The Theosophical Forum – November 1948

AN ANCIENT VEDIC PRAYER — Herbert Coryn

Unveil, 0 Thou that givest sustenance to the Universe,
From Whom all things proceed, to Whom all must return,
That face of the True Sun, now hidden by a vase of golden light,
That we may know the Truth, and do our whole duty
On our journey to Thy Sacred Seat.

This is a paraphrase of an ancient Vedic prayer. Whatever its writer may have meant, it is used now as a mental pathway inward to the Spiritual Sun.

O Thou that givest sustenance to the Universe: the invocation is addressed to the universal Divine Presence.

That face of the True Sun: the individual spiritual inner Sun whose light fills the heart of the awakened man.

Now hidden by a vase of golden light: the vase of vitality which holds sensation and desire, a vital light almost visible in the clear face of a healthy child. In moments of aspiration and devotion one reaches beyond this light, ceases to pulse with it, looks through it, as it were, to the Spiritual Center within it, that center which is the True Self. Then are fulfilled the conditions for the rest of the prayer: That we may know the Truth and do our whole duty on our journey to Thy Sacred Seat.

As, when some calamity is impending, the man awakes with a sense of dread or weight, for which he cannot at first account, and as he will feel this presence all day, even when his mind is occupied with other matters; so the man on this Path, who is finding the answer to this prayer, wakes with a sense of inner peace and joy for which he cannot account, and goes through the day as one who has been told tidings of great joy.

At last he comes to know that Self whose light is that joy. Then he no longer lives in the pictures of memory and anticipation with which ordinary lives are filled. They no longer pass of their own will before his mental eye. He is reborn. He is the free-in-life.



Theosophical University Press Online Edition