How to Do Mantra Japa on Holika Night for Siddhi

The speaker says that if one is going to make a Sabar Mantra siddha on Holika night, the first thing to keep in mind is this: it must not be a mantra one has never recited before that night. If it is, he says, there will be no special benefit. The sabar mantra should be committed to memory (kanthastha) and one should already have been doing its japa. He adds that a sabar mantra received from the mouth of a guru is already fully capable and siddha (sarvasamarth siddha); if such a mantra is given a fresh PurashcharanaA ritualistic repetition of a mantra to prescribed rules — required in Tantra Sadhana. on Holika night and awakened again, it becomes amogh — unfailing. But if someone has taken a mantra on their own from any medium — the internet, YouTube, Facebook or a book — for their own work, protection, progress or welfare, and wants to purify it, he says they must start at least four or five days before Holika, or at the latest from Ekadashi, doing one Mala of that mantra daily at a fixed time.

The speaker says the manner of japa should follow the subtle nature and form of the deity of the mantra — that is, who the deity is. If the deity is fierce, like Bhagwati Kali, keep red cloth. For Hanuman ji, red or yellow cloth. For Bhagwati Pitambara"The Yellow-Robed One" — an epithet of Bhagavati Baglamukhi., yellow cloth. For Bhairava ji, yellow or red cloth. The seat should be of wool (kambal) or Kusha Asana. The direction should always be east or north. One ordinary lamp must stay lit, unbroken, for as long as one does japa. A RudrakshaA sacred seed strung into rosaries and worn during shiva worship. mala, he says, is the best. He says one must remember Bhagwati Sabari — a form of Jagadamba Bhagwati Durga; that form from the time of Bhagwati ParvatiThe daughter of the mountain and consort of Shiva; the questioner to whom much of tantra is expounded. and Bhagwan Shiva's Kirateshwar avatar. Remembering one's Kuldevi and family deities and the deities of one's place, one then does at least one mala, one round, of the sabar mantra — 108 repetitions. The result, he says, is that in the three or four days in hand the mantra becomes memorised, and its japa is already under way before Holika.

The speaker says Agni Dev has a boon: whatever he touches becomes pure. For that reason, he says, when a Mala strung on thread is in the house and Sutak-patak falls on the household, and the sadhak later resumes his sadhana, there is a provision to touch the mala to fire in order to restore its purity and cleanliness. The method he gives: light a KapoorCamphor, burnt at the close of worship. flame, meditate on Agni Dev, and pass the mala across it with a light touch. By that touch alone, he says, the mala becomes pure.

The speaker says the first thing about Holika time is this: whenever one begins the Japa, midnight must fall inside the session. The Holika Dahan itself may be at 7 at night, at 9, at 12 or at 2, but the japa one sits down for must include midnight. Second, one must also do japa at the time the Holika Dahan is actually happening — whatever time has been fixed around one's home according to the local rule. He gives the example of a 9 o'clock dahan: sit from 8:30 and do japa until 9:30, so the dahan time falls entirely within it. If full arrangements for the dahan have been made in a temple courtyard or some good place, he says, sit in front of the Holika fire a little to the side, at some distance, where people cannot see you, and do japa of the sabar mantra for the whole duration of the dahan — with a 9 o'clock dahan, from 8:30 until 9:30 or 10, for as long as the Holika fire keeps burning. In that case, he says, there is no need to count how many malas were done — one, ten or a hundred. If one just keeps doing japa, the mantra's capacity increases enormously and it becomes amogh, unfailing, for that sadhak.

The speaker says the third and most important point is this: at the time of Holika Dahan, whatever grain or dish has been cooked at home for the evening and night meal must go into that fire. If the dahan time falls after one's japa, or before it, one should go beforehand to the place where the fire is about to be lit and offer the household's NaivedyaThe food offering (Bhog) presented to a deity during worship, accompanied by water offerings and dedicatory mantras. there. Household naivedya, he says, must certainly be offered to the Holika fire. The one who does the japa — the sadhak himself — should carry the food there with his own hands and present it. When he then sits and does japa at the time of the dahan, he says, the mantra becomes poshak: nourishing, and something that increases pushti. After describing the risks of shmashan-linked sabar mantras, he returns to this offering: if, at Holika time, one puts home-cooked food into the Holika fire, dedicates it, and then does japa of such a mantra, the Tiryak Prabhava — the oblique effect that japa of fierce mantras otherwise brings — will not fall on the sadhak. That means, he says, never any food-related distress, not so much loss of wealth, no loss of Shri, no poverty. The reason he gives is that one is satisfying a form of purifying (pavak) fire that is itself of a Narayani nature and increases Shri, and doing the mantra's japa in front of it.

The speaker names examples: the Shamshan Kali mantra, the many shmashan forms of Raksha Kali, and the Shmashan Chandika mantra — mantras people make siddha in fierceness (ugrata) to defeat an enemy. He says making such sabar mantras siddha brings illness (rugnata) into the body. It is said, he adds, that the body's Bhagwati Shri — the Shri TattvaThe principle of auspicious abundance and prosperity, invoked as the element a rite is meant to draw into the household. — suffers loss and harm. One must bear in mind, he says, that with Shamshan Kali and all the fierce, cremation-ground (masan) shaktis, if their sabar mantra is said without the correct vidhi-vidhan, something is definitely lacking. He explains why for a GrihasthaThe householder, who carries a family alongside practice — the audience these talks address.: when a householder awakens such mantras, the mahashaktis that take on the form or the element of alakshmi, and their Yogini, have their powers residing in that mantra — because a duhai is being invoked in it, something is being said to someone. Because of this, he says, loss of Shri very often happens, and this is true. Those who are doing these things practically will understand; for those to whom it is only a matter of listening, nothing can be said — they may say anything. But, he insists, it is true. He adds more examples: the Aghor Kali mantra, the Aghor Kali shmashan sabar mantra, the shmashan mantra. When all these shmashanik sabar mantras are made siddha, he says, many kinds of illness and the residence of alakshmi begin in the body, from which loss of wealth and similar follows.

The speaker says the next step comes when the Holika Dahan is finished: note the moment when the dahan is complete, the fire is still lightly burning, and it has not yet fully become ash — the last burning fire, in the state where it will go out when it goes out. At such a time, he says, one should be right there, watching it with one's own eyes. While the fire still remains, BhasmaSacred ash, used as a substitute for milk in a Shivling's abhishekam when milk isn't available. drawn out at that very time is applied to the forehead, the heart, both sides of the chest, the navel and similar places — over the whole body — while remembering God, or while doing japa of the very mantra one had been reciting. Done this way, he says, that mantra becomes established with full power in the sadhak's Sukshma Sharir, the subtle body.

The speaker says to note that divinity is present at the Holika only for as long as the fire is present there. Once the fire is finished, people come and cast their household Utara there — they just throw it in. Many people do this, he says, and it is to be thrown there; the listener too is to throw it. The divine fire purifies everyone, he says, but there are many totke that people perform at that spot after the fire has gone out. There are Vidveshana rites; someone brings something, does an utara and leaves; someone brings the alai-bala, the troubles, of their house and sets them down there. If the fire has quietened, the sadhak was not watching, and he then takes BhasmaSacred ash, used as a substitute for milk in a Shivling's abhishekam when milk isn't available. from that quietened fire — and someone has left something of theirs there — it will attach to his body and he will pay dearly. So, he says, this is not to be done. The ash is taken while the fire is still burning, in that very interval. He compares it to a Havan: at the end, a little is taken out from the agni corner of the fire and applied to the forehead and so on with HunkarThe roar uttered as a weapon, which in the Saptashati kills without a blow being struck. and similar mantras. Exactly the same, he says, is to be done with the Holika fire. But, he warns, if people have left, there is no one to stop anyone, someone comes and does something there, and one's own mantra mala was not yet complete when the fire went out — someone came and did an utara, some people even pour liquor, they do many kinds of kriya — then in such a situation one should not do this at all. If it is done with purity, he says, one certainly gains from it.