Ascent and Integration

The process of ascension with corresponding phase of integration/purification as described by Sri Aurobindo is reflected in the lives of the descendants of two Titans: Iapetus and Oceanos respectively.

The descendants of Iapetus illustrate the ascent of the seven planes of mind in the descendants of the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, and the corresponding experiences in the descendants of Prometheus.

In those of Oceanos, the process of integration/purification is illustrated in the narratives of following heroes finding their liberation:

Perseus, the conqueror of fear
Heracles, the author of the 12 labours among which the victory over the ego and over desires
Achilles, the great purifier of the depths of the vital
The descendants of Oedipus who perform the purification of the seven centres of consciousness-energy or chakras recorded in the Theban Cycle.

Cycles

Fifteen mentions:

Omnipotent, a lonely seer of Time,
Inward, inscrutable, with diamond gaze.
Attracted by the unfathomable regard
The unsolved slow cycles to their fount returned
To rise again from that invisible sea.
— Book 3 Canto 1

The aeons ever repeat their changeless round,
The cycles all rebuild and ever aspire.
— Book 3 Canto 4

The wise think with the cycles, they hear the tread
Of far-off things;
— Book 10 Canto 1

Vain are the cycles of thy brilliant mind.
— Book 10 Canto 1

These verses can be related to the myth of Prometheus (Also see The Cycles of the Mind).

The Hour Before The Gods Awake

It was the hour before the Gods awake
— Book 1 Canto 1 Line 1

Although this verse has no direct reference to Greek mythology, we have included it in the present study because of the Mother’s comments on it on various occasions. The Mother explains the tradition as reported by Theon:

So She (the universal Mother) made her first four emanations. The first was Consciousness and Light (arising from Sachchidananda); the second was Ananda and Love; the third was Life; and Truth was the fourth. Then, so the story goes, conscious of their infinite power, instead of keeping their connection with the supreme Mother and, through Her, with the Supreme, instead of receiving indications for action from Him and doing things in proper order, they were conscious of their own power and each one took off independently to do as he pleased—they had power and they used it. They forgot their Origin. And because of this initial oblivion, Consciousness became unconsciousness, and Light became darkness; Ananda became suffering, Love became hate; Life became Death; and Truth became Falsehood. And they were instantly thrown headlong into what became Matter. According to Theon, the world as we know it is the result of that. And that was the Supreme himself in his first manifestation. (…)
And once the world has become like that, has become the vital world in all its darkness, and they, from this vital world, have created Matter, …

— 27 January 1962

These emanations that separated from the Divine were later called Asuras.

In Evening talks (Purani), On the gods and Asuras, May 1924, Sri Aurobindo explains that “Pure Power is called Asura. It is the Vedic Asura and not the Puranic Asura.”

Greek mythology does not specify the original state of the first four emanations prior to this ‘separation’ from the Origin, but only their deviated forms under the action of the forces which were the cause of this separation.

These forces are illustrated by the couple formed by Echidna, ’the halt of evolution in union’, and Typhon, symbol of ignorance.

Zeus fighting Typhon Wikipedia file Zeus Typhon Staatliche. Public domain.

Their four children are Orthros, Cerberus, the Lernaean Hydra, and the Chimera.

It is to the Greek poet Hesiod, the oldest source available (towards the end of the 8th century BCE), that we turn to:

And in a hollow cave she (Ceto) bare another monster, irresistible, in no wise like either to mortal men or to the undying gods, even the goddess fierce Echidna who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin, eating raw flesh beneath the secret parts of the holy earth. (…)

Men say that Typhon the terrible, outrageous and lawless, was joined in love to her, the maid with glancing eyes. So she conceived and brought forth fierce offspring; first she bare Orthrus the hound of Geryon, and then again she bare a second, a monster not to be overcome and that may not be described, Cerberus who eats raw flesh, the brazen-voiced hound of Hades, fifty-headed, relentless and strong. And again she bore a third, the evil-minded Hydra of Lerna, (…)

She was also the mother of Chimera who breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift-footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion; in her hinder part, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay;

But she (Echidna or Chimera) was subject in love to Orthrus and brought forth the deadly Sphinx which destroyed the Cadmeans, and the Nemean lion, which Hera, the good wife of Zeus, brought up and made to haunt the hills of Nemea, a plague to men (…): yet the strength of stout Heracles overcame him.

— Theogony Hesiod, 295 ff (trans. Evelyn-White)

Echidna, based on the meaning of its structural consonants Χ and Δ, symbolises ‘the stopping of evolution in union’. This force is related to the story of the four primordial emanations that separated from the Divine Mother.

Echidna is a daughter of Phorcys and Keto, who represent the third and fourth phases in the development of life in the animal world, from the moment when the first brain was formed allowing at the later stage the formation of animal ego.

It is on the vital plane that this force appeared, due to the necessity of animal evolution, which had to make the first movement of separation from the herd, that is to say, from the group-spirit or group-soul, in order to form the animal ego. For the ego is precisely this ‘consciousness of being separate’.

This is confirmed by the Mother:

You see, they always speak of a "fall" — that’s not it! Not at all. If there was a fall, that was when the vital became a will of independence: that wasn’t at the beginning, it was quite some distance along the way… In the ancient tradition, they say that the Conscient became the Inconscient because it "cut itself off from the Origin" — It strikes me as stories told to children.

— Mother's Agenda Satprem, Volume 10, 22 February 1969

Echidna’s upper body is that of a nymph. Nymphs represent the forces of nature, as opposed to the forces of the spirit which include the gods. She has glaring eyes, the symbol of great perceptive capacity. At this level, it is more a power of instinctive rather than intuitive perception.

According to Hesiod, it is ‘full of the spirit of power’, i.e. irresistible. We find here the same idea as in the first emanations who perceive themselves as the Absolute, who are ‘conscious of their infinite power’.

The serpent is the symbol of evolutionary force. Located in the lower part of Echidna’s body, it indicates a thrust into the vital nature.

Echidna thus represents the force of nature that tends towards the ‘arrest of evolution in union’ under the pressure of evolutionary force. As long as it has not entered into a union, it is a neutral force.

A similar image appears in Genesis when the intuitive receptive feminine represented by Eve, the symbol of ‘that which perceives’, agrees to follow the evolutionary force embodied by the serpent, the most cunning of all animals, and partakes of the fruit of the tree that gives intelligence – the fruit that allows to acquire discernment.

As a consequence, there is separation from the Divine, the fall from Eden.

Echidna joins forces with Typhon, whose name means ‘smoky, blinded’, the symbol of the ‘ignorance’ from which we all come.

He is described as a giant winged monster, human in the upper part and having two snakes for legs. His head touches the stars and his arms stretched to the East and West.

It is the result of the union of Gaia, the principle of existence, with Tartarus, the symbol of Nescience.

The appearance of Typhon or Typhoeus can be traced to Savitri:

Something that wished but knew not how to be,
Teased the Inconcient to wake ignorance
— Book 1 Canto 1 Verse 33

Thus, according to Greek mythology, it is from a combination of the ‘cessation of evolution in union’ or ‘consciousness of being separate’ and the ‘ignorance’ or unconsciousness from which we come, that the four great asuras described by the Mother arise.

The Genealogy of Typhon and Echidna with their Four Offspring

1. Orthros

The first monster mentioned is Orthros. In Greek, ‘Orthos’ means rectitude, what is straight, the right inner growth. The name ‘Orthros’ is made up of the word ‘orthos’ into which is inserted the Greek letter R (Rhô) symbolic of inversion, thus conveying the idea of a distorted rectitude, of lying. (Rhô is, in fact, a double letter, conveying two opposite archetypal meanings. See www.greekmyths-interpretation.com)

Orthros is a two-headed dog with a snake’s tail that guards the purple herds of Geryon. These herds represent the divine powers of life. They become available to the seeker when all fears have been eradicated, including the fear arising from the body consciousness.

This achievement is illustrated by the Tenth Labour of Heracles, in which the hero had to bring back the herds of Geryon from the far West.

Geryon and Orthrus BnF CdM. Public domain.

According to the ancients, this achievement was impossible in its entirety in their time. For this reason Heracles erected the famous ‘Pillars’ which mark the limits of the inhabited world in the West’, even before he had reached Geryon’s land. This was, according to the ancients, the extreme limit that no seeker could claim to cross.

The Tenth Labour of Heracles was then only an anticipation of the future yoga.

2. Cerberus

The second monster is Cerberus, the hound of Hades, having two, three or fifty heads according to various authors.

Cerberus Louvre Museum. Public domain.

Cerberus is not the symbol of Death, but plays the same role in that he protects its secret. Whoever crosses the obstacle he represents cannot return to the mortal world.

And before them [the halls of Haides and Persephone] a dreaded hound Cerberus, on watch, who has no pity, but a vile stratagem: as people go in he fawns on all, with actions of his tail and both ears, but he will not let them go back out, but lies in wait for them and eats them up, when he catches any going back through the gates.

— Theogony Hesiod, 769 ff

Hades is the god of the underworld, the power that rules over the material unconscious. He is the brother of Zeus, and therefore a power of the overmind. The consonants in his name, Ι and Δ, indicate the union of matter and spirit in consciousness. Hence his dog is what prevents this reunification before the time has come, until the seeker is ready to face the naked truth, the reality as it is.

The secret of death can only be brought to consciousness very gradually by Persephone, the wife of Hades.

Fifty is an indication of totality in the world of forms, that is, the totality of experiences and realisations that must occur before the seeker can defeat Cerberus. Other authors mention only three heads, indicating that the union must be achieved on the three planes of the mind, the vital, and then the body.

3. Hydra

The third monster is the Hydra of Lerna. She has many heads which grow back as soon as they are cut off. She symbolises the desire and attachment that come from the illusion of separation and the suffering that results from it.

No sooner has one desire been satisfied than another arises. No sooner has one suffering due to lack been ended than another arises.

Hydra can be said to be the opposite of joy.

Lernaean Hydra Louvre Museum. Public domain.

In the Second Labour of Heracles, the Hydra is assisted by a giant crab, who stands for the ‘primordial capturing movement’ in man, of that which wants to seize what it believes it does not possess.

4. Chimera

The fourth monster is the Chimera. It is a lion in its front portion, a goat in the middle, and a snake in the rear, having a head of each.

The goat, symbolising aspiration, rests on the lion’s body which represents the ego.

This monster is the symbol of the negation of consciousness and light, of the illusion which is unconsciousness and darkness.

Chimera Apulia. Louvre Museum. Public domain

Chimera will be overcome by the grandson of Sisyphus, Bellerophon, that is, by the effort of discernment.

Sri Aurobindo seems to refer to this turn in the direction of evolution:

But while the magic breath was on its way, Before her gifts could reach our prisoned hearts, A dark ambiguous Presence questioned all. The secret Will that robes itself with Night And offers to spirit the ordeal of the flesh, Imposed a mystic mask of death and pain.
— Book 2 Canto 3

A tenebrous awakened Nescience,
Her wide blank eyes wondering at Time and Form,
Stared at the inventions of the living Void
And the Abyss whence our beginnings rose.
Behind appeared a grey carved mask of Night
Watching the birth of all created things.
A hidden Puissance conscious of its force,
A vague and lurking Presence everywhere,
A contrary Doom that threatens all things made,
A Death figuring as the dark seed of life,
Seemed to engender and to slay the world.
Then from the sombre mystery of the gulfs
And from the hollow bosom of the Mask
Something crept forth that seemed a shapeless Thought.
A fatal Influence upon creatures stole
Whose lethal touch pursued the immortal spirit,
On life was laid the haunting finger of death
And overcast with error, grief and pain
The soul’s native will for truth and joy and light.
A deformation coiled that claimed to be
The being’s very turn, Nature’s true drive.
A hostile and perverting Mind at work
In every corner ensconced of conscious life
Corrupted Truth with her own formulas;
Interceptor of the listening of the soul,
Afflicting knowledge with the hue of doubt
It captured the oracles of the occult gods,
Effaced the signposts of Life’s pilgrimage,
Cancelled the firm rock-edicts graved by Time,
And on the foundations of the cosmic Law
Erected its bronze pylons of misrule.
Even Light and Love by that cloaked danger’s spell
Turned from the brilliant nature of the gods
To fallen angels and misleading suns,
Became themselves a danger and a charm,
A perverse sweetness, heaven-born malefice:
Its power could deform divinest things.
A wind of sorrow breathed upon the world;
All thought with falsehood was besieged, all act
Stamped with defect or with frustration’s sign,
All high attempt with failure or vain success,
But none could know the reason of his fall.
The grey Mask whispered and, though no sound was heard,
Yet in the ignorant heart a seed was sown
That bore black fruit of suffering, death and bale.
— Book 2 Canto 7

Concepts

Ascent and Integration

Cycles