As I said before, a fire ritual is a microcosm for life. Holy fire symbolizes animated consciousness. Holy fire constrained to a homa kunda consuming various offerings is akin to animated consciousness constrained to a person consuming various life experiences and actions!
The end game is tricky, in both homa and life!
* * *
Towards the end of homa, one should offer enough fuel to get the fire going, but not so much that they clog the homa kunda and some material cannot be reached by fire. When you offer poornahuti (complete offering, often a whole coconut symbolizing head or ego), it should burn brightly and perfectly and there should not be too much smoke when all is burnt. In the attached video (from today's daily homa), perfectly burnt poornahuti simply crumbles when the fire gently withdraws at the end and there is no smoke except for a tiny puff for a second!
* * *
Towards the end of life, one should offer enough activities and experiences to keep the animated consciousness busy, but not so much that desires and agendas clog the consciousness and cannot be fulfilled. Towards the end, desires, whims and agenda should reduce and one should completely surrender to the divine will. Just as there is bright fire after poornahuti is offered in homa, there may be a lot of spontaneous and divinely willed activities in an equanimous state after complete surrender.
When the activities wind down, animated consciousness should withdraw from the body-mind complex without any frustrations or disappointments (akin to smoke). There should just be calm bliss.
* * *
Practically speaking, when you do a homa, your offerings should be optimally apart, both in time and space, and the stress should be on offerings things such that they burn perfectly, rather than offering more and more. The latter approach gives smoke.
Just as eating an amount you cannot digest or eating too frequently results in indigestion, gas and heavy farting/belching, making too much offering or too fast will result in not everything burning fully and a lot of smoke.
With practice, one can learn how to make offerings such that everything burns and there is not much smoke through the homa and particularly at the end!
Similarly, one can learn how to pursue desires and engage in actions such that actions are fruitful and there is not much frustration and disappointment through the life and particularly at the end of it!!!
The end game is tricky, in both homa and life!
* * *
Towards the end of homa, one should offer enough fuel to get the fire going, but not so much that they clog the homa kunda and some material cannot be reached by fire. When you offer poornahuti (complete offering, often a whole coconut symbolizing head or ego), it should burn brightly and perfectly and there should not be too much smoke when all is burnt. In the attached video (from today's daily homa), perfectly burnt poornahuti simply crumbles when the fire gently withdraws at the end and there is no smoke except for a tiny puff for a second!
* * *
Towards the end of life, one should offer enough activities and experiences to keep the animated consciousness busy, but not so much that desires and agendas clog the consciousness and cannot be fulfilled. Towards the end, desires, whims and agenda should reduce and one should completely surrender to the divine will. Just as there is bright fire after poornahuti is offered in homa, there may be a lot of spontaneous and divinely willed activities in an equanimous state after complete surrender.
When the activities wind down, animated consciousness should withdraw from the body-mind complex without any frustrations or disappointments (akin to smoke). There should just be calm bliss.
* * *
Practically speaking, when you do a homa, your offerings should be optimally apart, both in time and space, and the stress should be on offerings things such that they burn perfectly, rather than offering more and more. The latter approach gives smoke.
Just as eating an amount you cannot digest or eating too frequently results in indigestion, gas and heavy farting/belching, making too much offering or too fast will result in not everything burning fully and a lot of smoke.
With practice, one can learn how to make offerings such that everything burns and there is not much smoke through the homa and particularly at the end!
Similarly, one can learn how to pursue desires and engage in actions such that actions are fruitful and there is not much frustration and disappointment through the life and particularly at the end of it!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment