Puja – Sacred Ceremony.
Puja has become a daily practice in our centres. While many people are experiencing the benefits from it, others are at a loss to understand it and may feel somewhat frustrated being present at rituals which they do not fully understand.
A significant amount of guidance has come in recently about the way in which fire and water pujas assist us as human beings to fully realize ourselves and expand our consciousness. Various discourses have been given, and if you click here you will be taken to a recent Sunday discourse given during satsang, whereby much was explained and revealed.
Imagine that in order to create worlds, universes and human spirits, the Divine disengaged a portion of itself and ‘hid’ it behind a veil or thick skin which we refer to as Maya. This is the substance that fills the astral field if we want to think about it in terms of our V diagram. It is what creates and fills the bottom of the hour glass to use that analogy, wherein resides our ego. The rest of creation in all its infinite glory appears to exist as separate to it, and we experience as a result the delusion called duality.
Spiritual practices like prayer and meditation, healing and so on are working from inside the delusion of Maya, seeking assistance and contact with what lies on the other side of the wall we know of as Maya. We make definite progress in this way. It is like building a bridge. We are working on building that part of the bridge on the side of the river closest to us.
The secret to understand Puja is that it is calling the Divine in a big way to work from the other side of the Cosmic river, building the structure of the Holy Bridge or Antakarana, towards us.
I have noticed that people who attend puja regularly or who help with the pujari program (people who set up, run and clean up after puja) are making significant spiritual gain, transforming rapidly and exquisitely, often breaking through things that they have been working on for years, with a lot of ease. It is not them that created the transformation. They have not had to work on it. They just do puja, and the Divine works on it for them.
When we do puja such as abhishekam and fire puja, the Divine is working towards us from the other side of the river of creation. Sometimes we do not feel anything, as our consciousness is not able to stretch beyond Maya or to register the subtle stimulus of very refined energy that is bombarding our beings.
We run fire pujas on the full and new moon and abhishekam (water ceremony) to celebrate Lord Shiva once a month. During summer, fire pujas will be held at 6.30pm at the Martinsville Road Retreat Centre. It is hoped that people will be able to drop in after work and be in the energy, enjoy the chanting and have the blessed food and water at the end. It is ok to arrive late, leave early, and just come for 5 minutes if that is all the time you have. The energy is sublime and we would like as many people as possible to take advantage of the tremendous opportunity and priceless spiritual energy that is gifted to everyone in attendance on the day.
It is also possible to sponsor the pujas and in so doing the puja is dedicated to the purpose of your choosing. This might be caring for family, healing a difficult situation, overcoming obstacles, relationship healing, receiving guidance, protection of children, or any number of practical applications. The spiritual energy pours itself into your intention and is a potent way of creating new circumstances in your life.
You are also encouraged to bring flowers from your garden. By offering these things in the pujas they also get blessed, and so this brings blessings to the nature sprites and devas of our natural surroundings. In this way, we have a simple, easy and effective way of supporting, blessing and energetically helping to take care of nature.
There are many rungs on the ladder of spiritual evolution and puja is providing me and others involved with new focus, insight and revelation as well as transformation. We invite you to join in. All are welcome to these beautiful events, any day of the week. The current puja schedule can be found here.
Blessings and love
Shakti Durga
