from a korban sacrifice on the altar. Ariel, which literally means “altar,” or “Lion of God,” is one of the seven archangels mentioned in Jewish and Christian mythology. Jacob, who was renamed Israel by God, referred to his son Judah as a young lion. Judah was the dominant tribe of ancient Israel, the tribe of King David, and tribe of the anticipated Messiah.
Vishnu, within his dream of world-illusion, incarnated as a Man-Lion (Figure 16b) in order to devour the entrails of an atheistic king named “Golden Garment” who, through the power of yoga, had become sole sovereign of the universe, overthrowing even the gods.”102
Figure 16a - Leonine Body of Egyptian Sphinx Guarding the Pharaoh’s Tomb
Figure 16b - Man-Lion Altmuhl Caves (ca. 28,000 BCE) Figure 16c - Çatal Höyük Leopard Throne (ca. 6500 BCE)
Man’s Source of Wisdom as Primordial Water
Aquarius, the Water Bearer, is considered an Air sign within modern astrology, but in ancient times it was considered a Water sign, as its etymology suggests. Its Latin meaning is “water-bearer,” symbolized by water spilling from the water pot of Aquarius. In the Babylonian calendar, the freshwater of the apsû spilling from the urn of Aquarius (Figure 17a) represented the purging rains from above, as well as the underground freshwater of the Apsû (Underworld or Hades), which flooded the world from below through springs, rivers, lakes, and wells. Genesis 2:8 describes a similar scene: “On that day, the fountains of the great deep burst forth; and the windows of the Heavens were opened.” In ancient Greece, Aquarius poured water from the Heavens for days on end, inundating the Earth.
In Greek mythology, Zeus fancied the handsome shepherd boy Ganymede, and had him abducted by Aquila, who carried him to off to Mount Olympus to be his lover and “cup-bearer,” pouring the “nectar of the gods” (“magic elixir”) from a jug. He was given a place in Heaven as Aquarius. The Egyptians associate this constellation with Khnum, the god of water, who caused the Nile to overflow when he dipped his water bucket into the river. The astrological symbol for Aquarius (Figure 17b) corresponds to a splitting of the spiritual waters from the material waters, “dividing the waters from the waters,” as within Scripture.
Figure 17a - The Water Bearer
Figure 17b - the Sign of Aquarius Separating the waters from the waters is the Egyptian Hieroglyphic
Chapter 4: Mastering Time
Choosing a Metric
If the four primordial elements determine Creation’s repetitive cycle of seasons: birth, growth, aging, and death; and, if the four fixed constellations of the Zodiac serve as seasonal markers in the sky; then, how would mankind measure the passage of time between each annual cycle, and between each of the four seasons within each annual cycle? Early science further explored the cyclical paths of the various heavenly bodies in search of a way to add more granularity to this annual and seasonal metric.
Telling time might appear to be as fundamental to prehistoric civilization as the discovery of fire. A clock enables us to measure our progress through life. But, imposing the metric of time on our lives might also be seen as a psychological constraint that demands an answer to “when” we did something or intend to do something. It brings more relevance to both the past and future. What about the spiritual ideas of eternity and immortality? If a clock simply counts to 12, where does eternity and divinity fit in? Evidence will be presented suggesting that the Aryan fathers believed it was possible to transcend the constraints of time and materiality through their meditation practice. Indeed, the central point of the entire religious exercise throughout history has been Moksha: meditation that results in the purification of the body and the liberation of one’s immortal soul from the body’s finite constraints of time and space.
The Aryan fathers attempted to understand their experience of Moksha as a real phenomenon that occurred within the fabric of cosmos. The apparent motion of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, all occur at different rates of speed, carving out different blocks of time from an observer’s perspective. To track these cycles, priestly astronomers measured the changing angles created between the horizon and various orbiting objects (see Appendix D: A Primer on Astronomy). The sun’s cycle differentiated days and nights; the moon’s cycle delineated months, the solstice and equinox determined the seasons, while the stars came full circle every year. Early astronomers who first tracked these heavenly cycles needed to standardize on an effective metric to quantify them.
Any sort of measurement requires a numerical system and the ability to count within that system. Counting can be defined as the process of enumerating how many objects there are within a given finite set of objects. There is archeological evidence to suggest that counting began as far back as 50,000 years ago.”103 It is logical to suggest that counting may have begun as
a result of the one-to-one relationship between a material object and each of our fingers. Perhaps our decimal system (Base-10) began by counting small flocks of sheep on our fingers and toes. A decimal system can be defined by 9 unique digits plus zero.104 Any linear measurement of space’s three dimensions would require us to count a ruler’s numbered increments. Logarithmic measurement also helps us count. Within Base-10, once we finish counting 9 objects, the very next object would require a change by an order of magnitude. We would indicate a high order 1 and add zero as place holder. Each change in order of magnitude would create a 1:10 ratio with its predecessor, that is, between the 1’s column and the 10’s column, between the 10’s column and the 100’s column, between the 100’s column and the 1000’s column, etc. Generally speaking, when we speak about a ratio we are comparing two things or ideas (known in ancient Greek thought as analogy). This can be expressed by the formula a:b, for example, 1:10 or 1:60. This last ratio describes the orders of magnitude within sexagesimal place holder notation, analogous to the ratios in a decimal system:
What is most important here is that we understand the difference between linear and logarithmic numbers. We can see this difference clearly if we compare an arithmetic progression of like quantities 2,4,6,8,10,12, to a geometric progression of like ratios 2:4:8:16:32:64. With this information we will be better equipped to choose the most appropriate numerical system for whatever we hope to measure. For example, a computer might be simplistically thought of as a bunch of connected electrical switches, and each of these switches can either be “off” or “on.” If a numerical system only has two states, 0 and 1, we call it a binary system (Base-2). If we need to count a small herd of sheep, the decimal system is perfectly suited, since we can make good use of our fingers and toes. But, what if we have to count a lot more than small herds of sheep? In ancient Sumer and Babylon, they decided on a sexagesimal system (Base-60), implying the use of 59 unique digits plus zero. As we can see in Figure 18, Sumer and Babylon counted unique digits from 1 to 12, but then used a modified decimal system as a kind of shorthand for expressing larger numbers.
Just as Base-2 is tailor-made for describing a two-state switch within computer systems, Base-60 is arguably the best numerical
