SATSANG
VOL. 26, NO. 2, NEW ERA 55. JULY & AUGUST 1998
SATSANG
From
Vasant’s Talks with Fivefold Path Teachers in India
Agnihotra and
Mind Vasant
Tapovan,
Land of Tapas Bruce
Johnson
Superior Produce
from Homa Farming Christa
Mena
Homa
Therapy in Turkey Reiner
Szcypior
Ayurvedic
Cooking Course in Spain Aleta
Macan
From Vasant’s
Correspondence
Nowadays we hear more
and more about Ayurveda, especially in Europe and
U.S.A. It now
seems that whether we like it or not, whether we willed it or not, we
have handed ourselves
on a silver platter of technology into the jaws of death.
They say, “The road
to hell is paved with good intentions.” Mere good intentions
are not enough.
People have to learn to make science the guiding light of their
lifestyle, especially
under the present conditions in which we find ourselves today.
According to the scientists,
soon, very soon there may not be enough oxygen to
breathe on the planet.
When they look at the pictures given by NASA, especially
of the Amazon, they
say the trees are dying, not because someone is cutting them,
but because of pollution—death
and disease everywhere. (More than twenty-eight
percent of the world’s
oxygen is produced in a small area of rainforest, mainly in
the Amazon and partly
also in Indonesia.)
There has been great
interest, especially in both Eastern and Western Europe and
in the U.S. and recently
in South America, about Ayurveda. Ayurveda is an
Upaveda, i.e., a
branch of Atharva Veda. Along with creation, all this knowledge
was given through
the Vedas. Ayurveda means knowledge of life.
Recently scientists
in the west started thinking in terms of holistic way of life,
holistic healing
(not medical science, however.) In post-Einstein period there was
no alternative.
About twenty-two years ago there was a paper published by the
National Institute
of Mental Health, near Washington, D.C. (one of the best mental
health institutes
in the country). While reading this paper on mental health I
wondered whether
I was reading some parts of Upanishads. They were talking
about rhythms of
nature- how they affect the mind. In those days it was quite
new for medical science
to talk of this. Then further research was done in Canada,
how the simple bio-rhythm
of sunrise/sunset totally affects the human being. Full
moon/no moon bio-rhythm
comes after that.
For people who are
used to allopathy, Ayurveda is a totally different way of
thinking. It
is like going from Newton’s physics to post-Einstein physics, it is so
different.
It takes care of not only the psychosomatic aspects but something else.
In ancient
times, whenever a disciple went to the guru to learn Ayurveda, first he
was asked to perform
Homa and then only was he accepted. Fire was seen as the
witness. Only
by means of quantum physics will people be able to understand the
impact of Homa, how
fire affects all aspects of life. By means of chemistry there
are great limita-tions,
but quantum physics and Ayurveda methods will yield a
gold mine of knowledge.
The doctors in the
West are now saying that nothing works any more. The same
medicines which used
to be effective in the past now do not work. The reasons
are obvious—ozone
holes, acid rain (all rain is acid rain now), soil pollution, water
pollution, air pollution,
sub-soil pollution. Man has totally disregarded this planet,
so there are new
diseases, old diseases in new forms. How to get out of this?
Mother Earth is critically
ill and needs to be kept in Intensive Care. She says,
“Please, stop all
your automobiles, factories, etc. I can bear it no longer.”
Then
the person in charge
of the hospital says, “But if we close the hospital, how can we
serve you?
And if we stop our cars, how can we travel to the hospitals? And
if
there are no more
factories, where will the donations come from to run our
hospitals?”
Catch twenty-two!
But by Divine Will
the whole thing is going to change very soon, even though
scientists tell us
that it will not be possible for life to exist on the planet in just a
couple of years.
More than twenty years ago scientists of U.S. and U.S.S.R. with
their space technology
had already informed their respective governments that as
we approach the turn
of the century the only possibility for survival of the human
race would be to
take people to another planet in space, because it would be
impossible for life
to exist on this planet. By Divine Will the planet is going to be
saved.
So Yajnya and Yoga
are the two visible wheels of this so-called New Age chariot.
People will be forced
into some type of life-style based on Ayurveda and Ayurvedic
medicines.
In places where they
teach allopathy, after the school term is over and before
saying good-bye to
the students, the teachers say, “We are sorry; half of what we
have taught you is
incorrect, and secondly we don’t know which half it is.” This is
a very unfortunate
position. Allopathy has wonderful tools for diagnosis and
surgery, but only
the cure is lacking.
We have to consider
the whole psycho-somatic man and something more. The
whole lifestyle has
to be guided by science (Ayurveda) and not by superstition as it
is at the moment
in the world.
1. Perform AGNIHOTRA
for purification of the atmosphere which leads to
automatic purification
of mind.
2. Practice DAAN (sharing
of assets in a spirit of humility to reduce attachment to
worldly possessions).
3. Practice TAPA (becoming
better managers of our energy expenditure by
training the body
and mind to react to all circumstances in life with Total Love) .
4. Perform KARMA (every
action for self purification only and thus no
expectations which
bind us to the material world).
5. Practice SWADHYAYA
(Self-Study) for Liberation. Who am I? Why am I here?
My work on this planet
is to learn to react with total LOVE with each opportunity
given to me.
This is the Fivefold
Path for happy living on the planet. By practicing the Fivefold
Path you become better
members of your society, group, religion, community, etc.
Practice Fivefold
Path disciplines—Yajnya, Daan, Tapa, Karma, Swadhyaya.
Practice of Agnihotra
allays this nervous energy. Even meditation, though it calms
the nervous system,
cannot offer that protection which Agnihotra provides.
It is now the halfway
point of my proposed six-week stay here. I have come here
for the purpose of
performing Tapas. Tapa is the third aspect of the Fivefold Path
of ancient wisdom.
Tapas are disciplines voluntarily imposed by oneself with full
cooperation of mind
and intellect.
At home in Australia
I found it easy to come up with a multitude of excuses for not
doing Tapa.
(Here I am referring to the discipline program suggested by Vasant
for Fivefold Path
teachers and anyone else who wishes to benefit from that by
gaining a little
control over the incessant demands of body and mind.) The mind
is a cunning trickster
and an insatiable tyrant. At this stage of my life I have to
admit that I am a
slave to my mind’s whims and fancies. Here I am alone except
for a few local staff
people who don’t speak much English. No distractions, no
excuses—the perfect
opportunity for Tapas.
You may be thinking,
“What a crazy guy! Going halfway around the world to
undergo a discipline
program—and where is the necessity for this Tapa anyway?”
First, let me say
that I believe the practice of Tapa is essential for anyone who
wishes to reach that
state of lasting happiness— happiness which is not followed
by unhappiness.
For most of us, our whole life is spent in slavery to the dictates
of our minds and
bodies. Someone abuses me, so I immediately become angry.
Someone offers me
a chocolate and I can’t resist. Constantly, the whole life is like
that. But I
know that I am not the body; I am not the mind. I am that eternal
soul
which has adopted
this body and mind for a short time. So, where does this
eternal “I” come
into the picture? It is like the master who has forgotten that he
is
in charge and the
servants are running the show. But the servants are not very
smart and all their
decisions, which usually lead to momentary pleasure, always
result in long-term
pain. I need to take control of the situation, but it is not so
easy, since these
guys have been happily running the show for quite some time
and they have no
intention of relinquishing their control to anybody. The best
way to reverse the
situation, to relegate the servants to their rightful place where
THEY do MY bidding
is PRACTICE OF TAPA. For me, Tapa has everything to do
with the search for
lasting happiness. When you practice Tapa, destiny changes
and by Grace ego
is whittled away. Shree has stated that even HE must practice
Tapa every day.
Okay, but why come
all the way to India? What’s wrong with your own backyard,
I hear you all ask.
Some places on our
planet are places of extremely high vibration, such as:
—Parama Dham
in Madison, Virginia, the first Fire Temple inaugurated
under Shree’s dispensation
for the New Era.
—Wysoka, Poland,
Fire Temple inaugurated September 9, 1996. It is
located at an ancient
holy place of fire.
—Nirvanakshetram,
Australia—valley in which Narada Ashram is located.
Shivadham is also
a place of similar high vibration. While Shree Gajanan Maharaj
was still in physical
body, He gave an indication of the importance of Shivadham.
During a visit there,
He removed the green shawl He was wearing and placed it
around the shoulders
of one poor devotee from a shepherd family, embraced him
and said, “Look what
is in front of you. All this land is a great land of TAPA
(penance).
Several great seers have done penance here. From this place the
greatest work will
be done in the future.” A few years after leaving the physical
body Shree appeared
to the same devotee in vision and said, “We had told you
that greatest work
is going to be done from this place. That time is now near.
Start constructing
a temple here. When things become difficult, when the planets
collide, when it
will be time of deluge, SHIVADHAM will be the shelter.”
Shree described this
place as “Land of Tapa”. This means that over a period of
thousands of years,
many great saints and yogis have stayed here and performed
Tapas. In fact,
this is what gives all these energy points their high vibration:
TAPAS performed by
great saints and Yogis.
In the case of Shivadham,
at various times, this has been the ashram of Rishi
Agastyar and also
the abode of the great Yogi Gorakhnath. In the case of Rishi
Agastyar, during
his stay here he performed so much Tapa in the form of holy
Yajnya fires that
evidence can be found today in the local rock strata, in the form
of a white band which
is due to the ash from his fires.
Generally, energy
is locked up in the surrounding area and remains dormant, but
can be reactivated
at some later date. No prize for guessing how—yes, more
TAPA!
Part of the mission
of Vasant has been to visit many of these places of latent high
vibration and, by
performing Yajnya there, reactivate this energy as part of the
work of spreading
the Light throughout the whole planet. At several of these
places, centers have
been established where people can continue to practice Tapa,
especially Yajnya.
Shivadham is something
special. It was selected a long time back by Divine will to
fulfill a very important
role in connection with the upliftment of the whole planet
during the transition
to the New Age. Its role is something like to act as a master
switch in activating
energies at many points on the planet which in the future will
become special places
of refuge for the people. It is like the master switch in a
house. When
it is turned on at the main power board, all the lights in different
rooms of the house
light up. But in order to achieve this, the very powerful
energies which are
now dormant here must be reawakened, reactivated. For that,
the best thing is
TAPA, especially YAJNYA, and more especially CONTINUOUS
YAJNYA.
The aim is to make
a beginning with four hours of Yajnya per day, as well as
sunrise/sunset Agnihotra
and all the other discipline timings throughout the day.
As the Western presence
here strengthens, we can gradually increase the number
of hours of Yajnya
until we reach our goal of round-the-clock fire. This would be
easily attainable
with ten people staying here. The only thing is, all this must be
achieved by Western
people only. This is also part of the Divine plan laid down a
long time back and
can be summarized by the slogan, “Fivefold Path Comes to
India”.
This is a ticklish
point and one which is not widely understood. It is also
fulfillment of the
prophecy of Swami Vivekananda one hundred years ago in
Chicago, when in
a speech he stated that at the time of change of age, the ancient
wisdom teachings
of the East would return to the East from the West. This is a
direct reference
to Shree’s mission to resuscitate the Vedas and His command in
1972 to Vasant to
go to the West, in fact to people of all races and religions on all
continents, to spread
this message of Fivefold Path and Agnihotra. Since then,
people from many
different Western countries have been coming to India to
spread Shree’s message
of “Love thy neighbor” through the Fivefold Path, from
the Harijan colonies
of Shree’s birthplace in Kharagpur near Calcutta, West Bengal,
to the universities
of the big cities.
This is why I have
chosen to come and by Grace have been allowed to come to
Tapovan for Tapa.
Certainly I and most of the other Western Agnihotris are only
novices when it comes
to Tapa and Yajnya, and I feel a little embarrassed
comparing my Tapas
with the extremely powerful austerities and penance
performed by those
great saints and yogis of old. But still we come in all sincerity
and with great faith
and devotion and gratitude to be called to play a small part in
the unfoldment of
this magnificent Divine plan for the upliftment of the planet and
the ushering in of
the New Age.
These past few weeks
have been an intense time for me. The intensity is
reminiscent of the
fifteen-month period between August, 1989 and November,
1990 when, together
with a small group of Agnihotris, I participated in the first
round-the-clock Yajnya
in Australia under Shree’s dispensation for the New Era.
Agnihotra at sunrise
and sunset, six other Yajnyas at different timings throughout
the day, plus squeezing
in four hours of Om Tryambakam Yajnya means that,
even starting the
day at 3:30 A.M., great efficiency and focus is required in order
to complete any projects
during the day.
It is interesting
to observe the reactions of the mind to the voluntary imposition of
such a discipline
program. They vary from joyful anticipation to feelings of denial
(I can’t do this).
There is the challenge of learning to be totally present with the
fire instead of diverting
the mind. In this life I am not blessed with a strong
physical body.
Monday, fasting day, is a real test. And then it is 3:30 A.M. again.
Did I actually get
any sleep?! But as a seeming reward for yet another victory over
the desire for sleep,
we are blessed with the Purusha Sukta—Hymn to the Cosmic
Man, the Supreme
Spirit, still my favorite mantra,and the beautiful Shri Ganapati
Atharva Shirsham.
Always after 4 A.M. mantras I feel exhilarated.
Such is fighting the
demons of sleepiness, laziness. And then there are the sexual
images. My
God! Where do they come from? Depths of the unconscious.
All this
has to be purified.
I just keep faith in the teachings of Shree and the method He
has suggested as
the best possible way for achieving the goal—to make the mind
totally full of Love—the
goal which is unchanging since time immemorial. This is
devotion- knowing
that if I follow the guidance given, at every step my best
interests are being
taken into account by some Higher Power.
At 9 P.M. there is
one more Yajnya to end the day. Just as I am about to begin
Vyahruti Homa, the
whole place is plunged into darkness as we experience
another of the very
frequent power outages which are a feature of life in India. No
matter; my fire is
blazing! I don’t need to see anything else. However,
unfortunately all
the insects which were previously preoccupied with the lights in
the building have
now discovered that my fire is “the only game in town”, and
they descend on me.
Nevertheless, despite
the difficulties, this has been one of the most beautiful and
rewarding periods
of my life. Long periods of silence, alone with my thoughts,
much time for reflection
on my life up to this point—strengths and weaknesses,
success and failures.
And where to go from here? The beauty of Nature, the
sunrises and sunsets
on the plains, the perfect peace broken only by the sound of
birdsong and the
chirping of insects, watching the thrilling approach of the last
storm of the monsoon
season, the colors of the courtyard garden as many flowers
begin to bloom with
the end of the monsoon—just me, my Creator, and my
karma.
With great blessings
and much Grace I have been given the opportunity to
undertake this intense
Sadhana (spiritual practice) in this holy land of Tapa. Lord,
by Your Grace may
I be purified in body, mind and soul and quickly as possible,
so that I may become
a fit instrument to be used in Your service only.
If you are
interested in visiting Tapovan, please contact Bruce Johnson at Narmada
Ashram, Lot 107
Cedar Creek Rd., Millfield NSW, Australia 2325, telephone 61-49-98-
1659, fax 61-23-10-5720.
Practice Homa Therapy and you will have your own experience.
(If you are interested
in working as a volunteer at Granja Homa, please contact
Ricardo and Christa
Mena at: c/Luis Caballero, 6, 11500 Puerto Santa Maria, Spain,
telephone 34-56-560693,
fax 34-56-560200.)
Since I have to travel
back and forth a lot to Germany to earn the necessary
finances, my wife
Manu and the children spend most of the time alone and would
be glad to receive
loving Agnihotra people to come and work with us to set up a
good operating Homa
farm.
Frederic started the
course by explaining the five elements (ether, air, fire, water
and earth), and said
that all of the material world is made out of them. The
doshas (Vata, Kapha,
Pitta) are derived from them. Each dosha is connected with
different tastes:
salty, sweet, pungent, bitter, astringent, or sour. Food is
categorized into
these tastes and a dosha can be brought into balance or out of
harmony through the
intake of certain food. Every body is ruled by all three
doshas, which reside
in different parts of the body.
Not only is the human
body ruled by these doshas, but all Nature is. For example,
a day is divided
into times when a certain dosha is dominant. Even the seasons of
the year are ruled
by doshas, etc.
We were introduced
to the ten different qualities of food (light/heavy, oily/dry,
cold/hot, moving/stagnant,
soft/hard) and to the three kinds of food (sattvic,
rajasic, and tamasic).
We received detailed information about the most important
herbs and came to
know how a day is lived in Ayurvedic lifestyle. At the end, we
could watch an Ayurvedic
menu being prepared and know that our bellies got the
best.
We are looking forward
to the opening of the planned Ayurvedic Clinic at Granja
Homa. The spiritual
disciplines and the Ayurvedic treatment will be completely
integrated in this
wholistic system.