power of sacred places that same power the sacred beings who

reside there possess. Here we return to those places sanctified by the

transmission of sacred knowledge to participate again in their power.
Established at the beginning of time by the presence of deity and
perfected men and women who, descending from the limitless expanse
that is their original home into the world of men, form a bridge to its
unconditioned and eternal power.
Sacred geography is as much human as it divine. It is more
than physical, social or cultural geography. It is the geography of the
land in which we live. It is not just space or places, it is our home.
Places locate us. They personalize the landscape, transforming it into
a familiar place where we are free of the fear of the unknown. It
becomes a place where we belong and which belongs to us, recovered
from the anonimous expanse or from those who had been there before
us. From as far back as man trod the earth conscious of himself and
his surroundings, he needed to know at least in which direction he
was travelling. First a nomad, the ancient Indian roamed the face of
the earth invoking the deities not of place, but of direction. Wherever
he went he would call them to offer them what he could and receive
from them sustenance, offspring, vigour, power, and all the good things
of the world in which he moved. He called his gods from their distant
homes in the sky, the wind, the fire, the waters, in the dawn, in the
rivers, in all the limitless and sacred landscape that enveloped him
and through which he moved with his kin and comrades. He carried
with him the sacred fire with which he cooked his food and that of
the gods, the fire which, wherever it was placed, became his home
and shelter. In this fire he made his offerings, the same fire with which
he cooked his food and was, in his ever changing world, the centre
where he found nourishment and life-sustaining warmth.
Then, with the passage of time, his life became more sedentary
and he delighted in a land in which he lived where the rivers and the
clouds where like fat milch cows, flowing with nourishing milk.10
10 I do not wish to enter into the controversy concerning the original home of
the so-called Indo-europeans. There can be no doubt that the Vedas