January 25, 2010

Tuning one’s own being to the divine hymn of the Earth

The following excerpt is from In Harmony's Way by Lori Tompkins

The Vedic sages made it abundantly clear that the highest goal of humanity was to become a collective (sangha) of illumined travelers, knowers, singers or dancers of this 360° way of truth and harmony, which was also described as the 12 month sacrifice (yajña) or year which – if observed, seen and celebrated correctly – would generate knowledge of the divine and hence knowledge of immortality. Sri Aurobindo wrote much about this journey-sacrifice (adhvara yajña) towards divine consciousness in The Secret of the Veda. It is a journey towards discovering the ‘hymn of the soul’ that is in absolute attunement to and absolute harmony with the hymn of the Earth, the hymn of the Sun and our Solar System, and the Hymn of the Whole creation.

‘The sacrifice is also a journey; indeed the sacrifice itself is described as travelling, as journeying to a divine goal; and the journey and the sacrifice are both continually spoken of as a battle against the dark powers.' (p.183)

‘[The] part of the Angiras Rishis in the sacrifice is the human part, to find the word, to sing the hymn of the soul to the gods, to sustain and increase the divine Powers by the praise, the sacred food and the Soma-wine, to bring to birth by their aid the divine Dawn, to win the luminous forms of the all-radiant Truth and to ascend to its secret, far and high-seated home.’ (p. 187)

‘[The] gods are invoked for this great journey, adhvara yajña, the sacrifice that travels or is a travel to the home of the godheads and at the same time a battle: for thus it is sung, “Easy of travelling for thee is the path, O Agni, and known to thee from of old. Yoke in the Soma-offering thy ruddy (or actively moving) mares which bear the hero. Seated, I call the births divine” …. What path is this? It is the path between the home of the gods and our earthly mortality down which the gods descend through the [antariksha], the vital regions, to the earthly sacrifice and up which the sacrifice and man by the sacrifice ascends to the home of the gods.’ (p.188)

‘By the truth, in the revolution of the year, they broke Vala ....’ [RV X.62.2] (p. 177)

‘[The] secret eternal worlds have been closed to us, says the Rishi, by the movement of Time, by the months and years; therefore naturally they have to be discovered, revealed, conquered, created in us by the movement of Time ….’ (pp.179-180) – Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda 
                                                                                                                                                                      
The Vedic texts, and especially Sri Aurobindo’s translations of it, are an unparalleled resource to draw on for evidence that the Earth’s year is an eternal or perpetual path, which when traveled, known or observed correctly, will lead past all obstacles and Ignorance (Vala) to Truth-Consciousness/Unity-Consciousness. But no amount of study of Vedic wisdom can be a substitute for actually tuning in to and harmonizing one’s own consciousness and existence with the divine rhythms, tones, measures and progressions of the divine Earth and Cosmos. One literally tunes the instrument of one’s own being to the divine hymn of the Earth, to the divine harmonies of the Cosmos. The result is the realization of the hymn of the soul and an appreciation for how the soul, how the divine spark (Agni) expresses itself throughout all circumstances. One becomes, in a real sense, a Lord of the Dance. 

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