How many new needles will be born this spring? I hope there will be many, as many who will feel drawn to Agni Yoga.
Agni Yoga is like a tree, a mighty Himalayan Cedar, the Deodar “tree of the gods”. Its roots are deeply embedded in the earth. They represent the great spiritual Teachings of the past, of which Agni Yoga is the creative synthesis: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and the forms of Yoga that have followed over the centuries (Hatha, Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, Raja). Therefore, its roots are more than 3000 years old and contain the perennial wisdom of Humanity.
This development of ancient origins, these firm and fertile bases have generated a mighty trunk, which today in 2021 is 101 years old: the books of Agni Yoga dictated by Master Morya, and the diaries and letters of Helena Roerich. This trunk stands straight and tall to connect Earth and Heaven, human life with the celestial Luminaries. The first four branches born from the trunk are the four Roerichs: Nicholas, Helena, George and Svetoslav. Like a thunderbolt, they crossed the 20th century, starting from St. Petersburg and leaving the signs of their passage in the West and the East, with the determination of the fire that ignites those who are ready to vibrate with the same energy.
It is impressive to read in Sina Fosdick’s diaries the account of their arrival in New York in 1920: the energy with which they immediately identified and gathered the collaborators who could help them, supported by the enthusiastic welcome given to the great Russian artist. The project of planting a seed of universal Beauty and Culture would soon take shape in the creation of the Master Institute of United Arts and the Roerich Museum, which today appear to us as a ‘cry of joy’ launched in the encounter with the “New World”. And it was not an isolated cry, with this note of joy. Twenty-eight years earlier, in 1892, another great artist of Slavic origin, Antonin Dvorak, landed in New York. His contact with the American land, with Indians and blacks, stimulated in him the birth of the last great composition in the romantic spirit and style, the Symphony from the New World: a hymn to America from old Europe.
After America, India. It is equally impressive to think of the years the Roerichs spent in India where, in a remote place like Naggar, they built a lighthouse that radiated Light over the entire Planet.
That trunk and those first branches are the strength of Agni Yoga, which we are called to make our own today, in order to become living witnesses to it. The International Conference last October was a precious occasion to perceive how much this Teaching has spread in the first part of the present century. Each group that cultivates Agni Yoga is a point of light: we are beginning to glimpse the network of Light of this Teaching on the Planet.
How is this network forming? What are its characteristics and what indications does Agni Yoga contain for its diffusion?
Helena Roerich says that lectures are not necessary, discussions on the paragraphs of the Teaching that have been read together in group are much more important. The Master also recommends avoiding any form of proselytizing, in imitation of the missionaries of the past. He affirms that it is preferable to place books “at crossroads”, that is, in those places where more people can come into contact with them. There will be those who feel attracted and those who do not, spontaneously. The Master does not need crowds of lukewarm people, but groups composed of those who have heard Agni Yoga resonate in their consciousness. There is not only one way to reach the one summit; there are many paths to ascend the mountain of evolution, but the important thing is to tread the chosen path with the true concordance of the heart.
In Agni Yoga there are no schemes, tables, algorithms, and in the paragraphs the passage from one theme to another does not seem to follow a logical thread. But the Master’s objective is clear: to move the consciousness from crystallization and the indifference of the concrete mind. He advises us not to fall into the illusion of apparent contradictions: we must know how to cultivate, for instance, tenderness and austerity at the same time, which only the heart is capable of reconciling.
I send thoughts of gratitude to those who have translated the texts of Agni Yoga into various languages, placing them symbolically at the crossroads, at the street corners of the World, thus giving the opportunity to ready minds to approach the texts which contain the new spirit of this millennium. They are true Servants.
Agni Yoga emphasizes the spiritual Hierarchy as the preeminent path to individual and group evolution. How to reconcile this connection, which seems at first glance to trace the devotional attitude of the religions of the Age of Pisces – which is definitely coming to an end – with the beginning of the Age of Aquarius? There is a paragraph in which the Master speaks of devotion. He says that it does not consist in “singing lauds,” it is not doubt, nor credulity, nor lightness: it is a stable tower on a mountain, built with firmness and tenacity, in which a shelter for friends is always ready.
Here is another aspect whereby Agni Yoga radiates the Light of the springtime of the spirit. The magnet of attraction is not the Teacher but the Teaching. When it resounds deeply in the consciousness, one can understand that the connection with the Teacher is not a devotional attitude in the sense of the past, but a source of irreplaceable help in order to proceed safely and speedily on the path of evolution. The Master is the leader of a rope to which whoever wants to, can latch on, collaborating with His part of the evolutionary Plan for the Planet.
Each collaborator symbolically becomes a branch or a needle of the great Deodar: a tree charged with electricity, with psychic energy to which Agni Yoga attributes the fundamental power of creativity and transformation. Each “needle” can transmit around itself the energy that originates from those roots, from that trunk, from those first branches. How many new needles will be born this spring? I hope there will be many, as many who will feel drawn to Agni Yoga. For the Deodar who turns 101 this year, this age corresponds to youth, to the springtime of life. And the same is true for Agni Yoga. If in October we felt charged with the solemnity of the first hundred years, today we feel animated by the youthful beauty of the Himalayan Cedar.
Verily, Agni Yoga is the Lamp and the Lion of the Desert, the spiritual attainment for which fear does not exist. “When humanity will realize the great unity between Infinity and the particles, and know the mutual relationship between light and darkness, then may it be told of the path of the “Lion of the Desert.“
It is no coincidence that Master’s Day, March 24, is in early Spring.
Giuseppe Campanella
References:
Hierarchy 287, Infinity I 17, Brotherhood 121.
Letters of Helena Roerich 10.9.1934 – 14.6.1935 – 21.8.1944.