Discoveries of The Vedic Rishis - Discoveries of The Vedic Rishis 302

And for this there were found to be different kinds of forces -- benign forces. Now this was a great discovery of the Vedic Rishis: the discovery of the gods. There are cosmic forces, universal forces. There are a number of these cosmic forces. So first of all, you discover that there are cosmic forces which are benign forces, which can help you and which can conquer for you the battle against the adverse forces. Who are these gods? Supposing you are told to go for a mission of work, let us say to Delhi in the Ministry of Education, now you just go to the Ministry. First of all you are not even allowed the entry. You must know how to enter the field. There are rules and regulations of entry. Similarly, there are rules and regulations of entry into the world of gods. If you want to go to the world of gods, there are rules of entry, how will you enter? By what means will you enter? Then you have a certain purpose to fulfil. You don't know who is the Secretary, who is the Under-secretary, who is the Joint-secretary, who is the Deputy Secretary, you don't know, but you need to know. In other words, there is a hierarchy. Who takes the final decision? Is there anybody who takes a final decision? Or do you have a meeting of so many Secretaries together for taking a final decision? These are questions you ask when you go to a Ministry, similarly, there a Ministry of gods. This is the discovery of the Vedic Rishis. That there is a kind of a Ministry of gods, and if you want to make progress in the world, and you are bound to come to these obstructers, these adverse forces, and you want the help of the gods, then you must know which god has what portfolio. What is the work of each god, what is his realm, what is his dominion, what is his capacity, what is his function? Vedic Rishis discovered very minutely, they made so many experiments, it is impossible to describe how much experimentation should have been needed, not just to think about it, but really to find out, to identify them. They discovered a number of gods, and found out their function, each one's function. This is a tremendous task. Today we can speak very freely because they have written down the gods, their names.

The only difficulty is that in a certain sense they have kept the names very secret. Even if you read the Veda, and read thoroughly so many times, you may not be able to find out these secrets. They have written down the formula of these gods, in what we may call algebraic language. You know algebra? You are learning algebra perhaps? Algebra is arithmetic written in a symbolic form: x + y = 12, x stands for what, and y stands for what? If it is equal to 12, then maybe that x is 5 and maybe y is 7, so 7 is y and 5 is x, then x + y is equal to 12. But if you don't know the value, and if you simply are told that there is x and there is y, then you won’t know what is the value of this. You are not given equations, so you can't even try to find out what stands for what. This is in algebra. Algebra is difficult because unless some clues are given, you cannot resolve the riddles of algebra. Similarly, these Vedic Rishis wrote down the secrets of so many gods which they have discovered and their functions, but they have written in an algebraic language. This is where the problem of the Vedas arises. The language of the Veda is symbolic language, like algebra. But the surprising thing is that even though there are many composers of Vedic mantras, there is a common language among all of them. It is as if a group of mathematicians have agreed to their symbolism. Here you find that there is a group of Rishis who have agreed that to express a certain secret you will use a certain expression, and they commonly follow that. If you read in a very bizarre manner, obvious manner, you will make no meaning out of it. "The cow is standing before the horse", let us say. This is a sentence in the Veda. Cow is standing before the horse. So you might think that the Vedic Rishis must have seen a kind of a field, grazing ground perhaps and there must be one horse there, and there must be one cow. And he is describing that the cow is before the horse. But if you discover the algebraic language, -- and this is what Sri Aurobindo has done -- if you read the book The Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo found out what these algebraic terms meant. "Cow" is an algebraic term in the Veda, and wherever there is the word cow, it means light, it does not mean cow, the physical cow, it means light. "Horse" does not mean the horse we know of, it means will-force. "The light stands before the will-force." It is not the cow standing before the horse; it is the light that is standing before the will-force. It says that there is always a double force in the world, wherever there is light, there is always a will-force. This is the secret language of the Veda. There is a bifurcation between the knowledge and will.