{"id":894,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=894"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:04","slug":"29-agni-the-illumined-will-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\/29-agni-the-illumined-will-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","title":{"rendered":"-29_Agni the Illumined will.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

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

\nAGNI, THE ILLUMINED WILL<\/b><\/font> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nRig-veda 1.77<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1. How shall we give to Agni? For him what Word accepted
\nby the Gods is spoken, for the lord of the brilliant flame ?
\nfor him who in mortals, immortal, possessed of the Truth,
\npriest of the oblation strongest for sacrifice, creates the
\ngods?<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n2. He who in the sacrifices is the priest of the offering, full of
\npeace, full of the Truth, him verily form in you by your
\nsurrenderings; when Agni manifests<\/font>\u00b9<\/font> for the mortals the
\ngods, he also has perception of them and by the mind offers to them the sacrifice.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n3. For he is the will, he is the strength, he is the effector
\nof perfection, even as Mitra he becomes the charioteer of the
\nSupreme. To him, the first, in the rich-offerings the people
\nseeking the godhead utter the word, the Aryan people to
\nthe fulfiller.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n  <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Or, "enters into the gods".
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 263<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n4. May this strongest of the Powers and devourer of the
\ndestroyers manifest\u00b9 by his presence the words and their
\nunderstanding, and may they who in their extension are lords
\nof plenitude, brightest in energy, pour forth their plenty
\nand give their impulsion to the thought.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n5. Thus has Agni, possessed of the Truth, been affirmed by the
\nmasters of light,\u00b2 the knower of the worlds by clarified
\nminds. He shall foster in them the force of illumination,
\nhe too the plenty; he shall attain to increase and to harmony
\nby his perceptions.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Or, "enter into the words and the thinking".
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2Gotamebhiḥ̣.<\/font><\/i> In its external sense "by the Gotamas" the family of the Rishi, Gotama
\nRahugana, the seer of the hymn. But the names of the Rishis are constantly used with a covert
\nreference to their meaning. In this passage there is an unmistakable significance in the grouping
\nof th<\/font><\/font>\u00b9e words, gotamebhir r<\/i><\/font>̣<\/font><\/i><\/font>tāvā, viprebhir jātavedāh<\/i><\/font>̣<\/font><\/i><\/font>),<\/i> as in verse 3 in dasmam ārih.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 264<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\nGotama Rahugana is the seer of this Hymn, which is a stoma<\/i> in
\npraise of Agni, the divine Will at work in the universe.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAgni is the most important, the most universal of the Vedic
\ngods. In the physical world he is the general devourer and
\nenjoyer. He is also the purifier; when he devours and enjoys,
\nthen also he purifies. He is the fire that prepares and perfects; he
\nis also the fire that assimilates and the heat of energy that forms.
\nHe is the heat of life and creates the sap, the rasa<\/i> in things, the
\nessence of their substantial being and the essence of their delight.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe is equally the Will in Prana, the dynamic Life-energy,
\nand in that energy performs the same functions. Devouring
\nand enjoying, purifying, preparing, assimilating, forming, he
\nrises upwards always and transfigures his powers into the Maruts,
\nthe energies of Mind. Our passions and obscure emotions are
\nthe smoke of Agni’s burning. All our nervous forces are assured
\nof their action only by his support.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIf he is the Will in our nervous being and
\npurifies it by action, he is also the Will in the mind and clarifies it by aspiration.
\nWhen he enters into the intellect, he is drawing near to his divine
\nbirth-place and home. He leads the thoughts towards effective
\npower; he leads the active energies towards light.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHis divine birth-place and home, \u2014 though he is born every-
\nwhere and dwells in all things, \u2014 is the Truth, the Infinity, the
\nvast cosmic Intelligence in which Knowledge and Force are unified. For there all Will is in harmony with the truth of things and
\ntherefore effective; all thought part of Wisdom, which is the
\ndivine Law, and therefore perfectly regulative of a divine action.
\nAgni fulfilled becomes mighty in his own home \u2014 in the Truth,
\nthe Right, the Vast. It is thither that he is leading upward the
\naspiration in humanity, the soul of the Aryan, the head of the
\ncosmic sacrifice.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is at the point where there is the first possibility of the
\ngreat passage, the transition from mind to supermind, the trans-
\nfiguration of the intelligence, till now the crowned leader of the
\nmental being, into a divine Light, \u2014 it is at this supreme and crucial<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 265<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\npoint in the Vedic Yoga that the Rishi, Gotama Rahugana,
\nseeks in himself for the inspired Word. The Word shall help him
\nto realise for himself and others the Power that must effect the
\ntransition and the state of luminous plenitude from which the
\ntransfiguration must commence.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Vedic sacrifice is, psychologically, a symbol of cosmic
\nand individual activity become self-conscious, enlightened and
\naware of its goal. The whole process of the universe is in its very
\nnature a sacrifice, voluntary or involuntary. Self-fulfilment by
\nself-immolation, to grow by giving is the universal law. That
\nwhich refuses to give itself, is still the food of the cosmic Powers.
\n"The eater eating is eaten" is the formula, pregnant and terrible,
\nin which the Upanishad sums up this aspect of the universe, and
\nin another passage men are described as the cattle of the gods.
\nIt is only when the law is recognised and voluntarily accepted
\nthat this kingdom of death can be overpassed and by the works of
\nsacrifice Immortality made possible and attained. All the powers
\nand potentialities of the human life are offered up, in the symbol
\nof a sacrifice, to the divine Life in the Cosmos.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nKnowledge, Force and Delight are the three powers of the
\ndivine Life; thought and its formations, will and its works, love
\nand its harmonisings are the corresponding human activities
\nwhich have to be exalted to the divine level. The dualities of truth
\nand falsehood, light and darkness, conceptional right and wrong
\nare the confusions of knowledge born of egoistic division; the
\ndualities of egoistic love and hatred, joy and grief, pleasure and
\npain are the confusions of Love, perversities of Ananda; the dualities of strength and weakness, sin and virtue, action and inaction
\nare the confusions of will, dissipators of the divine Force. And
\nall these confusions arise and even become necessary modes of
\nour action because the triune powers of the divine Life are
\ndivorced from each other. Knowledge from Strength, Love
\nfrom both, by the Ignorance which divides. It is the Ignorance,
\nthe dominant cosmic Falsehood that has to be removed. Through
\nthe Truth, then, lies the road to the true harmony, the consummated felicity, the ultimate fulfilment
\nof love in the divine Delight. Therefore, only when the Will in man becomes divine
\nand possessed of the Truth, amṛtaḥ ṛtāva,<\/i> can the perfection<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 266<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ntowards which we move be realised in humanity.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAgni, then, is the god who has to become conscient in the
\nmortal. Him the inspired Word has to express, to confirm, in
\nthis gated mansion and on the altar-seat of this sacrifice.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"How must we give to Agni?" asks the Rishi. The word
\nfor the sacrificial giving, dāśema,<\/i> means literally distribution;<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nit has a covert connection with the root daś<\/i>
\nin the sense of discernment. The sacrifice is essentially an arrangement, a distribution of
\nthe human activities and enjoyments among the different cosmic
\nPowers to whose province they by right belong. Therefore the hymns repeatedly
\nspeak of the portions of the gods. It is the problem of the right arrangement and distribution of his works that
\npresents itself to the sacrificer; for the sacrifice must be always
\naccording to the Law and the divine ordainment (ṛtu,<\/i> the later
\nvidhi).<\/i> The will to right arrangement is an all-important preparation for the reign of the supreme Law and Truth in the mortal.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe solution of the problem depends on right realisation,
\nand right realisation starts from the right illuminative Word,
\nexpression of the inspired Thought which is sent to the seer out
\nof the Vast. Therefore the Rishi asks farther, "What word is
\nuttered to Agni ?" What word of affirmation, what word of realisation? Two conditions have to be satisfied. The Word must
\nbe accepted by other divine Powers, that is, it must bring out
\nsome potentiality in the nature or bring into it some light of realisation by which the divine Workers may be induced to manifest in the superficial consciousness of humanity and embrace
\nopenly their respective functions. And it must be illuminative
\nof the double nature of Agni, this Lord of the lustrous flame.
\nBhāma<\/i> means both a light of knowledge and a flame of action.
\nAgni is a Light as well as a Force.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Word arrives. Yo martyeṣu amrtaḥ ṛtāvā.<\/i> Agni is,
\npre-eminently; the Immortal in mortals. It is this Agni by whom
\nthe other bright sons of Infinity are able to work out the manifestation and self-extension of the Divine (devavīti, devatāti)
\n<\/i>which is at once aim and process of the cosmic and of the human
\nsacrifice. For he is the divine Will which in all things is always
\npresent, is always destroying and constructing, always building
\nand perfecting, supporting always the complex progression of the<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 267<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nuniverse. It is this which persists through all death and change.
\nIt is eternally and inalienably possessed of the Truth. In the
\nlast obscuration of Nature, in the lowest unintelligence of Matter,
\nit is this Will that is a concealed knowledge and compels all these
\ndarkened movements to obey, as if mechanically, the divine Law
\nand adhere to the truth of their Nature. It is this which makes
\nthe tree grow according to its seed and each action bear its appropriate fruit. In the obscurity of man’s ignorance, \u2014 less than
\nmaterial Nature’s, yet greater, \u2014 it is this divine Will that
\ngoverns and guides, knows the sense of his blindness and the goal
\nof his aberration and out of the crooked workings of the cosmic
\nFalsehood in him evolves the progressive manifestation of the
\ncosmic Truth. Alone of the brilliant Gods, he burns bright and
\nhas full vision in the darkness of Night no less than in the splendours of day. The other gods are uṣarbudhaḥ,<\/i> wakers with the
\nDawn.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTherefore is he the priest of the offering, strongest or most
\napt for sacrifice, he who, all-powerful, follows always the law of
\nthe Truth. We must remember that the oblation (havya)<\/i> signifies
\nalways action (karma)<\/i> and each action of mind or body is regarded as a giving of our plenty into the cosmic being and the cosmic
\nintention. Agni, the divine Will, is that which stands behind the
\nhuman will in its works. In the conscient offering, he comes in
\nfront; he is the priest set in front (puraḥ-hita),<\/i> guides the oblation
\nand determines its effectiveness.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBy this self-guided Truth, by this knowledge that works out
\nas an unerring Will in the Cosmos, he fashions the gods in
\nmortals. Agni manifests divine potentialities in a death-besieged
\nbody; Agni brings them to effective actuality and perfection.
\nHe creates in us the luminous forms of the Immortals.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis work he does as a cosmic Power labouring upon the
\nrebellious human material even when in our ignorance we resist
\nthe heavenward impulse and, accustomed to offer our actions to
\nthe egoistic life, cannot yet or as yet will not make the divine surrender. But it is in proportion as we learn to subjugate the ego
\nand compel it to bow down in every act to the universal Being
\nand to serve consciously in its least movements the supreme Will,
\nthat Agni himself takes form in us. The Divine Will becomes<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 268<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\npresent and conscient in a human mind and enlightens it with the
\ndivine Knowledge. Thus it is that man can be said to form by his
\ntoil the great Gods.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Sanskrit expression is here ā kṛṇudhvam.<\/i> The preposition gives the idea of a drawing upon oneself of something outside
\nand the working or shaping it out in our own consciousness. Ā kṛ<\/i> corresponds to the converse expression,
\nā bhū,<\/i> used of the
\ngods when they approach the mortal with the contact of Immortality and, divine form of godhead falling on form of humanity, "become", take shape, as it were, in him. The cosmic
\nPowers act and exist in the universe; man takes them upon himself, makes an image of them in his own consciousness and endows that image with the life and power that the Supreme Being
\nhas breathed into His own divine forms and world-energies.\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is when thus present and conscient in the mortal, like a
\n"house-lord"\u00b2, master in his mansion, that Agni appears in the
\ntrue nature of his divinity. When we are obscure and revolt
\nagainst the Truth and the Law, our progress seems to be a stumbling from ignorance to ignorance and is full of pain and disturbance. By constant submission to the Truth, surrenderings,
\nnamobhiḥ,<\/i> we create in ourselves that image of the divine Will
\nwhich is on the contrary full of peace, because it is assured of the Truth and
\nthe Law. Equality of soul\u00b3 created by the surrender
\nto the universal Wisdom gives us a supreme peace and calm.
\nAnd since that Wisdom guides all our steps in the straight paths
\nof the Truth we are carried by it beyond all stumblings (duritāni).<\/i><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nMoreover, with Agni conscious in our humanity, the creation of the gods in us becomes a veritable manifestation and no
\nlonger a veiled growth. The will within grows conscious of the
\nincreasing godhead, awakens to the process, perceives the lines
\nof the growth. Human action intelligently directed and devoted
\nto the universal Powers, ceases to be a mechanical, involuntary
\nor imperfect offering; the thinking and observing mind participates and becomes the instrument of the sacrificial will.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAgni is the power of conscious Being, called by us will,<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9This is the true sense and theory of Hindu image-worship, which is thus a material
\nrendering of the great Vedic symbols. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2Gr<\/font><\/i><\/font>̣<\/i><\/font>hapati;<\/font><\/i> also viśpati,<\/i>
\nlord or king in the creature.      <\/font>\u00b3Samatā<\/font><\/i> of the Gita.
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 269<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\neffective behind the workings of mind and body. Agni is the
\nstrong God within (maryaḥ,<\/i> the strong, the masculine) who puts
\nout his strength against all assailing powers, who forbids inertia,
\nwho repels every failing of heart and of force, who spurns out all
\nlack of manhood. Agni actualises what might otherwise remain
\nas an ineffectual thought or aspiration. He is the doer of the
\nYoga (sādhu);<\/i> divine smith labouring at his forge, he hammers
\nout our perfection. Here he is said to become the charioteer of
\nthe Supreme. The Supreme and Wonderful that moves and
\nfulfils Itself "in the consciousness of another"\u00b9, (we have the
\nsame word, adbhuta,<\/i> as in the colloquy of Indra and Agastya),
\neffects that motion with this Power as charioteer holding the
\nreins of the activity. Mitra also, the lord of Love and Light is
\neven such a charioteer. Love illuminated fulfils the harmony
\nwhich is the goal of the divine movement. But the power of this
\nlord of Will and Light is also needed. Force and Love united
\nand both illumined by Knowledge fulfil God in the world.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWill is the first necessity, the chief actualising force. When
\ntherefore the race of mortals turn consciously towards the great
\naim and, offering their enriched capacities to the Sons of Heaven,
\nseek to form the divine in themselves, it is to Agni, first and chief,
\nthat they lift the realising thought, frame the creative Word.
\nFor they are the Aryans who do the work and accept the effort,
\n\u2014 the vastest of all works, the most grandiose of all efforts, \u2014
\nand he is the power that embraces Action and by Action fulfils
\nthe work. What is the Aryan without the divine Will that accepts
\nthe labour and the battle, works and wins, suffers and triumphs ?<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTherefore it is this Will which annihilates
\nall forces commissioned to destroy the effort, this strongest of all the divine
\nPuissances in which the supreme Purusha has imaged Himself,
\nthat must bestow its presence on these human vessels. There it
\nwill use the mind as instrument of the sacrifice and by its very
\npresence manifest those inspired and realising Words which are
\nas a chariot framed for the movement of the gods, giving to the
\nThought that meditates the illuminative comprehension which
\nallows the forms of the divine Powers to outline themselves in
\nour waking consciousness.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Rv. 1.170. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 270<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThen may those other mighty <\/b> Ones who bring with them the
\nplenitudes of the higher life, Indra and the Ashwins, Usha and
\nSurya, Varuna and Mitra and Aryaman, assume with that
\nformative extension of themselves in the human being their most
\nbrilliant energies. Let them create their plenty in us, pouring it
\nforth from the secret places of our being so as to be utilisable in
\nits daylight tracts and let their impulsions urge upward the divinising thought in Mind, till it transfigures itself in the supreme
\nlustres.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe hymn closes. Thus, in inspired words, has the divine
\nWill, Agni, been affirmed by the sacred chant of the Gotamas.
\nThe Rishi uses his name and that of his house as a symbol-word;<\/font>
\n<\/font>we have in it the Vedic go<\/i> in the sense "luminous", and Gotama
\nmeans "entirely possessed of light". For it is only those that
\nhave the plenitude of the luminous intelligence by whom the
\nmaster of divine Truth can be wholly received and affirmed in this
\nworld of an inferior Ray, \u2014 gotamebhir ṛtāvā.<\/i> And it is upon
\nthose whose minds are pure, clear and open, vipra,<\/i> that there can
\ndawn the right knowledge of the great Births which are behind
\nthe physical world and from which it derives and supports its
\nenergies, \u2014 viprebhir jātavedāḥ.<\/i><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAgni is Jatavedas, knower of the births, the worlds. He
\nknows entirely the five worlds\u00b9 and is not confined in his consciousness to this limited and dependent physical harmony. He
\nhas access even to the three highest states\u00b2 of all, to the udder of
\nthe mystic Cow,\u00b3 the abundance of the Bull<\/font>4<\/font><\/sup> with the four horns.
\nFrom that abundance he will foster the illumination in these
\nAryan seekers, swell the plenty of their divine faculties. By that
\nfullness and plenty of his illumined perceptions he will unite
\nthought with thought, word with word, till the human Intelligence is rich and harmonious enough to support and become the
\ndivine Idea.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9The worlds in which, respectively. Matter, Life-Energy, Mind, Truth and Beatitude are
\nthe essential energies. They are called respectively Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, Mahas and Jana or
\nMayas. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2Divine Being, Consciousness, Bliss, \u2014 Sachchidananda.
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b3Aditi, the infinite Consciousness, Mother of the worlds.
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n4<\/sup>The divine Purusha, Sachchidananda; the three highest states and Truth are his four
\nhorns. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 271<\/font><\/p>\n

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

IV AGNI, THE ILLUMINED WILL   Rig-veda 1.77   1. How shall we give to Agni? For him what Word accepted by the Gods is…<\/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-894","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\/894","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=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}