Few years ago, I performed "Ganapathy Homam" in my home, ably guided by two young techno-savvy Brahmin pandits.
What makes this event significant?
When you move across cities as an economic migrant, you live as a nomad, as if all the space and everything around you is transient. You are no more than "Homo Economicus" whose relationship with space is circumscribed by commerce and nothing else.
Performing ancient vedic fire rituals like "Ganapathy Homam" reminds you that beneath the garb of modernity, your roots go all the way back to the first sedentarists who decided not to gather food, but to grow food and stay rooted in a place.
And "Homas" like these do exactly that. They yoke your relationship with the space.
Beneath the underlying awareness that only dust settles, you feel the stability in your relationship with the space. Both within and without.
A famous verse in tamizh yogic text thirumanthiram goes like this:
உள்ளம் பெரும் கோயில் ஊன் உடம்பு ஆலயம்
வள்ளல் பிரானார்க்கு வாய் கோபுர வாசல்
தெள்ளத் தெளிந்தார்க்குச் சீவன் சிவலிங்கம்
கள்ளப் புலன் ஐந்தும் காளா மணிவிளக்கே.
The human body is the grand temple which houses the Jeevatman.
The mouth is the entrance to the temple.
For those who have understood, the Atman is the Lingam, which the five senses are endlessly illuminating.
I celebrate this body.
I celebrate the spirit.
There cannot be a more poetic description of the essence of Indic thought: Individual is the fractal of the universe. Yoga is an individual’s attempt to consecrate the divine inside the sacred precincts of the temple called the body.
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