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		<b><i>A Vedic Story</i></b> </p>
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<font face="Times New Roman">(RlGVEDA-X.51.) .</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">THE gods are in a great fix. Where is Agni ? How is it that the
comrade has disappeared all on a sudden ? The Sacrifice—the
great work has to be undertaken. And he is to be the leader, for he
alone can take up the burden. There is no time to be lost, everything is ready for the ceremony to start and just at the moment
the one needed most is nowhere. So the gods organise a search
party to find out the whereabouts of the runaway god.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The search party consists of Varuna, Mitra and Yama. We
shall presently understand the sense of the selection. They look
about here and there—in ten directions, it is mentioned—and
at last spot the defaulting god hiding within a huge thick strong
cloak or caul. They hail him and ask him to come out and take
up his charge. Agni refuses: he says he is not competent to undertake the 
burden; indeed that is why he ran away and they must not force him. The gods 
explain, entreat, encourage Agni. They say and assure him that no harm will come to him,
rather he will flourish and prosper and become immortal.<b> 
</b>He is mighty and he will become almighty as he takes up his work
and proceeds with it. Agni accepts in the end and marches out
with the gods.</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What does this parable mean? First of all then we must
know what Sacrifice—a Vedic sacrifice—is. Sacrifice symbolises the cosmic labour, the march of the universe towards its
goal, the conquest of Light over Darkness, the ascent of man-hood to godhead, the flaming rise and progress of consciousness
to its supreme expression and embodiment. It is the release out
of Inconscience and Unconsciousness to consciousness and
finally into the superconsciousness.</font>
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Page 330<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Sacrifice consists essentially in lighting the fire and pouring
fuel—offerings—into it so that it may burn always and brighter
and brighter. It calls the gods, also, it is said, ascends to them,
brings them down here to live among men, in men. It lifts men
from the ordinary life and consciousness, takes them to the
abode of the gods. In other words its function is to bring down
and infuse into the human vessel the godly consciousness and
delight and power. Its purpose is to divinise human life.<br>
. Through the sacrifice man offers his present possessions, his
body and life and mind to the Deity and deities and by this
surrender and submission constant and unfailing <i>(namas)</i> he
awakens the Divine in him—the Agni that is to lead him to the
divine consummation.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Fire then is the energy of consciousness secreted in the heart
of things. It is that which moves the creation upward, produces
the unfolding evolution that is history, both individual and
collective. It is kindled, it increases in volume and strength
and purity and effectiveness, as and when a lower element is
offered and submitted to a higher reality and this higher reality impinges upon 
the lower one (which is what the rubbing of the <i>arani</i> or the pressing of the <i>soma</i> symbolises); the
limitation is broken, the small enters into and becomes the
vast, the crooked is straightened and lengthened out, what
was hidden becomes manifest. This is described as the
progression of the sacrifice <i>(adhvara—</i>advance on the path).
That is also the victorious battle waged against the dark&nbsp;
forces of Ignorance. The goal, the purpose is the descent
and manifestation of the gods here upon earth in human
vehicles.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But this Fire is not normally available. It is lost, imbedded
in the thick petrified folds of unconsciousness and inconscience.
Man's soul is not an apparent reality. It has to be found out, called forth, 
brought to the front. Even so, in the normal consciousness, the soul, the divine fire is a flickering, twinkling,
hesitating spark; it is not sure of itself, not certain of its destiny.Yet when the time is ripe and the call comes, the gods, the
luminous forces from above descend with all their insistence<br>
and meet the hidden godhead: Agni is reminded of his work
and destiny which nothing can frustrate or cancel. He has to
consent and undertake his sacrificial labour.</font>
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Page 331<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Agni feared and tried to escape from the burden of his responsibility. He wrapped himself in a thick and vast cloak and
hid in the depths of far waters. That is the parable way of
describing the difficulty, the apparent impossibility of the
undertaking Agni has to shoulder. Curiously however he has
taken shelter just in the spot which seemed safest to him, from
where begins his work, whose nature and substance he has to
transform, that is to say, the nether regions of inconscience<br>
which is to be raised and transfigured into the solar region of
the supraconsciousness.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; One interesting point in the story is the choice of the gods
who formed the search party. They were Mitra, Varuna and
Yama. Varuna is the god of the vast consciousness (Brihat),
the wide universal, the Infinite. His eye naturally penetrates
everywhere and nothing can escape his notice. Mitra is harmony and rhythm of the infinity. Every individual element he
embraces and he holds them all together in loving union—his
is the friendly tie of comradeship with all. Finally Yama is the
master of the lower regions, the underworld of physical and
material consciousness, where precisely Agni has taken refuge.&nbsp;
Agni is within the jurisdiction of this trinity and it devolves
upon them to tackle the truant god.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There is another point which requires clarification. As a
reason for his nervousness and flight he alleges that greater
people who preceded him had attempted the work, but
evidently failed in the attempt; so how' can he, a younger
novice, dare to go the same way? Putting the imagery back to
its psychological bearing, one may explain that the predecessors
refer to the deities of the physical, vital and mental consciousness who ruled the earth before the emergence of the psychic
or soul consciousness. It is precisely because of the failure or
insufficiency of these anterior—in the evolutionary movement
—and inferior gods that Agni's service is being requisitioned.
Mythologically also a parallelism is found in the Greek legends where it is said 
that the Olympian gods—Zeus and his company—were a younger generation that replaced, after of
course a bloody warfare, their ancestors, the more ancient race
of Kronos, the Titans. Titans were the Asuras and Rakshasas
who reigned upon earth before the advent of the <i>mental—
</i>sattwic—human being, Manu, as referred here.</font>
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Page 332<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">Now, here I give you the original text in translation:</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">THE COLLOQUY OF AGNI AND THE GODS</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">(Rigveda-X.51.)</font><p align=center style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<font face="Times New Roman"><br>
The gods</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;1&nbsp; Huge and firm was that covering with which you shrouded</font>&nbsp;
<font face="Times New Roman">yourself and entered into the waters.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">0 Agni! You are conscious from your very birth.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">The One God saw you in all your multiple universal</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">body.</font>

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Agni

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;2&nbsp; Who saw me? Which of the gods saw my multiple body
all around? 0 Mitra! 0 Varuna! Tell me, where do they
dwell—all the blazing fuel that&nbsp; move to&nbsp; the gods ?</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">The gods</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;3 0 Agni! god self-conscient, we seek you, you who have
entered variably into the waters and into the growths of
the earth. You shine richly. Yama has seen you as you
flame out of your ten seats.</font>

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Agni

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;4&nbsp; 0 Varuna! I fled because I was afraid of the work of the
priest. The gods must not yoke me to that work.
That was why I imbedded my body variably so that I as
Agni may not know of that pathway.</font>

<p align=center style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
The gods

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;5&nbsp; Come, 0 Agni! Man, the mental being, desires to do
the sacrifice, he has made everything ready, and you
dwell in obscurity!</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">Make easy-going the path that leads to the gods, with a
happy mind carry the offering.</font>
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Page 333<hr>

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Agni

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;6&nbsp; There were elders before Agni who covered the same path,</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">even<b> </b> as charioteers do their way.
That is why, 0 Varuna! out of fear I have come away so</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">far, even as an animal shrinks and shivers at a shooting</font>

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The Gods<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">.7&nbsp; We shall make your life undecaying, 0 Agni! so that no</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">harm comes to you when engaged in the work.
So, carry to the gods their share of the offering; a happy</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">birth you have, a happy mind you must carry.</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">
<font face="Times New Roman"><br>
Agni</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">8. Then bring to me my share of the mighty offerings, those
that are given before, those that are given after and those</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">that are simply given.<br>
0 gods! Long life to the being shining in the waters, to</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">Agni himself lying in the growths of the earth.</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;The gods</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">9. The offerings that precede, the offerings that follow,
offerings pure and simple—all forceful, may you enjoy.
May this sacrifice be yours entirely. The four quarters</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">bow down to you, 0 Agni!</font>

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Page 334<hr>

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