The Bull of Heaven as Primordial Earth
Aurochs were very large bulls, now extinct, that were worshipped in Egypt and depicted in Paleolithic carvings and cave paintings discovered in Lascaux, France (Figures 15a & b) and Çatal Höyük (Figure 15c). Bulls and cows have been worshipped in India and the Middle East as a reflection of the constellation, Taurus, symbolizing Earth: The dense, opaque matter comprising the body contains the soul’s divine light, the way a bucket contains water. It is “Mother Earth” that protects and nurtures the spiritual foetus. The Bull of Heaven plows the furrows that hold divine seed, while the gentle, nurturing Sacred Cow of India (Figure 15d) was the matriarchal goddess, Hathor of Egypt. “Finding the great secret [of immortality] is to find the cows, or their milk [Soma].” The Aryans longed for cows, because their utters symbolically contained the elixir of immortality. Indra slew the dragon Vrtra, (lit: the blocker), a stone serpent slain by Indra to liberate the rivers, while Vrtra’s brother, Vala is a stone cave, similarly split by Indra to “liberate the cows.” Vrtra and Vala symbolized the dense physical matter of the body blocking the flow of Soma, the Divine Elixer.
Figure 15a - Egyptian Bull god Apis Figure 15b - Hall of Bulls Lascaux France (circa 30,000 BCE)
Figure 15c - Çatal Höyük (Circa 6500 BCE) Figure 15d - Sacred Hindu Bull
The Lion as Primordial Fire
Lions and Leopards could still be found in Egypt until the rain belt moved south (circa 3500 BCE). They were “conquerors of death,” and fierce protectors of royal tombs and thrones (Figures 16a & c). Just as a lion is “king of beasts,” Fire held authority over the other primordial elements. Within monotheism, Heaven and the Throne of Glory were fashioned from the primordial Fires, while the Fires of Heaven purged away all impurity, freeing the Divine sparks 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