-42_The Second Hymns to Agni.htm

THE SECOND HYMN TO AGNI  

A HYMN OF THE LIBERATION OF THE DIVINE FORCE

[Nature in her ordinary limited and material workings holds the Divine Force concealed in her secret or subconscient being; only when consciousness enlarges itself towards the One and Infinite, is it manifested, born for the conscient Mind. The clarities of the higher illumination cannot be kept so long as there is not this Strength to guard them, for hostile powers snatch them away and conceal them again in their secret cavern. Divine Will manifested in man, itself liberated, liberates him from the cords which bind him as a victim in the world- sacrifice; we attain to it by the teaching of Indra, the divine Mind, and it protects the uninterrupted play of the Light and destroys the powers of falsehood whose limitations cannot hem in its growth and its out-flaming; it brings the divine waters from the luminous Heaven, the divine wealth liberated from the attacks of the Enemy, and gives the final peace and perfection.]

1. The young Mother¹ bears the Boy pressed down in her secret being and gives him not to the Father; but his force is not diminished, the peoples behold him established in front² in the upward working of things.

2. Who is this Boy, 0 young Mother, whom thou bearest in thyself when thou art compressed into form, but thy vastness gives him birth? For many seasons the Child grew in the womb; I saw him born when the Mother brought him forth.

3. I saw far off in the field of being one tusked with golden light and pure bright of hue who was shaping the weapons of his war. I give to him the immortality in me in all my

¹The Mother and Father are always either Nature and the Soul or the material being and the pure mental being.

²As the Purohita who leads and conducts the work of the sacrifice.

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separate parts¹ and what shall they do to me who have not the Word² and the God-Mind is not in them?

4. I saw in the field as though a happy herd that ranged continuously in many forms of luminous beauty. None could seize on them, for he was born; even they that were old among them, grow young once more.

5. Who were they that divorced my strength from the herds of Light ? Against them there was no protector nor any worker in this war. Let those that took them from me, release them to me again; for he with his conscious perceptions comes driving to us our lost herds of the radiance.

6. The king of those who dwell in creatures, he in whom all creatures dwell, is hidden within mortals by hostile powers; let the soul-thoughts of the Eater of things release him, let the confiners be themselves confined.

7. Shunahshepa too, head of delight, was bound to the thousandfold post of the sacrifice; him thou didst release, — yea, he accomplished perfection by his works; so do thou take thy seat here in us, O conscious seeing Flame, O Priest of our sacrifice, and loose from us the cords of our bondage.

8. Mayst thou not grow wroth and depart from me! He who guards the law of action of the godheads, told me of thee; Indra knew and sought after and saw thee, and taught by him his knowledge, O Flame, I came to thee.

9. This Flame of Will shines out with the vast light of Truth and makes all things manifest by the greatness of him. He overpowers the formations of knowledge³ that are undivine

¹Soma, the wine of immortality, is given to the gods in three parts, on three levels of our being, the mind, life and body.

²The expressive Word which manifests that which is hidden, brings out into expression that which is unexpressed.

³Maya. There are two kinds of Maya, the divine and undivine, the formations of the truth and the formations of the falsehood.

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and of an evil movement; he sharpens his horns to gore the Rakshasa.

10. May the voices of the Flame in our heavens be sharp-weaponed to slay the Rakshasa! In his ecstasy his angry lustres break all that opposes his advance; the energies un- divine that obstruct us from every side cannot pen him in.

11. O thou who art born in many forms, I illumined in mind, accomplished in understanding, perfect in works, have fashioned for thee this song of thy affirming to be as if thy chariot. If thou, O Strength, take an answering delight in it, by this we may conquer the waters that carry the light of the luminous heaven¹.

12. The strong-necked²Bull increases in us and drives to us the treasure of knowledge³ that was withheld by our enemy; nor is there any to destroy it. For so have the Powers Immortal spoken to the Strength that he work out peace for the man who enlarges the seat of sacrifice, that he work out peace for the man who carries in his hand the oblation.

¹Swar, the divine mind pure to the luminous Truth.

²Or, "many-necked".

³The wealth of the luminous herds.

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