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The First Hymn to Agni
A HYMN OF THE MORNING SACRIFICE
[The Rishi hymns the awakening of Agni the Divine Force to conscious action in the coming of the Dawn. Agni rises towards the luminous Paradise, his goal, feeding on the works of the Discernment which distributes the gifts and activities of the sacrifice, becomes a pure energy leading our days and ascends to the Vastness and the Truth. By the Truth he fashions anew our two firmaments, the physical and mental consciousness. This is the golden Affirmation of him in our heavens.]
1. Strength is awake by kindling of the peoples and he fronts the Dawn that comes to him as the Cow that fosters; like mightinesses that rush upward to their expanding his lustres advancing mount towards the heavenly level.
2. The Priest of our oblation has awakened for sacrifice to the gods; with right mentality in him Strength stands up exalted in our mornings; he is entirely kindled, red-flushing the mass of him is seen; a great godhead has been delivered out of the darkness.
Page – 393 3. When he has uncoiled the long cord of his hosts, Strength shines pure by the pure herd of the radiances.1 For the goddess who discerns grows in plenitude and is yoked to her works; he exalted, she extended supine, he feeds on her with his flames of the offering.
4. The minds of men who grow in the godhead move entirely towards the flame of Will even as all their seeings converge in the Sun that illumines.2 When two Dawns3 of opposite forms are delivered of him, he is born as the White Steed in front of the days.
5. Yea, he is born victorious in the front of the days, a ruddy worker established in the established delights of things; up holding in house after house the seven ecstasies4 Strength has taken his seat as the Priest of the offering mighty for sacrifice.
1 The Cows of the Dawn. Dakshina, the goddess of divine discernment, is here a form of the Dawn herself. 2 That is to say, instead of the groping thoughts of other men, their mentality tends to convert itself into a luminous flame of Will that is knowledge and all their thoughts become a blaze of direct vision, the rays of the Sun of Truth. 3 Day and Night, —the latter the state of Ignorance that belongs to our material Nature, the former the state of illumined Knowledge that belongs to the divine Mind of which our mentality is a pale and dulled reflection. 4 To each principle of our nature there corresponds a certain divine ecstasy and on each plane, in each body or house, Agni establishes these ecstasies.
Page – 394 6. Strength has taken his seat as the Priest of the offering mighty for sacrifice in the lap of the Mother and in that rapturous other world,5 young and a seer, standing out in his multitudes, possessed of the Truth, the upholder of those that do the work; and also in between he is kindled.
7. Men seek with their obeisances of submission this illumined Strength that achieves our perfection in the progressing sacrifices and is the priest of their oblation, because he shapes in the power of the Truth both firmaments of our being. Him they press into brightness by the clarity,6 the eternal steed of life's plenitude.
8. Bright, he is rubbed bright, expressed by the seer, domiciled in his own home7 and our beneficent guest. The bull of the thousand horns, because thou hast that force,8 O Strength, thou precedest in thy puissance all others.
9. At once, O Strength, thou outstrippest all others, in whomsoever thou art manifested in all the glory of thy beauty,
5 The mother is Earth, our physical being; the other world is the supramental existence; the vital and emotional being is the world in between. Agni manifests in all of these simultaneously. 6 The clarified butter, yield of the Cow of Light and symbol of the rich clarity that comes to the mind visited by the Light. 7 That is to say, having taken his place on the plane of the Truth which is his own proper home. 8 The force of the Truth, the perfect energy that belongs to this perfect knowledge.
Page – 395 desirable, full of body, extended in light, the beloved guest of the human peoples.
10. To thee, O Strength, O youngest vigour, all the worlds and their peoples bring from near and bring from afar their offering. Awake in a man's knowledge to that right-mindedness of his happiest state. A vastness, O Strength, is the great and blissful peace of thee.
11. Mount today with the lords of the sacrifice, O luminous Will, thy luminous complete car! Thou who knowest the wide middle world9 in all its paths, bring hither the gods to eat of our oblation.
12. To the Seer, to the Intelligence we have uttered today the word of our adoration, to the Bull that fertilises the herds; the Steadfast in the Light by his surrender rises in the flame of Will as in the heavens to a golden Affirmation manifesting a vastness.
9 The vital or nervous plane is just above our material earth; through it the gods come to commune with man, but it is a confused wideness and its paths are many but intricate and tangled.
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