Astron Argon

The Historicity of the Rig Veda

by
Frater Apollonius

Introduction

The Rig Veda was an oral tradition that started with pre-Cambrian humanity’s initial observations of nature.  This was a time, long before language with all its advantages and disadvantages.  Language forces a delimiting paradigm that both helps to clarify and yet in the quantification of data, may present false assumptions that are not recognizable within the paradigmatic structure.  And the pre-Cambrian mind (the remnant of which is the cerebellum) is altogether abstract in its comprehension as compared to the modern mind and its reliance on that rational creativity of the cerebrum.  It is here where Liber AL can really drive a point when it states that “Reason is a lie.”

Before language and intellection, when we can assert that Enoch walked with God; an aboriginal period in the earliest phase of human development.  This was a time when humanity was first emerging from nature and yet still had the ability to apprehend the reasoning, dreaming and thought processes in the minds of animals; vaguely perceived by us today as animal magnetism.  Indeed, they perceived no difference between themselves and the rest of nature that was around them.  It was in this time that the Rig Veda originated as an oral tradition; long before it was ever written down.

Indeed, the hymns of the Rig Veda were composed by Aryan seers who preceded the Hindus, the Persians and the Greeks.  Subsequently, it can be shown that the gods of these ancient Aryans are found in the original of the deities of every succeeding culture; though their original language was eventually replaced by Sanskrit.  And these hymns were hymns of gratitude for the pleasures of life that gave life its sanctity.

Truth in the Rig Veda is found exclusively in manifestation unto visible appearance; being demonstrable in the reality of things.  Fire at the sacrifices where the hymns were sung was the actual, physical appearance of Agni, the first of the gods.  The ancient Aryans considered fire (Agni) and light (Indra) to be the highest of the gods; the word for God being ‘Deva’ and meaning bright and would become ‘Deus’ in Latin.  The seven stars of Ursa Major were the seven Devas in a constellation that traveled in a perpetual circle about the North Star.  These were the seven Rishis who were transferred to the skies as stars; introducing the concepts of reincarnation and immortality.

But for the ancient Aryans, immortality meant long life, which could be obtained by eating the sacred Ambrosia.  And as well, immortality was the state of being able to perceive the immortal plane that was the exclusive domain of the gods; much in the same way the ancient shamans of all cultures entered into the ‘spirit vision.’  However,  though they also recognized that the soul would reincarnate, they did not see themselves as immortal.

Agni

Agni was the creator god who was the essence of all the other gods; manifesting in fire and being the first truth.  As the essence of all the gods, Agni was then also pure spirit; showing us why in the Qabalah, Fire does a double duty as Spirit.  For that matter, Agni was the Universal Fire and vital principal of the Universe.

Fire then becomes the physical substance of the spirit of God and is the most important element in the ancient sacrifices where the hymns of the Rig Veda were sung.  And it is fire that sustains life bringing light and immortality to humanity; coming from the heavens and re-told later in Greek culture, as found in the story of Prometheus; stealing the fire from the gods and elevating the existential status of humanity, which of course, angered the jealous Olympian gods.

The Aboriginal Aryans would later have great influence on the Hindu and Greek culture and even the cultures that would emerge from the Aboriginal Semitics; Jewish, Arab and Islamic.  Specifically, Plato would come along to develop the ancient Aryan wisdom into what would become Gnostic concepts.  The primary god would come to be seen as to be necessarily free from all works; the Demiourgos creating the structure of manifestation by which the primary god can move through to become each of us.  This is a measure of the developing wisdom of an older, now more sophisticated culture resulting from the advancement of the intellectual capacities of individuals emerging within their ranks.

Philo, an Alexandrian Jew states the invisible God is only perceptible by the intellect.  The light then is the image of the intellection, which sheds some further light on LXV:I.8—I who am the Image of an Image say this.  Divine Reason that is the apprehension of the Image of God; the very nature of the Knowledge & Conversation of Thine Holy Guardian Angel at Tiphareth (that is the Image of Kether; itself an Image of the Ain Soph Aur) is imaged by light.  And so the image at Tiphareth is light, as referenced by the lamp of the Dominus Liminis; itself being the image of the apprehension of God brought about by the Divine Reason of the intellect.  And here also is Plato’s ideal world of forms.

The Supreme Being is then the archetypal light and the Logos is the pure light that by way of the archetypal light is the path that the Ain Soph Aur manifests as the beings of Assiah and the greater perfected being that is the homo sapiens.  This is the hologram theory discussed in Liber Vox Viva Voce vel Video and our translation of the Liber Loagaeth.  The Supreme Being would become the Pleroma of the Gnostics and Amon to the Egyptians.

Aeons & Formula IAO

We may now take a new look at what Crowley meant by interpreting time in terms of Aeons; bearing no relation with the Platonic Year, as assumed by most Thelemites.  Ancient humanity starts out with a  close relationship to nature; the pre-Cambrian period that was the Isis stage in our development.  This is what Crowley meant by the Aeon of Isis; an Aeon being a stage in human development, having no relation to the Platonic Year.  In this stage, nature is divine; the deities of the Rig Veda then, not being anthropomorphic, but seen as the forces of nature.

As humanity evolved into the  post-Cambrian period, the energy center of our minds moved from the cerebellum to the cerebrum.  We could no longer walk with God, meaning we no longer could perceive the immortal plane and we lost our sensitivity to nature, including our apprehension of the thoughts of animals.  The intellect would now render an unseen God in terms of Divine Wisdom, as discussed above; and with the added mention that the evolutionary advancement was a gradual development that really leads to the present day.  In this, the Apophis stage in our evolutionary development; deities are fighting it out in order to gain supremacy over the others and the myths of the dying God.  For Crowley, this is the Aeon of Osiris; now transitioning.

The third stage in our evolutionary development has Osiris avenged by Horus; the stage called Osiris Triumphant and Aeon of Horus.  To better understand this stage, we can look at the mental capacities of the other two stages.  In the Isis stage, humanity is thinking with ‘preceptual’ consciousness; leading to the second stage, conceptual consciousness.  Preceptual consciousness takes in the fire as Agni in its most simple and primal rendering with Conceptual consciousness taking this fire and adding a constellation of other precepts (essence, principal, divinity, et al) to a more sophisticated apprehension of the God by the added means of comprehending the larger concept.

So now, we may posit a constellation of concepts that defies the limitations of language; bringing up the ancient symbols as if widening the focus of the mind to include both the cerebrum and the cerebellum.  But instead of walking with God, we can see the full involutionary current and come to know that we are each that God; proceeding willfully in to manifestation in one great epic and divine dance.  Pure reason will no longer serve us, but that divine inspiration also will come to move us and known intuitively by many as the ‘world to come.’  It is what we, as a race will grow into.

Indra

Indra is a component part of Agni that is perceptible only by the intellect.  Beyond the limits of the horizon and the sky; a place the mind can imagine, Indra abides as a might essence.  As he is also the invisible rays of the Sun, with his might, he scatters the darkness.  And because it is that Indra is on perceptible by the mind, he is also the soul of man and can only be known by his manifestations.  Agni manifests as fire and Indra manifests as light.

It is important to understand that the mystical experience can only be perceived and recollected by the intellect.  In this way, light is worked into the fabric of one’s being.  Indra is called “the pervader”—he is the light that pervades the entire Universe and also, the fabric of the immortalized being.  As he exists in manifold qualities, we account for the diversity of life; the colors being many and the light one as stated in the first chapter of Liber LXV.

LXV:I.3 “For the colours are many, but the light is one.

The allusion of this light pervading the Universe is also a perfect description of Nuit as the milk of the stars, also presented in Liber LXV and Crowley’s Star-Sponge vision.

LXV:I.28  “My head is jewelled with twelve stars; My body is white as milk of the stars; it is bright with the blue of the abyss of stars invisible.”

LXV:II.13  “Then at the end appointed her body was whiter than the milk of the stars, and her lips red and warm as the sunset, and her life of a white heat like the heat of the midmost sun.”

LXV:III.51  “O Thou light and delight, ravish me away into the milky ocean of the stars!”
LXV:IV.23  “I who was the priestess of Ahathoor rejoice in your love. Arise, O Nile-God, and devour the holy place of the Cow of Heaven! Let the milk of the stars be drunk up by Sebek the dweller of Nile!”
LXV:V.50  “Let not the priest of Isis uncover the nakedness of Nuit, for every step is a death and a birth. The priest of Isis lifted the veil of Isis, and was slain by the kisses of her mouth. Then was he the priest of Nuit, and drank of the milk of the stars.”

LXV:V.65  “So also is the end of the book, and the Lord Adonai is about it on all sides like a Thunderbolt, and a Pylon, and a Snake, and a Phallus, and in the midst thereof he is like the Woman that jetteth out the milk of the stars from her paps; yea, the milk of the stars from her paps.”

VII:IV.55 “I will be like a splendid naked woman with ivory breasts and goldennipples; my whole body shall be like the milk of the stars. I will be lustrous and Greek, a courtesan of Delos, of the unstable Isle.”

To the ancients, all the gods were men; found also in Sumerian culture.  So the inherent difference between Indra and Nuit is more a question of time and place, but perhaps also of the difference between the pre and post-cambrian mindset.  Note that as HPB points out, the organs in our body/mind complex grow first and then we figure out what to do with them.  And today, we are only using about 10% of our brain capacity.  The meta-conceptual understanding that promises to mark the next point in our evolutionary development is an inevitability and has been installed into us since the pre-cambrian period.

Vayu

Vayu is conveyed with Indra as a component part of Agni; forming a trinity as all the other gods in the Rig Veda are manifestations of these three.  They are of one essence, but represent different aspects of that essence.  Vayu is Agni manifested as physical flame; the emanation of Agni.  And Vayu is also the primordial Aethyr from which the hologram of our being is forged.

It is Vayu that causes intelligent beings to arise in sympathetic attraction; divine inspiration and the human sense of holiness and our sense of the divine presence.  Air abides in the sacrificial fire as the breath of life; consciousness.  Vayu is the white complexion in the fire of Agni; suggesting the light of Indra.

Soma

Soma, Ambrosia, Amrita; these are synonymous terms that label a beverage poured into the sacrificial fire of the rites and hymns of the Rig Veda.  In this way, this sacred beverage is sent to the gods for imbibitions by them; that they would continue in their immortal nature.  We can then assume that the liquid poured into the flames must be flammable, as alcohol is.  And we can note that very early on in our history it was discovered that the juice of fruit and especially the grape (the king of fruits in the alchemical universe) can be converted into alcohol without any effort.

LXV:I.50  “Adonai spake yet again with V.V.V.V.V. and said: The earth is ripe for vintage; let us eat of her grapes, and be drunken thereon.”
LXV:I.58  “And the grape fell ripe and rich into his mouth.”

LXV:I.59  “Stained is the purple of thy mouth, O brilliant one, with the white glory of the lips of Adonai.”

LXV:I.60  “The foam of the grape is like the storm upon the sea; the ships tremble and shudder; the shipmaster is afraid.”

LXV:I.61  “That is thy drunkenness, O holy one, and the winds whirl away the soul of the scribe into the happy haven.”

LXV:I.64  “Intoxicate the inmost, O my lover, not the outermost!”

LXV:II.54  “Crush out the blood of me, as a grape upon the tongue of a white Doric girl that languishes with her lover in the moonlight.”

The intoxication that results from the imbibitions of the fermented grape is the communion with the spirit and offers a vision of the immortal plane.  Soma comes from the root SU; meaning to drop or press out juice.  It was considered a purifying agent that was also the generator of the hymns; suggesting the prophetic function of the shaman who imbibed it.

Yama

Yama is death; the City of the Pyramids.  In her womb (paradise) are those who desire union with the divine.  Yama has a male rendering; being referred to as the Sun and source of all Souls, as well as the king of the dead.  The parallel here is with the god Pan (the all-devourer and all-begetter); recognized in Thelemic Qabalah as a Guardian of the Abyss.  Union occurs with the breath of life (consciousness), which ascends to the sky and into the bosom of Yama.  This is as much an allusion to that dust that is impelled by the arrow of Qesheth through the Abyss and into the City of the Pyramids.

LXV:I.39  “All they understand not that thou and I are fashioning a boat of mother-of-pearl. We will sail down the river of Amrit even to the yew-groves of Yama, where we may rejoice exceedingly.”

AUM

Aryaman, Varuna and Mitra are referred to in the Rig Veda as the ‘bearers of water.  These are not hypostases of Agni, Indra and Vayu; but are bodies having form and place, as if the hard, dense matter by which Agni can manifest.  the allusion here would be to the N.O.X. in Thelema; that hard, dense matter that spirit acts upon and that acts upon spirit.  They provide that light that is the life of men and are the light of consciousness.

Aryaman is valour, bravery, daring, audacity and prowess.
Varuna is radiance and royalty.
Mitra is pure vigor.

These qualities are the qualities of character that conveyed by the waters, explains the nature of this anagram; used as one of the holiest mantras in Hindu meditation.  As gods, these together manifest the fire that is Agni.  In other words they are the active forces that manifest essence.  Varuna in particular is manifestation in delimited form; the Monogenes, Demurge, Logos and Word of the Gnostics.  Mitra and Varuna are bodies of light; the Adam Kadmon; being the precursor of “footed beings.”  They are the luminous bodies with form between the Earth and Sky; the holograms that again, are the Adam Kadmon.  As also, they are the observers of Truth, they are said to guide humanity; the equivalent of what we call the Secret Chiefs in Thelema.