Vi­jay Ma­haraj

The Ma­hab­hara­ta (a Hin­du re­li­gious text) de­liv­ers a sig­nif­i­cant in­junc­tion when it records that the Lord has boun­ti­ful­ly pro­vid­ed all the items, ar­ti­cles and in­gre­di­ents in the nat­ur­al world. But peo­ple fail to make an ef­fort to wor­ship the Lord who has pro­vid­ed every­thing in cre­ation.

This edict re­in­forces the im­por­tance of pu­ja in the dai­ly life of every Hin­du. Pu­ja is a wor­ship rit­u­al per­formed by the Hin­dus of­fer­ing de­vo­tion­al homage and prayers to one or more deities to spir­i­tu­al­ly cel­e­brate an event.

In San­skrit, pu­ja means rev­er­ence, ho­n­our, homage, ado­ra­tion and wor­ship. For the wor­ship­per, the Di­vine is vis­i­ble in the im­age and the Di­vin­i­ty sees the wor­ship­per. The in­ter­ac­tion be­tween hu­man and de­ity, be­tween hu­man and gu­ru is called DAR­SHAN.

Pu­ja could be quite sim­ple or very elab­o­rate, de­pend­ing on the type of pu­ja that is be­ing per­formed.

Af­ter the dai­ly obla­tions which in­clude in­vok­ing the sa­cred rivers in one’s bath and of­fer­ing jal (wa­ter) to Surya (sun) as the Di­vine light which sus­tains life, a per­son per­forms dai­ly pu­ja in the pu­ja room, tem­ple or some sa­cred spot.

There are three ma­jor types of pu­ja. Fixed ob­ser­vances like Di­vali, Shi­va Raa­tri, Nau Raa­tri and pu­ja are done for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose like suc­cess in ex­ams and oth­er suc­cess­es and fi­nal­ly for chil­dren or grand­chil­dren for the ful­fil­ment of cer­tain de­sires.

Pu­ja is the ac­knowl­edge­ment that the uni­verse is ruled and reg­u­lat­ed by a Di­vine force which lov­ing­ly at­tends to the needs, de­sires and prob­lems of the devo­tee. Hin­dus do not wor­ship ma­te­r­i­al ob­jects, but rather the Di­vine force that is in­voked in cer­tain ob­jects with sa­cred Vedic mantras.

In fact, Hin­dus per­form pu­ja with or with­out ob­jects. The non-at­tach­ment to the ma­te­r­i­al form is ev­i­denced when Hin­dus im­merse and dis­solve the Ganesh im­age in wa­ter sources at the cul­mi­na­tion of spe­cial wor­ship to Lord Ganesh, the ele­phant-head­ed im­age.

In Hin­duism, there is al­so the recog­ni­tion that for every dif­fi­cul­ty, chal­lenge and ad­ver­si­ty that a per­son faces in life, there is an an­ti­dote to ame­lio­rate or erad­i­cate these prob­lems. Pu­ja is the life­line that is thrown to the devo­tee who is af­flict­ed by prob­lems. Pu­ja has a mys­tic pow­er that is be­yond hu­man com­pre­hen­sion be­cause it em­anates from the Supreme source.

Pu­ja and mantra (sa­cred San­skrit sounds) are in­ex­tri­ca­bly bound be­cause the Lord is bound by this mantra and re­sponds to the plea of the devo­tee. Some in­di­vid­u­als query the ef­fi­cien­cy of pu­ja, but like every­thing else, the fruit or source of every en­deav­our is on­ly re­alised by those who are in­tense and sin­cere in their faith.

How­ev­er, re­gard­less of the de­gree of faith, every pu­ja brings re­wards if it is done in con­for­mi­ty with the dic­tates and de­c­la­ra­tions of the scrip­tures.

The pow­er of pu­ja is de­scribed in great de­tail in var­i­ous scrip­tur­al texts and com­bines the mys­ti­cal, philo­soph­i­cal and mytho­log­i­cal ap­proach­es to God. God is a great mys­tery and to re­alise God, pu­ja is a great con­duit.

Pu­ja al­so has a con­nec­tion with mur­ti (im­age) wor­ship which is er­ro­neous­ly de­scribed as idol wor­ship. On­ly an un­re­fined mind can con­ceive of the Hin­du as an idol wor­ship­per in pu­ja. Hin­dus do not wor­ship the ma­te­r­i­al ob­ject, but rather the Di­vine force that is in­voked in the mur­ti with sa­cred Vedic mantras. Pu­jas and mantras help us to achieve tran­quil­li­ty, calm­ness and pu­rifi­ca­tion. Mantras in pu­ja are like weapons—they hum­ble the ego. The Vedas speak of dif­fer­ent kinds of dis­ci­pli­nary in­sti­tu­tions. One such is pu­ja or wor­ship of the Lord in a spec­i­fied man­ner (Vid­hi.)

It is ig­no­rance to be­lieve that pu­ja is an or­di­nary rit­u­al. It is con­sid­ered to be the most dif­fi­cult of all dis­ci­plines be­cause it in­volves mandirs, ya­tras (pil­grim­age) and oth­er sci­ences of in­vok­ing the Di­vine pres­ence. Mil­lions of peo­ple in the world prac­tise var­i­ous forms of med­i­ta­tion, yet their lives are be­set with prob­lems be­cause they nev­er knew or did pu­ja.

Med­i­ta­tion can pu­ri­fy our minds and al­low us to have var­i­ous tran­scen­den­tal ex­pe­ri­ences, but the art of liv­ing in the world is more read­i­ly achieved through pu­ja.

Through the body, var­i­ous er­rors are com­mit­ted and these need pu­rifi­ca­tion. Even though a per­son may be­come el­e­vat­ed men­tal­ly, un­less the sens­es are pu­ri­fied, those very sens­es can dev­as­tate you.

The Bha­gavad Gi­ta de­clares: “Just like a barge on the sea is car­ried away by a tor­na­do, when the tor­na­do of the im­pure sense, con­trolled by the ego can toss all your med­i­ta­tion away.”

Pu­ja is an act of self­less­ness and com­mu­ni­ty-spirit­ed­ness. The obla­tions of­fered in the sa­cred fire even­tu­al­ly re­turn as rain, nour­ish the ce­les­tials and bring bless­ings to hu­man­i­ty in the form of spir­i­tu­al and ma­te­r­i­al pros­per­i­ty.

Vi­jay Ma­haraj

Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al (Ag)

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha