Today, I took a day off work and had the chance to eat a proper meal with part of my family. Fish was being served. During a discussion that arose during lunch time, a point was raised about fish. And how cats didn’t need the fish to be cooked in order to eat it. I know it doesn’t sound like a profound question for meditation. But, then, I started thinking… and thinking…
A question appeared following this daytime reflection. Why did we need to cook our food to eat it? Cats and other creatures didn’t complain of eating raw meat and all that, did they? There are, of course, plenty of good reasons against eating raw food, especially meat or certain seafood. Apart from protecting us against potential illnesses or diseases which may result from eating raw food, I don’t think we can’t eat really consume raw food - even if I don’t recommend. it!
Yet, a difference we have in consuming certain food is that, with the exception of fruit and vegetables (for example), someone discovered that cooked food tasted better. However, what was the discovery that, I dare say, would revolutionise our entire species? It was, indeed, the discovery of fire. Or, to be more accurate, the ability to use fire in a way that favoured our survival. It made it possible, thanks to fire, not just to eat delicious barbecues, but it enabled us to keep warm during the winter months.
Fire also protected us against potential predators and was the central focus of our early societies. Even the word “focus” has a relation to the Romantic root as you find that the Italian word for fire is “fuoco”. So, apart from being a source of warmth and safety, a place around a fire gave our ancestors a sense of community, a sense of identity and a sense of belonging. No wonder, perhaps, it has gained a deep spiritual significance.
There are, of course, an exhaustive references made to fire in Christianity and Judaism. Fire is the symbol of purification, of pure being. It is central to a God who manifest the nature of God in the tautological assertion “I am what I am!” To Moses through a burning bush that didn’t burn or its symbolic representation of the Holy Spirit. Its light is the central reference in single-pointed Buddhist meditation practice.
Sadly, we have also put fire to a bad use as well. The flame-thrower in recent history. The many Europeans burned at the stake by fellow Europeans. The many cities and cultures destroyed and ravished by their enemies indiscriminately burning down buildings to impose their superiority. These, and many tragedies that human beings have inflicted on other human beings. For what? Then we’re ready to judge nature when a forest burns and people are killed. But then, did we forget.
It’s not fire itself that is the problem. Rather, it may be the phenomenon that has made our life possible. Fire and heat still generates our life. It provides enough energy to boil the water for our power stations. It’s fascinating that fire can do so much. Perhaps it has been indirectly responsible in the changes that have happened in our brain and, even more speculatively, may be indeed the light that sparked our self-awareness! Yes, the relation between human beings and fire is complex indeed and it would be unrealistic for me to cover this vast subject here.
But what is fire? It may be a bunch of over-excited atoms giving off energy in the form of heat. Indeed, it may be real and measurable. But now it’s there an then is no more. In this it reflects our beings. Constantly changing depending on various causes and conditions. It does, in a sense, die. And yet, when it’s gone it’s as if it has never been there. It might leave a trace. But it’s not there. It’s present because we can see it or feel it. But it’s also not really there if we didn’t sense it.
And, this brings me to an end of sorts. For we know of fire because we might have directly experienced its potential to comfort us or its potential to destroy through our senses. But, how do we know, that our senses can account for a universe we hardly understand? What, indeed, is out there that we might not even have the faculties to relate to?
Can we persist in claiming we have found all the answers, when we might have not understand the mystery contained in a burning flame?
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