Beginner Puja - Day 10 - Earth laughs in flowers !

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

The title of today's post is courtesy "Ralph Waldo Emerson" and special thanks to Jana.

Today, we are going to discuss purification of flowers. At the risk of

repetition, lets do a quick recap on purification. Remember, so far we

have purified our mouth and hands, asans, the 10 directions, water,

and with it all the offerings. Now we have a special step to purify

the flowers.

This requires knowledge of two mudras.

a) Prarthana Mudra and

b) Dhenu Mudra

Here is a description of each of the mudras - you can also check the

photos in the book to get an idea. A clearer set of pictures is

available here

http://www.shreemaa.org/article19.htm

with the meaning behind each mudra.

a) Prarthana Mudra.

Keep your pointer and middle fingers together; Keep your ring and

little finger together. Separate the middle and ring fingers to form

a "V'. Extend your thumb outwards.

Do the above step for both palms and touch the tips of the thumbs.

This is the position for Prarthana Mudra.

b) Dhenu Mudra.

Fold your middle finger over your pointer finger. Fold your ring

finger over you little finger. Separate the middle and ring finger.

Extend your thumb outwards.

Do the above step for both palms.

Then place your right thumb in front of the left thumb for the full length of the thumb.

Interweave both sets of fingers so the right pointer-middle finger

combo goes between the left pointer-middle finger combo and the left

ring-little finger combo. The right ring-little finger combo would be

the furthest away from your body.

I hope the description was clear. Please let me know of any questions.

OK, back to the puja.

We start with the lines

"Om Pushpa Pushpa ...Sambhave" - wave the Prarthana mudra over the

plate of flowers while chanting this line.

and then for the next line

"Puspa caya... Svaha" - wave the Dhenu mudra over the plate of flowers.

Now the flowers are purified and ready to be offered to the deities.

I asked Swamiji this question "In Beginner Shiva Puja, we offer a

flower starting from Ganesh to Brahmanebhyo namah , but after we

purify the flowers we offer them only to Chandi, Kali, etc, Shiva.

Can you explain why we do so? Why do we not offer to ALL the deities

after purifying the flowers? Thank you for your time. "

And Swamiji had this to say in response "Since everything is divine,

there is no end to the number of flowers that we should offer if we

want to honor divinity. This is a Beginner's puja. We must draw the

line someplace. This puja chooses the main deities of our worship

tradition."

That being said, the next steps in the puja , are then to offer

flowers to the Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon . And as

Swamiji said, we offer to the principal deities in our tradition.

We start with "Ete Gandhapushpe.... Chandikayai Namaha"

and end with "Ete Gandhapushpe...Maheshvaraya namaha"

Assignment for today: Try the mudras.

I look forward to your questions.

So lets stop here for today. Tomorrow, we will take it a notch higher

- we will start with another step of the puja - UNION.

Jai SHIVA!!!!!

Nanda

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[Guest guest]

Dear Nanda,

 

Two questions today:

 

The assignment was to try the mudras. The description and the pictures

are clear. The only problem is that my fingers won't follow orders. Am

I the only one to find this difficult (especially the separation of

the fingers in the prarthana mudra: ringfingers and little fingers

just won't stay together)? A matter of practice I guess, but at the

moment I only succeed with great difficulty or after some time. Can I

use the mudras even though I cannot do it properly yet?

 

When we offer the flowers, the mantras accompanying the first seven

offerings contain a bija. In the last three, there appears to be none.

Why is that?

 

with love,

from the not yet very wise woman to the bee gathering questions in

order to make the nectar of wisdom.

 

 

 

 

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