{"id":881,"date":"2013-07-13T01:30:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=881"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:30:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:59","slug":"69-the-guardians-of-the-light-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\/69-the-guardians-of-the-light-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","title":{"rendered":"-69_The Guardians of the Light.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\n      The Guardians of the Light <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b> <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n\tSURYA,
\n LIGHT AND SEER <\/font> <\/a> <\/b><\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

\nThe Rig-veda rises out of the ancient Dawn a thousand-voiced
\nhymn lifted from the soul of man to an all-creative Truth and an all-illumining
\nLight. Truth and Light are synonymous or equivalent words in the thought of the Vedic seers even
\nas are their opposites. Darkness and Ignorance. The battle
\nof the Vedic Gods and Titans is a perpetual conflict between Day and Night for the possession of the triple world of heaven, mid-air and earth and for the liberation or bondage of
\nthe mind, life and body of the human being, his mortality or
\nhis immortality. It is waged by the Powers of a supreme Truth
\nand Lords of a supreme Light against other dark Powers who
\nstruggle to maintain the foundation of this falsehood in which
\nwe dwell and the iron walls of these hundred fortified cities of the
\nIgnorance.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis antinomy between the Light and the Darkness, the
\nTruth and the Falsehood has its roots in an original cosmic
\nantinomy between the illumined Infinite and the darkened finite
\nconsciousness. Aditi the infinite, the undivided is the mother of
\nthe Gods, Diti or Danu, the division, the separative consciousness the mother of the Titans; therefore the gods in man move
\ntowards light, infinity and unity, the Titans dwell in their cave
\nof the darkness and issue from it only to break up, make discordant, wounded, limited his knowledge, will, strength, joy and
\nbeing. Aditi is originally the pure consciousness of infinite
\nexistence one and self-luminous; she is the Light that is Mother
\nof all things. As the infinite she gives birth to Daksha, the discriminating and distributing Thought of the divine Mind, and is
\nherself born to Daksha as the cosmic infinite, the mystic Cow
\nwhose udders feed all the worlds.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is this divine daughter of Daksha who is the mother of
\nthe gods. In the cosmos Aditi is the undivided infinite unity
\nof things, free from the duality, advaya,<\/i> and has Diti the separative <\/font>
\n <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 421<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ndualising consciousness for the obverse side of her cosmic
\ncreation, \u2014 her sister and a rival wife in the later myth. Here in
\nthe lower being where she is manifested as the earth-principle, her
\nhusband is the lower or inauspicious Father who is slain by their
\nchild Indra, the power of the divine Mind manifested in the
\ninferior creation. Indra, says the hymn, slays his father, dragging
\nhim by the feet, and makes his mother a widow. In another image
\nforcible and expressive though repugnant to the decorousness
\nof our modern taste, Surya is said to be the lover of his sister
\nDawn and the second husband of his mother Aditi, and by a variation of the same image Aditi is hymned as the wife of the all-
\npervading Vishnu who is in the cosmic creation one of the sons
\nof Aditi and the younger brother of Indra. These images which
\nseem gross and confused when we lack the key to their mystic
\nsignificance, become clear enough the moment that is recovered.
\nAditi is the infinite consciousness in the cosmos espoused and
\nheld by the lower creative power which works through the
\nlimited mind and body, but delivered from this subjection by the
\nforce of the divine or illumined Mind born of her in the mentality
\nof man. It is this Indra who makes Surya the light of the Truth
\nrise in heaven and dispel the darknesses and falsehoods and
\nlimited vision of the separative mentality. Vishnu is the vaster
\nall-pervading existence which then takes possession of our liberated and unified consciousness, but he is born in us only after
\nIndra has made his puissant and luminous appearance.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis Truth is the light, the body of Surya. It is described
\nas the True, the Right, the Vast; as the luminous supramental
\nheaven of Swar \u2014 "vast Swar, the great Truth" \u2014 concealed
\nbeyond our heaven and our earth; and as Surya, the Sun, "that
\nTruth" which dwells lost in the darkness, withheld from us in
\nthe secret cave of the subconscient. This hidden Truth is the
\nVast because it dwells free and manifest only on the supramental
\nplane where existence, will, knowledge, joy move in a rapturous
\nand boundless infinity and are not limited and hedged as in this
\nmany-walled existence of the mind, life and body which form the
\nlower being. That is the wideness of the higher being to which we have to ascend
\nbreaking beyond the two enclosing firmaments of the mental and physical; it is described as a divine<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 422<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nexistence free and large in its unbounded range; it is a wideness
\nwhere there is no obstacle nor any siege of limitation; it is the
\nfear-free pasture of the luminous herds of the Sun; it is the seat
\nand house of the Truth, the own home of the Gods, the solar
\nworld, the true light where there is no fear for the soul, no possibility of any wound to the large and equal bliss of its existence.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis supramental vastness is also the fundamental truth
\nof being, satyam,<\/i> out of which its active truth wells out naturally
\nand without strife of effort into a perfect and faultless movement
\nbecause there is upon those heights no division, no gulf between
\nconsciousness and force, no divorce of knowledge and will, no
\ndisharmonising of our being and its action; everything there is
\nthe "straight" and there is no least possibility of crookedness.
\nTherefore this supramental plane of vastness and true being is
\nalso ṛtam,<\/i> the true activity of things; it is a supreme truth of
\nmovement, action, manifestation, an infallible truth of will and
\nheart and knowledge, a perfect truth of thought and word and
\nemotion; it is the spontaneous Right, the free Law, the original
\ndivine order of things untouched by the falsehoods of the divided
\nand separative consciousness. It is the vast divine and self-luminous synthesis born of a fundamental unity, of which our petty
\nexistence is only the poor, partial, broken and perverted cutting
\nup and analysis. Such was the Sun of the Vedic worship, the
\nparadise of light to which the Fathers aspired, the world, the body
\nof Surya, son of Aditi.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAditi is the infinite Light of which the
\ndivine world is a formation and the gods, children of the infinite Light, born of her
\nin the ṛtam,<\/i> manifested in that active truth of her movement
\nguard it against Chaos and Ignorance. It is they who maintain
\nthe invincible workings of the Truth in the universe, they who
\nbuild its worlds into an image of the Truth. They, bounteous
\ngivers, loose out upon man its floods variously imaged by the
\nmystic poets as the sevenfold solar waters, the rain of heaven,
\nthe streams of the Truth, the seven mighty Ones of heaven, the
\nwaters that have knowledge, the floods that breaking through the
\ncontrol of Vritra the Coverer ascend and overflow the mind.
\nThey, seers and revealers, make the light of the Truth to arise on
\nthe darkened sky of his mentality, fill with its luminous and<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 423<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nhoney-sweet satisfactions the atmosphere of his vital existence,
\ntransform into its vastness and plenitude by the power of the
\nSun the earth of his physical being, create everywhere the divine
\nDawn.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThen are established in man the seasons of the Truth, the
\ndivine workings, called sometimes the Aryan workings; the
\nlaw of the Truth seizes and guides his action, the word of the
\nTruth is heard in his thought. Then appear the straight undeviating paths of the Truth, the road and ford of Heaven, the way of
\ngoing of the gods and of the fathers; for by this path where no
\nviolence is done to the divine workings, straight, thornless,
\nhappy, easy to tread once our feet are set upon it and the manifested divinities are our guard, the luminous fathers ascended
\nby the power of the Word, by the power of the Wine, by the
\npower of the Sacrifice into the fearless light and stood upon the
\nwide and open levels of the supramental existence. So must man,
\ntheir posterity, exchange the crooked movements of the separative consciousness for the straight things of the Truth-conscious
\nmind.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFor always the courses of the Sun, the gallopings of the
\ndivine horse Dadhikravan, the movement of the chariot-wheels
\nof the gods travel on the straight path over wide and level ranges
\nwhere all is open and the vision is not confined; but the ways
\nof the lower being are crooked windings beset with pits and
\nstumbling-blocks and they crawl unvisited by the divine impulsion over a rugged and uneven ground which screens in from men
\ntheir goal, their road, their possible helpers, the dangers that
\nawait them, their ambushed enemies. Travelling on the path of
\nthe Truth with the straight and perfect leading of the gods the
\nlimitations of mind and body are at length transcended; we take
\npossession of the three luminous worlds of the higher heaven,
\nenjoy the beatific immortality, grow into the epiphany of the gods
\nand build in our human existence the universal formations of the
\nhigher or divine creation. Man then possesses both the divine
\nand the human birth; he is lord of the double movement, he
\nholds Aditi and Diti together, realises the universal in the individual, becomes the Infinite in the finite.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is this conception that Surya embodies. He is the light<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 424<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof the Truth rising on the human consciousness in the wake of
\nthe divine Dawn whom he pursues as a lover follows after his
\nbeloved and he treads the paths she has traced for him. For Dawn
\nthe daughter of Heaven, the face or power of Aditi, is the constant opening out of the divine light upon the human being; she
\nis the coming of the spiritual riches, a light, a power, a new birth,
\nthe pouring out of the golden treasure of heaven into his earthly
\nexistence. Surya means the illumined or the luminous, as also
\nthe illumined thinker is called sun;<\/i> but the root means, besides,
\nto create or, more literally, to loose, release, speed forth, \u2014 for
\nin the Indian idea creation is a loosing forth of what is held back,
\na manifestation of what is hidden in the infinite Existence.
\nLuminous vision and luminous creation are the two functions of
\nSurya. He is Surya the creator and he is Surya the revealing
\nvision, the all-seer.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWhat does he create? First the worlds; for everything is
\ncreated out of the burning light and truth of the infinite Being,
\nloosed out of the body of Surya who is the light of His infinite
\nself-vision, formed by Agni, the seer-will, the omniscient creative
\nforce and flaming omnipotence of that self-vision. Secondly,
\ninto the night of man’s darkened consciousness this Father of
\nthings, this Seer of the truth manifests out of himself in place of
\nthe inauspicious and inferior creation, which he then looses away
\nfrom us, the illimitable harmony of the divine worlds governed
\nby the self-conscious supramental Truth and the living law of the
\nmanifested godhead. Still, the name Surya is seldom used when
\nthere is question of this creation; it is reserved for his passive
\naspects as the body of the infinite Light and the revelation. In
\nhis active power he is addressed by other names; then he is
\nSavitri, from the same root as Surya, the Creator; or he is
\nTwashtri the Fashioner of things; or he is Pushan, the Increaser,
\n\u2014 appellations that are sometimes used as if identical with Surya, sometimes as
\nif expressing other forms and even other personalities of this universal godhead. Savitri, again, manifests himself,
\nespecially in the formation of the Truth in man, through four
\ngreat and active deities Mitra, Varuna, Bhaga and Aryaman, the
\nLords of pure Wideness, luminous Harmony, divine Enjoyment,
\nexalted Power.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 425<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nBut if Surya is the creator, he who is, as the Veda says, the
\nself of all that moves and all that is stable, and if this Surya is
\nalso the divine, "the wide-burning Truth that is lodged in the law
\nwhich upholds heaven", then all the worlds should manifest
\nthat law of the Truth and all of them should be so many heavens.
\nWhence then comes this falsehood, sin, death, suffering of our
\nmortal existence? We are told that there are eight sons of the
\ncosmic Aditi who are born from her body; by seven she moves to
\nthe gods, but the eighth son is Martanda, of the mortal creation,
\nwhom she casts away from her; with the seven she moves to the
\nsupreme life, the original age of the gods, but Martanda is
\nbrought back out of the Inconscient into which he had been cast
\nto preside over mortal birth and death.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis Martanda or eighth Surya is the black or dark, the
\nlost, the hidden sun. The Titans have taken and concealed him
\nin their cavern of darkness and thence he must be released into
\nsplendour and freedom by the gods and seers through the power
\nof the sacrifice. In less figurative language the mortal life is
\ngoverned by an oppressed, a hidden, a disguised Truth; just as
\nAgni the divine seer-will works at first upon earth concealed
\nor obscured by the smoke of human passion and self-will, so
\nSurya the divine Knowledge lies concealed and unattainable in
\nthe night and darkness, is enveloped and contained in the ignorance and error of the ordinary human existence. The Seers
\nby the power of truth in their thoughts discover this Sun lying
\nin the darkness, they liberate this knowledge, this power of un-
\ndivided and all-embracing vision, this eye of the gods concealed
\nin our subconscient being; they release his radiances, they create
\nthe divine Dawn. Indra the divine Mind-power, Agni the Seer-Will, Brihaspati the Master of the inspired word, Soma the
\nimmortal Delight born in man aid them to shatter the strong
\nplaces of the mountain, the artificial obstructions of the Titans
\nare broken and this Sun soars up radiant into our heavens.
\nArisen he mounts to the supramental Truth. "He goes where
\nthe gods have made a path for him cleaving like an eagle to his
\ngoal;" he ascends with his seven shining horses to the utter
\nluminous ocean of the higher existence; he is led over it by the
\nseers in a ship. Surya, the Sun, is himself perhaps the golden ship<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 426<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nin which Pushan the Increaser leads men beyond evil and darkness and sin to the Truth and the Immortality.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis is the first aspect of Surya that he is the supreme Light
\nof the truth attained by the human being after his liberation from
\nthe Ignorance. "Beholding a higher Light beyond this darkness
\nwe have followed it and reached the highest Light of all, Surya
\ndivine in the divine Being" (1.50.10). This is the Vedic way of
\nputting the idea which we find more openly expressed in the
\nUpanishads, the fairest form of Surya in which man sees every-
\nwhere the one Purusha with the liberated vision "He am I".
\nThe higher light of Surya is that by which vision rises on our
\ndarkness and moves towards the superconscient, the highest
\nthat other greater Truth-vision which, having attained, moves
\nin the farthest supreme world of the Infinite.<\/font>\u00b9 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis brilliant Surya is made by the godward will of man;<\/font>
\n<\/font>he is perfectly fashioned by the doers of divine works. For this
\nlight is the vision of the highest to which man arrives by the
\nYajna or Yoga of his being, by its union through a long labour
\nof self-uplifting and self-giving to the powers of the concealed
\nTruth. "O Sun, thou all-seeing Intelligence," cries the Rishi,
\n"may we, living creatures, behold thee bringing to us the great
\nLight, blazing out on us for vision upon vision of the beatitude,
\nascending to the bliss in the vast mass of thy strength above!"
\n(X.37.8) The Life-powers in us, the purifying storm-gods who
\nbattle for the knowledge, they who are created by the divine
\nMind Indra and taught by Varuna who is the divine Purity and
\nWideness, are to attain to their enjoyment by the light of this
\nSurya.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe light of Surya is the form, the body of that divine
\nvision. He is described as the pure and visioned force of the
\nTruth which shines out in his rising like the gold of Heaven. He
\nis the great godhead who is the vision of Mitra and Varuna;<\/font>
\n<\/font>he is the large and invincible eye of that Wideness and that Harmony; the eye of Mitra and Varuna is the great ocean of vision
\nof Surya. His is that large truth-vision which makes us give to
\nits possessors the name of seer. Himself the "wide-seeing",
\n"the Sun, the Seer who knows the triple knowledge of these gods<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Rv. X.37. <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 427<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand their more eternal births", he sees all that is in the gods and
\nall that is in men; "beholding the straight things and the crooked
\nin mortals he looks down upon their movements". It is by this
\neye of light that Indra, who has made him arise in heaven for far
\nvision, distinguishes the Aryan powers from the Dasyu, separating the children of light from the children of darkness so that he
\nmay destroy these but raise those to their perfection.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut seerhood brings with it not only the far vision but the
\nfar hearing. As the eyes of the sage are opened to the light,
\nso is his ear unsealed to receive the vibrations of the Infinite;<\/font>
\n<\/font>from all the regions of the Truth there comes thrilling into him
\nits Word which becomes the form of his thoughts. It is when
\n"the thought rises from the seat of the Truth" that Surya by his
\nrays releases into the wideness the mystic Cow of Light. Surya
\nhimself is not only "the son of Heaven who is the far-seeing eye
\nof knowledge born of the gods" (X.37.1), but he is the speaker
\nalso of the supreme word and the impeller of the illumined and
\nilluminating thought. "The truth that thou rising free from sin, O Sun, speakest today to Mitra and Varuna, that may we speak
\nand abide in the Godhead dear to thee, O Aditi, and thee, O
\nAryaman" (VII.60.1). And in the Gayatri, the chosen formula
\nof the ancient Vedic religion, the supreme light of the godhead
\nSurya Savitri is invoked as the object of our desire, the deity who
\nshall give his luminous impulsion to all our thoughts.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSurya Savitri, the Creator; for the seer and the creator meet
\nagain in this apotheosis of the divine vision in man. The victory
\nof that vision, the arising of this Light to "its own home of the
\nTruth", the outflooding of this great ocean of vision of Surya
\nwhich is the eye of the infinite Wideness and the infinite Harmony, is in fact nothing else than the second or divine creation.
\nFor then Surya in us beholds with a comprehensive vision all
\nthe worlds, all the births as herds of the divine Light, bodies
\nof the infinite Aditi; and this new-seeing of all things, this
\nnew-moulding of thought, act, feeling, will, consciousness in the
\nterms of the Truth, the Bliss, the Right, the Infinity is a new creation. It is the coming into us of "that greater existence which is
\nbeyond on the other side of this smaller and which, even if it be
\nalso a dream of the Infinite, puts away from it the falsehood."<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 428<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nTo prepare that new birth and new creation for man by
\nhis illumination and upward voyaging is the function of Surya,
\nthe divine Light and Seer.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n
\nTHE
\n DIVINE DAWN <\/font> <\/a><\/b><\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAs the Sun is image and godhead of the golden Light of the
\ndivine Truth, so Dawn is image and godhead of the opening
\nout of the supreme illumination on the night of our human
\nignorance. Dawn daughter of Heaven and Night her sister are
\nobverse and reverse sides of the same eternal Infinite. Utter
\nNight out of which the worlds arise is the symbol of the Inconscient. That is the inconscient Ocean, that the darkness concealed
\nwithin darkness out of which the One is born by the greatness
\nof His energy. But in the world of our darkened mortal view of
\nthings there reigns the lesser Night of the Ignorance which envelops heaven and earth and the mid-region, our mental and physical consciousness and our vital being. It is here that Dawn the
\ndaughter of Heaven rises with the radiances of her Truth, with
\nthe bliss of her boons; putting off the darkness like a black
\nwoven robe, as a young maiden garbed in light, this bride of the
\nluminous Lord of beatitude unveils the splendours of her bosom,
\nreveals her shining limbs and makes the Sun ascend upon the
\nupclimbing tier of the worlds.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis night of our darkness is not entirely unillumined. If
\nthere be nothing else, if all is deep gloom, yet the divine flame of
\nthe seer-will Agni burns through the dense murk giving light to
\nhim who sits afar in its shadow; though not yet kindled, as it
\nshall be at dawn, on a sacrificial altar, yet even so it fulfils
\non our earth as the lowest and greatest of the gods the will and
\nworks of the hidden Light in spite of all this enveloping smoke
\nof passion and desire. And the stars shine out and the moon
\ncomes at night making manifest the invincible workings of the
\ninfinite King. Moreover, always Night holds hidden in her
\nbosom her luminous sister; this life of our ignorance taught by
\nthe gods in their veiled human working prepares the birth of the
\ndivine Dawn so that, sped forth, she may manifest the supreme<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 429<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncreation of the luminous Creator. For the divine Dawn is the
\nforce or face of Aditi; she is the mother of the gods; she gives
\nthem birth into our humanity in their true forms no longer com-
\npressed into our littleness and veiled to our vision.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut this great work is to be done according to the ordered
\ngradations of the Truth, in its fixed seasons, by the twelve months
\nof the sacrifice, by the divine years of Surya Savitri. Therefore
\nthere is a constant rhythm and alternation of night and dawn,
\nilluminations of the Light and periods of exile from it, openings
\n‘ up of our darkness and its settling upon us once more, till the
\ncelestial Birth is accomplished and again till it is fulfilled in its
\ngreatness, knowledge, love and power. These later nights are
\nother than those utter darknesses which are dreaded as the
\noccasion of the enemy, the haunt of the demons of division who
\ndevour; these are rather the pleasant nights, the divine and
\nblessed ones who equally labour for our growth. Night and Dawn are then of
\ndifferent forms but one mind and suckle alternately the same luminous Child. Then the revealing lustres of
\nthe brighter goddess are known in the pleasant nights even
\nthrough the movements of the darkness. Therefore Kutsa hymns
\nthe two sisters, "Immortal, with a common lover, agreeing, they
\nmove over heaven and earth forming the hue of the Light;<\/font>
\n<\/font>common is the path of the sisters, infinite; and they range it, the
\none and the other, taught by the gods; common they, though
\ndifferent their forms" (1.113.2,3). For one is the bright Mother
\nof the herds, the other the dark Cow, the black Infinite, who can
\nyet be made to yield us the shining milk of heaven.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThus the Dawns come with a constant
\nalternation, thrice ten\u2014the mystic number of our mentality\u2014making the month,
\ntill some day there shall break out upon us the wondrous experience of our
\nforefathers in a long bygone age of humanity when the dawns succeeded each other
\nwithout the intervention of any night, when they came to the Sun as to a lover
\nand circled round him, not returning again and again in his front as a precursor
\nof his periodical visitations. That shall be when the supramental consciousness
\nshines out fulfilled in the mentality and we shall possess the year-long day
\nenjoyed by the gods on the summit of the eternal mountain. Then shall be the dawning of the<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 430<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n"best" or highest, most glorious Dawn, when "driving away the
\nEnemy, guardian of the Truth, born in the Truth, full of the bliss,
\nuttering the highest truths, fulfilled in all boons she brings the
\nbirth and manifestation of the godheads" (1.113.12). Meanwhile
\neach dawn comes as the first of a long succession that shall follow
\nand pursues the path and goal of those that have already gone
\nforward; each in her coming impels the life upwards and
\nawakens in us "some one who was dead" (1.113.8). "Mother
\nof the gods, force of the Infinite, the vast vision that awakes
\nfrom the sacrifice she creates expression for the thought of the
\nsoul" and gives us the universal birth in all that is born (I.I 13.19).<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Vedic Rishis, inspired poets penetrated with the beauty
\nand glory of physical Nature, could not fail to make the most of
\nthe figures given to them by this splendid and attractive symbol
\nof the earthly dawning, so that if we read carelessly or with too
\nmuch attachment to the poetical figure we may miss or repel their
\ndeeper meaning. But in no hymn to their beautiful goddess do
\nthey forget to give us shining hints, illuminating epithets, profound mystical phrases which shall recall us to the divine sense
\nof the symbol. Especially do they use that figure of the rays that
\nare herds of shining cows around which they have woven the
\nmystic parable of the Angirasa Rishis. Dawn is invoked to shine
\nout on us as when she shone upon the seven-mouthed Angirasa,
\non the unity of the nine-rayed and the ten-rayed seers who by
\nthe utter thought of the soul, by the word that illumines broke
\nopen the fortified pens, "pens of the darkness" in which the
\nPanis, misers and traffickers of the Night, had shut up the Sun’s
\nradiant herds. Her rays are as loosings forth of these shining ones;<\/font>
\n<\/font>the Dawns themselves are as if the released upward movements
\nof those herded illuminations. Pure and purifying, they break
\nopen the doors of the pen. Dawn is the Truth-possessing mother
\nof the herds; she is herself the shining Cow and her milk is the
\ndivine yield of heaven, the luminous milk which is mixed with
\nthe wine of the gods.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis Dawn illumines not only our earth but all the worlds.
\nShe brings out into expression the successive planes of our existence so that we may look upon all "the diverse lives" of which
\nwe are capable. She reveals them by the eye of the Sun and fronting <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/p>\n

 
\n\t\tPage \u2013 431<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n"the worlds of the becoming she stands aloft over them all
\nas the vision of immortality" (III.61.3). She is herself that which
\nshines out widely as the Eye, and like her lover the Sun she gives
\nnot only the vision, but also the word; "she finds speech for every
\nthinker", she creates expression for the thought in the soul. To
\nthose who saw only a little she gives wide vision and brings out
\ninto expression for them all the worlds. For she is a godhead of
\nthought, the "young and ancient goddess of many thoughts who
\nmoves according to the divine law" (III.61.1). She is the goddess
\nof the perceptive knowledge who has the perfect truth; she is the
\nsupreme light of all lights and is born as a varied and all-embracing conscient vision. She is the light full of knowledge which
\nrises up out of the darkness. "We have crossed through to the
\nother shore of this darkness," cries the Rishi, "Dawn is breaking
\nforth and she creates and forms the births of knowledge" (1.92.6).<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nConstantly the idea of the Truth is associated with this
\nluminous goddess Usha. She awakens full of the Truth by the
\nilluminations of heaven; she comes uttering words of truth; her
\ndawns are luminous in their entering in because they are true as
\nbeing born from the Truth; it is from the seat of the Truth that
\nthe dawns awake. She is the shining leader of perfect truths who
\nawakens in perception to things of. varied light and opens all
\ndoors. Agni, the mighty one, enters into a great wideness of our
\nheaven and earth receiving his impulsion in the foundation of the
\nTruth which is the foundation of the Dawns; for the outshining
\nof this Dawn is "the vast knowledge of Mitra and Varuna and
\nlike a thing of delight it orders the light everywhere in many
\nforms" (III.61.7).<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nMoreover she gives the riches we seek and leads man on the
\ndivine path. She is the queen of all boons and the wealth she
\ngives, expressed in the mystic symbols of the Cow and the Horse,
\nis the bright abundance of the higher planes; Agni begs from her
\nand attains in her luminous coming their delightful substance;<\/font>
\n<\/font>she gives to the mortal inspired knowledge and plenitude and
\nimpelling force and vast energy. It is she who creates the Path
\nfor mortals by her light; she makes for them the good paths that
\nare happy and easy of going. She moves man to his journey;<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Thou," says the Rishi, "art there for strength and knowledge<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 
\nPage \u2013 432<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand great impulsion, thou art our movement to the goal, thou
\nmakest us set forth on the journey." Her path is a path of light and she moves
\non it with horses yoked by the Truth, herself possessed of the Truth and vast by its power. She follows effectively
\nthe path of the Truth and as one that knows she destroys not its
\ndirections. "Therefore," runs the chant, "O Dawn divine, shine
\nout on us immortal, in thy chariot of bliss, uttering the words of
\nTruth; let horses bring thee that are well-governed, golden of
\nhue, wide in their strength" (III. 61.2).<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nLike all the leaders of the Path, she is a destroyer of enemies.
\nWhile the Aryan wakes in the dawn, the Panis, misers of Life and
\nLight, sleep unawakening in the heart of the darkness where there
\nare not her varied rays of knowledge. Like an armed hero she
\ndrives away our enemies and dispels the darkness like a charging
\nwar-horse. The daughter of heaven comes with the light driving
\naway the enemy and all darknesses. And this Light is the light
\nof the world of Swar, the luminous world that Surya Savitri
\nshall create for us. For because she is divine Dawn of the
\nluminous paths, vast with the Truth and bringing to us its bright
\nworld, therefore the illumined adore her with their thoughts.
\nRemoving, as it were, a woven robe the bride of the Lord of
\nbeatitude by her perfect works and her perfect enjoyment creates
\nSwar and spreads wide in her glory from the ends of heaven over
\nall the earth; she attains to a high-uplifted strength in heaven
\nestablishing the honey of the sweetness and the three luminous
\nregions of that world are made to shine out by the delightful
\nvision of this great Dawn.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTherefore cries the Rishi, "Arise, life and force have come to
\nus, the darkness has departed, the Light arrives; she has made
\nempty the path for the journey of the Sun; thither let us go where
\nthe gods shall carry forward our being beyond these limits"
\n(L113.16).<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n
\nPUSHAN
\n THE INCREASER <\/font> <\/a> <\/font> <\/b><\/span> <\/p>\n

\nSince the divine work in us cannot be suddenly accomplished,
\nthe godhead cannot be created all at once, but only by a luminous <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/p>\n

 
\n\t\tPage \u2013 433<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ndevelopment and constant nurture through the succession
\nof the dawns, through the periodic revisitings of the illumining
\nSun, Surya the Sun-Power manifests himself in another form as
\nPushan, the Increaser. The root of this name means to increase,
\nfoster, nourish. The spiritual wealth coveted by the Rishis is one
\nthat thus increases "day by day", that is, in each return of this
\nfostering Sun; increase or growth (puṣṭi)<\/i> is a frequent object of
\ntheir prayers. Pushan represents this aspect of the Surya-power.
\nHe is the "lord and master of plenitudes, lord of our growings,
\nour comrade". Pushan is the enricher of our sacrifice. Vast
\nPushan shall advance our chariot by his energy; he shall become
\nfor the increase of our plenitudes. Pushan is described as himself
\na stream of the divine riches and a lavish heap of its substance.
\nHe is lord of the vast treasure of its joy and companion of our
\nfelicity.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe return of the night of ignorance which intervenes
\nbetween the successive dawns is imaged as the loss of the radiant
\nherds of the Sun frequently stolen from the seer by the Panis and
\nsometimes as the loss of the Sun itself hidden by them again in
\ntheir tenebrous cavern of the subconscient. The increase which
\nPushan gives depends on the recovery of these disappearing illuminations of the Truth. Therefore this god is associated with
\nIndra the Power of divine Mind, his brother, friend, ally in battle,
\nin their forceful recovery. He perfects and accomplishes our host
\nthat seeks for the herds so that they conquer and possess. "Let
\nPushan pursue after our luminous herds, let Pushan guard our
\nwar-horses, let Pushan conquer for us the plenitude. O Pushan,
\ngo after our cows…. Let Pushan hold his right hand over us in
\nfront; let him drive back to us that which we have lost" (VI.
\n54.5,6,10). So also he brings back the lost Surya. "O shining
\nPushan, bring to us, as if our lost herd, the God of the varied
\nfullness of flame who upholds our heavens. Pushan finds the
\nshining King who was hidden from us and concealed in the cave"
\n(1.23.13,14). And we are told of the luminous goad which this
\nresplendent deity bears, the goad that urges the thoughts of the
\nsoul and is the means of accomplishment of the herd of the radiant illuminations. What he gives to us is secure; for because
\nhe has the knowledge, he loses not the herd and is the guardian<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 
\nPage \u2013 434<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nThe Guardians of the Light <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nof the world of our becoming. He has the variously ordaining
\nand comprehensive no less than the complete unified vision of all
\nour worlds and therefore he is our fosterer and increaser. He is
\nthe lord of our felicity who loses not our possession of knowledge
\nand so long as we abide in the law of his workings we shall suffer
\nno hurt nor diminution. The happy state of the soul that he gives
\nremoves from it all sin and evil and makes today and makes
\ntomorrow for the building up of the whole godhead in our
\nuniversal being.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSince Surya is the lord of the Knowledge, Pushan also is
\nespecially the knower and thinker and guardian of the shining
\nthoughts of the seer \u2014 the keeper of the herds delighting in the
\nthought who is immanent in the whole world and all-pervading
\nfosters all the forms of creative knowledge. It is this Increaser
\nwho stirs and impels the minds of the illumined and is the means
\nof accomplishment and perfection of their thoughts; he is the
\nseer set in man the thinker, the comrade of his illumined mind
\nwho moves him upon the path. He manifests in us the thought
\nwhich wins the Cow and the Horse and all the plenitude of
\nthe wealth. He is the friend of every thinker; he cherishes the
\nthought in its increase as a lover cherishes his bride. The thoughts
\nthat seek the supreme felicity are the forces that the Increaser
\nyokes to his car, they are the "unborn ones"<\/font>\u00b9<\/font> who take upon
\nthem the yoke of his chariot.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe image of the chariot, of the journey, of the path occurs
\nconstantly in association with Pushan because this growth which
\nhe gives is a journey towards the fullness of the Truth that lies
\nbeyond. The Path in the Veda is always the path of this Truth.
\nThus the Rishi prays to Pushan to become for us the charioteer
\nof the Truth and the idea of the Vedic thought and knowledge
\nand the idea of the Path are frequently interwoven with each
\nother. Pushan is the lord of the Path whom we yoke as if a chariot for thought, for the winning of the plenitude; he distinguishes our paths so that the thoughts may be accomplished and
\nperfected; he leads us on them by knowledge, forcefully teaching<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>The
\nword has the double meaning of goat and unborn. The words meaning sheep and goat
\nare used with a covert sense in the Veda like that which means cow. Indra is
\ncalled both the Ram and the Bull. <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 435<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nus, saying "thus it is and thus" so that we learn from him of
\nthe homes to which we travel; it is as the seer that he is the
\nimpeller of the horses of our chariots. Like Usha he makes for
\nus happy paths of an easy going, \u2014 for he finds for us the will
\nand strength, \u2014 and by his traversing of them rids us of evil.
\nThe wheel of his chariot comes not to harm, nor is there any
\ntrouble or suffering in its movement. There are indeed enemies
\non the way, but he shall slay these oppressors of our journey.
\n"O Pushan, the wolf, the troubler of our bliss who teaches us evil,
\nhim smite from the Path. The adversary, the robber perverse of
\nheart, drive him far from the road of our journeying. Set thy foot
\non the distressful force of whatsoever power of duality expresses
\nevil in us" (1.42.2-4).<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThus beyond all the obstacles that cling to our wheels
\nPushan, the divine and luminous increaser of man’s soul, shall
\nlead us to the light and bliss which Surya Savitri creates. "The
\nLife that is the life of all shall guard thee; Pushan shall guard
\nthee in thy forward path in front, and where the doers of the
\ngood work are seated, where they have gone, there shall the
\ndivine Savitri set thee. Pushan knoweth all the regions and he
\nshall lead us by the way which is freest from peril. Let the giver
\nof felicity, the blazing god who has all the energies lead steadily
\nin our front by his knowledge. Pushan has been born in thy for-
\nward travelling on the paths through earth and through heaven;<\/font>
\n<\/font>for he moves in both the worlds which are made full of delight
\nfor us; here he ranges in his knowledge and he journeys beyond"<\/font><\/p>\n

\n (X. 17.4-6).<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n
\n SAVITRI THE CREATOR <\/font> <\/a><\/b><\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe result of the procession of the shining dawns, of the divine
\nreturns of Surya, of the increasings of Pushan and his leading on
\nthe Path is summed up in the creation of Savitri the luminous
\nCreator. It is the god Savitri who sets us there where the ancient
\ndoers of the Work have preceded us; that is the desirable flame
\nand splendour of the divine Creator on which the seer has to
\nmeditate and towards which this god impels our thoughts, that<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 436<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe bliss of the creative godhead on the forms of which our soul
\nmust meditate as it journeys towards it. It is the supreme creation in which the goddess undivided and infinite speaks out her
\nWord and the all-ruling kings Varuna, Mitra and Aryaman;<\/font>
\n<\/font>to that consummation the power of all these godheads turns with
\na united acceptance.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat divine word is the word of the Truth;
\nfor a superconscient Truth lies concealed and is the basis of the infinite
\nbeing which stands revealed on those higher altitudes of our
\nascension. What we now accept as life is the evil dream, the death
\nthat governs us because we live in a false knowledge, a limited
\nand divided existence exposed to every devourer. That is not
\nreal life. For life we have to be able to look long upon the Sun;<\/font>
\n<\/font>for life we have to be able to hold in our thought a knowledge
\nand a word full of the consummate perception; we have to bring
\nforward the Truth as an offering so that the luminous god with
\nhis golden hands full of the Light may rise high in our heavens
\nand hear our word. We must choose and take into ourselves
\nthat supreme and vast state of this Mighty One who has the
\nthought of the knowledge, he who creates for the gods the immortality and the highest enjoyment; we must widen out the cord of
\nSavitri so that it shall release us into higher states of life made
\naccessible to men and harmonised with their being. To hold
\nthat felicity we have to become free from sin and evil in the wide-
\nness and purity of Varuna, in the all-embracing harmony of
\nMitra, in the supreme creation of Savitri.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThen Savitri shall loose away from us, shall uncreate the
\nsuffering of the evil dream. For the seeker of the straightness
\nhe shall create an increasing wideness of his existence so that
\neven with our incomplete knowledge we shall grow in our being
\ntowards the gods. By the godheads he will foster our knowledge
\nand lead us towards the universal formation of them in the un-
\ndivided consciousness of the infinite Aditi which we have chosen
\nas our goal. All that we have done in our ignorance, in our
\ndivided and oppressed discernment of things, in our mere mortal
\nbecoming and humanity, against gods or men, he shall uncreate
\nand make us free from the sin. For he is the creator of the Right,
\nhe is the creator who creates the Truth.<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 437<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThat Truth he shall create in a great wideness and force
\nof our physical being, in a rich abundance of our mental and by
\nits undiminishable vastness he shall uphold all the worlds of
\nour existence. Thus in the working of Savitri whose creation is
\nthe Truth and of Mitra and Varuna the gods shall uphold in us
\nits substance of varied light, the felicity of its energies and illuminations till all existence is that godhead of Savitri behind us
\nand before, below as well as above, till we possess the far-
\nextended life and have built up the universal form of our being,
\n\u2014 the universal form which he creates for us when with hands
\nof golden light, with the tongue that tastes the wine of sweetness
\nhe moves in the triple knowledge of the highest heaven of Truth,
\nattains in the gods to the divine rhythm which he creates for his
\naccomplished Law and takes up his abode in that golden strength
\nof his, the Seer robed in light who first stretched out his two arms
\nof knowledge and power to create the world. He who as Twashtri the Fashioner of things attended always by the male godheads
\nand their female energies, powers of Purusha and powers of
\nPrakriti, made and makes all things, shall as Savitri create for
\nman the thinker born in a body that Truth and Immortality.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n
\n\t\tTHE
\n FOUR KINGS <\/font> <\/a><\/b> <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe creation of Surya Savitri starts from the repeated risings of
\nthe divine Dawn and grows by the constant nourishing of her
\nspiritual gifts and possessions through the work in us of Surya
\nPushan. But the actual formation, the perfected fullness depend
\non the birth and growth in us of all the gods, the children of
\nAditi, the All-Gods (yiśve devāḥ)<\/i> and especially of the four
\ngreat luminous Kings, Varuna, Mitra, Bhaga, Aryaman. Indra
\nand the Maruts and the Ribhus, Vayu, Agni, Soma and the
\nAshwins are indeed the principal agents; Vishnu, Rudra, Brahmanaspati, the future mighty Triad, preside over the indispensable conditions, \u2014 for the one paces out the vast framework of
\nthe inner worlds in which our soul-action takes place, the other
\nin his wrath and might and violent beneficence forces onward
\nthe great evolution and smites the opponent and the recusant and<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 438<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe ill-doer, and the third administers always the seed of the
\ncreative word from the profundities of the soul; so too Earth
\nand Heaven and the divine Waters and the great goddesses and
\nTwashtri the Fashioner of things on whom they attend, either
\nprovide the field or bring and shape the material; but over the
\nutter creation, over its perfect vast space and pure texture, over
\nthe sweet and ordered harmony of its steps, over the illumined
\nforce and power of its fulfilment, over its rich, pure and
\nabundant enjoyment and rapture the Sun-gods Varuna, Mitra,
\nAryaman, Bhaga cast the glory and protection of their divine
\ngaze.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe sacred poems in which the All-Gods and the Adityas,
\nthe sons of the Infinite, and Aryaman, Mitra and Varuna are
\npraised, \u2014 not the mere hymns of formal invocation to the sacrifice, \u2014 are among the most beautiful, solemn and profound that
\nthe imagination of man has conceived. The Adityas are described
\nin formulas of an incomparable grandeur and sublimity. No
\nmythic barbarian gods of cloud, sun and shower are these, no
\nconfused allegories of wonder-stricken savages, but the objects
\nof worship to men far more inwardly civilised and profound in
\nself-knowledge than ourselves. They may not have yoked the
\nlightning to their chariots, nor weighed sun and star, nor
\nmaterialised all the destructive forces in Nature to aid them in
\nmassacre and domination, but they had measured and fathomed
\nall the heavens and earths within us, they had cast their plummet
\ninto the inconscient and the subconscient and the superconscient;<\/font>
\n<\/font>they had read the riddle of death and found the secret of immortality;
\nthey had sought for and discovered the One and known and worshipped Him in the
\nglories of His light and purity and wisdom and power. These were their gods, as
\ngreat and deep conceptions as ever informed the esoteric doctrine of the Egyptians
\nor inspired the men of an older primitive Greece, the fathers of
\nknowledge who founded the mystic rites of Orpheus or the secret
\ninitiation of Eleusis. But over it all there was the "Aryan light",
\na confidence and joy and a happy, equal friendliness with the
\nGods which the Aryan brought with him into the world, free
\nfrom the sombre shadows that fell upon Egypt from contact with
\nthe older races. Sons of deep-brooding Earth. These claimed<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 439<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nHeaven as their father and their seers had delivered his Sun out
\nof our material darkness.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe self-luminous <\/b> One is the goal of the Aryan-minded;<\/font>
\n<\/font>therefore the seers worshipped him in the image of the Sun.
\nOne existent, him have the seers called by various names, Indra,
\nAgni, Yama, Matarishwan. The phrases "That One", "That
\nTruth",<\/font>\u00b9<\/font> occur constantly in the Veda in connection with the
\nHighest and with the image of His workings here, the Sun. In
\none sublime and mystic chant the refrain returns perpetually,
\n"The vast mightiness of the Gods,\u2014That One" (III.55.1).
\nThere is the goal of that journey of the Sun by the path of the
\nTruth which we have seen to be also the journey of the awakened
\nand illumined soul. "Concealed by this truth is that Truth of
\nyou," of Mitra and Varuna, "where they unyoke the horses of
\nthe Sun. The ten hundreds meet there together, \u2014 That One, I
\nhave seen the supreme God of the embodied gods" (V.62.1).
\nBut in itself the One is timeless and our mind and being exist in
\nTime. "It is neither today nor tomorrow; who knoweth That
\nwhich is transcendent ? When it is approached, it vanishes from
\nus" (1.170.1). Therefore we have to grow towards it by giving
\nbirth to the gods in ourselves,<\/font>\u00b2<\/font> increasing their strong and radiant
\nforms, building up their divine bodies, and this new birth and
\nself-building is the true nature of the sacrifice, \u2014 the sacrifice
\nthrough which there is the awakening of our consciousness to
\nimmortality.<\/font>\u00b3 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe sons of the Infinite have a twofold birth. They are born
\nabove in the divine Truth as creators of the worlds and guardians of the divine Law; they are born also here in the world
\nitself and in man as cosmic and human powers of the Divine.
\nIn the visible world they are the male and female powers and
\nenergies of the universe and it is this external aspect of them as
\ngods of the Sun, Fire, Air, Waters, Earth, Ether, the conscious-forces ever present in material being which gives us the external
\nor psycho-physical side of the Aryan worship. The antique view
\nof the world as a psycho-physical and not merely a material<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Tad ekam, tat satyam \u2014<\/font><\/i> phrases always carefully misinterpreted by the commentators.
\n<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2Devavīti, devatāti.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b3<\/font>Amṛtasya cetanam,<\/i> (1.170.4). <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 440<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nreality is at the root of the ancient ideas about the efficacy of the
\nmantra<\/i> and the relation of the gods to the external life of man;<\/font>
\n<\/font>hence the force of prayer, worship, sacrifice for material ends;<\/font>
\n<\/font>hence the use of them for worldly life and in so-called magic rites
\nwhich comes out prominently in the Atharva Veda and is behind
\nmuch of the symbolism of the Brahmanas.<\/font>\u00b9<\/font> But in man himself
\nthe gods are conscious psychological powers. "Will-powers, they
\ndo the works of will; they are the thinkings in our hearts; they are
\nthe lords of delight who take delight; they travel in all the directions of the thought." Without them the soul of man cannot
\ndistinguish its right nor its left, what is in front of it nor what is
\nbehind, the things of foolishness or the things of wisdom; only
\nif led by them can it reach and enjoy "the fearless Light". For
\nthis reason Dawn is addressed "O thou who art human and divine" and the gods constantly described as the "Men" or human
\npowers (mānuṣāḥ, narāḥ);<\/i> they are our "luminous seers", "our
\nheroes", "our lords of plenitude". They conduct the sacrifice in
\ntheir human capacity (manuṣvat)<\/i> as well as receive it in their high
\ndivine being. Agni is the priest of the oblation, Brihaspati the
\npriest of the word. In this sense Agni is said to be born from
\nthe heart of man; all the gods are thus born by the sacrifice, grow
\nand out of their human action assume their divine bodies. Soma,
\nthe wine of the world-delight, rushing through the mind which is
\nits "luminous wide-extended" strainer of purification, cleansed
\nthere by the ten sisters, pours forth giving birth to the gods.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut the nature of these inner powers is always divine and
\ntherefore their tendency is upward to Light and immortality and
\ninfinity. They are "the Sons of the Infinite, one in their will and
\nwork, pure, purified in the streams, free from crookedness, free
\nfrom defect, unhurt in their being. Wide, profound, unconquered, conquering, with many organs of vision, they behold
\nwithin the crooked things and the perfect; all is near to the Kings,
\neven the things that are highest. Sons of the Infinite, they dwell
\nin the movement of the world and uphold it; gods, they are the
\nguardians of all that becomes as universe; far-thoughted, full of<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9This is the real secret of the external sense of Veda which is all that the modem scholars
\nhave seen and so imperfectly understood. Even the exoteric religion was much more than a
\nmere Nature worship. <\/font> <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 441<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe Truth, they guard the Might" (II.27.2-4). They are kings of
\nthe universe and of man and of all its peoples (nṛpati, viśpati),
\n<\/i>self-emperors, world-emperors, not as the Titans strive to be in
\nthe falsehood and the division, but because they are kings of the
\nTruth. For their mother is Aditi "in whom there is no duality",
\nAditi "the luminous undivided who upholds the divine habitation that is of the world of Light" and to her her sons "cleave
\never waking". They are "most straight" in their being, will,
\nthought, delight, action, movement, they are "thinkers of the
\nTruth whose law of nature is the law of the Truth", they are
\n"seers and hearers of the Truth". They are "charioteers of the
\nTruth, whose seat is in its mansions, purified in discernment,
\nunconquerable, the Men wide-visioned". They are the "Immortals who know the Truth". Thus free from the falsehood and
\nthe crookedness, these inner divinities rise in us to their natural
\nlevel, home, plane, world. "Of a double birth they are true in
\ntheir being and lay hold on the Truth, very vast and one in the
\nLight and are possessed of its luminous world."<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn this upward movement they cleave away from us the
\nevil and the ignorance. These are they who "cross beyond into
\nthe sinlessness and the undivided existence". Therefore they are
\n"the gods who deliver". For the enemy, the assailant, the doer
\nof harm their knowledge becomes as if snares widespread, for
\nto him light is a cause of blindness, the divine movement of
\ngood an occasion of evil and a stumbling-block; but the soul of
\nthe Aryan seer passes beyond these dangers like a mare hastening
\nwith a chariot. In the leading of the gods he avoids all stumblings
\ninto evil like so many pitfalls. Aditi, Mitra and Varuna forgive
\nhim whatever sin he may have committed against their vast oneness, purity, harmony so that he can hope to enjoy the wide and
\nfearless Light and the long nights shall not come upon him.
\nThat the Vedic gods are no mere physical Nature-powers, but the
\npsychic conscious forces behind and within all cosmic things, is
\nmade clear enough by the connection between their cosmic
\ncharacter and this deliverance from sin and falsehood, "Since ye
\nare they who rule over the world by the power of their mind of
\nknowledge, thinkers of all that is stable and mobile, therefore, O gods, carry us beyond the sin of that which we have done and<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 
\nPage \u2013 442<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthat which we have not done to the felicity" (X.63.8).<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere is always the image of the path and
\nthe journey, the Path of the Truth on which we are led forward by a divine leading. "O Sons of the Infinite, effect for us the fearless peace,
\nmake us good paths of an easy going to the felicity" (X.63.7).
\n"Easy of going is your path, O Aryaman, O Mitra, it is thornless, O Varuna,
\nand perfect" (11.27.6). "They whom the Sons of Infinity lead with good leadings pass beyond all sin and evil to the
\nfelicity" (X.63.13). Always that goal is the felicity, the wide bliss
\nand peace, the unbroken Light, the vast Truth, the Immortality.
\n"O ye gods, put far from us the hostile (dividing) force, give us
\nwide peace for the felicity" (X.63.12). "The Sons of Infinity give
\nus the imperishable Light." "Create the Light, O ye minds of
\nknowledge of our sacrifice." "That increasing birth of you we
\nwould know today, O Sons of the Infinite, which creates, O
\nAryaman, even in this world of fear the beatitude." For it is the
\n"fearless Light" that is created, where there is no peril of death,
\nsin, suffering, ignorance, \u2014 the light of the undivided, infinite,
\nimmortal, rapturous Soul of things. For "these are the rapturous lords of Immortality, even Aryaman and Mitra and Varuna
\nall-pervading".<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nStill, it is in the image of Swar, the world of the divine
\nTruth that the goal is concretely figured. "Let us reach," is the
\naspiration, "the Light that is of Swar, the Light which none can
\ntear asunder." Swar is the great, inviolable birth of Mitra,
\nVaruna, Aryaman which is contained in the luminous heavens of the soul. The
\nall-ruling Kings, because they grow perfectly and there is no crookedness in
\nthem, hold our habitation in heaven. That is the triple world in which the
\nuplifted consciousness of man reflects the three divine principles of being, its
\ninfinite existence, its infinite conscious-force, its infinite bliss.<\/font>\u00b9<\/font> "Three earths
\nthey hold, three heavens, three workings of these gods in the
\nKnowledge within; by the Truth, O Sons of the Infinite, great is
\nthat vastness of yours, O Aryaman, O Mitra, O Varuna, great
\nand beautiful. Three heavenly worlds of light they hold, the gods
\ngolden-shining who are pure and purified in the streams; sleepless, unconquerable they close not their lids, they express the<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Tridhatu.<\/font><\/i>
\n<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 443<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwideness to the mortal who is straight" (11.27.8,9). These all-purifying streams are those of the rain, the abundance, the rivers
\nof the heaven of Truth. "Charioted in light are they, aggressive
\nin knowledge, sinless and they clothe themselves in the rain and
\nabundance of heaven for the felicity" (X.63.4). By the pouring
\nout of that abundance they prepare our souls to ascend to its
\nsource, the higher ocean from which the luminous waters
\ndescend.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt will be seen how largely the great triad, Varuna, Mitra,
\nAryaman figure in the hymns to the All-Gods and to the Sons of
\nthe Infinite Mother. With Bhaga as a consummating fourth they
\ndominate the thought of the Rishis in their culminant aspiration
\nto the mass and apex of the perfect truth and infinity. This pre-eminence they owe to their particular character and functions
\nwhich appear, not often indeed with any great prominence, but
\nas a background to their common action, their united nature of
\nlight, their undifferentiated achievement. For they have one
\nlight, one work, they perfect in us one indivisible Truth; and it is
\nthis union of all the godheads in our consenting universality<\/font>\u00b9<\/font>
\nthat is the objective of the Vedic thought in these Aditya hymns. Still the
\nunion comes about by a combination of their powers and therefore each has in it
\nhis own proper nature and function. That of the Four is to build up the whole
\ndivine state into its perfection by the natural interaction of its four essential elements.
\nThe Divine is existence all-embracing, infinite and pure; Varuna
\nbrings to us the infinite oceanic space of the divine soul and its
\nethereal, elemental purity. The Divine is boundless consciousness, perfect in knowledge, pure and therefore luminously right
\nin its discernment of things, perfectly harmonious and happy in
\nits concordance of their law and nature; Mitra brings us this light
\nand harmony, this right distinction and relation and friendly
\nconcord, the happy laws of the liberated soul concordant with
\nitself and the Truth in all its rich thought, shining actions and thousandfold enjoyment. The Divine is in its own being pure
\nand perfect power and in us the eternal upward tendency in
\nthings to their source and truth; Aryaman brings to us this
\nmighty strength and perfectly-guided happy inner upsurging.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Vaiśvadevyam.<\/font><\/i>
\n<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 444<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe Divine is the pure, the faultless, the all-embracing, the untroubled ecstasy that enjoys its own infinite being and enjoys
\nequally all that it creates within itself; Bhaga gives us sovereignly
\nthat ecstasy of the liberated soul, its free and unfallen possession
\nof itself and the world.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis quaternary is practically the later essential trinity of
\nSachchidananda, \u2014 Existence, Consciousness, Bliss with self-
\nawareness and self-force. Chit and Tapas, for double terms of
\nConsciousness; but it is here translated into its cosmic terms and
\nequivalents. Varuna the King has his foundation in the all-
\npervading purity of Sat; Mitra the Happy and the Mighty, most
\nbeloved of the Gods, in the all-uniting light of Chit; many-
\ncharioted Aryaman in the movement and all-discerning force of
\nTapas; Bhaga in the all-embracing joy of Ananda. Yet as all
\nthese things form one in the realised godhead, as each element of
\nthe trinity contains the others in itself and none of them can exist
\nseparately from the rest, therefore each of the Four also possesses
\nby force of his own essential quality every general attribute of
\nhis brothers. For this reason if we do not read the Veda as carefully as it was written, we shall miss its distinctions and see only
\nthe indistinguishable common functions of these luminous
\nKings, \u2014 as indeed throughout the hymns the unity in
\ndifference of all the gods makes it difficult for the mind not accustomed to the subtleties of psychological truth to find in the Vedic
\ndivinities anything but a confused mass of common or interchangeable attributes.
\nBut the distinctions are there and have as great a force and importance as in
\nthe Greek and Egyptian symbolism. Each god contains in himself all the others, but remains
\nstill himself in his peculiar function.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis nature of the difference between the Four explains their
\nvarying prominence in the Veda. Varuna is easily the first and
\nmost considerable of them all, for realisation of infinite existence is the
\nbasis of the Vedic perfection: the wideness and purity of the divine being once
\nattained, all the rest comes inevitably contained in it as possession and power and attribute. Mitra is seldom hymned except in union with Varuna or else as a name and
\nform of the other gods, \u2014 oftenest of the cosmic worker Agni,
\n\u2014 when arriving in their action to the harmony and the light they<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 445<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nreveal in themselves the divine Friend. To the twin-power Mitra-Varuna the greater number of the hymns to the luminous Kings
\nare addressed, a certain number to Varuna separately or to
\nVaruna-Indra, one to Mitra, two or three to Bhaga, none at all
\nto Aryaman. For the infinite wideness and purity being founded,
\nthe luminous harmony of the workings of the gods by the correlated laws of the different planes of our being from the spiritual
\nto the material has to be realised in that continent and on that
\nfoundation; and this is the combination Mitra-Varuna. The
\npower of Aryaman is hardly viewed as an independent principle,
\n\u2014just as force in the world is only a manifestation, movement or
\ndynamic value of existence, is only a working out, a liberation
\nof consciousness, of knowledge, of the inherent Truth of things
\ninto stuff of energy and form of effect, or is only the effective term
\nof the self-discovering and self-seizing movement by which Being
\nand Consciousness realise themselves as Bliss. Therefore Aryaman is invoked always in conjunction with Aditi or Varuna or
\nMitra or in the great realising Triad or in the realised quaternary
\nor in the general invocation of the All-Gods and the Adityas.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBhaga on the other hand is the crown of our movement to
\nthe possession of the hidden divine Truth of our existence; for
\nthe essence of that Truth is beatitude. Bhaga is Savitri himself;<\/font>
\n<\/font>the All-Enjoyer is the Creator fulfilled in the divine purpose of
\nhis creation. Therefore he is the result more than the agent, or
\nelse the last agent of all, the possessor more than the giver of
\nour spiritual plenitude.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe hymn of the Rishi Vamadeva to the All-Gods shows
\nwith a clear lucidity the high-aspiring hope which these Vedic
\ndeities were invoked to favour and bring to a happy culmination:<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Who of you is our deliverer? who our defender?
\nO Earth
\nand Heaven, free from division, deliver us; rescue, O Mitra, O Varuna, from the mortality that is too strong for us! Who
\nof you, O gods, confirms for us the supreme good in the march
\nof the sacrifice ? They who illumine our high original seats, they<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 Page \u2013 446<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwho limitless in knowledge dawn out putting away our darkness,
\nit is they, imperishable all-ordainers, who order them for us;<\/font>
\n<\/font>thinkers out of the Truth, they shine forth in light, achievers. I
\nseek for my companion by the words illumining the flowing river
\nAditi, she who is the divine felicity. O Night and Dawn unconquerable, so do ye make it that both the Days shall utterly protect us. Aryaman and Varuna distinguish the Path, and Agni
\nlord of the impulsion, the path of the happy goal. O Indra and
\nVishnu, affirmed, extend to us perfectly the peace in which are
\nthe Powers, the mighty protection. I embrace the increasings of
\nParvata and of the Maruts and of Bhaga, our divine deliverer.
\nMay the master of things protect us from the sin of the world
\nand Mitra keep us far from the sin against Mitra. Now shall one
\naffirm the goddesses Earth and Heaven with the Dragon of the
\nfoundation by all the things desired that we must obtain; as if
\nto possess that Ocean by their wide ranging they have uncovered
\nthe (hidden) rivers that are voiceful with the burning Light. May
\ngoddess Aditi with the gods protect us, may the divine Deliverer
\ndeliver us, unremitting; let us not diminish the foundation of
\nMitra and Varuna and the high level of Agni. Agni is the lord
\nof that vast substance of riches and perfected enjoyment; he
\nlavishes on us those abundances. O Dawn, voice of the Truth,
\nqueen of plenitude, bring to us the many desirable boons, thou
\nwho hast in thee all their plenty. To that goal may Savitri, Bhaga,
\nVaruna, Mitra, Aryaman, Indra, move aright for us with riches
\nof our felicity" (IV.55).<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n
\nVARUNA
\n <\/font>
\n <\/a> <\/font> <\/b><\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWe have the word Varuna from a root which means to surround,
\ncover or pervade. From these significances of the name there
\nemerged before the poetic eye of the ancient mystics the images
\nthat are our nearest concrete representation of the Infinite. They
\nsaw God as a highest covering Heaven, felt divine existence like
\nan encompassing ocean, lived in its boundless presence as in a
\npure and pervading ether. Varuna is this highest heaven, this soul-
\nsurrounding ocean, this ethereal possession and infinite pervasion.<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 447<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe same root had given them an appellation for the dark
\nCoverer, the adversary Vritra; for to obstruct and resist, screen
\nor hedge, besiege and hem in are also some of its many kindred
\nsenses. But dark Vritra is the thick cloud and the enveloping
\nshadow. His knowledge \u2014 for he too has a knowledge, a Maya,
\n\u2014 is the sense of limited being and the hiding away in subconscient Night all the rest of the rich and vast existence that should
\nbe ours, and for this negation and contrary power of creative
\nknowledge he stands up stiffly against the Gods, \u2014 his undivine
\nright against the divine right of God and man. Varuna by his
\nwide being and ample vision rolls back these limits; surrounding
\nus with light his possession reveals what dark Vritra’s obsession
\nhad withheld and obscured. His godhead is the form or spiritual
\nimage of an embracing and illuminating Infinity.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nFor this reason the physical figure of Varuna is much less
\ndefinite than the burning Fire or the radiant Sun or the luminous
\nDawn. The old commentators thought strangely enough that he
\nwas the God of Night. In the Puranas he is the deity of the waters
\nand his noose, which in the Veda never pretends to be anything
\nmore than a psychological metaphor, has become the violent
\nlasso of the ocean-god. European scholars have identified him
\nwith the Greek Uranus and perceiving something of his original
\nethereal nature have supposed a conceptual transference, a sort
\nof fall or even a deposition from azure above to azure below.
\nIndra, perhaps, becoming master of the skies and king of the
\ngods, Varuna the original King had to be satisfied with the dominion of the waters. If we understand the symbolic method of the
\nmystics, we shall see that these suppositions are unnecessary.
\nTheir method is to combine various ideas and images contained
\ntogether in a general conception which gives all the links. So,
\nVaruna of the Veda is at once King, \u2014not of the heavens as such,
\nfor that is Dyaushpita, nor of the heavens of light, for that is
\nIndra, \u2014 but of the highest covering ether and all oceans. All
\nexpanses are Varuna’s; every infinity is his property and estate.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nEther and ocean meet together and become one in the
\nmystic conception; and the origin of this unity is not far to seek.
\nThe ancient concept of creation, held all over the world from the
\nHimalayas to the Andes, conceived of the stuff of things as a<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 448<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nformless expanse of waters covered over in
\nthe beginning by darkness out of which day and night and heaven and earth and
\nall worlds have emerged. "Darkness," says the Hebrew Genesis, "was upon the face
\nof the deep, and the spirit of God moved on the waters." By the word he divided
\nthe waters with Heaven, the firmament; so that now there are two waters, one
\nearthly below the firmament, the other heavenly above. The mystics seized on
\nthis universal belief or this universal image and crowded into it their opulent
\npsychological values. Instead of one firmament they saw two, the earthly and the celestial; instead of two
\noceans, three spread out before their unsealed vision.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWhat they saw, was what man will ever see when he changes
\nthe physical for the psychical vision of Nature and the world.
\nBelow them they looked down on an unfathomable night and surging obscurity, darkness hidden within darkness, the inconscient
\nwaters from which by the mighty energy of the One their existence had arisen.
\nAbove them they beheld a remote ocean of light and sweetness, a highest ether,
\nthe supreme step of all-blissful Vishnu to which their attracted being must ascend. One of
\nthese was the dense dark ether, an unformed material inconscient
\nNon-existence; the other a luminous ethereal All-conscient and the absolute of
\nexistence. These two were the dark and the shining extension of the One.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBetween these two unknown infinities, infinite potential zero
\nand infinite plenary x,<\/i> they saw around them, before their eyes,
\nbelow, above, a third sea of ever-developing conscious being, a
\nsort of boundless wave, which they spoke of by a hardy metaphor
\nas climbing up or flowing up beyond heaven to the supreme
\nseas. It is this perilous ocean which we have to navigate. There
\nBhujyu, the seeker of enjoyment, son of King Tugra the Forceful-Hastening, was about to sink, cast in by his false companions,
\nsouls of an evil movement; but the marvellous chariot-ship of
\nthe Ashwins came hastening to his succour. Varuna must
\nteach with his vast Right and Truth our limited will and judgment, if we would escape such perils: we must embark in no
\nhuman galley, but "ascend the divine ship, the blameless and well-
\noared vessel that sinketh not, by which may we voyage safe be-
\nyond sin and evil". Into this intermediate ocean, above<\/i> our earth,<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 
\nPage \u2013 449<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwe have seen the sun of Knowledge rise out of the inconscient
\ncave and voyage led by the seers. For this too is an ocean-
\nether. Or, let us say, it is a tier of ethers. To follow the Vedic
\nimagery we must suppose ocean superimposed upon ocean.
\nThis world is a series of heights that are depths and a mutual
\ninvolution and evolution of vastnesses that have no ending:<\/font>
\n<\/font>ether below rises to ever more luminous ether above, every stratum of consciousness rests upon many inferior and aspires to
\nmany higher strata.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut beyond our farthest skies in the supreme ocean of light
\nand expanse of the highest superconscient ether our heaven
\nawaits us in a Truth hidden by lesser truth, even as in the inconscient Night darkness is enwrapped and protected by an ever
\ngreater darkness. That is the truth of King Varuna. Thither the
\nDawns shining arise, the rivers travel and the Sun unyokes there
\nthe horses of his chariot. And Varuna contains, sees, governs
\nall this in his vast being and by his illimitable knowledge. All
\nthese oceans are his, even to the Inconscient and its nights so
\nopposite in their seeming to his nature which is that of the extended radiance of one eternal, vast sun of happy light and
\ntruth. Day and Night, light and darkness are symbols in his
\ninfinity. "Luminous Varuna has embraced the nights; he holds
\nthe Dawns within him by his creative knowledge; visioned, he
\nis around every object."<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFrom this idea of the oceans arose naturally the psycho-
\nlogical concept of the Vedic rivers. These rivers are everywhere.
\nThey are the waters which flow down from the mountain and
\nascend the mind ranging through and illuminating with their
\nflow the dark subconscient secrets of Vritra; they are the mighty
\nones of Heaven whom Indra brings down on the Earth; they
\nare the streams of the Truth; they are the rain from its luminous
\nheavens; they are the seven eternal sisters and companions; they
\nare the divine waters who have knowledge. They descend upon
\nthe earth, they rise from the ocean, they flow to the ocean, they
\nbreak out from the doors of the Panis, they ascend to the supreme
\nseas.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOceanic Varuna is king of all these waters. "In the uprising
\nof the rivers," it is said, "he is a brother of seven sisters, he is in<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 450<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ntheir middle" (VIII.41.2). And another Rishi has sung, "In the
\nrivers Varuna is seated upholding the law of his works, perfect
\nin will for empire" (1.25.1O). Vasishtha speaks with a more
\nexplicit crowding of psychological suggestions, of "the divine,
\npure and purifying waters, honey-pouring, in the midst of
\nwhom King Varuna marches looking down on the truth and the
\nfalsehood in creatures" (VII.49.3). Varuna too, like Indra with
\nwhom he is often associated, releases the waters; sped from his
\nmighty hands they too, like him, become all-pervading and
\nflow to a limitless goal. "The Son of Infinity the wide upholder,
\nhas loosed them forth everywhere; the rivers journey to the truth
\nof Varuna" (11.28.4).<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nNot only the goal, the march too is his. "Varuna of the
\npuissance and the thousandfold vision beholds the goal of these
\nrivers; he is the king of the kingdoms, he is the form of the
\nrivers, for him is a strength supreme and universal." His oceanic
\nmovement envelops all the kingdoms of being and ascends to the
\nParadise of the heaven of heavens. "He is the hidden ocean,"
\nit is said, "and he climbs passing beyond heaven; when he has
\nset the sacrificial word in these dawns, then with his luminous
\nfoot he tramples asunder illusions and ascends to Paradise"
\n(VIII.41.8). Varuna, we see, is the oceanic surge of the hidden
\nDivine as he rises, progressively manifested, to his own infinite
\nwideness and ecstasy in the soul of the god-liberated seer.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe illusions which he shatters with his tread are the false
\nformations of the Lords of Evil. Varuna, because he is this ether of divine
\nTruth and ocean of divine being, is what no personified physical sea or sky
\ncould ever become, the pure and majestic King who strikes down evil and delivers
\nfrom sin. Sin is a violation of the purity of the divine Right and Truth; its reaction is
\nthe wrath of the Pure and Puissant. Against those who like the
\nSons of Darkness serve self-will and ignorance, the king of the
\ndivine Law hurls his weapons; the cord descends upon them;<\/font>
\n<\/font>they fall into the snare of Varuna. But those who seek after the
\nTruth with sacrifice are delivered from bondage to sin like a calf
\nreleased from the rope or a victim set free from the slaying-post.
\nThe Rishis deprecate frequently the retributive violence of
\nVaruna and pray to him to deliver them from sin and its wages,<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 451<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ndeath. "Repel the Destruction away from us," they cry, "loose
\nfrom us even the sin that we have done;" or, always with the
\nsame sense of a chain and a bondage, "Cleave away sin from me
\nlike a cord."<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe crude conception of sin as a result of natural wickedness
\nfound no place in the thought of these deep thinkers and subtle
\npsychologists. What they perceived was a great insistent force
\nof Ignorance; either a non-perception of right and truth in the
\nmind or a non-seizing of it in the will, or an inability of the life-
\ninstincts and desires to follow after it, or the sheer inefficiency of
\nthe physical being to rise to the greatness of the divine law.
\nVasishtha cries to mighty Varuna in a passionate litany, "It is
\nfrom poverty of the will that we have gone contrary to thee, O pure and puissant One; be gracious to us, have grace.
\nThirst found thy adorer though he stood in the middle of the
\nwaters; be gracious, O puissant Lord, have grace. Whatever
\nthis be, O Varuna, that we human beings act, a treason against
\nthe Divine Birth, wheresoever by the Ignorance we have put
\naway thy laws, smite us not for that sin, O God" (VII.89.3-5).<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIgnorance, this matrix of sin, has in its substantial effect
\nthe appearance of a triple cord of limited mind, inefficient life,
\nobscure physical animality, the three ropes with which the Rishi Shunahshepa in the parable was bound as a victim to the sacrificial post. The whole result is a struggling or inert poverty of
\nbeing; it is the meagreness of a mortal undelight and the insufficiency of a
\nbeing that collapses at every moment towards death. When Varuna the Mighty comes
\nand sunders this threefold restraint, we are freed towards riches and immortality. Uplifted,
\nthe real man arises to his true kingship in the undivided being.
\nThe upper cord flies upward releasing the wings of the Soul
\ninto superconscient heights; the middle cord parts both ways and
\nall ways, the constrained life breaking out into a happy breadth
\nof existence; the lower cord collapses downward taking with it
\nthe alloy of our physical being to disappear and be dissolved in
\nthe stuff of the Inconscient. This liberation is the purport of
\nthe parable of Shunahshepa and his two great hymns to Varuna.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAs ignorance or falsehood in the being \u2014 the Veda prefers
\nusually the less abstract phrase \u2014 is the cause of wrong and<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 Page \u2013 452<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsuffering, so Knowledge or Truth is the agent which purifies
\nand liberates. It is because of the eye with which he sees, \u2014
\nthe luminous symbolic Sun, \u2014 that Varuna is the purifier. And
\nunless he governs the will and teaches the judgment while the
\ndivine Thought is being learned, we cannot ascend on to the ship
\nof the gods to be borne by it over the life-ocean beyond all this
\nstumbling and evil. Dwelling in us as the thinker with knowledge Varuna cleaves away the sin that we have committed; he
\nabolishes by his royal power our debts of the Ignorance. Or,
\nusing a different image, the Veda tells us that this King has in
\nhis service a thousand physicians; it is by their healing of our
\nmental and moral infirmities that we get a secure foundation
\nin Varuna’s wide and deep right-mindedness.<\/font>\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Kingship of great Varuna is an unbounded empire
\nover all being. He is a mighty world-ruler, an emperor, samrāṭ.
\n<\/i>His epithets and descriptions are those which a mind at once
\nreligious and philosophic could apply with little or no change
\nto the supreme and universal Godhead. He is the vastness and
\nthe multiplicity; among his usual epithets are vast Varuna,
\nabundant Varuna, Varuna of whom wideness is the habitation,
\nVaruna of many births.<\/font>\u00b2<\/font> But his puissant being is not only a
\nuniversal wideness; it is a universal force and might. The Veda
\nsays of him in words that both have an outward and an inward
\nsignificance: "Thy force and might and passion neither these
\nBirds in their travelling can attain, nor these Waters ranging
\nsleeplessly, nor they who hedge in the hugeness of the wind"
\n(1.24.6). It is a force of universal existence which is active
\naround and in all that lives. Behind this vast universality of
\nforce and being there watches and acts a vast universality of
\nknowledge. The epithet of kinghood is constantly coupled with
\nthe epithet of seerhood, not otiosely but in the strong, pregnant
\nantique style. Varuna has a manifold energy, \u2014 the hero’s, and
\nwide expression, \u2014 the thinker’s; he comes to us as a godhead
\nof the glory of force and in the same movement we find in him a
\nsoul of wide vision.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe full significance of this constant coupling of epithets
\nappears in the double character of his sovereignty; he is svarāṭ<\/i><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b91.24.9.<\/font>    
\n\u00b2Vi<\/font><\/i><\/font>śvāyu<\/i> (IV.42.1). <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 453<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand samrāṭ,<\/i> self-ruler and emperor. They are the two faces of
\nAryan kingship. In man they are a royalty of thought and action
\nand the plenitude of wisdom and will; the King-Sage, the Hero-
\nThinker. In the Godhead, in Varuna "almighty, omniscient,
\nthousand-visioned, whose form is the Truth", they lift us up to
\nsupreme and universal principles; we see revealed a divine and
\neternal majesty, the plenitude of consciousness and the plenitude of Force, Wisdom omnipotent. Power omniscient. Law
\njustified. Truth fulfilled.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nVaruna, the Vedic symbol of this grandiose conception, is
\ndescribed finely as a vast thinker and guardian of the Truth.
\nIn him, it is said, all wisdoms are lodged and gathered up into
\ntheir nodus; he is the divine Seer who nurtures the seer-knowings
\nof man as if heaven were increasing its form. We find here the
\nkey to the symbol of the luminous cows. For it is said of him
\nthat, upholder of the worlds, he knows the hidden names of
\nthese shining ones and the thoughts of the seers go beyond like
\ncows to the pastures desiring the wide-visioned. It is said of
\nhim too that he guards for the Maruts, greatened in knowledge,
\nthe thoughts of men like the cows of a herd.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat is the side of thought; there are parallel descriptions
\nfor the side of action. Great Varuna is the continent and nodus
\nof the world’s uplifted puissances no less than of its arising
\nthoughts. The unconquered workings that fall not from the
\nTruth are established in him as upon a mountain. Because he
\nthus knows the things that are transcendent, he is able to cast
\nhis majestic eye of sovereignty upon our existence and see there
\n"the things that are done and those that remain to be done"
\n(1.25.11). The things that remain to be done\u2014and also to be
\nknown. The wisdom of Varuna shapes in us the divine word
\nwhich, inspired, intuitive, opens the doors to new knowledge.
\n"We desire him," cries the Rishi, "as the finder of the Path because he unveils the thought by the heart; let new truth be born."
\nFor this King is no whirler of a brute and stupid wheel; his are
\nnot the unfruitful cycles of a meaningless Law. There is a Path;<\/font>
\n<\/font>there is a constant progress; there is a goal.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nVaruna is the leader on this path. "Perfect in will," cries
\nShunahshepa, "let the Son of Infinity make us by the good path<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 454<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand carry our life forward. Varuna puts on his golden robe of
\nlight and his scouts are all around" (1.25.12,13). These detect
\nthe ambushed foes of the Light, the piercers of our hearts \u2014 who
\nwould prevent, it is to be supposed, the unveiling of the Truth-
\nthought by the heart. For this journey which we saw as a march
\nof the waters, we see also as a journey of the sun with the all-
\nwise and all-powerful King for its Guide. In the vast, where there
\nis no foundation, Varuna has built a high pyramid of the fuel of
\nsacrifice for the fire that must be the blazing material of a divine
\nSun. "Its rays are directed downward, their foundation is above;<\/font>
\n<\/font>let their perceptions of knowledge be established in us within.
\nKing Varuna has made a wide path for the Sun to follow; where
\nthere is no footing he has made places for him to set his feet. He shall make manifest too those who pierce the heart" (1.24.7,8).
\nHis purity is a great devourer of the hurters of the soul.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Path is a constant making and building of new truth,
\nnew powers, higher realisations, new worlds. All heights to
\nwhich we can climb from the basis of our physical existence are
\ndescribed in symbolic figure as mountain summits upon the earth
\nand Varuna of the vision holds them all in himself. World after
\nworld is reached as level and ever higher level of a great mountain; the voyager in the forward march of Varuna is said to lay
\nhis grasp on all things that are born in all the statuses. But his
\nfinal goal must be the highest triple world of the Deva. "Three
\ndelightful Dawns increase according to the law of his workings.
\nHe of the all-seeing wisdom dwells in three white-shining earths;<\/font>
\n<\/font>three are the higher worlds of Varuna whence he rules over the
\nharmonies of seven and seven. He is the builder of the original
\nseat, ‘That Truth of Varuna; and he is the guardian and the
\nmover" (VIII.41.9,10).<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn sum then, Varuna is the ethereal, oceanic, infinite King
\nof wide being, wide knowledge and wide might, a manifestation
\nof the one God’s active omniscience and omnipotence, a mighty
\nguardian of the Truth, punisher and healer. Lord of the noose and
\nReleaser from the cords, who leads thought and action towards
\nthe vast light and power of a remote and high-uplifted Truth.
\nVaruna is the King of all kingdoms and of all divine and mortal
\nbeings; earth and heaven and every world are only his provinces.<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 455<\/font><\/p>\n

\n


\n MITRA <\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIf the purity, infinity, strong royalty of Varuna are the grand
\nframework and majestic substance of the divine being, Mitra is
\nits beauty and perfection. To be infinite, pure, a king over oneself
\nand a master-soul must be the nature of the divine man because
\nso he shares in the nature of God. But the Vedic ideal is not
\nsatisfied simply with a large, unfulfilled plan of the divine image.
\nThere must be noble and rich contents in this vast continent;<\/font>
\n<\/font>the many-roomed tenement of our being contained in Varuna has
\nto be ordered by Mitra in the right harmony of its utility and
\nits equipment.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFor the godhead is a plenitude as well as an infinity; Varuna
\nis an ocean no less than an ethereal heaven. Pure and subtle
\nas the ether, his strong substance is yet no serene void or easy
\nvague of inactive peace, but rather we have seen in it a surging
\nmarch of thought and action; he has been described to us as a
\nnodus in which all wisdom is upgathered and a hill upon which
\nthe original, unfallen workings of the gods are supported. King
\nVaruna is one who sleeps not, but is awake and mighty forever,
\neternally an effective force and worker for the Truth and the Right. Still he
\nacts as the guardian of the Truth rather than constitutes it, or constitutes rather through the action of other god-
\nheads who avail themselves of his wideness and surging force. He keeps, drives even the shining herds, but does not assemble
\nthem in the pastures, an upholder of our powers and remover
\nof obstacles and enemies much more than a builder of our parts.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWho then gathers knowledge into this nodus or links divine
\naction in this sustainer of works ? Mitra is the harmoniser, Mitra
\nthe builder, Mitra the constituent Light, Mitra the god who
\neffects the right unity of which Varuna is the substance and the
\ninfinitely self-enlarging periphery. These two Kings are complementary to each other in their nature and their divine works. In
\nthem we find and by them we gain harmony in largeness: we see
\nin the Godhead and increase in ourselves purity without defect
\nbasing love faultless in wisdom. Therefore these two are a great
\nduo of the self-fulfilling godhead and the Vedic word calls them
\ntogether to a vaster and vaster sacrifice to which they arrive as the<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013<\/font> 456<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ninseparable builders of an increasing Truth. Madhuchchhandas
\ngives us the keynote of their united divinity. "Mitra I call, the
\npure in judgment, and Varuna, devourer of the foe. By Truth,
\nMitra and Varuna, Truth-increasers who get to the touch of
\nTruth, you attain to a vast working of the will. Seers, dwellers
\nin the wideness, born with many births they uphold the judgment at its works" (1.2.7-9).<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe name Mitra comes from a root which meant originally
\nto contain with compression and so to embrace and has given us
\nthe ordinary Sanskrit word for friend, mitra,<\/i> as well as the archaic
\nVedic word for bliss, mayas.<\/i> Upon the current sense of the word
\nmitra,<\/i> the Friend, the Vedic poets continually rely for their covert
\nkey to the psychological function of this apparent sungod. When
\nthe other deities and especially the brilliant Agni are spoken of
\nas helpful friends to the human sacrificer, they are said to be
\nMitra, or to be like Mitra, or to become Mitra, \u2014 as we should now say, the
\ndivine Will-force, or whatever other power and personality of the godhead, reveals itself eventually as the divine
\nLove. Therefore we must suppose that to these symbolists Mitra
\nwas essentially the Lord of Love, a divine friend, a kindly helper
\nof men and immortals. The Veda speaks of him as the most
\nbeloved of the gods.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Vedic seers looked at Love from above, from its source
\nand root and saw it and received it in their humanity as an out-
\nflowing of the divine Delight. The Taittiriya Upanishad ex-
\npounding this spiritual and cosmic bliss of the godhead, Vedantic
\nAnanda, Vedic Mayas, says of it, "Love is its head." But the
\nword it chooses for Love, priyam,<\/i> means properly the delightful-
\nness of the objects of the soul’s inner pleasure and satisfaction.
\nThe Vedic singers used the same psychology. They couple mayas
\n<\/i>and prayas, \u2014 mayas,<\/i> the principle of inner felicity independent
\nof all objects, prayas,<\/i> its outflowing as the delight and pleasure
\nof the soul in objects and beings. The Vedic happiness is this
\ndivine felicity which brings with it the boon of a pure possession
\nand sinless pleasure in all things founded upon the unfailing
\ntouch of the Truth and Right in the freedom of a large universality.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nMitra is the most beloved of the gods because he brings<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013<\/font> 457<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwithin our reach this divine enjoyment and
\nleads us to this perfect happiness. Varuna makes directly for strength; we discover
\na force and a will vast in purity; Aryaman the Aspirer is secured
\nin the amplitude of his might by Varuna’s infinity; he does his
\nlarge works and effects his great movement by the power of
\nVaruna’s universality. Mitra makes directly for bliss, \u2014 Bhaga
\nthe Enjoyer is established in a blameless possession and divine
\nenjoyment by the all-reconciling harmony of Mitra, by his purifying light of right discernment, his firmly-basing law. There-
\nfore it is said of Mitra that all perfected souls adhere or are firmly
\nfixed "to the bliss of this Beloved in whom there is no hurt", for
\nin him there is no sin or wound or falling. All mortal delight has
\nits mortal danger; but the immortal light and law secures the soul
\nof man in a fearless joy. That mortal, says Vishwamitra (III.
\n59.2), who learns by Mitra’s law, the law of this Son of Infinity,
\nis possessed of prayas,<\/i> the soul’s satisfaction in its objects; such
\na soul cannot be slain, nor overcome, nor can any evil take
\npossession of it from near or from afar. For Mitra fashions in
\ngods and men impulsions whose action spontaneously fulfils
\nall the soul’s seekings.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat happy freedom of all-possession comes to us out of this
\ngodhead’s universality and his reconciling luminous embrace of
\nthings: Mitra’s is the principle of harmony by which the manifold workings of the Truth agree together in a perfectly wedded
\nunion. The root of the name means both to embrace and to contain and hold and, again, to build or form in the sense of linking
\ntogether the parts or materials of a whole. Adorable Mitra is
\nborn in us as a blissful ordainer of things and a king full of
\nmight. Mitra holds up heaven and earth and looks sleeplessly
\nupon the worlds and the peoples, and his vigilant and perfect
\nordinances create in us a happy rightness of mind and feeling,
\n\u2014sumati,<\/i> a state of grace, we might almost say, \u2014which becomes for us an unhurt abiding-place. "Free from all undelightfulness,"
\nsays the Vedic verse, "rejoicing with rapture in the goddess of the Word, bowing the knee in the wideness of earth, may
\nwe attain to our abiding-place in the law of working of Mitra,
\nson of Infinity, and dwell in his grace" (III.59.3). It is when
\nAgni becomes Mitra, when the divine Will realises the divine<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013<\/font> 458<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nLove that, in the Vedic image, the Lord and his Spouse agree
\nin their mansion.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe well-accorded happiness of the Truth is Mitra’s law
\nof working; for it is upon Truth and divine Knowledge that
\nthis harmony and perfect temperament are founded; they are
\nformed, secured and guarded by the Maya of Mitra and Varuna.
\nThat well-known word comes from the same root as Mitra.
\nMaya is the comprehending, measuring, forming Knowledge
\nwhich whether divine or undivine, secure in the undivided being of
\nAditi or labouring in the divided being of Diti, builds up the whole
\nscene, environment, confines and defines the whole condition,
\nlaw and working of our existence. Maya is the active, originative,
\ndeterminative view which creates for each being according to
\nhis own consciousness his own world. But Mitra is a Lord of
\nthe Light, a Son of Infinity and a Guardian of the Truth and his
\nMaya part of an infinite, supreme and faultless creative wisdom.
\nHe builds, he joins together in an illuminated harmony all the
\nnumerous planes, all the successive steps, all the graded seats of
\nour being. Whatsoever Aryaman aspires to on his path, has to
\nbe effected by the ‘holdings’ or laws of Mitra or by his foundations, statuses, placings, mitrasya dharmabhiḥ, mitrasya
\ndhāmabhiḥ.<\/i> For dharma,<\/i> the law is that which holds things together
\nand to which we hold; dhāma,<\/i> the status is the placing of the law
\nin a founded harmony which creates for us our plane of living
\nand the character of our consciousness, action and thought.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nMitra, like the other sons of Aditi, is a
\nmaster of Knowledge. He possesses a light which is full of a varied inspiration,
\nor, to keep closer to the Vedic term, a richly diversified hearing
\nof the knowledge. In the wideness of existence which he enjoys
\nin common with Varuna, he acquires possession of heaven by the greatness of the
\nbeing of the Truth and enlarges his conquering mastery over the earth by these inspirations or hearings
\nof its Knowledge. All the five Aryan peoples labour therefore
\nand travel for this bright and beautiful Mitra who comes into
\nthem with his luminous force and bears in his wideness all the
\nGods. He is the great and blissful one who sets and leads
\ncreatures born into the world upon their path. The distinction is
\ndrawn in one verse that Varuna is the masterful traveller to the<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013<\/font> 459<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsoul’s supreme seat, Mitra makes men advance in that march.
\n"Even now," says the Rishi, "may I attain the movement to the
\ngoal and journey on Mitra’s path."<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSince Mitra cannot fulfil his harmony except in the wideness
\nand purity of Varuna, he is constantly invoked in company with
\nthat great godhead. Theirs are the supreme statuses or planes
\nof the soul; it is the bliss of Mitra and Varuna that has to in-
\ncrease in us. By their law that vast plane of our consciousness
\nshines out upon us and heaven and earth are the two paths of
\ntheir journey. For Aditi of the Truth, their mother, has borne
\nthem omniscient and great for almightiness; and it is luminous
\nAditi, the undivided being, whom they, wakeful from day to day,
\ncleave to, she who holds for us our habitations in that world of
\nlight and they attain to its luminous forcefulness. They are the
\ntwo Sons perfect in their birth from of old who support the law
\nof our action; children are they of a vast luminous power, off-
\nspring of the divine discerning thought and perfect in will.
\nThey are the guardians of Truth, possessed of its law in the supreme ether. Swar is their golden home and birth-place.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nMitra and Varuna have an unwounded vision and are
\nbetter knowers of the Path than our sight; for in the Knowledge
\nthey are seers of Swar. They take by the passion of their discerning thought the concealing falsehood away from the Truth to
\nwhich the path has to lead. They proclaim the vast Truth of
\nwhich they are possessed. It is because they possess it and with it
\nthe perfection of the will which is its effect, that they are seated
\nin us for empire and uphold our action as the masters of might. By Truth they come to the Truth, nourishing in their lordship
\nof things our thoughts, and in their purified judgment they open
\nthe eye of consciousness to all wisdom by the perception in men.
\nThus all-seeing and all-knowing they by the law, by the Maya
\nof the mighty Lord, guard our actions, even as they govern the
\nwhole world in the power of the Truth. That Maya is established
\nin the heavens, it ranges there as a Sun of light; it is their rich
\nand wonderful weapon. They are far-hearers, masters of true
\nbeing, true themselves and increasers of truth in each human creature. They nourish the shining herds and loose forth the abundance of heaven; they make heaven to rain down by the Maya<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013<\/font> 460<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof the Mighty Lord. And that celestial rain is the wealth of the
\nspiritual felicity which the seers desire; it is the immortality.\u00b9<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n ARYAMAN
\n\t<\/font> <\/a><\/b><\/font>
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAryaman, third of the four great solar godheads, is the least
\nprominent of them all in the invocations of the seers. No separate hymn is addressed to him and, if his name occurs not un-
\nfrequently, it is in scattered verses; there is no strong body of
\nRiks from which we can construct firmly our idea of his functions
\nor recompose his physiognomy. Most often he is simply invoked
\nby his bare name along with Mitra and Varuna or in the larger
\ngroup of the sons of Aditi, almost always in adjunction to other
\nkindred deities. Still there are half a dozen or more half-Riks
\nfrom which his one chief and characteristic action emerges
\naccompanied by the usual epithets of the Lords of the Truth,
\nepithets expressive of Knowledge, Joy, Infinity and Power.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn the later tradition the name of Aryaman is placed at the
\nhead of the Fathers to whom as their appropriate offering is
\ngiven the symbolic food, the piṇḍa<\/i> of the Puranic funeral and
\nmemorial rites. In the Puranic traditions the Fathers are of two
\nclasses, divine and human, the latter being the ancestors, the
\nManes. But it is in connection with the Fathers as the souls who
\nhave attained to heaven, to immortality that we must think of
\nAryaman. Krishna in the Gita, enumerating the chief powers
\nor manifestations of the eternal Godhead in things and beings,
\nspeaks of himself as Ushanas among the seers, Bhrigu among
\nthe Rishis, Vyasa among the sages, Vishnu among the children
\nof Aditi, Aryaman among the Fathers. Now in the Veda the
\nFathers are the ancient illumined ones who discovered the Know- ledge, created
\nand followed the Path, reached the Truth, conquered Immortality; and in the few Riks in which Aryaman’s
\nseparate personality emerges, it is as the God of the Path that he
\nis hymned.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHis name Aryaman, kin etymologically to the words arya,
\nārya, ari,<\/i> by which are distinguished the men or peoples who<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>Vr<\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>s<\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>t<\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>im vām
\nrādho amr<\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>tatvam
\nīmahe<\/i> (V.63.2). <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013<\/font> 461<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfollow the Vedic culture and the Gods who assist them in their
\nbattles and their aspirations, is similarly indicative. The Aryan
\nis the traveller on the Path, the aspirant to immortality by divine
\nsacrifice, one of the shining children of Light, a worshipper of
\nthe Masters of the Truth, a fighter in the battle against the
\npowers of darkness who obstruct the human journey. Aryaman
\nis the godhead in whose divine power this Aryahood is rooted;<\/font>
\n<\/font>he is this Force of sacrifice, aspiration, battle, journey towards
\nperfection and light and celestial bliss by which the path is
\ncreated, travelled, pursued beyond all resistance and obscuration
\nto its luminous and happy goal.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn consequence, the action of Aryaman takes up the attributes of Mitra and Varuna as leaders of the Path. This Force
\nfulfils the happy impulsions of that Light and Harmony and the
\nmovement of infinite knowledge and power of that pure Vast-
\nness. Like Mitra and Varuna he makes men travel on the path;<\/font>
\n<\/font>he is full of the perfect happiness of Mitra; he is complete in the
\nwill and the works of sacrifice; he and Varuna distinguish the
\npath for mortals. He is like Varuna a godhead manifold in his
\nbirths; like him he oppresses the wrath of the hurter of men. It
\nis by the great path of Aryaman that we shall cross beyond the
\nsouls of a false or evil thought who obstruct our path. Aditi,
\nmother of the Kings, and Aryaman carry us by paths of a happy
\ntravelling beyond all inimical powers. The man who seeks the
\nstraightness of Mitra’s and Varuna’s workings and by the force
\nof the word and the affirmation embraces their law with all his
\nbeing, is guarded in his progress by Aryaman.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut the Rik most distinctive of the function of Aryaman is
\nthat which describes him as "Aryaman of the unbroken path, of
\nthe many chariots, who dwells as the sevenfold offerer of sacrifice in births of diverse forms" (X.64.5). He is the deity of the
\nhuman journey who carries it forward in its irresistible progress
\nwhich the attacks of the enemy cannot overcome or successfully
\ninterrupt so long as this divine Force is our leader. The journey
\nis effected through a manifold movement of our evolution, the
\nmany chariots of Aryaman. It is the journey of the human
\nsacrifice which has a sevenfold energy of its action because there
\nis a sevenfold principle in our being which has to be fulfilled in<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013<\/font> 462<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nits integral perfection; Aryaman is the master of the sacrificial
\naction who offers this sevenfold working to the godheads of the
\nDivine Birth. Aryaman within us develops our various forms of
\nbirth in the ascending planes of our existence by which the
\nFathers climbed, travellers on his path, and by which it must be the aspiration
\nof the Aryan soul to climb to the highest summit of Immortality.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThus Aryaman sums up in himself the whole aspiration
\nand movement of man in a continual self-enlargement and self- transcendence to
\nhis divine perfection. By his continuous movement on the unbroken path Mitra and Varuna and the sons of
\nAditi fulfil themselves in the human birth.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n
\nBHAGA
\n <\/font> <\/a><\/b><\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe goal of the path is the divine beatitude, the illimitable joy
\nof the Truth, of the infinity of our being. Bhaga is the godhead who brings this
\njoy and supreme felicity into the human consciousness; he is the divine enjoyer in man. All being has this
\ndivine enjoyment of existence for its aim and end, whether it
\nseeks for it with knowledge or with ignorance, with the divine
\nstrength or the weakness of our yet undeveloped powers. "On
\nBhaga the strong calls for his increasing, on Bhaga he who has
\nnot the strength; then he moves towards the Delight" (VII.
\n38.6). "Let us call in the Dawn on Bhaga strong and victorious,
\nthe son of Aditi who is the wide-upholder, on whom the afflicted
\nand the fighter and the king meditate and they say to the Enjoyer, ‘Give us the
\nenjoyment’ " (VII.41.2). "Let it be the divine Enjoyer who possesses the enjoyment and by him let us be its
\npossessors; to thee every man calls, O Bhaga; do thou become, O Enjoyer, the leader of our journey" (VII.41.5). An increasing
\nand victorious felicity of the soul rejoicing in the growth of its
\ndivine possessions which gives us strength to journey on and over-
\ncome till we reach the goal of our perfection in an infinite beatitude, this is the sign of the birth of Bhaga in man and this his
\ndivine function.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAll enjoyment comes indeed from Bhaga Savitri, the mortal<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013<\/font> 463<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nas well as the divine; "creating a wide and vast force he brings
\nforth for men their mortal enjoyment". But the Vedic ideal is
\nthe inclusion of all life and all joy, divine and human, the wideness
\nand plenty of earth and the vastness and abundance of heaven,
\nthe treasures of the mental, vital, physical existence uplifted, purified, perfected in the form of the infinite and divine Truth. It is
\nthis all-including felicity which is the gift of Bhaga. The Enjoyer
\nis to be called on by men because he has many riches and ordains
\nperfectly all delights, \u2014 the thrice – seven delights upheld by him
\nin the being of his mother Aditi. It is by creating in us "the wide
\nand vast force", it is when the Divine as Bhaga, Pushan, Aditi,
\nthe infinite, the undivided puts on the radiances of the infinite
\nconsciousness like a robe and distributes without division all
\ndesirable boons that divine felicity comes to us in its fullness.
\nThen he gives to the human being full enjoyment of that greatest
\ndelight. Therefore Vasishtha cries to him (VII.41.3), "O Bhaga,
\nour leader, Bhaga who hast the wealth of the Truth, giving unto
\nus, raise up and increase, O Bhaga, this thought in us," \u2014 the
\nTruth-thought by which the felicity is attained.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBhaga is Savitri the Creator, he who brings forth from the
\nunmanifest Divine the truth of a divine universe, dispelling from
\nus the evil dream of this lower consciousness in which we falter
\namidst a confused tangle of truth and falsehood, strength and
\nweakness, joy and suffering. An infinite being delivered out of
\nimprisoning limits, an infinite knowledge and strength receiving
\nin thought and working out in will a divine Truth, an infinite
\nbeatitude possessing and enjoying all without division, fault or
\nsin, this is the creation of Bhaga Savitri, this that greatest Delight.
\n"This creation of the divine Creator goddess Aditi speaketh forth
\nto us, this the all-kings Varuna and Mitra and Aryaman with one
\nmind and heart." The four Kings find themselves fulfilled with
\ntheir infinite Mother by the delightful perfection in man of Bhaga
\nthe Enjoyer, the youngest and greatest of them all. Thus is the
\ndivine creation of the fourfold Savitri founded on Varuna, combined and guided by Mitra, achieved by Aryaman, enjoyed in
\nBhaga: Aditi the infinite Mother realises herself in the human
\nbeing by the birth and works of her glorious children.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013<\/font> 464<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The Guardians of the Light   SURYA, LIGHT AND SEER   The Rig-veda rises out of the ancient Dawn a thousand-voiced hymn lifted from…<\/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-881","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\/881","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=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}