Stotra chanting

[Guest guest]

For those that don't feel attracted to stotra chanting as a personal

sadhana because you think it's only reading a prayer, compared to

making offerings, you can offer a flower or pinch of rice onto the

photo or yantra after each verse (couplet) of a stotra chanting

"Swaahaa!" before going onto the next verse. This is just like

offering a drop of ghee into the fire if you have a homa kunda.

 

Here's two sites where you can get homam materials:

http://www.indousplaza.com sells copper kundas and large-shoe-box

size bundles of wood and other puja stuff. They're based out of NY I

think. For spoons you can go to the dollar store and get wooden

kitchen spoons or use copper ones.

 

http://www.agnihotra.org Based out of Virginia. Sells copper

kundas (one-size only), dried cow dung and other copper utensils for

use in performing simple homas.

 

Homas can be vedic (formal, involves installing the breath like a

puja) or as simple as offering drops of ghee into the fire after

chanting prayers as described above. Traditionally, I think 1/10th

of all your personal mantra chanting was supposed to be "burnt

offerings", meaning that you chant your mantra then "Swaahaa!" as you

offer a drop of ghee into the fire.

 

I had noticed a temple in NY had offered a workshop on doing simple

homas (to Ganesh, etc), so those that are interested can contact

http://www.srividya.org Bear in mind that Sri Vidya initiates

(tradition) can come across elitist like Vaishnavas sometimes do.

That website also has a recording of the 1000 Names stotra, however

it's chanted very fast and it's a 12mb download.

 

tom