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THE TWELFTH HYMN TO AGNI
A HYMN OF MAN'S ASPIRATION TO THE TRUTH
[The Rishi invokes this flame of the Divine Force, this
vast Lord of the superconscient Truth, this Truth-conscious
One, to accept thought and word into himself, become Truth-conscient in man and cleave out the many streams of the Truth.
Not by mere force of effort nor under the law of the duality can
the Truth be attained, but by the Truth itself. But there, are not
only powers of this Force that battle with the falsehood and
guard and conquer, there are others also who have helped so far
in the march, but who would keep to the foundation of the
falsehood because they cling to the present self-expression of man
and refuse to advance beyond it; these in their self-will speak
the word of crookedness to the Truth-seeker. By the sacrifice and
by submission in the sacrifice man, the ever-advancing pilgrim,
brings near to him his wide dwelling-place beyond, the seat and
home of the Truth.]
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To Will, master of sacrifice, the Mighty One, the vast lord
and diffuser of the Truth I bring forward my thought as an
offering and it is as the clarified butter of the sacrifice purified in the mouth of the flame; my word¹ I bring forward
that goes to meet its lord.²
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O conscious seer of the Truth, the Truth alone perceive in
my consciousness; cleave out³ many flowing streams of the
Truth.4 Not by force, nor by the duality can I achieve the
journey nor attain to the Truth of the shining Worker, the
fertilising Lord.
¹To turn thought and word into form and expression of the superconscient Truth which
is hidden beyond the division and duality of the mental and physical existence was the central
idea of the Vedic discipline and the foundation of its mysteries.
²The Bull; the thought is symbolised as the shining cow fronting and offering itself to
the Godhead.
³From the rock in the hill where they are guarded by the opposing powers.
4 The descent of the superconscient into our life was imaged as the rain of heaven; it
formed the seven celestial rivers that flow down upon the earth-consciousness.
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By what thought in me, O Will, shalt thou seeking the
Truth by the Truth become the impeller to knowledge of a
new word ? The godhead who guards the times and seasons¹
of the Truth, knows all in me, but him I know not, the lord
of that all-possessing felicity.
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Who are they, O Will, that are thy binders of the Enemy?
who are the shining ones, the guardians, the seekers after
possession and conquest? Who, O Will, protect the foundations of the falsehood ? who are the keepers of a present²
word?
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These are comrades of thine, O Will, who have gone astray
from thee; benignant were they, they have become malignant. These do violence to
themselves by their words speaking crooked things to the seeker after straightness.
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But he, O Will, who desires with submission thy sacrifice,
guards the truth of the shining Worker, the Fertiliser.³ To
him may there come that wide habitation4 in which all is
perfected, even that which is left5 for man the pilgrim to
accomplish in his forward journeying.
¹The periods, sometimes described as years, sometimes as the twelve symbolic months
of the progress of the sacrifice.
²Or, "false word". In either case it means the old falsehood as opposed, to the "new
word" of the Truth of which Agni has to create the knowledge.
³"The shining Bull or Male", but the latter word means also the rainer, fertiliser or
diffuser of abundance and sometimes the strong and abundant, the former seems to bear also
the sense of active or moving.
4The plane of the superconscient Truth or world of Swar beyond mental Heaven and
physical earth in which all is accomplished that here we strive after; it is described as the
wide habitation and the wide and fear-free pasture of the shining cows.
5 This world is sometimes described as what is left or the excess; it is the additional field
of being beyond this triplicity of mind, life and body which constitute our normal state of
existence.
Page – 393
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