New Delhi, Jan 3 (Inditop.com) Fire-walking is drawing thousands of stressed corporate employees, students and householders as a way to beat meltdown and lifestyle blues. The latest urban stress reliever involves walking barefoot over a bed of hot embers or stones and is used as a modern motivational tool.
Usually, a combination of pine, ash and coal is burnt and crushed to a smooth red hot path of embers. The lane is 15-20 feet long and 2-3 feet wide. The temperature initially soars to over 650 degrees Celsius but is then brought down to 425 degrees before anyone is allowed to walk on it.
“The modern concept of fire-walking is based on the principle that the perception of life and that of the world changes through the act of conquering and confronting your fear. Walking on fire eases stress and inspires self-confidence,” P.S. Rathode, a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) trainer and a leading fire-walk therapist, told Inditop.
Fire-walking is an ancient therapy known to have been practised by the early Orthodox Christians in Greece during the festival of Saint Constantine and St Helen.
History also cites evidence of Hindu seers of the later Vedic age, Buddhists and Muslim fakirs walking on fire – a rite which is still in vogue today across Asia and old settlements of Europe, the therapist said.
The act of fire-walking, said Rathode, involved “two basic mental exercises”.
“First, concentrate on your inner power and then take the decision to accept the challenge. One must walk on the burning fire barefoot without a break. However, motivation from a trainer helps,” he said.
The fire-walking therapist, who has a degree in hypnosis from the California Hypnosis Institute, has trained under motivation masters Richard Bandler and John Grinder of US.
Rathode has conducted several training programmes for Delhi Police, Indian Air Force, Ministry of Finance and private firms. He will conduct a day-long seminar here in February.
The trainer said fire-walking is part of traditional Indian alternative medicine. “Fire worship and fire-walking have nourished the human spirit since the beginning of civilisation. Many tribal groups in the country have rituals involving the sacred fire,” he said.
Fire-walking finds mention in the Indian epic Ramayana, where Sita, the wife of King Rama was made to walk over fire to prove her faithfulness.
“Today, fire-walking has evolved into a powerful tool for self-realisation and empowerment,” Rathode said.
Statistics furnished by alternative therapist Tolly Burkan, the founder of the Global Firewalking Movement, claim that over two million people in the West have tried walking over fire “as a motivational aid” over the past decade.
Tamil Nadu in southern India is home to an annual fire-walking festival every March, known as “Pookkuli Tiruvizha”.
It is celebrated in Natham, a small town in Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu. Devotees walk over beds of burning charcoal. Before that, they observe abstinence for 15 days as a purification rite.
“People with low confidence can be treated with fire-walking. Most of us spend our lives never really facing the things we fear. We go about circumventing these fears and thinking we have conquered them. We merely push them away. Out of sight is out of mind. What if we could really conquer them? Take those fears, make them your own and control them. That’s what fire-walking is all about,” Rathode said.
