Fire was of great importance in ancient Hindu culture,
so it’s not surprising that Sanskrit provides many words for fire in addition to the common term, agni.
Some words for fire are highly descriptive,
like dahana, burning, jvalana, shining, and saptarchi, having seven tongues.
Other words are based on fire’s many roles,
roles like pavaka, purifier, jatavedas, the sacrifical fire,
hutashana, consumer of sacrificial offerings, and vahni, that which conveys blessings.
In addition to these, an important symbolic meaning is expressed in the very first words of the Rig Veda,
om agnim ile purohitam,
I worship fire, agni, as the purohitam, as the priest or mediator
who consumes sacrificial offerings with its flaming mouths and conveys them to the heavens,
to the deities being worshipped.
In the Bhagavad Gita, fire is given other important symbolic meanings.
The Gita famously refers to fire as jnanagi, the fire of knowledge,
the blazing spiritual wisdom that burns away or destroys ignorance of one’s true nature.
The Gita also refers to fire as kamagni, the fire of desire,
which represents one’s passionate craving for pleasurable experiences of all kinds.
In chapter three, Sri Krishna tells Arjuna,
aavritam jnanam etena jnanino nityavairina, kamarupena kaunteya dushpurenanalena ca
Knowledge of your true nature is hidden by desire, kama, the enemy of the wise, as insatiable as fire.
Here, the word used for fire is analam.
Alam means enough.
So analam means, that which never has enough, that which is never satisfied.
Analam is a perfect word to describe fire’s insatiable appetite for fuel.
No matter how much wood is thrown in, this fire will quickly consume it all and be eager for more.
Our desires are like that.
No matter how many cravings we satisfy, we’re always eager for more pleasure.
New desires arise as quickly as old ones are satisfied.
For example, after eating a splendid lunch at your favorite restaurant,
you’ll feel hungry again in just a few hours.
The same is true for all desires.
After satisfying a particular desire, your appetite for pleasure is only temporarily appeased.
Before long, you’ll want something else.
Such is the fire of desire.
A never-ending succession of desires dictates many of our daily activities
and molds our lives to a surprising extent.
Here, it’s important to distinguish such desires from others that lack the power to compel us.
Consider a little girl who goes to the kitchen at breakfast time,
looking forward to enjoying a bowl of her favorite cereal, Fruit Loops.
Inside the pantry, she finds many other boxes of cereal, but no Fruit Loops.
She cries because she couldn’t fulfill her desire.
But, suppose her mother also wants Fruit Loops for breakfast.
When she finds none in the pantry, she’ll simply chose another box of cereal.
She won’t feel upset, because her desire for Fruit Loops was completely different from her daughter’s.
She merely WANTED the Fruit Loops, whereas her daughter felt a NEED for them.
This difference between wanting and needing helps us distinguish simple preferences
from compelling desires.
When a preference goes unfulfilled, there’s no problem,
but when a compelling desire goes unfulfilled, it’s a different matter altogether.
We are driven to fulfill our desires.
In some sense, we’re like slaves to them.
So, how can we break free from being compelled by our desires?
Is there any way to satiate them all?
Suppose I try to satiate this fire’s appetite for fuel by throwing in a huge heap of wood.
As a result, the fire will grow larger,
engorged by all that fuel, and it’ll consume the wood even more ravenously than before.
This describes what happens when we overindulge our desires,
when we pamper ourselves to excess.
Overindulgence can turn luxuries into necessities.
For example, an occasional luxury, like a special coffee from Starbucks,
is a nice treat you might enjoy now and then.
But, if you indulge in this treat too frequently, it can become a necessity
that compels you to drive to Starbucks every single morning for that coffee.
So, what’s the solution to the problem of desire.
Since satiation won’t work, abstinence is sometimes suggested as a solution.
Unfortunately, abstinence doesn’t work either.
Consider a person who drives to Starbucks every single morning,
compelled by the desire for his favorite kind of coffee.
If he wants to overcome that desire and break free from its compulsion,
he might simply refrain from going to Starbucks the next morning,
but how will that affect him?
What will he be thinking about all day long?
Coffee!
He can abstain from drinking coffee, but that won’t remove his desire for it.
If no more wood is added to this fire, it won’t simply go out;
its burning embers will continue to smolder for a very long time.
In the same way, if you merely abstain from satisfying desires,
they won’t simply disappear.
They, too, will continue to smolder for a very long time.
And, long before the fire of desire finally dies out,
you’re likely to succumb to its insistent demands and kindle it again.
So, how CAN this burning fire of desire be extinguished once and for all?
The solution is found by going to the root of the problem.
The root cause for desire, as taught by Vedanta, is ignorance, specifically, ignorance of your true nature.
If you truly knew your divine inner self to be innately full and complete,
then, you’d always feel content, and compulsive desires wouldn’t bother you any more.
But, failing to recognize your innate fullness, you’ll naturally feel like something is missing;
you’ll feel insufficient, incomplete, inadequate.
And as a result, you’ll desire anything that can help you feel better.
In this way, desires arise because your divine nature is covered by a veil of ignorance
that prevents you from recognizing it as the true source of happiness, contentment and peace.
To remove that veil of ignorance, knowledge is required,
knowledge of your true nature,
knowledge that can burn away the veil of ignorance and reveal the vast fullness within.
That very knowledge can be gained through the teachings of Vedanta.
In chapter 4 of the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna refers to this knowledge as jnanagni,
the fire of knowledge;
yathaindhansi samiddho ‘gnir bhasmasat kurute ‘rjuna, jnanagnih sarvakarmani basmasat kurute tatha,
O Arjuna, like blazing fire reduces wood to ash, so too, the fire of knowledge destroys all actions,
specifically, actions that are compelled by our desires.
The fire of knowledge, kindled by the teachings of Vedanta,
can eliminate the fire of desire
by burning away the ignorance that causes desires to flare up in the first place.
When the ignorance covering your true divine nature is removed,
you’ll recognize your innate fullness and you'll feel perfectly content.
You will have broken free from being compelled by desires.
So, Vedanta fights fire with fire in a manner of speaking;
the fire of desire, kamagni, is reduced to ashes in the fire of knowledge, jnanagni.
That’s truly wonderful, but jnanagni can often be difficult to kindle,
and until it blazes brightly, the problem of desire will continue.
Have you ever tried to start a fire in a pile of wet wood?
Dry wood catches fire fairly easily;
but if wood is wet, you can strike match after match to light the wood, and yet fail to kindle a fire.
We are all a bit like this pile of wet wood, especially at the beginning of our spiritual journeys.
Wet wood isn’t ready to burn, and we might not be ready for the teachings of Vedanta.
Even though you listen to Vedantic teachings again and again,
jnanagni will not be kindled unless you are fully prepared
by undergoing the preliminary training needed to grasp the essence of those teachings.
A mature, prepared student is like dry wood, and jnanagni is easily kindled.
But most of us begin our studies lacking the full measure of spiritual maturity needed,
and that prevents the fire of knowledge from being ignited.
Fortunately, the teachings of Vedanta themselves
help us gain the necessary spiritual maturity and preparation.
Let me explain.
If you try to light wet wood, it won’t catch fire,
but each match helps dry out the wood a little bit.
By lighting many matches, the wood gradually gets dried out and will eventually go up in flames.
In the same way, repeated listening to the teachings of Vedanta
helps you gain the necessary degree of spiritual maturity, slowly but surely.
And when you are sufficiently prepared, jnanagni will blaze forth, effortlessly,
destroying ignorance and revealing your true nature.
Fire symbolizes spiritual knowledge in several ways.
For example, these robes traditionally worn by sannyasis, ordained monks,
are dyed orange, the color of fire.
Sannyasis cover themselves, so to speak, with the fire of knowledge.
And, those who burn with the fire of knowledge can ignite others, like using one candle to light another.
Just like this flame can be passed from one lamp to the next,
the fire of knowledge has been passed on from teacher to student for many, many generations.
Each pair of lamps represents teacher and student, guru and shishya,
and the entire line of lamps represents our parampara, our lineage of teachers.
Seeing this, you’re likely to ask, how did the first lamp get lit?
How did jnanagni get kindled in the first place?
As you may know, the teachings of Vedanta began with the rishis,
the sages of ancient India, who were uniquely blessed with the ability to gain this knowledge independently,
without being taught.
They were the first to discover these truths.
Three hundred years ago, no one taught Sir Isaac Newton
about the principles of motion and gravity.
He discovered those principles on his own,
and he passed his knowledge on to later generations of scientists.
In the same way, the truths first discovered by the rishis were passed down through the ages.
The last of these lamps represents those gurus who are alive today.
And the next lamp to be lit could represent you,
eager for the fire of knowledge to be ignited.
For students who are relatively mature,
just a little spark or flame may be all that’s needed to ignite the fire of knowledge within.
But for students who lack the complete degree of preparation needed,
there’s a special benefit in studying Vedanta
under the guidance of a great teacher who burns especially brightly.
Wet wood dries out quickly if it’s stacked up right next to a blazing fire.
In the same way, students who associate with a wise, skillful, caring guru,
will quickly be prepared for jnanagni to burst forth in flaming glory.