Reflections on tapas and puja.

[Guest guest]

When I was quite young I had the opportunity to ask an Indian saint

why he, and others, didn't teach westerners Raja Yoga, the path of

personal power. He replied, "Do you want to create a race of monsters?"

 

At the time, I felt the answer was a little unfair, perhaps even

chauvinistic, but as subsequent years have shown how the West has

handled the acquisition of atomic power, I can better see his point.

The Indian puranas are also full of the efforts of gods, heros

and demons to acquire great personal power-tejas,by means of

austerities-tapas, and the result is a mixed bag.

 

But India is also the home of another great experiment: the path of

invocation. In literally millions of shrines and temples, private and

public, God is daily invoked through puja. The pujari is not trying to

be powerful, he is trying to be an immaculately pure and open conduit

for the descent of God's Grace, Love, Power, and Wisdom to the human

race for the upliftment, purification, guidance, and spiritual

fulfillment of all. As such, India seems eternal, while nations based

on power-economic and military-have risin and fallen like mushrooms.

 

Swamiji can correct me on this of course, but I believe that a great

part of his mission and truly heroic efforts in the West, have been to

establish as many lightningrods of Divine Descent, as many pure,

rock-steady, practicing pujaris as possible, and to make them

self-replicating. In other words, to create a powerful culture and

tradition of Divine invocation and descent here in the U.S., similar

to India. And, given our increasing reliance on personal (super)power

to solve problems, his vision and efforts may indeed be the one thing

that keeps our nation from becoming just another mushroom in the sauce

of human history.

 

In the light of that consideration, Parvati's little puja class may

be more than merely another sadhana we learn in order to bring a some

peace into our personal life; it may be one of those little seeds the

Divine Mother occasionally plants, with the potiential to grow into

something truly transforming that can change human history.

 

Tanmaya