Odyssey - Return of Aeneas

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The Return of Aeneas

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The Trojan lineage is unambiguously related to the Pleiad Electra, which symbolizes the
illumined mind, and expresses the achievement of liberation in the spirit.

Although one of its branches was wiped out in the Trojan War by the Achaeans under the
leadership of Agamemnon, the ancients did obviously not want to indicate with the death of
Hector and most of Priam’s children that evolution in the ascension of the planes of
consciousness should no longer be sought. It was only the “Trojan error”, i.e. the lack of
purification and consecration, that was pointed out.

Therefore, once a greater purification is accomplished, which will allow the progressive
“unveiling” of divinity in the depths of life and body through the spirit-matter union, the Trojan
way must continue to conquer the planes of the intuitive mind and the overmind and finally
emerge in the supramental.

Even if the seeker must question everything during the great reversal, he must retain one of
the major achievements of the ascending path, in the part having realized “equality”. Indeed
Aeneas belongs to the lineage of Assarakus “the undisturbed one”, brother of Ilos.
Assarakus, symbolizes with the structuring letters, “the right evolution of an opening of
consciousness that continues in the balance of polarities” (according to the two sigma joined
together as in the name Odysseus (Ulysses) Odysseus (Ulysses)).

Let us recall that, on the contrary, Ilos represents the quest for freedom which is misguided
by seeking or privileging only liberation in the spirit and by refusing matter: Ilos had founded
Ilion on the hill of the exclusive quest in the spirit which therefore will be later on the hill of
error (Ate). It is therefore this evolutionary direction which ends with the victory of the
Achaeans.

The lineage of Assarakus should not be confused with that of Ilos and his son Laomedon,
where the lack of consecration is established. Indeed, it generates a movement “considering
man in his entirety”, which turns towards Love: Anchise, son of Capys (perhaps “who opens
himself to balance”) and Themiste “the law of rectitude”, joins Aphrodite, symbol of Love that
cannot separate. From this union was born Aeneas, symbol of the future Troy.

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Let us also remember that the third child of Tros, Ganymede, “who cares about joy”, was
taken by Zeus on Olympus to be the cupbearer of the gods: at this stage of yoga, the seeker
has already established an unalterable joy in his mind, in close connection with the powers of
the Overmind.

Homer, through the mouth of Poseidon (Iliad XX, 300 ff. ), confirms the pursuit of this path:
the destiny of Aeneas (“the evolving consciousness” or “the terrible”) is to escape (from the
sack of Troy) to prevent that the race of Dardanos, whom the son of Cronos loved more than
all the children born from him and mortals, perishes because of lack of human seed” and “it
is now his Aeneas Force that will rule the Trojans and the children of his children who will be
born thereafter”.

On the other hand, Homer certainly did not envisage for the advent of Love a time as close
as that sung by Virgil in the Aeneid. We shall therefore restrict ourselves here to the few rare
indications provided by archaic Greek sources.

Depending on the authors, the escape of Aeneas is variously related.

Either he left Troy following the bad omen of the death of Laocoon and his son, or the
Achaeans would have allowed him to flee during the sacking of the city because of his great
piety. In many versions, he left carrying his father Anchise on his back and took refuge on
Mount Ida.

According to the Little Iliad, he was taken prisoner by the Greeks and then attributed to
Neoptolemus, who had also received Agamemnon’s agreement to take Hector’s widow,
Andromache, as a slave.

The name Aeneas (Αινειας) most probably means “the terrible” and with the structuring
letters ΙΝ+Ι, “the evolving consciousness”. Son of Anchise “who is close to man” and
Aphrodite, he symbolizes a will to develop love in the incarnation.

Aeneas is the first and only mortal to whom Aphrodite was united.

Indeed, we cannot consider, unlike Pindar, Rhodos “the rose”, symbol of the psychic being,
both an island and a woman, destined to be the wife of Helios, i.e. the means of the
Supramental to develop Love, as the result of a relationship between Aphrodite and a mortal.
The scholia (ancient comments) of Pindar’s works confirm this by making her a daughter of
Aphrodite and Poseidon, and thus the result of a union between gods. Likewise, the late
myth of the goddess’s liaison with Adonis appears only with Euripides and cannot be
accepted.

This unique love of Aphrodite with a mortal shows that the ancients considered the
incarnation of true Love impossible before the great reversal of the Trojan War. When the
seeker no longer separates spirit from matter and lets the Truth permeate the depths of his

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being, then this Love can begin to establish itself in him.

On the other hand, Aeneas left Troy carrying on his back his father Anchise “who is close to
man”. This indicates the imprescriptible solidarity of each one with the rest of humanity: no
seeker, however advanced he may be, can divinize himself alone. For from a certain level,
everything is One and it is illusory to think that one can isolate oneself from the rest of
humanity. He who advances towards unity must bear the burden of his humanity.

Clearly, the victory of the Achaeans and the defeat of the Trojans are not the end of
existence or the decline of the Tros lineage. On the other hand, the right direction for the
continuation of the path must be revealed where Helen, the most beautiful of all mortals, will
settle after the war: it is with Menelaus and then with their daughter Hermione “the right
evolution of consecration in the movement of aspiration (close by homonymy to the
Overmind’s god, Hermes)”.

It is therefore no longer the work in the heights of the spirit that should be privileged and
dominate yoga, even if union in the spirit is always a necessary stage in order to achieve a
solid foundation to continue the path in the body.

That is why the benefits of the realizations and powers acquired in the ascending path are
taken away from the seeker. Indeed, we have seen that the horses of Aeneas – the powers
in the vital – which were the product of a seed theft, had fallen into the hands of the
Achaeans.

Therefore, if the realization represented by Aeneas remains indispensable in the continuation

of the path, it must remain in the background for some time, until progress can be made in
the unity of spirit-matter. This is undoubtedly how we must understand what is reported in a
fragment of the Little Iliad where Aeneas was taken prisoner by the Achaeans and brought
by Neoptolemus on the Greek fleet: the path in the heights of the spirit had to be directed
towards new struggles in the body (Aeneas became Neoptolemus’ slave like Andromache,
Hector’s widow).

In the 6th century BC, the poet Stesichorus adds that Aeneas founded a new kingdom with
the remnants of the Trojan people in Hesperia. He thus suggests that the seeker can only
continue along this path by plunging into the roots of life (‘in the far west’, in Hesperia).

The correspondence of Hesperia “the land of the evening” with the West, and thus with Italy
and Rome, undoubtedly favored the rapprochement made by the Latin authors between the
Roman emperors and the Trojan lineage, associating it with the prophecy made by Homer.
Indeed one can suppose that Virgil chose to put forward the Trojan rather than the Achaean
lineage to privilege the way of Love.

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Neither the wife of Aeneas, called by Virgil Creusa, “the incarnation”, nor his son called
Ascanius (or Iula by the Latins) play a role in Greek mythology. The name Ascanius could
mean “he who no longer protects himself” if it is possible to interpret it from the Greek script.

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