The Secret of the Veda

The Nineteenth Hymn to Agni

A Hymn of the Revealing Ray and Conquering Will

[That epiphany of the soul is sung in which all the coverings of its higher states are penetrated and open to the divine light. It is the opening of the whole third plane of our existence which was before as a fortified city with its gates closed to the soul embodied in Matter. By this new action of the Divine Force the mental and physical consciousness are wedded to the high supramental which was till now separated from them and the life-force blazing in its works with the heat of the divine Sun is harmonised with the play of the sun-ray of the divine knowledge.]

1) State upon state is born, covering upon covering opens to consciousness of knowledge; in the lap of its Mother¹ the soul sees.²

2) Awakened to an embracing knowledge men cast in thee the offering, they guard a sleepless manhood, they enter into the fortified city.

3) Men who are born in the world and labour at the work increase the luminous state of the son of the white-shining Mother,³ he wears the golden necklace,⁴ he utters the vast word; with that and with the honey-wine of delight he becomes a seeker of the plenitude.

4) He is as the delightful and desirable yield of the Mother,⁵ he is that which being without a fellow⁶ yet dwells with the

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two companions, he is the heat of the Light and the belly of the plenitude, he is the eternal unconquerable who tramples all things under his feet.

5) O Ray, be born in us and dwell there at play harmonising thy knowledge with the blazing life-god.⁷ May these flames of the will that bear our works be violent and keen and sharpened to a perfect intensity and firmly founded in the Bearer of all things.

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