When I met Vimalananda I had already been living in the city of Poona for more than a year, studying Ayurveda, India’s ancient medical system, and yoga. I had spiritual ambitions but despite guidance from saintly personages I had no real idea of my ultimate spiritual aim. Still, I dutifully invested many hours each day in postures and breathing exercises, holy books, incense and meditation while I waited impatiently for something to happen.
To help pay for my schooling I had competed for and won a grant to report on how Ayurveda was being practiced in Poona. I interviewed physi cians of all sorts in the area for this purpose, and one day my Sanskrit pro fessor, who had been helping me locate interviewees, announced that he had located a most unusual doctor who was also a Tantric as well as a race horse owner, someone who deserved to be met.
I greeted this news warily, as I had been cautioned of the great dangers inherent in Tantra. But since my mission was to obtain a cross section of healers and therapists, certainly I needed at least one Tantric, since many of the Ayurvedic remedies in common use today have been derived directly from Tantric alchemy; and Tantra like Ayurveda has its roots in the Atharva Veda.
Vimalananada was at that time staying with a family in an Irani colony just a few blocks from my own residence. The first time I went to meet him he had gone to the racecourse, where an elderly mare he had recently pur chased was running. When I retraced my steps to meet him later in the day
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I found the flush of victory suffusing his broad and handsome face.
I remember very little of that meeting, other than that when I mentioned a questionnaire that I wanted to use on him he suggested we talk about it on the following day. When I discovered on reflection that he had answered all my questions without my even asking them, I was impressed enough to retum eagerly the next day, and the next. During these first days he pre dicted (correctly, as it turned out) that none of his immediate family would attend his funeral, and that I would cremate him. Such a prospect seemed almost as strange as his prediction of it, but he had taken me as his foster son almost from the moment we met, and it was soon natural enough to see him as friend instead of informant, and then to accept the proffered role of offspring
Soon I was a frequent visitor to the Irani colony. These Iranis are a sect of Zoroastrian fire worshippers who exited Iran more recently than did their brethren the Parsis, who have lived in India for more than thirteen centuries. Soon I, like Vimalananda, became an auxiliary family member, tutoring at his behest the family’s younger daughter and spending many pleasant, quiet hours chatting with him when he made the trip up from Bombay to attend the races.
I had known him for only a week or two when he invited me to accom pany him outside Poona on the occasion of a lunar eclipse for me to see, as he said, “how I do my rituals.” A month earlier I would have attended as a skeptical observer; now I accepted with alacrity, unsure of what I would find but certain that this was the right course of action for me.
We left Poona one morning by autorickshaw, a motorized three-wheeled taxi, and a jolting three-quarters of an hour later we reached Alandi, our first stop. Alandi is the home of Jnaneshwar Maharaj, who lived there seven hun dred years ago with his brothers and sister. (A guru is often called maharaj, “great king,” because he has become master of himself, and because he is the disciple’s absolute master.)
Jnaneshwar translated the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit into Marathi, the local language, and composed a commentary for it to make its teachings accessible to the common people. His book the Jnaneshwari is the most beloved book in the state of Maharashtra, and his story is known to every Maharashtrian.
Jnaneshwar, who is reknowned for making a buffalo speak the Vedas and causing a wall to fly in the air, tired of the world around the age of twenty one and took jeevan samadhi (“living trance”): he entered a cave and had its entrance sealed behind him so he could continue to meditate without inter
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ruption. His resting place was forgotten until a few hundred years later when another famous saint of Maharashtra, Eknath Maharaj, had a dream in which Jnaneshwar begged him to come to Alandi and save him from the tree above his head whose roots had begun to grow around his neck. Eknath Maharaj located Alandi, discovered the cave, found Jnaneshwar Maharaj, and removed the roots. Before resealing the cave he took with him the manuscript of the Jnaneshwari, which was resting on Jnaneshwar’s lap. So it is thanks to Eknath Maharaj that the Jnaneshwari, which had been lost until that time, again saw the light of day.
A shrine now stands atop Jnaneshwar, and throngs of people come there regularly to worship God and to request Jnaneshwar’s assistance in solving their problems. Hundreds of pilgrims crowd the shrine each morning, mak ing the rounds of each tree and image and offering their respects to the black stone beneath which he is said still to be sitting. In 1974 a group of “rationalists" demanded that the government excavate the area beneath the shrine to determine if indeed jnaneshwar continues to be resident there in the flesh. The ensuing public outcry prevented this from occurring, and Jnaneshwar sits there yet, enjoying the mingling of the devotional singing of the pilgrims who concentrate in his front courtyard with the murmuring of other penitents who recite the Jnaneshwari under the slim branches of the tree whose roots were the cause of its reappearance.
We sat at Jnaneshwar’s stone that morning with other members of our party for over an hour, ritually requesting his assistance for our own more individualized worship scheduled for later that night. After similarly saluting Siddheshwar Mahadev, the Shiva Linga (phallic symbol of Shiva, the god of death and transformation) in the temple adjoining Jnaneshwar’s, we all repaired to our officiating priest’s nearby home. After a frugal meal and a short rest Vimalananda took me aside to explain some things.
“You are a student of Ayurveda,” he began. “Have you studied Sankhya?”
The Sankhya philosophy is the theoretical basis of Ayurveda, and I consid ered myself to be well-acquainted with its principles, so I replied, “Yes."
“So you know that the entire world is made up of the Five Great Ele ments; you do know the Five Elements?” Yes, I did: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether. These Great Elements are not elements in the chemical sense that hydrogen and helium are elements; they are rather states of matter. The Earth Element predominates in everything that is solid in the universe, the Water Element in that which is liquid, and the Air Element in gases. The Ether Element is the space in which things occur, and the Fire Element is the force which changes solid to liquid to gas and vice versa. Everything in
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the manifested universe, including the human being, is made up of these Five Elements.
“As long as you are alive, your consciousness is limited by the vessel in which it is kept: the body. And since the body is made of the Five Elements your consciousness is limited by those very Elements. Knowing that your consciousness is limited is all well and good, but what are you going to do about it? You don’t want to remain limited, do you?"
“Not in the least.”
“Theoretical knowledge is necessary, but it is not enough; practical knowledge, experience is also needed. We have a proverb in Hindi: ‘Where even ravi (the sun) cannot reach, there will go a kavi (poet).’ But that does not go far enough. I say, ‘Where even a kavi cannot reach, there will go an anubhavi (experiencer).’ I believe that you should go out and experience what you have learned, so that it will have some practical value in your life. This is why I have brought you with me today.
“The essence of Tantra is purification of the Five Elements, to awaken the Kundalini Shakti, which is your own personal shakti (power, energy). Any spiritual practice, in any religion, is basically some process or other of awak ening Kundalini, and Kundalini can only be awakened once the Elements in your body have become purified. Do you understand?”
I kept quiet in a way designed to reply, “Somewhat.”
“I will explain all of this to you-eventually. For now, just think about the Five Elements. You can make spiritual progress by worshipping any of these Elements, but I think it is best to worship the Fire Element. Worshipping Earth may take you eons, because the chief characteristic of Earth is its sta bility. Worship of Water is unwise nowadays because Water is the main sub stance which makes up the body, and most of us identify too strongly with our bodies anyway. Worshipping Air is likely to make you seriously unsta ble, and there are difficulties in worshipping the Ether Element also. I think Fire is best.
“The first word in the Rg Veda, the most ancient of the Vedas, is agni, fire. The Vedic religion is basically a religion of fire worship. The Rishis, the Seers who wrote the Vedas, worship the fire because it is the representative of the sun on Earth. Life could not exist on Earth were it not for the sun, and most people think the Rishis are trying to propitiate the sun by their fire worship. In fact they are feeding the sun. If they were ever to stop their continuous offerings of nourishment to the sun, all creation would go to hell. As a by product of this service that they perform for the benefit of all embodied beings, they obtain the might of the sun.”
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As amazing as I found all this talk of the Rishis and their pastimes I kept quiet, since I wanted to hear everything he had to say, and Indian teachers are notoriously intolerant of interruption.
He went on:“The Rishis used fire in their worship because fire both puri fies and amplifies whatever is put into it. Even NASA (the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has realized that the flames of its rockets amplify whatever sound is fed into them. For those of us who are not Rishis, worship of the fire is meant to purify the Fire Element in the body and to purify the consciousness by amplifying the mantras we repeat.”
(A scientist has now developed a combustion chamber which resonates with sound power, so that a furnace’s own roar fans its flames. Mantras, which are words of power that may or may not have meaning in known human languages, fan different flames in a different way.)
“A good sadhu lives for his fire; an Aghori is always near a fire. Every sadhu maintains his own fire, which is called a dhuni, and no one but that sadhu can sit there. You enter into such an intense relationship with the fire that only you two can share the experience. Do you invite a third party into your bedroom to watch you and your spouse make love?"
I shook my head and quickly asked for a clarification: “A sadhu is a wan dering religious mendicant, I believe; do all sadhus keep dhunis?”
“Not all; actually, nowadays, only a few are left who do. But Nagas do. A Naga, a naked sadhu who gives up everything, gives up everything except his fire. Because of the hours he spends with his fire his consciousness even tually becomes the consciousness of his fire, and his fire becomes a part of him. A sadhu’s dhuni is like a king’s throne; whoever sits there becomes imbued with its accumulated power. When I lived as a sadhu at Mount Gir nar I always kept a dhuni, and whoever tried to sit at it had to run away, because it was mine.
“Why maintain a fire?” My question though unspoken was heard none theless. “First, because fire causes life to exist; it is the very form of the lord of creation, the god that sadhus worship. Second, because it serves as his television, as his viamedia to get information from all corners of the Earth. During the times I have roamed as a sadhu I kept up with all the people who loved me with the help of my dhuni.
“Zoroastrians worship fire, but they don’t understand this principle. I have seen their priests sitting and fanning themselves while they make offer ings, as if they were being put to great trouble by the flames. What I say is, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you don’t love flames, don’t worship fire.
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“My way is quite different. I have always treated the fire as my beloved friend. When I sit and worship the fire, I play with it. Tonight you will see what I mean. I call it to me and let it come and kiss me. Don’t you kiss the ones you love? And because I don’t fear it, it doesn’t burn me. It will never burn me; it loves me, because I have changed its fundamental characteristic. You can also use mantras to control the fire, and you can use mercury or many other things, but the highest way is to so overpower the fire with love that it loves you in return. Any other method involves changing its nature against its will. You should cause the fire to voluntarily drop its characteris tic of burning. That is a real achievement.
“When you worship anything, even a rock, you will always get a better result if you personify it. Fire is no different. Give it a personality and then you can love it, play with it. How can you love fire as fire, which is so hot and destructive and burns anything with which it comes in contact? You have to bring it to a level where you can relate to it and love it. All sadhana (the collective name for any method of spiritual development; a sadhu is a renunciate who practices sadhana) is just the preliminaries for falling in love with your deity.
“Now that I live in Bombay again I can’t very well keep a dhuni going all the time, so I make up for it by going out and performing homa on a regular basis. Vedic worship of the fire, yajna, is extremely detailed and compli cated. Each ritual requires a fire pit of a unique shape, unique substances for offering, unique mantras, and so on. Nowadays no individual can per form an external yajna; it is simply too elaborate for the common person. You may be unable to do yajna, but you can still worship fire and derive ben efits from doing so by performing homa. What we will be doing tonight is homa, which is a lot like yajna but much simpler.”
I wondered diffidently why he thought I might be qualified to participate in this ritual and again, as usual, he answered my question before I could speak it.
“By doing homa you make progress in the spiritual field in spite of so many defects in your body and mind. In fact the fire will gradually burn away all your defects. After doing homa you always feel light and energetic because of all the bad karmas the fire has burned away. This will not happen if you worship Air, which you do when you control prana, the life force, in the practice of pranayama.”
I had just spent a year and a half practicing pranayama, stopping after I had weakened my system significantly by overdoing it, so I knew he was referring particularly to me.
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“I know that you have been practicing asanas and pranayama under the guidance of someone who tells you he is teaching you yoga. I am sorry to inform you that such a system of physical jerks is not the yoga that is fit for today.
“Were you not taught that all your defects must be removed before you practice pranayama? If you make a mistake in pranayama you run the risk of becoming physically or mentally ill; you may turn completely to the mun dane world, or you may lose contact with the mundane entirely. Neither state is healthy. I know that Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras says to practice pranayama, but Patanjali was not a Rishi. He forgot that he was not living in the Golden Age, and that people get worse as Kali Yuga (the dark age in which we live) progresses. In Kali Yuga it is actually dangerous to practice too much pranayama. Our water and air are polluted, our nervous systems are bombarded by noise and radiation. Very few places today have the peace and purity essential for successful pranayama. Worshipping Fire is much better.
“My spiritual ‘children’ are not sadhus, so they cannot keep dhunis, so I encourage them to perform homa. Each of my children’ repeats a certain mantra. Maybe they picked it up from a book, or maybe some guru gave it to them, or whatever; that doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are reciting those mantras with sincerity, and everyone who repeats a mantra regularly should do regular homa to purify that mantra and amplify its effects.
“Several times a year I and my children’ get together to perform homa. There are a number of reasons for this. First, many of them are poor and could not afford to purchase on their own all the ghee (clarified butter) and other expensive ingredients which go into the homa. So, the more affluent among them pay for everyone else, and in this way even the poorest can ful fill their yearly percentage of homa.
“Second, their being together encourages them to concentrate harder. You always try to show off when someone else is watching you; it’s human nature. At first this had a negative effect: a few were treating the whole thing as a picnic and spending all their time worrying about filling their stomachs. You can’t worship on a full stomach. One day I got wild and told them, “We have come here to do penance, not to eat. If you can’t do without food even for a day, please don’t come.’ Now these elements have been weeded out of our group, and everyone else is doing much better than before.
“Third, these children’ of mine think they are performing the homa on their own-human beings typically self-identify with what their bodies
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do–but they are just puppets. Some ethereal being comes and sits inside each one without their knowing it and performs the homa with far more concentration than they could do it themselves, and my children’ get the benefit of this worship.”
“There must be other restrictions to homa other than avoiding a full stomach,” I remarked.
“There are plenty of restrictions. Just as a woman during her menses must never enter a temple, she must not sit and do homa; she should not even handle the offerings, because of the odor she will transmit to them. The beings we are trying to please eat by smell, and they are not at all fond of the smell of menstrual blood. This is also the reason why you must never sniff or smell the offerings before you offer them. Would you take a big bite out of a piece of cake you were serving to someone? Only if you wanted to offend them.
“If you are an Aghori none of these restrictions apply–but until you become an Aghori all of them apply. Unless you are a veteran Aghori you must never eat meat, fish or even eggs on the day on which you plan to wor ship the fire. You must if at all possible bathe immediately before your homa, and better yet you should bathe your insides by performing purifica tions like an enema beforehand. You should never even try to do homa on your own without someone to show you how to do it properly first; other wise you may make some mistakes which will play havoc with you. I have brought you out here today because I want to show you how to do homa properly, so that eventually you can do it on your own and make progress on your own.”
And so that night under his watchful eye Vimalananda and I performed homa together, under the rays of the eclipsed moon. Thereafter I accompa nied him on his homa expeditions whenever possible.
Alandi is a small town on the Indrayani River, which like most of the rivers of the Deccan Plateau flows freely only during and immediately after the monsoon. The land near the river is fertile and intensively farmed, but sur rounding this zone of prosperity is a much larger region of rocky, treeless hills where even goats graze with difficulty. Our group investigated other shrines and unusual spots in the vicinity. And when one day our priest told
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the strange story of a nearby Shiva temple Vimalananda immediately decided to visit there, with a view to performing homa in such a unique location.
According to the story this village is one of the places where Kubera, the god of wealth, is supposed to reside, and a fantastic treasure is said to be buried nearby. An inscription carved in stone, which is now submerged in the river, states that if a human sacrifice is performed in a certain way there, unimaginable wealth can be obtained.
Once there was a king who heard of this inscription and decided to per form a human sacrifice and get the money for himself. He could find only one suitable victim in his entire kingdom: a young Brahmana boy, the son of the temple’s priest; the child’s mother and father sold the boy to the king out of greed.
When the time for the sacrifice arrived the poor innocent boy threw his arms around the Shiva Linga and sobbed, “Lord, these people want to take my life just to gain wealth. What have I done that I deserve to be sacrificed in this way?”
Shiva’s favorite being in the whole universe is Lallu, the Baby Krishna, because of His innocence. He sees Lallu in every child. When this child invoked Shiva with such sincerity how could Shiva refuse to help? Suddenly there was a roar of thunder, and Lord Shiva manifested in a terrifying form at the sacrificial site. So terrifying was He that the king and the boy’s parents fell dead on the spot.
Lord Shiva tenderly lifted the little boy and asked him, “Now, what else can I do for you? I have saved you from being sacrificed, and the king and your parents have died for their wickedness. Is there anything else that you want?”
The little boy said, “Lord, please resurrect the king and my parents.” Lord Shiva said, “But they were the ones who were going to kill you just a few minutes ago. Why should I spare them? They will become spirits and will be under my complete control; I will make sure that they pay for their crimes.”
But the boy told Him, “No, it is because of the king and my parents that I could see you so easily. I might never have attained the intelligence to wor ship you, and even if I had I could never have achieved so quickly. So please revive them; I am thankful to them.”
Lord Shiva smiled at the boy’s discriminative power and revived the three corpses. But no one got the treasure, nor has anyone been able to locate it since; plenty have tried, and they all came to grief. One sadhu came and,
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thinking perhaps the treasure was underneath the temple, moved the Linga; another had sexual intercourse with a local girl near the temple. Such strictly forbidden activities earned these men the wrath of the community and made the villagers suspicious of all sadhus. There was even one sadhu who came to town wearing a solid silver loincloth, but in the end he too had to flee just like all the rest. It is said that human sacrifices have even been performed there, but they too were of no avail.
When I asked Vimalananda about this he told me, “There is a good reason why everyone has failed. The Shiva Linga in the temple is over 2600 years old. It was established there by Gahani Nath, a disciple of the Gorakh Nath, who does not want the place disturbed by a bunch of treasure-seekers. In spite of all the evil karmas which have occurred in the neighborhood it would be a very auspicious place to perform rituals because there we can tap the power of Gahani Nath, and through him Gorakh Nath. This is why proper worship there yields great benefit; worship of that Linga would give us the benefit of the penance of Naths.”
I had heard of Gorakh Nath, vaguely, but before I could ask about the Naths he had gone on: “You know,” he said, “this village is unique for other reasons besides Kubera’s wealth. On the opposite side of the river from the village is a cave in which there is an image of Ma (the Mother Goddess). Now only bats go there, but in the past that image was regularly wor shipped. There were some silver pots in the cave, and on the occasion of feasts or festivals the villagers would go to the temple and somehow the pots would be found full of food. No human would cook it; it would just appear. And no matter how many people were to be fed, there would always be enough food in the pots to feed everyone. This can happen only through the blessings of Annapurna, the goddess of food. This went on for many years until someone stole the pots from the cave. Then the goddess got angry, and since then no one has dared enter the cave. Greed always ruin things.
Undoubtedly the village knew the dangers of greed well, given the num ber of shady sadhus who had come and gone. Indian villagers, by and large, are extremely generous people, to strangers as well as to friends; but even under optimal conditions it is difficult to simply wander into a village and announce that you are going to dig a dozen fire pits and perform a Tantric ritual. I suspected that we would be met with less than open arms, and I was intensely curious to see how Vimalananda would extract permission from the headman for our work.
The few kilometers to the village passed slowly, for the monsoon had just
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ended and the road still bore the deep scars of recent downpours. We were of course the center of attention when we reached the village-a delegation of Bombayites, accompanied by a foreigner–and many of the villagers, especially the children, were literally open-mouthed in amazement. Soon enough the headman was located, and we sat down for a chat. Luckily for us he had spent many years in Bombay, since he and many of his neighbors grew flowers for sale in the markets there, so we felt that immediate camara derie which Bombay-dwellers share.
As I had surmised neither he nor the residents of the village were anxious for a party of strangers to invade their temple because of the bitter experi ences of the past. They were afraid we had come to try and unearth the money, and that our efforts would increase their misery. No one was thriv ing here; sickness was in every house, crops were scanty. People could see the spirits of the dead wandering about even during the daytime.
Vimalananda quickly took the situation under control. First, he assured them, we were not interested in the treasure; let it remain buried. We were interested only in worshipping God. Second, our homa would produce ash which could be used as medicine for the sick, and as a sort of potentiated super-fertilizer for the crops, which he had examined and found wanting during our approach. We would not try to do anything in secret, but would do everything in the open. Then he invited whoever wanted to to come and sit with us and watch our work, and if any of what we did was objectionable we would bid our farewells and not retum.
Vimalananda was always a convincing speaker, and he underlined his remarks by using some of his “special” abilities to tell the headman some things which no one else but he knew. Soon we had the desired permission, and we sent to Alandi for a bullock-cart-load of wood. Meanwhile other members of our party dug fire pits, mixed offering materials, and brewed tea. A short while later Vimalananda called me to sit with him on the ground near the temple where the little boy had once so narrowly missed being sac rificed. I could see from his manner that he had some instructions for me, and I indicated by my manner that I was aware of this and was ready to lis ten.
He began, “Up until now you have done whatever you have been told with very little explanation. You have asked me many questions about homa, and I have told you as much as I thought you needed to know. Now I want you to know even more about what we are doing, and why we are doing it here.
“We are going to do our homa right down there on the riverbank, just
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below the temple, which is right across from that cave I was telling you about. It seems that where we will be sitting was once the village smashan (burning ground), which makes me feel right at home. Many corpses have been burned under the big banyan tree there in whose shadow our fire pits are located. This tree is immensely old; as you can see, by using its aerial roots it has created a second trunk some distance away from its first, and now it has ‘walked’ several feet to a third location. It does not look very happy, does it? It is not happy-or rather, the ethereal being who lives in it is not happy.
“One of our aims in doing this homa is to make this tree and its resident happy. It is our obligation to this village, when they have been so generous as to invite us to stay and perform our rituals here, that we do our best to make their lives happier. Properly performed, group homa harmonizes the atmosphere for miles around the place where it is done, and creates peace in those who live nearby, humans and ethereal beings alike. You are now part of our group, and you must do your job to the best of your ability. Now is a good time to learn, because when I am gone you will be on your own.”
I started to protest that he would live for many years yet-I was still very young, and thought little of mortality—but he waved off my protestations and continued.
“You will notice that here, as elsewhere, we dig several fire pits, and that normally two people sit at each. Strictly speaking, each worshipper should have his or her own. When a man becomes an agnihotri, a fire worshipper in the Vedic sense, no one is allowed even to touch him, much less sit at the same fire with him, with the sole exception of his wife. But for convenience, and because when two sit together they can help one another out, we use this arrangement.
“Before we sit we salute Mother Earth, who supports us, and we ask Her to make our worship successful. Then, after remembering Ganesha (the ele phant-headed son of Shiva) and asking him to remove any obstacles, we begin to prepare the fire pit. In the bottom of the fire pit goes the yantra.” A yantra, I knew, is a sort of mystical diagram which is meant to control and contain the energy put into it by the ritual. The yantra also represents the deity invoked during the ceremony. “I normally use as a yantra a six-pointed star, which is composed of two triangles, one downward-pointing and one upward-pointing, superimposed on one another, because I am doing this sort of homa for the general good of all beings in the neighborhood, especi aly those involved in the ritual. The six-pointed star, the Star of David, is sig nificant for us Indians as well as for the Jews.
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Design and Construction of Fire Pits (Homa Kunda)
OM
TUL
b.
a. a. Plan of a square fire pit used in rituals of peace and prosperity. The rim of the Kundra is built up in three steps of brick, at its base and facing east is the triangular Yoni (vulva) symbol. In the center of the fire pit is a six pointed yantra as used by Vimalanada. b. Design of the Tripura Yantra commonly used in Devi (goddess) worship c. The placement and arrangement of the fire sticks above the Devi Yantra.
86
al
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CDL Valur
wy
LAR.
TV
A
Yantras employed in the six Homa rituals of Tantra d. Circular Yantra used in rituals of propitiation and peace. e. Square Yantra used in rituals of prosperity. f. Half moon Yantra used in rituals of subjugation, g. Yoni shaped Yantra for conjuring forth. h. Nine triangles used in rites of obstruction and causing hate. i. Triangular fire yantra employed in rites of destruction and slaying.
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“Have you noticed how important triangles are in life?” Vimalananda was fond of rhetorical questions, and I did not even try to answer this one. “Look at the human body. A man’s pubic hair forms a triangle with the point upwards. A woman’s pubic hair is triangular also, but with the point downwards. A woman’s triangles point downwards because she is responsi ble for the creation of duality. From one she becomes two, when she bears a child. A man’s triangle points upwards because he is meant to control and finally overcome duality. Only when the two come together is creation pos sible. When a man and a woman enjoy sex together the two triangles come together to form a six-pointed star. Don’t you think there must be some sig nificance in this?
“There are other triangles in the body also. A woman’s two breasts and her vulva: downwards. A man’s penis and testicles: upwards. The seminal vesicles and the penis–I could go on and on. Four triangles form a pyramid when fitted together, and pyramids have their own peculiar uses, as the ancient Egyptian, Incan and Mayan civilizations knew well. They are all yantras. An external yantra can always be lost or stolen, which is why you should make your body into a yantra; then there is no chance of losing your yantra as long as you live. And you can perform so many rituals, internally, without anyone ever knowing about them, like the Rishis do. Isn’t that bet ter?
“A flame is also in the form of an upward-pointing triangle. The flame con verts all things into ash; all dualities become one reality when they are burned. We offer the fire duality—our offering material and the fire trans mutes it. The head of a human being also possesses an upward-pointing tri angle: the three eyes. The lower two eyes see duality–the upper eye, nothing but unity. Therefore it is only logical to conclude that properly per formed worship of the fire will help to open your third eye.”
It seemed logical.
“Once the yantra is prepared it is time to worship Ma. Every fire pit must have a symbolic representation of the vulva attached to it. Some have them built in. I usually just make two parallel lines on the side of the fire pit with red powder. You must worship Shakti before you begin, because without Her none of your work can be done; there is no creation without the female principle. And since creation is the function of the genitals, they must be worshipped. Fire is Shaktiman, the Controller of Shakti, but ordinary fires have lost their Shakti; you have to return Shakti to the fire, so it can do your work for you. Shiva and Shakti are identical in the absolute sense, of course, in the same sense that fire and burning are identical; but practically they are different.”
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This was confusing, but Vimalananda was not to be interrupted when in such moods.
“Then the fire is ignited. Have you ever wondered how a sadhu deep in a jungle or out in a frozen Himalayan wasteland is able to build a fire? Even if he can locate dry fuel, where will he get a spark to enkindle it? He doesn’t carry a box of matches around with him. The answer is in the proper use of the Vishnu Sudarshana Mantra.”
“The Vishnu Sudarshana Mantra?” I had never heard of it, but I knew that Vishnu, the Preserver of the Cosmos, uses a discus for a weapon, the name of which is Sudarshana, which literally means “good sight.” There seemed to be some esoteric significance to the name of this mantra, especially given the mention Vimalananda had just made of the third eye, and I was hoping for some further insight.
NAM
Dimensions of Fire Pits j. For propitiacion, one cubit across and half a cubit deep. k. For prosperity, two cubits across and one deep. 1. For wrathful rites, twenty angulas across and ten deep. (An angula is the width of a finger, and a cubit is equal to twenty-four angulas).
But Vimalananda said only, “Yes, when you repeat this mantra the fire automatically ignites and burns furiously no matter how wer the fuel. I have experimented with making funeral pyres burn brightly in pouring rain with this mantra.”
Aha! I had been in Poona only a few weeks when I saw a front-page report in a local newspaper on a man who was able to create fire by repeating a mantra. Various eminent physicists had tested him for fraud and had had to conclude, scratching their collective head in amazement, that his was a legitimate power. But when he was asked how it was done, by people who wanted to learn that knack themselves, he replied that all prospective stu dents should come with him to a secluded area in the mountains where they would stand on one leg for twelve years repeating the mantra, after
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which it would be energized sufficiently to work. He had no takers.
Because I had heard of such a thing, Vimalananda’s claim did not strike me as implausible. He went on.
“Why is there creation? Because of friction. Without friction there is no creation. And wherever there is friction there is fire. Can you produce fire without friction? No, unless you take it directly from the sun, using a mag nifying glass for instance. Fire is created for Vedic sacrifices by friction, by rubbing two sticks together, much as the American Indians used to do.
“Friction may possess an excess of any of the Three Gunas: Tamas, Rajas or Sattva.” The Gunas are a crucial part of Sankhya philosophy that I knew well from my Ayurvedic studies; they are the three tendencies of consciousness as manifested through the mind. Sattva is equilibrium, Rajas activity, and Tamas inertia. The mind fluctuates among these three states continually until, by dint of sadhana, it is brought under control and focused on a single point.
“Tamasic friction is argument, discord between people. It creates fiery emotions like hatred, anger, revenge, and violent frenzy. Rajasic friction is sex, which is due to the Fire of Lust. The Upanishads explain that the woman is herself the fire, the penis is the fuel, and the pubic hair the smoke. The vulva embodies the flames, the friction is the coals, and the pleasure is the sparks. This is much better than Tamasic friction because the two peo ple involved get some pleasure out of it. Not much, of course, and not for long. What is created? More lust, and a child. “Sattvic friction, which is sadhana, is the best of all. When you perform sadhana you are working against all your old tendencies and habits caused by the karmas of millions of births. This is bound to produce friction, and you will heat up. The word for penance, tapas, literally means heat. Have you noticed how often I apply ice to the top of my head?”
How could I have failed to do so?
“Enlightenment is achieved by the ‘burning’ of your karmas through tapas. When you do plenty of penance your mind heats up, and you become irritable. If you indulge in anger or lust their fire will burn away all the shakti you have accumulated, but if you follow through on your vows and control your temper and your passion the resultant enlightenment will make the whole thing worthwhile.
“Remember that fire’s basic quality is to burn. Did you know that the fire which is in the tongue burns whatever it speaks? What this means to you is that you should always confess any bad karmas that you perform. This will free you from them; they will be burned up. And you should never speak
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about any good deeds you do, or about your spiritual experiences, because if you do they will be destroyed just as surely. Unfortunately this is Kali Yuga, and most people do exactly the opposite. They hide their sins down deep in their hearts where they can’t be cleaned out, and they boast to everyone in sight about their accomplishments and spiritual achievements. I don’t need to remind you of what would happen if you told anyone what mantra you repeat.” This was one of the first warnings he had given me.
“If we wanted to show off for these people,” he said, pointing at our hosts, “we too could light the fire by rubbing sticks together in the approved Vedic fashion; but neither do we want to show off, nor are we performing a yajna here that we need to maintain the same strict standards that are nec essary for a Vedic sacrifice. Fire purifies whatever it bums, but it takes on some of the qualities of whatever is offered to it. As an Aghori I cannot afford to make any distinctions between a funeral pyre or a sacrificial fire; but as a householder I feel responsible for my spiritual ‘children’ who come to wor ship with me. Most of them are not yet ready to do homa on a funeral pyre. We settle for maintaining strict purity of our offerings, but we use matches to start the fire, for convenience.”
The purity of offerings, I had already learned, extended to the wood used; someone inspected each piece to make sure it contained no insects that might be cremated when it began to burn. All the offering materials were also carefully sifted, screened and inspected to remove dirt and insects before they were combined together into the final offering mixture, the samagri.
“The choice of offerings in a homa depends on the work, both spiritual and mundane, that you have for the fire to do. In the homas I do with my ‘children’ we always offer clarified butter, barley, wheat, rice, sesame seeds, dry and fresh fruits, honey and sugar, combined together in a specific pro portion. All are sweet because we want the fire to give us mundane prosper ity as well as spiritual advancement. We add sugar cane also, which is very dear to elephants. This propitiates Ganesha, who must always be propiti ated first whenever you do any sort of worship. In addition we add several medicinal herbs, which make the resulting ash medicinal.
“The homas that are done as part of the Six Rituals of Tantra-rituals per formed to cause death, delusion, discord, hatred, obstruction, and enchant mentare quite different. Each ritual requires a specific set of mantras and even clothing, and worship materials like oil, salt, chilies, and other intense, spicy substances are used. Don’t even experiment with these rituals; terrible karma is involved. And never try adding such substances to your own fire.
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Since you don’t know what you’re doing you’ll just be harming yourself. There is no limit to the good or evil which can be done through worship of fire.”
“Why do such rituals exist at all,” I inquired challengingly,“if Tantra is really a benign science?”
“I will explain that to you—eventually. But right now, since the Six Rituals are not part of our program, I would prefer for you to concentrate on what we will be doing.”
I accepted this mild rebuke and signaled my deference. He continued.
“I begin my homa by remembering my mother: first my cosmic mother Smashan Tara, and then my physical mother. She is dead now, but even when she was alive I would think of her: ‘Ma, because of you I am in this world. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to redeem myself.’ Then I remember my family’s Rishi, Bhrigu: ‘These mantras originate in you and derive from you; and because I was born in your lineage, I salute you.’ Then I salute the Seven Rishis as a group Pulaha, Pulastya, Devala, Asita, Kratu, Bhrigu, and Angirasm and then four other Rishis whom I cannot name. Next, I salute various gods and goddesses, the planets, and all the demigods in charge of the village and the neighborhood, and of the home, if I’m per forming my homa at somebody’s house. Finally, I make offerings to all the other classes of ethereal beings: those who are relatively benign, like the Yak shas, Kinnaras, Gandharvas and Vidyadharas, as well as those who are more malevolent like the Brahma Rakshasas and other spirits of the dead.
“Finally, I turn to the fire and request it to enter me and enkindle my Bhuta Agni. The Bhuta Agni is the fire of the subtle body, the fire which must be ignited in order for spiritual progress to be made. One important reason for doing homa is to awaken Bhuta Agni. If I really want Fire to enter me, my ‘I’ must disappear; a spiritual vacuum must be created. To do that I offer my ears to the fire and ask for divine ears in return: clairaudience. When I get a positive response from the fire I then offer my eyes and ask for divine eyes: clairvoyance. When positive response comes to this offering I offer my tongue and ask for divine speech. Once Fire enters me I can pro ceed to do whatever work I have to do. You don’t offer your physical ears, eyes, and tongue to the fire, except in Khanda Manda Yoga, which I will tell you about one of these days; in homa you offer your senses into the fire.
“After all these preliminaries I request my deity to be present in the pit, and I begin my offerings. As the homa proceeds the fire will sometimes crackle, hiss, or make other noises. This is the fire’s way of trying to talk, which you can understand only if your perception is very subtle. The fire
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tries to communicate with you in other ways also; its color is especially sig nificant.”
“How so?” “Modern science has itself proved that each different color of light has a different effect on the body and mind, by stimulating the pituitary, pineal and hypothalamus, which then influence the rest of the organism. One color may cause anger, another joy, and a third may improve concentration. When you get close to the fire and embrace it you offer yourself to it, and it enters you. Then the external fire acts as a barometer of the workings of the internal spiritual fire, the Bhuta Agni. You must bring Bhuta Agni under your control before you can completely control physical fire.
“When I am finished with the number of offerings I have planned to make, at the very end of my homa, I put a coconut into the fire. The coco nut represents the worshipper’s head, with its three eyes. Also, it is full of water, just as the head is full of blood, cerebrospinal fluid and glandular secretions. When I offer the coconut I offer my entire consciousness to the fire with a request that it be transmuted into a divine consciousness. I offer my own ‘head’ to get a divine head. Then I bow to the fire and request my deity to return to His or Her home, and my homa is completed. Then I sit by the fire for a while, after I am finished, and commune with it.
“Always remember this: fire is a living being. Once you bring it to life you are responsible for it. For example, you don’t dare smother it any more than you would dare to smother any other living being. You must permit it to die out by itself. After you collect the ash you must wash the area thoroughly so that no one will step on any ash inadvertently, and any ash you don’t use must be disposed of in water. That means put into a stream, or the ocean– not into a drainage ditch! And one other thing: if it seems like the fire is about to go out during your homa, never blow on it directly. Always blow on the palm of your hand first and let that air fall onto the fire. Why that is I will explain to you—eventually.”
He fell silent for a few moments, to allow me to try to summarize and integrate what he had told me, and then continued:“Naturally, I don’t expect you to remember everything perfectly this time; you will have many opportunities to practice homa and for me to correct your mistakes, while I am still alive and even afterwards. I have always said that half the enjoyment of enlightenment is the path you have to tread to get there. As your con sciousness progresses from that of a limited human being to that of an unlimited being you will experience all sorts of things, wonderful and appalling alike. Don’t ever become attached to any of these experiences;
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they are only guideposts to tell you how far you have come and how far you have left to go. If you become attached you’ll get stuck there and you’ll quit making progress.
“My children’ generally have good experiences as a result of doing homa. Because Nature is kind to me She is usually kind to my spiritual children also, especially if they come to me first and seek my permission before going out to do something. Once one of them had reached the end of his homa and was ready to offer some sweets to the fire and take some prasad in return.” (Prasad is that portion of your offering which is returned to you for your consumption so that you can imbibe some of the vibrations of the deity you have worshipped.) “When he lifted the box of sweets all of them fell into the fire at once and began to burn. This fellow actually started to cry because he would have no prasad when suddenly one sweet fell out of the fire onto his leg
“Another time a group of them finished their homa before using up all their samagri. Any such remainders must be properly disposed of, so since they were in a rural area they tried to give it to a cow, but no cow would touch it. Have you ever heard of a cow refusing to eat a mixture of rice, ses ame, barley, honey and sugar liberally sprinkled with dried fruits and nuts? Not one but several cows did indeed refuse it. And a dog, who followed my boys all the way from the village, was ready to eat it but was not offered any of it.
“When they got back to Bombay I reminded these ‘children’that Lord Shiva frequently comes to His devotees in the form of a dog. The cows in the place where they had done their homa refused to eat because the deity there, Lord Shiva, wanted them to continue their worship with that mate rial, or at least wanted them to offer it to Him, in the dog form, instead of to the cows. When you begin to come near the deity you are worshipping, the deity will begin to play about with you. Everyone likes to play about.
“This is the way you should look after your spiritual children.’ Children must be protected until they have progressed far enough to do things on their own. The Hindi word for child, in fact, is baccha, which comes from a word meaning ’to protect.””
“So a child is ’that which is protected?” I surmised.
“Precisely,” he acknowledged. “For example, whenever my boys go out into the jungle, someone or another will bring them food and water when they need it. Ask them if you don’t believe me. How does it happen? I don’t know; all I know is that it happens. Once a group of them who were camp ing in the jungle began to be a little fearful around midnight. Suddenly a
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party of villagers with torches arrived, saying that they had suddenly got the desire to come spend the night out there.
“This does not mean that my children’ are being handed everything on a silver platter, however” he hastened to add. “Whenever any of them tries to act smart the fire teaches them a lesson. Last time we went out for homa one of my children’ got his hands burned so deeply they blistered; another scorched his foot very badly. It’s dangerous to play with fire. Fire is a living being; to misuse it is to invite disaster upon yourself. As long as it loves you there is no problem, but the day you start fooling about you’ve had it. These two characters were full of jealousy because Freddy and Katyayani had come to perform homa with us. How dare they be envious! According to Indian tradition a guest is to be treated as God. Why shouldn’t they suffer for being envious of God?”
Vimalananda never hesitated either to suffer himself or to make others suffer when he felt it was necessary.
“When people are envious of you and your achievements, like some of my boys are of you, as you well know, don’t bother about it. Their jealousy will act as a wonderful fire to bum out all your bad karmas. You will find yourself getting lighter and lighter, and day by day they will be taking your karmas on themselves. Fire always burns, and if you worship it properly it will burn away all your bad karmas.”
A year or two after our first homa there, after we had become fixtures in the community, Vimalananda and I were sitting near the temple early in the morning after a long night of fire worship. After our arrival, conditions in the village had gradually improved. Maybe it was coincidence or maybe it was, as Vimalananda had predicted, that our worship was affecting the villagers’ lives positively. They certainly seemed happy with our homa; they would hover around the fire pits as soon as we arose, waiting patiently for the moment the ashes from the fires would cool off sufficiently to be collected. Some villagers used the ash as medicine-one woman healed a horrendous ulcer on her thigh simply by applying it regularly—and others just kept it in their houses for good luck. The farmers who used the ash on their fields reported bumper crops, and their prosperity allowed everyone to put a little money aside. The villagers were certain that this upturn in their fortunes was all due to our homa, and to the proper propitiation of their deities, and
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whenever we bade them farewell they begged us to come back again as soon. as possible.
On this morning, as we watched them collecting their share of the ash- u we kept some for ourselves for similar purposes-Vimalananda said to $ me, “Even the ethereal beings in the area enjoy our presence. They can’t take the ash directly like the villagers do, so they just blow a little up into the air . and inhale it. All you see is a puff of wind.” He smiled.
“When we first came to the village our friend the tree did not look as if it would live long, did it? Now look at it: new leaves have sprouted, and it has recovered most of its vigor. This is because the ethereal being who lives there also enjoys our homa–the fragrance of the smoke and the resonance of the mantras. Her misery was ruining the villagers when she came, and now that she is happy again she looks after the locals and makes them thrive.
“There are other auspicious signs too that most people do not know how to interpret. Here is just one: Do you remember that pair of little owls that has come out to join us several times late at night when everyone is concen trating well on their homas? The ones who fly up and perch on the upper branches of this tree, chatter together for half an hour or so, and then depart?” I did indeed. “Owls generally do not come near light, but I think it is good for everyone involved that these two do.
“This is the right way to worship, the real yoga: not to perfect physical postures, but to make every home a happy home. If one hundred villages in India could be harmonized as this one has, the whole pattern of life in India would change. I can’t do that, but perhaps my children’ will be able to. A father lives for his children, not for himself, if he is a real father.”