Loving Ganesha: Chapter 12 (Section 2) - Ganesha Home Liturgy -- Ganapati Puja

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Namaste all,

 

Continuing the Loving Ganesha posts, more of chapter twelve from

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/books/lg/lg_ch-12.html

 

Om Shanti,

Neil

 

Instructions for Puja

In performing the puja, preparation is of utmost importance -- gathering

flowers, cleaning the altar and puja tray, making ready the oil lamps and

preparing the fruit and/or cooked food offering. It is common to chant the 108

or 1,008 holy names of our loving Ganesha or to softly sing devotional songs

while performing these tasks. This quiets the mind of the devotees and brings

their awareness close to Him. Indeed, all this preparation is an integral part

of worship.

Before beginning the puja, check the altar to make sure all necessary articles

are there -- for having to get a missing item later would disrupt the flow of

puja. Hold the attitude that, as pujari, you are a servant of the Gods, a

channel for the spiritual energies. Only thoughts of God are on your mind as

you perform puja, thus allowing the outpouring of Divine blessings.

All items are arranged the same way for each puja so they can be reached

automatically when needed, with those most frequently used closest to hand.

Tradition provides a caution: you should never perform puja during or shortly

after experiencing anger, deep emotional upset or crying, but it would be all

right to attend. Puja is a yoga, or link, between this and inner worlds.

Therefore, you must be at your best in mood and emotion to assist in making

this connection. Before performing puja you should be freshly dressed, clean

and undistracted by daily concerns. Having bathed beforehand, enter the shrine

room and prostrate, this being the only time you prostrate until the conclusion

of the puja.

The form of prostration differs for men and women. Men perform "eight-limbed

obeisance," ashtanga pranama, a fully prone pose in which hands, chest,

forehead, knees and feet touch the ground. Women perform "five-limbed

obeisance," panchanga pranama, a kneeling pose in which hands, head and legs

touch the ground (with ankles crossed, right over the left). Another term for

prostration is pranipata, "falling down in obeisance."

When everything is ready, take your seat in a cross-legged posture (never

kneeling) in front of and to the left of the altar (or on the Deity's right),

facing the Deity but turned slightly to the right. Close your eyes, sit quietly

for a moment and tune your nerve system to God Ganesha and the sacred puja you

are about to perform. If others are attending your puja, be careful not to sit

directly in front of the Deity, thereby blocking their view of the altar.

Generally one remains seated throughout the ritual, though in some shrines it

may be more comfortable to stand during the arati or throughout the puja. When

small children are in the home, the shrine room is locked so they do not

disturb the contents. If a lockable room is not available, the altar is raised

so as to be out of reach, and the puja is performed standing up. Those

attending will usually sit during most of the ceremony, then stand during the

main arati. However, this again may be left to individual discretion in

consideration of the height of the shrine.

During the ritual, you will be making many offerings to the God. All offerings

are made with the right hand, never the left, though there are occasions when

both hands are used and the left hand is held under the right hand, as if

supporting it. When done correctly, this makes a beautiful gesture of sincere

offering.

The offering of food is an important part of puja. Traditionally a simple dish

of cooked rice is prepared especially for the Deity, with cooking utensils

reserved for this purpose alone. If cooked food is not offered, then freshly

cut fruit may be substituted. Keep the offering covered until the point in the

puja when the pranas (life energies) of the food are offered to the Deity.

Keeping the food covered helps to preserve purity and contain the pranas, which

the Gods and devas can see and absorb and enjoy and reflect back into the auras

of devotees to cleanse them. After the puja, the food offerings -- along with

holy ash (vibhuti), sacred water (tirtha), sandalwood paste (chandana), red

powder (kunkuma) and flowers (pushpa) -- are passed out and enjoyed as prasada.

A recording of sacred chanting from the Vedas is played softly before the puja.

At the high point, as the arati is presented, loud drums and nagasvaras

resound. As the sacraments are passed out by the pujari, the divine ragas are

heard softly played on the vina as everyone enjoys quiet meditation,

internalizing their worship.

After the sacraments are passed out, ask everyone present to chant Aum three

times and then to sit quietly and internalize worship on God within them.

Externalized worship traditionally is followed by internalized worship in the

Siddhanta tradition. This is because all the pranas invoked during the puja

must be transferred into the devotees. This is accomplished by japa yoga, which

quiets the external mind and brings one into a state of meditation, awareness

aware of itself without distraction. This simple practice of mentally chanting

Aum many, many times followed by a period of meditation and self-reflection

alone makes devotees strong enough to face the external world with enhanced

willpower, true confidence and a heart filled with love, realizing that we are

truly one world, one family.

Visualize Ganesha sitting on the muladhara chakra, Murugan on the manipura and

Siva on the sahasrara chakra. This chakra bhakti makes worshipers strong and

prepares them inwardly to face with confidence the karmas of the day. Encourage

everyone to sit quietly for a while to enjoy the shakti of the sannidhya, the

ever-present feeling of the Divine, that the God, Gods, inner-plane gurus and

devas suffuse in the shrine room. For during the puja, you and all attending

had lost physical, emotional and intellectual consciousness, having been so

intently focused upon the God you were devotionally invoking. Now everyone

should be encouraged by you to turn awareness within to the true Self. While

holding within your mind the image of the God you have been worshiping, become

conscious of the God Consciousness of the energy of all your bodies, of the

movement of the breath, of the light that lights your thoughts, of the divine

energy that pervades the universe, and of the high-pitched "eee" sound that is

heard ringing in the head like a million temple bells. Intuit these five as

coming directly from God within. When you have experienced all these at at the

same time, you have attained the five-fold God consciousness.

Internalizing worship in this way gives you and all members of the family

strength to face the outside world, its daily challenges and, yes, school

tests. Internalizing worship is the core of the Sanatana Dharma. It is the

root, stem and blossom of the highest chakra, the 1,000-petalled lotus. It is

the force that gives the strength to resist temptation, to turn others from

their bad ways and to face up to and live through birth karmas, prarabdha

karmas, that are brought with you in this life. It gives the courage to resist

making new, especially unwanted, karmas to be faced at a later date. It gives

the willpower needed in this Kali Yuga to survive. It gives the love which

provokes the understanding to overlook and forgive, then forget. Finally,

internalized worship gives the peace of mind, the shanti, in which all saints,

sages, mahatmas and great seers dwell, in their jnana of how things work in

their universe of which we are a vital part.

The Ganesha Puja presented on pages 227-259 consists of several chants to be

intoned while performing the indicated actions and visualizations. Each chant

is given in three forms, first in devanagari script, second in transliterated

English, and third in a freely-rendered English translation. To the left of the

transliteration are brief procedural cues. Each translation is followed by more

detailed explanations.

There are few restrictions on the performance of the puja to Loving Ganesha.

There are more temples, roadside and home shrines to Him than to any other of

the 330 million Gods in the pantheon of Sanatana Dharma. He understands life as

it is. Fathers, mothers, children, grandparents, widows, divorcees and divorces

all may perform His worship in home shrines where no yantra has ceremoniously

been installed through the traditional balasthapana ceremony. He knows the

world and all its worldliness. He enjoys the worship of His devotees. Although

Himself a shakahari, that is, a vegetarian, He gladly accepts even the worship

of devotees who include meat, fish, fowl, eggs or bugs in their diet at home.

He is literate in every language of the world at any given time, but loves

those unknowing of languages no less than those who are multilingual. Even

though He is a virgin, He welcomes the worship of those who have enjoyed the

specious pleasures of promiscuity. He, our loving Ganesha, is the God of humans

and all sentient beings. But beware, He will guide them slowly in inscrutable

ways. The "druggies" will become drugless, the mansahari, meat eaters, will

become "veggies" and none will ever know what happened. He will prick their

conscience so that guilt comes up and lift their soul to heights sublime.

Therefore, even if you do not know Sanskrit, His favorite language among all

His other favorite languages, you may perform this worship to Him in English or

in any other language it would be easily translated into, and He will hear. Yes,

He will hear.

 

 

 

 

Loving Ganesha by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

 

Web sites: http://www.hindu.org/ & http://www.himalayanacademy.com/

email: contact (AT) hindu (DOT) org

Himalayan Academy Kauai's Hindu Monastery107 Kaholalele RoadKapaa, HI 96746-9304

 

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