{"id":858,"date":"2013-07-13T01:30:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=858"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:30:51","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:51","slug":"33-vayu-the-master-of-the-life-energies-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10\/33-vayu-the-master-of-the-life-energies-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","title":{"rendered":"-33_Vayu, the Master of the Life Energies.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nVIII <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b> <\/p>\n

 
\nVAYU, THE MASTER OF THE LIFE ENERGIES<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nRig-veda IV.48<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b> <\/p>\n

\n   <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    \n\tDo thou manifest the sacrificial energies that are unmanifested, even as a revealer of felicity and doer of the work;<\/font>
    \n\t<\/font>Vayu, come in thy car of happy light to the drinking of
    \nthe Soma-wine.<\/font> <\/font><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \n   <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \n

      \n\tPut away from thee all denials of expression and with thy
      \nsteeds of the yoking, with Indra for thy charioteer come, O
      \nVayu, in thy car of happy light to the drinking of the Soma-
      \nwine.<\/font> <\/font><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \n   <\/p>\n

        \n
      1. \n

        \n\tThe two that, dark, yet hold all substances, shall observe
        \n\tthee in their labour, they in whom are all forms. O Vayu,
        \ncome in thy car of happy light to the drinking of the Soma-
        \nwine.<\/font> <\/font><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        \n   <\/p>\n

          \n
        1. \n

          \n\tYoked let the ninety and nine bear thee, they who are yoked
          \n\tby the mind. O Vayu, come in thy car of happy light to the
          \ndrinking of the Soma-wine.<\/font> <\/font><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          \nPage \u2013 294<\/font><\/p>\n

          \n

          \n <\/p>\n

            \n
          1. \n

            \n\tYoke, O Vayu, thy hundred brilliant steeds that shall in-
            \ncrease, or else with thy thousand let thy chariot arrive in the
            \nmass of its force.<\/font> <\/font><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            \nPage \u2013 295<\/font><\/p>\n

            \n

            \nCOMMENTARY <\/font>
            \n<\/b><\/p>\n

             <\/p>\n

            \nThe psychological conceptions of the
            \nVedic Rishis have often a
            \nmarvellous profundity and nowhere more than when they deal
            \nwith the phenomenon of the conscious activities of mind and life
            \nemerging out of the subconscient. It may be said, even, that this
            \nidea is the whole basis of the rich and subtle philosophy evolved
            \nin that early dawn of knowledge by these inspired Mystics.
            \nNor has any other expressed it with a greater subtlety and
            \nfelicity than the Rishi Vamadeva, at once one of the most
            \nprofound seers and one of the sweetest singers of the Vedic age. One of his hymns, the last of the fourth Mandala, is indeed
            \nthe most important key we possess to the symbolism which hid
            \nbehind the figures of the sacrifice those realities of psychological
            \nexperience and perception deemed so sacred by the Aryan
            \nforefathers.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

            In that hymn Vamadeva speaks of the
            \nocean of the subconscient which underlies all our life and activities. Out of that
            \nocean rises "the honeyed wave" of sensational existence with its
            \nundelivered burden of unrealised delight climbing full of the
            \nghṛta<\/i> and the soma,<\/i> the clarified mental consciousness and the
            \nillumined Ananda that descends from above, to the heaven of
            \nImmortality. The "secret Name" of the mental consciousness,
            \nthe tongue with which the gods taste the world, the nexus of
            \nImmortality, is the Ananda which the Soma symbolises. For all
            \nthis creation has been, as it were, ejected into the subconscient by
            \nthe four-horned Bull, the divine Purusha whose horns are infinite
            \nExistence, Consciousness, Bliss and Truth. In images of an energetic incongruity reminding us of the sublime grotesques and
            \nstrange figures that have survived from the old mystic and
            \nsymbolic art of the prehistoric world, Vamadeva describes the
            \nPurusha in the figure of a man-bull, whose four horns are the
            \nfour divine principles, his three feet or three legs the three human
            \nprinciples, mentality, vital dynamism and material substance,
            \nhis two heads the double consciousness of Soul and Nature,
            \nPurusha and Prakriti, his seven hands the seven natural activities
            \ncorresponding to the seven principles. "Triply bound" \u2014 bound<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

            \nPage \u2013 296<\/font><\/p>\n

            \n

            \nin the mind, bound in the
            \nlife-energies, bound in the body \u2014
            \n"the Bull roars aloud; great is the Divinity that has entered into
            \nmortals".<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

            For the ghṛtam,<\/i> the clear light
            \nof the mentality reflecting
            \nthe Truth, has been hidden by the Panis, the lords of the lower
            \nsense-activity, and shut up in the subconscient; in our thoughts,
            \nin our desires, in our physical consciousness the Light and the
            \nAnanda have been triply established, but they are concealed from
            \nus. It is in the cow, symbol of the Light from above, that the gods
            \nfind the clarified streams of the ghṛtam.<\/i> These streams, says the
            \nRishi, rise from the heart of things, from the ocean of the sub-conscient, hṛdyāt samudrāt,<\/i> but they are confined in a hundred
            \npens by the enemy, Vritra, so that they may be kept from the eye
            \nof discernment, from the knowledge that labours in us to enlighten that which is concealed and deliver that which is imprisoned. They move in the path on the borders of the subconscient,
            \ndense if impetuous in their movements, limited by the nervous
            \naction, in small formations of the life-energy Vayu, vātapramiyaḥ.
            \n<\/i>Purified progressively by the experiences of the conscious heart
            \nand mind, these energies of Nature become finally capable of the
            \nmarriage with Agni, the divine Will-force, which breaks down
            \ntheir boundaries and is himself nourished by their now abundant
            \nwaves. That is the crisis of the being by which the mortal nature
            \nprepares its conversion to immortality.<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

            In the last verse of the hymn Vamadeva
            \ndescribes the whole
            \nof existence as established above in the seat of the divine Purusha,
            \nbelow in the ocean of the subconscient and in the Life, antaḥ
            \nsamudre hṛdi antar āyuṣi.<\/i> The conscious mind is, then, the
            \nchannel through which there is communication between the
            \nupper ocean and the lower, between superconscient and subconscient, the light divine and the original darkness of Nature.<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

            Vayu is the Lord of Life. By the
            \nancient Mystics life was
            \nconsidered to be a great force pervading all material existence and the
            \ncondition of all its activities. It is this idea that was formulated later on in the conception of the Prana, the universal
            \nbreath of life. All the vital and nervous activities of the human
            \nbeing fall within the definition of Prana, and belong to the
            \ndomain of Vayu. Yet this great deity has comparatively few<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

            \nPage \u2013 297<\/font><\/p>\n

            \n

            \nhymns to his share in
            \nthe Rig Veda and even in those Suktas in which he is prominently invoked, does
            \nnot usually figure alone but in company with others and as if dependent on them.
            \nHe is especially coupled with Indra and it would almost seem as if for the
            \nfunctionings demanded from him by the Vedic Rishis he needed the aid of the
            \nsuperior deity. When there is question of the divine action of the Life-forces
            \nin man, Agni in the form of the Vedic Horse, Ashwa, Dadhikravan, takes usually
            \nthe place of Vayu.
            \n    If we consider the fundamental ideas of the Rishis, this position of Vayu
            \nbecomes intelligible. The illumination of the lower being by the higher, the
            \nmortal by the divine, was their principal concept. Light and Force, go<\/i>
            \nand a<\/i><\/span>ś<\/span><\/font>va<\/span><\/i>,
            \nthe Cow and the Horse, were the object of the sacrifice. Force was the
            \ncondition, Light the liberating agency; and Indra and Surya were the chief
            \nbringers of Light. Moreover the Force required was the divine Will taking
            \npossession of all the human energies and revealing itself in them; and of this
            \nWill, this force of conscious energy, taking possession of the nervous vitality
            \nand revealing itself in it, Agni more than Vayu and especially Agni Dadhikravan
            \nwas the symbol. For it is Agni who is master of Tapas, the divine Consciousness
            \nformulating itself in universal energy, of which the Prana is only a
            \nrepresentative in the lower being. Therefore in Vamadeva’s hymn, the
            \nfifty-eighth of the fourth Mandala, it is Indra and Surya and Agni who effect
            \nthe great manifestation of the conscious divinity out of the subconscient. Vata
            \nor Vayu, the nervous activity, is only a first condition of the emergent Mind.
            \nAnd for man it is the meeting of Life with Mind and the support given by the
            \nformer to the evolution of the latter which is the important aspect of Vayu.
            \nTherefore we find Indra, Master of Mind, and Vayu, Master of Life, coupled
            \ntogether and the latter always somewhat dependent on the former; the Maruts, the
            \nthought-forces, although in their origin they seem to be as much powers of Vayu
            \nas of Indra, are more important to the Rishis than Vayu himself and even in
            \ntheir dynamic aspect are more closely associated with Agni Rudra than with the
            \nnatural chief of the legions of the Air.
            \n    The present hymn, the forty-eighth of the Mandala is the last<\/span><\/p>\n

            \nPage \u2013 298<\/font><\/p>\n

            \n

            of three in which Vamadeva
            \ninvokes Indra and Vayu for the
            \ndrinking of the Soma-wine. They are called in conjointly as the
            \ntwo lords of brilliant force, śavasaspatī,<\/i> as in another hymn, in
            \na former Mandala (1.23.3), they are invoked as lords of thought,
            \ndhiyaspatī.<\/i> Indra is the master of mental force, Vayu of nervous
            \nor vital force and their union is necessary for thought and for
            \naction. They are invited to come in one common chariot and
            \ndrink together of the wine of the Ananda which brings with it
            \nthe divinising energies. Vayu, it is said, has the right of the first draught;
            \nfor it is the supporting vital forces that must first become capable of the ecstasy of the divine action.<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

            In the third hymn, in which the result
            \nof the sacrifice is
            \ndefined, Vayu is alone invoked, but even so his companionship
            \nwith Indra is clearly indicated. He is to come in a chariot of
            \nhappy brightness, like Usha in another hymn, to drink of the
            \nimmortalising wine.\u00b9 The chariot symbolises movement of energy
            \nand it is a glad movement of already illuminated vital energies
            \nthat is invoked in the form of Vayu.. The divine utility of
            \nthis brightly happy movement is indicated in the first three
            \nverses.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

            The god is to manifest \u2014 he is to
            \nbring into the light of the
            \nconscious activity sacrificial energies which are not yet manifested,\u00b2 are yet hidden in the darkness of the subconscient. In
            \nthe ritualistic interpretation the phrase may be translated,
            \n"Eat of offerings that have not been eaten" or, in another sense
            \nof the verb vī,<\/i> it may be rendered, "Arrive at sacrificial energies
            \nwhich have never been approached"; but all these renderings
            \namount, symbolically, to the same psychological sense. Powers
            \nand activities that have not yet been called up out of the subconscient, have to be liberated from its secret cave by the combined
            \naction of Indra and Vayu and devoted to the work.<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

            For it is not towards an ordinary
            \naction of the nervous
            \nmentality that they are called. Vayu is to manifest these energies
            \nas would "a revealer of the felicity, a doer of the Aryan work",
            \nvipo na rāyo aryaḥ.<\/i> These words sufficiently indicate the nature
            \nof the energies that are to be evoked. It is possible, however,
            \nthat the phrase may have a covert reference to Indra and thus<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

             <\/p>\n

            \n
            \n\u00b9<\/font>V<\/font><\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font>yav<\/font><\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font> candrepa rathen<\/font><\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>a y<\/font><\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font>hi
            \nsutasya pītaye.<\/font><\/i>      <\/font>\u00b2Vihi hotr<\/font><\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font> avitā<\/font>.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

            \nPage \u2013 299<\/font><\/p>\n

            \n

            \nindicate what is afterwards clearly
            \nexpressed, the necessity that
            \nVayu’s action should be governed by the illumined and aspiring
            \nforce of the more brilliant god. For it is Indra’s enlightenment
            \nthat leads to the secret of beatitude being revealed and he is the
            \nfirst labourer in the Work. To Indra, Agni and Surya among the
            \ngods is especially applied the term arya,<\/i> which describes with
            \nan untranslatable compactness those who rise to the noble
            \naspiration and who do the great labour as an offering in order
            \nto arrive at the good and the bliss.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

            In the second verse the necessity of
            \nIndra’s guidance is
            \naffirmed expressly. Vayu is to come putting away all denials that
            \nmay be opposed to the manifestation of the unmanifested, niryuvāṇo aśastīḥ.<\/i> The word
            \naśastīḥ<\/i> means literally "not-expressings"
            \nand describes the detention by obscuring powers like Vritra of
            \nthe light and power that are waiting to be revealed, ready to be
            \ncalled out into expression through the influence of the gods and
            \nby the instrumentality of the Word. The Word is the power
            \nthat expresses, śastram gīḥ̣, vacas.<\/i> But it has to be protected
            \nand given its right effect by the divine Powers. Vayu is to do this
            \noffice; he has to expel all powers of denial, of obscuration, of
            \nnon-manifestation. To do this work he must arrive "with his
            \nsteeds of her yoking and Indra for charioteer", niyutvān indrasārathiḥ.<\/i> The steeds of Indra, of Vayu, of Surya have each their
            \nappropriate name. Indra’s horses are hari<\/i> or babhru,<\/i> red gold
            \nor tawny yellow; Surya’s harit,<\/i> indicating a more deep, full and
            \nintense luminousness; Vayu’s are niyut,<\/i> steeds of the yoking, for
            \nthey represent those dynamic movements which yoke the energy
            \nto its action. But although they are the horses of Vayu, they have
            \nto be driven by Indra, the movements of the Master of nervous
            \nand vital energy guided by the Master of mind.<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n


            \nThe third verse\u00b9 would seem at first to
            \nbring in an unconnected idea; it speaks of a dark Heaven and Earth with all
            \ntheir forms obeying or following in their labour the movements
            \nof Vayu in his Indra-driven car. They are not mentioned by name
            \nbut described as the two black or dark holders of substance or
            \nholders of wealth, vasudhitī;<\/i> but the latter word sufficiently indicates earth and by implication of the dual form Heaven also, its<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

             <\/p>\n

            \n\u00b9<\/font>Anu kr<\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>s<\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>n<\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>e vasudhit<\/i><\/font>ī<\/i><\/font> yemāte
            \nviśvapeśasā.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

            \nPage \u2013 300<\/font><\/p>\n

            \n

            \ncompanion. We must note that it is not Heaven the
            \nfather and Earth the mother that are indicated, but the two sisters, rodasī,
            \n<\/i>feminine forms of heaven and earth, who symbolise the general energies of
            \nthe mental and physical consciousness. It is their dark states \u2014 the obscured
            \nconsciousness between its two limits of the mental and the physical, \u2014 which by
            \nthe happy movement of the nervous dynamism begin to labour in accordance with
            \nthe movement or under the control of Vayu and to yield up their hidden forms;
            \nfor all forms are concealed in them and they must be compelled to reveal them.
            \nThus we discover that this verse completes the sense of the two that precede.
            \nFor always when the Veda is properly understood, its verses are seen to un- roll
            \nthe thought with a profound logical coherence and pregnant succession. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

            \nThe two remaining Riks indicate the result produced
            \nby this action of Heaven and Earth and by their yielding up of hidden forms and
            \nunmanifested energies on the movement of Vayu as his car gallops towards the
            \nAnanda. First of all his horses are to attain their normally complete general
            \nnumber. "Let the ninety-nine be yoked and bear thee, those that are yoked by the
            \nmind."\u00b9 The constantly recurring numbers ninety-nine, a hundred and a thousand
            \nhave a symbolic significance in the Veda which it is very difficult to disengage
            \nwith any precision. The sec- ret is perhaps to be found in the multiplication of
            \nthe mystic number seven by itself and its double repetition with a unit added
            \nbefore and at the end, making altogether 1+49+49+1=100. Seven is the number of
            \nessential principles in manifested Nature, the seven forms of divine
            \nconsciousness at play in the world. Each, formulated severally, contains the
            \nother six in itself; thus the full number is forty-nine, and to this is added
            \nthe unit above out of which all develops, giving us altogether a scale of fifty
            \nand forming the complete gamut of active consciousness. But there is also its
            \nduplication by an ascending and descending series, the descent of the gods, the
            \nascent of man. This gives us ninety-nine, the number variously applied in the
            \nVeda to horses, cities, rivers, in each case with a separate but kindred
            \nsymbolism. If we add an obscure unit below into which all descends to the <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

             <\/p>\n

            \n\u00b9Vahantu tvā manoyujo yuktāso
            \nnavatir nava.<\/font><\/i> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

            \nPage \u2013 301<\/font><\/p>\n

            \n

            \nluminous unit above towards which all
            \nascends we have the full,
            \nscale of one hundred.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

            It is therefore a complex energy of
            \nconsciousness which
            \nis to be the result of Vayu’s movement; it is the emergence of
            \nthe fullest movement of the mental activity now only latent and
            \npotential in man, \u2014 the ninety and nine steeds that are yoked
            \nby the mind. And in the next verse the culminating unit is added.
            \nWe have a hundred horses, and because the action is now that
            \nof complete luminous mentality, these steeds, though they still
            \ncarry Vayu and Indra, are no longer merely niyut,<\/i> but hari,<\/i> the
            \ncolour of Indra’s brilliant bays.\u00b9 "Yoke, O Vayu, a hundred of
            \nthe brilliant ones, that are to be increased."<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

            But why to be increased ? Because a
            \nhundred represents the
            \ngeneral fullness of the variously combined movements, but not
            \ntheir utter complexity. Each of the hundred can be multiplied
            \nby ten; all can be increased in their own kind: for that is the
            \nnature of the increase indicated by the word poṣyāṇām.<\/i> Therefore, says the Rishi, either come with the general fullness of the
            \nhundred to be afterwards nourished into their full complexity of
            \na hundred tens or, if thou wilt, come at once with thy thousand
            \nand let thy movement arrive in the utter mass of its entire potential energy.<\/font>\u00b2<\/font>
            \nIt is the completely varied all-ensphering, all-energising mental illumination with its full perfection of being,
            \npower, bliss, knowledge, mentality, vital force, physical activity
            \nthat he desires. For, this attained, the subconscient is compelled
            \nto yield up all its hidden possibilities at the will of the perfected
            \nmind for the rich and abundant movement of the perfected life.<\/font>
            \n<\/font><\/p>\n

             <\/p>\n

            \n\u00b9<\/font>V<\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font>yo
            \nśatam harin<\/i><\/font>̣ā<\/i><\/font>m yuvasva pos<\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>y<\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font>n<\/i><\/font>̣ā<\/i><\/font>m.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

            \n\u00b2<\/font>Uta v<\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font> te sahasrin<\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>o ratha <\/i><\/font>
            \nā<\/i><\/font> y<\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font>tu p<\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font>jas<\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font>.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

            \nPage \u2013 302<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            VIII     VAYU, THE MASTER OF THE LIFE ENERGIES   Rig-veda IV.48     Do thou manifest the sacrificial energies that are unmanifested, even…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","wpcat-17-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858","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=858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}