Living Matter I KNOW not Where had I wandered about and then reached afar this dreamland: I found myself standing on the brink of a fluent river. Above, the vast empty pale azure Firm and high up. Here upon our globe Twin comrades Earth and Heaven ever Play their love-game intimate together. Green earth only looks upward Towards her lover's face, shivers in intense delight In the thousand tremblings of the leaves, among the cool grasses. The blue sky holds in embrace The whole body of his Beloved enveloping it with delight, Lifts up his high head, spreads aloft his laughter of love. This is the play here. In our ealm here Exists no

OTHER HYMNS AND PRAYERS Hymn to the Sweet Lord SWEET are his lips, sweet his mouth, his eyes are sweet, sweet his smile, Sweet is his heart, sweet his gait, of the lord of sweetness all is sweet. Sweet are his words, sweet his manners, his robes are sweet, sweet the folds (curves) of his body Sweet as he moves, sweet as he wanders, of the lord of sweetness all is sweet. Sweet is his flute, sweet the dust, his hands are sweet, sweet his feet, Sweet is his dance, sweet his friendship, of the lord of sweetness all is sweet. Sweet as he sings, sweet as he drinks, sweet as he eats, sweet as he sleeps, Sw

A Commentary on the First Six Suktas of Rigveda THE FIRST SUKTA COSMIC creation is a great and sublime sacrifice. Sarvagatam Bramha...¹ (The all-pervading Brahman is established in the sacrifice), says the Gita. Each and every object offers itself into this sacrificial fire. Why? Sacrifice indicates movement, that is to say, an ever-proceeding course towards the greater and still greater fulfilment of evolution. Sacrifice is being per­formed; creation has become dynamic and presses forward with the self-sacrifice of the objects inherent in it. By self ­sacrifice one creates another form and gets in it one's larger self. The pl

Hymn to Forest-Range RIGVEDA Mandala X: Sukta 146 (I) FOREST-Range! Range of Forest! Ever forward you seem to move! Wherefore do you not enquire for a village? Are you not afraid? (2) Here bellows the bull, there in answer chirps a grasshopper –­ A musical chord, as it were, playing the glory of the woodland! (3) These seem to be cattle grazing and those are huts for habitation; and at eve-tide there seem to file out of the forest a caravan of carts. (4) A call, as though, it is for a straying calf or perhaps a tree is being cut down, Page-26 Or even as we are in the wood

Narada - Sanatkumara (Chhandogya Upanishad) RISHI Sanatkumara was once approached by Narada (evi­dently not yet become a Rishi), who said, "Lord, I desire to be taught by you. Please teach me." The Rishi replied, "Very well, but first tell me how much you know; then I shall tell you if you need more." Narada thereupon made out an inventory of his learning; it was a formidable list. "My Lord, this is what I have learnt: Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvaveda, the Fifth Veda comprising History and Mythology; next, Grammar, Mathematics, Logic and Politics, the Science of Computing Time, Theology, Fine Arts and the Ritual Lore; Demonology, Astrology, and

O, Wake Up from Vain Slumber I BRING no magic herbs, I bring only the blood of my veins— ­O, wake up from vain slumber! If I am struck blind, If these eyes see no more your face, If the whole earth is locked out utterly, Well, let it be so ­— If you only open wide your fiery eyes. If I turn deaf, let it be so: In the molten fire of your voice If I cannot bake the ribs of my breast, Well, let it be so -. . O, only keep open your sharp ears. If I am silenced forever And struck dumb, If all the gathered words of my life remain Entombed, coursing within the sands of my bosom, Well, let it be so ­— If y

Satyakama and Upakoshala (1) SATYAKAMA was now a Rishi, a brahmarsi, a sage and seer who had realised the Truth. He was himself a teacher now, had his own Ashrama where the seekers and aspirants came to receive his instruction and guidance. Today I shall tell you something of the aim and method of Satyakama's work as teacher. Upakoshala Kamalayana, the son of Kamala, resided with Satyakama as a student of sacred lore for twelve years, tending his fires. What this tending of the fires really meant we shall learn as we proceed. There were other resident pupils along with Upakoshala; and after they had finished their twelve-year course, they were permitted to re

Hymn to the Pillar (Skambha) ATHARVAVEDA Kanda X: Sukta 7 [The ritualistic or the naturalistic symbolism. of the Veda is at its minimum in this hymn of the Atharvaveda, trans­lated almost literally. The Pillar, it is explicitly said, is the Brahman, the Supreme Reality. It is sarvadhara, the contain­er of all, the total or integral existence. It upholds the crea­tion, it has entered into the creation and it has become the creation. It is the tree, the Aswattha tree as the Upanishad also describes, with its branches spreading out, i.e. all the multiple aspects of the creation. Even the gods, all of them, find shelter here in one form or other. All gods it is: A

OBSERVATIONS AND NOTES Observations I GRACE is the Divine made earthly and human. And that is our Mother. The Mother's body was not meant to give us, to make a gift to us of a transformed human body, for our contemplation, our delectation. It had a more serious purpose. It was to furnish the material stuff for the manifestation, the incarnation of the subtle Divine body preparing behind. . Humanity in its present embodied manifestation cannot be immediately changed, transmuted into the supramental body. That body must descend or reveal itself or clothe itself with a new material substance. That new material substance was being prepared in the Mother's body