Aegis

The aegis is a piece of cloth worn on the shoulders. It is one of the attributes of Zeus ‘the Aegis-bearer,’ who gives victory and fills the opponent with terror and makes him flee, as stated in the Iliad: Zeus shook the aegis, giving victory to the Trojans. (Iliad 17, 593)

In the Iliad, it is described as follows: It is ageless and immortal with a hundred tassels of pure gold hanging from it (Iliad 2.447).

Zeus lends it to his daughter Athena when she has to fight: About her shoulders Athena flung the tasselled aegis, fraught with terror, all about which Rout is set as a crown, and therein is Strife, therein Valour, and therein Onset, that maketh the blood run cold, and therein is the head of the dread monster, the Gorgon, dread and awful, a portent of Zeus that beareth the aegis (Iliad, 5.738).

Athena wearing the Aegis. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, CdM. Public domain

Zeus also lends it to Apollo, who is seen covering Hector’s body with it.

Aegis is usually described as an emblem of power and protection.

The word “aigis” means goat-skin. Wild goat is the animal that climbs to the highest extent in the mountains, which means that it is the symbol of that which can rise highest to the heights of the spirit; just as Heracles is clothed in the lion skin, indicating his victory over the ego, so whoever puts on the goat skin shows mastery over lower nature and liberation of the spirit.

This liberation also implies overcoming fear. The head of the Gorgon depicted on the aegis makes it the symbol of fearlessness.

If we consider the structuring consonants forming the name Aegis, Ι+Γ, then the Aegis could mean ‘the consciousness that rushes forward’. And Zeus stirring the Aegis would cause fear to that which is stuck to the old, that which does not want to change.

Sri Aurobindo uses this word only as a symbol of power.

Alpha and Omega

The first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Omega, are the Christian symbols of the beginning and the end. The first written record of the phrase ‘alpha and omega’ is found in some of the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament.

The phrase ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ (Koiné Greek: ‘ἐγώ εἰμί τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ Ὦ’), is an appellation of Jesus and of the Father in the Book of Revelation (verses 1:8, 21:6, and 22:13).

Ananke

Two mentions:

Ananke, the symbol of a binding and inevitable necessity or fate, is not personified in the oldest Greek authors, Homer and Hesiod. This character appears with the tragedies (by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides) and especially in the Orphic literature.

In Savitri, the two verses referring to Ananke seem contradictory but in fact indicate a progression. In Book 2, it is the elemental energies that govern our lives and are the instruments of a divine force – Ananke – organising what we call chance because we do not see the causes.

In Book 7, Sri Aurobindo indicates the possibility for man to reverse this pattern and become the master of his being on all planes, to acquire the powers that govern these planes, and thus become the absolute master of his destiny.

Anarchs

Two mentions:

The etymology of this word is αν+αρχη, which means ‘without beginning’, hence ‘without principle, without origin or without foundation’.

If we apply the archetypal symbols hidden behind the consonants of this word, we shall see that Anarchs are the powers that do not follow the right divine movement of origin.

This is confirmed in the preceding verses, Book 2, Canto 8:

And in Book 10, Canto 4:

Asphodel

In Homer, the Asphodel Meadows, which are located in the kingdom of the god Hades, are described as follows: “Past the streams of Oceanus they went, past the rock Leucas, past the gates of the sun and the land of dreams, and quickly came to the mead of asphodel, where the spirits dwell, phantoms of men who have done with toils.” (Odyssey, Book 24)

Asphodels, whose flowers are mostly white, we believed to be perennial plants.

The realm of Hades being that of the unconscious in the sense of Sri Aurobindo, linked to the body and matter, the spirits who stay in the mead of asphodel symbolise the experiences, progress and realisations achieved and completed that are kept by this material unconscious. They can therefore be preserved from life to life, hence the immortal character of flowers.

This corporeal unconscious cannot be discovered until the seeker has reached the heights of the overmind.

The realm of Hades is the place where spirit and matter are united, this god being the force that works for this union. In this task, he receives the help of his wife, Persephone, who establishes the link between the unconscious and the conscious since she spends part of the time with her husband Hades in the underworld, and the other part on the surface of the earth.

She is the daughter of Demeter, ’the mother of union'.

Sri Aurobindo mentions asphodel in the canto titled The Paradise of the Life-Gods, where the powers of the light of Truth, the sun-herds, bloom.

Bacchic | Dionysian | Maenad

Three mentions of Bacchic, three of Dionysian, one of Maenad:

In Book 1, Canto 5, reference is made to the mind as a mediator divinity (Line 381: Mind is a mediator divinity), which can call forth divine ecstasy or, on the contrary, the rectification of a grave error on the spiritual path (See Fury).

Bacchus is the Latin name of Dionysus, the god of wine and drunkenness in the Greek-Roman tradition.

He is, in fact, the force that leads to union with the divine through the path of devotion, the union that can lead to ecstatic trance as mentioned in the following lines:

And:

The word ‘ecstasy’ means ‘being outside oneself’ and refers to the state where the individual feels ’transported out of oneself’ characterised by rapture, vision, enjoyment or extreme joy. Dionysian devotees become ‘ενθεος’, that is, ‘in the Divine’, ’enthusiasts’ or ‘amazed’.

Therefore, in the earliest times, the Graces or Charites were viewed as the companions of Dionysus. The followers of Dionysus were called ‘Thyades’, meaning ’the Inspired’.

In Book 1, Canto 5, as the quoted verse contains two opposite elements, Sri Aurobindo uses the term ‘Bacchic’ in its archaic sense, of ecstatic trance in the Divine, opposed to the Fury’s goad.

Dionysos, Ariadne, satyrs and maenads. Louvre Museum. Public domain

But these mystical trance states can also lead to overflow if the vital has not been sufficiently purified. This deviance is best illustrated by Euripides, although he was not an initiate.

In Savitri, it is mentioned in the following lines:

When the excesses to which these ecstasies could lead became apparent, the god’s followers took the name of Maenads derived from the verb ’to be delirious’, Bacchae and many other names. The word ‘Bacchae’ or ‘Bacchantes’ referred to the women totally in the grip of mystical delirium. In this late period, the god was also accompanied by Silenes and Satyrs and sometimes the god Pan.

Sri Aurobindo uses the word ‘Maenad’ to signify that which is driven by desire.

The Islands of the Blest

Seven mentions:

The Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed (μακάρων νῆσοι, makárōn nêsoi) are mentioned by Hesiod when he refers to the fourth race, “a god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods, the race before our own, (…) And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deep swirling Ocean, happy heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year, far from the deathless gods, and Cronos rules over them;”

If the Titan Cronos is the lord of this place, it is because the corresponding parts in the seeker are no longer under the domination of the mind (far from the deathless gods).

Homer mentions only the Elysian Fields (Odyssey, 4.560-565).

Elysium, otherwise known as the Elysian Fields, Ἠλύσιον πεδίον, means, based on the symbolism of its consonants: (πέδον + Ι+ Ἠλύσιον), “the land of consciousness where the human spirit is free”. That is, liberation of the spirit as defined by Sri Aurobindo.

This confirms what is said in this study of the demigods.

Most authors have identified the Elysian Fields with the Isles of the Blessed.

These two regions are associated with liberation of the spirit, and with the great overthrow of Yoga illustrated by the Trojan War, but it is not possible for us, for want of further evidence, to distinguish them with certainty.

Centaur

Five mentions:

Centaurs are depicted in the primitive tradition as men having the belly and hindquarters of a horse.

Centaur Chiron. National Museum in Warsaw. Public domain

They represent the seekers who are ‘propelled’ by a very strong vital energy. For the Greek poet Pindar, they are similar ‘to their mother in the lower part, and to their father in the upper part’, a description that probably led to their most common representation in which the front legs are also those of a horse.

Herakles wrestles down the Centaur Nessos. National Archaeological Museum of Athens, CC BY-SA 2.5 Μαρσύας Own work, 2005.

With the exception of one, Chiron, the Centaurs are the result of the union of the hero Ixion with a cloud – an eidolon – of Hera.

The name Ixion means ‘a perception of truths by identity’. He represents a fairly advanced seeker who has reached the overmind and seeks to achieve a total union with the divine in spirit.

The story of Ixion can be summarised as follows: Ixion was guilty of perjury and even of an awful act amounting to a crime against a blood relative. No one could redeem him. Finally, Zeus took pity on him and purified him. Ixion was even allowed to share the delightful abode of the gods. But Ixion ‘showed himself to be extremely ungrateful, and not being able to sustain the excess of his happiness for long, he conceived in his blind delirium a furious passion for Hera, whom only the bed of the great Zeus is worthy of receiving’. Hera complained about this to her husband, Zeus. Zeus then fashioned a cloud in the image of his wife, and it was with this ghost that Ixion united. From this union was born a son, Centauros. And it was he who, mating with the wild mares from Magnesia, became the father of the Centaurs.

Ixion is thus the image of a fairly advanced seeker who has gone astray but finds the right path again. He may enjoy some of the powers that come with first access to the overmind, ’the delightful life of the gods’.

However, he thinks he is already at the end of the Yoga and deems himself much more advanced than he actually is. Indeed, if he has achieved a certain ascent to the overmind in the planes of the spirit, it is by rejecting life and imposing from above a mastery over the external nature which is not yet transformed. This is the meaning of his having the body of a horse as his lower part. Indeed, when Centaurs drink wine, they lose all control and their true nature comes to light.

In a way, it can be said that the Centaurs reflect some of the highest achievements of the ancient yoga – the yoga in the sense of Sri Aurobindo, i.e. the teachings and practices that have been preserved in various spiritual traditions to the present day. In spite of their powerful achievements, they show a certain spiritual pride in the sense that they think they are already at the summit of all the possibilities of the overmind and represent the highest point of human evolution.

In the progressive movement of purification, the attachment to these achievements will have to be abandoned: that is why in the myths the Centaurs are eventually hunted down by Heracles and by the Lapiths.

But there is an exception among the Centaurs, Chiron, who was not born of Ixion but of the Titan Cronos united with the nymph Philyra, ‘she who loves right evolution, the evolution according to the divine plan’, and therefore a symbol of a realisation in humility. Chiron is described by Homer as ‘the most righteous of the Centaurs’ (Iliad, xi. 831).

Raised by Apollo, the god of higher light, Chiron excelled in many arts, especially in the art of healing, i.e. the ability to reharmonise.

His name means ’the hand’, implying that these reharmonising powers used his hands as a tool to transmit divine energies.

The son of Cronos, he has the rank of a god and is therefore immortal. He symbolises the high achievements of ancient yoga accomplished in humility and total surrender.

Sri Aurobindo is thus referring to the powerful realisations of the ancient Yoga which were achieved through the mastery of nature imposed by the mind and personal will.

Chimaera (Chimera)

Three mentions:

The Chimera is the symbol of unconsciousness and darkness, and consequently of illusions. (See The Hour Before the Gods Awake)

Chimera Apulia. Louvre Museum. Public domain

In common parlance, it is also used to mean a thing impossible to achieve, a daydream.

Chimera is depicted winged, so it is a mental ideation.

Circean (from Circe)

Four mentions.

Sri Aurobindo uses the qualifier ‘Circean,’ derived from the name of the goddess Circe, four times, linking it to an inaccessible wonderland, to a witches’ dance, to a wine that has the effect of a harmful magic potion, and to isolated places of transmutation:

In Greek mythology, Circe is a sorceress, the daughter of Helios, the sun god. By means of potions and incantations, she could transform human beings into animals such as wolves, lions, and pigs. Such a transmutation happened to some of the companions of Odysseus (Ulysses).

Men turned into animals by Circe. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Wikimedia CC 2.0 photo by Lucas

The adjective ‘Circean’ therefore refers to the astonishing transformations which are usually carried out by witches or enchantresses endowed with supernatural powers. They use magic potions of their own composition to achieve this. Witches’ dances are often mentioned in folklore.

Circe is the daughter of the god Helios, the symbol of Light or Supramental Consciousness. Helios has two children, Aietes and Circe (the later tradition added Pasiphae).

Aietes symbolises ’the power of vision of the whole’, i.e. the vision of the consequences of any action on the whole. Circe, on the other hand, is ’the power of vision of details’, however minute and however profound. This ability is also called ‘penetrating vision’ when it begins to manifest.

Supramental consciousness presupposes the possession and simultaneous action of these two powers.

This is why Circe is able to make the seeker of Truth see that which is hidden in the depths of his being, that which is not yet purified, symbolized by wild animals and especially pigs.

Acquiring this power of vision in detail requires special achievements represented by the ability to make the appropriate magic potion.

The Mother mentions these two powers of light or supramental consciousness several times:

Demigod

In Greek Mythology

In Greek mythology, a serious error was made by most ancient authors about the meaning of the term ‘demigod’ (ΗΜΙΘΕΟΣ), namely that demigod is born from the union between a god and a mortal. The term was then used more generally for famous heroes without a genealogical meaning.

To understand its true meaning, we must rely on the poets Homer and Hesiod.

In the Iliad (XII, 23), the term appears only once, when the poet refers to the warriors who died at Troy, ‘the race of demi-gods’, without specifying which side they were fighting on.

In yoga, the Trojan War represents the point when the seeker, having achieved liberation of the Spirit, i.e., having realised the liberation from the ego and desires, and his unity with the Divine in Spirit, proceeds to the great reversal of Yoga in order to begin what Sri Aurobindo calls ’the liberation of Nature’ which is to lead to the supramental transformation. This liberation of the Spirit is half of the work of realising a divine life in a divinised body. Hence the term ‘demigod’.

Homer thus mentions in the Iliad the achievements made by the dead warriors in the context of this first liberation of the Spirit.

This term is not found in the Odyssey.

The poet Hesiod uses it only once when he describes, as a result of a gradual obscuring of Truth over time, the fourth ‘god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods’ (Works and Days, 159-160).

He suggests that there was a time when there were many more spiritual seekers than in his time, around the 8th century BCE, who had attained the oneness in spirit with the Divine and were faced with the question: what should be the direction of human evolution now? In the continuation of the ancient yoga or in a radical reversal involving the abandonment of all previous forms?

These demigod hero-men had fought before Thebes at the seven gates: they therefore represent the yoga - practices and abilities - which had carried out a purification and opening of the seven chakras or centres of force/consciousness.

Subsequently, Hesiod tells us, they fought against the Trojans to recover Helen: they symbolise what in the adventurer of consciousness was in favour of the reversal of yoga, since the divinisation of bodily matter appeared to them as the right direction of the evolution.

As Homer tells us through Zeus, Hera, and Sarpedon voices, demigod cannot attain absolute immortality: that is indeed reserved for those who have accomplished the supramental transformation. The consciousness of immortality in the spirit is only half-immortality.

In Savitri

Eleven mentions.

In Savitri, a demigod is unambiguously someone who has achieved liberation in the Spirit in the sense that Sri Aurobindo understands it, i.e. union with the Divine in the Spirit.

It is a step towards the realisation of the Superman, the intermediate between the present mental man and the future supramental man.

At this stage, only half of man is divinised, the half in spirit. This enables the second transformation, the spiritual transformation, to be completed. The reception of what is coming from the higher planes of consciousness is directly from the supramental and no longer through the psychic.

It is only the liberation of Nature or supramental transformation that will allow the total divinisation of man.

Eagle | Eagle-Peaks

Eighteen uses.

The eagle is considered the king of birds due to its strength, sharp and wide vision, and its graceful and powerful flight.

It is the symbol of the power of the mind and the highest knowledge - that which perceives both the whole and the detail.

For the Greeks, it was probably the highest-flying bird, as the golden eagle can reach 6000m in altitude. That is why it is the symbol bird of Zeus, who is the highest force in the overmind.

The eagle stands just above the boundary between the knowable and the realms of the unknowable. It is symbolically represented by the large eagle-like wings that appear, for example, at the top of the Caduceus of Hermes.

Some authors give Zeus the epithet ‘All-seeing,’ although this omniscience is in fact a characteristic of Helios, the sun, who is ‘Panoptes’, the supramental vision that sees all.

In fact, Zeus sees only the Truth can be seen from the top of Mt. Olympus, the highest point of the overmind, but not the totality of Truth.

The penetrating vision of the highest of the overmind is, however, far superior to that of the lower planes of the mind where the ordinary man stands.

Sri Aurobindo uses the image of the eagle for divine omniscience as well as for the intermediate powers of the highest thought and also the mental powers of the shadow (And Death’s black eagles scream to the precipice).

Enceladus

According to Apollodorus (i. 6. § 2), during the war between the gods and the giants, as Enceladus was fleeing, Athena threw the island of Sicily to crush him.

Virgil, in the Aeneid (iii. 578), gives another version of this story in which Enceladus is struck down by Zeus and the fire-breathing volcano Etna is placed over his shattered body.

The two versions are quite similar since the Etna volcano is the highest mountain in Sicily, although Apollodorus does not mention the volcano.

Since Sri Aurobindo mentions Mt. Etna, it is clear that it is Virgil’s version that he follows here.

The war of the gods against the giants is about the battle of the overmind forces associated to human forces against the evolutionary memories embedded in the body at the deepest level of the vital and even the cells.

Enceladus is one of the giants and represents ’the vibration of excitement’ which is in the body and which disappears or at least is kept at a very low level under the action of the inner master, Athena, who puts a tremendous pressure on it. If we consider that a volcano is thrown at Enceladus, then it indicates a strong purification by the pressure of the fire contained in matter, the fire in the cells which have achieved conscious unity with the divine. Mt. Etna must have been the highest volcano known to the ancient Greeks. The fire that emerges from its mouth possibly represents the burning flame of aspiration in the cells towards the Divine.

If the Titans represent the forces of creation that are temporarily neutralised in human evolution – they were consigned by Zeus to Tartarus – the giants, on the other hand, must be killed, for they stand for early evolutionary processes that must be annihilated in the yoga of the body. In order to defeat the giants, the gods had to ally themselves with a mortal and it was Heracles who fulfilled this role. This means that when man (i.e. humanity) has reached a sufficient level of development under the laws and direction of Nature, he must unite with the forces of the overmind and actively participate in his future evolution towards divinisation of the totality of his nature.

This struggle between the Gods and the Giants is not mentioned either in Homer or in Hesiod. Apollodorus places this fight just after the one of the gods against the Titans and identifies Enceladus with a gigantic primitive force equivalent to that of the Titans. In fact, we have every reason to believe that it is one of the most advanced battle in the yoga of the body, for it requires man’s conscious participation. It must therefore come after all the Labours of Heracles, for this hero was not yet born during the war of the gods against the Titans.

Fury

Two mentions:

As is often the case in mythology, the symbolism and deeper meaning of the characters was forgotten over time.

This is the case with the Erinyes who took the name of Furies in Roman mythology. From spiritual powers in charge of putting seekers back on the right path, they became the mere forces of vengeance, and appropriate names were given to them.

Originally, in Greek mythology, they were nothing but personifications of curses, i.e. a call to order pronounced upon one who has strayed from the right path.

It would seem, therefore, that Sri Aurobindo used the word ‘fury’ in both senses.

In Greek mythology, the Erinyes were the goddesses of retribution who punished men for crimes against the natural order. The worst were those committed against one’s parents - cutting the seeker off from his divine origin - or one’s children - preventing certain right developments from manifesting themselves.

Also, one could bring the curse of the Erinyes upon one’s relative in response to the latter’s wrongdoing. The most powerful of these was the curse of the parent upon the child.

According to Hesiod, the Erinyes sprung from the blood of Ouranos when he was castrated by his son Cronos: they appeared when the forces of creation entered into action. The structural consonants of the name ‘Erinyes’ are the same as those of Ouranos, Rho and Nu, (Ρ+Ν), those two names bearing therefore the same kind of symbolism, that is the evolution of the right movement of creation according to the divine plan. Being born from the blood of Ouranos, they represent the essence of what Ouranos symbolizes, that is to say the right evolution in the creation of the divine plan.

According to Homer, the Erinyes can also take vengeance on men in the netherworld, i.e. on a movement that has been inscribed in the unconscious.

The Erinyes were also believed to be receptive to the utterance of a just and true word.

The human misdeeds upon which the Erinyes are said to act are the only really serious transgressions on the path. But they are not irremediable since the Erinyes, ‘guardians of the right movement’, allow the right attitude to be found again. To bring the curse of the Erinyes upon someone is to call upon the forces that can help in the return to the right path.

That is why the Erinyes were also called Eumenides, which signifies ’the well-meaning’, or ‘soothed goddesses’, and in Athens ‘semnai theai’, that is to say “the venerable goddesses”.

It is worth noting that in the late Greek tradition, the name of one of the Erinyes, Telphoussa, was usually a byname for the goddess Demeter who represents the force helping the seeker to work towards unity (she is the mother – meter – of union, Δ)

It is, therefore, to the first meaning that Sri Aurobindo refers in Book 1: a spiritual spur.

It seems that in Book 7, Sri Aurobindo uses the word ‘fury’ in another sense: a tenebrous power, at least a dangerous force residing in the subconscient.

Gorgon

In Homer (Iliad, V, 741), Athena puts on her shoulders the Aegis on which is painted the head of the Gorgon, the dreadful monster.

Hesiod mentions in Theogony (line 270) three Gorgons of which only one is deadly, Medusa, who will be later killed by Perseus.

Apollodorus adds that all who looked at them were turned to stone.

The Gorgon Medusa symbolises the fear that paralyses those who identify with her by contemplating her.

Being the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, she appears at the very dawn of life, at the formation of the first brain in animal life, which centralised sensations and allowed the formation of a rudimentary memory.

Gorgon. Louvre Museum. Public domain

And it was the hero Bellerophon who mounted the winged horse Pegasus to kill the Chimera.

This story indicates that in order to get rid of unconsciousness and illusion – the Chimera – one must eliminate fear in order to be able to use the force that is then released represented by Chrysaor, the man with the “golden sword”, the symbol of implacable right action.

In this passage from Savitri, life is said to be distorted by some spell similar to fear generated by the paralysing glance of Gorgon Medusa.

Griffin

Griffin figurations can be found in Ancient Egypt as well as in Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE. It is also known in the Minoan period of Crete around 1600 BCE.

The myth of the Griffin is not taken up by Homer or Hesiod in the texts that have come down to us, nor by the Pseudo-Apollodorus who synthesised the most ancient mythology. However, figurations of the Griffin appear in Greek art around 700 BCE and on ceramics as early as the 5th Century BCE.

In the first surviving text to mention the Griffin, Prometheus warns the wandering Io:

The Griffin was a beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.

Door lintel with lion-griffins and vase with lotus leaf ca. 2nd–early 3rd century. The Metropolitain Museum. A.D. Parthian. Public domain

Historiae naturalis de quadrupedibus libri Jonstonus, Joannes. Public domain

In a way, it is a variant of the Egyptian sphinx as it appears in front of the pyramid of Giseh. The latter had the head of Pharaoh and the body of a lion, symbolising total mastery of the ego by a spiritualised mind.

The Griffin indicates total mastery of the ego by a mind that has reached the summit of the overmind, at the frontier of the supramental, where duality ceases. The eagle is a symbol of Zeus, symbol of the highest plane of the overmind.

The Griffins are described as guardians of the gold mines or, as in the Aeschylus text, about the flood of Plouton’s stream that flows with gold, i.e. streams of energy-consciousness that carry the riches of non-duality.

The Griffins are therefore a representation of the guardians of a particular threshold, that of duality or separation which has been introduced in humanity by the advent of the mental. This is why they are the dogs of Zeus: they are the guardians of his kingdom of the overmind before he will be dethroned by the second child to be given to him by Metis – Athena being the first – the one who will lead humanity to the supramental.

Pluto (Hades) is the god of the world of the unconscious, which contains the immense powers of the world that must be conquered with the supramental, the world of matter and of the cells. Hades can be considered as the god of the future.

The one-eyed Arimanians are symbols of omniscience.

Prometheus, the one who puts his quest for the divine first, warns Io, the symbol of the evolution of consciousness, not to try to escape duality, because it is in life, in incarnation, that liberation must be achieved, and not only in the planes of the spirit.

The Griffin Forefront of the Night and Day indicates a passage beyond the guardian of the threshold of non-duality in the spirit, towards a realm where the ego dissolves.

Herculean

Heracles, (Latin Hercules), is the great mythological hero who had to accomplish the twelve Labours deemed impossible. He is the symbol of the work of purification/liberation as described by Sri Aurobindo, namely first and foremost the liberation from desire and ego and the perfect mastery of the outer being. (More details?)

These labours represent the goals extremely difficult to achieve, hence the adjective Herculean, which signifies a gigantic, if not almost impossible, task.

The last two verses concern the gods who represent the forces of the supermind acting in the world of forms.

In mythology, the 12 gods are paired as opposing but also complementary forces. For instance, Zeus symbolises the power of expansion which pulls the seeker and also humanity forward as fast as possible, hence his countless lovers, each liaison representing a new impulse in the yoga or a new spiritual aid. His partner, Hera, is the opposing force which tends to limit this movement so that nothing remains behind, neither in the individual seeker nor in humanity.

This is why she constantly harasses Zeus’ lovers and their children.

Hierophant

Three occurences:

A hierophant is a person who shows or reveals the sacred truths, and is, therefore, an interpreter of sacred mysteries.

This could only be done by those initiated in the mystery schools and not the temple-keepers of the public, official religion. This is the reason why Hierophant was the title of the chief priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which was the school of initiation for advanced seekers in antiquity, which raised one to the degree of contemplation, that of the ’epopts'.

Ignorance

Ignorance is represented by Typhon (See It was the hour before the Gods awake). It is incompatible with the overmind. This is why the fight against Typhon was the first great battle of Zeus, who stands for the highest power of the overmind, after his victory over the Titans. The latter marked the end of humanity’s vital childhood and its entry into the discerning mind.

Nesciene (Tartarus)

Thirty mentions:

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. (Book 2, Canto 7)

In Greek mythology, this primordial Non-Being is called Tartarus. In Hesiod, it appears third, after Chaos, the symbol of the Absolute concentrated in Himself, and Gaia, the Being, just before the divine Ananda, Eros.

Nymphs | Dryad

Nymphs: three occurences, Dryad: one occurence.

In Greek mythology nymphs are personifications of the spirits of nature. Nymphs were considered to be deities of a lower rank.

Dryads are a category of nymphs specifically related to trees.

Sri Aurobindo uses this word in the canto The Birth and Infancy of the Flame to explain that the sensations related to perceptions of the powers of nature change.

Ocean

45 mentions (noun or adjective):

Most of the time, this word is used by Sri Aurobindo to describe immensity or vastness, either as a noun or as an adjective.

However, on a few occasions, it refers to the vast regions of consciousness unknown to humanity and explored only by the adventurers of consciousness.

In Greek mythology, the dual path of ascent and purification-liberation is exemplified by the descendants of the Titans Iapetus and Oceanos respectively. The latter represents the progressive enlargement of human consciousness towards total liberation: the liberation of Spirit and liberation of Nature, culminating in the divinisation of the body. This is why Oceanos encircles the earth and is the father of all the rivers which are the currents of consciousness-energy.

Paean

Three occurences.

In Homer, Paeon or Paean, was the physician of the gods. Twice in the Iliad he intervenes to heal the wounds inflicted on the gods Ares and Hades by mortals, respectively Diomedes and Heracles.

He thus represents the ability to heal or reharmonise the forces of the overmind in the adventurer of consciousness since the gods belong to the highest levels of the overmind. The art of healing, that is, of restoring harmony, is to erase the cause.

Sound seems to have this reharmonising capacity.

According to the Mother, some sounds can even kill or give life. On this subject, see the Mother’s Agenda where she relates her experience with Theon. Having found the sounds that could kill or give life in a trance, she refused to communicate them to Theon, who became furious and severed the subtle “cord” that linked her to her physical body.

There is, therefore, a kind of equivalence between the art of healing and sound.

This is why the Paean song appears as early as in Homer. In the Iliad, (X.391) Achilles asks his Myrmidons to sing the Paean after the death of Hector. It is both a song of victory and a song intended to restore Harmony: what had previously been divided, separating spirit from matter, was to be reunited, reharmonised.

This is also, the Mother tells us, one of the aspects that the “new Consciousness” insists on: no more exclusion. Consciousness should be all-inclusive. Not this or this, but this and this. (See Mother’s Agenda, 1969, Volume 10)

These songs were understandably dedicated to Apollo, the god of the Mind of Light and of healing through re-harmonisation which eradicates the cause of division. Apollo is also known as the ‘destroyer’ because he can destroy to fulfil his task.

Later, Paean becomes a byname of Asclepius (Latin name Aesculapius), another healer-god, a son of Apollo.

The name ‘Paean’ (παιάν) formed by the stucturing consonants Π+Ι, conveys a consciousness of balance and harmony.

Pillars of Hercules

Much of the end of Canto 4, Book 1, takes up images of the spiritual quest as illustrated, for example, by Jason and the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece or the Labours of Heracles.

The ‘gate of pillar-rocks’ most probably refers to the two Pillars of Hercules, which marked the limits of the achievements and possibilities of transformation known in ancient Greece.

It was Heracles who planted them at the end of the Labour of the Belt of the Queen of the Amazons, the symbol of the full mastery of the vital, or at the very beginning of the Labour of the Herds of Geryon, the symbol of the recovery of the divine gifts of life, which is also the first of the labours to take place in a mythical location. The poet Pindar, (5th century B.C.) speaks of it thus:

Prometheus

Prometheus is one of the four sons of the Titan Iapetus. The latter is the symbol of the development of human mental consciousness which must bridge the gap between the animal mind and the supramental.

His first son is Atlas, who was condemned by Zeus to carry the sky on his shoulders: ‘he supports the vast sky with his head and his tireless arms’. He is the symbol of the force that separates spirit from matter. His daughters, the seven Pleiades, represent the void that must be filled, the steps that humanity must climb in mental consciousness to reach the supramental. Sri Aurobindo has identified them as physical mind, vital mind, intellect, higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind and overmind.

Other sons of Iapetus include Prometheus, symbolising that which in man ‘puts forth his total submission to what resides in the centre of being’ and Epimetheus ‘that which remains on the surface of this submission’ – in other words, in appearances.

Hesiod tells us that the will of Prometheus was in conflict with that of Zeus.

It can be understood as an opposition of priorities, between the need for mental development and the need for surrender to the inner being. In fact, this surrender is likely to be illusory as long as discernment is not acquired. This is what is developed in the myth of Pandora to whom Epimetheus unites himself despite the warnings of his brother Prometheus.

Mythology records several episodes of this struggle. As Prometheus had tried to deceive Zeus, the latter hid the fire of heaven from the mortals. But Prometheus recovered the seed of fire, ‘sperma puros’, the contact with the inner fire, Agni, and gave it back to mortals hidden in a hollow fennel-stalk, unbeknownst to Zeus.

He was, therefore, considered a benefactor of humanity by the ancients, for he represents that which reconnects mental man with his inner divine source.

Zeus, in revenge, asked Hephaestus to create Pandora and gave her to Epimetheus: men would henceforth pursue illusory goals.

Finally, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a mountain and sent his eagle to torment him. Every day, the eagle would devour Prometheus’ liver, but it would miraculously regenerate at night.

Prometheus. Vatican Museum. Public domain

The action of the eagle represents the alternating influence of the powers of fusion and separation in the mind, manifested in the intellect and intuition.

As long as the ascent from the planes of the mind to the overmind is not achieved, Prometheus remains chained and man remains subject to the cycles of his own mind. (See The Cycles of the Mind)

Sri Aurobindo takes the example of Prometheus when he speaks of the man of pain, tormented by the cosmic cycles, and his revolt against the divine ‘inhumanity’.

Python

Five occurences.

The python was the serpent that watched over the oracle of Delphi and whom Apollo, the god we associate with the Mind of Light, slew. (For the Mind of Light, refer to The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, Part 5.)

Based on the symbolism of the consonants constituting its name (Pi and Thêta, Π Θ), python must be the movement that stabilises and therefore stops the evolution of the inner being. The association of sleep with the cessation of evolution is a symbol commonly referred to in spiritual literature: such are, for example, the ordinary men who ‘sleep’ as opposed to the ’the awakened ones’.

Generally speaking, python is a guardian who prevents evolutionary progress and access to either the higher worlds of light or the worlds of darkness and night.

Rhapsodist

In ancient Greece, rhapsodes went from town-to-town reciting or declaiming the poetry composed by others, mainly the epics which were considered sacred.

They are to be distinguished from the aedes who composed the works and could also recited them accompanying themselves on a musical instrument.

Sri Aurobindo is thus referring here to an immortal voice in Being that proclaims eternal Truths.

Indeed, this verse relates to the Divine Being and its sacred power which attempts to manifest itself to us in different ways: touching the Truth, seeing the Truth, and in this verse, hearing the Truth.

Satyr

Three mentions:

All kinds of satyrs belong to the retinue of Dionysus (see Bacchic). They are always depicted as fond of wine and of every kind of sensual pleasure: they are shown sleeping, playing musical instruments or engaged in voluptuous dances with nymphs. (Apollodorus, iii. 5. § 1 and ii. 1. § 4).

Dionysos surrounded by Maenads and Satyrs. Louvre Museum. Public domain

Satyrs generally symbolize the pleasure derived from the satisfaction of vital desires.

Indeed, if Dionysus represents mystical ecstasy, it can easily be mixed with the lower vital if the latter is not purified.

Serpent | Snake | Dragon

In Greek Mythology

In one way or another, three different categories of serpents are linked to the evolution willed by the Divine, whether they oppose it, promote it, or prevent it until the time comes. In the latter case, occult traditions call them ‘guardians of the threshold’; that is to say, a step cannot be taken unless certain conditions are met.

In Greek mythology, it is rather difficult to distinguish between snakes, serpents, and dragons because of the long periods of time that lapsed between various authors and the gradual disappearance of their original symbolism.

However, two main categories can be distinguished:

Snakes

Snakes, depending on the context, represent negative or more rarely positive energies.

In the category of negative energies are, for example, the snakes that adorn the head of the Gorgon, symbolising the negative energies generated by fear, or the heads of the Lernaean Hydra, which symbolise numerous desires. These heads grow back when cut off – the symbolic representation of the desires that keep coming back, unless they are purified by inner fire.

In the category of positive energies are, for example, the snakes that purify the ears of the soothsayers, such as Cassandra whose ears were licked by two snakes.

Dragons

Dragons are giant snakes, i.e. extremely powerful energies. They have no wings and do not spew fire.

Generally speaking, they are ‘guardians of the threshold’. Their name – δράκων / drákōn – comes from the verb δέρκομαι/dérkomai which means ’to see, to pierce with the eye’, that is, the spiritual force represented by the dragon can ‘see’ the seeker in his innermost truth and decide whether he is ready to face the initiatory test that marks the passage. Note that the term ‘drakon’ in Ancient Greek texts refers to both the large snake and the guardian.

The best-known dragons are:

• The Colchian dragon guarding the Golden Fleece of the Jason and the Argonauts’ myth:

Jason and the Golden Fleece Naples National Archaeological Museum. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain

• The Dragon guarding the spring of Ares in Thebes:

Cadmus and the Dragon Louvre Museum. Public domain

The teeth of the latter dragon, which represent the evolutionary knots still present in the being, will be sown half by Cadmus and half by Jason, and from the earth will emerge fierce warriors threatening to destroy the hero.

• The dragon who guards the Golden Apples in the Garden of the Hesperides is the protector of true Knowledge.

All these dragons are actually beneficial because they protect the seeker.

In the category of dragons, however, fall female dragons who represent the perverted energies of evolution. For instance, Echidna, the monstrous she-dragon (drakaina) with the head and breast of a woman and the coiled tail of a serpent. She is the symbol of perverted evolution, ‘the stopping of evolution in union’. (See It was the hour before the Gods awake.)

In Savitri

Sri Aurobindo seems to have clearly distinguished quite clearly the following three categories:

Serpent

15 mentions

It generally symbolises the positive or divine energies such as Kundalini:

or a guardian:

Snake

Six mentions.

In Savitri, it is always the force of darkness opposing the divine evolutionary plan. For example:

Or again:

Dragon

11 mentions

Dragon always refers to the dark power of the unconscious, with one exception:

Siren

The sirens are represented by birds with a woman’s head. They are, therefore, symbols of past realizations in the mind.

In the myth of Jason, they seduce with their songs and bring ’languor to the sailors’: they symbolise the nostalgia for the harmonious periods of past evolution. They are the images of idealised past, of the escape from the present reality and its challenges, and thus a formidable obstacle in Yoga.

In the Odyssey, they are more like spiritual illusions, the temptations to take refuge in the paradises of the mind.

Odysseus and the Sirens Wikimedia Commons. Public domain

If in the story of the Golden Fleece they symbolised some luminous experiences of the higher mind, in Savitri Book 6 they stand for the experiences of the highest planes of the mind – intuitive mind, overmind – which give access to the memory of the past and to the knowledge of ‘what is’, wherever the consciousness might be focused, for ’they know everything of the past and present in all places’.

This trial or test is to be distinguished from that of the Lotus-eaters (or lotophages) which urges the adventurer of consciousness to beware of spiritual sweetness.

Sphinx

Four mentions:

Sri Aurobindo distinguishes in these four passages two categories of Sphinxes that appear in ancient mythologies.

The first category refers to the Egyptian Sphinx whom the Greeks called Androsphinx to distinguish it from the Sphinx whose upper part was that of a sheep or ram. It can be seen nearby the Giza pyramids. It is an unwinged lion in the reclining posture, the upper part of whose body is human. His face is said to depict Pharaoh Khafre, i.e. of a very advanced spiritual being.

Great Sphinx of Giza. Pexels. Public domain

The lion being the symbol of the ego or consciousness of separation, symbolized by the lion that Heracles must kill in his first Labour, the statue represents the absolute mastery of the lower nature that can only be achieved with the full realisation of the overmind. This realisation leads the adventurer of consciousness to the limits of the unknowable: He had reached the top of all that can be known. These limits are traditionally represented by large wings, like those, for example, at the top of the Caduceus of Hermes.

In this state of realisation, the adventurer can look up to the unrevealed heights of the supramental: A Sphinx whose eyes look up to a hidden Sun.

Considering its structuring consonants, the word Sphinx ΣΦΙΓΞ could indicate that identity with the divine (ΙΓΞ) is subject to the discernment of the human consciousness (ΣΦ). As we can assume that the pharaohs were spiritually very advanced beings, it is not only mental discernment but psychic discrimination that comes from union with the inner divine or inner presence.

Great Sphinx of Giza. Pexels. Public domain

The Mother refers to this achievement:

Sphinge

Quite different is the Greek Sphinx or rather Sphinge that appears in the Oedipus myth.

The daughter of Orthros and Echidna or the Chimera, (See It was the hour before the Gods awake and Hesiod, Theogony, 326) the Sphinge was sent to Thebes by Hera, the wife of Zeus, for some obscure reason. She had a woman’s face, the breast, feet, and tail of a lion, and bird wings. Posted at the entrance to Thebes, she devoured the young people of the city who failed to solve the riddle she posed to them. The riddle was: what is it that has one voice, and is four-footed and two-footed and three-footed? The oracle once prophesied that the Thebans would be free of the Sphinge when they guessed her riddle, so they often gathered trying to find the answer to it, but whenever they came up with the wrong answer, she would seize one of them and eat him up.

Oedipus solved the riddle, stating that the answer was ‘man’: as a baby he crawls on all fours, as an adult he is two-footed, and as he grows old he gains a third foot in the form of a cane. At this the Sphinge threw herself off the walls of the Acropolis.

Louvre Museum. Public domain

According to Hesiod, the Sphinge was born of Echidna, the symbol of cessation of the evolution in union (or from the Chimera – the symbol of unconsciousness and darkness, and thus of illusion) and Orthros, the symbol of falsehood or insincerity. It is, therefore, symbolically the result of the serious deviance and its consequences that occurs at the moment when humanity has developed the consciousness of separation. Hera, the spouse of Zeus, is the symbol of the limiting force, the force that ensures that the seeker cannot advance further when he is not ready. This is the reason why the young men of Thebes are killed. They represent the beginning of advanced purification practices, Thebes being the symbolic representation of the purification of the centres of consciousness or chakras that precedes the great reversal represented by the Trojan War.

The story takes place at the moment when Oedipus arrives at the gates of Thebes, that is, when the seeker approaches a thorough purification of the consciousness-energy centres or chakras, represented by the seven gates of Thebes.

Hesiod does not use the word Sphinx (ΣΦΙΓΞ) but prefers Phix (ΦΙΞ), thereby indicating the lack of discernment (Σ) in the process of identification with the divine (Ξ).

The Greek Sphinx (Sphinge) has wings, which suggests a mental state. And her head is that of a woman, indicating not mastery but passivity in the face of the ego, which is then free to manifest itself fully. This is why she is ‘The grey-hued riddling nether shadow-Sphinx’.

The Greek Sphinx devouring the young adults of Thebes is thus the symbol of the seeker who is blocked in his spiritual development because of his unconsciousness and insincerity, which can result in a mental spiritual pride.

It seems that Sri Aurobindo expects that every seeker must confront this Sphinge at some time or other: He too must grapple with the riddling Sphinx And plunge into her long obscurity.

At this point, it is no longer a struggle, but the need for perfect sincerity combined with a certain candour that causes the obstacle to dissolve: the Sphinge throws herself from the ramparts and dies when Oedipus finds the right answer to the riddle.

Here, as with all the monsters guarding ’thresholds’, the Sphinge has a double aspect: destructive, but also protective in the sense that it protects the seeker when he is not ready to face certain profound purifications. There are indeed always entities or forces ready to pull the seeker off the path first by flattering his ego and then by more subtle means.

Spiritual Pride

Spiritual pride is mentioned several times in Greek myths and in particular in the myths of:

• Menoetius

• Salmoneus

• Ixion, a familiar of the gods who wanted to unite with Hera, wife of Zeus.

Sun-Herds

Two mentions:

The powers (siddhi) of supramental light-consciousness represented by the herds of the sun are mentioned repeatedly in Greek myths, most notably in the Odyssey.

The Symbol Dawn

The Symbol Dawn can be related to Eos, the goddess of the dawn, a daughter of the Titan Hyperion, the symbol of ’the highest supramental Power’. Her brother is the sun, Helios, who represents supramental Light or Consciousness.

Thunderer

2 mentions:

‘Thunderer’ is an epithet of Zeus. As the gods belong to the overmind plane, the word ‘Thunderer’ symbolises the highest level of this plane. The Cyclops of the first generation, the symbols of divine omniscience and the brothers of the Titans, gave Zeus the thunder and the dazzling thunderbolt and lightning in gratitude for freeing them from the Tartarus where their father Ouranos had confined them.

These attributes of Zeus – thunder, lightning, and thunderbolt – are the symbols of the power of the forces of the creation world, the supramental plane, of the instantaneousness of the action of the light-consciousness of Truth and of its absolute power when manifested through the highest level of the overmind.

The word ‘Thunderer’ thus refers to Zeus holding the ’thunderbolt’, the symbol that brings together the three constituent elements, that stands for the light of Truth/Consciousness, power, and immediacy.

Zeus holding the thunderbolt BnF Museum. Public domain

The same image appears in the Rigveda. It is vajra, the weapon of Indra, the chief of the devas. Indra uses the vajra to kill the sinful and the ignorant.

Indra holding the Vajra Osama S M Amin FRCP(Glasg) CC-BY-SA-4.0

Trident and Thunderbolt

The trident (trishula) is a divine symbol in Hinduism associated with Shiva. The thunderbold is associated with Indra. However, the way Sri Aurobindo uses them in this passage is definitely associated with Greek mythology.

In Greek mythology, after the victory of the gods over the Titans – that is to say, when in human evolution the mind took over from the vital – Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades divided the world between themselves. To Zeus fell the starry sky, the supraconscious. To Poseidon the sea, the subconscious. To Hades, the underworld, the unconscious. The surface of the earth, the conscious, remained the shared domain of the divine brothers.

The Cyclops, the embodiment of divine omniscience, the brothers of the Titans, gave Zeus the thunder and lightning, standing for the Omniscience and Omnipotence of the supramental respectively.

To Poseidon they offered the trident symbolising his power over the subconscious and his ability to purify it of the memories that are stored there.

So this is The Mother of Might who holds in her hands the symbols of what helps achieve the total purification of the subconscious, the trident, and the powers one gets at the highest level of the overmind coming from the supramental plane, the thunderbolt - the lightning.

Tripod

Three mentions:

Tripod is a three-legged stool that served as the seat of the Pythia in the shrine of Apollo at Delphi.

Dispute of Heracles and Apollo for the Delphic tripod. Louvre Museum. Public domain

This tripod could represent the three lower planes of the human mind – physical, vital and intellectual – as in the line “And sat upon the tripod seat of mind”.

But it is more likely to symbolise the three modalities of reception of higher truths – Intuition, Revelation, Inspiration – which characterised the oracle of Apollo in its early days, before they became obscured over the centuries (See Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind).

Waxen Wings (Icarus)

In mythology, waxen wings are connected to the myth of Icarus.

This myth appears mainly in the Epitome of the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus i.11) and in the Metamorphoses of Ovid.

Icarus was the son of Daedalus, the architect who built the labyrinth to contain the Minotaur. Daedalus himself was later locked in the labyrinth along with his son.

To escape from there, he made wings out of feathers and wax for both of them.

Jacob Peter Gowy The Fall of Icarus (1635–1637). Public domain

Daedalus belongs to the younger lineage of the kings of Athens and represents the ‘cleverness’ or ‘skill in works’ necessary for Yoga.

The myth of the Minotaur describes the spiritual downfall of the seeker after his first great experience following a partial enlightenment of his mind as narrated in the myth of Jason. The seeker uses this opening of consciousness for his own ego and locks himself into a mental construction that absorbs and justifies everything: it is symbolised by the labyrinth built by Daedalus that has the Minotaur at its centre. It was the hero Theseus who slew the Minotaur.

To continue on the path beyond the victory over the Minotaur, the seeker must abandon all pretence of reaching the supramental by his own strength.

That which in his being claims to rise to the supramental by means of artifice (wings as the symbol of the highly artificially developed mind) will be destroyed despite all warnings. Artifice cannot not withstand the fire of Truth (the flame of the sun god Helios).