How to Offer a Sattvic Lemon Sacrifice (Nimbu Bali)

Explaining how a sattvic Bali of a lemon is given after puja at home, the speaker says the first and most important thing is how the lemon is held. The part of the lemon that stays joined to the stem on the tree is never kept upward. When the bali is given, that part faces down, and the cut is made from the opposite side, the side that faces up. He says a bali lemon is never cut the way a lemon is cut for salad. Some people cut it sideways into two pieces from the side; he calls this a wrong method of giving bali, and says it is not to be done. For bali the lemon is always held standing upright, gripped from below, and cut straight down. He adds that the cut should be made in one swift stroke, with a full effort to get it through cleanly in a single go. That means the weapon used for the bali must itself be sharp.

The speaker says that when a lemon Bali is given at home in sattvic form to any form of Bhagavati, the chauk, that is the Mandala, is made first. RoliA red vermilion powder applied to ritual offerings such as the lemons in a sacrificial Bali, before they are circled with water and offered. and AshtagandhaA fragrant paste made of eight substances, applied as a tilak before vermilion (sindoor) in remedy and worship rites. are mixed and a triangle is drawn with them, pointing upward. The bali is then given inside that mandala. While drawing the triangle one may chant one's Ishta mantra, or a mantra connected with whichever deity the bali is being given to. Once the mandala is drawn, puja is done inside it with flowers and other offerings, and the deity is invoked into the mandala. He gives his own example for Kali: after drawing the mandala in a thali, he takes a flower and says to Bhagavati, "O Jagadamba, be seated here and accept this bali that I am offering in sattvic form." Saying this, he places the flower in the mandala, sets the lemon on it, and cuts it straight down. That, he says, is one method.

The speaker calls this the second method. If the lemon Bali is being given to Bhairava, the same triangle that forms the Mandala for the Devi is turned the other way: it becomes inverted, with its point downward. That, he says, is how the triangle must look for Bhairav. He adds that when the mandala is being made for Bhairav, it may also be drawn with SindoorVermilion powder, used here to draw the inverted triangle Mandala for a Bhairava offering, in place of the Roli-and-Ashtagandha triangle drawn for a Goddess.. So an inverted triangle is made, the lemon is placed in it in the same way as before, and the bali is given.

The speaker then takes up the question of when a lemon, once cut, is squeezed and when it is simply left as it is. He says that when the lemon is being offered only for the pleasure of Bhagavati, after ordinary mantra japa and the like, it is just cut and left. But if the Bali is being given for some wish, for instance when an enemy is causing you obstruction or pain and the lemon bali is being given at that time, then it is cut and squeezed. Likewise, if there is some illness, a fever or the like, and the bali is being given to be rid of it, the lemon is squeezed after cutting. And if the lemon bali is being given at the threshold, at the door of the house, at the main door, then too it is cut and squeezed.

Coming to the cut itself, the speaker says the weapon is worshipped first: RoliA red vermilion powder applied to ritual offerings such as the lemons in a sacrificial Bali, before they are circled with water and offered., KumkumVermilion powder offered to the Goddess and applied as a tilak. and so on are applied to the blade and its puja is done. Then, chanting the Ishta mantra, the lemon is cut. He says he will write the mantra to be recited while giving the Bali in the video description, and does not state it in the talk. Once the lemon is cut, roli is applied to both cut sides. Then water is taken round the lemon in a circle three times, and it is left. That, he says, is the whole method of giving a lemon bali. He closes by saying that in whatever sadhana one does, whenever a sattvic bali is given to one's deity, the mandala should be made in this way and the bali offered after it.