They placed some bricks in the inner courtyard, forming a square. On top of that, sand and wooden planks were arranged to build the fire. The brahmin, the Hindu priest from the village, arrived with his bag full of offerings for the Havan: fruits, ghee (Indian butter), curd (yogurt), rice, herbs, seeds, and dried fruits. He took his time to prepare everything, transforming the back patio of a hostel into a sanctuary.
Havan is a Hindu ceremony of purification and fire offerings to the gods while reciting the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of Hinduism. It is an auspicious ritual for prosperity, to attract positive energy, and to ward off the negative.
That was what was going to happen in my hostel-home that morning.
I had woken up early—6 AM—to write and go to my yoga class. As often happens, none of that went as planned.
Shweta told me they were going to perform a purification pooja, just as they always did with their family. I immediately canceled my class—there's nothing I love more than Indian ceremonies.
"How can I help?" I asked."If you’d like, you can take a bath," she replied.
A true purification—inside and out.
They placed some bricks in the inner courtyard, forming a square. On top of that, sand and wooden planks were arranged to build the fire.
The brahmin, the Hindu priest from the village, arrived with his bag full of offerings for the Havan: fruits, ghee (Indian butter), curd (homemade yogurt), rice, herbs, seeds, and dried fruits. He took his time to prepare everything, transforming the back patio of a hostel into a sanctuary.
The boys from the hostel kept bringing him everything he requested in Hindi—milk, water, grass, tree leaves, thread, metal plates for the ceremony, candles, Indian sweets, Indian rupee bills, and more offerings.
It reminded me of when we used to prepare shoes and food for the Three Wise Men.
We were all sitting on the floor.
Nithin was shaping Shiva’s expression out of clay with his own hands, creating a rounded figure.
Robin and Shweta were separating flower petals for the offerings and mixing a giant bowl of seeds and herbs to be offered. They invited me to join them.
The priest lit an oil lamp and several incense sticks, which began to fill the air with sacred smoke. There were only five of us, including me.
Shweta gestured for me to sit beside her.
When everything was ready, we all covered our heads with scarves as a sign of respect.
We sat around the fire along with all the offerings, the fruits, and the presence of Shiva, on a colorful rug that looked like it belonged in One Thousand and One Nights.
Indian abundance.
Suddenly, the back patio transformed into a true ceremony.
The priest began to recite the Vedas while instructing Nithin on everything he had to do—what elements to take and how to handle them. He was the one who would make the offerings.
Amid Sanskrit chants, Nithin started placing each offering into the metal plate that held the clay representation of Shiva he had crafted.
First, he poured the water. Then, he placed a seed inside Shiva, slowly covering it to the rhythm of the appropriate prayers, gently pouring a spoonful of curd and then the liquid ghee. One by one, we added flowers.
The priest gave each small instruction, and Nithin followed. There were golden spoons of all sizes and the most beautifully shaped metal pitchers. Every action was carried out with the right hand, the right elements, and in the right way—with seriousness, detail, and love.
He then asked each of us for our "good name"—as they say here—and our maternal surname. Then, he called us up one by one to tie the famous yellow and red threads around our wrists while reciting blessings and marking a red bindi on our foreheads.
At the most important moment of the ceremony, the priest began to recite the mantras while ringing the golden bell.
Shweta started pouring water from a metal pitcher into Nithin’s hand, which held a natural spoon made from tree leaves. The water flowed slowly from Shweta, through Nithin, and into the metal plate that contained Shiva’s clay form.
Very slowly, the earth began melting into the water and yogurt that dripped down, and almost like a film, the clay spread and blended with the liquid in a mesmerizing, fluid rhythm. It looked like a painting.
The elements merged into each other in a hypnotic dance of mantras while love began to fill the air.
Shweta passed us the flowers so that each of us could offer them at the moments the priest signaled. Every step of the ceremony was significant, and we all watched in anticipation.
When all the preparations were complete, the priest placed Shiva alongside the offerings and lit the fire. He also added many banknotes and the freshly bought Indian sweets beside it.
Sushmita watched from the doorway.
Sushmita means "smiling," and that is what defines her best. She is a Nepali girl who works at the hostel—the most religious one in the place, the one who fasts every Monday and makes offerings and poojas to Shiva daily.
"Aren’t you coming, Sushmita?"
"I have to work," she replied quietly, but I didn’t believe her.
I wanted her to sit with us for the pooja, for the magic to bless her too, with all her devotion—but I couldn’t make her. It wasn’t my ceremony.
At one moment, Shweta gestured for her to sit. It wasn’t visible, but I knew she was jumping with joy inside. I was jumping for her too.
The priest lit the fire. This was one of the most significant parts of the ceremony.
Each of us had a plate with a mixture of seeds, dried fruits, and herbs. As the priest chanted each phrase of the sacred scriptures in Sanskrit, we all responded "Swaha" and threw the seeds into the fire, using our thumb and middle finger, quickly grabbing more seeds for the next chant.
We continued like this until the priest completed the entire recitation. It became like a mantra, a meditative action.
The air filled with fragrances, the fire became covered with herbs, and we purified ourselves. I can’t explain the feeling, but I truly felt a purification. I watched as my mind filled with love and gratitude while shedding the gaze of my ego.
Love for my friends, love for what I was doing, love for my everyday life, gratitude for life itself—for being here, in this moment.
As the ritual progressed, purer emotions arose, as if layers of selfishness, personal worries, and "dust" were fading away.
I could feel more deeply, without the everyday miseries and the fears the world instills in us.
Suddenly, I felt deeply part of this family and this "home."
I felt a longing to be more love. Have you ever felt that?
I wondered how I could be more love with my friends, in my daily life—how I could give back all the gratitude I was feeling in this moment.
How to make my space for teaching yoga even more beautiful, with more devotion—to share what I know with more confidence and humility, to transmit it with my whole being so that others could also feel this magic I was experiencing now.
How to contribute, even just a grain of sand, to this place.
I spoke to myself in a different tone and saw myself in a new way—one that was kinder to myself. I saw myself as stronger and acknowledged all the things I had accomplished.
I said beautiful things to myself, I congratulated myself, I thanked myself, and I filled myself with love.
What could I possibly ask for in this special ceremony, sitting before a sacred fire with an Indian priest invoking Shiva?
I simply gave thanks for everything—because this moment had already given me everything: the ability to see the abundance of life that often goes unnoticed.
And I asked that guidance always be with me.
Shiva was the first god I encountered here in India, in a huge blue statue in Rishikesh, right above the Ganga. He had accompanied me at every step of my journey since I arrived in India a year ago. He had been there in the ghats of Varanasi as I sailed under the moonlight, on Mount Arunachala when I fell ill, and in countless moments along the way. I have always been eternally grateful for his protection in those first moments when I felt so vulnerable and defenseless.
Like for so many others, Shiva is one of my favorite Hindu gods.
Who wouldn’t love him?
From within that bubble of light where I found myself, I looked at my companions, and I loved them. Robin and Shweta and I had had some differences over the last few days. In that moment, all of it disappeared. The fire and the pooja united us, erased distances, and allowed us to see each other from within—by our essence, not by what we were doing in the “real world.”
At that moment, we were all one. The ceremony knew no classes, no regions, no countries. It was for the migrants, the Indians, the lower class, the upper class… We were all there.
I felt it as a victory for all classes. I felt the strength of each one of us, and I felt we were being called to give the best of ourselves.
I felt so many things during those three hours of the ceremony. A release. A deep peace.
I hadn’t realized how much my body needed this, how large my ego had grown lately, how focused I had been on "productivity" and tasks. The ceremony came as a reminder that the ego can—and must—be removed.
We almost never notice these things when we are trapped in our own heads. We need to step outside of them to see just how "immersed" we were in the movie. And as if it were obvious that we couldn’t see how much we needed to step out, India constantly offers excuses and rituals to remind us of this—to look at The Other, at what truly matters.
That always happens to me when I participate in a pooja. Maybe that’s why we all love them so much?
For a moment, we were all siblings, our hands the same in that fire that erased our differences.
I had forgotten the power of Indian magic. I remembered it instantly.
Love was flowing. Robin sat beside me, and I realized how much I missed my brother and how much I loved seeing him smile.
Material things didn’t matter—everything was abundance here.
We were pure love, vibrating in love, thinking in love. I felt the vibrations stronger than ever. I felt myself being purified.
"What does the word 'Swaha' mean?" I asked Shweta when the ceremony had ended.
"It means that we offer everything to the fire—all our energy, the good and the bad. We let it go, surrender it to the universe and the gods, and in doing so, we purify ourselves."
I understood it without even knowing it. That’s exactly how it felt.
We had said Swaha more than a hundred times, offering seeds, ghee, flowers, and everything that had no material form. So the work we had done had been, at the very least, deeply moving.
It was a ceremony, but also a meditation.
Swaha. Surrender. Offering yourself—to become ashes and be one with the whole once more.
"Are you happy, Robin?" I asked."All Hindus are happy when there is a pooja," he replied.
The priest blessed us with water and prayers. He dipped his fingers into an Indian sweet and placed it in our hands along with a bit of curd.
"Eat it," one of the men said.
So I did… challenging fate.
Then he handed me the tray so we could go around the hostel distributing the sweets as a blessing. They call it prasad.
That’s what we did. I dipped my hand into the plate of sweet paste, my fingers covered in pooja, and took a portion for each person, placing it in their right hand as part of the ritual. They received it with the corresponding hand.
It felt beautiful—like holding the divine power to give a blessing. Because that’s exactly what it was.
As I gave out the prasad, with my bindi and my scarf covering my head, I felt like Indian.
When the ceremony ended, I sat down to eat with everyone in the basement kitchen, perched on one of the wall ledges. There was an air of celebration and joy.
Rada, the cook, offered me Aloo Puri, the traditional meal after a pooja.
"Healthy food," she said, "without garlic or onion."
That wasn’t what the oily orange color suggested. I knew that a few hours later, this combination would wreak havoc on my stomach, but right now, it didn’t matter. It was about sharing—it was part of the ritual, part of the blessing.
I took several pieces of puri—something similar to fried bread—and potatoes floating in the vibrant-colored sauce.
"If an Argentine saw you, they wouldn’t recognize you," Sushmita told Madhu in Hindi so she could translate for me, as I ate with my bindi, my scarf, and my hands in the plate.
"You look like India," Madhu said.
We all laughed—genuinely, in the same language.
The ceremony ended. We returned to the normal world—to that of mortals, material things, and superficiality—but a part of us remained in the world of magic and fire.
The world of incense, of no borders, of expansive love, of vibrations, of surrender, of connection beyond words...
The magic of India.
"Happy, with good energy. All Indians feel happy and full of good energy after a pooja," she answered.
Not just Indians… I thought.
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