Sadhguru: Today, we are able to eat so many varieties of food essentially because of our ability to control fire. If there was no fire, there would be no cooking. We can eat almost anything in the world today because we can soften it up with fire and consume it. The moment we could control fire, it has brought various aspects into our life.
Because of this, fire worship has been a part of every culture and every tradition across the world. In some cultures, it has reached a very high level of sophistication, and in others it is just worshiped as a powerful symbol. Many temples were built for fire. A few years ago, I was in Azerbaijan where there is one such fire temple.
Azerbaijan is a land rich in petroleum and natural gas. In fact, Azerbaijan means “Land of Fire.” There are places where natural gas is seeping out of the land on its own and is on fire. These fires have been burning for thousands of years and a Hindu fire temple was built around this burning fire of natural gas. It has been rebuilt many times, but the original one is estimated to be about 8500 years old.
Azerbaijan had a large percentage of Hindu population at that time. Afghanistan, Pakistan and present-day India together were generally referred to as Hindustan. So people traveled from these regions and came to the fire temple to live around it, and also to die. When I say “to die,” it is not their wish to die, but everyone dies whether you wish to or not. This is something a lot of people have forgotten; they think it is only other people that die.
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