The fire ritual at the Shiva Yoga Ashram (Melbourne, Australia)

The fire ritual at the Shiva Yoga Ashram (Melbourne, Australia)

Yogi Matsyendranath

A few days ago I was in Melbourne, where visited the Shiva Yoga Ashram found by Guru Shankarananda http://shivayoga.org/html/swamishankarananda.html. I am happy that in Australia there are students of Svami Muktananda from Ganeshpuri (about whom I’ve heard a lot), Kashmir Shaivism practitioners. Svamiji Shankarananda and Devi Ma were very hospitable, and all their students as well. I was very touched by the traditional welcoming ceremony, which is not usual for Western culture.

Together with my students I attended the arati ceremony of Baba Nityananda Arati, satsang of Svamiji Shankarananda, where he introduced us to everyone. In the Ashram reigns very light and clean atmosphere. Then I performed agnihotra dedicated to Goddess Durga. The ritual was liked by all participants and we agreed to organize my mini-workshop on the theme of Agnihotra.

The fire ritual (homa) is one of the important elements in the practice of mantra-yoga, when one tenth of the number of the read mantra you repeat during the fire ritual, then perform tarpana (abhisheka), marjana and brahmana-bhojana (or kanya-bhojana, if it is shakti-upasana). A homa may include much of what are needed for the implementation of a mantra (mantra-siddhis), often abhiseka and etc., present in the ritual.