The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

Vayu, the Master of the Life Energies 309
antah. samudre hr.di antar āyus.i. The conscious mind is, then,
the channel through which there is communication between the
upper ocean and the lower, between superconscient and subconscient,
the light divine and the original darkness of Nature.
Vayu is the Lord of Life. By the ancient Mystics life was
considered to be a great force pervading all material existence
and the condition of all its activities. It is this idea that was
formulated later on in the conception of the Prana, the universal
breath of life. All the vital and nervous activities of the
human being fall within the definition of Prana, and belong to
the domain of Vayu. Yet this great deity has comparatively few
hymns to his share in the Rig Veda and even in those Suktas in
which he is prominently invoked, does not usually figure alone
but in company with others and as if dependent on them. He
is especially coupled with Indra and it would almost seem as if
for the functionings demanded from him by the Vedic Rishis he
needed the aid of the superior deity. When there is question of
the divine action of the Life-forces in man, Agni in the form of
the Vedic Horse, Ashwa, Dadhikravan, takes usually the place
of Vayu.
If we consider the fundamental ideas of the Rishis, this position
of Vayu becomes intelligible. The illumination of the lower
being by the higher, the mortal by the divine, was their principal
concept. Light and Force, Go and Ashwa, the Cow and the
Horse, were the object of the sacrifice. Force was the condition,
Light the liberating agency; and Indra and Surya were the chief
bringers of Light. Moreover the Force required was the divine
Will taking possession of all the human energies and revealing
itself in them; and of this Will, this force of conscious energy
taking possession of the nervous vitality and revealing itself in
it, Agni more than Vayu and especially Agni Dadhikravan was
the symbol. For it is Agni who is master of Tapas, the divine
Consciousness formulating itself in universal energy, of which
the Prana is only a representative in the lower being. Therefore
in Vamadeva’s hymn, the fifty-eighth of the fourth Mandala, it
is Indra and Surya and Agni who effect the great manifestation
of the conscious divinity out of the subconscient. Vata or Vayu,