Directives for New Life by Dane Rudhyar - Chapter Six | The Time For Mutation is Now | Rudhyar Archival Project
"A great Parsi Teacher I knew, B.P. Wadia, said some 45 years ago "There is nothing you can do to Kali Yuga; but a great deal you can do in Kali Yuga". And Kali Yuga represents the Age of darkness, but also the period of gestation of a new humanity. No man can stop the decay of a civilization whose cycle is ending. He can only fully understand what this "ending" implies, and make the ultimate choice: to die with the leaves, even if it be a golden death during the "Indian summer" of a culture-cycle — or to experience victory over death in the seed-state of creative togetherness.

We should not be sentimental about natural death; this indeed is the great American sickness! A sentimental attachment to useless and obsolete things — or persons — is one of the greatest obstacles to spiritual living. Jesus said: "Let the dead bury the dead — take your cross, and follow me". Every spiritually conscious personage has said more or less the same words; but Western man, through centuries of materialization of ideals and of institutionalized fear, has cringed before the inevitable cyclic change. The only death to avoid is a useless death for a futile and stupid cause, or the type of artificially and meaninglessly delayed death in sterile hospitals. The true and fertile death is that of the seed; for, out of the torn seed, the new plant rises — new, because within this seed a radical mutation has taken place.

Of course, the truth in all that I have just said in symbolic language depends on whether my diagnosis of the state of the world is correct. Many people may believe that our present world-crisis refers only to a serious, but eminently constructive process of readjustment which would leave unchanged the great basic values of our Western civilization, itself the splendid crown of human evolution; and in order to weather the storms what we need is more rationalism, a greater faith in science and technology, and as well in the God-inspired vision of the American Fathers — and the hard work necessary to convince the whole world that this vision is indeed that of the "New Order of the Centuries" (Novus ordo seclorum) and that American technology is the only way to actualize it.

I reluctantly cannot accept this evaluation of our world-crisis, though I came to America from France fifty-five years ago with great expectations and intense faith in the "New World" sung by Walt Whitman. I came to an America very different from what it is today, yet one in which the harsh karma of slavery and of the wholesale destruction or despoiling of Native American tribes was nevertheless inherent, and in which the industrial virus from Europe had already grown to far more spectacular proportions.

If I am right in my present understanding and evaluation of where we stand now, not only in the U.S. but all over the world, what then can those individuals do, who share my sense of value, my vision and my dedication to the task of paving the way for a new world-wide society?

If these individuals have accepted the destiny of the seed-man or seed-woman, what they must do is to become fully open to the process of inner change which will result in a new mutation within their total person — an inner change, a transmutation of values, of ideals, of feeling-responses, of one's attitude toward work; work performed with similarly oriented and dedicated individuals in a community of spirit, of mind and of love. This means a revolution in consciousness focused within and sustained by interpersonal group-relationships — and not merely the vague, diffuse, emotional revolution in consciousness glamorized today by writers who probably take much too much for granted.

The focusing of the new life within groups integrated by a clear vision of the past and the future, as well as by the present need does NOT mean isolation from society and lack of concern with social and educational issues which could be significantly modified by any form of social action performed within the range of the institutional structures of our present society. In our quantitative society, number matters. One needs not be over-involved in political issues in order to vote or to support and participate in social and educational enterprises. Even if compelled by the necessities of life to work in offices or factories, the radiation of the presence of a future-oriented and dedicated person can effect subtle but valuable changes. Everywhere the key issue is that of interpersonal relationship — and the main effort is to draw individuals who are in a state of transition and a crisis of consciousness away from the subservience to the taken-for-granted traditions of the past and toward experiences of new qualities of thinking, feeling and acting — experiences after which no return to the past is possible.

There is a type of individual person who longs for the challenge of pioneering a "New Age" type of community away from the pull of the big cities and the perversions of the media. Such "communes" are most needed, as matrices for new personal realizations and for the interplay of truly open interpersonal relationships in an atmosphere of cooperative work in a natural environment. They are significant, in terms of the building of a new humanity, to the degree that they are not merely a place of refuge for lost souls and confused minds, but a field for the transformation of the whole person. From these communes more totally dedicated and integrated seed-groups should emerge. But these seed-groups can be formed under any conditions and in any social or racial environment.

The central issue is to bring about an irreversible mutation in consciousness and in feeling-responses.

The first step in such a process is inevitably an inner personal discontent with what is. The second step is openness to and assimilation of new ideas and enthusiasm for stimulating and mind-transforming symbols and images — which leads most often to meeting an "exemplar" and inspirer, and perhaps a guide. The third step is to allow the new realizations, the transforming relationships and the work in common to repolarize in depth all that one has been, and above all the ego that had so long sought for constant self-assertion and glorifying self-images which other persons were called upon to reflect, if not to admire or worship.

Very little can be done alone. Even the seemingly solitary and lonely "genius" depends upon the dynamizing power of human relationships. Even the guru needs chelas to fulfill his destiny. Relatedness is the one basic agent of metamorphosis. The crucial question is what the quality of the relationships will be.

The whole of society is based on relationships. The whole Earth is an immensely complex and integrated field of mutually interacting relationships. Human evolution is a series of changes in the basic character of interpersonal and intergroup relationships. At first, for many millennia man lived and progressed through tribal relationships, much as animals function in colonies, herds or complex societies totally controlled by biological imperatives and compulsive instincts. Then the tribes grew into empires; bloods and minds interpenetrated; and the ego-man arose, jealous of his independence and his relative capacity to control his narrow destiny as an individualized person and as a thinker. Now at least one crucial phase of this revolutionary process of individualization is coming to an end; and it may be a tragic end for a vast portion of mankind, and a radical catharsis for those who will remain as seeds for a future society.

A new evolutionary level of human consciousness is even now seeking to find in men and groups everywhere focal points for manifestation; and at that level the keynote is love — agape, the love of the companions through whom Man may find agents for synthesis and for the harmonization of his myriads of potentialities through cooperative action. This new level of human evolution may not be fully activated in the centuries to come; there may be sub-cycles within larger cycles, and we may witness only the luminescence of early dawn. Yet the challenge is with us, today. It is indeed within us. To refuse to accept it can only mean spiritual defeat for the individual person, and in however small a measure, to mankind.

Everything else is secondary. People are in bondage; large classes of men and women suffer agonizing deprivation or senseless outrages to body and soul. Violence stalks the passers — by on the crowded streets and stinking tenements, or the atrocious battlefields. Yet all this is secondary. It is dreadful action followed by passionate but futile reaction — and this over and over again. It is all part of this necessary, but perhaps unnecessarily tragic, phase of human evolution through which we are living and dying. But now is the time for mutation. It is a basic mutation, just as fundamental as that which led tribal man to form civilizations where minds and individuals learned to think, to question, to gain personal independence, to assert their ego-will and yearn for personal power and lustful excitement.

The mutation of love. The magic power of harmony. The changing, beautiful patterns of togetherness. Creative togetherness. Creative of all-human tomorrows within the vast field of an Earth whose boundaries extend far beyond the merely measurable and merely physical. The beautiful field of a cleansed and transfigured Earth. "
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EXCERPTS (other Rudhyar references to GESTATION):

"One might assume that since the Sun is the source of all life on Earth, in order for the life-force in a newborn baby to be fully developed, the formative period of gestation should have to encompass a whole yearly cycle. "
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"Progressions depend primarily upon a solar cycle; it is the 12-month solar cycle of the year which controls the 9-month gestation period and the three-month postnatal process of building in the patterns of intelligent and effectual responses to life in the cerebrospinal nervous system — thus, the formation of a potentially complete human person."
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". . . let us now consider what occurs during the last three months of the normal gestation period. The child-to-be prepares himself for a life as an individual person in direct relation — i.e., without a maternal intermediary — with other people and with the universe as a whole. This process has to operate, as it were, through the past of humanity, of his particular race, culture, and family. I might say that we reach a new condition of individual existence only by passing through and overcoming our ancestors — and especially our parents. Moreover, if we believe in the cyclic re-embodiment of a spiritual Principle (or "Soul"), then we will have to realize that we inherit the karma of those persons who were our predecessors, somewhat as a U.S. president inherits the consequences of the successes or failures of the preceding administrations."
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New Moon Before Birth Chart - What Is My Nature by Dane Rudhyar | Rudhyar Archival Project
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excerpt:

"Fate and Free Will
The chart of the New-Moon-before-birth and the natal chart can be said to represent, respectively, that which in a person's life is compulsive, rooted in the past — thus "fateful" — and that which constitutes the new potential of life, the creativity inherent (yet at first only latent) in the individual. Indeed every astrological factor which precedes birth must be essentially referred to the past; and this includes the "prenatal chart" erected for the presumed moment of "conception."

Birth — or rather the first breath — is the beginning of (at least relatively) independent existence. Nothing "individual" can be referred to the process of gestation and the embryonic state. Individuality demands an independent rhythm of existence; and such a rhythm, at least symbolically, starts to operate with the "first cry" or breath-expulsion that is, with the first response of the organism-as-a-whole to the universe in which the newborn is meant to operate in his or her individualized, unique way.

Freedom for the individual can only refer to his capacity for making an autonomous, undetermined response to the pressures, challenges and opportunities of life. These pressures and challenges of life constitute the particular condition imposed upon him at birth by heredity and environment. The newborn cannot change this conditioning. He is the product thereof; he is born with a set of genes and within a definite race, family, culture and class. All these factors inevitably condition his personality; they constitute his "nature,"

But they do not determine his responses to them; because, I believe, there is within and beyond his organism a "factor of indeterminacy" — a spark of divinity. This factor, this divine spark, is his potential freedom. It is "potential" only; for it may remain latent and inoperative — and it usually does so except at crucial times in the person's life. These crucial times, or "crises", are moments of decision.

The decision may be made by the non-determined, free will — the will not to conform to the past (i.e. to our inherited and environmental influences), and instead to transform this past, our "nature", by the introduction of a new vision, a new goal or realization. But in many cases, as the opportunity for such a decision comes, the ancient deep-rooted power of our "nature" (of all that is, in us, the past of the human race . . . and the "Karma" of the individual Soul) makes the transforming decision impossible, or half-hearted and confused.

Then we are "determined" by this past; then, we lose our God-given power of individual freedom. We are once more caught back into the prenatal state of dependence upon the Mother — and by "Mother" — I mean here all that enwombs and binds us: family, religion, tradition, class standards, conventional morality, etc. All of these inevitably condition our personality; yet they need not determine our responses to life's challenges and opportunities.

The distinction between the two words, condition and determine, is a capital one. When its meaning is really understood the bitter conflict between the two schools of thought teaching respectively that man has free will and that determinism (or fate) rules over everything becomes rather senseless. No man is absolutely free, for the very concept of such an absolute "freedom" has really no meaning at all; but every man can, at crucial times of decision, transform to some extent his actual conditions by some creative response which was non-determined and essentially unpredictable until it was made. The New-Moon-before-birth chart — and all "converse progressions" and prenatal charts — refer to the conditioning of our nature; thus, to the area of our personality where the past impels, and often, compels us to act according to old patterns or traditions. But the birth-chart, calculated for the exact moment of the first exhalation of breath, symbolizes the potentiality of our making free, transforming, creative decisions.

The lunation cycle within the confines of which we are born constitutes the "wave of life" which powers us into existence. But the man who comes to be truly an "Individual" in conscious and transforming selfhood must emerge out of that wave, even while being supported by it. He rides that wave to a self-envisioned destination. This ride is his true destiny. The wave eventually must return to the sea-depths; but man may by then be walking on the shore, in the freedom of the land."

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