A fire puja in the Vajrayāna tradition begins with a carefully prepared altar, arranged much like setting a stage before the main act. First comes purification: fragrant incense, holy water, and the seven- or eight-limb offering—lamp, water for drinking and washing, flowers, incense, perfume, food, music and, on occasion, lighted candles. A small metal or clay fire receptacle is placed at the center, filled with ghee-soaked charcoal.

Next is the mandala offering. With bright, colorful grains or rice, an imaginary palace of jewels and deities is constructed, reciting the traditional mandala-offering verse. This symbolic foundation invites the enlightened beings to join the ceremony. Then, calling upon the fire deity—often Agni in Hindu forms, or specific Buddhist dharma protectors—mantras are chanted in a steady rhythm. Each handful of ghee or grain is offered into the flames, visualized as transforming into nectar that nourishes all sentient beings.

Ganachakra, the tantric feast, follows a similar blueprint but shifts the focus to communal celebration. It’s like gathering to break bread at a friend’s table, yet every gesture carries sacred weight. A low table is laid with bowls of fruit, cooked grains, sweets, meat (where permitted), alcohol, and symbolic objects—mirrors or skull-cup replicas. Participants take their seats in a circle, each position reflecting an aspect of enlightened energy.

Mantras, such as the fifteen-deity Ganachakra dhāraṇī, are intoned. Offerings are made in four directions, four elements, and four joys, embodying the “four-limbed” ritual. As the feast culminates, blessed food (prasāda) is distributed. This transforms ordinary taste into a door to higher realization. Sharing this feast reinforces the sense of sangha unity, much like those recent community offerings in Kathmandu’s newly restored monasteries, where devotees and monks broke bread side by side after the quake-repair work.

Throughout both ceremonies, visualization remains key: seeing each flame as burning away obscurations, each morsel as the wisdom body of the Buddha. By and large, precision matters—each mudrā, mantra, and mudra-seal must fall into place like pieces of an intricate jigsaw. When performed with devotion and clarity, fire pujas and Ganachakra feasts become portals, lighting up the inner landscape in the truest sense.