Dear kishoris,
I thought I would get the ball rolling on this discussion post. The first topic is Nitya Puja. I know this may seem mundane, but being away from a kishoris mandal and our immediate inspiration we find that our puja is a 5 minute license to eat in the mornings! Lets see if we can all come up with the importance of doing nitya puja, its history, how bapa does it, what kind of things we can do to improve our concentration during puja, mansi puja, any extra shlokas you feel we should say, any extra malas you do etc
Please feel free to add in your opinions and thoughts and remember it doesnt have to be very long.
Jai swaminarayan
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Jai Swaminarayan,
ReplyDeleteGood topic Pratiskha. I agree that often doing Puja does just become a license for us to eat!I think one of the reasons for that is we actually lose sight of the 'Mahima' of Nitya Puja.One of the reasons why Bapa really urges us to do it regularly is so that we can have our own 'personal meeting' in a day with God,and feel closer to him. Personally I've experienced that, when I fail to do my Puja or even rush through it, I'm never entirely satisfied with my day.
A big challenge for many of us during the Puja is concentration.I feel that a way to overcome this is to improve how we do Mansi Puja and train our minds to focus on God not only during the Puja but through the day in general.
Here is an extract of from the Vachanamrut,Gadhada Section III No.23, in which Shriji Maharaj as emphasised the importance of Mansi Puja.He has also described the details of how Mansi Puja should be performed. I hope this will motivate and inspire us to improve not only our Nitya Puja but also to develop greater affection for Shriji Maharaj and Swami.
"A devotee who so performs puja becomes more attached to the Lord and his soul becomes enlightened. In such a manner one should offer the Lord maansi puja everyday."
"During the day, five maansi pujas can be offered. Just as one wakes up and after bathing and personal puja, one has breakfast, one should offer the same to the Lord. The second maansi is at lunch time, the third at tea time, the fourth at dinner in the evening and the final at night when one goes to bed. The offerings of food should be visualized in detail, using the senses of sight, smell, touch and taste. Again the food items should be those that are one's favourite and in maansi there is no limit as to the quantity of each item offered. For instance if one relishes the sweet item jalebi, instead of putting a few in a dish, why not imagine them in a large silver plate, one layer over another of different colours, upto a foot high, just like one in a sweet mart! One could even offer a whole annakut in every maansi if one could visualise it! There is no end to the bhava of one's devotion. In the final maansi of the day, at bedtime one imagines that the Lord has adorned light and comfortable clothing, different from that worn during the day. Obviously this depends on where one lives. If one lives on a higher altitude or in temperate zones, where it tends to get chilly at night, then one obviously imagines the Lord adorned with warm woollen clothing. If we ourselves usually drink milk, water, etc. before going to bed, then one proffers the same to the Lord. One can then also imagine the bed frame to be made of sandalwood, so that all night the sweet fragrance pervades the mattress, quilt and pillows. The mattress can also be of air or water or just plain cotton. If the geographical region has mosquitoes then one can also imagine a large spacious mosquito net enclosing the whole bed. One then steps back and has darshan of the sleeping Lord.
Finally one offers prostrations and prayers to the Lord, to forgive any mistakes incurred in the acts of devotion during the day and to bless and inspire one to offer more betterment in love and devotion towards the Lord.
Lord Swaminarayan adds an extra dimension to maansi puja by teaching that the perfect master (the ideal devotee of God) is to be worshipped on par with God - Vachanamrutam. Vadtal No.5."
Jai Swaminarayan,
Krushali
Thanks for that great post Krushali. You've put an emphasis on doing mansi puja, and i have stopped doing mansi puja due to the rush of getting to uni in the mornings, but im going to start again-starting with weekends first and then slowly start during the week. I also find that listening to bhajans or prabhatiya during puja helps because you've got less of a chance to start thinking about work etc. I should start doing that too!
ReplyDeleteThere is also yogi gita and swami ni vato that comes in small books so it can go in your puja. I fins that if im in a rush i read 5 shlokas of shikshapatri. but Bapa has given agna to read one vachanamrit and 5 swami ni vato daily, so in order to fulfill this, the morning puja is a good time to read a few swami ni vato and complete the rest at the end of the day.
Bapa's puja lasts atleast half an hour. I will try load some pictures up. His concentration on thakorji is astounding! the favourite bit for haribhaktos is when he folds his hands at the end to say jai swaminarayan to everyone. We can learn from this, and say jai swaminarayan to bhagwan in or mandirs at home and then to whoever else is in the house at that time.
The most important thing about discussing this topic is about instilling a change, so even if your puja is going great at the moment, pick on one thing that could be better and see how this effects your puja-because in the end we have to try to be as perfect as our guru!