The Fire Ritual - Short Version

“Meditation is not a doing, but a happening”

Meditations and Rituals | Rituals
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Book: Agni - The Symbolism and the Ritual of Fire

This is a short formula of the Fire Ritual for the groups to start with. It doesn't take more than 7 minutes. The simpler it is, the more we have the inclination to do it. It is a good way to come in contact with Fire: slowly as we grow familiar, we can do it more elaborately.

While doing the Fire Ritual, one should face east; that is the first preference. The second preference is north. North is Silence and east is Light. North is the God Absolute, east is God as Light. Thus, the arch between north and east is very auspicious. That is why we have the middle point of north and east as north-east. That is the place where the Existence becomes Awareness and we call it Ishana, the entry point of the Lord from his Absolute state into the state of Light. We keep the north-east corner of the house very, very sacred and auspicious. It is the place through which the Lord enters, through East the Light enters, north-east is the Male Female God, east is feminine, north is masculine. You can face either east or north or anywhere between north and east. The altar in the house shall have to be in this part of the house or in this part of the room.

For all rituals one should necessarily take shower and wear fresh clothing.

The material needed for this short formula of the Fire Ritual are:

• A small vessel
• 1 incense stick
• 21 wooden sticks to make the 7 triangles
• 7 wooden sticks for the offering
• 1 piece of camphor
• 1 cup of ghee

Before you start with the Fire Ritual, you construct the 7 layers of triangles, with 21 wooden sticks, chanting the mantra “OM NAMO NARAYANAYA”. Normally, the Purusha Sukta and the Sri Sukta are chanted when constructing the 7 layers. But for our purposes, the Narayana Mantra is good enough to make the 7 layers. After having constructed the 7 layers of triangles, you will light a piece of camphor which we have put in the centre of the triangles, with a lighted incense stick. At that time you will chant 7 times the mantra:

Om Agnim Vratapatim
Âvâhayâmi Sthâpayâmi Pujayâmi
(7 times)

The meaning of the mantra is:

Oh Lord Agni, the Lord of the Rituals,
I invoke you, I establish you here, And I worship you.

Saying so, you would light the fire, and when the flame is on, you will continue to chant the same mantra 7 times in total.

Then, 7 times you will offer sticks of fuel, where you say the mantra:

Agnaye Swâhâ
Agnaya Idam Na Mama
(7 times)

The meaning of the mantra is: Oh, Lord Agni I offer you the sticks of fuel, it is for you, not for me.
Swâhâ.

We offer a stick of fuel to the Agni to be consumed. It is for you, not for me. Thus, 7 sticks 7 times. When you utter Swâhâ, you should put the stick of fuel in the flame. Swâhâ is the mantra through which the Lord is pleased to accept the offering.

After you have done it for 7 times, you should chant the 18th Hymn of the Isa Vasya Upanishad where we request the Lord Agni to put us in the right path, and to eliminate the wrong paths:

Agne Naya Supadhârâye Asmân
Viswâni Deva Vayunâni Vidwân
Yuyodhya Asmad Juhurânâm Eno
Bhuistân Te Nama Uktim Vidhema
(1 time)

The meaning of the mantra is:

Oh, Lord Agni, the foremost one,
the knower of the intricate Paths of creation!
Lead us by the simple righteous Path
to felicity. Destroy our past Karma,
eliminate from us the attraction
to dubious and ignorant paths.
We offer our worship to you.

After that:
Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu
(3 times)
Om Shânthi, Shânthi, Shânthihi

The whole ritual will not take more than 7 minutes. Even before you start the fire, you will be constructing the 7 layers of triangles with 21 wooden sticks, chanting the Narayana Mantra. Then, you chant the first mantra to invoke the flame, then the second mantra while offering the sticks to the flame. Then, you chant the third mantra where we request Him to lead us to the Path of Righteousness.

To start with, you can do the Fire Ritual on a Sunday at the sunrise time, as part of your morning prayer. Let there be periodicity in performing it, that brings much energy. You can do it once a week, once a fortnight, or once a month. As you find the inclination, there are many days to do it. The months of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius should be particularly noted for the fire ritual because they are fiery signs. The solstice and the equinox days are also very important.

Take a small vessel and wooden sticks as long as the index finger. A vessel out of copper is considered to be the best. Sometimes, it can also be done in a stainless-steel vessel. Stainless-steel is considered as the most purified iron, but copper is generally preferred. In olden days, the Fire Rituals were conducted in open spaces; now we do it in the houses. What we normally do when we do it outside is, we clean the place, we arrange some clay over it, and on the clay we spread rice flour, then we enclose it with bricks, and on then we make some designs with the rice flour. Then with the wooden sticks, we build the 7 layers of triangles. For practical reasons you can take to a vessel. As fuel, we only use ghee (clarified butter).

The wooden sticks should preferably be from sacred trees, like the ficus, mango, neem. The best but very costly is sandalwood. Any fragrance giving wood is good. When we are in Europe we use pine tree wood, which is also a very sacred tree. The flame should spread fragrance; the more fragrant the better, because we are offering it to Agni.

You can apply the ashes of the Fire Ritual on the 3 higher centres, namely Brow, Throat, and Heart Centre, or take in a small dose of ashes, eating it by way of Prasadam.

You can use incense sticks from Sri Aurobindo’s ashram, or Sathya Sai Baba ashram called Shivam, or the W.T.T. incense, which formula is the conception of Master E.K. In all these incenses, there are no chemicals; they use natural material of fragrance. Normally, the incense produced in the ashrams are prepared with lot of dedication and divine intention. There is not much commerce in it. If you use incense, better you buy it from the ashrams and not from any other manufacturer.