Agni is the only element out of the five, which cannot be polluted and agni is the only element which is not completely tied by gravity and hence it rises up. Thus, agni has the capacity to elevate you, make you rise up by increasing your purity levels. Have you ever wondered why a person is put to fire upon his death? It is for the liberation of the body. While the soul leaves the body on the 13th day and gets liberated, the body is liberated by the fire which transforms and directs the 5 elements which takes the body to their respective dimensions. The elements that make your body are the same elements, which would have once made Lord Ram’s and Krishna’s body, the same elements which constituted the body of Hitler as also of a dog or an ant. The body is just the 5 elements, it is formed because of an impurity or dosha in the elements. Ayurveda talks about tridoshas of vata, pitta and kapha. These doshas constitute a body, at any point one dosha predominates over the other two, determining your prakriti. When all the 3 doshas come into balance, then the person leaves the body and gets liberated from that body. There are two things to take note of - imbalance of doshas and kriya-sheelta (action tendency) of that imbalance. An imbalance may not push you to do anything, or it may push you to do the wrong thing. This decides what kind of a person you are and what will be your next yoni. The traits of a being and his nature (prakriti) get defined in the womb itself. The prakriti of the first cell which is formed determines the prakriti or predominant dosha of the being and then it cannot change throughout your life (unless you are in yog and want to rise upwards). When the body is cremated, the agni removes the doshas and the body gets liberated. That is the significance of shamshan (cremation ground), the body (5 elements + doshas) gets liberated (and not destroyed) there.

All the mantras in Rigveda are for atmic utthaan, evolving out of the physical and impure body with the power of agni. Thus the only purpose of any mantra in Rigveda is evolution. These days, these mantras are chanted in the hope of improving financial condition, coming out of business losses, etc, but that is not their purpose. Besides evolution there are two other requirements of a human being – enhancing physical life and indulging in creative pleasures. These are dealt with in the Yajurveda and Samveda respectively. Yajurveda covers all the aspects of physical life – politics, arts of war, social networking etc and describes in detail how to lead life. Samveda contains all the dance and music forms. Whenever swarglok is depicted on the television shows, it is projected as a place where apsaras are dancing with sitar playing in the background, that is a depiction of the Samveda only. The artistic and creative people who have their higher chakras more developed than the lower chakras, prevail in Samveda – music, dance, art forms.

Thus, there were three requirements of the human being and hence the three vedas. But with the change of yug, at the onset of treta yug, a need was felt for a fourth veda. With the change of times human’s desires were becoming more and more physical. Whenever there is bhog (physical indulgence), it is accompanied with a rog (disease). Hence came the Atharva veda with all the healing sciences and tantric mantras for wish fulfilment - and mind you, the wishes are not to have Shiv darshan but your wishes are centred on improving health, power, position, relationships and appearance.