In his aphorism 76, Sri Aurobindo says: “Europe prides herself on her practical and scientific organisation and efficiency. I am waiting till her organisation is perfect; then a child shall destroy her.”
When Mother was asked to comment on this aphorism, she said (Agenda, 11 December 71): “Naturally, it is not the soil that will be destroyed, it is simply the power that is destroyed, because the earth cannot be destroyed”.
I began with this quotation to tell you that it is not at all the subject of the conference. We will not be looking at Europe in terms of its influence in the world or its power – or rather its loss of power, which is becoming more and more obvious as time goes by – but rather at what the soul of Europe is; its mission as seen by the ancient Greeks.
What was its mission, as defined almost 5,000 years ago, and what role did it have to play in the evolution of the world? We will try to answer this question in the light of Greek mythology.
Of course, it could be said that it was by chance that the territory we now call Europe took on this name, and that there are no grounds for seeing a connection with Greek mythology. But we believe that there is no such thing as chance, and that it is no “chance” that this territory is called Europe. If everyone agrees that the name comes from the myth of Europe in Greek mythology, then there must be a reason for it.
For those who do not know me, I have been working for nearly 30 years on an interpretation of Greek mythology, writing several volumes on the subject, and it is based on this research that I am going to tackle the myth of Europa.
So, let us start by looking at what the myth says:
Europa was a beautiful Phoenician princess and because she was so beautiful, Zeus, the king of the gods, fell in love with her. While she and her attendants were strolling along a Phoenician beach, Zeus took the form of a magnificent white bull and came to lie down beside her. Europa, who was not suspicious, caressed the bull and climbed onto his back. Zeus immediately entered the sea and carried her to Crete. There he returned to his divine form, in human guise, and Europa bore him two children, Minos and Rhadamanthus.
That is the myth. It is very short and does not tell us much, except that Europa lived somewhere in the East – we will see later where Phoenicia was – that she was very beautiful and that she was a princess. We do not know much more than that.
When you study Greek mythology, you cannot understand a myth if you do not look at the genealogy into which it fits – otherwise you can make it say anything, as Freud did when he used the myth of Oedipus to illustrate his thesis on psychoanalysis. So that is what we are going to look at first, to try and understand where this myth fits in.
The Greeks had described two great lineages. The first – the lineage of Iapetus – corresponds to the evolution of mental consciousness according to the seven planes of consciousness that Sri Aurobindo described and that some people may be familiar with. They are represented by the seven Pleiades. This lineage corresponds to the ascension of the planes of consciousness and it is in this lineage that we find great heroes such as Bellerophon, Hector and many others.
The other field of work that Sri Aurobindo indicated to us – the lineage of Oceanos, to which Europa belongs – illustrates a process of purification/liberation, the aim of which is to purify the traces of the evolution that has been directed by Nature since the origin of the earth.
Progress is made through a series of innumerable ascents/purifications; the two processes being partly linked: the higher we climb, the further we can descend to purify and liberate ourselves.
With Oceanos, we are in the process of purification. It begins with Inachus, whose name means “evolution of concentration” – note in passing that the whole purification process is based, according to the Greeks, on a progressive development of concentration.
The son of Inachus, Epaphus, whose name means ‘contact with the divine’, evokes a first spiritual experience. It occurs when, for example, in childhood, we have an experience of “what is Real”, an experience of “It exists”, something unusual and extraordinary that really surprises us.
And it is this experience, this very first “contact with the Divine” that, one day or other, will put us on the path and set in motion our spiritual progression. It is this experience that we want to rediscover in the myth of Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece, and later make permanent in the myth of Ulysses.
It is also worth noting that this genealogical scheme also deals with the organisation of the dominant spirituality in the different regions of Antiquity.
Epaphus’ daughter had twins, Agenor, and Belus. The first settled in Phoenicia and had two children, Cadmos and Europa. The second stayed in Egypt and had twins, Danaos and Egyptus.
When there are twins in a family tree, it means that the two processes illustrated by their descendants occur simultaneously, in other words that what develops with Belus continues at the same time in the descendants of Agenor.
With Belus, the myth is linked to the Danaids you may have heard of: the Danaids were women whose punishment was to try to fill a pierced barrel… indefinitely. So, let us look at this myth.
It takes place in ancient Egypt, around 4, 5 or 6,000 years ago. Egyptus had 50 sons and Danaus had 50 daughters. In Greek mythology, women represent goals and experiences (or achievements when they have a union with a god) and men represent the qualities to be developed and the practices that enable these goals to be achieved.
Yet Egyptus and Danaus represent a spirituality that has reached full maturity. Why full maturity? Because 50 is the symbol of perfection in the world of forms. So here we have 50 goals or perfections and 50 practices and qualities, in other words a totality of practices and qualities and a totality of experiences and spiritual goals.
Egyptus absolutely wanted his sons to marry his brother’s daughters, but his brother did not agree. To escape the pressure exerted by his brother, he emigrated to Greece with his daughters. Egyptus pursued him with his 50 sons and Danaus finally told him that he agreed to marry his daughters to his sons. But in secret, he gave each of his daughters a dagger and ordered them to kill their husbands on their wedding night. They all did so, except one, Hypermnestra, who spared her cousin Lynceus.
This shows us that, in a short space of time, all the practices, all the efforts to develop cer