What is success? Blog 3

Lee & Frits Ringma: Working towards liberation one fire at a time

Imagine this.

Every year from 1988 to 2008, a couple from rural New South Wales would undertake a journey of over 40 hours to reach a small gaushala in Maheshwar, India.

From their land in New South Wales to Sydney Airport.A flight to Delhi with multiple international stops.A train to Indore or Bhopal.Then a bus to Maheshwar.

This was long before seamless connectivity and affordable domestic flights made travel easier. Coordination meant letters, landlines, and faith.

And they did this every single year.

For weeks at a time, they would travel from village to village in autos, eating in simple homes, sleeping wherever space was offered, teaching Indians a Vedic fire practice many had forgotten.

All while leaving two young children behind in Australia.

Back home, on their rural property Om Shree Dham, their lives revolved around the discipline of Homa. Five fires daily at precise sunrise and sunset timings. Work scheduled around those sacred windows. They kept cows, collected dung, shaped dung cakes by hand, dried them in the sun, and prepared the materials required for the practice.

Their children were raised vegetarian in a region that did not understand their way of life. Neighbours ostracised them. Other children were discouraged from playing with theirs because “cow dung” was used in their home.

And yet they stayed the course.

For over forty years.

Even today, at seventy-three plus, Frits still collects dung from their desi bulls every day, carefully and gently, ensuring even dung beetles are not harmed. He shapes the cakes by hand, dries them, and sends them at minimal cost to Agnihotra practitioners across Australia.

They practise Homa Therapy farming. They mentor seekers across the world. Frits is currently building a small centre largely with his own hands, alongside volunteers, so that people have a place to gather and practise together.

Their children’s names, unsurprisingly, are derived from Sanskrit words for fire.

When we speak of success, Lee and Frits Ringma from New South Wales offer an entirely different template.

Early in their married life, they met Shree Vasant Paranjape, the preceptor of Homa Therapy, who had been entrusted by his own Guru, Shree Gajanan Maharaj, with spreading the message of Agnihotra and allied Homas.

The premise is simple, though the discipline is exacting: through specific offerings of copper, cow dung, ghee, rice, and precise Sanskrit mantras at sunrise and sunset, the atmosphere is purified. When the atmosphere is purified, prana — life force — is elevated. When prana rises, the mind follows.

Whether one interprets this spiritually, ecologically, or symbolically, what is undeniable is the level of conviction required to dedicate an entire life to such a path.

Lee once told me that their Master had said their liberation would come through the Homas, and that everything else — the land, the chores, the work — exists only to support that practice.

“Bhajan ke liye sadhan hain ya sadhan ke liye bhajan?”Are our resources meant to support our spiritual practice?Or do we practise spirituality so that we may gain more resources?

When I told Lee that my husband Ompi and I were considering living on the land we purchased in India and exploring Homa and natural farming ourselves, she was overjoyed.

“But what else is the solution?” she asked gently. “How else do we help a planet suffering from so much greed?”

Her words did not feel dramatic. They felt steady.

If they could hold on to Vedic knowledge in the wine region of Australia for four decades — despite social isolation, simplicity, and misunderstanding — then surely it is possible anywhere.

They do not have a corporate empire.They do not have media visibility.They do not have a carefully curated public persona.

They have discipline.Consistency.And unwavering devotion.

And suddenly, the definition of success shifts.

Not accumulation.Not applause.But alignment.