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<title>The Mounting Fire</title>

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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><font size="4">The Mounting Fire</font></span></b></p>
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<span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>THE seat of human
consciousness, in fact of all consciousness, is the brain – the grey substance
filling up the cranium. The brain constitutes man in his essential and
characteristic substance and functioning.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.2pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I am
speaking specially of the physical and material basis of mind and
consciousness, for unless this basis is changed there can be no change in the
structure of the being, and in the movement of outward life; even the
consciousness would not change radically or permanently: a stable
transformation can come only when the material stuff has undergone a reversal.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.2pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
human brain consists, as physiologists tell us, of three parts: (1) the frontal
lobe, (2) the hub behind and (3) further down, a hidden part – they are as we
know, the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the Bridge and the Medulla. Such is
man's head, the cranium, the lodgings where human mind dwells and from where it
moves and controls all man's dynamic behaviour.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
frontal lobe is the seat of intellect and intelligence: the topmost portion,
the crown of the head is usually associated with the still higher functions of
mind, tending towards intuition, direct knowledge, luminous vision, etc. The
front proper, the forehead that is to say, is the seat of intellect proper, the
discursive deductive rational mind. The section of the brain in the hind
portion of the cranium is usually associated not with reason or understanding
but with vital urges, impulsions, sentiments, passions, desires, etc.: the
nervous knots there are the controlling agent of these lower functions of the
mind; that is the control room, as it were, for all dynamism, for man's
character and nature. And the part hidden or imbedded below houses the
infra-impulses: the demands and needs that are </p>
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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;
'>Page – 324</span><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-bottom:0'>inherent
mostly in the bodily functions, all the movements that are called forth in the
wake<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp; </span>of physical existence.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-bottom:0'>The
question, the problem now is, how to change, purify these ranges of the mind or
brain: to suffuse the cranium with a new functioning and organisation replacing
the old order of the ordinary, more or less animal man</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.65pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
usual Course followed is to call in the higher reality: the light and its power
of organisation, that lie above, above the brain outside the cranium, to invoke
the light, the transcendent light and power to descend and penetrate the
brain-consciousness and work out there a process of purification and new organisation. This has been done with considerable success. This is the
Vedantic way.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:13.7pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>But,
there is a but, that is to say, a limitation in this line. The higher
consciousness is brought down, it descends, but normally it does not penetrate
far enough; it penetrates only very partially, slowly, intermittently and in a
gradually diminishing strength. The top region receives the light comparatively
easily; the middle receives or is touched and influenced with great difficulty
and after long travail, but the bottom portion is rarely connected or
contacted, only nominally perhaps. In other words, if the higher mind, the
intellect and intelligence is somewhat illumined with a new light from above
and even if the higher vital comes under its influence in a general way, the
lower vital comes hardly in its grasp. And the lowest region, the region of
physical or nervous movements for all practical purposes lies outside the
influence of the Higher or Transcendent Consciousness; that remains almost
undisturbed, un-regenerated. To bring down the Higher Light there, behind and
below the brain stuff, is a task very few have done or even attempted to do.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:14.15pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>The Tantriks devised a different way, an
about-turn way. Instead of trying to bring down the superior or the supreme
consciousness into these lower darknesses, they sought to attack these from
below, set a blazing fire below that would shoot up its tongues into those
nether regions of the brain or mind. Instead of a force of light from above
coming down, a force of fire is rocketed upward and made to strike as it were
at the back of the lower masses of the mind. Now where to find this fire, this
mounting tongue of a living flame? That is what the</p>
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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 325</span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Tantras have imaged in the
concept of the Kundalini Shakti. There is a force, a mighty energy coiled and
concentrated at the base of the spine holding it and supporting at its top,
first, the subliminal region of the brain at the bottom, and over it the other
two. There is a secret fire at the base of the human system. It is a fire as
invoked by the Vedic Rishis: the tantriks view it as a coiled python – the
universal nature-power, her massive ingathered creative energy. This energy is
forceful and fierce because it is as much creative as it is destructive. That
is the poison which the python carries, it is a poison in the ignorant state
and unconsciousness, to the ignorant and the unconscious, but to the aspirant
and the awakened and the luminous consciousness it begins to work as the
immortalising draught – nectar.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
energy at the root of the spine is stored, as it is said, in the muladhara, the
root, that is to say, in the root of the very material constitution of the
human being. It is the concentrated energy in matter, indeed it is the energy
of the mother earth. The Vedic Rishis speak of fire as being a deity of earth,
as the Sun or the God of Light is the deity of the heaven. The earth-energy
has to be awakened or kindled and it has to move upward and forward, piercing
and burning and illumining all the inferior and denser regions of consciousness
till it pierces through and enters into the head, and then goes beyond, into
the supreme solar light. That is the image given in the Tantras calling it <i>sat-chakrabheda.</i><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
inferior parts of the brain are denser and darker than the superior. The lower
it is, the denser and darker it becomes. I do not know if physically it is so,
but the sensitivity, the vibrations there seem to point to such a direction. So
it appears, it is not easy for the Light from above to penetrate, to penetrate
to a great depth, to the bottom of the brain. It is not the Light from above
but the fire from below, the flaming force of material consciousness that has
to do the main or final work. For the light from above is mostly mental or
mentalised, the very supreme Light does not descend easily, is not readily
available: indeed it is ready and available only at the call of the fire below.
Agni is therefore named 'hota,' one who calls the Divine down here below. It is
the God here below that can call down the God above.</p>

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<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:11.75pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 326</span><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:13.4pt;
mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-bottom:0'>But how to awaken this God buried in matter, how is one to
kindle this fire that apparently lies extinguished, the Vedic Rishis have a
whole ritual of the process. They speak, first of all, of preparing the seat
for <i>Agni – barhi: </i>it is the material casing of the body, and then one
takes two pieces of the <i>arani, </i>species of wood or fuel, and rubs them
one against the other till the fire leaps out. It refers to an aspiration, a
concrete and concentrated aspiration that is breathed into the living cells,
this breathing, a<i>dhmatam, </i>is the concretising or embodying of
the<i> </i>aspiration: it is the invocation that calls forth sleeping divinity.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.2pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
fire in fact is the aspiration in the body, the divine demand in the body and
it kindles itself by its own self-pressure. The spreading of the <i>barhi </i>in
the Vedic image means also the surrender and submission, the prostration of the
bodily being. By <i>namas, </i>by constant obeisance the fire is to be tended;
and a ceaseless refuelling has to be done by a ceaseless self-offering of all
movements, especially all the automatic reactions of the physical that form the
roots of the material existence.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
whole physical being if it is to embody a new life in a new organisation must
concentrate at one point within itself and find or found there the Fire, the
dynamic Divine Will in its most concrete reality – the body's self and soul:
the <i>yajamana, </i>the human figure of the Divine here invoking,
calling forth the godhead who leads the sacrificial journey through all the
worlds and domains to the Supreme Heights.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>We
have said that fire is a denser and intenser force than light: while the light
is likely to stop short or to dispense, the fire is apt to act fiercely and
decisively with the denser or more refractory objects of existence, strands
that are moved, as I have said, from the central control of the brain. Earth
enshrines volcanoes; likewise the cells in the material body may be turned into
little volcanoes if the Divine Flame is roused there in the intensive process
of aspiration.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Earthly
beings as we are, Agni, the earthly Godhead is the Deity we adore, he is the
Lord of the Home, <i>grhapati. </i>He is the foremost of the gods and he goes
in front of us <i>purohita, </i>Agni's flame rises towards Surya, the supreme
Light, but first he must prepare the passage, burn down and clear the woodlands
and marshes that intervene – the growths and formations in the past of the very
substance of the being.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 327<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Thus,
the head, the brain, must be built wholly of fire particles. The cranium will
hold, as it were, a golden ball, rounded and fully formed, the golden egg, <i>hiranyagarbha,
</i>out of which the new physical creation will emerge – something in the
manner of the legendary Greek goddess Minerva, whole and entire, complete in
arms and panoply, out of the head of Father Jupiter.</p>
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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 328</span><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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