Its time for the Human to discard the lie that we are helpless in the face of infinite being. We hold within us all of the tools we need to find our way back to the godhead. Many of the world’s religions have made us lazy and spiritually unintelligible. We’ve become empty husks, seeking our salvation outside of ourselves, when in actuality, all we need to be saved is within us. The words of the great savior pointed to this path; but finding God within is not a big money maker or power trip for the religious priest class. I believe that “Jesus” was pointing us to this path by the Words which he spoke into the world. Fiery sparks that would flare up to a new religious paradigm and liberation of the Human. He wanted our “salvation” to liberate us. The Rig Veda actually points the individual away from Human religion into the spirituality already present within.
“I am everything I need.“
Gospel of Thomas: Saying 49: Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are one – those who are chosen, because you’ll find the kingdom. You’ve come from there and will return there.” “The Doctrine of the Mystics: But where are these worlds and whence are they created? Here we have one of the profoundest ideas of the Vedic sages. Man dwells in the bosom of the Earth-Mother and is aware of this world of mortality only; but there is a superconscient high beyond where the divine worlds are seated in luminous secrecy; there is a subconscient or inconscient below this surface waking impressions and from the pregnant Night the worlds as he sees them are born. And these other worlds between the luminous upper and the tenebrous lower ocean? They are here. Man draws from the life-world his vital being, from the mind-world his mentality; he is ever in secret communion with them; he can consciously enter into them, be born into them, if he will. Even into the Solar worlds of the Truth he can rise, enter the portals of the Superconscient, cross the threshold of the Supreme. (I know this is true, but “why me,” I am clueless, which should offer you great hope; for if a fool can ascend, then so can you.) The divine doors shall swing open to his increasing soul. The human ascension is possible because every being really holds to himself all that his outward vision perceives as if external to him…This material life and our narrowly limited consciousness of the physical world are far from being the sole experience permitted to man, — be he a thousand times the Son of the Earth…Heaven also is one of his parents and has claim on his being. It is open to him to become awake to profounder depths and higher heights within and such awakening is his intended progress. And as he mounts thus to higher and even higher planes of himself, new worlds open to his life and his vision and they become the field of his experience and the home of his spirit. He lives in contact and union with their powers and godheads, and remolds himself in their image. Each ascent is thus a new birth of the soul, and the Veda calls the worlds ‘births’ as well as seats and ‘dwelling places.’ “
I have to talk about this even though it will be boring to many because I am carried back to this experience over and over again. When I travelled to the Solar worlds of Truth, I was led by a kind master by the arm. He was at my right side the entire time encouraging and strengthening me, because in a sense, this place is truly terrifying, yet I did not experience it as that way; I felt in some way that I was home. The being the came to me within the flood and billows of fiery light was kind, loving and welcoming; the strangest part being his veneration of me on his knees. And then to be shown my own ethereal body flaming in its form, then being asked for permission to be transformed, and watching in awe as Asclepius dove into it head first to alter something within my vital, true being. What I had forgotten is that I had been begging God like a little child to reveal him|herself in truth to me, before this experience happened. Be careful what you ask for, especially when you have no understanding what you’re asking for, because you will be astounded and surprised. This is what the mystic Heraclitus taught to us. The Hymns to the Mystic Fire say that the Solar Glories are the storehouse of Truth. How wonderful! So here’s the thing, everywhere I turn, my Father|Mother, in their kindness to me, show me all of the other witnesses to the same thing I experienced, so that I would know it was real through their testimony. That is how kind my loving God is to me.
“My child, let them know that many a Human has travelled to this place and it is open to those whose hearts are seeking it. Let them also know that they must count the cost, because much will be expected of them once they have travelled there. Be careful what you hope and wish for in your life. It is a accessible through the flaming altar of your heart which connects to me.”
I have been reading the “Hymns to the Mystic Fire,” hoping to deepen my experience of the One, and looking for ways to manifest the Light of God powerfully into the world. Often, while reading about “Agni,” the archaic symbolism has been a block to the Truth. Sri Aurobindo, in his commentary has helped to clarify my mind, like “pure Ghee,” so I can find the presence of God within. Don’t be put off by the archaic descriptions and language; the following paragraphs are overflowing with pure gold.
“But what is a ghee-pouring mind, and how by pouring ghee can a priest manifest the Gods and the triple heaven? But admit the mystical and esoteric meaning and the sense becomes clear. What the Rishi means is a ‘mind pouring the light’, a labor of the clarity of enlightenment or illumined mind; it is not a human priest or a sacrificial fire, but the inner Flame, the mystic seer-will, kavikratu, and that can certainty manifest by the process the Gods and the worlds and all planes of being. The Rishis, it must be remembered, were seers as well as sages, they were men of vision who saw things in their meditation in images, often symbolic images which might proceed or accompany an experience and put it in a concrete form, might predict or give occult body to it; so it should be quite possible for him to see the inner experience and in its image as symbolic happening, the flow of clarifying light and the priest pouring his clarified butter on the inner self-offering which brought the experience. This might seem strange in a Western mind, but to an Indian mind, accustomed to the Indian tradition of capable of meditation and occult vision it would be perfectly intelligible. The mystics were and normally are symbolists, they can even see all physical things and happenings as symbols of inner truths and realities, even their outer selves, the outer happenings of their life and all around them…”
So what was truly profound to me, is how what was stated in the Hymns to Mystic Fire was so closely aligned with the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. It was if Sri Aurobindo, was the reincarnated St. Thomas, or whoever the real author of the gospel had been.
The Gospel of Thomas: Saying 10: “Jesus said, “I’ve cast fire on the world, and look, I’m watching over it until it blazes.” “But pure thought and pure psychic state are not the highest height of human ascension. The home of the Gods is an absolute Truth which lives in the Solar glories (Akashic Realm) beyond mind. Man ascending thither strives no longer as the thinker but is victoriously the seer; he is no longer a mental creature but a divine being. His will, life, thought, emotions, sense, acts are all transformed into values of all-puissant Truth and remain no longer an embarrassed tangle of mixed truth and falsehood. He moves lamely no more in our narrow and grudging limits but ranges in the unobstructed Vast; toils and zigzags no longer amid these crookednesses, but follows a swift and conquering straightness; feeds and no longer on broken fragments, but is suckled by the breasts of Infinity. Therefore he has to break through and out beyond these firmaments of earth and heaven, conquering firm possession of the solar worlds (The Akashic Realm), entering on to the highest Height, he has to dwell in the triple principle of Immortality.” The Doctrine of Mystics
Gospel of Thomas: Saying 29: Jesus said, “If the flesh came into existence because of spirit, that’s amazing. If spirit came into existence because of the body, that’s really amazing! But I’m amazed at how [such] great wealth has been placed in this poverty. “The Doctrine of the Mystics: There is a Truth deeper and higher than the truth of outward existence, a Light greater and higher than the light of human understanding which comes by revelation and inspiration, an immortality towards which the soul has to rise. We have to find our way to that, to get into touch with this Truth and Immortality,…to be born into the Truth, to grow in it, to ascend in spirit into the world of Truth and to live in it. To do so is to unite ourselves with the Godhead and to pass from mortality into immortality. This is the first and the central teaching of the Vedic mystics. There is the inferior truth here of this world mixed as it is with much falsehood and error, anrtasya bbiireb, snd there is a world or home of Truth, sadanam rtasya, the Truth, the Right, the Vast, satyam rtam brhat, where all is Truth-conscious, rtacit. There are many worlds between up to the triple heavens and their lights but this is the world of the highest Light — the world of the Sun of Truth, svar, or the Great Heaven. We have to find the path to this Great Heaven, the path of Truth, rtasya panthah, or as it is sometimes called the way of the gods. This is the second mystic doctrine. The third is that our life is a battle between the powers of Light and Truth, the Gods who are the Immortals and the powers of Darkness. These are spoken of under various names as Vritra and Vritras, Vala and the Panis, the Dasyus and their kings. We have to call in the aid of the Gods to destroy the opposition of these powers of Darkness who conceal the Light from us or rob us of it, who obstruct the flowing of the streams of Truth, rtasya dhardh ,lj the streams of Heaven and obstruct in every way the soul’s ascent. We have to invoke the Gods by the inner sacrifice, and by the Word call them into us, — that is the specific power of the Mantra, — to offer to them the gifts of the sacrifice and by that giving, secure their gifts, so that by this process we may build the way of our ascent to the goal. The elements of the outer sacrifice in the Veda are used as symbols of the inner sacrifice and self-offering; we give what we are and what we have in order that the riches of the divine Truth and Light may descend into our life and become the elements of our inner birth into the Truth, — a right thinking, a right understanding, a right action must develop in us which is the thinking, impulsion and action of that higher Truth, rtasya presd , rtasya dhiti, and by this we must build up ourselves in that Truth. Our sacrifice is a journey, a pilgrimage and a battle, — a travel towards the Gods and we also make that journey with Agni, the inner Flame, as our pathfinder and leader. Our human things are raised up by the mystic Fire into the immortal being, into the Great Heaven, and the things divine come down into us. As the doctrine of the Rig Veda is the seed of the teaching of the Vedanta, so is its inner practice and discipline a seed of the later practice and discipline of Yoga. Finally, as the summit of the teaching of the Vedic mystics comes the secret of the one Reality, ekam sat , or tad ekam , which became the central word of the Upanishads. The Gods, the powers of Light and Truth are powers and names of the One, each God is himself all the Gods or carries them in him: there is the one Truth, tat satyam, and one bliss to which we must rise. But in the Veda this looks out still mostly from behind the veil…”
The Gospel of Thomas: Saying 41: Jesus said, “Whoever has something in hand will be given more, but whoever doesn’t have anything will lose even what little they do have.” The Doctrine of the Mystics: “Limitation is mortality; immortality comes to us as an accomplished self-possession in the infinite and the power to live, breath and move in firm vastness. Therefore it is in proportion as he widens and on condition that he increases constantly in substance of his being, brightens an ever loftier flame of will and vaster light of knowledge, advances the boundaries of his consciousness, raises the degrees and enlarges the breadth of his power, force and strength, confirms an inner beatitude of joy and liberates his soul into immeasurable peace that man becomes capable of immortality. To widen is to acquire new births. The aspiring material creature becomes the straining vital man; he in turn transmutes himself into the subtle mental and psychical being; this subtle thinker grows into the wide, multiple and cosmic man open on all sides of him to all multitudinous inflowing of the Truth.”
The Gospel of Thomas: Jesus said, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty. “ The Doctrine of the Mystics: “The liberating Word must be found, the illuminating hymn must be framed in the heart and mind of man and his life must be turned into a conscious and voluntary offering in which the soul is no longer the victim, but the master of the sacrifice. By right sacrifice and by the all-creative and all-expressive Word that shall arise out of his depths as a sublime hymn to the Gods, man can achieve all things. He shall conquer his perfection; Nature shall come to him as a willing and longing bride; he shall become her seer and rule her as her King…By the hymn of prayer and God-attraction, by the hymns of praise and God-affirmation, by the hymn of God-attainment and self-expression man can house in himself the Gods, build in this gated house of his being the living image of their deity, grow into divine births from within himself vast and luminous worlds for his soul to inhabit. By the word of Truth the all-engendering Surya creates; by that rhythm Brahmanaspati evokes the worlds and Twashtri fashions them; finding the all puissant Word in the intuitive heart, shaping it in his mind the human thinker, the mortal creature can create in himself all the forms, all the states and conditions he desires and, achieving, can conquer for himself all wealth of being, light, strength and enjoyment. He builds up his integral being and aids the gods to destroy the evil armies; the host of his spiritual enemies are slain who have divided, torn and afflicted his nature.”
Gospel of Thomas: Saying 50: Jesus said, “If they ask you, ‘Where do you come from?’ tell them, ‘We’ve come from the light, the place where light came into being by itself, [established] itself, and appeared in their image.’ If they ask you, ‘Is it you?’ then say, ‘We are its children, and we’re chosen by our living Father.’ If they ask you, ‘What’s the sign of your Father in you?’ then say, ‘It’s movement and rest.'” The Doctrine of the Mystics: “The Deva or Godhead is both the original cause and the final result. Divine Existent, builder of worlds, lord and begetter of all things. Male and Female, Being and Consciousness, Father and Mother of the Worlds and their inhabitants, he is also their Son and ours: for he is the Divine Child born of the Worlds who manifests himself in the growth of the creature.
So the Godhead becomes as a son to us. Let that sink in as you casually cast about your world.
He is Rudram Vayu, Soma Vishnu, Prajapati, and Hiranyagarbha, Surya, Agni, Indra, Brigaspati… all the gods. He is wise, mighty, and liberating Son, born from our works and our sacrifice, the Hero in our warfare and Seer of our knowledge, the White Steed in the front of our days who gallops toward the upper ocean.”
“The soul of man soars as a Bird, the Hansa, past the shining firmaments of physical and mental consciousness, climbs as the traveler and fighter beyond earth of body and heaven of mind by the ascending path of the Truth to find the Godhead waiting for us, leaning down to us from the secrecy of the highest supreme where it is seated in the triple divine principle and the source of Beatitude. The Deva is indeed, whether attracting and exalted there or here helpful to us in the person of the greater Gods, always the Friend and Lover of man…”
Gospel of Thomas: Saying 70: Jesus said, “If you give birth to what’s within you, what you have within you will save you. If you don’t have that within [you], what you don’t have within you [will] kill you.” “… the cosmic soul rising in attainment strives as the spiritual man for a higher peace, joy and harmony…But there is also the absolute Aryan who would conquer and pass beyond these states to the transcendental harmony of them all. It is the supramental Truth that is the instrument of this great inner transformation. That replaces mentality by luminous vision and the eye of the gods, mortal life by breath and force of the infinite existence, obscure and death-possessed substance by the free and immortal conscious-being. The progress of man must therefore, first, be his self-expanding into puissant vitality capable of sustaining all vibrations of action and experience and a clear mental and physical purity; secondly, an outgrowing of this human light and power and its transmutation into infinite Truth and an immortal Will.”
Saying 82: Jesus said, “Whoever is near me is near the fire, and whoever is far from me is far from the kingdom.”
Stick with me, even at the extreme and violent turns and sharp drops. So I keep seeing the Human body as an alter set up to honor God. I am reminded of the futility of religion, the secrets held behind the walls of the Basilica built by men, and the need of the Human to stand stones, one upon the other as a fitting place for a burnt offering to honor God. If the Human is the “temple of God,” then certainly the heart is its altar, burning brightly with the indwelling spirit of God. Agni the swift and strong raise the flame of our hearts to the One.
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with God about this very idea of a child being born within us. How by uniting with the oneness of God, both God and myself are born again as children. As we unite as One within the Vastness, we are both reborn as a newly formed child.
What people fail to comprehend is that it is not just the Human which is being transformed by the performance piece we live within; God in us is also being transformed through his|her presence in us. We are both becoming new creatures while embraced within each others arms. The Salvation is Universal!
“So too the Rishi asks for a son or sons or offspring, apatyam, as an element of the wealth for which they pray to the Gods, but here too an esoteric sense can be seen, for in certain passages the son born to us is clearly an image of some inner birth: Agni himself is our son, the child of our works, the child who as the Universal Fire is the father of his fathers, and is setting the steps on things that have fair offspring that we create or discover a path to the higher world of Truth. It speaks of the inconscient ocean, salilam apraketam, in which the Godhead is involved and out of which he is born by his greatness; it speaks also of the great ocean, maho arnah, the upper waters which, as one hymn says, Saraswati (God) makes conscious for us of which she make us conscious by intuition– pra cetayati ketuna. The seven rivers seems to be the rivers of Northern India but the Veda speaks of the Seven Mighty Ones of Heaven who flow down from Heaven; they are waters that know, knowers of Truth –rtajna — and when they are released they discover for us the road to the great Heavens…”
Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire.
What if the Human is actually the altar place of the One? The body is the standing stones and the heart is the fiery center, which is connected to the One. What if our heart connects directly to the Godhead, but is calcified by the weariness of many lives. What if we were to reawaken and relight the flame within us, so it burned both upward toward the One, and in so doing, precipitated the flame back from the Godhead to us? Why does the modern Human settle for crumbs when there is a feast prepared for us by God. We just have to agree to attend.
Romans 12: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
What if the only way the we can honor the magnificence of the One, is for us to place our most valuable belongings upon the altar of ourselves, and to carry it up to heaven by the flames of a fiery pyre. As we sacrifice our self within the presence of “Agni,” our offering of ourselves ascend to heaven pleasing the One with whom we are seeking to unite.
What if we were to embrace the existence of God within us; what if we embraced the universal consciousness and chose to create our own personal holocaust within us; watching our false gods and paradigms burn with delight!
Fire and the One keep tumbling out of every religious tradition; what if we allowed the Spirit of God, the Word, Agni, to do a work in us by destroying all of the sin, and misunderstanding that influences our perception of the world around us?
What if by burning it all down we were able to be truly free within the One? What if you were to take all the accreted ideas of our family, of society, and cast them all away? And what if through this action you were able to cast down the idol of yourself, and replace it with the power and presence of the One? Open your heart to how liberating it is to understand all of us are sharing this incredible, loving consciousness of God as we seek to ascend into his|her presence. And as we are One, we should be loving and compassionate toward those who share our very being.
This is the what the Christ called us to in his “new birth.” When through whatever means we can muster, we are able to unite with the One and we enter into a new birth. “We are a new creation.” We are born again as a child after the vision of God; by becoming the child that God called us to be in the world. And with this act we birth God as a new child of his own creation.
What if this day, you were able to see everything around you as brand new; without the shading of past experience or the wise words of the tribal elders? What if we didn’t know who our enemies were? What if we no longer had people we loved to hate? What if there was no more wars and genocides? What if the Human took back their power, gifted to us by God, using it to transform our world into a vast plenitude of existence spread out from the love of God.
What if we became the living, breathing symbol of God’s love and peace within the world? We cannot make anybody else subscribe to this way of being, so we would know that we risk becoming the target of the cold and hateful among us, yet we still should choose this way; we should be unafraid and light the flames within our own being?
As we live now, we approach every person and every situation with the shadow of past memories influencing our actions, even if our memories are twisted and faulty.
What if the Human cast off his forgetfulness and inertia, healed him|herself within, and reached up to heaven and cast it upon the earth?
The monkey Brain is stirring in me; “Don’t be such a fool, living an impractical life, filling you heart with untenable nonsense, when evil lurks all around you?” But what if it doesn’t! What if the only evil that we bring into our presence, is here by our own inner summoning. The safest stance would to be totally neutral and unafraid resting in the shadow of the “rod and staff” of God within us.
23rd Psalm: 4 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” My children, this is a spiritual key; when we slay the ego and rest in the love of God, he|she becomes our rod and our staff. And the fiery cup of our heart overflows, spreading the very presence of God within us,
When you anoint a person’s head with oil, you are actually pouring the full presence of the Holy Spirit upon their being. And when you have allowed the full presence of God to enter the alter of your heart, it begins to run over and bless all of those you come in contact with as you pass through the world. And as the alter becomes subsumed within the presence and power of the Spirit of God, past memories and traumas fade, long held societal mores and customs, are transmuted, and fear departs from your being. As the flames rise, they bring the praise and love to our father|mother in the chambers of heaven, and both the flame and the One unite in their caring attitude toward you.
“My beloved, I have such good news for you today, the Human can become One, within me, by simply accepting our Oneness.”
Monkey-Brain has to have his say; “You a such a foolish, fool! Life is hard and full of conflict and turmoil. None of these ideas put bread on the table!”
“My beloved child, all of the hardness of life, the turmoil and pain, all of it flows out of your own altar-heart. And as I see you, as I see you make the first steps toward me, I see you with compassion and lift you up into my presence and being.”
Wouldn’t it be wiser to accept God’s anointing upon yourself, so you could see with the Wisdom of God? And by trusting in the transformation that comes from being united as One within the Godhead, we are inscribed by the loving embrace of our Father and Mother.
If only we would take all of the things that are weighing us down by our insistence upon carrying them along with us in the world, and instead should cast them upon the alter of our heart and delight in their burning. This is true Yoga. Oh, what peace, joy and love flood our being as we stand marveling on the burning flames that transform us into a reflection of the One. Don’t we long to apprehend the world with the full presence of god within us? “My child, there is no greater possibility than to become beloved by me as I lift you up with my strong hand.”
“But then what?” This is an odd, interjection after such a glorious possibility.
Imagine your life as a neutral being, without prejudice, constant worry and the mind spinning to defend yourself. Imagine what that life would be like for yourself and the others in your life. When you begin to perceive the world without the clouding of memory; facing the future freed from your rumination of past events; if the scars of this life and others before, all healed and faded away once we merge into the vast love and trust of Shiva (or whatever God your heart venerates.)
How can we ever change for the better if we cling to failed societal paradigms which stoke our individual fears, so they can be manipulated by demons, who feast on the death and destruction of the Human, and thereby are seeking to overthrow the One?
And is it really good enough as a Human, endowed with the very presence of the Living God within us, to accept the veiling of the One by the religious class? Of course not! Resist the sweet temptation to rely on others for your salvation. Only you can transform your being by your choices and your will. There is no easy way out. And even if there was, why would you take it? Out of his great love for you, God has given you everything you need to transcend you way to him|her. Just start the journey. Overcome your inertia and just try and the Gods with all the hosts of heaven will reach down to hasten your awakening.
The supreme, vast space composed from the goodness of the One is far superior to the stories held in dusty old religious texts written by authors of dubious integrity.
“In this moment, I set up my physical body as an altar to the One. I carefully place the stones of my being to hold the immense presence of the altar of God which is the human heart. As a sacrifice, I place all of my cherished belongings and idols that have allured me, and casually, quietly and humbly, I invoke Agni, to fall upon the sacrifice, setting it alight. Carry the depth of my being and love into the very presence of the One, and by this action let the flame or light of the Akashic realm, flow back down upon me in the moment of the ebb tide of Pingala and Ida, when all ceases, as my being is subsumed within the One I love.
Father, Mother be merciful to me. Set the Sahasara flame on the top of my head ablaze as a testimony to your presence in me; and let it be as evidence as an achievable goal for every Human. Let your light illumine me.
For if a fool such as I can grasp it, then it is open to all. Let me be the fool who stumbles into the great and wide vastness of your love. A drop falling into the vastness of Shiva. Let Shiva and Shakti, make love within me, spreading the bliss of possibility, as their creation flows from out of me into the world.
In this moment in time, Father|Mother, by your great love and mercy, let your humble servant, through your strengthening of my inadequate words of weakness, cast into the universal consciousness, bring about the dawning of the ascension of all the Human, into something entirely new and awesome, fully embodying your presence here on earth. In this time, let us become the children of your vision!
Let all things cease as I rest within you.
Selections from “Hymns to the Mystic Fire,” by Sri Aurobindo
“The two familiar images in dhenu and in yahva are intended to convey directly in one, suggest obliquely by the simile in the other, the inseparable companionship of divine power with the divine light and the divine being. All the gods are indeed usharbudhah; with the morning of the revelation all divine faculties in us arise out of the night in which they have slept. But the figure here is that of awakening towards the coming dawn. The illumination has not yet touched the mortal mind, it is on its way, approaching, ayatim, like a cow (ray of light) coming from the distance to its pasture; it is then that the power divine stirs in its receptacle, seizes upon all that is available in the waking consciousness of the creature and, kindled, streams up towards the altitudes of the pure mind in the face of the coming divine knowledge which it rises to meet. Divine knowledge, revealing, inspiring, suggesting, discerning, calls up the godlike ideal activity in us which exceeds man’s ordinary motions, — wakes it even before it actually occupies this mortal system, by its far-off touch and glimmer on the horizon; so too divine, inspired and faultless activity in us rises heavenward and calls down God’s dawn on His creature. This great uprush of force is in its nature a great uprush of divine being; for force is nothing but the power of being in motion. It is the secret waters in us that released, gush up openly & widely from their prison and their secrecy in our mortal natures; for in vitalized matter, in mind emmeshed in material vitality, the ideal and spiritual self are always concealed and await release and manifestation; in this mortal that immortal is covered and curtained in and lives and works behind the veil, martyeshu devam amartyam. Therefore is the uprush of divine force in the great release felt to be the wide uprush of divine being and consciousness, yahva iva pra vayam ujjihanah. Abodhi hota yajathaya devan, Urdhwo Agnih sumanah pratar asthat, Samiddhasya rusad adarsi pajo, Mahan devas tamaso niramochi. The purpose of the waking is next emphasized. It is for divineaction in man that God’s force awakes in us.“
This divine force is born victorious by its very purity and infinity over all the hostile forces that prevent, obstruct, limit or strive to destroy our accomplished freedoms, powers, illuminations and widenesses; by his victory he ushers in the wide days of the siddha, for which these nights and dawns of our human life are the preparatory movements. He is effective and helpful in the effective powers that work out for our good the movements [of] this lower life towards immortal strength and power, he is active and joyous, arusho, in those that take the delight of these movements and so prepare us for the immortal bliss and ecstasy of the divine nature. Manifesting progressively that Ananda the force of God establishes and maintains in each house of our habitation, in each of our five bodies, in each of our seven levels of conscious existence, the seven essential forms of Ananda, the bliss of body, the bliss of life, the bliss of mind and the senses, the bliss of ideal illumination, the bliss of pure divine universal ecstasy, the bliss of cosmic Force, the bliss of cosmic being. For although we tend upwards immediately to the pure Idea, yet not that but Ananda is the goal of our journey; the manifestation in our lower members of the divine bliss reposing on the divine force and being is the law of our perfection. Agni, whether he raises us to live in pure mind or yet beyond to the high plateaus of the pure ideal existence, adhi shnuna brihata vartamanam, establishes and supports as the divine force that divine bliss in its seven forms in whatever houses of our being, whatever worlds of our consciousness, have been already possessed by our waking existence, life, body & mind, or life, body, mind and idea, dame dadhanah. Thus manifesting God’s bliss in us he takes his seat in those houses, domiciled, damunah, as we have it in other Suktas, and in those worlds, to perform as the hota in his greater might for the sacrifice, greater than the might of other gods or greater than he has hitherto possessed, the offering of human life into the immortal being, a daivyam janam, yajathaya devan. Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire.
“Force, pure, supreme & universal has, in man, awakened; divine power is acting, revealed, in the consciousness of creatures born into matter, jananam. It wakes when the fuel has been perfectly heaped, abodhi samidha, — that power, plenty and richness of being on which this cosmic Force in us is fed and which minister to its intensity and brightness. It wakes towards the coming dawn of illumination, as to the Sun-cow, the cow of Surya, the illumination of the ideal life and the ideal vision entering the soul that works imprisoned in the darkness of Matter. The flames of the divine activity in us are pointing upwards towards heaven, mounting up from the lower levels of our being to the heights of the pure mind, sisrate nakam achchha, and their rising is like the wide gushing up into manifestation of waters that have been hidden. For it is a great god that has been released out of the darkness, mahan devas tamaso niramochi. The two familiar images in dhenu & in yahva are intended to convey directly in one, suggest obliquely by the simile in the other, the inseparable companionship of divine power with the divine light and the divine being.” Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire.
https://archive.org/details/hymns-to-the-mystic-fire-sri-aurobindo/page/703/mode/2up
“Agni has stood up in the dawning illumination high uplifted in the pure mentality, urdhwa, with a perfected mind, sumanah. He purifies in his rising the temperament and fixes on it the seal of peace & joy; he purifies the intellectuality & makes it fit to receive the activity of the illuminating Truth & Infinite Rightness which is beyond intellect. Great is the god who has been released out of the darkness of this Avidya, out of this our blind bodily matter, out of this our smoke-enveloped vital energy, out of this our confused luminous murk of mortal mind and sense-enslaved intelligence. Mahan devas tamaso niramochi. For now that he has been perfectly kindled, it is no longer God’s occasional flamings that visit our nature, but His collected and perfect force, pajah, is seen reddening in our heavens. The first verse is preoccupied with the idea of the self-illumination of Agni, the bhanavah, the flames of Force manifesting Knowledge as its essential nature — for Force is nothing but Knowledge shaped into creative energy & the creations of energy & veiled by its shape, as a man’s soul is veiled by his mind & body which are themselves shapes of his soul.“
“Agni, as jatavedas, the self-existent luminosity of knowledge in this Cosmic Force — for Force is only Chitshakti, working power of the Divine Consciousness and therefore Cosmic Force is always self-luminous, all-knowing force. Agni Jatavedas then is the ray of divine knowledge in this embodied state of existence; — he is Adhrigu — the Light in our embodied being. For this reason all action offered by us to Agni as a work of divine tapas becomes in its nature a self-luminous activity guiding itself whether consciously in our minds or super-consciously, guhahitam, to the divine goal. All Tapas is self-effective and God-effective. As Adhrigu, the divine Light in our embodied being, Agni is to bring to us an illumination of knowledge in our mentality which is ojistha, most full of ojas, superabundant in effective puissance. By God-directed action our heart and intellect become suffused with power & light, or rather with light that is power and power that is light, since knowledge and force are in the divine nature one entity. Agna ojistham a bhara dyumnam asmabhyam adhrigo. This puissant light brought to us by Agni is attended with the other divine phenomenon or manifestation (vayunam, vayas), bliss, felicity, Ananda. Divine Ananda is the inseparable companion of the divine strength and divine knowledge; Chit, Tapas andAnanda constitute the nature of Sat, the divine Being. The state of divine being is one & infinite embracing all existences, sarvabhutani, in one unifying self-consciousness, Atmani; therefore,divine bliss also is infinite & embracing, raya parinas.” Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire