A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

APPENDIX

the direction in which he “ faces.” Now the normal course (gaz) of spiritual experience is in the first place centrifigual (pravyita, lit. “ extro-vert”’), affirmative, extensive, and in the second centripetal (nturita, lit. “ retrovert ’’), re-formative, intensive. The affirmative movement will involve a removal from and a turning away from the centre, the individual “ facing East,’ ie. forward with respect to the movement of the Wheel, and for him the Sun “ rises in the East ” : actually, the light he sees is compounded of the “ Light of Heaven ” and the “Light of Nature” (the “ Light of Nature ” being the reflection, abhdsa, at the circumference, of the “ Light of Heaven ”’ at the centre). Now this affirmative movement proceeds, until the individual attains a maximum distance from the centre, and “ faces South ” he sees then only the “‘ Light of Nature,” for him the Sun “rises in the South.” That is the night and Winter solstice of his spiritual life. That the Sun sets in the “ North” corresponds to the point of view of the sensual and materially scientific man whose “ realities” must be “ facts,” and for whom “ ideas ”’ are “ mere abstractions,” observation being his “ enlightenment,’ vision his “night” ; cf. Bhagavad Gita, II, 6y, “ In what is ‘ night ’ to all existences, therein the tempered conscience is awake ; and in what existences are ‘ wakeful,’ is ‘ night ’ for the Muni who ‘sees’ indeed.”

Turning toward the centre, the conscience moves toward the centre, facing also West, which is at the same time “ backward ” with respect to the movement of the Wheel ; for him the Sun “rises in the West ” ; again he sees a “ Light ” compounded of the Light of Nature and of the Light of Heaven. That the light of the Sun shines now out of the West is inasmuch as the individual now realises his true end, and that Life Eternal (timeless) is theirs only who can die to things temporal, “ He that would save his life, let him lose it.” Finally he comes to stand near to the centre of the Wheel, the centre of

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