Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8

Life needs pure, calm and effectuating delight. It is through delight that knowledge, work and truth at revealed. The

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more the inspiration of life-energy becomes divinely blissful and lasting, the more the aspirant is endowed with the pure intelligence, divine power and fulfilment, and at last he manifests in the waking consciousness the streams of the Vast, of direct sight and creation beyond mind and intelli­gence.

In the present sukta there are four groups of three riks each, graded according to the spiritual progression.

The first group begins with the invocation of the twin Riders. Who are these Riders? According to the narration of the Puranas, the Aswinikumaras are generally known as the twin heavenly physicians. It means, they drive away disease, decay and incapacity from the being and make the life-energy pure, sound and indomitable. In other words, they are the gods of immortality. Their work is to found immortality and an eternal youth of divinity in life. Pranavayu, which is the conveyance of the divine power, has been symbolically expressed as the horses. It may be asked why they have the twin forms. Perhaps it is because the one gives knowledge, the other the energy for work. Both are the presiding deities of immortality and both of them embody the most benevolent delight. Hence they are called Subhaspati. Also they are called Purubhuja, for they bring into life the divine enjoyment in. profusion. However, the one gives much importance to the energy of work, the other to the powerful pure intelligence. Whatever may be the difference in their outlook, they are the twin faces of one and the same God. The two horsemen open the fount of that very divine exhilaration in life by which there awakes and ascends an upward flame in the being of the aspirant. As the aspirant has been the possessor of an intense diversified delight, he is now able to proceed farther and farther, higher and higher by sacrificing his lower aspiration to the higher one. It is an immortalised life-energy that makes all the realisation effective, real and beautiful. It infuses spirit and power into the intelligence. The aspirant

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is endowed with an occult power of hearing and is initiate with the power of mantras which expresses and manifest the Truth. That is why the twin gods are called Nasatya (the Guides on the path). They are the leaders in our spiritual adventure. They lead us speedily through the different levels of consciousness to the vast ocean of the higher truth

The second group of riks: The spiritual delight and to immortal power of life will found themselves in a calm, pill and firmly rooted basis of the entire being. And this immortal delight will lead the spiritual practicant to the Divine Mind, to the pure Intelligence, to the realm of Indra. An ordinary man is unable to have a glimpse of the higher mind, the pure Intelligence because he is confined to the narrow limits of the lower material world and his life abounds wit restless, impure and hurtful desires. It is not by a gross inert inspiration but by a subtle inward power that the enjoyment of life must be purified and divinised. Then only the slot of the mind will be replaced by the divine Intelligence. With the divine Intelligence of Indra the aspirant enjoys a pure delight in life. It is Indra who fills the different aspects each object with a luminous truth. The inspiration surcharged with the effulgent knowledge of Indra will bring down and manifest in the aspirant the delightful truth of the Self which is the main support of the divine in the aspirant.

The third group: After this the aspirant rises into the realm of Truth, the Right and the Vast where his being will embody all the gods. The universal Godhead is the collective power of all the gods. Each god has a different aspect and a particular truth to stress. They at once carry out their own work and help one another in performing their work. Thus in their combined efforts they give shape t diversified expressions of the one great and vast Truth When the power of these gods is established in the aspirant his aspiration rises higher and higher unfalteringly an, infallibly. The body, life and mind which are the different levels of the being are each a stream of truth and these areimagined as river or water.

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The fourth group: Saraswati, the wealth of the fulles inspiration of the complete Truth, signifies speedy and rhythmic truth. She is the divine hearing. No doubt, we see and meet the Truth with our divine vision, but to make, the Truth active and dynamic and fill the creation with the power of Truth we needs must take the help of divine hearing. As the truth possesses a form, even so it has a name. It is precisely because of form and name that the truth becomes concrete. The form of truth is Visible in the divine vision, the name of truth in the divine hearing. Saraswati gives the divine name and Ila gives the divine form to the truth. Under the inspiration of Saraswati the truth casts aside all untruths. Hence she is called Pavaka (the Purifier). Above the mind there abides the vast ocean of Truth. We have neither any knowledge nor any experience of it. In a sense, we are quite unconscious of it. Saraswati raises the intelligence into the vast ocean of Truth and purifies it Afterwards she brings it down to our understanding. She manifests the complete knowledge in all its facets and make them living.

In the Vedic literature, very often we get the reference to vak (Word). So it will be no exaggeration on our par to hold that the aim of the Vedic spiritual discipline is to get the significant sound aspect of the truth. And for this the Vedic seers of truth are called the seers of mantras 0 the creators of mantras. Vak is the living image of truth There lies a rhythm in the being of truth and the movement of this rhythm produces a note which was later on called nada (the unsounded sound) or Shabda Brahman (the Brahman manifested as Sound). When the rhythm of this note is found in out intelligence and mind, it takes the form of a sentence and this very thing is called a true mantra. The more a language can express intimately and direct the primal form and rhythm of truth, the more the mantra becomes living. Therefore the aspirant who has acquired

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this mantra has also acquired truth and the power of truth. The Vedic seers have placed the name of truth in different categories, e.g., Rk, Stoma, Uktha, Brahman, etc. At the beginning of the present sukta too, in the spiritual practice of truth gih, the vak or name that reveals the truth clearly in the consciousness of the aspirant has been invoked with the help of the twin equestrians. Then with Indra's help the Brahman, that is to say, the true message of the inner Self was invoked. When man gets a purified mind and purified intelligence, he discovers the real Being within and another name of this Being is Brahmanaspati (the Lord of the inner Self). Finally comes in Sarasvati who is the power of the Infinite Truth in which the multiple aspects of the truth of the universal God are manifest.

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