It was nice to receive a photo taken after a homa at the home of Mahindran yesterday. He had performed a homa and Siddha puja in his new home ushering in the New Year. Earlier he had conducted a similar homa and puja as a house warming ritual.
I was started on conducting the homa by Tavayogi in 2007. When he was in town again in 2016, we made it a point to conduct the homa and puja in the homes of ATM (then AVM) members. The tradition of lighting the sacred fired was revived by Tavayogi and is being continued by his students. Along the way, we learnt of karma and the means to eradicate, reduce or wipe it. One of the means is through performing the homa. Recently I learnt through reading Ruzbeh Bharucha's blog that just sitting in silence releases one of his karma too, besides healing the causal body that in turn heals the physical body.
Besides carrying out the remedies given on the start of any Nadi reading, Agathiyar has through Tavayogi engaged us in performing this sacred ritual regularly. He tells us that individuals karma are burnt just like the numerous offerings into the fire burn to ash. Tavayogi who headed an ashram did the larger scale of the homa called Yagna or Yagam to appease Mother Nature so that she does not lash out her anger and power. Later he included the sangkalpam of ridding people of their sufferings and ailments too. Today Mataji Sarojini Ammaiyar carries on the tradition at the ashram grounds at Kallar.
Srinatha Raghavan has found that silent moment spoken of sitting in the midst of the sacred fire. He shares it on a fb posting.
Chaitra Navaratri comes to an end today and personally it has been a time of deep peace and silence, despite all the outside noise. Braving all the oddities, I would go ahead and perform the Homa and would just keep hoping all would be well. But whence the Agni would get kindled and the oblations starts, the Mind would start retracting within strangely. With every Mantra being chanted, I would feel the start and the end of the Mantra and the vibratory silence that ensued. The whole body would become a medium, a soundscape, where the Mantras would tingle producing some sonic patterns within. No other noise would be audible thereon, just the Mantra and the Silence it gave birth would resound.
One of these days, I could also hear the voice of Agni in that Silence, the Fire has almost a musical note to it, as if it was singing whatever the Mantra you have been chanting, albeit taking it to a higher note. There is a certain raspiness to it, but then it kinda reproduces an overtone of the Mantras that is offered into it, so it can reach the Higher planes.
Ah! There is much to share, the innumerable shapes and faces that materialized, the heat/color signatures that varied from mantra to mantra, but for now, I am really happy that I got an opportunity to perform it, to the best of my abilities.
Many have seen the flames in the homa pit taking the figure and shape of deities, some very obvious others not too and those that needed to be pointed out and shown. It is nice to know that the divine has many ways of making its presence known to its devotees according to the ways that they would like to see the divine and the ways which they would accept. The divine too is not rigid but caters to the ways, needs and desires of its baktas. But man is so rigid and unforgiving when it comes to religion and spiritualism.
One does not accept another's faith or belief and mode of worship. Another looks down on those who never had come close to worship. Yet another despises the company of happy go, lucky guys. The divine exists whether we believe in it or not just as the laws of nature exist whether science has proofed it or not. As Srinatha says, "There are sure great mysteries hidden in Agni, but I am not too keen to decipher it for now, as I have accepted it", life would be charming if we can accept and move on with the ways that bring joy and happiness for that is what we seek too.