only in human life, in human birth. Fire of love
or fire of knowledge creates an unpleasant
sense of longing in the beginning. But, then
it moves on to the blossoming of bliss, the
blossoming of fullness.
Unfortunately, you have not understood this
principle. You do not even allow the fire to
come up in you. When you have fever, you
take Paracetamol and suppress it. You just
get rid of the symptoms of the problem.
You do not attend to the root cause. It is
not that you should not take medicines. You
should take it the natural way. You should
attend to the root cause of the problem
and eliminate the bacteria, rather than just
eliminate the symptoms or the fire in the
system. Naturopathy and Ayurveda deal
with this principle.
- Badabaagni – the fire of criticism. When
people criticize you, there is a fire, which
flares up in your system. When you speak
before a big crowd, you are uncomfortable
and nervous because you fear their opinions
and criticism. Badabaagni is the fire of social
criticism. It is said that man is a social animal
and lives in a society. He has to follow certain
rules and cannot live as he pleases. He cannot
feel that he can do whatever that he pleases,
because he is free. When you drive, you have
to follow the rules. You have to drive on the
correct side of the road. When you walk, you
have to do so in the proper place. You have
to stop where you should stop. You have to
follow certain rules and regulations; certain
code of conduct. This will give rise to certain
fears in you – the fear of criticism, the fear of
getting a ticket, the fear of being punished,
etc. Abiding by certain laws brings up certain
concerns for keeping to those laws. If you
are greatly concerned about criticism and
other people’s opinions about you, then
you are missing the boat.Certainly, the fear of criticism keeps you
within the limits of morality. But, if it goes
out of control or out of limit, the same fear
of criticism can shut down your freedom,
openness and centeredness. If the fire of
criticism is too much, you get tense and
worried for nothing. You should go through
the fear of criticism. It does not matter what
people say. Their opinions change. And you
know, in your consciousness, that you are
not doing any harm to anybody.These are the five fires in life – panchaagni.
When life moves through these five fires, it
emerges out as Gold.Tapa means being fried or baked. You
would have read about the Kumbhamela
in magazines. In this religious gathering,
somebody may be standing on one leg with
ashes all over his body and having a pot
of fire on his head. There have been such
misinterpretations of panchaagni.Patanjali had said that one who will go
through the five fires will be purified; would
have crossed to the other side. But, the
scriptures have been wrongly understood.People thought that one who passed through
the five actual fires would be purified. So,
they lit fires all around. They started fire-
walking and began to torture their bodies.
This is called rakshasa tapas.