Yagya

It just so happened that when I was up in Quebec at the Art of Living ashram there was a Yagya!
The Yagya is a traditional sacrificial (nothing dies) ceremony in Hinduism... I don't know a whole lot about it myself but I hear it's very rare and the last time it happened within the Art of Living was 7 years ago back in 2002. I'm not sure if it always goes like this, but this particular ceremony lasted two hours from 10:30 to 12:30, and these two priests(?) chanted quickly in Sanskrit for the whole entire time... I was in awe. I meditated nearly the whole time, but woke up here and there to snap a few shots. Best meditation ever. It was incredible... I've never heard anything like it in my life. The whole time they were chanting they started throwing different types of food (rice, daal, and other various goods) into this flaming hole in the floor. (I believe the hole is the actual Yagya, where the name of the ceremony comes from). Like I briefly mentioned above, when I said sacrificial ceremony, I just meant completely vegetarian food is being dumped into a fiery pit for the Gods. Again, nothing dies.

So it was definitely an experience. That's what happened during that particular ceremony, if you want to read more about the Yaga, check it out on Wikipedia: [link]
This was the first time I've ever attempted photojournalism, it's not usually my style, but I really like this one so I figured I'd upload it.

I honestly have no idea what's going on in this shot. At one point near the end, this guy was running through the crowd with a plate in his hands that had a flame on it, and everyone was reaching out their hands to touch it... I didn't try it myself, it didn't seem like that great of an idea to try to touch fire so I just took some pictures.