by the wayside were budding, cries flew winged round the tree-tops.
Bright was the glory of life in Ilion city of Priam.
These realisations are not only active in the liberation of the spirit, but also in the yoga of devotion and the development of the inner fire, Agni, and of inner joy (Turned from the freedom of earth to the works and the joy of the hearthside).
Allusion is then made to the more or less elaborate spirit-ual structures of the past – the temples and abodes – which saw the development of these brilliant realisations, these structures or yoga practices enabling a union with the Divine, in which man places so many hopes during his fleeting passage on earth (Silent temples saw them passing; you too, O houses built with such hopes by mortal man for his transient lodging).
The white flowers of jasmine are here symbols of purity, characteristic of these realisations (Fragrant the gardens strewed on dark tresses their white-smiling jasmines dropped like a silent boon of purity soft from the branches).
Liberation of the spirit (Ilus), equality and inner peace (As-saracus), as well as mastery of the outer being (Laomedon) and joy (Ganymede) are realised on this plane of the seeker’s life (Bright was the glory of life in Ilion city of Priam).
But the pressure of aspiring to find a solution for humanity at large does not allow this stage to endure.
Thrice to the city the doom-blast published its solemn alarum;
Blast of the trumpets that call to assembly clamoured through Troya
Thrice and were still. From garden and highway, from palace and temple
Turned like a steed to the trumpet, rejoicing in war and ambition,
Gathered alert to the call the democracy hated of heaven.
Perhaps the first line of this passage refers to the inner warnings the seeker receives about a radical upheaval in his well-established yoga, about the fate that was about to befall Troy (Thrice to the city the doom-blast published its solemn alarum).
Democracy represents, for an adventurer of consciousness, everything that is not yet under the influence of the psychic, the part of the being that is not yet purified and belongs to the world of duality, to the ambitions of the ego and its taste for drama and conflict. It is made up of ideas, emotions, desires, impulses, sensations, vital needs, and habits of the lower nature that want to assert themselves and endure, and so come back to assail the seeker again and again.
This part claims its share in the governance of the yoga, especially as it is based on a spirituality that separates spirit from matter. Many masters indeed considered that external nature was not worth the trouble and did not seek in any way to transform it. They could therefore, for example, give free rein to their anger.
From the point of view of the cycles of the mind – see the corresponding study by the author, The cycles of the mental in the history of humanity, on the greekmyths-interpretation.com website –, democracies correspond to the moment when man places himself at the centre of the universe, whereas in the other part of the cycle, the sacred is at the centre.
In a democracy, everyone has equal power of expression and the same claim to power over the whole. But not everyone is at the same level of evolution. There is confusion in the notion of equality: while everyone has an equal right to progress according to their state of consciousness and development, not everyone has the capacity and an equal right to govern. By its very nature, democracy drags the whole society down.
In the evolution of democracies, history shows that in the face of the growing disorder and violence that develop under the influence of lies, ignorance and egos that reject all constraints and limits, there is a call for a return to order that culminates in the empire, which itself disintegrates under the combined pressure of barbarians from outside and barbarians from within.
This is the process that is developing in humanity today. For the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, while waiting for divine anarchy, it seemed obvious that democracy was a last resort, but that the most spiritually advanced beings were best placed to govern.
But whether on a collective or individual level, it seems clear that the spiritual powers cannot endorse an organisation in which the desires and demands of the personality that has not been transformed and is a proponent of conflict claim to govern the being as equals to that which is spiritualised (Turned like a steed to the trumpet, rejoicing in war and ambition, gathered alert to the call the democracy hated of heaven).
First in their ranks upbearing their age as Atlas his heavens,
Eagle-crested, with hoary hair like the snow upon Ida, 80
Ilion’s senators paced, Antenor and wide-browed Anchises,
Athamas famous for ships and the war of the waters, Tryas
Still whose name was remembered by Oxus the orient river,
Astyoches and Ucalegon, dateless Pallachus, Aetor,
Aspetus who of the secrets divine knew all and was silent,
Ascanus, Iliones, Alcesiphron, Orus, Aretes.
The senators of Ilion illustrate the most ancient works of yoga that developed as the seeker gradually settled into the illumined mind and the first incursions into the intuitive mind and the overmind. This is why they are eagle-crested, the birds that soar highest in the sky. Renowned for their vision that is as sharp as it is vast, they are symbols of the vision that is both broad and very precise in the overmind. The eagle is a symbol of Zeus, the highest power of the overmind.
Atlas, condemned by Zeus to carry the heavens on his shoulders, is the symbol of the force that separates spirit from matter but must also link them when the seeker – and humanity in his wake – ascends the seven planes of the mind to the overmind.
These representatives of the ancient works and realisations of yoga, who have a highly purified perception of the realms of the spirit (with hoary hair like the snow upon Ida) struggle to maintain their influence under the weight of evolutionary pressure, just as Atlas is depicted bent under the weight of the sky (upbearing their age as Atlas his heavens).
Sri Aurobindo then draws up a list of fourteen senators who can be associated with specific yogas.
In Book III of the Iliad, Homer mentions eight venerable old men who sat above the Scaean Gates: “Priam, Panthous, Thymoe-tes, Lampus, Clytius and Hicetaon, scion of Ares, Ucalegon and Antenor, men of prudence both”.
We have already spoken of Antenor the wisest of speakers of Troy (Ilion, Book II, line 118). Homer describes him as a “horse tamer” (Iliad, Book XIV, line 474), one who has acquired great mastery over his outer self, who has dominated the vital force, who has acquired a certain power over the energies of life.
Anchises is wide-browed, with the broadest mind. His name means “that which is closest to human consciousness”. He would be the only surviving Trojan, along with his son Aeneas, to found the lineage that would rule future Troy. He begat Aeneas by uniting with Aphrodite, the goddess who helps love grow. Her lineage will resume the progression in love once the reign of truth is established (See Diagram 16). The myth tells us that Anchises was blinded, a sign of the need to return inward, because he had revealed the name of his son’s mother, the goddess Aphrodite: evolution is always indeed a progression in the capacity to love that rests on a foundation of Truth.
As for Athamas, “the consecration with a view to inner evo-lution”, we assume that Sri Aurobindo refers here not to the best-known of the Athamas, son of Aeolus, who has no reason to be among the Trojans, but to the one who followed his father to the island of Chios near the coast of Asia Minor and thus of Troy. He was a son of Oenopion, “the one who enjoys (divine) ecstasy”. Being famous for ships and the war of the waters, he symbolises “an impeccable spiritual warrior”, a perfect emotional and vital mastery.
There are no known Tryas in Greek mythology. His name could mean “the highest just development (of the spirit)”. This would be compatible with what Sri Aurobindo says about it, namely the excursions made by the seeker into the highest planes that allow the descent of the spirit into the being: Tryas still whose name was remembered by Oxus the orient river. The Oxus, now known as the Amu Darya, is a river that flows into the Aral Sea, which lies beyond the Caspian Sea, and so well beyond the Black Sea. He would symbolise the pinnacle of the spirit reached by the seeker.
- Murugesu notes that he is a descendant of Teucer[19], governor of Phrygia, the province of the inner fire, but we do not know the origin of this statement.
Astyoches, “that which organises and unifies the person-ality”, or again, “that which protects the personality (the city)” if we relate it to the name Astyochus. In fact, there are no Astyoches in mythology. However, there are many Astyoche: one is the daughter of the river god Simoeis, the wife of Erichthonius and the mother of Tros, and another is the daughter of Laomedon. There is also an Astyochus, son of the king of the winds according to Diodorus. The unification of the personality is a long-standing Trojan realisation.
Since the letter Chi (X) is a double letter, if we take it not in the sense of “concentration, gathering” but in that of “suppression, annihilation”, then Astyoches would represent the most advanced work towards the annihilation of the ego.
Other respectable senators include:
- Ucalegon, “he who does not worry about anything”. He would symbolise someone who has realised a certain e-quality or even indifference, the result of his consecration or surrender. In the Iliad, he is described with Antenor as a man of prudence and therefore an advocate of ac-cepting Achilles’ offer, which earned them the reputation of traitors to the Trojan cause.
- the very old Pallachus, “a very stable concentration”, who is dateless and therefore a very old realisation.
- Aetor, brother of Antenor, whose name is perhaps linked to the eagle and would therefore indicate the highest mind.
- Aspetus, “that which cannot be expressed in words, that which is ineffable”, and therefore the one who of course of the secrets divine knew all and was silent. There are experiences for which language has not yet been invent- This is one of the leitmotifs in Mother’s Agenda.
- Ascanus, “the one who leans on nothing (without a struc-ture serving as shelter)”. There are several Ascanios (Ascagne) in mythology, but no Ascanus. The most famous one is the son of Aeneas, who was still a child at the time. The other two are respectively the son of Priam and the leader of the Phrygian contingent at Troy, the latter seeming to have been taken as a reference because Priam’s sons follow just behind the senators.
- Iliones, “he who moves towards liberation (of the spirit)”, mentioned by Quintus of Smyrna as one of the Trojan elders (Greek name Ilioneus).
- Alcesiphron, “the (active) force of thought”.
- Orus, “the right movement”.
- Aretes, “he who rises in the spirit in the right way”.
Each of these white-haired senators represents a specific work in yoga undertaken long ago by the adventurer of conscious-ness, who was working to stabilise within himself the illumined mind. It should be remembered that Sri Aurobindo experienced the descent of the overmind into the physical on November 24, 1926, when Krishna bound himself to his physical body and enabled the descent of the supramental into matter. Cf. A.B. Purani’s account, 24 November 1926 – the Day of Siddhi, and Sri Aurobindo’s account:
“It [the 24th November 1926] was the descent of Krishna into the physical […] Krishna is not the supramental Light. The de-scent of Krishna would mean the descent of the Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually bringing, the descent of Supermind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the Overmind leading it towards his Ananda.”[20]
Next from the citadel came with the voice of the heralds before him
Priam and Priam’s sons, Aeneas leonine striding,
Followed by the heart of a nation adoring her Penthesilea.
All that was noble in Troy attended the regal procession 90
Marching in front and behind and the tramp of their feet was a rhythm
Tuned to the arrogant fortunes of Ilion ruled by incarnate
Demigods, Ilus and Phryx and Dardanus, Tros of the conquests,
Tros and far-ruling Laomedon who to his soul’s strong labour
Drew down the sons of the skies and was served by the ageless immortals.
Into the agora vast and aspirant besieged by its columns
Bathed and anointed they came like gods in their beauty and grandeur.
Aeneas, descendant of Assaracus, “the inner peace”, in the Trojan royal lineage, has the confidence, courage and bearing of one who has realised this equality, giving him the gait of a lion.
Penthesilea is the Queen of the Amazons. Her name means “free from sadness, from the affliction caused by grief”, and therefore from separation. From this, we deduce that she sym-bolises the realisation of non-duality in the spirit. The Amazons are mentioned in the Iliad under the term Antianeirai, meaning “non-attachment”, or in other words the realisation of the liberation of the spirit through mastery and separation of spirit and matter, a rejection of life. The Amazons live at the mouth of the Thermodon, “the fire of union”.
The tramp of their feet was a rhythm of all that was noble in Troy evokes the sound of an army marching in unison and conveys the idea of a great force that advances without question, sure of holding the truth. This idea is confirmed in the next verse, where it is said that this rhythmic tramp tuned to the arrogant fortunes of Ilion.
This arrogant certitude of being on the right evolutionary path was borne from and had developed as soon as one entered the illumined mind, successively through Phryx “the one who burns” – the inner fire – or “an irruption in the being of a spiritual force”, Dardanus “the movement of union towards the heights of the spirit”, Tros “the right movement towards the heights of the spirit”, Ilus “liberation” and Laomedon “mastery of the personality or outer being”.
Sri Aurobindo refers to these characters as incarnate demigods. The term demigod is used by Sri Aurobindo in both Savitri and Ilion on several occasions. It can be considered in two ways:
- From a historical point of view, if we consider that these were realisations of the times of Intuition, that of the Vedic Rishis for example, several thousand years ago. They were sung by the poet Hesiod seven centuries before our era: “[…] the fourth [generation], upon the fruitful earth, which was nobler and more righteous, a god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods, the race before our own, throughout the boundless earth. Grim war and dread battle destroyed a part of them, some in the land of Cadmus at seven-gated Thebe when they fought for the flocks of Oedipus, and some, when it had brought them in ships over the great sea gulf to Troy for rich-haired Helen’s sake”.[21] Here, Hesiod mentions their realisations, which were probably easier than they are today, when we have entered more deeply into a separating period of the 26,000-year cycle: the purification of the seven chakras, the realisation of the one who overcame spiritual pride or deceptive wisdom (the Sphinx), and the great reversal of yoga from the quest for the Divine in the spirit to the quest for the Divine in matter.
- From an individual point of view for the adventurers of consciousness. The demigod is described by Sri Aurobindo at the end of Canto III of Book I of Savitri, which concerns The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Soul’s Release.
“Thus came his soul’s release from Ignorance,
His mind and body’s first spiritual change” (line 787)
“His grasp surprised her mightiest energies’ springs” (line 796)
“Apart he lived in his mind’s solitude,
A demigod shaping the lives of men:
One soul’s ambition lifted up the race;” (line 813)
“The universal strengths were linked with his;
Filling earth’s smallness with their boundless breadths,
He drew the energies that transmute an age.” (line 817)
If these are only demi-gods and not fully-fledged gods, even though we can assume from these verses that the seeker has reached the overmind, this probably indicates that man will only be fully divine when he has realised the second liberation, the liberation of Nature, through the third transformation, the supramental transformation, by which the lower nature is rendered totally divine.
Tros is called by Sri Aurobindo Tros of the conquests, probably because his three sons Ilus, Assaracus and Ganymede, are respect-tively the realisations of liberation from desire and ego, equality and joy.
Laomedon “the master of the personality, of the outer being (or energies)” exercised this mastery to a very advanced degree: mastery of the mind and the vital with the associated powers, as well as mastery of the body and its “needs” (he was far-ruling). Sri Aurobindo’s Journal of Yoga shows just how far this mastery can be developed.
It may also be an ability to influence the mind of other human beings, as Sri Aurobindo mentions having done first on small human groups before extending this ability onto larger ones.
Laomedon is the father of Priam, and it was during his reign that a slight deviance in yoga symbolically occurred; a lack of gratitude for the protections offered by the supraconscious forces, when he refused to offer the gods Apollo and Poseidon the agreed wage for building the citadel of Troy.
The seeker, through his total commitment to the yoga, had indeed succeeded in “drawing” the powers of the overmind or certain aspects of them into the earth’s atmosphere and the body, and in getting the powers of this plane to participate in yogic work: This was the help given by Poseidon, the god who governs the subconscious with a view to purification, and by Apollo, the god of the mind of light, in building the citadel of Troy (Tros and far-ruling Laomedon who to his soul’s strong labour drew down the sons of the skies and was served by the ageless immortals). Similarly, we read in Mother’s Agenda that at a certain point in her work for the Earth, the Mother invited the gods to incarnate, which some of them agreed to do.
Last like the roar of the winds came trampling the surge of the people.
Clamorous led by a force obscure to its ultimate fatal
Session of wrath the violent mighty democracy hastened; 100
Thousands of ardent lives with the heart yet unslain in their bosoms
Lifted to heaven the voice of man and his far-spreading rumour.
Singing the young men with banners marched in their joyous processions,
Trod in martial measure or dancing with lyrical paces
Chanted the glory of Troy and the wonderful deeds of their fathers
Into the columned assembly where Ilus had gathered his people,
Glittering tribes they were ranked, an untameable high-hearted nation
Waiting the voice of its chiefs
Behind the partly or fully illuminated elements in the being, mainly in the mind and the high vital, are found the untransformed elements. Still subject to ignorance, they are under the influence of dark forces that manipulate them as they please and for their own ends. And it is these untransformed elements that, revolting in the face of truth, will precipitate the reversal of the yoga by their inconscience, for they too must be illumined and transformed (came trampling the surge of the people. Clamorous led by a force obscure to its ultimate fatal session of wrath).
Sri Aurobindo uses the term violent mighty democracy to emphasise the fact that these untransformed parts, because of their “democratic” majority, can have greater power over the direction of the yoga than the illumined parties. What is more, they exercise this power in an imperious, “violent” way. To this day, they have not been in the least diminished by the yoga of the heights of the spirit (Thousands of ardent lives with the heart yet unslain in their bosoms). The voice of this untransformed lower nature invades the heights of the spirit and imposes itself on all the parts of the mental being (Lifted to heaven the voice of man and his far-spreading rumour). It covers the whole range of being, from the masculine warrior to the more feminine aspects (Trod in martial measure or dancing with lyrical paces).
Some gazed on the greatness of Priam
Ancient, remote from their days, the last of the gods who were passing, 110
Left like a soul uncompanioned in worlds where his strength shall not conquer:
Sole like a column gigantic alone on a desolate hill-side
Older than mortals he seemed and mightier.
During this period of yoga, the Mother and Sri Aurobindo realised that it was not possible to go beyond a certain level of perfection of the mind and vital until matter was enlightened. This was a major turning point in their yoga, as both very quickly “descended” from the highest mental level to the darkest material plane.
Priam is the redeemed, that is the seeker who is given a second chance after the double perjury (of Laomedon) due to a lack of gratitude and of total consecration to the Divine, and not anymore to the ego, of the powers acquired. But this “redemption” concerns a very ancient period of yoga, if we consider the period referred to in the last day of the war. It is a period that preceded the descent into the darkness of the subconscient and inconscient. The liberation of the spirit made the seeker a demigod, but it was the last major realisation before the descent into matter.
Priam is therefore the last of the gods who were passing. As Sri Aurobindo says in Savitri (see above Book I, Canto III): since he has made this realisation, “Apart he [the seeker] lived in his mind’s solitude”. So here he is sole like a column gigantic alone on a desolate hill-side. But these realisations already place him outside humanity; he is of the world but outside the world (older than mortals he seemed and mightier). This realisation is like a memory, a power on certain levels, but which no longer has any power in the new yoga.
In fact, in Mother’s Agenda, the Mother explains at length that the realisations and powers accumulated in the yoga of liber-ation of the spirit are no longer of any use in the new yoga (Ancient, remote from their days, the last of the gods who were passing, left like a soul uncompanioned in worlds where his strength shall not conquer).
For let us remember what Satprem says: “It is not a question of imposing oneself on Matter through a ‘power,’ but of trans-forming Matter. Such is the yoga of the cells.”[22]
Many in anger
Aimed their hostile looks where calm though by heaven abandoned,
Left to his soul and his lucid mind and its thoughts unavailing,
Leading the age-chilled few whom the might of their hearts had not blinded,
Famous Antenor was seated, the fallen unpopular statesman,
Wisest of speakers in Troy but rejected, stoned and dishonoured.
Silent, aloof from the people he sat, a heart full of ruins.
Low was the rumour that swelled like the hum of the bees in a meadow 120
When with the thirst of the honey they swarm on the thyme and the linden,
Hundreds humming and flitting till all that place is a murmur.
In an earlier phase of the yoga, the quest for perfect sattvic balance combined with mastery of the vital was the highest real-isation, leading to perfect mastery of the outer being. Antenor, the very wise and the conciliator, is the symbol of that which has power over this external being, an ability to impose itself on the personality: he is the statesman. He is the symbol of great mental development and great vital mastery, which brought the seeker peace, lucidity, discernment, and the ability to express and manifest this wisdom (the wisest of speakers in Troy). But these lofty thoughts are no longer able to define the right direction of the yoga (his lucid mind and its thoughts unavailing).
Certain parts of the being or realisations are still aware of the work accomplished by this high discerning wisdom, even if they are too old to counter the evolution in progress (Leading the age-chilled few whom the might of their hearts had not blinded).
But in this final transition to the new yoga, the outer being, which has only been mastered but not transformed, claims its rights and challenges the claim of the mind, no matter how high, to govern the being. Discerning sattvic wisdom is no longer rec-ognised in this role, but is also decried and rejected (the fallen unpopular […] rejected, stoned). The adjective “stoned” might be understood as isolated.
Let us recall what we said in the summarised analysis: The highest thought has been set aside, if not rejected, with the psychic transformation. This psychic opening led the seeker and then humanity to consider Love as the primary evolutionary necessity, relegating the search for and establishment of Truth to the background.
Moreover, the outer being accuses this “wisdom” of many evils, particularly of having worked for its own benefit with a view to achieving results – Antenor is said to have accumulated wealth. Not only does the lower being rebel against this ancient mental realisation, but the seeker, in his mind, also feels that the spiritual powers that watch over evolution have abandoned him. He feels he has lost contact with the Divine and is no longer supported (heaven abandoned […] he sat, a heart full of ruins).
Sri Aurobindo evokes the buzzing of hundreds of bees to express a certain confusion of the mind (Low was the rumour that swelled like the hum of the bees in a meadow).
Then from his seat like a tower arising Priam the monarch
Slowly erect in his vast tranquillity silenced the people:
Lonely, august he stood like one whom death has forgotten,
Reared like a column of might and of silence over the assembly.
So Olympus rises alone with his snows into heaven.
Crowned were his heights by the locks that swept like the mass of the snow-swathe
Clothing his giant shoulders; his eyes of deep meditation,
Eyes that beheld now the end and accepted it like the beginning 130
Gazed on the throng of the people as on a pomp that is painted:
Slowly he spoke like one who is far from the scenes where he sojourns.
“Leader of Ilion, hero Deiphobus, thou who hast summoned
Troy in her people, arise; say wherefore thou callest us. Evil
Speak thou or good, thou canst speak that only: Necessity fashions
All that the unseen eye has beheld. Speak then to the Trojans;
Say on this dawn of her making what issue of death or of triumph
Fate in her suddenness puts to the unseeing, what summons to perish
Send to this nation men who revolt and gods who are hostile.”
Priam represents the major realisation of the “Traveller of the Worlds” who attains the “Self of the mind”, discovers the “Soul of the World” and “Kingdoms of Greater Knowledge”, as described in Savitri in the last three cantos of Book II. This realisation takes many forms represented by his fifty sons, fifty being the amount of completeness in the world of forms. Priam also has twelve married daughters who live with him, symbols of realisations with which the seeker is working, as well as two unmarried daughters, i.e. goals of yoga for which no yoga practice has yet been estab-lished: Cassandra “she who sees from top to bottom” but whom the rest of his being does not trust, and Polyxene “the one who receives many strange and different things from above”, resulting from identification abilities, and with whom Achilles fell in love.
The seeker has realised a vast tranquillity in his spirit and holds himself “Omnipotent, immobile and aloof”[23] (like a tower arising […] Lonely, august […] Reared like a column of might and of silence).
Once “the Self, the Silence won”[24], he can impose a deep silence on the rest of the being (Slowly erect in his vast tranquillity silenced the people).
He has attained “the plane of the undetermined spirit […] A high vast peak whence Spirit could see the worlds […] the top of all that can be known […] he scanned the secrets of the overmind”.[25]
The world of the overmind being that of the gods, the com-parison with Olympus, the abode of the gods, is understandable (So Olympus rises alone with his snows into heaven).
In mythology, it is rather red hair that is described when the ancients wanted to allude to a good connection to the heights of the spirit, an enlightenment of the mind. Here, it is more a question of a silent mind. His hair, like a snow-swathe, a snowy mantle, conveys the impression of an imposing, vast silence (Crowned were his heights by the locks that swept like the mass of the snow-swathe).
Most probably the seeker has the knowledge of the three times (Trikaldrishti)[26], as already described by Sri Aurobindo in The Yoga of the King at the end of Book I of Savitri:
“Time’s secrets were to him an oft-read book;
The records of the future and the past
Outlined their excerpts on the etheric page.”[27]
He also realised a perfect equality which looks at all things with an even gaze and above all a perfect submission to the move-ment of becoming whatever the apparent price is (his eyes of deep meditation, eyes that beheld now the end and accepted it like the beginning).
What he perceives in truth through his ability to see, through the full opening of the centre of consciousness located between the two eyes, Ajna or the unseen eye, is realised in time in an inescapable way, because this perception “in truth” is in accordance with the divine plan (Necessity fashions all that the unseen eye has beheld).[28]
In the last lines of this passage, there is an intimation of this perfect realisation in the spirit to that which in it represents the “courage” to illumine the other parts of the being (Leader of Ilion, hero Deiphobus, thou who hast summoned Troy in her people, arise; say wherefore thou callest us […] Speak then to the Trojans). Although indifferent to the outcome, she asks what has long been a major element of yoga, the courage that has conquered fear, to indicate the outcome of the inner conflict (Say on this dawn of her making what issue of death or of triumph fate in her suddenness puts to the unseeing).
For the seer who has knowledge can see victory and defeat, death and victorious life, as deceptive appearances, for they are only evolutionary lessons and transitions.
Rising Deiphobus spoke, in stature less than his father, 140
Less in his build, yet the mightiest man and tallest whom coursers
Bore or his feet to the fight since Ajax fell by the Xanthus.
“People of Ilion, long have you fought with the gods and the Argives
Slaying and slain, but the years persist and the struggle is endless.
Fainting your helpers cease from the battle, the nations forsake you.
Asia weary of strenuous greatness, ease-enamoured
Suffers the foot of the Greek to tread on the beaches of Troas.
Yet have we striven for Troy and for Asia, men who desert us.
Not for ourselves alone have we fought, for our life of a moment!
Once if the Greeks were triumphant, once if their nations were marshalled 150
Under some far-seeing chief, Odysseus, Peleus, Achilles,
Not on the banks of Scamander and skirts of the azure Aegean
Fainting would cease the audacious emprise, the Titanic endeavour;
Tigris would flee from their tread and Indus be drunk by their coursers.
Deiphobus, “he who destroys fear”, was one of the sons of Priam and Hecuba. Since the death of Hector, his eldest son, he was considered the leader of the Trojans in Ilion.
As only one of his fifty sons, he represents only one of the aspects that must be developed from that which is embodied by his father Priam, and is therefore in stature less than his father and less in his build.
However, the “courage” that destroys fear is certainly one of the essential elements of yoga, coming just behind “the most vertically extended global consciousness”, the ability to identify with the Divine or to see the Divine in everything, represented by the great Ajax. But this last ability can no longer intervene in the reorientation of yoga: Ajax (ΑΙΑΣ) is dead. It is as if essential elements that could have helped in the choice of the orientation of the future yoga are taken away from the seeker, leaving him more and more in the dark, so that he can find a new way.
On this matter, we may recall what Sri Aurobindo says in a letter about Savitri and king Aswapati: First, he realises his own spiritual fulfilment as a representative of the individual, and this is described in The Yoga of the King. Then he completes the ascen-sion as a typical representative of the race to conquer the possibility of discovering and possessing all planes of consciousness, and this is described in Book II: But it is still only an individual victory. Finally, he no longer aspires for himself but for all, for universal realisation and a new creation. This is described in The Book of the Divine Mother.[29]
This should be complemented by the Mother’s words in Mother’s Agenda about this same king Aswapati: “He goes beyond all past attempts to unite with the Supreme, because none of them satisfies him – he aspires for something more. So, when everything is annulled, he enters a Nothingness, then comes out of it with the capacity to unite with the new Bliss.”[30]
What we are then witnessing in Ilion, is this entry into a Void, with the gradual cancellation of the ability to intervene in the spirit’s previous realisations (Fainting your helpers cease from the battle, the nations forsake you).
The following two lines can be understood in different ways:
Asia weary of strenuous greatness, ease-enamoured
Suffers the foot of the Greek to tread on the beaches of Troas.
First, we should consider that Asia, which stretches from the Troad to the Indus, refers to the works of yoga, experiments and realisations, which aim to fix in the being the planes of conscious-ness beyond the illumined mind (the Troad), i.e. the intuitive mind and the overmind. The word “Asia” can be understood as the state of those who have emerged from ordinary human consciousness, both through mental silence and through the development of consciousness (α+ΣΙ).
At this level of progression, the seeker has completely abandoned the stage of self-effort (weary of strenuous greatness), to leave the direction of the yoga entirely in the hands of the Divine. This is at least the second stage of the yoga, if not the third, as described in the Bhagavad Gita and made explicit by Sri Aurobindo. If the first stage is action without attachment to the action or its fruits, the second is the surrender of the yoga into the hands of the Divine. Or again, the state of one who embodies in his life the fact that “Mother directs, Mother organises, Mother realises”, i.e. “the sunlit path”. This is what we can understand by the phrase Asia […] ease-enamoured.
But we can also understand that the seeker feels a kind of recoil from the idea of descending to the lower planes to transform them through suprahuman asceticism. He may feel that he has reached the end of the path, and aspire to “rest” in this satisfaction of what he has realised, or to dissolve within the Impersonal Divine.
The Trojan realisations consecrated by the millennia are most often the result of arduous asceticism and not of a “sunlit path” of complete consecration or surrender. Sri Aurobindo himself affirmed that if he had known beforehand the enormous difficulty involved in opening new paths and descending into the body, it is not certain that he would have committed himself to it.
It is not only to maintain the illumined mind, but to establish the higher planes in the human being that the seeker has worked hard (Yet have we striven for Troy and for Asia, men who desert us. Not for ourselves alone have we fought, for our life of a moment!).
Although Deiphobos does not clearly state in his speech whether he is for or against the continuation of the war, he clearly embodies the “courage” that has made so many realisations pos-sible. This part of the seeker fears not only the loss of the Trojan realisations in the illumined mind, but also all the breakthroughs made in the higher planes of the intuitive mind and the overmind. These advances were embodied by the people of Asia as far as the banks of the Indus, i.e. the most easterly regions known in Greek times. Beyond Asia minor (modern-day Turkey), one crosses the Tigris (in modern Iraq), and further on the Indus (in modern Pakistan).
If the ancient Greeks were undoubtedly aware of the exis-tence of China, there can be no doubt that India was for them not only the cradle but also the place of the most advanced spirituality.
The loss of these developments would certainly occur if the forces of will in the being were to come together to follow a wider evolutionary vision that requires thorough purification, whether in the depths of the vital, with Peleus and Achilles, or in the totality of the lower planes of the being, with Ulysses (Once if the Greeks were triumphant, once if their nations were marshalled under some far-seeing chief, Odysseus, Peleus, Achilles […] Tigris would flee from their tread and Indus be drunk by their coursers).
The seeker would then have to accept a return to the lower planes with all their limitations.
Now in these days when each sun goes marvelling down that Troy stands yet
Suffering, smiting, alive, though doomed to all eyes that behold her,
Flinging back Death from her walls and bronze to the shock and the clamour,
Driven by a thought that has risen in the dawn from the tents on the beaches
Grey Talthybius’ chariot waits in the Ilian portals,
Voice of the Hellene demigod challenges timeless Troya. 160
Thus has he said to us: ‘Know you not Doom when she walks in your heavens?
Feelst thou not then thy set, O sun who illuminedst Nature?
Stripped of helpers you stand alone against Doom and Achilles,
Left by the earth that served you, by heaven that helped you rejected:
Death insists at your gates and the flame and the sword are impatient.
None can escape the wheel of the gods and its vast revolutions!
Fate demands the joy and pride of the earth for the Argive,
Asia’s wealth for the lust of the young barbarian nations.
City divine, whose fame overroofed like heaven the nations,
Sink eclipsed in the circle vast of my radiance; Troya, 170
Joined to my northern realms deliver the East to the Hellene;
Ilion, to Hellas be yoked; wide Asia, fringe thou Peneus.
The period of yogic reversal is ending, but the seeker is still astonished by the emergence of the last resistances (Now in these days when each sun goes marvelling down that Troy stands yet).
Deiphobus then states the essence of Achilles’ message, transmitted by Talthybius, a message we studied in the first vol-ume. Achilles, like the Trojan chieftains, is called a demigod: the realisation of the seeker – the psychic and spiritual transformations – is in fact equally manifest in the different yogas, and therefore in both camps.
Achilles’ speech is then taken up in more detail. He begins by expressing astonishment that the highest realisations in the spirit cannot perceive the signs of change that manifest themselves precisely in the spirit (Know you not Doom when she walks in your heavens?), and continues with an acknowledgement of the value of the old yogas while announcing their end (Feelst thou not then thy set, O sun who illuminedst Nature?).
Everything that supported the old yoga, which separated spirit from matter, has lost its value in the mind of the seeker (stripped of helpers); neither the body nor the spirit supports this yoga any more (Left by the earth that served you, by heaven that helped you reject it). Nothing can stop the forward march of the forces that govern the world of forms and the evolutionary cycles they impose (None can escape the wheel of the gods and its vast revolutions!).[31]
In the following lines, reference is made to an integral yoga which demands for those who work on a thorough purification down to the body the same joy and certainty that were once the rewards of those who worked for the conquest of the Divine in the spirit (Fate demands the joy and pride of the earth for the Argive), and for the parts of the being not yet purified, here called the young barbarian nations, the same realisations (Asia’s wealth for the lust of the young barbarian nations).
There are two words in this passage, Doom and Fate, the meaning of which needs to be clarified.
The word Doom refers to that which is doomed and must disappear in the evolution of the seeker (or of the earth) but leaves the hope of saving some parts of the yoga.
The word Fate, used many times by Sri Aurobindo in Ilion, should be understood as the divine law that is hidden from hu-manity. This word therefore has little to do with what men usually understand by fate in the sense of “fatality” or “destiny”, which suggests some luck or misfortune, happy or unhappy coincidence, with no real reason to exist.
A passage from Mother’s Agenda, on this topic is worth considering:
“You know, what lends force to the opposition is supersti-tious ignorance – superstitious in the sense of a sort of faith or at least of belief in Destiny, in Fate. It is ingrained, as if woven into the human substance. They have the same superstition, the same superstitious belief in what is favourable to them as in what is unfavourable; in the divine Power as in the adverse power – it is the SAME attitude. And that is why the divine Power does not have its full force, and precisely why the adverse force has so much power over them, because it is absolutely a movement of Falsehood, of Ignorance – of total Ignorance.
Recently, I was following the thing down to the smallest detail, in everybody’s mentality. Even in those who have read Sri Aurobindo, who have studied Sri Aurobindo, who have understood, who have come into contact with that region of light, it is still there – it is still there. It is very… yes, it is very tightly woven into the most outward and material part of the consciousness. It is a kind of submissiveness, which may be quite rebellious, but which gives a sense, as you said, of something hanging over your head and shoulders: a sort of Fate, of Destiny.
So, there is the good destiny and the bad destiny; there is a divine force which one regards as something entirely beyond understanding, whose designs and aims are perfectly inexplicable, and the submission, the surrender consists in accepting – blindly – all that happens. One’s nature revolts, but revolts against an Absolute against which it is helpless. And all of that is Ignorance. Not one of all those movements is true – from the most intense revolt to the blindest submission, it is all false, not one true movement.
I do not know if it is in Sri Aurobindo’s writings (I do not remember), but I hear very strongly not for me, for mankind):
AWAKE AND WILL
Naturally men take ‘will’ for their own whims, which have nothing to do with a will – they are all impulses.
‘To will’ means ‘to will with the supreme Will.’ And it is as if it were the key that opens the door to the future:
AWAKE AND WILL.“[32]
What in the seeker works at a thorough purification in the depths of the vital invites the yogas that have enabled the vast realisations in the spirit to continue the work in unity, in an integral yoga (City divine, whose fame overroofed like heaven the nations, sink eclipsed in the circle vast of my radiance; Troya, joined to my northern realms deliver the East to the Hellene).
Indeed, the kingdom of Achilles, king of the Myrmidons, is Phthia, located in Thessaly, one of the northernmost provinces of archaic Greece (see the map at the end of the volume): these are Achilles’ northern realms, those of the sadhana of thorough vital purification.
The harsh spiritual practices that must be avoided takes place in Thrace, even further north, and is the subject of the eighth labour of Heracles, The mares of Diomedes.
The Peneus is a river in Thessaly, which probably marked the northern boundary of the Phthia of Achilles’ Myrmidons. The line Ilion, to Hellas be yoked; wide Asia, fringe thou Peneus thus indicates the realisation of a seamless geographical unit, from the Peloponnese to the river Ganges, including the whole of the Aegean Sea’s surroundings.
The proposal, then, is to make the realisations in the spirit work together with the new aspiration without destroying anything in the existing yoga structures. But there are conditions for this to occur:
Lay down golden Helen, a sacrifice lovely and priceless
Cast by your weakness and fall on immense Necessity’s altar;
Yield to my longing Polyxena, Hecuba’s deep-bosomed daughter,
Her whom my heart desires. She shall leave with you peace and her healing
Joy of mornings secure and death repulsed from your hearthsides.
Yield these and live, else I leap on you, Fate in front, Hades behind me.
Bound to the gods by an oath I return not again from the battle
Till from high Ida my shadow extends to the Mede and Euphrates.180
Let not your victories deceive you, steps that defeat has imagined;
Hear not the voice of your heroes; their fame is a trumpet in Hades:
Only they conquer while yet my horses champ free in their stables.
Earth cannot long resist the man whom Heaven has chosen;
Gods with him walk; his chariot is led; his arm is assisted.’
High rings the Hellene challenge, earth waits for the Ilian answer.
Always man’s Fate hangs poised on the flitting breath of a moment;
Called by some word, by some gesture it leaps, then ’tis graven, ’tis granite.
Speak! by what gesture high shall the stern gods recognise Troya?
Sons of the ancients, race of the gods, inviolate city, 190
Firmer my spear shall I grasp or cast from my hand and for ever?
Search in your hearts if your fathers still dwell in them, children of Teucer.”
So Deiphobus spoke and the nation heard him in silence,
Awed by the shadow vast of doom, indignant with Fortune.
Helen is in the golden Helen, which perhaps refers to a colour linked to the intuitive mind, or at least an expression of the Light of Truth.
To perform an integral yoga, the seeker must first persuade himself that the direction of evolution depends on the aspiration towards a greater freedom regarding the laws of nature, and a yoga that is more focused on the material and the everyday life working on the purification of the deep vital (Lay down golden Helen, a sacrifice lovely and priceless).
Then he must agree to put certain powers gained in the spirit at the service of deep purification. We have already developed the symbolism of Polyxena in our study of the first book of Ilion. Let us remember that her name means “many strange things” or, with the structuring letters Xi+Nu (Ξ+Ν), “many things received from above by identification”.
Along with Cassandra, Polyxena is one of the unmarried daughters of Priam and Hecuba, the other twelve being married. If she is not yet married, it is because no form of yoga has been able to work on it in a systematic way, so that it becomes a realisation rather than an experience. Achilles is said to have fallen in love with her during a truce in the war. He is said to have asked Priam for her hand in marriage, but was unable to accept Priam’s conditions: the seeker therefore wants the receptive abilities and illuminations he has gained in the higher planes to become realisations in the vital plane as well, thanks to the work of puri-fication in this plane.
The text goes on to emphasise that there is no possible turning back, that the seeker has made a commitment to the Divine to accomplish his task, whatever the cost, and that he even knows inwardly that victory over the forces still preventing the great reversal is certain. Indeed, Ida is the mountain that dominates Troy, symbol of union in the spirit, and the Mede Empire, “that which takes care of”, stretched as far as the Euphrates (modern-day Iraq), “pressing up against each other”, hence a powerful unity (I return not again from the battle till from high Ida my shadow extends to the Mede and Euphrates).
The seeker also knows that realisations in the spirit can be, if not an illusion, at least like steps that one climbs but which in fact bring you closer to the reversal on the evolutionary path when the seeker has cut himself off from his material base (Let not your victories deceive you, steps that defeat has imagined). He also knows the means that the spiritual forces have chosen for evolution and in which manner he is guided and supported at every moment (Earth cannot long resist the man whom Heaven has chosen; Gods with him walk; his chariot is led; his arm is assisted).
In the next three verses, Sri Aurobindo tells us that human destiny turns in one direction or another according to a choice that is made in the space of a flitting breath of a moment. This is indeed an observation that we can all make in our own lives (Always man’s Fate hangs poised on the flitting breath of a moment).
To decide, the seeker is then filled with respectful fear before the evolutionary process, be it tragic for him, but refuses to listen to unfounded omens or predictions (So Deiphobus spoke and the nation heard him in silence, awed by the shadow vast of doom, indignant with Fortune).[33]
Before beginning to study the next passage, which begins with Calm from his seat Antenor arose as a wrestler arises, it is worth gathering a few additional elements regarding Antenor, first in the Iliad and later ancient texts, then according to the elements given by Sri Aurobindo.
Antenor in the Iliad
Antenor is mentioned with Priam and other old men[34] sitting above the Scaean Gates. Homer tells us that old age was keeping them away from war, but that they were excellent agoretes with a melodious voice. Although they recognised Helen’s extreme beauty, they were of the opinion that she should return to her ships and not leave them or their children with a miserable memory.
They, therefore, represent states that express themselves harmoniously in the being. Being inclined in accepting a compro-mise with the Achaeans, these are aspects of the seeker’s being that wish to preserve the structures of the ancient yogas, at least those that made these yogas strong, even if it means spiritual evolution temporarily turning in another direction, at least for a while.
We can understand the Scaean gates (Σκαιαι πυλαι), with the structuring letters, as the gates to “the widening of human consciousness”. But the adjective skaios (Σκαιος) also means “on the left hand” and “ignorant, clumsy, faltering”, which implies a limited opening, one related to the analytical, separating left brain (mind from matter), i.e. “the gates of duality” where the mind of reason, intellectual, is still partly maintained. They therefore constitute a point of weakness in the Trojan defence: they are the gates that will allow the introduction of the famous “Trojan horse”.
Standing “above the Scaean gates”, we can deduce that these old men were seeking unity through the intuitive mind, or had even realised a certain non-duality in the spirit.
Along with Ucalegon, “he who does not worry”, Antenor is described as “very wise”.
Further on, Homer describes him as a “horse tamer”, one who has mastered the vital, and therefore one who has additional strength and power at his disposal.
We then learn that Antenor received Ulysses and Menelaus during their embassy to Troy and that he later went with Priam to the plain to guarantee the oaths taken before the battle between Paris-Alexander and Menelaus. These oaths will be broken, prompting him to say in his speech to the Trojan people: “Now do we fight after proving false to our oaths of faith, wherefore have I no hope that aught will issue to our profit, if we do not thus.”[35]
This Trojan prince is married to Theano, “with beautiful cheeks”[36], whose name means “divine inner evolution” or “evolu-tion of contemplation”. She is a daughter of Cisseus “(crowned with) ivy”. The Trojans had made her a priestess of Athena, i.e. a means of communicating with the inner master, with the force that watches over the growth of the inner being.
It is therefore a movement that evolves towards contemp-lation of the Divine, a movement that develops after an experience of immortality according to the symbolism of the ivy associated with her father Cisseus.
Although Athena supports the Achaean camp, there are states of consciousness in the opposite camp that are under the influence of the master of yoga, of the highest discerning wisdom, because Theano is a priestess of Athena.
It is not always easy to understand the formation of proper names. The name Antenor may have been formed with the adverb anten (αντην) “in front, in front of all” or, alternatively, with anti and the structuring letter Nu (αντι+Ν) “which evolves in opposition” (see Greek Mythology, Yoga of the West for the interpretation of proper names, or the website greekmyths-interpretation.com).
In both cases, the central idea is that of opposition to the general movement of the other parts of the being. Already, during the embassy of Ulysses and Menelaus, Antenor had supported the demands of the Achaeans before the Trojan assembly, judging that they were legitimate and not worth engaging in a war. But it was the opposite position supported by Antimachus, “who fights against, who resists”, that won support.
Once the war had begun, Antenor suggested returning Helen and her possessions, which Alexander refused, proposing only to return the treasures and, if necessary, his own possessions.
Of the eight elders who, according to Book III of the Iliad, were in favour of sending Helen back, Antenor was the only one to publicly defend this position. Over time, authors have insisted on his guilt, and the thesis of his betrayal was developed as early as the fourth century BC by the poet Lycophron: Antenor would have wanted to protect his person and his property and would have betrayed the city by allowing the introduction of the fatal horse to the city.
Antenor fathered a great many children with Theano, “divine evolution” or “evolution of contemplation”, at least twelve of whom are named in the Iliad. They are the expression of a great evolution in the higher mind towards union in the spirit under the guidance of the inner master (Theano is a priestess of Athena).
More than seven were killed in the fighting, among them Acamas, “who is tireless”, “alike to the immortals” (Iliad, Book XI, line 59): there is a moment in the yoga when you are neither concerned nor affected by what happens outside, when you have established a vital harmony that prevents disorders such as illness and even fatigue. But this ability is later taken away from the seeker.
Iphidamas “powerful mastery”, tall and sturdy, and Laoda-mas “mastery of the outer being” were also killed, because the pursuit of greater mastery through personal willpower is no longer what is required.
A text from Mother’s Agenda and Satprem’s associated commentary may help us to understand the reason for these “deaths”. The Mother is speaking here of Satprem’s Guru, a Tantric master who goes by the abbreviation X:
“He has tried very hard to understand. But his spiritual conception has remained like this: one can – one MUST – master life, and in life, to some extent, a certain adaptation to the higher forces can be achieved; but there is no question of transformation: the physical world remains the physical world. It can be a little better organized, more harmonious, but there is no question of something else, of divinisation – no question at all. And this is probably why there are things he cannot make out in his contact with me, because he simply does not understand. For example, these physical disorders baffle him, they seem incompatible with my realisation. If the question of transformation does not come into play, the realisation I had was sufficient to establish a kind of very stable order – reaction against the transformative will is what causes these disorders.”
Satprem adds in a footnote: “X’s astonishment raises an extremely important point, drawing the exact dividing line between all the traditional Yogas and the new yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Mother. To a tantric, for example, it seems unthinkable that Mother, with a consciousness so powerful as to scoff at the laws of nature and command the elements (if she wishes), could be subjected to absurd head colds or an eye haemorrhage or even more serious disorders. For him, it is enough to simply lift a finger and emit a vibration which instantly muzzles the disorder – yes, of course, but for Mother it is not a question of ‘curing’ a head cold by imposing a higher POWER on Matter, but of getting down to the cellular root and curing or transforming the source of the evil (which causes death as easily as head colds, for it is the same root of disorder). It is not a question of imposing oneself on Matter through a ‘power,’ but of transforming Matter. Such is the yoga of the cells.”[37]
According to tradition, other children of Antenor escaped death, such as:
- the divine Agenor, “noble and courageous”, supported and protected by Apollo, who pulled him safely out of the battle: nobility of spirit and courage remain essential qualities for continuing the path.
- Helicaon “the one who describes a spiral”, married to Priam’s most beautiful daughter, Laodice “the outer being who acts in the right way”. He was saved by Ulysses when Troy was taken. The yoga is indeed a work of ascent and integration that spirals upwards on planes of conscious-ness that are both increasingly higher and more material; victories of a similar nature must therefore be won in the mind, then in the vital and finally in the body.
- Glaucus “he who strives to be luminous” saved like Helicaon by Ulysses when Troy was taken.
According to the Iliad, Antenor is therefore the symbol of a wise man who works to achieve ever greater union with the Divine within (Theano) and has had an experience of immortality in the spirit (Cisseus “crowned by ivy”). He is not only the symbol of a wise man who has acquired perfect mastery of his outer being, because according to Homer he is “very wise”, but also that of a saint because he is a “horse tamer”, someone who has mastered the vital force and acquired additional “power”.
But as we have seen, this realisation lost its influence over time because with the psychic opening and transformation, followed by spiritual transformation, the mind, even the higher mind, is no longer considered to be the main guide in the yoga.
The elements concerning Antenor in the Iliad suggests that he is the Trojan who shares the closest ties with the Achaeans, i.e. essentially:
- He considers Paris, “detachment through renunciation and mastery imposed from above” as the greatest of them.
- His wife – and therefore the goal towards which he is striving – is a priestess of Athena, the goddess who guides the Achaeans, “those who are gathered” or “concen-trated” towards greater evolution of the inner being.
- He received the Achaean delegation in his home.
- He represents a movement which, in the heights of the mind, is most capable of discernment.
All these elements have led some ancient authors to em-phasise Antenor’s betrayal. However, it is not this later tradition that Sri Aurobindo retains, even if he ironically recalls the “goods” accumulated by Antenor and his betrayal (see verse 265).
Antenor in Ilion
In Ilion, Sri Aurobindo presents Antenor as a statesman who once helped to direct the destinies of Troy, but who has not been listened to for some time now, as the city is in the final moments of the war.
Antenor is described as a wise man with a lucid mind (see verse 115), with a well-developed intuition (his word is “breathed by the gods in his spirit”). He therefore has all the characteristics of mental discernment, and it is this aspect that we will focus on.
However, it is possible that Sri Aurobindo wanted to intro-duce here the problem of the Gunas and more precisely their overcoming or the attempt to overcome them.
In the title of this second book, Sri Aurobindo calls him “The Statesman”. Moreover, in The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo writes that “The accomplished types of the sattvic man are the philosopher, saint and sage; of the rajasic man are the statesman, warrior and forceful man of action.”[38]
Although we give below some elements for understanding the gunas, we strongly invite the reader to read or reread what concerns the gunas in Sri Aurobindo’s work:
- in The Synthesis of Yoga, Part I (The Yoga of Divine Works), chapter X, The Three Modes of Nature.
- in The Synthesis of Yoga, Part IV (The Yoga of Self-Perfection), chapters VIII and IX, The Liberation of the Spirit and The Liberation of the Nature, in which Sri Aurobindo successively describes the liberation of the ego and desire, and then the liberation of the guna and dualities.
- Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita.
The three gunas are the essential modes of energy in nature. They are called tamas, rajas and sattva.
Tamas is the principle and power of inertia and ignorance or unintelligence; it dissolves what the other two gunas create and maintain.
Rajas, the seed of strength and action, creates the play of energy. It is the principle of dynamism, passion, effort, struggle, and initiative.
Sattva, the seed of intelligence, sustains the play of energy. It is the principle of assimilation, balance, and harmony.
Their most powerful hold lies respectively in each of the three parts of our nature: the body, the vital and the mental.
When these three modes or powers are in balance, every-thing is at rest. There is no movement. When the balance is upset, the three gunas fall into a state of instability and constantly struggle with each other.
These three principles are therefore constantly at play in our nature, in varying proportions depending on the moment. One of the gunas is often predominant in a particular individual.
In the spiritual tradition, it was accepted that transcending the gunas was only possible by withdrawing from action. If the seeker remained active, he was automatically bound to the action of the gunas, and so the only way to realise real spiritual liberation was to attain a state of perfect mental, vital and physical tranquillity.
Sri Aurobindo rejected this limitation:
“This transcendence is usually sought by a withdrawal from the action of the lower nature […] But if this is sufficient for a quietistic release, it is not sufficient for the freedom of an integral perfection […] There is a liberation of the soul from the nature which is gained by inaction, but not a liberation of the soul in nature perfect and self-existent whether in action or in inaction. The question then arises whether such a liberation and perfection are possible and what may be the condition of this perfect freedom.
The ordinary idea is that it is not possible because all action is of the lower gunas, necessarily defective, sadosham, caused by the motion, inequality, want of balance, unstable strife of the gunas; but when these unequal gunas fall into perfect equilibrium, all action of Nature ceases and the soul rests in its quietude.”[39]
If this state of tranquillity is the only solution for the present mental man, it is quite different for the fully spiritualised man, for the gunas represent three essential powers of the Divine “which are unified in the perfect accord of divine action”. Tamas becomes divine calm, which is a perfect power, rajas become the pure Will of the spirit, and sattva ceases to be mental light and becomes the independent light of the divine being.
According to Sri Aurobindo, the first necessity for transcend-ing the gunas is to rid oneself of the domination of nature in its lowest and grossest modes by having recourse to the highest mode of this nature, the sattvic mode which always seeks a harmonious light of knowledge and a right rule of action. This is done by combining the yoga of knowledge and the yoga of divine works (or of the will). The aim is to develop sattva until this guna is filled with light, calm and spiritual happiness.
Returning to the desireless will and freeing oneself from the ego – which represents the will of a separated and independent existence – are fundamental to the liberation of the spirit. However, this liberation remains incomplete until one transcends the gunas and dualities. This is because, even in the most accomplished form of sattva, where the ego is subdued, remnants of the ego persist in the saint and the wise man.
For if the seeker is free from all attachment to the outcomes of his action, “he may still find himself attached to the work itself, either for its own sake – this is the essence of the rajasic tie –, either by a weak submission to the impulses of nature – which is the tamasic tie –, or because the action is correct and just and thus appealing, which is the cause of the sattvic tie, powerful in the man of virtue or of knowledge.”[40]
The seeker has not yet renounced intelligence itself nor the mastery of the life energy that leads to the highest virtue or sainthood.
In other words, he has not yet realised complete transpar-ency, where it is no longer he who acts; he has not given up the false notion that he is the author of his actions. Thus, Antenor would represent this attachment not to the results of his action, but to the action itself and for its own sake.
Antenor would thus be the representative of this attach-ment not to the results of his action, but to the work itself and for itself.
Although the yoga based on the higher mind and represented by Antenor has been rejected by the seeker who, through the illumined mind and the intuitive mind, seeks total immersion in the Divine in the spirit, this attachment to ancient realisations will continue until the reversal of the yoga, until the destruction of Troy.
If the first realisation of the yoga is to renounce the fruits of action, the second is to renounce the very attachment to the action itself, i.e. to stop believing oneself to be the author of one’s actions in order to be an instrument transparent to the action of the Divine.
Liberation occurs when the soul withdraws its consent to the activities of nature. When the seeker realises perfect equality, the Divine can act through him freely. The seeker becomes a witness to the action of the gunas within him, but without allowing himself to be drawn into its actions.
Since identification with the modes of nature is at first auto-matic, it is through the development of the witness consciousness that the seeker will realise transcendence of the gunas, which will allow progressive detachment and ultimately perfect equality.
This witness consciousness waits to act on the indications of the Higher Will and the intuitions of a greater and more luminous knowledge.
We can assume that Sri Aurobindo takes up the descript-tion of Antenor from the Iliad as a wise man, for he tells us that Antenor is the wisest of speakers in Troy. Antenor is therefore “the voice of the highest wisdom” who could draw the whole being behind him. Therefore, he is first the symbol of a sattvic realisation.
Like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, he was also a fighter, and thus the image of a seeker who had to harmonise spiritual life with life in the world. It is not, therefore, a sannyasin who renounces the world to find spiritual liberation, but a seeker who has united the path of divine works with that of knowledge.
As regards the yoga that concerns us here, with the last days of the Trojan War, the seeker can be considered to have reached the highest sattvic realisation, the end of personal yoga. However, he cannot be satisfied with personal realisation and refuses a liberation that would not also be that of the whole of humanity. He will therefore use the power of rajas by associating it with sattva to accomplish his swadharma in the world, his soul’s mission.
Sri Aurobindo speaks of this in his Essays on the Gita, Chapter XX, Swabhava and Swadharma: “To arrive at the sattvic way of the inner individual Swadharma and of the works to which it moves us on the ways of life is a preliminary condition of perfection.”
If we try to relate this moment in the yoga to the stages of the triple transformation, we can consider that the psychic transformation has been accomplished, while noting that this does not require the complete abolition of the ego. The spiritual transformation has also been partly realised. However, because the yoga is oriented towards the heights of the spirit, greater perfection of the mind and the vital cannot be realised until at least the beginning of a supramental transformation. This will require, first, the reversal of the yoga with the destruction of Troy, and then the purification of the depths as recounted later in The Odyssey.
However, it may come as a surprise that, having realised the psychic transformation that gives perception of what is right, the seeker is in great inner conflict about the evolutionary path to follow. Sri Aurobindo explains this later (Book III, verse 6) when he tells us that the abilities of psychic perception of what is right, embodied by Laocoon, have been obscured by evolutionary necessities, for Laocoon is the fate-darkened seer of Apollo. Therefore, there are cosmic forces that can obscure, at specific moments of the yoga, the indications of the mind of light itself if it is not firmly established.
Calm from his seat Antenor arose as a wrestler arises
Tamer of beasts in the cage of the lions, eyeing the monsters
Brilliant, tawny of mane, and he knows if his courage waver,
Falter his eye or his nerve be surprised by the gods that are hostile,
Death will leap on him there in the crowded helpless arena.
Antenor’s speech thus develops the point of view of the sattvic wisdom that was associated with the highest rajasic realisation (he is a statesman), of what enabled the realisation of this “preliminary condition of perfection”.
By comparing Antenor to a tamer entering the lion’s cage, Sri Aurobindo refers to the qualities of the seeker that have been developed to a very high level: vital mastery (tamer), courage, calmness or equality that is not shaken by any external event and that enables a correct assessment of the situation (eyeing the monsters brilliant), ability to concentrate. He knows that the forces he is dealing with are based on intuitive abilities (monsters […] tawny of mane).
He knows the dangers involved in the yoga if essential elements of sadhana are missing:
- If his courage waver: courage being one of the necessities for undertaking yoga. However, even Sri Aurobindo, faced with the difficulty of his yoga, admitted that he might not have undertaken it if he had known the difficulties in advance.
- Falter his eye: e. if his discernment is clouded or if his ability to “see” what is behind appearances is diminished, since he is already in part a “seer”.
- His nerve be surprised by the gods that are hostile.
This last verse recalls what Mother says about the last of the three categories of tests to which seekers are subjected: the tests brought on by the opposing forces that can take us by surprise.
“The integral yoga is made up of an uninterrupted series of tests that you must pass through without any advance notice, thereby forcing you to be always vigilant and attentive.
Three groups of examiners conduct these tests. Apparently, they have nothing in common and their methods are so different, at times even so seemingly contradictory, that they do not appear to work towards the same goal, and yet they complete one another, they work together for a common aim and each is indispensable for the integral result.
These three categories of tests are: those conducted by the forces of Nature, those conducted by the spiritual and divine forces, and those conducted by the hostile forces. This latter category is the most deceptive in its appearance and a constant state of vigilance, sincerity and humility is required so as not to be caught by surprise or unprepared.
The most commonplace circumstances, people, the everyday events of life, the most seemingly insignificant things, all belong to one or another of these three categories of examiners. In this considerably complex organization of tests, those events generally considered the most important in life are really the easiest of all examinations to pass, for they find you prepared and on your guard. One stumbles more easily over the little pebbles on the path, for they attract no attention.
The qualities more particularly required for the tests of physical Nature are endurance and plasticity, cheerfulness, and fearlessness.
For the spiritual tests: aspiration, confidence, idealism, enthusiasm, and generosity in self-giving.
For the tests stemming from the hostile forces: vigilance, sincerity, and humility.”[41]
Fearless Antenor arose, and a murmur swelled in the meeting 200
Cruel and threatening, hoarse like the voice of the sea upon boulders;
Hisses thrilled through the roar and one man cried to another,
“Lo he will speak of peace who has swallowed the gold of Achaia!
Surely the people of Troy are eunuchs who suffer Antenor
Rising unharmed in the agora. Are there not stones in the city?
Surely the steel grows dear in the land when a traitor can flourish.”
Calm like a god or a summit Antenor stood in the uproar.
At this stage of the yoga, the seeker has already largely mastered fear (Fearless Antenor arose). However, he is aware that sattvic accomplishment no longer receives the same support from the parts of the being that have not been transformed and follow what leads them into the separation of spirit and matter (and a murmur swelled in the meeting, cruel and threatening).
When rajas can no longer stand sattva, there is an imbal-ance of gunas in the being in favour of tamas, the force of inertia, and the sattvic influence tends towards a withdrawal from action (Lo he will speak of peace).
It is a false accusation that is made by these parts: the effects of concentration would only have benefited the discerning intelligence (he […] who has swallowed the gold of Achaia). In the Iliad, the Achaeans refer to the coalition assembled under the leadership of Agamemnon before Troy, symbolising that which works to bring the whole being together, to “concentrate” (the name Achaia is in indeed built around the Greek letters Chi (Χ), and Iota (Ι)).
That which, within the seeker, aspires to pursue the yoga in the separation of spirit and matter vehemently rejects any possibility of compromise (Surely the people of Troy are eunuchs).
The betrayal of which Antenor is accused in the following verses refers to the fact that he had welcomed the Achaean delegation that had come to Troy to ask for Helen’s return and had then advised the Trojans to act on their request (in the land when a traitor can flourish). We have seen, however, that Antenor represents the yoga that founded Troy and did not separate spirit from matter. For him, giving Helen back is obvious.
The realisation of state leadership that we described above enabled the seeker to establish a vast peace of mind, for Antenor is compared to a god or a mountain peak – a dweller in the heights of the mind (Calm like a god or a summit Antenor stood in the uproar).
But as he gazed on his soul came memory dimming the vision;
For he beheld his past and the agora crowded and cheering,
Passionate, full of delight while Antenor spoke to the people, 210
Troy that he loved and his fatherland proud of her eloquent statesman.
Tears to his eyes came thick and he gripped at the staff he was holding.
Mounting his eyes met fully the tumult, mournful and thrilling,
Conquering men’s hearts with a note of doom in its sorrowful sweetness.
The seeker reflects on his past, revealing that while he is detached from the outcomes, he is not yet entirely detached from the work itself, finding value in it for its own sake. He weeps over moments in his life when mental discernment could have guided the yoga in harmony with his entire being, and over memories of being a celebrated orator cheered by the crowd. But the seeker does not flee from the situation (Mounting his eyes met fully the tumult).
The last lines of this passage contain paradoxes or oxymor-ons: mournful and thrilling, and sorrowful sweetness. They remind us of the battle between the Dioscuri, the sons of Zeus – Castor “the power that comes from mastery” and Polydeuces (Pollux) “the one who is thoroughly gentle” – against their cousins Idas “the vision of the whole” and Lynkeus “the detailed vision”.
This conflict took place before the Trojan War on the heights of Mount Taygete, which is to say on the heights of the plane of the intuitive mind. Let us recall that the Trojan War was about discerning the best path to realise the greatest freedom on this plane: the pursuit of the yoga in the separation of spirit and matter, or the purification of the depths combined with aspiration.
Castor and Pollux are the brothers of Helen and Clytem-nestra: Idas and Lynkeus are their cousins. Only Pollux, “the gentle one” or “compassion”, survived the battle.
Pollux was taken by Zeus to the heavens but refused the immortality Zeus wanted to give him while his brother Castor lay on the ground. Zeus then granted them both the privilege of living amongst the gods and amongst mortal on alternating days.
In Pindar’s version, only Pollux is the son of Zeus. He is there-fore the only one to be the result of an impulse of the overmind. Idas and Lynkeus represent abilities of the intuitive mind. All of them still belong to duality and are therefore “mortal”.
Zeus wants to make Pollux immortal, i.e. a definitive real-isation of the overmind. But the seeker still needs to fight in incarnation, hence the request from Pollux that Zeus satisfies by allowing the two brothers to reside in turn in the sky and on earth, between the supraconscious and the conscious. Power and gentleness can then be used alternately in the yoga.
It is therefore a moment when the seeker posits compassion as the only major necessity at this point in the path, but when he can still use the power conferred by mastery (Castor). His faculties of discernment and vision, both in detail (Lynkeus) and globally (Idas), change planes, however, because they must now come not from the mind but from the body.
A powerful link is thus established between the overmind and the waking consciousness, allowing action of both strength and compassion, an action whose source lies in the light of the overmind.
This battle between the Dioscuri and the Apharetides took place before the Trojan War, in other words at the time of Antenor’s glory, before the seeker’s vision became darkened for higher evolutionary reasons and the forms and practices that were the foundation of this ancient spirituality disappeared.
It is therefore as heir to the founders of this ancient spiritual-ity, as representative of the highest possible wisdom and sainthood in this path, that Antenor will speak.
“People of Ilion, blood of my blood, O race of Antenor,
Once will I speak though you slay me; for who would shrink from destruction
Knowing that soon of his city and nation, his house and his dear ones
All that remains will be a couch of trampled ashes? Athene,
Slain today may I join the victorious souls of our fathers,
Not for the anguish be kept and the irremediable weeping. 220
Loud will I speak the word that the gods have breathed in my spirit,
Strive this last time to save the death-destined. Who are these clamour
Hear him not, gold of the Greeks bought his words and his throat is accursed“?
Troy whom my counsels made great, hast thou heard this roar of their frenzy
Tearing thy ancient bosom?
The whole of Trojan realisation stems from this combination of sattvic wisdom with the highest rajasic realisation. This is why Antenor can address the people of Ilion in these words: People of Ilion, blood of my blood, O race of Antenor.
The seeker makes a final effort to use his highest mental faculties to resolve the difficult dilemma he faces: whether to save the forms – the yoga practices – and the realisations that have led him to liberation of the spirit, or to accept their disappearance.
Like Arjuna, who recoils powerfully when he must confront and perhaps kill members of his family, Antenor refuses to see his city – the structure of the methods of yoga – destroyed without having tried everything to save it. In the comparison that can be made between Antenor and Arjuna, we can also note that of the five Pandava brothers, the eldest, Yudhishthira, was the most virtuous and the purest, sattvic; the second, Bhima, the strongest, rajasic; while in Arjuna, the third brother, there was a balance between purity and strength, sattva, and rajas.
This part of the seeker announces that there is no point in preserving wisdom and sainthood if the forms in which they can be expressed disappear (for who would shrink from destruction knowing that soon of his city and nation, his house and his dear ones all that remains will be a couch of trampled ashes?).
One last time, this part of the seeker taking his inner master as witness – Athena, the spiritual force linked to the highest wisdom which has led him to mastery and psychic transformation –, he announces that what he is about to say is the result of a higher intuition stemming from the overmind: he will try to convince the rest of the being to save what can still be saved, so that all the old forms and yogas are not destroyed in this great reversal (Loud will I speak the word that the gods have breathed in my spirit, strive this last time to save the death-destined).
The seeker of consciousness does not understand this part of his consciousness which revolts against the old and reproaches it for being misled by the abilities or powers gained through concentration represented by the Acheans (Who are these clamour hear him not, gold of the Greeks bought his words and his throat is accursed’?).
‘Is it thy voice, heaven-abandoned, my mother?
O my country, O my creatress, earth of my longings!
Earth where our fathers lie in their sacred ashes undying,
Memoried temples shelter the shrines of our gods and the altars
Pure where we worshipped, the beautiful children smile on us passing,
Women divine and the men of our nation! O land where our childhood 230
Played at a mother’s feet mid the trees and the hills of our country,
Hoping our manhood toiled and our youth had its seekings for godhead, —
Thou for our age keepst repose mid the love and the honour of kinsmen,
Silent our relics shall lie with the city guarding our ashes!
Earth who hast fostered our parents, earth who hast given us our offspring,
Soil that created our race where fed from the bosom of Nature
Happy our children shall dwell in the storied homes of their fathers,
Souls that our souls have stamped, sweet forms of ourselves when we perish!
Once even then have they seen thee in their hearts, or dreamed of thee ever
Who from thy spirit revolt and only thy name make an idol 240
Hating thy faithful sons and the cult of thy ancient ideal!’
Troy is then compared to the mother, to the womb, because this yoga structure enabled growth in the illumined mind and the first steps in the intuitive mind. This is why Antenor calls it my mother (Is it thy voice, heaven-abandoned, my mother? O my country, O my creatress, earth of my longings!).
The seeker then recalls the road travelled and the immense efforts made to achieve liberation of the spirit (Earth who hast fostered our parents). The most beautiful forms or disciplines of yoga have even preserved the memory of this evolution (memoried temples) and of past adoration.
There is a recognition of the work accomplished by the new emergences (beautiful children), the great realisations (the divine women) and those who are still working on this spiritual path (smile on us passing, […] and the men of our nation).
The beginnings of the path are compared to a joyful child-hood. Then, youth is likened to the period of searching for the path (where our youth had its seekings for godhead), and maturity to a more arduous spiritual discipline but filled with the hope of achieving liberation of the spirit (Hoping our manhood toiled and our youth had its seekings). Finally, the realisations will be recognised by the whole being (Thou for our age keepst repose mid the love and the honour of kinsmen), and new realisations will be able to appear on these solid foundations (Silent our relics shall lie with the city guarding our ashes! […] Happy our children shall dwell in the storied homes of their fathers, souls that our souls have stamped, sweet forms of ourselves when we perish!).
This wisdom perceives that the movement which stubbornly refuses a greater purification of nature, at least temporarily, has forgotten the basis on which the ancient forms of yoga were established, including psychic perception and aspiration (Once even then have they seen thee in their hearts, or dreamed of thee ever).
This movement of the being clings to the sole realisation of liberation of the spirit (Ilion) and makes it an exclusive goal (Who from thy spirit revolt and only thy name makes an idol), rejecting the possibility of human improvement which was nevertheless the ideal when the seeker set out on his journey (Hating thy faithful sons and the cult of thy ancient ideal!).
What is denounced here through Antenor’s words is “the refusal of the ascetic”, a revolt of the spirit against matter, as described by Sri Aurobindo in the beginning of The Life Divine, in Chapter III: for practically all spiritualities after Buddhism, “the end of life for all is the garb of the ascetic”. Everyone, East and West, agreed that the kingdom of heaven could not exist in this world of dualities.
But initially, Troy was built at the foot of Ida, the mountain of unity. Over time, therefore, a deviation occurred, as illustrated by the perjuries of Laomedon. Despite the leap forward made by Priam the redeemed, spirituality had to commit itself even more deeply to separation and advocate renunciation as the only path to the Divine.
And what was experienced in terms of the people is a process that the seeker of truth must go through again. He must go beyond the experience of the illusion of the world when he passes through the doors of the Self and enters the reality of the Silence of the Absolute, which he then experiences as the only reality.
Through the voice of Antenor, the seeker will attempt to awaken to a wider Reality the parts of the being that have passed under this separating influence, not only a truth in height, but also “in all its extent and completeness”.
As stated in the fourth verse of the third canto of the Bhagavad Gita, “Not by refraining from works shall a man taste actionlessness and not by mere renouncing of the world shall he reach perfection.”[42]
In summary, if Antenor participates in the movement of ascent towards the heights of the spirit, it is not so much through adherence to the desire for separation of spirit and matter and its consequence, the rejection of the ascetic. Instead, it stems from an adherence to a spirituality of the spirit that does not believe in the transformation of the lower planes of the vital and of the body. Consequently, it is for this last reason that he will advocate a temporary compromise, convinced that the movement driven by aspiration, the reassembling of the being and the purification of the inner depths will only last a short time.
Wake, O my mother divine, remember thy gods and thy wisdom,
Silence the tongues that degrade thee, prophets profane of thy godhead.
Madmen, to think that a man who has offered his life for his country,
Served her with words and deeds and adored with victories and triumphs
Ever could think of enslaving her breast to the heel of a foeman!
Surely Antenor’s halls are empty, he begs from the stranger
Leading his sons and his children’s sons by the hand in the market
Showing his rags since his need is so bitter of gold from the Argives!
You who demand a reply when Laocoon lessens Antenor, 250
Hush then your feeble roar and your ear to the past and the distance
Turn. You fields that are famous for ever, reply for me calling,
Fields of the mighty mown by my sword’s edge, Chersonese conquered,
Thrace and her snows where we fought on the frozen streams and were victors
Then when they were unborn who are now your delight and your leaders.
Answer return, you columns of Ilus, here where my counsels
Made Troy mightier guiding her safe through the shocks of her foemen.
Before proceeding to a kind of summary of past evolution, the seeker tries to reassure himself in his path of yoga, stating that there is no question of abandoning the realisations in terms of wisdom and sainthood in favour of a path that has not yet proved itself (Madmen, to think that a man who has offered his life for his country […] Ever could think of enslaving her breast to the heel of a foeman!).
He ironically declares that his current abilities, mastery, and powers attained through yoga suffice for him, and that he has no requirement for those obtained through additional purification (he has no need of gold from the Argives).
He then wants us to remember the path we have travelled to counteract the intuitions or visions that come from the mind of light that have been “darkened”, like those of Laocoon, fate-darkened seer of Apollo (You who demand a reply when Laocoon lessens Antenor, hush then your feeble roar and your ear to the past and the distance).
First, he recalls the conquest of Chersonese. This was either the Chersonese of Thrace (the Gallipoli peninsula) or the Cherso-nese of Taurica (modern-day Crimea), a peninsula located to the north of the Black Sea. The name Chersonese means “solid island” or “peninsula”. In both cases, it represents an extension of the lands under Trojan domination, and therefore an intensified mastery.
Then Antenor mentions the ancient yogic struggles in which the seeker had to fight against the excesses of renunciation and the rigorous and sometimes excessive asceticism linked to the “refusal of the ascetic”. The land of asceticism is Thrace, and the fight against excess is the subject of one of Heracles’ works, “The mares of Diomedes”.
Excessive renunciation and deprivation lead the being to regions where life is deprived of a very large part of its expressive potential, reduced to its minimum, and therefore oriented towards immobility and the rigidity of cold and ice (Thrace and her snows where we fought on the frozen streams and were victors). All this happened in ancient times of yoga (Then when they were unborn who are now your delight and your leaders), in a time when discerning wisdom directed yoga (my counsels made Troy mightier guiding her safe through the shocks of her foemen).
Gold! I have heaped it up high, I am rich with the spoils of your haters.
It was your fathers dead who gave me that wealth as my guerdon,
Now my reproach, your fathers who saw not the Greeks round their ramparts: 260
They were not cooped by an upstart race in the walls of Apollo,
Saw not Hector slain and Troilos dragged by his coursers.
Far over wrathful Jaxartes they rode; the shaken Achaian
Prostrate adored your strength who now shouts at your portals and conquers
Then when Antenor guided Troy, this old man, this traitor,
Not Laocoon, nay, not even Paris nor Hector.
The gold referred to here symbolises abilities or powers acquired through the purification of the mind, for in Book III, verse 294, Sri Aurobindo indicates that it is Argive gold. The seeker assures us that he received these abilities and powers from previous yoga work, when there was no question of a reorientation of yoga (your fathers who saw not the Greeks round their ramparts).
What directed the opening towards the heights of the spirit with a degree of equilibrium had not disappeared yet (Saw not Hector slain).
The river Jaxartes (modern-day Syr Darya) lies to the north of the river Oxus and, like it, flows into Lake Oxian (modern-day Aral Sea). This river therefore marks a stream of energy conscious-ness located furthest north and east of the vast Greece, indicating the most advanced conquest of yoga. As the names Oxus and Jaxartes are built around the letter Xi (Ξ), this is probably an experiment in spirit/matter identity: “What is above is like what is below, and what is below is like that which is above. To make the miracle of the one thing”[43], as stated in the Emerald Tablet (Far over wrathful Jaxartes they rode).
In this earlier stage of yoga, what is now advocating the coming together of the whole being for a greater freedom (the Achaeans), acknowledged the superiority of the yoga that soared to the heights of the spirit (the shaken Achaian prostrate adored your strength who now shouts at your portals and conquers). At that time, it was neither the intuition of right action (Laocoon), nor detachment through renunciation and mastery imposed from above (Paris), nor even the balanced opening of consciousness towards the heights of the spirit (Hector) that were predominant in yoga. Instead, it was the yoga of knowledge in the broad sense as defined by Sri Aurobindo in The Synthesis of Yoga, encompassing the three paths of divine works, devotion and knowledge, leading to wisdom and sainthood (Antenor).
‘But I have changed, I have grown a niggard of blood and of treasure,
Selfish, chilled as old men seem to the young and the headstrong,
Counselling safety and ease, not the ardour of noble decisions.
Come to my house and behold, my house that was filled once with voices. 270
Sons whom the high gods envied me crowded the halls that are silent.
Where are they now? They are dead, their voices are silent in Hades,
Fallen slaying the foe in a war between sin and the Furies.
Silent they went to the battle to die unmourned for their country,
Die as they knew in vain. Do I keep now the last ones remaining,
Sparing their blood that my house may endure? Is there any in Troya
Speeds to the front of the mellay outstripping the sons of Antenor?
Let him arise and speak and proclaim it and bid me be silent.’
The seeker then places himself from the point of view of what dominates the yoga of the spirit in this new phase, and may consider the old yogas and realisations as things of the past, frozen, outside the movement of life and adaptation to the movement of becoming which sometimes requires radical questioning or transformations.
To defend his position, Antenor recalls the many sacrifices he has already accepted, i.e. the cancellation of the new develop-ments of the old yogas in the field of mental discernment embodied by his sons who died in battle.
We spoke at length about the Furies or Erinyes in Volume I. Let us remember that these are forces that appeared with manifestation, even before creation. They stem from the blood that gushed out from the wound of Ouranos following his castra-tion. They are therefore forces that come from the “essence” of the Spirit’s power, its life-giving and creative part. They put man back on the right path of evolution when he strays from it, either through “perjury”, which concerns those who do not follow the path their soul has set for itself in this life, or through “family crimes”. These crimes break the bonds that bind the seeker to his divine origin (the parents) or interrupt what he needs to develop (the children).
This wisdom therefore considers that one side (the Achae-ans) is supported by inflexible forces of divine origin that must put the seeker back on the right path, and that the other side (the Trojans) is in deviance, and therefore in sin because of Laomedon’s perjury (Sons […] Fallen slaying the foe in a war between sin and the Furies).
These new advances in discerning wisdom have been can-celled without the seeker having benefited from them or even feeling any regret at their disappearance (Silent they went to the battle to die unmourned for their country, die as they knew in vain).
The seeker nevertheless wishes to preserve the latest devel-opments in this yoga of discernment, arguing that they are the best fortifications against the total destruction of the realisations and practices of the ancient yoga (Is there any in Troya speeds to the front of the mellay outstripping the sons of Antenor?).
‘Heavy is this war that you love on my heart and I hold you as madmen
Doomed by the gods, abandoned by Pallas, by Hera afflicted. 280
Who would not hate to behold his work undone by the foolish?
Who would not weep if he saw Laocoon ruining Troya,
Paris doomed in his beauty, Aeneas slain by his valour?’
This higher wisdom considers foolish the movements of the being that seek to maintain the ancient forms of yoga by opposing, whatever the cost, another inner movement that is right, because it is supported by the forces of the spirit. Neither the higher spiritual forces, nor the force that watches over man’s inner growth (Pallas-Athena), nor even the force that watches over the right movement of evolution (Hera), give them their support any more.
This part of the seeker rebels and laments what he senses will be the reversal of the yoga and the abandonment of all the old disciplines (the fall of Troy). This would suggest that the seeker has not yet realised perfect equality. For, as Sri Aurobindo says in his Essays on the Gita, “the ego is there, hidden in the mind of the saint as well as in that of the sinner”[44]. This part knows that “intuition” is unreliable (Laocoon). It also knows that certain realisations such as detachment through renunciation and mastery imposed from above, which were in the evolutionary truth, will have to disappear (because Paris is also Alexander, the one who rejects his humanity: Paris doomed in his beauty). Finally, it knows that the evolution towards love will be condemned despite its value (Aeneas slain by his valour).
‘Still you need to be taught that the high gods see and remember,
Dream that they care not if justice be done on the earth or oppression!
Happy to live, aspire while you violate man and the immortals!
Vainly the sands of Time have been strewn with the ruins of empires,
Signs that the gods had left, but in vain. For they look for a nation,
One that can conquer itself having conquered the world, but they find none.
None has been able to hold all the gods in his bosom unstaggered, 290
All have grown drunken with force and have gone down to Hell and to Ate.
“All have been thrust from their heights,’ “say the fools; “we shall live and for ever.
We are the people at last, the children, the favourites; all things
Only to us are permitted.” They too descend to the silence,
Death receives their hopes and the void their stirrings of action.’
This high knowledge, while still clinging to the ancient yogas, clearly sees the problem facing the seeker.
It sees that part of the seeker has not yet assimilated the evolutionary process which is made up of ascensions followed by integrations or purifications of symmetrical layers in the evolution-ary depths. In ordinary man, this process is governed by the forces of the overmind, which ensure that he follows divine evolutionary law and rectify anything that goes against this law (Still you need to be taught that the high gods see and remember, dream that they care not if justice be done on the earth or oppression!).
This knowledge sees that this part of the being is even un-conscious of the harm it is inflicting on the smooth running of yoga and spirituality (Happy to live, aspire while you violate man and the immortals!).
In the verses that follow, Sri Aurobindo sets out the funda-mental reason for the necessary change of direction in yoga, i.e. the justification for the Trojan War.
The ancient yogas, considering divine life on earth to be an illusion or an impossibility, and seeking only to flee from it into Nirvana, which is annihilation (or the Nirvanas because, according to Mother, there is a Nirvana, a Void, behind every plane), did not bother to purify the deep subconscious layers of the vital and the body. Wisdom and sainthood seemed to them to be sufficient realisations.
But Sri Aurobindo tells us, there is still an ego hidden in the saint and the sage. So, when the seeker ventured into the higher layers of the mind, those of the overmind, which is the realm of the gods, and drew on the corresponding forces, he was unable to resist the forces that descended into him and raised the passions and instincts that had gone unchecked due to a lack of purification of his deep vital nature. He was intoxicated by the forces he received, but succumbed to pride, power, money, sex, or any other similar power.
Antenor begins by pointing out that many spiritualities of the past failed because of this. On an individual level, the seeker can look within himself where, in the past, a lack of humility, conse-cration and purification has led him astray, annihilating wonderful realisations (Vainly the sands of Time have been strewn with the ruins of empires, signs that the gods had left, but in vain).
Then he tells us that the worlds of the spirit are waiting for a man (a group of men or even humanity as a whole) who can to-tally overcome his ego, that is, the consciousness of being separate, right down to the depths of the vital.
Indeed, mastery of the external being is a first necessity realised, among other things, thanks to the ego. It is the goddess Athena, the inner master, who helps in this realisation, as expressed in Sri Aurobindo’s prologue to his Perseus the Deliverer:
“Me the Omnipotent made from His being to lead and discip-line the immortal spirit of man, till it attain to order and magnificent mastery of all his outward world.”
But then this ego must be totally annihilated in perfect hu-mility and total surrender to the Divine (for they are in search of a nation capable of vanquishing itself after having vanquished the world, but fail to find one such nation).
It is only on this condition that man will be able to integrate the forces of the overmind without faltering (none has been able to hold all the gods in his bosom unstaggered).
Sri Aurobindo goes on to explain how they have “staggered”. The forces of the overmind which descend into an unpurified being, not only give it a feeling of intoxicating power, but also rush upon the unpurified parts and exalt them: pride, power, sex, etc. (All have grown drunken with force and have gone down to Hell and to Ate). Hell represents the realms of ignorance and inconscience where forces opposed to divine evolution reign. Ate, the goddess who embodies the error of flight into spirit linked to rejection of matter, is undoubtedly associated here with spiritual pride and the errors of vision that flow from it.
In general, at one point or another, these deviances from the path are stopped by the forces of the spirit or by those of nature. Those without sufficient discernment think that, under the effect of opposing powers, the seeker did not have the strength to resist the influx of forces and their diversion by the ego (“All have been thrust from their heights,” say the fools). And these ignorant people claim to be able to receive these forces and establish themselves in the overmind, the realm of the immortals, because they have been chosen for this destiny (“we shall live and for ever. We are the people at last, the children, the favourites; all things only to us are permitted”).
This last sentence reveals the spiritual pride and actions of a seeker who falls at this stage of the path: not only does he think that he is a chosen one of the Divine, far ahead of humanity, but also that he is no longer obliged to follow the common laws that govern societies and ensure their equilibrium. He believes that he has realised greater “liberation”, whereas he has fallen under the sway of the forces of the lower vital (all things only to us are permitted). The discerning, the truly wise, can see that they too (these deviances) are doomed to disappear and that the memory of their useless actions will be swallowed up in nothingness (They too descend to the silence, Death receives their hopes and the void their stirrings of action).
‘Eviller fate there is none than life too long among mortals.
I have conversed with the great who have gone, I have fought in their war-cars;
Tros I have seen, Laomedon’s hand has dwelt on my temples.
Now I behold Laocoon, now our greatest is Paris.
First when Phryx by the Hellespont reared to the cry of the ocean 300
Hewing her stones as vast as his thoughts his high-seated fortress,
Planned he a lair for a beast of prey, for a pantheress dire-souled
Crouched in the hills for her bound or self-gathered against the avenger?’
In these verses and the twenty that follow, Sri Aurobindo offers us a summary of the spiritual evolution of the seeker in the higher mind and the illumined mind. The seeker has the feeling, in relation to this part of himself, that he must abandon magnificent past realisations, and this weighs heavily on him (Eviller fate there is none than life too long among mortals). He takes stock of his evolution. This part has collaborated with the other practices in the conquest of the spirit and has participated in yoga with a view to great realisations that are no longer of any use (I have conversed with the great who have gone, I have fought in their war-cars).
This wisdom experienced the establishment of the “right movement towards the heights of the spirit” embodied by Tros, who gave his name to the region of Troy. Tros united with Callirhoe, “that which flows well”, in other words, the right movement of yoga, who gave him “three perfect sons”, according to Homer: Ilus, “liberation” of the spirit, Assaracus “equality and inner peace” and Ganymede “joy” (Tros I have seen…).
Ilus founded the city of Ilion “the forms and practices of yoga necessary for liberation of the spirit”, but it was under his son Laomedon “mastery of the personality or outer being” that Poseidon and Apollo built the walls of the citadel of Troy (Perga-mon), in other words, the foundations giving access to the highest levels of the mind and the corresponding defences against the outside world, the adverse forces or vibrations (Laomedon’s hand has dwelt on my temples).[45]
But the seeker also discerns that the emanations of the mind of light have been veiled and are no longer reliable (Now I behold Laocoon), and that the greatest realisation is that of equality acquired through detachment (now our greatest is Paris).
We have already mentioned that there was no such person as Phryx “he who burns” in the Trojan royal line. Sri Aurobindo most probably considered that this character, symbolising the inner fire, Agni, best represented the seeker keen to conquer the heights of the spirit. It can therefore be applied just as well to Tros as to Ilus or Laomedon. It is this inner fire that lays the powerful foundations of yoga for the liberation of the spirit, and this based on a yoga of Knowledge (First when Phryx by the Hellespont reared to the cry of the ocean hewing her stones as vast as his thoughts his high-seated fortress). In mythology, it was the gods Poseidon and Apollo who built the citadel, the forces that reign over the subconscient and those who work to establish the mind of light.
But the primary objective of this inner fire was certainly not yoga performed for oneself alone, to free oneself from the chain of reincarnations, without concern for the liberation of the whole of humanity (Planned he a lair for a beast of prey, for a pan-theress dire-souled).
Dardanus shepherded Asia’s coasts and her sapphire-girt islands.
Mild was his rule like the blessing of rain upon fields in the summer.
Gladly the harried coasts reposed confessing the Phrygian,
Caria, Lycia’s kings and the Paphlagon, strength of the Mysian;
Minos’ Crete recovered the sceptre of old Rhadamanthus.
Ilus and Tros had strength in the fight like a far-striding Titan’s:
Troy triumphant following the urge of their souls to the vastness, 310
Helmeted, crowned like a queen of the gods with the fates for her coursers
Rode through the driving sleet of the spears to Indus and Oxus.
Next, we are reminded of the beginnings in the illumined mind with Dardanus, “the right movement towards union”, the son of the Pleiad Electra, symbol of this plane (see Family Tree 16).
Dardanus, it should be remembered, fled from Samothrace “a demanding spiritual discipline” and found refuge with Teucer (Teukros), king of Phrygia “who burns”, symbol of the inner fire (Agni). The name of Dardanus’ wife, Batea, can be understood as “how far consciousness can go”.
Dardanus established his city on the slopes of Mount Ida, “union in consciousness”. It is important to distinguish between the Cretan Ida, the birthplace of Zeus, and the Phrygian Ida in Troy, although these mountains are both symbols of union in the spirit: the former represents the first manifestation of the overmind in man, the latter the completion of union in the spirit with the Divine.
Dardanus thus represents the movement that explores what is furthest to the East, the New, in the heights of the mind whose colour is light sapphire blue (Dardanus shepherded Asia’s coasts and her sapphire-girt islands).
The beginnings in the illumined mind are more like a resting place after the struggles of the higher mind, for the threshold located above the luminous thought that characterises this latter plane has been crossed. In the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life, it is the passage of the veil of Tiphereth that gives access to the possibilities of the illumined mind (Mild was his rule like the blessing of rain upon fields in the summer).
Sri Aurobindo describes its characteristics in The Life Divine, Book II, Part II, Chapter XXVI, the Ascent towards Supermind. He tells us that when the seeker has penetrated more deeply into mental silence, what used to come drop by drop now comes in torrents. Consciousness fills with a flood of golden light, accom-panied by various creative capacities, a vast descent of peace, a greater dynamism, a burning ardour for realisation and the in-toxicating ecstasy of knowledge. It is no longer a mind of higher thought, but a spiritual mind of light that operates through vision, thought being only a subordinate movement to express vision.
The different regions of Asia Minor symbolise certain par-ticularities of the illumined mind that until then had not been linked to the inner fire and were therefore subject to the attacks of the logical mind, including doubt. Recognising the supremacy of the inner fire, they enter a certain rest, that is, into greater certainty. From South to North, these regions are Lycia, Caria, Lydia and Mysia, and further East, on the coast of the Black Sea, Paphlagonia (see the map in appendix).
Lycia, whose name is based on the root Lug (which gave λυγη), is the land of nascent light, while Caria is the land of Intel-ligence and superior discernment.
Lydia represents unity in diversity, and perhaps everything to do with sensitivity; and Mysia, everything to do with the highest initiations, the root Mys having subsequently given Myste, the person who is initiated into the Mysteries and thus acquires a new strength (strength of the Mysian).
Paphlagonia symbolises “that which is boiling” in the spirit, which tends to manifest itself, and therefore now has the possibility of doing so.
All these high regions of the spirit rejoice in the new peace that is established thanks to the illumined mind and the inner fire (Gladly the harried coasts reposed confessing the Phrygian, Caria, Lycia’s kings and the Paphlagon, strength of the Mysian).
Along with Europe, Minos’ Crete symbolises “a vast vision”, the entry into the higher mind. Minos, “the evolution of receptiv-ity”, and Rhadamanthus, “he who understands or perceives easily”, are the sons of Zeus and Europa. While Minos symbolises the evolution of “receptivity to orders from the Spirit”, Rhadamanthus is renowned for his probity and inflexible justice, a sign of integrity and inflexibility. Together, they symbolise clear discernment.
During the great spiritual error symbolised by the Minotaur, the seeker lost his discernment. Theseus, the tenth king of Athens, after killing the Minotaur, married Phaidra in a second marriage, the “joyful, luminous” daughter of Minos, who was the mother of Demophon, the “murderer of the people” (understood as diver-sity) and thus the yoga of unity. The seeker has thus recovered his strength, which was present at the time of his entry into the higher mind: discernment, integrity, and inflexibility (Minos’ Crete recovered the sceptre of old Rhadamanthus).
Then there was Tros “the right development of the mind” and his three sons, including Ilus. It should be remembered that Tros is called by Sri Aurobindo “Tros of conquests” because his three sons – Ilus, Assaracus and Ganymede – are respectively the realisations of liberation (from desire and the ego), equality and joy.
This was a period of remarkable progress in yoga (Ilus and Tros had strength in the fight like a far-striding Titan’s). The conquests in the realms of the spirit were stimulated by a great need to expand and surpass limits (Troy triumphant following the urge of their souls to the vastness). The seeker made rapid progress towards union (Indus) and penetration of the spirit into the inferior planes (Oxus), despite the attacks and harassment of the forces opposing evolution (Rode through the driving sleet of the spears to Indus and Oxus).
Then twice over she conquered the vanquished, with peace as in battle;
There where discord had clashed, sweet Peace sat girded with plenty,
There where tyranny counted her blows, came the hands of a father.
Neither had Teucer a soul like your chiefs’ who refounded this nation.
Such was the antique and noble tradition of Troy in her founders,
Builders of power that endured
The effects of the conquest of the illumined mind make it possible for yoga to function peacefully. What previously required an arduous struggle is now transformed by an active, silent peace, imbued with gentleness, and the gifts of the spirit flow in great numbers (There where discord had clashed, sweet Peace sat girded with plenty). With regard to sweetness, see what has been noted in the text above regarding Pollux, “the thoroughly gentle”.
On the other hand, what had previously imposed the con-straint of a superior will on the lower planes was succeeded by a gentle transformation like compassion combined with firmness of a father. For in the new yoga, it is not a question of imposing one’s will or superior power on matter, but of descending into the consciousness of matter to transform it (Where tyranny counted its blows, came the hands of a father).
Teucer was king of Phrygia before the conquest of the illu-mined mind began, symbolising a fire or a need to unite with the Divine that “burns” from the moment he entered the path.
By giving his daughter Batea, “as far as consciousness can go”, to Dardanus as his wife, he refounded Troy, i.e. gave a new impulse to the yoga for the conquest of the illumined mind (Neither had Teucer a soul like your chiefs’ who refounded this nation).
But when the seeker realises liberation of the mind in the separation of Spirit and Matter, there is a whole part of the being that feels it has reached the end of the road and lets the inner fire fade: it is symbolised by those whom Antenor is speaking to.
Thus ends Sri Aurobindo’s evocation of growth in the illu-mined mind (Such was the antique and noble tradition of Troy in her founders, builders of power that endured).
‘But it perishes lost to their offspring,
Trampled, scorned by an arrogant age, by a violent nation.
Strong Anchises trod it down trampling victorious onwards 320
Stern as his sword and hard as the silent bronze of his armour.
More than another I praise the man who is mighty and steadfast,
Even as Ida the mountain I praise, a refuge for lions;
But in the council I laud him not, he who a god for his kindred,
Lives for the rest without bowels of pity or fellowship, lone-souled,
Scorning the world that he rules, who untamed by the weight of an empire
Holds allies as subjects, subjects as slaves and drives to the battle
Careless more of their wills than the courser’s yoked to his war-car.
Therefore they fought while they feared, but gladly abandon us falling.
Yet had they gathered to Teucer in the evil days of our nation. 330
Where are they now? Do they gather then to the dreaded Anchises?
Or has Aeneas helped with his counsels hateful to wisdom?’
The tradition of this ancient spirituality has been lost over time. It has been rejected by a part of the being that is convinced that it holds the truth and rejects any other approach (But it perishes lost to their offspring, trampled, scorned by an arrogant age, by a violent nation).
Sri Aurobindo then expresses what is for him an indisputable evolutionary truth, namely, that Truth must become incarnate in humanity before Love can descend into it.
But the seeker has turned to the side of love even though his lower nature is far from being purified. Under these conditions, love is liable to give rise to many deviances.
Anchises belongs to the line of Assaracus, “he who is not troubled” or “inner peace”, a brother of Ilus (see the family tree 16). His son Capys (Kapys) united with Themisto, “the law of rectitude”, who gave him Anchises, “he who embraces man”, and who therefore places his concern for humanity at the forefront. This concern obviously had to turn towards love as its pinnacle: the goddess who watches over the evolution of love in man, Aphrodite, fell in love with Anchises, who was very handsome and therefore very true, and gave him a son, Aeneas.
It was at this point that the part of the seeker that had reached some heights of the spirit advocated love as the only evolutionary path. With great intransigence, it refuses to consider and rejects any other path, supported by numerous other parts of the being and realisations (Strong Anchises trod it down tramp-ling victorious onwards stern as his sword and hard as the silent bronze of his armour).
Discerning wisdom recognises the value of the yoga towards love when it takes as its goal the love that expresses itself in the overmind (Anchises is in a union with Aphrodite), like all process of union aimed at by determined, strength-filled seekers (More than another I praise the man who is mighty and steadfast, even as Ida the mountain I praise, a refuge for lions). The name of Mount Ida is in fact formed around the letter Delta (Δ), symbolising union.
However, in the context of the totality of the being, encom-passing man in his entirety, this wisdom perceives it is a mistake because it is a love based on exclusion. It recognises that what claims to be love rejects other functionings of the being that are not as developed in consciousness or seem contrary to the path of love (But in the council I laud him not, he who a god for his kindred, lives for the rest without bowels of pity or fellowship, lone-souled).
At its extreme, love that imposes its law upon an unpurified vital nature transforms into intransigence, contempt, and inqui-sition. It dries up the being instead of expanding it. It cuts off many possibilities for expression and reduces life to a minimum. Yet the Divine certainly did not intend the sumptuous diversity of life to fade to nothing.
The seeker fails to recognise that aspects of his nature, eagerly waiting to be led towards greater expression and perfec-tion, support his capacity to love.
It is the rejection of the ascetic that Sri Aurobindo again condemns here; not of an ascetic who has chosen the path of solitude outside the world in some mountain refuge, but of an ascetic who has chosen to participate in the world under the guise of love and to this end severs many facets of his being.
There is still ego in the saint who despises the untransformed parts of his nature – or when he looks down on those who are not on the same level as him, feeling superior (lone-souled, scorning the world that he rules). He imposes his own indisputable will upon what aids the movement in his lower nature, and imposes even greater constraints upon what has already been mastered (he who untamed by the weight of an empire holds allies as sub-jects, subjects as slaves). It is like the eighth labour of Heracles, in which the hero must defeat Diomedes, who feeds his mares human flesh.
Constraining this lower nature, whatever its own “aspira-tion”, is considered by this part of the seeker as the first necessity of yoga (and drives to the battle careless more of their wills than the courser’s yoked to his war-car).
Until now, certain parts of the being, restrained by a will imposed from above, have been unable to manifest themselves freely. However, now that the aspiration and the gathering of the being, combined with the commencement of purification of the depths, is calling into question the dogmas of the old yogas, they are freeing themselves from the yoke of the personal will (Therefore they fought while they feared, but gladly abandon us falling).
Yet, it had been possible to maintain unity with a focus on the “expansion of consciousness (upwards)” under the influence of the psychic fire (Teucer, king of Phrygia, “that which burns”), at the very beginning of the work in the illumined mind (Yet had they gathered to Teucer in the evil days of our nation).
But what was once constrained is now liberated without aligning with that which “embraces humanity” per se (Where are they now? Do they gather then to the dreaded Anchises? Or has Aeneas helped with his counsels hateful to wisdom?).
Hateful is this, abhorred of the gods, imagined by Ate
When against subjects murmuring discord and faction appointed
Scatter unblest gold, the heart of a people is poisoned,
Virtue pursued and baseness triumphs tongued like a harlot,
Brother against brother arrayed that the rule may endure of a stranger.
Yes, but it lasts! For its hour. The high gods watch in their silence,
Mute they endure for a while that the doom may be swifter and greater.
Hast thou then lasted, O Troy? Lo, the Greeks at thy gates and Achilles. 340
Dream, when Virtue departs, that Wisdom will linger, her sister!
Wisdom has turned from your hearts; shall Fortune dwell with the foolish?’
We saw in our study of the first book that Ate is the eldest daughter of Zeus and therefore indicates the first stage of the spiritual path, the liberation of the spirit. According to Homer, “Eldest daughter of Zeus is Ate that blindeth all – a power fraught with bane; delicate are her feet, for it is not upon the ground that she fareth, but she walketh over the heads of men, bringing men to harm, and this one or that she ensnareth”[46].
Hence, Ate represents a force that draws the seeker to the heights of the spirit, consequently cutting him off from matter, from incarnation, and this is why she came to embody “error”.
She even deceived her father, Zeus, who lacked discern-ment when his wife Hera tricked him into delaying the birth of Heracles. Zeus, furious at having been deceived, threw Ate out of Olympus, forbidding her to ever set foot there again. Ate fell in Phrygia, the province of the “inner fire”, on a hill that took her name and where Ilus founded the city of Troy.
This is why Ate’s action only really culminates in the Trojan War, which is to say when yoga towards the heights of the spirit in the separation of spirit and matter must cease.
According to Homer, Ate’s sisters, the Lites or the “Prayers”, who “follow far behind her”, which can be understood in two ways: either prayers are less effective than an elevation in the planes of consciousness, or mortal men have no choice but to pray to the gods when they must suffer the consequences of their mistakes due to a lack of incarnation.
Discerning wisdom therefore sees how the forces that are first necessary for the conquest of the spirit can then mislead by continuing to draw the seeker towards the spirit and, by cutting him off from matter, introduce separation, conflict and clan spirit into consciousness; moreover, they then generate harmful powers that come from the mind alone, and serve an ego that has not been fully purified (Hateful is this, abhorred of the gods, imagined by Ate when against subjects murmuring discord and faction appoint-ed scatter unblest gold).
Not only does the mind fall into error, but the spirit too is perverted (the heart of people is poisoned). What was once per-ceived as virtuous, particularly mastery of the vital, is dismissed, and what emerges from the lower vital – power, money, and sex – is glorified (Virtue pursued and baseness triumphs tongued like a harlot). Indeed, Sri Aurobindo speaks elsewhere of power as a harlot that kills the soul.
And we have Mother’s words in an entry from the Agenda on October 17, 1958:
“All division in the being is an insincerity. The greatest insin-cerity is to dig an abyss between your body and the truth of your being.”
Instead of a principle of union, it is a principle of division that separates even what is intimately united for the benefit of a law alien to the essence of the being (Brother against brother arrayed that the rule may endure of a stranger).
However, Sri Aurobindo tells us that all movements arising from the overmind have an equal right to be realised until their end. And when that end comes, then the change can be more rapid and more complete (Yes, but it lasts! For its hour. The high gods watch in their silence, mute they endure for a while that the doom may be swifter and greater). And this wisdom questions whether the movement towards the heights of the spirit has concluded (Hast thou then lasted [is your time up], O Troy?).
If the virtue or sainthood attained through mastery of the vital, which grants access to the force of life and its powers, is rejected, then wisdom, which is mastery of the spirit and provides access to the power of intelligence, cannot endure (Dream, when Virtue departs, that Wisdom will linger, her sister!). And when wisdom departs, can we hope that prosperity will remain on the side of that which no longer holds meaning?
The roman goddess Fortune, the equivalent of the Greek goddess Tyche, was initially revered as a fertility goddess, the dispenser of prosperity, before becoming the personification of chance (Wisdom has turned from your hearts; shall Fortune dwell with the foolish?). For, if there is to be a renunciation of sainthood and wisdom, it is not about moving towards less virtue and less wisdom, but towards virtue and wisdom of a higher order, directly rooted in the Divine.
‘Fatal oracles came to you great-tongued, vaunting of empires
Stretched from the risen sun to his rest in the occident waters,
Dreams of a city throned on the hills with her foot on the nations.
Meanwhile the sword was prepared for our breasts and the flame for our housetops.
Wake, awake, O my people! the fire-brand mounts up your doorsteps;
Gods who deceived to slay, press swords on your children’s bosoms.
See, O ye blind, ere death in pale countries open your eyelids!
Hear, O ye deaf, the sounds in your ears and the voices of evening!’ 350
Further on in Ilion, Sri Aurobindo tells us that Laocoon is the fate-darkened seer of Apollo: the seeker should therefore no longer rely on his intuition, at least that which he perceives as coming from the mind of light, a mind of truth preceding the supramental. This intuition had foreseen a total mastery of the being by the spirit imposing its will from above, from the most advanced levels of the being to its evolutionary roots (Stretched from the risen sun to his rest in the occident waters). It is therefore the dream of a total mastery of nature imposed from above, in pursuit of the ancient forms of yoga (Dreams of a city throned on the hills with her foot on the nations).
But discerning wisdom asserts that these are just dreams, while the ancient realisations threaten to disappear.
Even the gods have helped to sustain this illusion of su-premacy. We need to remember that Ares, Aphrodite, and Apollo support the Trojans. Ares because he follows his lover Aphrodite and she because the Trojan lineage favours the establishment of love. Apollo because the mind of light prepares the way for the coming of divine Love.
This is why Apollo will be the last of the gods to leave Troy (Gods who deceived to slay, press swords on your children’s bo-soms). Mother explained that a greater perfection in the outer being than they had attained with Sri Aurobindo was not possible until Truth was incarnated in the lower planes, until the physical transformation was achieved to a large extent.
When a movement has run its course, it registers in the memories of the subconscient and the inconscient, and loses its reality (See, O ye blind, ere death in pale countries open your eyelids!).
Discerning wisdom perceives that the ancient yoga move-ment is coming to an end (Hear, O ye deaf, the sounds in your ears and the voices of evening!).
‘Young men who vaunt in your strength! when the voice of this aged Antenor
Governed your fathers’ youth, all the Orient was joined to our banners.
Macedon leaned to the East and her princes yearned to the victor,
Scythians worshipped in Ilion’s shrines, the Phoenician trader
Bartered her tokens, Babylon’s wise men paused at our thresholds;
Fair-haired sons of the snows came rapt towards golden Troya
Drawn by the song and the glory. Strymon sang hymns unto Ida,
Hoarse Chalcidice, dim Chersonesus married their waters
Under the o’erarching yoke of Troy twixt the term-posts of Ocean.’
Having examined the past yoga from the point of view of what directed it – the Trojan royal lineage –, it is now a question of different tendencies in relation to the main orientation.
When discerning wisdom watched over the latter, the most advanced searches, experiences, and realisations went forward together (when the voice of this aged Antenor governed your fathers’ youth, all the Orient was joined to our banners).
Macedonia is a province to the north of Thessaly (see the map in appendix). Therefore, it represents a more advanced quest than that of ordinary seekers. Although it did not attain the highest realisations of yoga, this quest aspired to do so (Macedon leaned to the East and her princes yearned to the victor). The meaning of the name Macedonia is obscure.
The Scythians occupied a vast territory north-east of the Black Sea, which can be symbolically understood as the yoga in the depths of the vital, because it is located beyond the Black Sea, Euxinus Pontus or “Pont-Euxin”. In Homer’s time, this sea was called Pontos Axeinos (Ποντος Αξεινος), or “the inhospitable sea”. This is where the great heroes had to face the “monsters” of the deep vital. In time, the reason for this appellation fell into oblivion and the sea was renamed in reverse Pontus Euxeinos (Ποντος Ευξεινος), i.e. “the very hospitable sea”. The reason given for this appellation was that it was a haven of peace for sailors fleeing the inhospitable tribes that populated its shores.
The yoga in the depths of the vital was therefore also in line with the development of wisdom and sainthood through mastery of the outer being (Scythians worshipped in Ilion’s shrines).
“Phoenicia” corresponds to Lebanon and part of present-day Syria and Israel. The Phoenicians were reputed to dominate trade in this part of the world. Its name comes from the word phoinix (Φοινιξ) and refers to a scarlet or purple red. This colour was associated with the quest for “immortality”. Followers of this path recognised the superior value of the Trojan path (the Phoenician trader bartered her tokens). According to Sri Aurobindo, purple is the colour of power in the vital.
Babylon was the capital of Mesopotamia (a name that means “between the rivers”, i.e. between the Tigris and the Euphrates) and of an empire that took over from the Assyrian Empire. Its Aramaic name was Babel and gave rise to the story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible, Book of Genesis (Gen 11:1-9). The men of that time had united: “And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people, and all have one language, and this is what they have set out to do; now nothing shall hinder them from doing all that they have planned.” Sri Aurobindo is perhaps referring to this “wisdom” that worked to bring the whole being together to work in the same direction. This wisdom also recognised the su-premacy of the Trojan path (Babylon’s wise men paused at our thresholds).
The fair-haired sons of the snows not only refer to the Nordic people, but are also an expression of the connection to the realms of the spirit through the development of intuition, which was perfectly in tune with the Trojan path (Fair-haired sons of the snows came rapt towards golden Troya drawn by the song and the glory).
The Strymon is the river of Thrace, the land of extreme spir-itual practice. This current of energy-consciousness that supported the difficult spiritual practices was also turned with gratitude towards that which worked towards unity (Strymon sang hymns unto Ida).
The next two verses are more complex to decipher.
Chalcidice, or Chersonese Chalcidice, is a peninsula in north-ern Greece bordering Thrace in the East. The name is linked to copper, Chalcis. In Antiquity, there were several places referred to as “Chersonese”, which signifies “peninsula”. But the name may also be linked to the notion of a “barren or uncultivated” land.
Perhaps the first one mentioned here is the image of a yoga that uses constraint, while the second would be linked to a yoga that bears no fruit. (Hoarse Chalcidice, dim Chersonesus married their waters under the o’erarching yoke of Troy twixt the term-posts of Ocean).
The term-posts remind us of the “Pillars of Heracles” that the hero erected at Tartessos on his way to his tenth labour. According to the Ancients, they mark the limits in the West of the inhabited earth, in other words, the extreme limit to which the ancient initiates of yoga could reach. Crossing the pillars of Heracles meant going beyond the states of wisdom and sainthood (see the chapter on Heracles’ last six labours).
These pillars are raised in relation to the current of energy-consciousness that supports the evolution of the opening of consciousness, Oceanus.
‘Meanwhile far through the world your fortunes led by my counsels 360
Followed their lure like women snared by a magical tempter:
High was their chant as they paced and it came from continents distant.
Turn now and hear! what voice approaches? what glitter what glitter of armies?
Loud upon Trojan beaches the tread and the murmur of Hellas!
Hark! ’tis the Achaian’s paean rings o’er the Pergaman waters!
So wake the dreams of Aeneas; reaped is Laocoon’s harvest.
Speakers whose counsels persuaded our strength from the labour before us,
Artisans new of your destiny fashioned this far-spreading downfall,
Counsellors blind who scattered your strength to the hooves of the Scythian,
Barren victories, trophies of skin-clad Illyrian pastors.
Who but the fool and improvident, who but the dreamer and madman 370
Leaves for the far and ungrasped earth’s close and provident labour?’
In our opinion, we need to understand “meanwhile” as “since then” and not “in the meantime”, since Antenor spoke earlier of “the youth of your fathers”.
The adventurer of consciousness recognises that the wisdom within him has directed the yogas towards an ever-widening ex-pansion of consciousness, following in this a kind of fascination for overcoming limits (Meanwhile far through the world your fortunes led by my counsels followed their lure).
But he realises that it is now a question of turning back (Turn now and hear). Indeed, it is now the victory song of the yoga of the reunification of the being (of the unity of spirit and matter) that resonates above the currents of consciousness-energy that sustain the most advanced yogas of the spirit (tis the Achaian’s paean rings o’er the Pergaman waters).
Thus, the establishment of love can no longer claim to be the primary goal of yoga (So wake the dreams of Aeneas). So, the seeker reaps the fruits of an intuition-vision distorted by fate (reaped is Laocoon’s harvest). Instead of pursuing a yoga down to the smallest details of everyday life, the seeker has followed systems of thought that are blind to reality, leading the ancient yogas to their end (Speakers whose counsels persuaded our strength from the labour before us, artisans new of your destiny fashioned this far-spreading downfall)[47].
These doctrines led the seeker to disperse his forces with a view to an ever more perfect mastery of the vital (Counsellors blind who scattered your strength to the hooves of the Scythian). The victories won in this way cannot lead anywhere (barren victories). They are merely reminders of very old human accomp-lishments (trophies of skin-clad Illyrian pastors). Indeed, according to Apollodorus, Illyrius was a son of Cadmos and Harmony, in other words the symbol of a yoga at the beginning of the purification-liberation process that began with the founding of Thebes.
This yoga, which aims for absolute mastery of the inferior by the superior – a total mastery that is, moreover, unattainable –, instead of focusing on the minute movements of consciousness that are constantly before our eyes, can only be the result of a lack of discernment, common sense and wisdom (Who but the fool and improvident, who but the dreamer and madman leaves for the far and ungrasped earth’s close and provident labour?). For, it must be said again, the new yoga is not a movement imposed from above, but rather a descent aiming at transformation.
Children of earth, our mother gives tokens, she lays down her signposts,
Step by step to advance on her bosom, to grow by her seasons,
Order our works by her patience and limit our thought by her spaces.
But you had chiefs who were demigods, souls of an earth-scorning stature,
Minds that saw vaster than life and strengths that God’s hour could not limit!
These men seized upon Troy as the tool of their giant visions,
Dreaming of Africa’s suns and bright Hesperian orchards,
Carthage our mart and our feet on the sunset hills of the Latins.
Ilion’s hinds in the dream ploughed Libya, sowed Italy’s cornfields, 380
Troy stretched to Gades; even the gods and the Fates had grown Trojan.
So are the natures of men uplifted by Heaven in its satire.
We are children of both the Spirit and Nature. Life in the incarnation constantly sends us signs, because everything makes sense. There are neither coincidences nor accidents. Everything is a sign along the way if we know how to decipher it. When we are lost, if we can be attentive to these signs, life will show us the directions to follow (Children of earth, our mother gives tokens, she lays down her signposts).
We must progress according to its laws, just as a child first learns to walk and then to speak, in accordance with the evolution-ary memories of humanity (Step by step to advance on her bosom). And we are subjected to the innumerable cycles of Nature, some of them well known, others much more numerous and unknown to us (to grow by her seasons). So, for example, there are probably vast cycles that govern the human mind, of the order of 2,160 years and 26,000 years at a time (see the study The Cycles of the Mind throughout the History of Humanity on the author’s website greekmyths-interpretation.com).
It is therefore necessary to develop spiritual methods – forms of yoga – according to the laws of Nature, which are designed to ensure that nothing is left behind. There may therefore be accelerations and pauses, advances and then retreats, or even multiple detours (Order our works by her patience). We must not pretend to force its rhythm, and must accept to limit ourselves to what it allows at a given moment (and limit our thought by her spaces).
But what conceived and directed this yoga of conquest was that which realised liberation of the spirit, despising the body and incarnation as either illusions or impossible to transform (But you had chiefs who were demigods, souls of an earth-scorning stature).
These realisations in the spirit conceived of even vaster realisations and masteries, vaster than what Life at that moment of evolution could offer, propelled by forces that the divine rhythm was obliged to let bloom (Minds that saw vaster than life and strengths that God’s hour could not limit!).
These realisations and associated yoga then utilised the well-established structures of the spiritual quest to serve grandiose aspirations (These men seized upon Troy as the tool of their giant visions).
They hoped for a radiant vital and omniscient knowledge (Dreaming of Africa’s suns and bright Hesperian orchards). Hesperia is indeed the garden of sunset where the Apples of Knowledge, and thus of Power, were placed.
In Homer’s time, the Phoenicians for whom Carthage was a trading post, dominated trade in the Mediterranean and the Greeks were jealous of this. Carthage was located on the outskirts of present-day Tunis. Symbolically, the new realisation would therefore dominate both vital exchanges and the most advanced realisations in the yoga of devotion and love. Indeed, it was Italy under Aeneas that was to take over from Greece the leadership of the dominant spirituality in the West and its aspirations for recovering ancient occult powers (telepathy, teleportation, ubiq-uity, instinctive knowledge of plants, knowledge of past and future, etc.), symbolised by the Latin mounts located to the West (Car-thage our mart and our feet on the sunset hills of the Latins).
Those less advanced elements in the spiritual quest would then have worked through concentration on the subconscious to gain liberation of the spirit. Libya, united with Poseidon, is indeed a descendant of Inachus “the evolution of the gathering of the being or of concentration”, and therefore of the Titan Oceanus (Ilion’s hinds in the dream ploughed Libya). They also would have sown within themselves the healthy seeds of their evolution towards Love ([…] sowed Italy’s cornfields).
The city of Gades, located in the extreme south-west of present-day Spain, and therefore the furthest west of the known lands, is undoubtedly taken here as the symbol of the greatest spiritual advancement in Knowledge (Troy stretched to Gades).
These dreams of spiritual greatness were even encouraged by the forces of the spirit and those that oversee evolution, which we call the Fates because we cannot understand their action (even the gods and the Fates had grown Trojan). The Fates or Parcae correspond to the Moirai of Greek mythology. They are the three sisters who hold the threads of life in their hands:
- Lachesis, “Destiny”, the work that the soul has set out to accomplish in this life.
- Clotho, “she who spins the thread of life”, who works for the inner growth of freedom and the fulfilment of the purpose of life and the task.
- Atropos, “the Inflexible”, in the sense of inescapable: you cannot run away from your task, because life keeps bringing you back to it.
This dream is even encouraged by the spirit, insofar as all movements must reach the end as inscribed in their genesis.
Then the spirit stops it to better reveal the seeker his error (So are the natures of men uplifted by Heaven in its satire).
Scorning the bit of the gods, despisers of justice and measure,
Zeus is denied and adored some shadow huge of their natures
Losing the shape of man in a dream that is splendid and monstrous.
Titans, vaunting they stride and the world resounds with their footsteps;
Titans, clanging they fall and the world is full of their ruin.
Children, you dreamed with them, heard the roar of the Atlantic breakers
Welcome your keels and the Isles of the Blest grew your wonderful gardens.
Lulled in the dream, you saw not the black-drifting march of the storm-rack, 390
Heard not the galloping wolves of the doom and the howl of their hunger.
The seeker who pursues this insane dream of the present mental man brought to perfection rejects the guidance of the forces of the spirit, that of the psychic (the perception of what is right) and the path of balance imposed by the spiritual path in incarnation (Scorning the bit of the gods, despisers of justice and measure).
Submission to the influences of the overmind is also rejected, and the seeker has projected a better image of himself as a man of the future, which he perceives as splendid but which is in fact monstrous. Perhaps there is an allusion here to Nietzsche’s concept of “Superman” driven by the Will to Power. Nonetheless, man has great difficulty imagining a form for the future beyond that of the present-day man (Zeus is denied and adored some shadow huge of their natures losing the shape of man in a dream that is splendid and monstrous).
These seekers are advancing fast, demonstrating their strength. Yet, they are still under the grip of the ego present even in the saint and the sage. Not only are they endowed with a power-ful will, but their yoga has also given them access to great powers: thus, they are akin to Titans (Titans, vaunting they stride and the world resounds with their footsteps). Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the term Titan seems somewhat different from its mythological connotations. In Greek mythology, Titans are symbols of the gi-gantic forces of creation that birthed the world of the gods, with the latter serving as the origin of the forms. Sri Aurobindo seems to be using the word simply as a symbol of very powerful forces.
Under these conditions, as high as the ascent is, so severe is the fall, with all the consequences that this entails for the seeker and his yoga, and sometimes as well for the outside world (Titans, clanging they fall and the world is full of their ruin).
This wisdom addresses other parts of his being as it would address immature and dreamy children. The latter, although aware of the dangers of this dream of yoga grandeur, celebrated its preparation (Children, you dreamed with them, heard the roar of the Atlantic breakers). The different stages of the spiritual journey were in fact associated with sea voyages in mythology.
According to Homer, the subterranean kingdom of Hades comprised several regions, including “the Asphodel Fields” and “the Elysian Fields”. They both symbolise the culmination of certain yogas, and therefore “realisations” that become eternal because they are linked to the psychic being, the soul. This is why Homer places them at the western limits of the earth, below the Ocean, at the root of the memories of evolution. According to this poet, an eternal spring reigns there and the sun always spreads its light: it is the place of the eternally new, constantly bathed in the light of supramental truth.
The Elysian Fields seem a place not very different from the one Hesiod calls the “Isles of the Blest”. There resides the fourth race that precedes our own (the Iron Age), “that of the heroes named demigods who died before Thebes with its seven gates or in Troy for Helen with her beautiful hair. Zeus placed them at the ends of the earth”. They are therefore symbols of the yogas that led, through purification, to the liberation of the spirit.
These parts of the seeker allowed themselves to be lulled by these realisations (Welcome your keels and the Isles of the Blest grew your wonderful gardens), unaware of another very powerful movement that called for another evolution, a reversal of yoga (Lulled in the dream, you saw not the black-drifting march of the storm-rack, heard not the galloping wolves of the doom and the howl of their hunger).
Greece in her peril united her jarring clans; you suffered
Patient, preparing the north, the wisdom and silence of Peleus,
Atreus’ craft and the Argives gathered to King Agamemnon.
But there were prophecies, Pythian oracles, mutterings from Delphi.
How shall they prosper who haste after auguries, oracles, whispers,
Dreams that walk in the night and voices obscure of the silence?
Touches are these from the gods that bewilder the brain to its ruin.
One sole oracle helps, still armoured in courage and prudence Patient and heedful to toil at the work that is near in the daylight. 400
Leave to the night its phantoms, leave to the future its curtain!
Only today Heaven gave to mortal man for his labour.
In this passage, inner wisdom draws a parallel between the unification of the parts of the being and yogas tending towards a powerful aspiration towards the truth of evolution (Helen) and the inertia of the old yogas (Greece in her peril united her jarring clans; you suffered…).
We have already studied Peleus in the analysis of the first book. (See also the lineage of Asopus and Family Tree 25). Let us remember that he was the son of Aeacus, the first king of the Myrmidons “the ants”. He married the goddess Thetis, daughter of Nereus. He is therefore the symbol of the yoga which must cleanse the depths of the vital right down to the origins of cellular animal consciousness. We have seen that this is only possible if there is a perfect purification of the being. To marry Thetis, Peleus had to be able to master, one after the other, an all-powerful fire, a fearsome lion and sometimes a terrible snake:
- The seeker had to be able to withstand the all-powerful fire of the spirit descending into the body.
- He had to be able to pull out the roots of the ego.
- Finally, he had to master the serpent guardian of the present stage of evolution to change its course.
To perform this yoga of the depths, it was necessary to have acquired wisdom, which is the mastery of the spirit and gives access to the power of intelligence, and even to have realised mental silence.
The north may indicate the northern provinces such as Thessaly or, more generally, the difficult disciplines of yoga (Patient, preparing the north, the wisdom and silence of Peleus).
Atreus’ craft probably refers to the conflict between the two brothers Atreus and Thyestes for the throne of Mycenae (See Diagram 15, the Atrides). Thyestes had obtained the throne by concealing the facts, but this displeased Zeus, who sent Hermes to Atreus to show him a ruse: Thyestes would have to surrender the kingdom when the sun reversed its course in the sky, which Thyestes naturally thought impossible. Zeus then performed this miracle and Atreus regained the throne.
This conflict expresses the extreme difficulty of deciding between two attitudes to realise accuracy down to the smallest detail:
- On the one hand, with Thyestes, the perfectly satisfied adherence to all things, including the worst calamities, because it is the divine will, because there is nothing other than the Divine. This attitude leads to a state of static ecstasy, but also to a certain passivity.
- On the other hand, with Atreus, an intensity of aspiration for a perfection of creation that must come and that imposes action to decide between what must be and what must cease.
The reversal of the sun’s path could indicate that the change in the orientation of yoga is an effect of supramental consciousness.
Finally, these ancient yogas were not shaken when other yogas tending towards purification joined the powerful aspiration (the Argives gathered to King Agamemnon) not to let the evolu-tionary Truth be imposed by the ancient yogas.
This wisdom sees that too much trust has been placed in intuitions that are highly uncertain, distorted and therefore akin to mutterings, even if they come from a place where the word of Apollo is transmitted. For this word is not given directly: it is received through the intermediary of Pythia, who most often transmits enigmatic messages that are then deciphered by priests. How can we give credence to such oracles, which were distorted several times during their transmission? (But there were proph-ecies, Pythian oracles, mutterings from Delphi).
Similarly, how can the seeker trust intuitions that come to him when his receptivity is disturbed? Or how can he trust those who prophesy or dispense all kinds of oracles? (How shall they prosper who haste after auguries, oracles, whispers).
These oracles, these prophecies or these intuitions deviated by the mind do not transmit any true light. They are Dreams that walk in the night and voices obscure of the silence. They are only glimpses of the forces of the overmind, which follow their own line of development and therefore have no reason to move in the direction of right human evolution, leading to disturbances and doubts in understanding and discernment (Touches are these from the gods that bewilder the brain to its ruin).
A single oracle taken in the sense of “what must be done” is therefore necessary: with courage, discernment, and attention, to apply oneself without reluctance to the trouble of yoga that each moment proposes to us, by putting consciousness into all these unconscious moments (Patient and heedful to toil at the work that is near in the daylight).
The seeker must not look to the subtle worlds for predictions or assurances about the future, or even for the secrets of evolution. Only the present is the place for his yoga (Leave to the night its phantoms, leave to the future its curtain! Only today Heaven gave to mortal man for his labour).
‘If thou hadst bowed not thy mane, O Troy, to the child and the dreamer,
Hadst thou been faithful to Wisdom the counsellor seated and ancient,
Then would the hour not have dawned when Paris lingered in Sparta
Led by the goddess fatal and beautiful, white Aphrodite.
Man, shun the impulses dire that spring armed from thy nature’s abysms!
Dread the dusk rose of the gods, flee the honey that tempts from its petals!
Therefore the black deed was done and the hearth that welcomed was sullied.
Sin-called the Fury uplifted her tresses of gloom o’er the nations 410
Maddening the earth with the scream of her blood-thirst, bowelless, stone-eyed,
Claiming her victims from God and bestriding the hate and the clamour.’
If the seeker, abandoning his intuition, had not bowed to what is immature in him and had not shunned incarnation (If thou hadst bowed not thy mane, O Troy, to the child and the dreamer) but had he trusted what his discernment, firmly anchored in incar-nation, had long since established (Hadst thou been faithful to Wisdom the counsellor seated and ancient), then the “work of equality” (Paris) would not have lingered in this place where the new arises (Sparta). Indeed, this work of equality is supported by the force that watches over the evolution of love in man. This force is at once pure, true (for it is beautiful) and irresistible.
But within this context, this force is still linked with the seeker’s desire, however lofty, to seize upon the correct evolution-ary direction symbolised by Helen (Then would the hour not have dawned when Paris lingered in Sparta led by the goddess fatal and beautiful, white Aphrodite).
Man must flee the impulses that are disastrous for yoga and which emerge from the depths of his nature, most often vital impulses that catch him unawares (Man, shun the impulses dire that spring armed from thy nature’s abysms!).
The rose is a symbol of love, usually psychic love. Honey is also a symbolic attribute of the psychic being, where true love resides. However, dusk rose can be understood as an obscure and deceptive love that mixes influences from the lower vital nature. (Dread the dusk rose of the gods, flee the honey that tempts from its petals!).
It was by following this dream that the false action took place and that what is “new” was diverted from its goal: Paris-Alexander and Helen, Menelaus’ wife, left Sparta “that which is sown” (Therefore the black deed was done and the hearth that welcomed was sullied).
Let us remember that the Furies are the Latin names for the Erinyes. They have been mentioned above, as well as at the end of Volume I in this study. Their role is to put people back on the right evolutionary path when they stray from it. Thus, when the seeker has diverted evolutionary truth from its rightful place, the divine forces of rectification manifest themselves, because the only gloom is that which is no longer in its place (Sin-called the Fury uplifted her tresses of gloom o’er the nations).
The Furies’ intervention can sometimes seem brutal to man, without any compassion. They serve as the armed arm of the Divine, carrying out the necessary destruction without batting an eyelid (Claiming her victims from God). This destruction is some-times frightening (Maddening the earth with the scream of her blood-thirst). They are relentless and merciless (bowelless, stone-eyed).
‘Yet midst the stroke and the wail when men’s eyes were blind with the blood-mist,
Still had the high gods mercy recalling Teucer and Ilus.
Sped by the hand of the Thunderer, discord flaming from Ida,
Hundred-voiced glared from the ships through the camp of the victor Achaians, —
Love to that discord added her flowerlike lips of Briseis;
Faltering lids of Polyxena conquered the strength of Pelides.
Vainly the gods who pity open the gates of salvation!
Vainly the winds of their mercy breathe on our fevered existence! 420
Man his passions prefers to the voice that guides from the heavens.’
And yet, once again, the forces of the overmind tried to bring the part of the being that rejects life back onto the right path, that of the work in incarnation (Still had the high gods mercy). The first time, it was the “redemption” of Podarces, since then called Priam the redeemed by his sister Hesione. This time, it was in memory of the beginnings of the yoga carried out with a view to liberation of the spirit during the conquest of the illumined mind (recalling Teucer and Ilus).
The highest of the overmind brought into play the right force that comes from the aspiration to union (Sped by the hand of the Thunderer, discord flaming from Ida). This force is symbolised by the goddess Eris, goddess of discord. Like Eros, this name is built around the double letter Rho (Ρ), which represents a movement away and then towards. In all cases, it is a just divine movement, either towards union with Eros, or towards separation with Eris, goddess of discord. This force of separation can manifest itself in many ways: in all the forms of duality, separation, discord, hatred, etc. (discord flaming from Ida, hundred-voiced) which in fact support the process of individuation.
This refers to the first nine years of the Trojan War, marked by Achilles’ “strike” after Agamemnon robbed him of his war prize, Briseis. She represents “a power of transformation through union with the Divine” that can only be acquired by working in the depths, as she had been promised by Patroclus to Achilles as his wife. This power of transformation cannot therefore be acquired by the aspiration towards perfecting the present man towards greater wisdom, represented by Agamemnon (Love to that discord added her flowerlike lips of Briseis).
The overmind has thus long delayed the involvement of yoga in the depths of the vital. In this way, it thwarted the aspiration for self-improvement of today’s man, who thought he could overcome this inner war without the support of the yoga of the depths.
The overmind thus encouraged the process of separation of spirit and matter to reach its conclusion (Discord flaming from Ida, hundred-voiced glared from the ships through the camp of the victor Achaians).
In addition, the seeker would have wanted to use for the yoga of the depths certain realisations of yoga in the heights of the spirit that are in tune with the truth of the being, forces “that descend from above”. Indeed, during a truce, Achilles and Polyxene “of many strange things from above” fell in love. This Trojan princess was a great beauty, and therefore an expression of great truth. Achilles sent a herald to Hector to ask her to marry him, but the latter demanded in return that Achilles betray the Achaeans and join the Trojan camp, which was unacceptable (Faltering lids of Polyxena conquered the strength of Pelides).
This high wisdom therefore considers that there were several opportunities offered by heaven to resolve this inner conflict in such a way as to preserve the forms and realisations of the ancient yogas, but that the seeker’s whole nature did not respond in the right way (Vainly the gods who pity open the gates of salvation! […] Man his passions prefers to the voice that guides from the heavens).
So, when a new stage of evolution appears, many previous realisations must be abandoned, but they will be found again at the end of the process, probably several millennia later.
These too were here whom Hera had chosen to ruin this nation:
Charioteers cracking the whips of their speed on the paths of destruction,
Demigods they! they have come down from Heaven glad to that labour,
Deaf is the world with the fame of their wheels as they race down to Hades.
O that alone they could reach it! O that pity could soften
Harsh Necessity’s dealings, sparing our innocent children,
Saving the Trojan women and aged from bonds and the sword-edge!
These had not sinned whom you slay in your madness! Ruthless, O mortals,
Must you be then to yourselves when the gods even faltering with pity 430
Turn from the grief that must come and the agony vast and the weeping?
Hera is the wife of Zeus. If Zeus is the symbol of the principle of unlimited expansion, due to the crossing of limits, then his coun-terpart and complement Hera is that of limitation so that nothing in evolution is left behind.
The name Hera (ΗΡΑ) is built around the letter Rho (Ρ), as is that of her mother Rhea (ΡΗΑ). We have seen that this letter, the symbol of divine play, involves a double movement: that of moving away and that of returning, of expansion and contraction. In terms of the forces of creation, it was Cronos who represented the movement of limitation. Indeed, he had forced the force of the spirit to limit its power so that creation could manifest itself: he had cut off the genitals of his father Ouranos.
In the world of forms, on the other hand, it is a feminine force, Hera, who symbolises the power of limitation. She must therefore put an end to an imbalance: an expansion of conscious-ness in the spirit to the detriment of consciousness in incarnation, in matter.
Let us recall that she was one of the three goddesses who took part in the beauty contest and from whom the Trojan Paris had to choose. This episode paved the way for the Trojan War, because the young shepherd insulted her by choosing Aphrodite, the goddess who watches over the growth of love in humanity, as the most beautiful. However, as far as the gods are concerned, no goddess can claim to surpass in beauty the divine wife of Zeus, the embodiment of the highest Truth on this plane. In myths, what is “beautiful” is what is “true”. In Homer’s work, Aphrodite is not the product of the mutilation of Ouranos, but the daughter of Zeus and Dione, and therefore the symbol of growing love.
This love is underdeveloped in humanity, probably limited for most men to the first stage of love described in Mother’s Agenda in an entry from April 16, 1966:
“At first one loves only when one is loved.
Next one loves spontaneously but one wants to be loved in return.
Further on, one loves even if one is not loved but one still wants one’s love to be accepted.
And finally, one loves purely and simply without any other need or joy than that of loving.”
In this context, Aphrodite, who supports the Trojan camp, is inferior in power to Hera, who is the guardian of the right movement.
To put an end to the movement of expansion in the spirit associated with a quest for more love (wisdom and sainthood), the limiting force in the world of forms has chosen its tools (These too were here whom Hera had chosen to ruin this nation).
These are parts of the being which, having realised union with the Divine in the spirit, have agreed to renounce the realisa-tions and powers gained through mastery of the mental and vital to set out to conquer the bodily inconscient, the realm of Hades. We need to remember that the three brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had divided the world between them: Zeus the con-scious, Poseidon the subconscient and Hades the inconscient, with the surface of the earth remaining the domain of them all.
This passage can be compared to the moment of inversion of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s yoga in 1926, when the Mother destroyed in a few hours the new creation she had prepared in the subtle planes and was preparing to bring down into incarnation. Then, in a few days or perhaps weeks or months, they quickly descended from plane to plane to begin the yoga of the body, the yoga of the cells (Charioteers cracking the whips of their speed on the paths of destruction, demigods they! they have come down from Heaven glad to that labour, deaf is the world with the fame of their wheels as they race down to Hades).
The Mother says she never had the slightest hesitation or regret when Sri Aurobindo told her that they had come for a task far greater than a new creation of the overmind. If there is any complaint in the being, then, it can only be from the recesses of the mind or the vital, from the remnants of the ego that still lurk in the depths of the wise man and the saint (O that alone they could reach it! O that pity could soften harsh Necessity’s dealings, sparing our innocent children). Such a reversal of yoga, accompanied by the renunciation of attachment to wisdom and sainthood, implies the disappearance of many ancient realisations, powers and forms of yogas, as well as that which is beginning to manifest itself (Saving the Trojan women and aged from bonds and the sword-edge!).
Of all these forms of ancient spirituality, many have nothing to do with the rejection of incarnation and will nevertheless also have to disappear in the great reversal (These had not sinned whom you slay in your madness!).
As the end of Troy drew near, Zeus, having tipped the balance in favour of the Achaeans, asked the gods who had come down to take part in the battle to return to Olympus. Apollo was the last to leave Troy: the force working at the development of the mind of light ceased supporting the separation of spirit and matter. The spiritual movement symbolised by the Trojans having reached its end, the forces of the overmind can no longer oppose each other and must come together for the beginning of the next evolutionary phase. They therefore refrain from any intervention in the final phase of the reversal because it has become inescapable. On the other hand, they are not concerned by the consequences, except eventually to have immense compassion (Must you be then to yourselves when the gods even faltering with pity turn from the grief that must come and the agony vast and the weeping?).
Say not the road of escape sinks too low for your arrogant treading.
Pride is not for our clay; the earth, not heaven was our mother
And we are even as the ant in our toil and the beast in our dying;
Only who cling to the hands of the gods can rise up from the earth-mire.
Children, lie prone to their scourge, that your hearts may revive in their sunshine.
This is our lot! when the anger of heaven has passed then the mortal
Raises his head; soon he heals his heart and forgets he has suffered.
This wisdom encourages those parts of the being attached to the realms of the spirit and rejecting the lower nature, the body and matter, to turn towards incarnation. The yoga of the depths cannot be rejected by the yoga of the spirit, which escapes from life (Say not the road of escape sinks too low for your arrogant treading).
Man in his evolution is a product of nature and not a mere creation of the spirit (the earth, not heaven was our mother). Like ants, we must work to purify our innermost being, each of us working for the whole of humanity. Sri Aurobindo draws a parallel here with Achilles, who is king of the Myrmidons, i.e. “king of the ants”, those tiny animals which clean in meticulous, collective, and impersonal labour, down to the smallest detail, right down to the bone (And we are even as the ant in our toil…). And for most humans, death is as mysterious and unconscious as it is for animals ([…] and the beast in our dying).
Only absolute faith in the Divine, endurance and total and unconditional surrender can enable us to progress beyond the present miserable human unconsciousness and realise illumination of the different parts of our being (Only those who cling to the hands of the gods can rise from the earth-mire. Children, lie prone to their scourge, that your hearts may revive in their sunshine). Trials never last indefinitely, and however unbearable they may be, they are always followed by moments of joy that help forget the suffering endured previously (This is our lot! when the anger of heaven has passed then the mortal raises his head; soon he heals his heart and forgets he has suffered).
Yet if resurgence from weakness and shame were withheld from the creature,
Every fall without morrow, who then would counsel submission? 440
But since the height of mortal fortune ascending must stumble,
Fallen, again ascend, since death like birth is our portion,
Ripening, mowed, to be sown again like corn by the farmer,
Let us be patient still with the gods accepting their purpose.
Sri Aurobindo then refers to the trials that punctuate the evolutionary path: errors of orientation, manifestations of incon-science and ignorance from which we come, as well as of our own egos.
These falls, during which we experience the manifestations of our inconscience – fears, anxieties and doubts, as well as the weakness of our nature and the shame of this weakness –, are always followed by resurrection. For this is the principle of evo-lution: man learns from his failures and mistakes. Thus, it is the hope at the end of the dark tunnel, the hope of a happy tomorrow, that enables man, instead of being stubborn or rebelling, to agree to submit when fate seems to be against him. (Yet if resurgence from weakness and shame were withheld from the creature, every fall without morrow, who then would counsel submission?).
On the other hand, the yoga movement is a process of ascent followed by integration to illuminate and purify the corresponding parts of the lower nature. This integration may take the form of falls. All parts of the being must be brought up to the newly ac-quired level. So, there is always an end to the process of integration. (But since the height of mortal fortune ascending must stumble, fallen, again ascend).
Finally, it is mental cycles that govern the current evolution, for small things as well as for large ones. And so, at the apex of any movement there necessarily follows what may appear to be a fall, followed by a new movement that continues the previous one, but at a higher level. In the same way, birth and death punc-tuate the cycle of reincarnations, with the progressive integration of experiences into the psychic being (since death like birth is our portion).
This movement of growth and decline, of climax and fall, is characteristic of the formations of the overmind – those of the world of the gods – that have succeeded one another in humanity for millennia. But this will no longer be the case with a supramental creation, because the destruction of forms will no longer be necessary for evolution. Things will indeed be able to transform themselves without prior destruction (Let us be patient still with the gods accepting their purpose).
Deem not defeat I welcome. Think not to Hellas submitting
Death of proud hope I would seal. Not this have I counselled, O nation,
But to be even as your high-crested forefathers, greatest of mortals.
Troya of old enringed by the hooves of Cimmerian armies
Flamed to the heavens from her plains and her smoke-blackened citadel sheltered
Mutely the joyless rest of her sons and the wreck of her greatness. 450
Courage and wisdom survived in that fall and a stern-eyed prudence
Helped her to live; disguised from her mightiness Troy crouched waiting.
From all the above in Antenor’s speech, one might think that he has adopted the Achaean point of view, thereby justifying being called a traitor to his homeland. But this wisdom does not advise total abdication, which would mean abandoning the yoga of love and the necessary union with the Divine in the spirit. In fact, this symbol of wisdom advocates a recognition that times have changed and that the forces of the spirit are temporarily taking humanity in a different direction. The seeker must therefore retreat into the inner worlds, develop patience and endurance, save from the destruction of his yoga what can still be saved, until the time for the resurrection of the old movement has come, with a new progression in love and a further ascension of the planes of consciousness (Deem not defeat I welcome. Think not to Hellas submitting death of proud hope I would seal).
This is not the first great trial that the seeker has encount-ered in his yoga. Through his qualities and spiritual practices, he has always been able to maintain his faith and determination in the face of trials, especially those linked to the conquest of the illumined mind from the higher mind (Not this have I counselled, O nation, but to be even as your high-crested forefathers, greatest of mortals).
The following verses refer to what spiritual literature calls “dark nights”. In Christian literature, Saint John of the Cross de-scribes two of them, “the night of the senses” and “the night of the spirit”[48], the first concerning only the beginnings of the path. Sri Aurobindo, in Savitri, describes several of them, each darker and darker. First in Book II, Canto VII, The Descent into Night, then in Book IX, Canto I, Towards the Black Void, and Canto II, The Journey in Eternal Night, and the Voice of Darkness. These nights occur at different times in yoga. They gradually bring to the seeker’s consciousness the depths of humanity’s unconsciousness and all its horrors, depths with which he is in solidarity. The fact that they rise to consciousness does not, of course, mean that they are acted upon, but they are experienced by the seeker as if they were very much his own and thus generating a terrible anxiety.
These trials are called “nights” because the seeker no longer perceives any light to guide or comfort him. In fact, the spiritual path is made up of countless nights followed by returns to the light, for there is no night so dark that it does not promise a new day. Sri Aurobindo told us that the seeker should not attach any particular importance to these nights.
In The Odyssey, Canto XI, verse 13 onwards, Homer gives us a description of a “dark night”:
“She came to deep-flowing Oceanus, that bounds the Earth, where is the land and city of the Cimmerians, wrapped in mist and cloud. Never does the bright sun look down on them with his rays either when he mounts the starry heaven or when he turns again to earth from heaven, but baneful night is spread over wretched mortals.”
The ancients had the Cimmerians reside in the West, at the roots of evolution, where no light from the supramental world of truth reaches, because the sun never shines there, either in the spirit or in the bodily consciousness.
In the early stages of spiritual transformation, long before liberation (Ilus), the seeker plunged into a terrible dark night (Troya of old enringed by the hooves of Cimmerian armies).
However, these nights are purifying nights: purifying the senses, purifying the mind and spirit, purifying the layers of deep vital close to the body, and finally purifying the cells. Here we are talking about the purification of the spirit in its entirety, and abandoning some glorious realisations (Flamed to the heavens from her plains and her smoke-blackened citadel sheltered mutely the joyless rest of her sons and the wreck of her greatness).
However, amid the collapse of the seeker’s being, courage and wisdom, perhaps in the sense of a perfect mastery over the mind, endured (Courage and wisdom survived in that fall). What is more, his determination to carry out his task to the very limits of his possibilities, together with great inner peace and clear discernment, enabled him to get through this ordeal (a stern-eyed prudence helped her to live).
But at the same time as this ordeal, the seeker also comes to feel a growing power within him, which he is nevertheless obliged to conceal from the outside world, demonstrating great humility, endurance, and patience (disguised from her mightiness Troy crouched waiting).
Teucer descended whose genius worked at this kingdom and nation,
Patient, scrupulous, wise, like a craftsman carefully toiling
Over a helmet or over a breastplate, testing it always,
Toiled in the eye of the Masters of all and had heed of its labour.
So in the end they would not release him like souls that are common;
They out of Ida sent into Ilion Pallas Athene;
Secret she came and he went with her into the luminous silence.
Teucer’s children after their sire completed his labour. 460
By using the word descended, Sri Aurobindo is probably referring to help from the planes of the spirit during the entry into the illumined mind that corresponds to the founding of Troy. On the outer plane, perhaps it was the incarnation of an Avatar (Teucer descended).
We have already mentioned Teucer, king of “burning” Phryg-ia, the province symbolising the inner fire, Agni. He is a son of the river Scamander, symbol of the stream of consciousness-energy that leads to individuation and the aspiration to break down limits. Scamander united with Idaea, “union in consciousness”. The name indicates a just movement of separation to conquer the freedom of the spirit.
After this night of the spirit, which occurs during the tran-sition from the higher mind to the illumined mind, the seeker works out step by step his progression on this latter plane, both on the level of the spirit and on that of incarnation (Teucer descend-ed whose genius worked at this kingdom and nation).
To do this, the seeker must exercise qualities of patience, integrity, meticulousness, accuracy, and intelligence, constantly putting his discoveries to the test (Patient, scrupulous, wise, like a craftsman carefully toiling over a helmet or over a breastplate, testing it always, toiled in the eye of the Masters of all and had heed of its labour).
This is evocative of a text by Sri Aurobindo written on August 30, 1932:
“Both the Mother and myself […] do not found ourselves on faith alone but on a great ground of knowledge which we have been developing and testing all our lives. I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the physical plane. That is why I am not alarmed by the aspect of the world around me or disconcerted by the often-successful fury of the adverse Forces who increase in their rage as the Light comes nearer and nearer down to the field of earth and Matter.”[49]
The “liberation” obtained at the end of this process is more than the experience of a simple liberation of the spirit, of union with the Self, with the Divine in the spirit. It is accompanied by the definite acquisition of a mental silence, a gift of the spiritual forces brought by years of yoga (So in the end they would not release him like souls that are common; they out of Ida sent into Ilion Pallas Athene; secret she came and he went with her into the luminous silence).
Sri Aurobindo acquired this mental silence from the Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele in three days, in December 1907, when he was 35 years old, after expressing that he wanted to do a yoga of action, and not a yoga of renunciation of life (Sannyasa and Nirvana). Sri Aurobindo passed this mental silence on to Mother during one of their first meetings.
We are talking here about the mental silence we acquire at the beginning of our entry into the illumined mind and not the mind of light which, in its ultimate development, is on the borderline between the overmind and the supramental. Indeed, in his book The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, Chapter VII, Supermind and Mind of Light, Sri Aurobindo clearly indicates that this mind of light cannot be subject to error, and that it is therefore situated well above the plane where the Trojan War symbolically takes place, which marks the end of the yoga that separates spirit from matter: “What we have specifically called the ‘Mind of Light’ is in fact the last of a series of descending planes of consciousness where the Supramental veils itself by voluntarily limiting or attenuating the activities that manifest it, but its essential character remains the same: it is a functioning of light, truth, knowledge, in which inconscience, ignorance and error can claim no place.”
The plane of the illumined mind had to be stabilised until it became permanent, which is what Teucer’s descendants did (Teucer’s children after their sire completed his labour), with Dardanus (the right movement towards union in the spirit), Tros (the right movement towards the heights of the spirit), Ilus (liber-ation of the spirit), Assarakos (inner peace), Ganymede (who cares for joy) and Laomedon (mastery of the personality or outer being).
Now too, O people, front adversity self-gathered, silent.
Veil thyself, leonine mighty Ilion, hiding thy greatness!
Be as thy father Teucer; be as a cavern for lions;
Be as a Fate that crouches! Wordless and stern for your vengeance
Self-gathered work in the night and secrecy shrouding your bosoms.
Let not the dire heavens know of it; let not the foe seize a whisper!
Ripen the hour of your stroke, while your words drip sweeter than honey.
The seeker has finished his argument. Then come the recom-mendations of this high wisdom to the rest of the being. All that made the greatness of the psychic transformation and of the realisation of union in the spirit must withdraw into the back-ground, concentrated, without revolt, without regret, with courage, without any outward manifestation of the power gained in this yoga (Now too, O people, front adversity self-gathered, silent. Veil thyself, leonine mighty Ilion, hiding thy greatness!).
Sri Aurobindo uses the image of the lion twice. The first time as a qualifier for the form of past yogas (leonine mighty Ilion) and the second time to evoke an impregnable part of the being capable of containing great power (be as a cavern for lions).
It therefore suggests that these realisations, goals, and yoga practices withdraw from the frontal combat against the forces that are now manifesting themselves in the being and patiently, without external manifestation, await a more favourable period for their resurrection (Be as a Fate that crouches! Wordless and stern for your vengeance self-gathered work in the night and secrecy shrouding your bosoms).
These goals and practices of yoga must be maintained un-beknown to the forces of the spirit and other forms of yoga, in a semblance of acceptance of the new movement. Faith in the realisations of the past obtained by discernment must not waver, since this is the only hope of evolution for mankind (Let not the dire heavens know of it; let not the foe seize a whisper! Ripen the hour of your stroke, while your words drip sweeter than honey).
Sure am I, friends, you will turn from death at my voice, you will hear me!
Someday yet I shall gaze on the ruins of haughty Mycenae.
Is this not better than Ilion cast to the sword of her haters, 470
Is this not happier than Troya captured and wretchedly burning,
Time to await in his stride when the southern and northern Achaians
Gazing with dull distaste now over their severing isthmus
Hate-filled shall move to the shock by the spur of the gods in them driven,
Pelops march upon Attica, Thebes descend on the Spartan?
Then shall the hour now kept in heaven for us ripen to dawning,
Then shall Victory cry to our banners over the Ocean
Calling our sons with her voice immortal. Children of Ilus,
Then shall Troy rise in her strength and stride over Greece up to Gades.
This high wisdom and sainthood is almost convinced that the rest of the being will hear its arguments and be certain that the opposing movement will not last long (Sure am I, friends, you will turn from death at my voice, you will hear me! Someday yet I shall gaze on the ruins of haughty Mycenae).
This wisdom imagines that the different parts of the being that are now working together for a new yoga will soon no longer be able to get along, each already claiming to be an indispensable foundation for the new yoga. The isthmus of Corinth characterises intellectual mental effort. To the south of the isthmus are the provinces that represent the work of purification (Argolida), concentration and abolition of the ego (Achaia), openness to the new (Lakonia), acquisition of quiet strength (Arcadia) and union in liberation (Elidia), to the north those that symbolise yogas based on intellectual discernment (Time to await in his stride when the southern and northern Achaians gazing with dull distaste now over their severing isthmus).
The term Achaians refers to the entire coalition against Troy. It is made up of the letter Chi (Χ), a symbol of concentration, coming together or the abolition of the ego. But each province of ancient Greece is also the symbol of a particular yoga that tends to impose itself.
Pelops, son of Tantalus, is the symbol of the development of aspiration. He gave his name to the Peloponnese. Attica is the region of Athens, the symbol of the evolution of the inner being to master the outer being. Pelops march upon Attica would be to oppose the aspiration to the development of the inner being.
Thebes, situated to the north of Attica, is the city of purifica-tion (see the Theban Wars with the symbolic aim of the purification of the seven chakras). Purification should be understood as “putting everything in its place” and ultimately, according to the definition in the Mothers’ Agenda, (Volume IV, 25 September 1963): “To be pure is to be open only to the influence of the Supreme and to no other”. Sparta is the city of which Menelaus is king, the city of “what is sown”, the symbol of new forms in tune with evolutionary truth (Helen). With Thebes [which] descend on the Spartan, there would be a conflict between the primacy of the yoga of purification of the centres of consciousness and that of evolutionary truth, which implies new forms.
If the seeker knows how to wait for the evolutionary move-ment of consciousness to do its work (over the Ocean), he can be sure that the yoga of love associated with union in the spirit will once again become the essential movement of evolution (Then shall the hour now kept in heaven for us ripen to dawning […] Then shall Troy rise in her strength).
We saw earlier that the city of Gades, situated in the ex-treme south-west of present-day Spain, and therefore the furthest west of the known lands, is probably taken here as the symbol of the greatest spiritual advance in Knowledge (Then shall Troy […] stride over Greece up to Gades).
So Antenor spoke and the mind of the hostile assembly 480
Moved and swayed with his words like the waters ruled by Poseidon.
Even as the billows rebellious lashed by the whips of the tempest
Curvet and rear their crests like the hooded wrath of a serpent,
Green-eyed under their cowls sublime, — unwilling they journey,
Foam-bannered, hoarse-voiced, shepherded, forced by the wind to the margin
Meant for their rest and can turn not at all, though they rage, on their driver, —
Last with a sullen applause and consenting lapse into thunder,
Where they were led all the while they sink down huge and astonished,
So in their souls that withstood and obeyed and hated the yielding,
Lashed by his censure, indignant, the Trojans moved towards his purpose: 490
Sometimes a roar arose, then only, weakened, rarer,
Angry murmurs swelled between sullen stretches of silence;
Last, a reluctant applause broke dull from the throats of the commons.
In these lines, we see what part of the seeker which, at first rebellious to this high wisdom, gradually accepts its point of view despite itself, as if subjected to a force that dominates it (So in their souls that withstood and obeyed and hated the yielding, lashed by his censure, indignant, the Trojans moved towards his purpose).
Sri Aurobindo seems to be describing an opposition of the vital to this wisdom, for Poseidon is the master of the subconscient and the one who generates emotional storms. But it is an oppo-sition that cannot turn against the forces that direct it (can turn not at all, though they rage, on their driver), and which must finally agree to bow down (Last with a sullen applause and consenting lapse into thunder). For these expressions of the vital were in fact constantly directed by the higher forces that led them where they wanted (shepherded, forced by the wind to the margin meant for their rest […] where they were led all the while).
The acceptance of this point of view, however, is very far from receiving enthusiastic approval from all the parts of the being that support the ancient forms of yoga (Last, a reluctant applause broke dull from the throats of the commons).
Silent raged in their hearts Laocoon’s following daunted;
Troubled the faction of Paris turned to the face of their leader.
He as yet rose not; careless he sat in his beauty and smiling,
Gazing with brilliant eyes at the sculptured pillars of Ilus.
Doubtful, swayed by Antenor, waited in silence the nation.
The practices inspired by the force working at the devel-opment of the mind of light, inspiration “darkened by fate”, cannot accept this path advocated by an outdated wisdom (Silent raged in their hearts Laocoon’s following daunted).
The forms of yoga that support the quest for equality ac-quired through renunciation are disoriented and wait for the seeker to take a stand in this domain (Troubled the faction of Paris turned to the face of their leader). But this yoga that has reached true realisation (in his beauty) is for the moment in the background and does not seem to have a definite position on the evolutionary process (careless […] and smiling). It remains focused on the foundations of the quest for a greater freedom that have enabled development up to this point (Gazing with brilliant eyes at the sculptured pillars of Ilus).
These last verses conclude that the development of the highest wisdom, which clings to the past and wants at all costs to avoid the destruction of the forms of spirituality that have enabled so much experience and realisations, comes to an end.
***
Historical Map of Classical Greece and Athenian Empire about 450 BC, Credits to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
[1] Note from 1979 in Satprem’s commentary on The Mother’s Agenda, Volume IV, October 16, 1963
[2] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book II, Chapter XXVI on The Ascent towards Supermind (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 2005).
[3] Homer, Iliad, Book XVII
[4] Mother’s Agenda, Volume IX, 25 September 1968
[5] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Chapter XXVI, The Ascent towards Supermind
[6] Sri Aurobindo, Aphorism 238: “Break the moulds of the past, but keep safe its gains and its spirit, or else thou hast no future”
[7] Ilion, Book II, line 221
[8] See Mother’s Agenda, Volume II, 18 avril 1961, in which the Mother explains that “everything is already there from all eternity, even though here it gives us the impression of a becoming.” and further: “This leads to the understanding that things can simultaneously be absolutely free and absolutely determined.”
[9] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book II, Part II, Chapter XXVI, The ascent towards Supermind
[10] Sri Aurobindo, Ilion, Book I, 546
[11] Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Chapter XX on Swabhava and Swadharma
[12] See further, verse 289
[13] See further, verse 290
[14] Mother’s Agenda, Volume II, February 18, 1961.
[15] Mother’s Agenda Volume II, February 25, 1961.
[16] Sri Aurobindo, On Thoughts and Aphorisms
[17] Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book II, Canto 10, lines 742-743 and 750-751
[18] Hesiod, Works and Days
[19] V. Murugesu, A Commentary on Sri Aurobindo’s Poem Ilion
[20] Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p 136
[21] Hesiod, Works and Days ll. 156-169b, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White.
[22] Satprem’s note in Mother’s Agenda, Volume II, 8 August 1961
[23] Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book II, Canto XIII, lines 6 and 13.
[24] Savitri, Book II, Canto XIII, lines 6 and 52.
[25] Savitri, Book II, Canto XV, lines 20, 24, 120 and 180.
[26] Sri Aurobindo, Journal of Yoga.
[27] Savitri, Book I, Canto III, lines 802-804
[28] Mother’s Agenda, Volume II, 18 april 1961
[29] Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book III, The Book of the Divine Mother
[30] Mother’s Agenda, Volume IV, 13 March 1963
[31] A study presenting a hypothesis concerning the cycles of the mind in the history of humanity can be found on the author’s website greekmyths-interpretation.com.
[32] Mother’s Agenda, Volume IV, 23 November 1963
[33] On this subject, see the text of Mother’s Agenda quoted above
[34] Homer, Iliad, Book III, line 146, translated by A.T. Murray. These old men are Priam the redeemed, Panthous “the one swift in all things”, priest of Apollo, Thymoetes “the soul turned to the heights of the spirit”, Lampus “brilliant, luminous”, son of Laomedon, Clytius “famous conscience”, son of Laomedon, Hicetaon “who comes in supplication”, son of Laomedon and father of Melanippus “a black force”, whom Homer describes as “scion of Ares”, and Ucalegon “who does not worry”.
In Canto XX, Homer confirms that Lampys, Clytius and Hicetaon are indeed sons of Laomedon, whereas later tradition has it that Heracles killed all the male children of Laomedon during his punitive expedition except Priam, who was not present.
[35] Homer, Iliad, Book VII, line 353
[36] Homer, Iliad, Book VI, line 298
[37] Mother’s Agenda, Volume II, 8 August 1961
[38] Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Book II, Part IV: The Yoga of Self-Perfection, Chapter IX: The Liberation of the Nature (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1999).
[39] Ibid.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Mother’s Agenda, Volume I, 12 November 1957
[42] The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter III, Verse 4
[43] Emerald Tablet, Twelfth Century Latin’s translation
[44] Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, p222
[45] This lineage is described in detail in the Trojan royal lineage on the website greekmyths-interpretation.com.
[46] Homer, Iliad, Book XIX.
[47] The line Speakers whose counsels persuaded our strength from the labour before us does not appear in the latest version published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram on their website in June 2020. To remain coherent with this version, we have therefore shifted the line numbers from this line onwards.
[48] Saint John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul
[49] Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, SABCL, Volume XXVI, p. 468-469