{"id":1907,"date":"2013-07-13T01:38:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1907"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:38:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:38:13","slug":"31-viii-vayu-the-master-of-the-life-energies-vol-15-the-secret-of-veda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/15-the-secret-of-veda\/31-viii-vayu-the-master-of-the-life-energies-vol-15-the-secret-of-veda","title":{"rendered":"-31_VIII Vayu, the Master of the Life Energies.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\n VIII <\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n Vayu, the Master of the Life Energies
\n<\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n Rig Veda IV.48 <\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n \t1. Do thou manifest the sacrificial energies that are unmanifested, even as a revealer of felicity and doer of the work; O Vayu, come in thy car of happy light to the drinking of the
\nSoma wine.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n \t <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n \t <\/p>\n

\n \t\t2. Put away from thee all denials of expression and with thy
\nsteeds of the yoking, with Indra for thy charioteer come, O Vayu, in thy car of happy light to the drinking of the Soma
\nwine.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n \t <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n \t <\/p>\n

\n \t <\/p>\n

\n \t3. The two that, dark, yet hold all substances, shall observe
\nthee in their labour, they in whom are all forms. O Vayu, come in thy car of happy light to the drinking of the Soma
\nwine.  
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n \t <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 306<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n4. Yoked let the ninety and nine bear thee, they who are yoked by the mind. O Vayu, come in thy car of happy light to the
\ndrinking of the Soma wine.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n5. Yoke, O Vayu, thy hundred brilliant steeds that shall in
\ncrease, or else with thy thousand let thy chariot arrive in the mass of its force.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n COMMENTARY <\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n The psychological conceptions of the Vedic Rishis have often a marvellous profundity and nowhere more than when they deal with the phenomenon of the conscious activities of mind and life
\nemerging out of the subconscient. It may be said, even, that this idea is the whole basis of the rich and subtle philosophy evolved
\nin that early dawn of knowledge by these inspired Mystics. Nor has any other expressed it with a greater subtlety and felicity
\nthan the Rishi Vamadeva, at once one of the most profound seers and one of the sweetest singers of the Vedic age. One of
\nhis hymns, the last of the fourth Mandala, is indeed the most important key we possess to the symbolism which hid behind the
\nfigures of the sacrifice those realities of psychological experience and perception deemed so sacred by the Aryan forefathers.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n In that hymn Vamadeva speaks of the ocean of the subconscient which underlies all our life and activities. Out of that
\nocean rises “the honeyed wave” of sensational existence with its undelivered burden of unrealised delight climbing full of the
\n“Ghrita” and the “Soma”, the clarified mental consciousness and the illumined Ananda that descends from above, to the
\nheaven of Immortality. The “secret Name” of the mental consciousness, the tongue with which the gods taste the world, the
\nnexus of Immortality, is the Ananda which the Soma symbolises. For all this creation has been, as it were, ejected into the
\nsubconscient by the four-horned Bull, the divine Purusha whose   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 307<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

horns are infinite Existence, Consciousness, Bliss and Truth. In images of an energetic incongruity reminding us of the sublime
\ngrotesques and strange figures that have survived from the old mystic and symbolic art of the prehistoric world, Vamadeva
\ndescribes the Purusha in the figure of a man-bull, whose four horns are the four divine principles, his three feet or three legs
\nthe three human principles, mentality, vital dynamism and material substance, his two heads the double consciousness of Soul
\nand Nature, Purusha and Prakriti, his seven hands the seven natural activities corresponding to the seven principles. “Triply
\nbound” —bound in the mind, bound in the life-energies, bound in the body —”the Bull roars aloud; great is the Divinity that
\nhas entered into mortals.”
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

For the “ghritam”, the clear light of the mentality reflecting
\nthe Truth, has been hidden by the Panis, the lords of the lower sense-activity, and shut up in the subconscient; in our thoughts,
\nin our desires, in our physical consciousness the Light and the Ananda have been triply established, but they are concealed
\nfrom us. It is in the cow, symbol of the Light from above, that the gods find the clarified streams of the “ghritam”. These streams,
\nsays the Rishi, rise from the heart of things, from the ocean of  
\n\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/i>  \t\t\t<\/i> the subconscient,
\nhrdyāt samudrāt<\/i>, but they are confined in a
\nhundred pens by the enemy, Vritra, so that they may be kept from the eye of discernment, from the knowledge that labours
\nin us to enlighten that which is concealed and deliver that which is imprisoned. They move in the path on the borders of the
\nsubconscient, dense if impetuous in their movements, limited by the nervous action, in small formations of the life-energy
\n\t\t\t Vayu, vātapramiyah<\/i>. Purified progressively by the experiences of
\n the conscious heart and mind, these energies of Nature become
\nfinally capable of the marriage with Agni, the divine Will-force, which breaks down their boundaries and is himself nourished
\nby their now abundant waves. That is the crisis of the being by which the mortal nature prepares its conversion to immortality.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

In the last verse of the hymn Vamadeva describes the whole of existence as established above in the seat of the divine
\nPurusha, below in the ocean of the subconscient and in the Life,  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 308<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n antah samudre hrdi antar āyusi<\/i>. The conscious mind is, then, <\/p>\n

the channel through which there is communication between the upper ocean and the lower, between superconscient and sub
\nconscient, the light divine and the original darkness of Nature.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n Vayu is the Lord of Life. By the ancient Mystics life was
\nconsidered to be a great force pervading all material existence and the condition of all its activities. It is this idea that was
\nformulated later on in the conception of the Prana, the universal breath of life. All the vital and nervous activities of the
\nhuman being fall within the definition of Prana, and belong to the domain of Vayu. Yet this great deity has comparatively few
\nhymns to his share in the Rig Veda and even in those Suktas in which he is prominently invoked, does not usually figure alone
\nbut in company with others and as if dependent on them. He is especially coupled with Indra and it would almost seem as if
\nfor the functionings demanded from him by the Vedic Rishis he needed the aid of the superior deity. When there is question of
\nthe divine action of the Life-forces in man, Agni in the form of the Vedic Horse, Ashwa,
\n\tDadhikravan, takes usually the place
\nof Vayu.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n If we consider the fundamental ideas of the Rishis, this position of Vayu becomes intelligible. The illumination of the lower being by the higher, the mortal by the divine, was their principal
\nconcept. Light and Force, Go and Ashwa, the Cow and the Horse, were the object of the sacrifice. Force was the condition,
\nLight the liberating agency; and Indra and Surya were the chief bringers of Light. Moreover the Force required was the divine
\nWill taking possession of all the human energies and revealing itself in them; and of this Will, this force of conscious energy
\ntaking possession of the nervous vitality and revealing itself in it, Agni more than Vayu and especially Agni
\n\tDadhikravan was
\nthe symbol. For it is Agni who is master of Tapas, the divine Consciousness formulating itself in universal energy, of which
\nthe Prana is only a representative in the lower being. Therefore in Vamadeva’s hymn, the fifty-eighth of the fourth Mandala, it
\nis Indra and Surya and Agni who effect the great manifestation of the conscious divinity out of the subconscient. Vata or Vayu,
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 309<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

the nervous activity, is only a first condition of the emergent Mind. And for man it is the meeting of Life with Mind and the
\nsupport given by the former to the evolution of the latter which is the important aspect of Vayu. Therefore we find Indra, Master
\nof Mind, and Vayu, Master of Life, coupled together and the latter always somewhat dependent on the former; the Maruts,
\nthe thought-forces, although in their origin they seem to be as much powers of Vayu as of Indra, are more important to the
\nRishis than Vayu himself and even in their dynamic aspect are more closely associated with Agni Rudra than with the natural
\nchief of the legions of the Air.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

The present hymn, the forty-eighth of the Mandala, is the
\nlast of three in which Vamadeva invokes Indra and Vayu for the drinking of the Soma-wine. They are called in conjointly as
\n the two lords of brilliant force, śavasaspatī<\/i>, as in another hymn, in a former Mandala, they are invoked as lords of thought,
\n\t\t\t dhīyaspatī<\/i>. Indra is the master of mental force, Vayu of nervous
\nor vital force and their union is necessary for thought and for action. They are invited to come in one common chariot and
\ndrink together of the wine of the Ananda which brings with it the divinising energies. Vayu, it is said, has the right of the
\nfirst draught; for it is the supporting vital forces that must first become capable of the ecstasy of the divine action.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

In the third hymn, in which the result of the sacrifice is defined, Vayu is alone invoked, but even so his companionship
\nwith Indra is clearly indicated. He is to come in a chariot of happy brightness, like Usha in another hymn, to drink of the immortalising wine.1<\/font><\/sup> The chariot symbolises movement of energy and it is a glad movement of already illuminated vital energies
\nthat is invoked in the form of Vayu. The divine utility of this brightly happy movement is indicated in the first three verses.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

The god is to manifest —he is to bring into the light of the conscious activity sacrificial energies which are not yet manifested,2<\/font><\/sup> are yet hidden in the darkness of the subconscient. In
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

1 Vāyavā candrena rathena yāhi sutasya pītaye.<\/i>
\n<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

2<\/i> Vihi hotrā avītā.<\/i>  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 310<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\nthe ritualistic interpretation the phrase may be translated, “Eat of offerings that have not been eaten” or, in another sense of the
\n\t\t\t verb vī<\/font><\/i>, it may be rendered “Arrive at sacrificial energies which
\nhave never been approached”; but all these renderings amount, symbolically, to the same psychological sense. Powers and activities that have not yet been called up out of the subconscient, have to be liberated from its secret cave by the combined action
\nof Indra and Vayu and devoted to the work.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n For it is not towards an ordinary action of the nervous
\nmentality that they are called. Vayu is to manifest these energies as would “a revealer of the felicity, a doer of the Aryan work”,
\n\t\t\t vipo na rayo aryah<\/i>. These words sufficiently indicate the nature
\n of the energies that are to be evoked. It is possible, however,
\nthat the phrase may have a covert reference to Indra and thus indicate what is afterwards clearly expressed, the necessity that
\nVayu’s action should be governed by the illumined and aspiring force of the more brilliant god. For it is Indra’s enlightenment
\nthat leads to the secret of beatitude being revealed and he is the first labourer in the Work. To Indra, Agni and Surya among
\nthe gods is especially applied the term arya<\/i>, which describes with an untranslatable compactness those who rise to the noble
\naspiration and who do the great labour as an offering in order to arrive at the good and the bliss.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n In the second verse the necessity of Indra’s guidance is affirmed expressly. Vayu is to come putting away all denials
\nthat may be opposed to the manifestation of the unmanifested, niryuvāno
\n\taśastīh<\/i>. The word aśastīh <\/i>means literally "not-expressings” and describes the detention by obscuring
\npowers like Vritra of the light and power that are waiting to be revealed, ready to be called out into expression through the
\ninfluence of the gods and by the instrumentality of the Word. The Word is the power that expresses,
\n\tśastram<\/i>, gir<\/i>, vacas<\/i>. But it has to be protected and given its right effect by the divine
\nPowers. Vayu is to do this office; he has to expel all powers of denial, of obscuration, of non-manifestation. To do this work
\nhe must arrive “with his steeds of the yoking and Indra for  charioteer”,
\n\tniyutvān indrasārathih<\/i>. The steeds of Indra, of
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 311<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Vayu, of Surya have each their appropriate name. Indra’s horses are hari
\n<\/i>or babhru<\/i>, red gold or tawny yellow; Surya’s harit<\/i>,
\nindicating a more deep, full and intense luminousness; Vayu’s are niyut<\/i>, steeds of the yoking, for they represent those dynamic
\nmovements which yoke the energy to its action. But although they are the horses of Vayu, they have to be driven by Indra, the
\nmovements of the Master of nervous and vital energy guided by the Master of mind.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

The third verse3<\/font><\/sup> would seem at first to bring in an unconnected idea; it speaks of a dark Heaven and Earth with all their
\nforms obeying or following in their labour the movements of Vayu in his Indra-driven car. They are not mentioned by name
\nbut described as the two black or dark holders of substance or holders of wealth,
\nvasudhitī<\/i>; but the latter word sufficiently indicates earth and by implication of the dual form Heaven also,
\nits companion. We must note that it is not Heaven the father and Earth the mother that are indicated, but the two sisters, Rodasi,
\nfeminine forms of heaven and earth, who symbolise the general energies of the mental and physical consciousness. It is their
\ndark states —the obscured consciousness between its two limits of the mental and the physical,
\n\t\t\t—which by the happy movement
\nof the nervous dynamism begin to labour in accordance with the movement or under the control of Vayu and to yield up their
\nhidden forms; for all forms are concealed in them and they must be compelled to reveal them. Thus we discover that this verse
\ncompletes the sense of the two that precede. For always when the Veda is properly understood, its verses are seen to unroll
\nthe thought with a profound logical coherence and pregnant succession.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

The two remaining riks indicate the result produced by this action of Heaven and Earth and by their yielding up of hidden
\nforms and unmanifested energies on the movement of Vayu as his car gallops towards the Ananda. First of all his horses are to
\nattain their normally complete general number. “Let the ninety<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

3\t\t\t<\/i> Anu krsne vasudhitī yemāte
\nviśvapeśasā.<\/i>
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 312<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\nnine be yoked and bear thee, those that are yoked by the mind.”4<\/font><\/sup> The constantly recurring numbers ninety-nine, a hundred and
\na thousand have a symbolic significance in the Veda which it is very difficult to disengage with any precision. The secret is
\nperhaps to be found in the multiplication of the mystic number seven by itself and its double repetition with a unit added before
\nand at the end, making altogether 1+ 49+ 49+1=100. Seven is the number of essential principles in manifested Nature, the
\nseven forms of divine consciousness at play in the world. Each, formulated severally, contains the other six in itself; thus the full
\nnumber is forty-nine, and to this is added the unit above out of which all develops, giving us altogether a scale of fifty and
\nforming the complete gamut of active consciousness. But there is also its duplication by an ascending and descending series, the
\ndescent of the gods, the ascent of man. This gives us ninety-nine, the number variously applied in the Veda to horses, cities, rivers,
\nin each case with a separate but kindred symbolism. If we add an obscure unit below into which all descends to the luminous
\nunit above towards which all ascends we have the full scale of one hundred.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n It is therefore a complex energy of consciousness which is to be the result of Vayu’s movement; it is the emergence of the
\nfullest movement of the mental activity now only latent and potential in man, —the ninety and nine steeds that are yoked by
\nthe mind. And in the next verse the culminating unit is added. We have a hundred horses, and because the action is now that
\nof complete luminous mentality, these steeds, though they still carry Vayu and Indra, are no longer merely
\nniyut<\/i>, but hari<\/i>, the
\ncolour of Indra’s brilliant bays.5<\/font><\/sup> “Yoke, O Vayu, a hundred of the brilliant ones, that are to be increased.”
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n \tBut why to be increased? Because a hundred represents the general fullness of the variously combined movements, but not
\ntheir utter complexity. Each of the hundred can be multiplied by ten; all can be increased in their own kind: for that is the nature
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n
\n 4  Vahantu tvā manoyujo yuktāso navatir nava <\/i><\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n 5<\/i><\/i> Vāyo śatam harīnām
\n\tyuvasva posyānām <\/i>
\n\t<\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 313<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\tof the increase indicated by the word
\n\t\t\tposyānām<\/i>. Therefore, says
\nthe Rishi, either come with the general fullness of the hundred to be afterwards nourished into their full complexity of a hundred
\ntens or, if thou wilt, come at once with thy thousand and let thy movement arrive in the utter mass of its entire potential energy.6<\/font><\/sup>
\nIt is the completely varied all-ensphering, all-energising mental illumination with its full perfection of being, power, bliss, knowledge, mentality, vital force, physical activity that he desires. For, this attained, the subconscient is compelled to yield up all its
\nhidden possibilities at the will of the perfected mind for the rich and abundant movement of the perfected life.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t6 Uta v<\/i><\/font>ā<\/font><\/i> te
\n\t\t\tsahasrino ratha <\/i>
\n<\/font>ā<\/font><\/i> yātu
\n\t\t\tpājasā.<\/i>
\n  
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage –
\n\t\t\t314<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VIII   Vayu, the Master of the Life Energies   Rig Veda IV.48       1. Do thou manifest the sacrificial energies that are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15-the-secret-of-veda","wpcat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}