The Flame of Aspiration, the Mystic Fire

The Rig Veda has a large number of hymns to Agni, the mystic fire. Sri Aurobindo translated and commented on the hymns to Agni in his book, Hymns to the Mystic Fire. The importance of the mystic fire, which we may call the flame of aspiration for the spiritual seeker is evidenced by both the number of hymns appearing in the Rig Veda, as well as the fact that the very first hymn is dedicated to Agni. This first hymn sets the tone of the spiritual seer’s devotion to the development of this flame of aspiration as the basis for spiritual sadhana. Sri Aurobindo translates this first hymn: “I adore the Flame, the vicar, the divine Ritwik of the Sacrifice, the summoner who most founds the ecstasy. The Flame adorable by the ancient sages is adorable too by the new. He brings here the Gods. By the Flame one enjoys a treasure that veriy increases day by day, glorious, most full of hero-power. O Flame! the pligrim-sacrifice on every side of which thou art with the environing being, that truly goes among the Gods. The Flame, the summoner, the Seer-Will, true and most full of richly varied listenings, may he come a God with the Gods. O Flame! the happy tood which thou shalt create for the giver is that Truth and verily thine, O Angiras! To thee, O Flame! we day by day, in the night and in the light, come, carrying by our thought the obeisance. To thee, who reignest over our pilgrim-sacrifices, luminous guardian of the Truth, increasing in thy own home. Therefore, be easy of access to us as a father unto his son, cling to us forr our happy state.”

It is this deep, powerful, inward flame of aspiration that makes possible the advent of the transforming powers of the higher spiritual consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “The fire is the divine fire of aspiration and inner tapasya. When the fire descends again and again with increasing force and magnitude into the darkness of human ignorance, it at first seems swallowed up and absorbed in the darkness, but more and more of the descent changes the darkness into light, the ignorance and unconsciousness of the human mind into spiritual consciousness.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 2, Faith — Aspiration — Surrender, pg. 31