Kala Purusha: The Cosmic Man

All astrological prediction, Bepin Behari writes, is derived from one relationship: that between Kala Purusha, the Cosmic Man, and the individual human being. Kala means time. Kala Purusha is Eternal Time personified, an all-pervading stream of omniscient consciousness forever externalizing inner potentiality into objective reality. He is not affected by the reflection of his own creation: pleasure and pain, creation and destruction are all part of him, and his breathing can be felt in the rise and fall of civilizations.

The practical key is superimposition. Lay the figure of the Cosmic Man over a natal chart, sign by sign, and the vitality of each part of life becomes visible. The signs are his inward rhythmic pulses, and each sign also rules a part of his body.

The body of the Cosmic Man

Behari's chakra rulerships run in a deliberate inversion: Scorpio rules the Root chakra where the Serpent Fire lies coiled, Libra the Sacral, Virgo the Navel, Cancer the Heart, Gemini the Throat, Taurus the Ajna, and Aries the Crown, where the individual is said to attain liberation from the bondage of birth and death. The lower three chakras nourish physical and psychic faculties; the Heart purifies emotion into sympathy and compassion; the upper three concern higher consciousness, down to the Ajna's continuity of consciousness between dreams and waking, and between incarnations. Treat these correspondences as classical symbolism, a map for reflection, never as medical diagnosis.

The twelve impulses, sign by sign

Read as phases of manifestation, the signs tell one continuous story. Aries is the unity of subjective and objective, motivation arisen but no action yet taken. Taurus polarizes: I and Thou, Spirit and Matter begin to crystallize. Gemini is their interaction, union and exchange. Cancer is the Great Depth, the Hiranyagarbha, the storehouse of human potential, where the essence or heart of man is formed. Leo is the creative thread darted forth, the semen of the Father sinking into the womb, the soul's first karmic steps. Virgo is the dichotomy of effort and struggle, displaying one's creative and sustaining capacities. Libra is the balance point, materiality at its lowest depth, the primeval spark longing for expansion. Scorpio is the churning: hidden difficulties, diseases and relationship problems surface and are purged to pave the way for awakening. Sagittarius is the fire that burns away the old and purifies the alchemical gold. Capricorn is transformation completed, consciousness merged in the universal stream. Aquarius works under Divine inspiration, heaven descending to earth, a new civilization dawning. Pisces closes the cycle and readies the next: Kala Purusha rests on his feet before taking the next step.

Using the map

The association of these features with the natal chart is especially useful, Behari says, in relation to physical health: an afflicted Aries may threaten head injuries or brain defects, and the kind of affliction depends on the nature and strength of the afflicting planets. Generalized across the map, an afflicted sign flags its body region, and the afflicting planet names the manner of the trouble. Beyond health, the superimposition shows how the universal life-force wishes to direct the individual's life, the direction of his Divine pilgrimage. Prediction, in this vision, is not fortune-telling. It is reading the one Cosmic Man in the mirror of a single life.