My husband and I learnt how to do Homam in Mantra Siddhi Course. We both love doing Homam. Fire has something magical about it and when it is invoked with mantras, it is all the more beautiful and peaceful. Our love for Homam eventually took us into the journey of doing Homam in the homes of other people on their request. We have been doing Homam since 2018 in other people’s homes and every Homam taught us something new and enriched our lives. After COVID times, we stopped doing physical Homam. After a long time, recently we did a physical Homam on the occasion of 80th birthday of a person.

Homam is organized by a family member of this person. 80-year-old person is her tauji(will keep his name as tauji in the blog for the ease of writing). She wanted to do something spiritual for him. Her friend, who got Homam done from us 3 years back, referred us. Our usual response for physical Homam is to say No as it will take us 2 hours in travel(we stay in a remote place in Hyderabad). I was almost about to WhatsApp that we cannot do but something stopped me and said – make time and go. And coincidentally, my husband and I dont have any plans or commitments on the weekend they asked for Homam. This is extremely rare as either of us will have some class or something going on weekend(we both are TEH teachers) and we cannot leave our home. Another coincidence, the day of tauji’s birthday is Ekadashi – an auspicious day. And Homam time also turned out to be an auspicious time. It has been raining for 5 to 6 days before this day in Hyderabad but on this day, there is no rain. There is no traffic and to our own surprise, we reached their home 15 minutes ahead of the schedule. Everything turned out extremely easy and well. I was amazed by all these coincidences and felt this Tauji must be an amazing person who is doing something good in his life.

We reached the home and home is quite big as this is a joint family with 26 people living in same home. Around 40 people attended the Homam. This included 4-month-old baby to 80-year-old man. My husband and I were little worried thinking how 40 people will stay silent during the Homam without checking mobiles. But to our amazement, everyone was quite disciplined and participated in the Homam wholeheartedly. Homam is successfully done and we got some time to spend with the family.

We were amazed by the hospitality they extended towards us. We are just ordinary people but because of their own virtues, they treated us with lots of love and respect. Family is very kind and generous. Tauji is the head of the family and he is quite friendly. He did not carry the air of being the head of the family. So, I took liberty and asked him – “We are living in times where 4 people are not able to live peacefully together. How is it possible for 26 people, spanning across different generations, to live in one home? Can you please share 3 principles that guided you in this journey as head of the family?”. He smiled and shared the below 3 principles.

1. Patience: He said ‘You don’t become an elder of the home because of your age. Your behaviour should reflect your elderliness. Being in a joint family needs patience. Patience is extremely important.’
2. Change with time: Times are changing and we need to change with time. He gave the example of how, on his 50^th birthday, he announced in his home that women in his family are free to wear the dresses they like. Personally, he likes women to wear sarees but he understands that times have changed and everyone has their dressing style and preferences. (On his birthday, all the women of his family have worn sarees though they prefer other dresses)
3. Do some dharm-karm: He said his entire family has 64 members (including daughters, sons-in-law etc) out of which 26 are living in Hyderabad in 1 home. He said that all of his family members are educated, well settled and no one is into drinking alcohol. He attributes this success of his family to doing dharm-karm. At this point, I was curious and asked him if he has any Guru. He said yes and gave the names of his Gurus. He said that all his family members took Deeksha from a Guru.One interesting point he mentioned is – every month, he calculates the amount of money that will be spent in drinking alcohol by male members of his family if they ever chose to become alcoholics and he donates this money to temples and ashrams. He believes this proactive donation is what keeps his family members, especially the younger generation, away from alcohol. (I can empathize with his no-alcohol rule as I have seen how families have suffered because of 1 person in the family drinking alcohol.) His family is heavy into donations and he, himself, is trustee of an ashram. He believes this dharm-karm keeps his family happy, healthy and prosperous.

These are the 3 principles he shared.

After hearing these 3 principles, we understood why everything was effortless for Homam on his birthday. Tauji is truly a great grihastha and divine has given us an opportunity to learn something from him and his wonderful family. His 3 principles are worth remembering and practicing in life.

Thank you, God, for giving us this opportunity to meditate on you through Homam. Thank you Ruchi Sanjil for teaching us how to do Homam. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sarve jana sukhino bhavanthu!

-Contributed by Geetanjali Balachander