One of the shortest books in the world, but one of the most powerful, is called the Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali. It was written down in its final form in about 400 BC, but originated in the teachings of the Rishis.
Pantanjali tells the reader to concentrate on the strength of the elephant and by this means attain that strength. He says it is possible to know past lives by concentrating on the past. It would be wishful thinking to believe you or I might be able to perform these feats just like that. These are things that now, as then, only the most advanced, the highest initiates, can attain. The rest of us will only be able to do them in future incarnations.
The Rishis taught that the evolution of the whole cosmos is the goal of existence, and that the seeds of all this transformation lie in the human body.
In 5067 BC these gods were moving the cosmos towards the next stage of human evolution as the sun entered the sign of Gemini. Just as, earlier, the impulse for the evolution of humankind had moved eastwards from drowning Atlantis to India, now it began to move westwards, as it continues to do today.
10. THE WAY OF THE WIZARD
Zarathustra’s Battle Against the Powers of Darkness • The Life and Death of Krishna the Shepherd • The Dawn of the Dark Age
IN 5067 BC IN THE REGION WE NOW call Iran, the birth of a great new leader was foretold. We should picture his mother living in a small agricultural community, like the one unearthed at Çatal Hüyük
It was in the depths of an exceptionally harsh winter when the plague struck. Tongues were wagging in the community, accusing the young woman of witchcraft, claiming the storms, the plague, were her doing.
Then in the fifth month of her pregnancy she had a nightmare. She saw an immense cloud and from it emerged dragons, wolves and snakes that tried to tear her child from her body. But as the monsters approached, the child spoke from inside her womb to comfort her, and as his voice died away, she saw a pyramid of light descending from the sky. Down this pyramid came a boy holding a staff in his left hand and a scroll in his right. His eyes shone with inner fire, and his name was Zarathustra.
There are different schools of thought about the dates of Zarathustra. Some writers of the ancient world placed him at approximately 5000 BC, while others, such as Plutarch, at 600 BC. Again, this is because there was more than one Zarathustra.
The birth of the first Zarathustra unleashed storms of hatred. The king was in thrall to a circle of sorcerers who persuaded him the boy must die. He went to the young mother’s house and found the baby alone in his crib. The king was determined to stab the baby, but as he raised his hand, it became mysteriously paralyzed. Later he sent one of his servants to kidnap the child and abandon him in a wolf-ridden wilderness. But the pack of wolves the king hoped would tear the child in pieces saw something in his eyes and ran away terrified. The child grew to be the youth of his mother’s dream.
But the forces of evil knew their greatest enemy had come down to earth. They were just biding their time.
The Age of Gemini was one of division. It was no longer possible to live safely in Paradise, as people had lived in the Indian epoch. If the Indian epoch had been a recapitulation of the heavenly time before the separation of earth and sun, this new, Persian epoch was a recapitulation of the fiery period when the dragons of Lucifer had infected life on earth. Now the forces of evil reasserted themselves, led by Ahriman (the Satan of Zoroastrian tradition). The cosmos was invaded by hoards of demons that darkened the heavens. Demons thrust themselves between humans and the higher echelons of the spiritual hierarchies. If the Indian epoch was the time when the secret physiology of humankind was imprinted on human memory, then this Persian epoch is the time we look to for knowledge of demonology.
The hosts of demons against which Zarathustra led his own followers were also classified by him. These form the basis of classifications that the secret societies use today.
At this turning point in history people began to feel insecure on a level that today we call the existential. They were less sure that they lived in a cosmos that was ultimately benevolent, where everything would turn out right in the end. They began to suffer for the first time the species of fear that Emile Durkheim named anomie — fear of the destructive chaos that creeps in at the margins of life, that may attack us from the darkness outside the encampment or from the darkness that overwhelms us when we are sleeping. It may also lie in wait for us when we are dead.
WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP WE LOSE ANIMAL consciousness. In the teachings of the secret societies animal consciousness — or spirit — is pictured floating out of the body in sleep. This has two main consequences. First, without the animal element our body returns to a vegetating state. No longer sapped by the agitations of animal consciousness or the wearying effect of thought, the bodily functions that the vegetable element controls are renewed. We wake up refreshed.
Second, detached from the sensory perceptions of the body, the spirit enters an alternative state of consciousness, which is an experience of the sub-lunary spirit world. In dreams we perceive the spirit worlds, where we are approached by angels and demons and the spirits of the dead.
Or at least that is what humans experienced in the time of the Rishis. By the time of Zarathustra human nature had become enmeshed in matter and so corrupted that dreams had become chaotic and difficult to interpret. They were fantastical now and full of strange, distorted meanings. Still, dreams might contain promptings by spirits, fragments of past lives, even memories of episodes from history.
In deepest sleep the Third Eye may open and peer into the spirit worlds, but on waking we forget.
AFTER YEARS IN EXILE, THE YOUNG ZARATHUSTRA felt the need to return to Iran. On the border he had a vision. A gigantic shining creature of spirit came to meet him and told him to follow. Zarathustra had to take ninety steps to the spirit’s gigantic nine as the spirit swept over the stony ground, taking Zarathustra to a clearing, hidden by rocks and trees. There a circle of six other, similar spirits hovered above the ground. This shining company turned to welcome Zarathustra, and invited him to leave his physical body for a while in order to join them.
