The Twenty-Third Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF THE RICH AND CONQUERING SOUL   [The Rishi desires through Agni that opulence of the divine Light against which the armies of darkness cannot stand; for it overpowers them by its plenitude and force. This it does on all the successive planes of the soul's labour and in each of them man gets, by this divine Force that is the true and transcendent Being, all the objects of his desire that they contain.]     1. Bring to us, O Strength most forcefully prevailing, that forceful opulence of the Light which in all the fields of our labour shall by force prevail with thy mouth

The Fourteenth Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF THE FINDER OF LIGHT AND TRUTH   [The Rishi declares Agni as the Priest of the sacrifice, the slayer of the powers of Darkness, the finder of the world of the Sun of Truth, of his radiant herds and of his luminous waters; he is the seer in us who is increased by the clarities of right thought and speech.]     1. Awaken the Flame by the word that affirms him, kindle high the Immortal; let him place our offerings in the godheads.     2. Him in their pilgrim sacrifices mortal men desire and adore, the divine, the immortal, who is

Chapter IX   Saraswati and Her Consorts   THE symbolism of the Veda betrays itself with the greatest clearness in the figure of the goddess Saraswati. In many of the other gods the balance of the internal sense and the external figure is carefully preserved. The veil sometimes becomes transparent or its corners are lifted even for the ordinary hearer of the Word; but it is never entirely removed. One may doubt whether Agni is anything more than the personification of the sacrificial Fire or of the physical principle of Light and Heat in things, or Indra anything more than the god of the sky and

The Ninth Hymn to Agni   DIVINE WILL ASCENDENT FROM THE ANIMAL TO MENTALITY   [The Rishi speaks of the birth of the divine Will by the working of the pure mental on the material consciousness, its involved action in man's ordinary state of mortal mind emotional, nervous, passionate marked by crooked activities and perishable enjoyments and its emergence on the third plane of our being where it is forged and sharpened into a clear and effective power for liberation and spiritual conquest. It knows all the births or planes of our existence and leads the sacrifice and its offerings by a successive and continuous progres

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 pas sage full of cear and this time quite invincible psychologica

' ' by Sri Aurobindo Page 1 of 50 Parashara's Hymns to the Lord of the Flame   1     He hides himself like a thief with the Cow of vision in the secret cavern of being taking to himself and bearing thither our adoration. The thinkers nurse a common joy in him in their hearts and follow in his way by her footprints. All the Masters of sacrifice come to thee, O Flame, in the secrecy.     The Gods follow after him the ways and works of the Truth. He shall stand encompassing the earth like heaven. The Waters increase by their toil growing in his bulk the Flame because he was born perfect i

' ' by Sri Aurobindo Page 1 of 50 Chapter VIII   The Ashwins —Indra — the Vishwadevas   THE third hymn of Madhuchchhandas is again a hymn of the Soma sacrifice. It is composed, like the second before it, in movements of three stanzas, the first addressed to the Ashwins, the second to Indra, the third to the Vishwadevas, the fourth to the goddess Saraswati. In this hymn also we have in the closing movement, in the invocation to Saraswati, a passage of clear

Chapter V   The Destiny of the Individual     By the Ignorance they cross beyond Death and by the Knowledge enjoy Immortality. . . . By the Non-Birth they cross beyond Death and by the Birth enjoy Immortality. Isha Upanishad.1     AN OMNIPRESENT Reality is the truth of all life and existence whether absolute or relative, whether corporeal or incorporeal, whether animate or inanimate, whether intelligent or unintelligent; and in all its infinitely varying and even constantly opposed self-expressions, from the contradictions nearest to our ordinary experience t

Chapter XVIII   The Evolutionary Process  — Ascent and Integration   As he mounts from peak to peak, . . . Indra makes him conscious of that goal of his movement.  Rig Veda.1   A son of the two Mothers, he attains to kingship in his discoveries of knowledge, he moves on the summit, he dwells in his high foundation. Rig Veda.2   I have arisen from earth to the mid-world, I have arisen from the mid-world to heaven, from the level of the firmament of heaven I have gone to the Sun-world, the Light.3 Yajur Veda.4   IT IS now possible and necessary, since we have formed a sufficiently c