Fire

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Fire is life , the elanvital, the driving energy of the cosmos. Fire is the only element which goes up. It gives light and heat.  In Hindu mythology fire is born out of water. The fire-breathing Mare moving on seabeds symbolises the potential force of Doomsday. The golden seed of Agni in the cosmic waters ’to hatch into the universe’. The Vedas , Satapatha Brahmana clearly suggest that fire is born of water. The seed is fire and the womb is water. The whole of creation mostly centres round fire and water. Fire is male water is female: the universe is created by their union. Fire symbolizes power, energy, creativity and vitality. Water symbolizes fertility, immortality, peace and creative powers. In Hindu symbolism Shiva is both fire and water. Shiva is born from the golden egg in water. His dances- Lasya and Tandava- therefore are the artistic manifestations of fire and water. Fire burns and is terrible, water harmonizes and sustains. The figure or image of Shiva is the archetypal metaphor. His interior is hot and fiery. Because of this kind of interior he could swallow the poison that came out of the churning of the sea. But on his head he wears ganga and the moon. Shiva is more powerful than other gods as he maintains the spiritual equilibrium between fire and water, death and life, creation and destruction.

Fire is of two forms for most Indians. Fire is love and sex, Kama; it is also lust and destruction. The other form is the energy of meditation –tapas. Meditation controls the energy of sexual drive and becomes in turn another potent energy. Asceticism, chastity, renunciation are as powerful as sexual energy. Mahatma Gandhi is a case in point.  He was not an ascetic in the mystical sense. He was a true ascetic as his self – control, abstinence, love of truth and saint like devotion to ideals of life made him a powerful being of whom the powerful British empire was mortally afraid. The power of chastity has always been glorified in our literature. Those who master the art of saying no to their desires are definitely powerful. Renunciation and service of the poor and helpless are also the power of tapas. The word tapas means heat and this heat is more potent than kama or the sex drive. In the 20^th century if we saw the great Mahatma, we also saw Mother Teresa. In the vedic civilization the saints practising asceticism were as powerful as Indra, the king of heaven. Indra had fire as kama , which includes heroism and the power of  a great  warrior. Fire is like the Sun and Moon in the sky, mutually complementing life and the cosmic energy.

The Greeks thought fire was the exclusive property of heaven. Prometheus  who stole fire and gave it to the heathens, therefore, was cursed and punished and his brother Atlas is still seen even today, holding the Globe (like Vasuki) in their myths. Fire is divine for it gives more light than heat if the people know how to use it. Fire is simultaneously the creator and the destroyer. Balancing fire in life is the most urgent need in the Human world.

Fire is also a purifier like water. It purges the body and mind. Fire as purifier, destroyer, redeemer and energizer sustainer as well as that consumes like time’s agency has entered in a big way all human society. Love and sex are always described through fire imagery. When desire is inflamed men and women, passion –struck, climb mountains and swim oceans. The fire in the belly makes human beings great achievers. Athletes, sportspersons, thinkers and infact even politicians of all hues are motivated by the fire within to win, conquer, rule and reign. Fire power is the measuring rod of military might. Often we say- he made a fiery speech and set all hearts afire. Someone is a firebrand politician or someone has the fire in him to fight till the end.

But fire that burns and consigns things to ashes is to be contained. Fire also emits light and gives life. Shakespeare‘s Othello in his soliloquy before he ‘sacrifices’ Desdemona uses “Promethean heat” which may relume the life of his love: but he by another fire, the fire of jealousy, extinguishes D’s light of life.

Light is life. It stems from fire but it redeems and prolongs life. What we need today is light: the light of love to enkindle all avenues of life, not the fire which singes and kills with pain. Fire should be worshiped as light to brighten things not to darken all luminous values.