Idam na mama

Golden libation into the fire—idam na mama!
it’s not mine, I’m giving it over!

Circle with the Vedic pūjari spooning ghee into the fire’s mouth and you’ll hear it. Hang long enough with an ascetic and you might hear of it. The words are older than our mother tongues.

Idam na mama! More than renunciation, propitiation or denial , it’s oblation, the offering. You take it, dont partake of it and offer it up. Ignite the fires of awareness by which only essence of thought-feeling remains.

Into the fire and the offering burns ‘til it’s done. What cannot be further burned down is what’s taken up. Essence to essence. And the ashes? Fragrant bhasma—the incorruptible, medicinal mark of the purified tested by fire.

Take the flowers, offer the un-smelled blossoms. Consecrate the water, offer the un-drunk coolness. Harvest the fruit, offer the chosen. Fall in love, offer un-consummated desire. Hearken to nature, offer your anthem.

Oblation raised crown high as it manifests. All freely given over in celebration at its source. And the grace? It nourishes your altered state and heightened senses as prasadam—your offering now nectarised by way of love giving love to Love.

Idam na mama can mean “this is not for myself, I’m giving this over to That.” As I perceive, so I present. There’s no stick. More than a dis-identification with objects of the sense organs, it’s mastery of motor organs. When not expended on costly mis-adventures of non-essential self, then the power to be pools at source.

If one’s essential being is beholden and satiated at source, one cannot be addicted to power, ambushed and bedevilled when tested. And as one is received, so too is one filled. What need is there of power by possession if one serves as the instrument of its primeval expression?

One documented catalyst for self/god realisation is offering up ownership of the siddhi (miraculous powers), as and when they manifest in the wake of kundalini emergence. Idam na mama! For the adept, now savvy to seduction, diversion and subterfuge, this vow of self to source spells the end of that bedevilry in the “circus of monsters”.

When so many are understandably attracted to the lure of liberation at the threshold of kundalini or spiritual emergence, what measures are universally relevant? What are the predictable pitfalls? And for those tracking, what are the other documented catalysts?