In this video, Dr. Svoboda talks in detail about working with the Fire Element in performing homa, or fire worship, based upon almost fifty years of working with fire.

Talking about homa, or havana both these words come from a root that means to offer in the context of to sacrifice and both these words or Sanskrit words that relate back to fire worship. That has been part of The Vedic tradition for many thousands of years as I’m fond of observing humans have been using fire for as long back and very selected areas maybe a million and a half years. But widely spread four hundred thousand years ago and in Particular in the past seven thousand years fire has itself become more and more predominant so there has been an ongoing evolution of humans and fire together an evolution.

That has continued down to the present day the difference Being that since maybe 70 or 80 years a large number of people not everyone there’s still people who still many people who work with open flame every day. But there are also many many people who other than perhaps using a gas fire To cook never see open flame anymore except in image and so this of course in my opinion is one of the reasons why people are so habituated to screens because screens provide form which is what fire provides screen provides color.

Movement and shifting form all of what fire does but screens are not alive and they’re only two dimensional fire is alive it’s three-dimensional and it’s very similar to other living beings and. That it has to be brought to life its it has to be fed to keep it alive it has to be tended and once you stop tending it and you stop feeding it. It will eventually die so a fire has been an important part of human existence for at least a half a million years and for definitely a hundred thousand years and overwhelmingly for twenty thousand years but nowadays many.

People under ordinary circumstances don’t ever have that experience of interacting with an open flame and in my opinion this is a situation that is not at all healthy because this is something that we’ve had in our reality for so long and since we don’t have it there now it’s something that we are missing. Whether we’re aware of it or not and we’re missing not only the warmth and the light and so on from the fire world so I’m missing the fact that the fire offers to us a subtle form of fire that not only activates our jatharagni our digestive fire the fire of all the all.

The tissues in the body but also our bhutagni the elemental form of fire the subtle form of fire that we need to use for spiritual evolution so this is why the great rishis of the Veda made the worship of. And sacrificed to the Fire the center of their religion this is why the first word of the first verse of the first hymn of the first mandala of the first veda is fire hug me. And it’s Agni meal a puto eaten Agni meal a put over them Agni is the priest Who takes the offerings from here to the next world to the subtle world and.

So I’ve personally always been interested in fire fortunately I didn’t burn down anything that didn’t need to be burned down when I was younger and when I got to India. And fell in with Them ol Ananda one of the first things we did together was to go outside of Pune to a small town outside of the small town well to a village outside the small town of Alandi being the place where Jnaneshwar Maharaj’s samadhi is and just outside of there we went for to have a coma and at that time.

I knew nothing about it so he explained lots of things about homa to me and eventually had me start doing homa myself so homa, or havana is sort of a general term that can be used for for not too complicated fire worship in it As a sort of a general practice. There are many different ways to do how many different opinions about it the traditions differ from north to south and east to west in India so the amanda’s emphasis was on not making it too fancy.

And to ritualized to Make it a ritual in the sense of head of creating a healthy relationship between the individual and the fire he emphasized again and again that that we humans have a relationship with fire and every individual human should have a relationship a personal relationship with fire and. So even though he lived in Bombay in a small apartment he would use a very small kunda I kundo mean say fire-pot I’ll come back to that word in a moment he’d use a very small kunda and would use only small flakes of sandalwood and tiny amounts of ghee.

But that still was sufficient to create a fire and for him to work with the fire In the way he wanted to work though he emphasized also that fire always burns and whatever we put into the fire will on the one hand be multiplied. And returned to us which is why and he said only offer sweet things into the fire and when we put our attention and Mantras and devotion into the fire it will help us burn our negative credits and by doing.

That to lighten our load of Karma’s make it easier for us to perceive reality accurately in which about by which means we can move in the Direction of greater spiritual evolution so as I said there are many opinions about the best way to perform Homa you may have heard of the popular practice of Agnihotra. Is a very very simplified form using a small copper pot and some ghee and some cow dried cow dung that was developed by dijanna and my Raj of a cocoa – I was fortunate wants to have the darshan odd and by his student Vasant grow foreign.

Spy and that’s one method but that’s not the only method vamo Ananda’s emphasis was to decide on a method either one that someone else is using that you want to adopt or to create your own method. But whatever it is remember that it doesn’t have to be rigid what it does have to be is sincere Because you are creating a relationship with fire and fire is a natural force it’s not another protoplasmic organism like you and made with flesh and hair and bones and blood and.

So on it’s a different thing and we can’t relate to it in the way that we relate to other things we have to relate to it and the what in the way that we relate to it and When saying. That he was always fond of saying in Hindi was Raja Jogi Abney Jo cabina ki jiye Preet I had a accretes ki a Tony by ei parish and renjie zhang qian qiu the feet so woody reet means they have their method of Doing things as backwards.

But what that means is that in the case of these four things raja means the king yogi or yogi means a yogi a Swami asad dude Raja a king a yogi the fire and water Agni JAL cabina ki jiye breathe don’t just just. Don’t try to become closely aligned with them don’t try to develop a close relationship because if you do then you have to you had the Nibbana is important Jawad Aki album the bon apetito that means whatever you commit to the king or the yogi or the fire or the water.

Whatever you commit to do in that way you’d better do because otherwise they have a different way of doing things and as Memel ananda pointed out the king can either award you a great favor or execute you the you can either bless you or curse you the fire can burn you or transform you. And the water can either transport you to where you want to go or drown you so this is not something to be terrified about or overly cautious about it’s also something not to be underly cautious about and you can be sure that you will be occasionally burned God willing not too much but you will.

Make some little mistake that the fire will not like and the fire will scorch you it happens to me periodically because it’s that it’s it it’s not even a matter of and I think this is of course applies to anywhere anything on the spiritual path. And bimmel and Honda emphasize this too the further you get it does things don’t become easier they become harder because You’re getting more and more subtle and that means your awareness your alignment your harmony has to be more and more subtle.

So as you move ahead and your relationship with the fire don’t think that the fire is going to suddenly you know decide you’re a great person it may decide you’re a great person but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to stop what it’s natural a way of doing things. Is which is burning that can happen and that we that has happened we know pit with there are people who can who have a very very very well aligned relationship with the fire and who don’t get burnt but that’s that’s way far ahead let’s start where we are which is first of all the fire is something that can easily.

Get out of control and therefore the fire has to be contained and so I use that word kundo before a Kunda is a Kunda means any kind of receptacle or a hole in the ground or anything that can hold something that’s a Kunda and. So we need to we need to put the fire in a Kunda so that will be contained also so the wind won’t blow it out etc you can dig a Kunda in the ground I like to use a copper Kunda you can use earthenware though eventually it will break I have.

Used iron pots before I’ve used aluminum turkey-basting trays before though I don’t suggest that as that you use that for on a regular basis if because there are other things you can use copper is regarded as being an auspicious metal and copper is generally good metal to use certainly a lot cheaper than silver. Old and so depending on your source of fuel Vimal and Nunda tended not to use cow dung in his opinion it was a little too strong for the effect that he wanted he preferred to use wood.

And the kind of Wood depending on who you talk to of course affects the result generally speaking in a place like India people like to use mango wood the wood of the ash wet dead tree the people tree or the Bow tree the wood of the palasa. And beauty from doses sometimes called the flame of the forest Palacios amid is very auspicious if you live in another country very likely you’re not going to have those trees so and I have done.

Holman variety of different countries and life in my opinion a fruit tree would works real well nut tree wood I’ve often used cherry pecan and of course if you don’t have that sort of wood then use whatever you’ve got available the Main thing is that you learn the characteristics of the wood while I’m here in Australia I used eucalyptus wood. So that because your job is to keep the fire burning during the time that you are you that that you’re performing the act the activity and of course the way.

You keep it burning is you start off by not adding too many you’ll find the first time that you do this and it Koons withers in the ground or otherwise that it’s a little different than just building it on top of the ground you can build it on top of the ground. But it’s usually better to put it in the cone because it also keeps the – contained and you have to remember That once you have created a sacred space around the fire and you’ve brought it to light you were.

Now responsible for the fire and you’ve brought it to life and you’re going to be requesting gods goddesses guru’s Saints etc to come there so you’re actually you’re going to be causing that fire to take on some spiritual vibration and that is making. The ash that’s the result going to be the result that has a vibration that you must respect and the same way you respect the fire as you respect the fire thus you must respect the ash you can apply some to yourself you can put some water. And drink it you can put it on wounds you can sprinkle it around your house what you want to do is not put it.

Somewhere that people can step on if you can’t figure out what else to do you can pour it into what water not a drainage ditch but a creek or a river or the ocean or if that’s gonna get you arrested for littering. Then you can bury it in the ground you don’t want people to step on it you can dissolve it in water and pour it on your plants there’s.

Lots of ways to deal with it but you want to add that when you’re finished take the ash away and them alone Ananda was also very emphatic about the fact that once you finish you need to either if you have a the place where the was you apply some water to that area to keep the Earth. Cool because you’ve heated up the earth and you don’t want the earth to be hot because of course from the earth comes the planet Mars Kuja and you don’t want that more Martian energy in your life than you need and you don’t want to be irritating the earth by just sort of scorching her and then wandering off and ignoring her.

Thereafter so you apply a little you don’t have to apply a lot just a little bit of water with the intention of cooling her down if you have a hole in the ground after you collect the ash you may just want to pour some water into that hole and cool the earth off that way. So when you’re when you are thinking about doing fire. Worship you want to think whether you want to do it for a cumbia you want to do a Kamiya a ritual that means with a specific purpose in mind or anishka a ritual that is with no purpose other than the general welfare of yourself all of your loved ones and the world in General and.

Now in them alone and always involving courage nish, because he said when you have a specific desire you’re creating a specific account amount and you have no clue as to what the ultimate result of that tournament is going to be so it’s better than just say o Supreme Lord whoever it is I’m worshiping I’m. Offering this to you please organize everything in my existence in the best way possible home and so that’s his advice and I think that’s the best way to do things too so once you’ve decided that then you just you get some wood or if you were going to use cow dung cow dung if you happen to be in a tropical.

Country you can use pieces of palm leaf you can use the husk of coconuts there’s a lot of burnable things that are out there and whenever possible if you can use something that is recognized in that Neighborhood as being sacred or or or or noteworthy. Then that’s a good thing to do the main thing is you want it to be able to burn properly and if at all possible you don’t want to have any insects in it sometimes it’s not possible. But you don’t the insects did not sign up for this practice and you don’t really want to incentive write them because that in itself is number one a cutter man number.

Two it’s you’re offering something to the fight anything you offer to the fire it should be something you want to get more of out of the fire. So bemol ananda said if you want it is he would say you know it’s true if you want to do modern up for yoga or some other kind of if you want to kill someone or create hatred or Discord or something like that yes you will use major fish and chillies and salt and things like that. But he said the Karma and that is really terrific also so just he said offer sweet things to the fire you figure out what sweet things most of the time he would what he.

Would always offer dairy products he would never offer things that had eggs in them and generally he would never offer cooked food either unless it was let’s say rice pudding kid for a pie assam. So I decide what you want to offer the traditional offering that is used nowadays for Homa and it’s the myth it’s what he would use traditionally is Sixteen parts of black sesame seeds for parts of barley one part of white rice the. Barley of course if you were in India you can find barley if you’re not in India I mean you can find pol barley if you’re not in India you may have to find pearl barley we just have to Acknowledge that’s the reality.

And black sesame seeds are nowadays available especially in Asian stores rice is available at the rice as far as possible do you want oh shut up shut that means unbroken grains obviously your well not obviously. But you don’t necessarily need to go through and make sure every grain is unbroken but try to get the rice that Has mainly unbroken whole grains and whenever you do that and especially if you’re getting it from someplace in India you’re going to have to make sure. There are no insects in it often there are insects in the rice weevils in the barley and in the sesame so you want to Go through and very carefully remove those.

Because again you want to offer in the same way you wouldn’t simply serve up a bunch of weevil infested grain to your guests you don’t want to do that to your ethereal astral astral guests either so then when a 9 de Julio not doing that. Because I often am in Tropical countries where not only is it sticky but it draws a lot of ants and that can be quite unpleasant especially when they’re of the biting variety so I had often add the keep the geese to keep the fire going and sometimes use honey and sometimes don’t and if I do maybe.

I’ll put it into some milk or something in that way the sweetness still gets to the fire but I also offer things that he would never offer including chocolate including sometimes quinoa or other sorts of grains that are not traditional. Because they’re still grains they’re still valuable things I offer a number Of different herbs that don’t grow in India and but are still sacred and valuable herbs and so you select what’s the meaningful to you the and sometimes I will do home only with black sesame and sometimes only with rice and very occasionally only with barley.

He said if you can’t find anything else just use white sugar which is a good thing to use though if you’re in the tropics please use it with care because you will attract insects especially ants and you so once you have your offering and you can offer also fruit. You can offer nuts you can offer all sorts of things that are sweet and tasty because you’re feeding the fire that’s the thing to remember you’re feeding the fire as if it was a living being or vanillin.

And it was very maternal would say as if it was a small child you’re putting things into the mouths of the Small child to make the small child not only grow well but be happy. So select what it is you’re going to offer and collect that and put it aside and it should be it should you you know it should be you should not ever taste it or even smell it too much you should. Just keep it aside and then you need to find the location you decide on your they’re different shapes of sometimes there’s the circle the semicircle the star shape before the square and fin will Ananda normally use the square because the square represents.

The earth element and that creates stability so you dig o on the ground or you have a pot let’s just say you’re going to use a square normally if at all possible in the northern hemisphere you want to face either towards east or north in the southern hemisphere you either want to Face toward East or or I don’t know. Because we know that North is an auspicious direction in the northern hemisphere but the Rishi’s haven’t commented what is the most auspicious direction north or south in the southern hemisphere so but we can always face east when we can face east.

Because That’s the direction of sunrise new beginnings the Sun represents the Atma so it’s like the soul rise so if possible East is good and before you sit you want to either mentally or actually physically create a circle around. Yourself you want to invite every all the ethereal beings in the neighbourhood you don’t want them too close to you because they will try to some of them may try to get into the fire some of them may try to get into you you want them around you in a nice.

And a nice circle at the very least no closer than your outstretched hands may be in fact a Little further just to be provide a little bit of extra social distancing. So once you’re ready you sit compose your reality and request the deity or guru or Sankt or other ethereal being that you want to be present in the fire request that being to come and be present and once you feel like you’ve done. That request properly and if at all possible you can feel that that or that that being is present and once you get aligned with that being you can very likely feel that that’s when you’re.

Ready to start the fire and of Emmaline unto used matches if you want to be more traditional and you can use a fire drill that’s a lot more work but it certainly will produce fire and it’s very pure fire because it’s coming directly from the wood and not from chemicals but he was felt fine about. Using matches because of course he was somebody who spent time in cremation ground so he would he would take things that might not be pure and focus on them intently until they got purified so I personally I’m fine with using meshes and it’s nice if you have some incense that you can burn just to kind of purify.

The area around you and once you have so you’re going to get ready to light the fire and he would always do something to purify the Koons that’s up you you can find there month of us for that there little rituals for that you want to purify the clean– purify your eyes and your mouth and align yourself before you. Light the fire inside the kind you would like to have a Yenta because the entha is the thing that is going to act to mold the fire.

So that when your month is go into it they will come out of it in a particular way he always used a six pointed star the Jews call it the Magan dahveed and that’s in Sanskrit called. The Sudarshana chakra it is the one triangle facing upward that represents the movement from duality to unity and one triangle facing downward that’s the movement from unity into duality and. So it’s at that point where unity and dwell we meet where upon and prana meet that We have this six pointed star and that’s where creation can occur.

So you can use other units there plenty of Yin throughs that can be used he always used a six pointed star called eight Sudarshana sharra Sudarshana means good sight it means good belief good philosophy so he used it because it relates directly to fire and fire relates to sight and so it. Enables it’s he said it helps to enable you to get sight not of this world but of other realities to be able to see them more clearly which the fire can assist you to do.

So you have got you have sat down you have created your young katha whatever it is he would always put a piece of camphor or maybe a piece of some resin like frankincense or Something in there but so to take the match to. So that it would start to burn and then you could put little tiny pieces of wood on it and then build it up he would always use ghee with his fire not oil I have sometimes used I personally abuse coconut oil though I find that that’s a bit on the intense.

Side from the vibration that’s created so if you’re a vegan you’re vegan you might try coconut oil otherwise you may want to consider geek it being traditional and all and obviously if you use too much ghee you’re just going to waste it it’s going to put the fire out. So you have to your may have to Experiment with depending on the wood how much wood you can put in how much how much breathing space you need among the pieces of wood whether you’re putting in some coconut husk or some cow dung or something how you’re fitting all.

That together and how much ghee you’re putting on sugar is really good for keeping the fire light grated coconut is very good all of these things are nice and as soon As you have started the fire then you start reciting the mantra. That you have decided to employ during this during this Homa and you could employ just a single month ago you could just start and recite that month it up for the entire half hour 45 minutes hour hour 15 hour three hours however long you find to be.

There you could use the same mantra in vim alone on this case he would always even before he started he would sit down he would in he would salute the earth he would salute everyone in the neighborhood all the gods got us as a theory Oh beings the drama David astana David all of the various ethereal beings. And his ancestors and his gurus and everybody that was part of his reality and then once he would start the fire he would first begin by offering to Ganesha and then to Ganesha’s mother Parvathi or Shakti or whom are and then to her.

Husband Shiva and then to Shiva’s beloved ish today with our personal deity Krishna and sometimes he would focus more on one deity or another sometimes gonna most commonly either gonna put the Ganesha or Anjaneya Hanuman And. So at different times he would do different things and you different times you can do different things but and you may find that it is good to start off by invoking Ganesha to help you minimize any obstacles. And to invoke the Devi to give you some Chuck be into a vote Shiva to Invoke Shiva to keep your awareness firm and then to invoke Krishna policy is the supreme incarnation of the Godhead who in return always focuses on Shiva.

So he can maintain his presence of mind while he is being the supreme presence of the Godhead or you may simply want to take your own personal deity or guru or or Saint or whatever and only recite mantras to that individual or the supreme reality with no though of course that’s a little more difficult to do. Because of course you’re using the fire which has all kinds of newness to try to reach to the knitted goona it’s possible it’s just a little more difficult so you decide which month are you want to repeat you decide how.

Many month of us you want to repeat and you continue to do that and you try to align yourself allow that don’t try to see things in the fire allow things to come from the fire to show themselves to you don’t try to hear things in the fire let the fire if the fire wants to say something say something to you. When it. Crackles or when it pops or whatever and if you’re fortunate enough to be doing this out in a natural area do not be surprised if the birds or the in tis the cicadas or the other insects or where Somebody starts to starts to get into your rhythm and harmonize with you.

Because in my experience at least the denizens of the natural world really appreciate this and they really like to participate too so you keep doing this as long as you feel like you should keep doing it and then there will come a Point. When you are of the opinion that you have reached you’ve done what you want to do and then you say thank you very much oh oh yesterday Vita oh blahh beloved deity of mine o guru ji o whoever it may be it’s been great.

But now I have to I have to Bring this to an end and please Swiss Don I gotcha please go back to your own place I’ve requested you to come here now I’m requesting you to return so you can go back home and be comfortable there and shelter in place and once you have done that then you bow. Down to the fire and you then sit and permit it to go out do not put the fire out let the fire out go out on its own.

So what you want to do is make sure that you don’t have a giant amount of fuel in there and suddenly you decide I can’t do this anymore about quit as you decide that you are going to quit then you want to keep putting in Smaller and smaller pieces of fuel. So that ideally by the time you’re ready to quit the fire goes out altogether many people are of the opinion that you should leave no pieces of wood whatsoever in there and especially in his when he was doing this in his little villain and would make sure that he.

Fanned it or blew on it until there was only very fine ash sometimes that’s not possible unless you want to sit there with the fan and try to fin it becomes very fine ash if the fire has gone out during the time you’re doing. This you have to relight it if it has gone low you can fan it with the fan you don’t blow on it.

Directly blow off your hand if you’re going to do that that’s more polite be polite with the fire and the fire will be at least most of the time polite with you so and don’t forget even if you can’t do homa yourself you can still do Trotta with a candle or a diya a lamp at eye. Level at arm’s length and just focus on the tip of that flame at the point where it loses its shape and luminosity and that will allow the relationship between you and flame to be reawakened and to be healthy and to assist the fire.

Element in your organism to move you in the right direction my next course is going to be about an introduction to Tantra and the five elements and how you can use the five elements including especially fire to encourage your own movement in a healthy direction and my. Hope is that it will in fact assist anyone who takes that course to do so.