THE TWELFTH HYMN TO AGNI  

A HYMN OF MAN'S ASPIRATION TO THE TRUTH

[The Rishi invokes this flame of the Divine Force, this vast Lord of the superconscient Truth, this Truth-conscious One, to accept thought and word into himself, become Truth-conscient in man and cleave out the many streams of the Truth. Not by mere force of effort nor under the law of the duality can the Truth be attained, but by the Truth itself. But there, are not only powers of this Force that battle with the falsehood and guard and conquer, there are others also who have helped so far in the march, but who would keep to the foundation of the falsehood because they cling to the present self-expression of man and refuse to advance beyond it; these in their self-will speak the word of crookedness to the Truth-seeker. By the sacrifice and by submission in the sacrifice man, the ever-advancing pilgrim, brings near to him his wide dwelling-place beyond, the seat and home of the Truth.]

1. To Will, master of sacrifice, the Mighty One, the vast lord and diffuser of the Truth I bring forward my thought as an offering and it is as the clarified butter of the sacrifice purified in the mouth of the flame; my word¹ I bring forward that goes to meet its lord.²

2. O conscious seer of the Truth, the Truth alone perceive in my consciousness; cleave out³ many flowing streams of the Truth.⁴ Not by force, nor by the duality can I achieve the journey nor attain to the Truth of the shining Worker, the fertilising Lord.

¹To turn thought and word into form and expression of the superconscient Truth which is hidden beyond the division and duality of the mental and physical existence was the central idea of the Vedic discipline and the foundation of its mysteries.

²The Bull; the thought is symbolised as the shining cow fronting and offering itself to the Godhead.

³From the rock in the hill where they are guarded by the opposing powers.

⁴ The descent of the superconscient into our life was imaged as the rain of heaven; it formed the seven celestial rivers that flow down upon the earth-consciousness.

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3. By what thought in me,  O Will, shalt thou seeking the Truth by the Truth become the impeller to knowledge of a new word ? The godhead who guards the times and seasons¹ of the Truth, knows all in me, but him I know not, the lord of that all-possessing felicity.

4. Who are they,  O Will, that are thy binders of the Enemy? who are the shining ones, the guardians, the seekers after possession and conquest? Who,  O Will, protect the foundations of the falsehood ? who are the keepers of a present² word?

5. These are comrades of thine,  O Will, who have gone astray from thee; benignant were they, they have become malignant. These do violence to themselves by their words speaking crooked things to the seeker after straightness.

6. But he,  O Will, who desires with submission thy sacrifice, guards the truth of the shining Worker, the Fertiliser.³ To him may there come that wide habitation⁴ in which all is perfected, even that which is left⁵ for man the pilgrim to accomplish in his forward journeying.

¹The periods, sometimes described as years, sometimes as the twelve symbolic months of the progress of the sacrifice.

²Or, "false word". In either case it means the old falsehood as opposed, to the "new word" of the Truth of which Agni has to create the knowledge.

³"The shining Bull or Male", but the latter word means also the rainer, fertiliser or diffuser of abundance and sometimes the strong and abundant, the former seems to bear also the sense of active or moving.

⁴The plane of the superconscient Truth or world of Swar beyond mental Heaven and physical earth in which all is accomplished that here we strive after; it is described as the wide habitation and the wide and fear-free pasture of the shining cows.

⁵ This world is sometimes described as what is left or the excess; it is the additional field of being beyond this triplicity of mind, life and body which constitute our normal state of existence.  

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