Hymns to the Mystic Fire

[4]

RV I.1.1

First Mandala

First Hymn

[word] - word(s) omitted by the author or lost through damage to the manuscript that are required by grammar or sense, and that could be supplied by the editors.

अग्निमीळे पुरोहितं यज्ञस्य देवमृत्विजम् । होतारं रत्नधातमम् ॥१॥

"Agni I adore who stands before the Lord, the god who seeth Truth, the warrior, strong disposer of delight."

So the Rigveda begins with a song to Agni, with the adoration of the pure, mighty and brilliant God. "Agni, he who excels and is mighty," cries the Seer, "him I adore." Why Agni before all the other gods? Because it is he that stands before Yajna, the Master of things; because he is the god whose burning eyes can gaze straight at Truth, at the satyam, the vijnanam, that which is the Seer's aim and desire and the thing on which all Veda is based; because he is the warrior who wars down and removes all the crooked attractions of ignorance and desire, juhuranam enas, which stand in the way of the Yogin, because as the vehicle of Tapas, the pure divine energy which flows from the higher concealed hemisphere of existence, he more than any develops and disposes Ananda, the divine delight.

In order to look into the words of the inspired writing and comprehend, so far as mere intellectual exposition can help us to comprehend, their profound meaning, we must begin with the Vedanta, the great fundamental body of truth which all Veda assumes; for it is by the passing into oblivion of this fundamental knowledge that we have lost the key to the meaning of the Vedas, and it is only by a return to the knowledge that we can recover it. There are two states of being in consciousness, the divine Brahmi sthiti of blissful unity, from which we descend, and the divided state of the Jivatman into which we have descended. Parabrahman reveals himself first as Yajna, the Supreme Soul and Master of Things, Atman and Iswara; He is utterly one as Atman, He is both One and Many as Iswara, but always

Page 511

without losing His unity, always one without a second, ekam evadwitiyam, because the Many, both in their individuality and totality, are nothing but the One. Nothing is but God; we too are God, each one of us is He, and that which we dwell in is God. The fundamental sayings, So Aham; Tattwamasi, Swetaketo; sarvam khalu idam Brahma, are the sum of all Veda and Vedanta. All is merely the manifestation of Him for the sake of various delight; for Ananda the worlds are, from Ananda they proceeded, by Ananda they abide, to Ananda they return. Anandaddhyeva khalvimani bhutani jayante, anandena jatani jivanti, anandam prayantyabhisanvishantiti. In this manifestation He as the Universal God pervades, governs, surpasses all. He is the master of the play,—यजति, He controls, rules and arranges it. This is Yajna. He again as the manifold individual God, ourselves, attaches Himself to every created thing (sarvabhuteshu) and limits not Himself but His manifestation in each adhara, arranging and perpetually developing in each a particular nature or law of life, a swabhava, a dharma. So 'rthan yathatathyato vyadadhacchaśwatibhyah samabhyah. When we identify ourselves with the play of this various Nature reflected upon our consciousness and lose sight of our godhead, then we resort too utterly to the principle of Avidya, God's power of not knowing Himself, we become its servants, we are subject to Apara Maya, we stumble about buffeted by grief and error and all sorts of vikaras and viparita vrittis, we know ourselves as the Jivatman and other than the Paramatman, we make division where there is no division; we turn play into bitter earnest and love and joy into hatred and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Nevertheless, this forgetfulness is allowed in order that our secret souls in the Parardha and Brahman in them may enjoy the viparita ananda, the contrary or perverse delight, of the dualities. When we forget the play of Nature on our consciousness, shut our consciousness to it, refuse to reflect it, then we resort too utterly to the principle of Vidya, God's power of knowing His essential unity, we become subject to the Maya of Knowledge, we seem to baffle and bring to nought for ourselves the joy of the Lila, and disappear into some principle of Oneness, Prakriti,

Page 512

Asad Brahman, Sad Brahman, Nirvana or Sacchidananda. It is, or seems, an unnecessary movement; for the world remains just as before so long as God chooses that it shall remain and we cannot end it by our precipitation, and for ourselves we always were Brahman, we always will be Brahman and we are not any the more Brahman by our flight into the Absolute. Nevertheless, this withdrawal too is allowed in order that certain select spirits may help the joy of the manifest world from behind the veil by their immanent blessedness. For we have no need of laya and no need of lila, no need of freedom and no need of bondage, but all things are for delight and not from necessity. But when we remember always and continually our oneness with the Supreme, our eternal and indefeasible Godhead, and at the same time allow Nature to reflect its movements on our souls as on a magical canvas according to His eternal purpose, then we have inalienable joy, then we bring heaven upon earth, then we fulfil the highest purpose of existence. We are then free even when we seem to be bound, and even if we are born again, we are janmasiddha and janmashuddha, nityamukta, and wear the temporary limitations of Nature as children allow themselves to be bound in a game with bonds which the Yajna, Master of the Revels looses Himself when we have given Him and ourselves the intended and perfect satisfaction.

It is in the spirit of this knowledge that the hymns of the Rigveda have been written. The Isha Upanishad is the Upanishad of the Rigveda and it is there that its spiritual foundations are revealed. To make of Avidya a bridge to immortality and of Vidya the means of keeping our grasp on immortality, is the common aim of the Rigvedic Rishis. This is the keynote, this is the one great tone swelling through its thousand undertones. And as our fingers fall on string after string of this mighty and many-stringed harp of God, they return always one cry, the cry of joyous battle, of war between Deva and Daitya, between mortality and immortality, between man's temporary imperfection and his eternal perfectibility.

In this holy war the Gods are our chief helpers. There are seven planes of cosmic consciousness on which the soul of man

Page 513

plays with the love and wisdom and power of God. When first the unknowable Parabrahman turns towards knowableness in this partial manifestation,—for utterly That allows itself not to be known,—the Absolute first becomes—to the possibility of knowledge, not to its actuality—the Eternal Being or Paratpara Purusha, paro 'vyaktad avyaktah sanatanah, who beyond the uttermost darkness of the Asat, Sunyam Brahma or eternal nothingness which is the ultimate negation of this manifest existence shines ever with the light unknown of which seven rays are sufficient to illuminate all these universal systems. He is that perceivable but unknowable glory seated for ever beyond the darkness that swallows up the worlds, tamasah parastat. Out of Him the Asad Brahma appears, the general negation, through which this mighty manifestation in the seven universes passes back into the unknowableness of Parabrahman; and out of the Asad, the Sat, the general affirmation which we know as pure Atman, Self of itself, not yet of things, where nothing is yet differentiated and even Chit and Ananda are involved inmere featureless existence. Asad va idam agra asit, tatah sad ajayata. Atman is featureless, unconnected, inactive, alakshanam avyavaharyam akriyam. It must be featureless in order to contain all possible feature; it must be unconnected with the play of the worlds in order that Chit may play upon Sat with perfect freedom and put forth into the worlds without limitation whatever name, form or being the Lord commands Her to put forth; it must be inactive in order that there may be illimitable possibilities for Her action. For Atman is the foundation and continent of our worlds and if Atman had any definite feature or any bondage of connection or any law of activity, the world play which it supports and contains would be limited by that feature, by that connection or by that activity and God in His manifestation would be bound and not free. Therefore it is that as the featureless, free, inactive Sad Atman the Eternal first manifests Himself on this side of the darkness of Asat. Next, in Atman, He appears to His self-knowledge as the Nirgun Brahma, the Being without quality of the Parabrahman, manifesting an impersonal self-existence, an impersonal self-awareness and an impersonal self-delight, Sat,

Page 514

Chit, Ananda. This too is Tat or That, but being unlike Parabrahman Tat in manifestation can be described, defined, cognised, not as anything else but as Atman and as Sacchidanandam. Tat in manifestation can be aware or unaware of the worlds and It can be both aware and unaware, but its cognition is without relation. It has no connection with the worlds in which it cognises and perceives activity merely as the play of a dream on the surface of its imperturbable quiet. On the calm of the Nirgunam God next imposes Himself (adhyaropayati) as the Personality of the Eternal, the Paratpara Purusha manifest in relation to the world. Here first we get relation, quality, activity. At first, the Personality merely contains and informs the activity which plays in it not as unrealised dream, but as realised though not binding actuality and truth, as an infinite active blissfulness of the Chit in the Sacchidananda in place of an infinite passive blissfulness. The indifference of the Impersonal to the play of the Personal does not make the play an unreality or an immense cosmic falsehood with which Brahman amuses Himself or distresses Himself for a season, any more than the featurelessness of the Sad Atman makes feature a lie and an impossibility. On the contrary just as that featurelessness is the necessary condition for features to manifest truly, infinitely, divinely—for Truth, infinity and Deity are one,—so the detachment of the Impersonal is simply the condition for the security of the soul when it plunges into the myriad-billowed ocean of manifest existence. The Impersonal is detachment from guna and it is as detached from guna that God possesses and enjoys guna, otherwise He would be bound by and could not rightly enjoy it. It is because the tranquillity and indifference of the Nirguna is concealed within us that our souls can with impunity play at being bound, at being ignorant and at being sorrowful without being really bound by our bonds or darkened by our ignorance or destroyed by our sorrow. For being omnipotent God within us can always go back to the tranquillity within Him and look upon these things as a dream that falls away from Him the moment He cares to wake. It was a dream, but not a dream, just as when we are aware of sights and sounds without attending to them or remember the

Page 515

past and it is to us dreamlike, swapnamaya. The world has a reality, but the Impersonal does not interest Itself in that reality, not attending to it; it does not properly recognise it except as a thing that is and yet is not, the Maya of Shankara. This also is not a lie but truth, not a foolish, blissful dream, but a perfect reality. Because it was avyakta in the Nirguna, it is not therefore false when it becomes vyakta any more than an apple hidden is an apple non-existent. The world is not utter reality because it is thing in manifestation, not thing in itself. Yet it is real because it is a manifestation of God in Himself and God who is satyam conceives nothing that is not satyam, nothing that is not Himself. He is not a seer of falsehoods. Anritam is merely a vikara or perversion of satyam. All ignorance is really partial or misplaced knowledge, all bondage a concealment of freedom, all evil good in the making, all sorrow a veiled delight. This the Saguna Brahman perceives and knows and as Vasudeva, or tranquil Personality, He utterly enjoys without any distinction of pleasure and grief, good and evil, the infinite play of the world within Himself. The Saguna is Sacchidananda envisaging cosmic activity. On the tranquillity [of] Vasudeva God by a new adhyaropa manifestsHimself to Himself as the Sarvam Brahman in all things; He becomes the Lilamaya, the eternal Child frolicking in the Universe, the Playmate, Lover, Master, Teacher and Friend of all His creations; He is Hari, He is Srikrishna, He is the Personal God whom we love and adore and whom we pursue and seize through the Ages. Then, descending a step farther, avataran, He is known to Himself not only as the universal Lord of the Lila, but as the individual, Narayana concealed in Nara, playing through him, different from him, one with him. Many Adwaitins of the Kaliyuga insist that God is a myth and only the Sad Atman is a reality, just as many Buddhists deny the Sad Atman as well and say that only the Asad is a reality, but if we know only the Sad Atman or only the Asad, if we follow after only the Nirguna or only the Saguna, if we only embrace Vasudeva-Krishna-Narayan, then we know not the Eternal except in an aspect and we fall under the censure of the Upanishad, dabhram evapi twam vettha Brahmano rupam. We must shut

Page 516

our eyes upon nothing, renounce nothing as absolutely false or illusive if we would know the All and be perfectly liberated.Only when we gaze we must gaze aright and see God in all things, not things as aught but God. Our fathers did not commit the error of sectarianism or a partial philosophy. They were mighty as Gods or Titans, not like the men of the Kali Yuga who shout and quarrel over their imperfect philosophies and little bounded religions; their souls were spacious enough to take in all truth for their portion.

In this Brahman then, on the sure foundation of this free and disinterested Atman, in the joy and infinity of this Lila consciousness manifests its sevenfold nature and its sevenfold regions.We are already aware in our human progress of the three lower levels of consciousness; the vyahritis of the Veda, Bhur, Bhuvar and Swar, planes in which we wander in the shadow of the Ajnanam lighted by a broken sunlight from above, erring under the control of Avidya who separated from her eternal companion and playmate Vidya and at strife with that glorious friend and helper stumbles about among the appearances of the world, ourselves always dissatisfied, always struggling, always seeking a good that we cannot grasp and crying out at the end, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity & vexation of spirit." But in that too we cannot rest; for God condemns us to our own good and spurs us on ever to seek until we find the missing element [that] can complete the incompleteness of our existence. Meanwhile the soul imagining itself irrevocably bound, contents itself with the things of its prisonhouse and wears its chains as ornaments or else, touched byGod and uplifted, delights to struggle upward to freedom. For above the three Vyahritis is the fourth, Mahas, where the soul is one with God, yet separate, free, yet consciously plays with bondage,—Mahas, the link between the Parardha and Aparardha, pouring the glory of the higher hemisphere into the lower,—Mahas which we enjoy and possess in the golden ages of our humanity, love and seek for in the iron. For to Mahas we rise, through Mahas we aspire to the perfect oneness of Sacchidananda.

Brahman at first becomes involved in gross matter,—he

Page 517

becomes or seems to become Annam, the conscious principle of Bhu. In pure Annam consciousness is involved, implicit, latent; from annam it has to develop or manifest the other six principles and this development or manifestation is the evolution of the modern Jadavadins. It develops them here, under the law of the universal harmony, in annam and the Jadavadins perceiving this principle of evolution, imagine not unnaturally that it is annam which is evolving and suppose the other six, even Mind, to be mere changes and movements of annam. At first prana or vitality which is latent in the metal, manifests in the tree; then mind which is latent in the tree manifests in the animal, first as chitta or mere receptive consciousness, then as manas or sensational consciousness without any self-conscious centre of individuality, then as the discriminatory faculty or buddhi with its companion Ahankara, egoism, the self-conscious principle. In the animals reason is awake, but elementary and has to be largely replaced by vijnanam, intuitive faculty manifesting not in intellect but in sensational & vital consciousness. Then in man discriminative reason takes the lead, for discriminative reason is the shadow of the vijnanam, the link between the animal and the god and it is not till a fit body is formed for the works of reason that the spiritual evolution begins and the development of the higher states of consciousness is possible. Man is that fit body, sukritam eva, well indeed and beautifully made as a habitation for the gods. His business is to raise the animal in him and develop beyond manomaya being, transcending & subordinating even its crown and glory which he considers his peculiar privilege, the discriminative and imaginative reason. For he has to develop vijnanam or ideal thought on which all Veda is based, he has to develop Ananda, Chit and Sat, the higher hemisphere of cosmic consciousness. In the present stage of his evolution he can only develop consciously as far as Ananda with Sat & Chit implicit in Ananda; to Chit & Sat proper he cannot arrive in his waking state, but only in the deep trance of Sushupta Samadhi, concentration of consciousness in a state of illuminated Sleep.He began his task as the supreme animal, Pashu, Vanara, Nrisingha, developing all these potentialities purely in the annamaya kosha

Page 518

or physical sheath of his being in Annam & Prana; he went on as the mixed animal, first the Pishacha or scientific, curious animal, then the Pramatha or aesthetic, curious animal; and from these levels climbed to the condition of the Rakshasa or animalgod who satisfies egoism through his sensational and emotional impulses; he is now the Asura, Titan or demi-god satisfying in the heart & buddhi his emotional and intellectual egoism. He has eventually to become the whole god; he must learn to satisfy himself without egoism through ideal knowledge and blissful spirituality. But always being in the annamaya world, in Bhu, resting always on the Anna Atma, he is compelled to base himself on the body even when rising above the body. The individual may leave the body, but the race has to keep it; it has not to leave the animal in humanity behind in its progress but to raise the animal until it is divine. It is his first business therefore to be conscious not only in the physical sheaths of the Annakosha and Pranakosha,—this he normally is,—but in the mental sheath or manahkosha, and there in his normal condition he is only partially active. Once awake in the mental body, he has to extend his waking consciousness,—whoever can so far develop,—into the Vijnana and Anandakoshas.

What are these bodies and these Atmas? The Vedantins of old recognised that divine consciousness on whatever level always creates for itself through Prakriti or Chit, its active creative knowledge, a world to live in & a body for its habitation in the world, and in that world and in that body manifests as a part of the Atman reflecting their conditions. If therefore there are seven distinct states of consciousness, there must equally be seven conditions of the Atman, seven distinct worlds with their denizens and seven kinds of bodies. These seven states are Annam, Prana, Manas, Vijnanam, Ananda, Chit and Sat; these seven worlds are Bhuloka, Bhuvarloka, Swarloka, Maharloka, Janaloka, Tapoloka and Satyaloka; these seven conditions of the Atman are the Visva Atma, Prana Atma, Buddha Atma, Mahan Atma,Mahajana Atma, Chaitanya Atma and Satya Atma; these seven bodies are the Annakosha, Pranakosha,Manahkosha, Vijnanakosha, Anandakosha, Chitkosha and Satkosha. In each

Page 519

world the denizens, although living predominatingly in the body proper to their own element of conscious existence, also live latently or consciously in the other six, and all have therefore seven bodies, each in communication with its proper plane or world & containing its proper principle of consciousness. Man, living here in the Bhu, has, he too, his seven bodies.He has for instance the Manahkosha containing his pure mental consciousness and, although mind can & does play in the other sheaths, it can only be by becoming awake & living in his mental body as well as his physical that he can realise the utmost potentialities of pure mental activity. It is because he has these other bodies, that he can, if he will, communicate with the other worlds and have relations with the Gods.

This then is the arrangement of the created universe, and the world we live in is its base, not only earth but all these sidereal systems, Bhuloka, the material universe, our present inheritance. Being the lowest of the Aparardha worlds, it is according to a common action of God's love and wisdom, at once the least and the most privileged, the least privileged because here alone grief and pain are utterly felt, here alone is the whole pain and struggle of evolution,—the most privileged because here alone is the evolution eventually complete in all the potentiality of its parts and heaven perfectly realised in a sevenfold blissfulness. Above us are the six other worlds, homes of the gods who change not ever, except by entering human bodies. First, there is Bhuvar, the Pranamaya world, where Prana is at its height, vitality is stupendous, grief and pain are felt but enjoyed, sensuous enjoyment is perfect and prolonged. Then there is Swar, lower & higher, Swarga and Chandraloka, where Indra and the greater gods reside, manas is at its height, sensation, emotion, aesthetic pleasure and intellectual joy are of a mighty intensity, grief and pain are not felt except as another kind of pleasure and rapture, mental enjoyment is perfect and prolonged. Above there is Mahas or Suryaloka where vijnanam is at its height, intuitive ideal perception, inspiration & revelation are the normal processes of knowledge and the joys of ideal and direct knowledge unmixed with falsehood and error are perfect and

Page 520

prolonged. It is this state of consciousness which is so often called in the Veda, satyam, ritam, brihat and technically termed Bhuma, Mahas or Mahat, the abundant, full or mighty. These are the worlds of the lower hemisphere and of these states of consciousness we can have some conception, we can imagine and even realise or almost realise the condition of the beings who reside in these worlds, to the very highest. But what of the three supreme states of consciousness? what of the three worlds of the higher hemisphere? It is more difficult to conceive of them or to realise what man himself will be or is when he develops them—is, for even now by Yoga he can develop the Ananda. Still, because, debarred though we are from the actual tread of these infinite heavens, we can experience them indirectly and as conditioned by our existence on these lower levels, therefore some idea of them, not altogether inadequate, may be formed by those of us who have a touch of the ideal faculty.