A fire has come and touched men’s hearts and gone;
A few have caught flame and risen to greater life.
Too unlike the world she came to help and save,
Her greatness weighed upon its ignorant breast
And from its dim chasms welled a dire return,
A portion of its sorrow, struggle, fall.
Sri Aurobindo
Savitri, Book I, Canto I, page 7.
When my thoughts enjoying him chant his mightiness, he
shapes hue of kind as if to our desire. He awakes to knowledge
in men that have the ecstasy by the rich diversity of his
light; old and outworn he grows young again and again.
*****
The Priest of the call has taken his seat in the house of his
priesthood; he is ablaze with light and vivid in radiance, he
is full of knowledge and perfect in judgment. He has a mind
of wisdom whose workings are invincible and is most rich
in treasures: Fire with his tongue of purity is a bringer of
the thousand.
*****
May we worship thee in thy supreme Birth, O Fire; may
we worship thee with our chants in the world of thy lower
session: I adore with sacrifice thy native lair from which
thou hast arisen. The offerings have been cast into thee
when thou wert kindled and ablaze.
*****
Scatter all hostile things, increase the revealing Word. May
we revel in the rapture, strong with the strength of the
Heroes, living a hundred winters.
*****
O Fire, according to the laws of thy works thou pervadest
either race; thou art the messenger of the Gods and rangest
both the worlds. Since we have accepted thy thinking and
the right understanding that is thine, be to us our triple
armour of defence and benignant helper.
Sri Aurobindo,
Hymns to the Mystic Fire, CWSA, volume 16.