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The Eighteenth Hymn to Agni
A HYMN OF THE LORDS OF THE PLENITUDE
[The Divine Will is invoked to complete the manifestation of the divine powers after the second state of the soul when it has passed beyond the mere physical being and is full of the perfect energy of the vital plane; for the gods have given all the life's fifty steeds of swiftness, Agni is there as the light and flame of its far-extended existence which has broken the limitations of the material being and he is full of the joys of this new and rich supra-physical life. Now the third state, the free mental being, is to be perfected by a richly varied and luminous play of thought and word ending in the manifestation of the highest reach of the mental realms, the power of the supramental Light in the mentality; there begins the manifestation of the intuitive and inspired mind. Agni has to create that vastness and light and divinity of the Truth-knowledge and so crown with it the already attained free swiftness of force and wide range of life and enjoyment proper to the perfected and god-filled vitality.]
1. Let the Will be affirmed in the dawning,1 guest of the creature with his many delights who, immortal in mortals, takes joy in all their offerings.
1 The dawning of the divine Dawn of the higher knowledge in the mind.
Page – 390 2. He is the plenitude of his own discerning mind for the second soul2 when it bears the purified intelligence; then it holds in itself the continual wine of delight and affirms thee, O Immortal.
3. Such art thou I call, the pure flame of this far-extending existence for the lords of the plenitude whose chariot inviolate ranges wide,3 O giver of the steeds of swiftness, —
4. The lords of the plenitude in whom is rich light of the thought and they keep the words of our utterance in their mouth;4 the fullness of the soul has been spread as a seat of sacrifice in the power5 of the luminous world and all its inspirations are set round about.
2 Dwita, the god or Rishi of the second plane of the human ascent. It is that of the Life-force, the plane of fulfilled force, desire, free range of the vital powers which are no longer limited by the strict limitations of this mould of Matter. We become conscious of and conscious in new realms, immense ranges of life, the “far-extending existence” of the next verse, which are screened off from our ordinary physical consciousness. Trita is the god or Rishi of the third plane, full of luminous mental kingdoms unknown to the physical mind. 3 In these new worlds of life the divine movement is now fulfilled there and ranges unpierced by the “harms” of the powers of Death and Darkness. 4 This verse describes the farther ascent of the movement from the realms of Dwita to the realms of Trita. 5 Swarnara, often spoken of as if it were a country; it is not Swar itself, the utter superconscient plane, but the power of itself which the light of that world forms in the pure mentality. Here its inspirations and illuminations descend and take their place ´ round the seat of the sacrifice. These are elsewhere called the scouts, “eclaireurs”, of the solar Deity, Varuna.
Page – 447 5. They who have given me fifty steeds of swiftness6 with a perfect affirming, the divine souls that are lords of the plenitude, for them, O Flame-Immortal, create the large, the vast, the luminous knowledge full of the godheads.
6 The Ashwa or Horse is the symbol of the Life-Force as the Cow is the symbol of the
Light. Fifty, hundred, a thousand are numbers symbolic of completeness.
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