In the evening I sit in our warm, cosy room, looking through the glass window at the fire burning strong and bright in the stove. Outside it is cold and dark.
The fire warms me and conveys a pleasant atmosphere of safety and security.
Fire is not seen until one firestick rubs
Against another, though the fire remains
Hidden in the firestick. So does the LordRemain hidden in the body until
He is revealed through the mystic mantram.
(Shveteshvatara Upanishad)
The bright orange tongues of flame are blazing up in a powerful, heated urge. Their movement follows a hidden, steady dance rhythm. Their flickering play has something arousing and at the same time strangely soothing.
I try to imagine what a threatening and yet vital role the element of fire played for people in earlier ages. How they came together, huddled around the campfire or sitting in front of the hearth at home, to exchange important news, amusing or sinister tales. Or how they were defenceless against fire-ravaging enemy hordes, losing their homes and all their possessions (without the palliative prospect of damage limitation through disaster protection and household insurance). How even today, in many regions of the world, fire projectiles are raining down on people and destroying all their hopes and plans for their future.
It was announced on the radio that Germans would have spent an estimated 120 million euros on New Year’s Eve fireworks at the end of 2022. What motivates people to spend such exorbitant amounts? What fascination does the fire spectacle hold?
Does it offer an outlet through which all the pent-up fears and tensions can be released? Is it possibly a relic from archaic times when people hoped and believed that they could avert disaster, banish and drive away demonic forces through fire magic and smoke?
In the meantime, a steady glow illuminates the logs of wood in the stove, here and there enveloped in bluish light. What remains is finally white ash that slowly cools.
I let my thoughts wander, images rise up in me and fade away.
How does the fire element work in me, in my life?
Am I, remembering the well-known words of the Bible, “warm” – or occasionally “cold”? Or even “lukewarm”?
Is there something in my life for which I am really burning?
Already, gruesome images from the atmospheric archives of the past are crowding in on my mind’s eye: fiery zealots and flagellants, torches of hateful mobs, blazing pyres… horrific images of destruction.
Then there are sacred fires, kept burning in temple halls, guarded by priestesses.
The ritual lighting of a seven-branched candelabrum appears before me as a consecrated, symbolic act.
Does this also take place in me, in my own being?
Does the fire give me the strength for action illuminated by the sun in my heart and the light of knowledge?
What fiery processes must precede this for it to become a true fact of my life?
From the earliest beginnings of sacred traditions, fire has been associated with sacrificial rites. If in past times such fire ceremonies were celebrated in the presence of rapt spectators, it seems to me that in our time the mystery of fire has shifted into our own inner being. I see it as an expression of a primal longing in the human being to transcend the limitations of a gross material field of life dominated by opposing and conflicting forces, the captivity of our lower nature, and to return to the higher vibration of a life originally sustained by spiritual forces.
Words from Rainer Maria Rilke’s last poem, written in the face of approaching death, come to mind:
…as I burned in spirit, see, I burn
in you; the wood has long resisted
yielding to your blazing flame,
but now I feed you and burn within you…
Can we, still in full life, die this fiery death – not once, but many times? Daily?
Does the experience make us exclaim – as in Rilke’s poem:
Is it still I who is burning unrecognisable?
The fire of purification can be experienced as a process of tremendously destructive power. In Hindu mythology, the forces of creation and destruction go hand in hand, represented by Lord Shiva, but also by female deities in various fearsome manifestations: Kali, Durga or also Chamunda Devi, who triumphs over the powerful demonic forces of the Asuras on behalf of the gods.
Such dramatic action takes place not least in our own inner being.
If we surrender to it with trust, dark soul aspects and resistance, unholy emotions and passions, as well as karmic residue from previous incarnations can be completely purified and burnt away by the consuming flames of the fiery divine forces that are present and at work within us.
When we open ourselves to the magic of the violet flame, we are gradually transformed by it, on all planes of our subtle being and down to every cell of our physical body.
With joy we can consent to a mysterious process of transformation, at the end of which a human being glowing with divine consciousness arises within us.
Like a phoenix from the ashes, the firebird of our soul rises liberated to new life.
The alchemical process of the “secret fire” takes place in silence and seclusion. None of this needs to be demonstrated outwardly or told to others. But wise helpers and counsellors stand by us. According to the science of alchemy, the fire supplied must be tempered in the right way to stimulate the activity of the inner fire. Incompatible opposites must be destroyed so that a reunion can take place on a higher plane.
In his songs, the Sufi poet Jelaleddin Rumi sings of the mystical rapture of a complete transformation of his being:
And the result is only the three words:
I burned, I burned, I burned…
All reservations of the mind intent on self-preservation must be silent here.
Such a degree of unconditional devotion may seem rather strange to people today. But precisely therein lies the mystery of our fire sacrifice: it happens in gratitude, love and heartfelt joy.
