Dhuni (धूनी) – The Sacred Fire

Dhuni (धूनी) – The Sacred Fire

Dhuni (धूनी) is kindling of fire in a small pit dug into the ground and mostly this fire is never allowed to extinguish. This ritual is followed by many spiritual seekers coming from various spiritual lineages like नाथ सम्प्रदाय, tantra practices and many others.

The Hindu spiritual sciences have done great research on the five elements forming the basis of all creation, namely earth, water, air, fire and space, and relating to them has been of great help to the spiritual seeker apart from their significance on the material plane.

When fire was discovered by early man during the evolution of civilization, there were no means for igniting the fire as we have today. The fire was produced by rubbing together or striking two stones or by rubbing together two sticks and with the friction thus created; sparks would come out, which was used for ignition. With the discovery of fire, the whole life of man went through a radical change. It gave man the light, the heat, protection from animals, means for cooking food, means for burning, to name a few. Match sticks and lighters that we use for igniting fire today came much later. Initially as it was difficult to ignite fire, so it used to be continuously fuelled to keep it burning so that the arduous task of igniting every time could be done away with. Even in the recent past, fires were kept burning in households and people borrowed fire from each other’s houses taking along with them the burning sticks.

Besides making life easy for man, fire has many inherent qualities with deeper significance.

Fire always moves upwards, no matter how you try to change its course, it will move upwards only. It is termed as ऊर्ध्वगामी in Hindi, meaning one that moves upwards, indicating the nature of consciousness that is always rising in nature.

Then the fire burns away everything coming in its contact, but this burning is selective for it burns what needs to be burnt and it saves and purifies that which needs to be saved. It is known to be a great purifier, for it reduces all impurities to ashes. This burning also reminds us of the transitory nature of things and that one day everything will perish. It reminds us of the transient nature of the entire world and is a constant reminder of death. While ashes remind us of death, the fire reminds us of life. Life and death go hand in hand and thus relating to fire one can be in constant awareness of this truth.

The fire is life giving. Sun, that is the source of life on earth, is a ball of fire that comes to us through various filters. With the sunrays reaching us, we wake up and all life on earth comes into activity.

There is fire in our body too that is life giving known as जठराग्नि in Hindi, facilitating digestion and other physiological functions and regulating the body temperature. When the inner fire reduces, a person is said to move towards the end of life, and it extinguishes completely in death.

Being a purifier and a savior of essentials, in the Hindu culture, the body of dead is put to flames that destroy the gross body, but the fire saves that which is always there. The sooner the better, at most the dead body is put to flames within three days of death.

Then the fire is wild, unharnessed, its flames leap up in a fascinating manner, it is so powerful that it can destroy everything, and even one single spark, एक चिंगारी is  sufficient to destroy the whole world. And that is why it holds great attraction of danger and thrill put together. On the other hand, looking at fire fills one with joy and all sorrow and melancholy disappear.

The fire is a living. In Hinduism it is अग्निदेव, a name given to deity presiding fire element. If someone can relate to the flames it can go in harmony with one’s mind and it can record whatever is there in the mind. Relating with this fire seekers and siddhas have been able to know a lot of subtle things. Fire is a symbol of the rising Kundalini, just as the fire burns impurities so does the kundalini burn the impurities in the mind and purify it as the fire does. Just as the fire is wild so is the kundalini, for when it rises it completely transforms a person.

If someone can develop a harmony with the fire, they can imbibe its nature. Many mysteries evolve around siddhas life concerning their association with fire and so the fire element as धूनी has always had a special place in spiritual practices.

Another fascinating aspect of धूनी lighted by a  siddha is that it associates with the siddha and if it is continued to burn nonstop then these characteristics also continue to flow in the धूनी and any time a seeker can relate to this fire and be in harmony with the siddha and reach its heights.