THE SIXTH HYMN TO AGNI THE GALLOPING FLAME-POWERS OF THE JOURNEY [The flames of Agni the divine Will, home and meeting- place of all our increasing and advancing life-powers, are imaged as galloping on our human journey to the supreme good. Divine Will creates in us the divine strength of impulsion, an illumined and undecaying force and flame described as the steed of the plenitude, which brings us that good and carries us to that goal. His flames are coursers on the path who increase by the sacrifice; they hasten uninterruptedly, and race always more swiftly; they bring in the penned-up illuminations of the hidden knowledge. Their entire force and rapidity a

PART THREE HYMNS OF THE ATRIS The Hymns to Agni (Rig-veda V, 1 to 28) were later revised by Sri Aurobindo and have been included in HYMNS TO THE MYSTIC FIRE — Volume 11—along with the Vedic text. Here only the original translation, as it appeared in the ARYA, is given for the sake of the valuable Notes which accompany it. Foreword TO translate the Veda is to border upon an attempt at the impossible. For while a literal English rendering of the hymns of the ancient Illuminates would be a falsification of their sense and spirit, a version which aimed at bringing all the real thought to the surface would be an interpretation rather than

HYMN TO VARUNA V.85 [In this hymn there is throughout a sustained double sense. In the exoteric Varuna is hymned as the Asura, omniscient and omnipotent lord and creator, the Godhead in his creative wisdom and might forming the world and maintaining the law of things in the earth and mid-air and heavens. In the esoteric in which the physical phenomena of the exoteric become symbols, the infinite Godhead is hymned in his all-pervading wisdom and purity opening the three worlds of our being to the Sun of knowledge, pouring down the streams of the Truth, purifying the soul from the falsehood of the lower being and its sin. The hymn is rendered here successivel

THE TENTH HYMN TO MITRA-VARUNA V.71 AN INVOCATION TO THE SACRIFICE [The Rishi invokes Mitra and Varuna to the Soma-offering as destroyers of the enemy and greateners of our being and as helpers of our thoughts by their mastery and wisdom.] O destroyers of the Enemy, come with your greatenings,¹ O Varuna, O Mitra, to this our delightful sacrifice. O Varuna, O Mitra, you govern every man and are the wise thinkers; you are the rulers, nourish our thoughts. Come, O Varuna, O Mitra, to our Soma-offering, to the sacrifice of the giver, that you may drink of this wine.

THE SEVENTEENTH HYMN TO AGNI A HYMN OF ENLARGEMENT AND ULTIMATE ASPIRATION [A state arrives in which man goes beyond the mere subtlety and fineness of the intelligence and reaches to a rich and manifold largeness of soul. Even then though he has now the wide law of his being which is our right foundation, he needs a force greater than his to lead him; for largeness and multiplicity of soul-force and knowledge are not enough, there must be the divine truth in thought, word and act. For we have to attain beyond the enlarged mental being to the beatitude of a state beyond mind. Agni has the light and the force, the Word and the true impulsion, the embraci

XIII SOMA, LORD OF DELIGHT AND IMMORTALITY Rig-veda IX.83 Wide spread out for thee is the sieve of thy purifying, O Master of the soul; becoming in the creature thou pervadest his members all through. He tastes not that delight who is unripe and whose body has not suffered in the heat of the fire; they alone are able to bear that and enjoy it who have been prepared by the flame. The strainer through which the heat of him is purified is spread out in the seat of Heaven; its threads shine out and stand extended. His swift ecstasies foster the soul that purifies him; he ascends to the high leve

CHAPTER VII Varuna-Mitra and the Truth IF THE idea of the Truth that we have found in the very opening hymn of the Veda really carries in itself the contents we have supposed and amounts to the conception of a supramental consciousness which is the condition of the state of immortality or beatitude and if this be the leading conception of the Vedic Rishis, we are bound to find it recurring throughout the hymns as a centre for other and dependent psychological realisations. In the very next Sukta, the second hymn of Madhuchchhandas addressed to Indra and Vayu, we find another passage full of clear and this time quite invincible psychological suggestion

HYMN TO INDRA X. 54 [Hymn of Brihaduktha Vamadevya to Indra, Master of Mental Force, when he exceeded Mind and entered Mahas, yet maintained the lower firmaments, — realising his unity with Sah the supreme Purusha.] When thou hadst given wholly the fullness of the ideal to thy fame, O Maghavan of the fullness, when both the firmaments cried to thee in their terror, thou didst protect the gods, thou didst transfix the Enemy, by teaching the strength of the Spirit, O Indra, even for this creation. When thou didst range abroad increasing in thy force of substance and progressing strength to the people, that force

THE TWENTY-FOURTH HYMN TO AGNI A HYMN TO THE DELIVERER AND PROTECTOR [The Rishi invokes the Divine Will for protection from evil and for the fullness of the divine light and substance.] 1-2. O Will, become our inmost inmate, become auspicious to us, become our deliverer and our armour of protection. Thou who art the lord of substance and who of that substance hast the divine knowledge, come towards us, give us its most luminous opulence. 3-4. Awake! hear our call! keep us far from all that seeks to turn us to evil. O shining One, O flame of purest Light, thee for our comrades we desire that even now they may have the bliss and peace. P

SECTION THREE Transformation of the Vital THE two movements whose apparent contradiction confuses your mind, are the two ends of a single consciousness whose motions, now separated from each other, must join if the life-power is to have its more and more perfect action and fulfilment or the transformation for which we hope. The vital being with the life-force in it is one of these ends; the other is a latent dynamic power of the higher consciousness through which the Divine Truth can act, take hold of the vital and its life-force and use it for a greater purpose here. The Life-Force in the vital is the indispensable instrument for all action of