[Advaita-l] worship

[Lakshmi Muthuswamy]

Dear list memebers,

I am quoting from the book "Prayer Guide" by Swami Dayananda Sarasvati. Second topic 'Cultivating Devotion" and sub title "Puja"

Puja helps discover devotion:

In the process of the puja, one discovers an attitude of devotion. The attitude of a devotee is different from that of a lay person. The devotee must have either devotion for knowledge or devotion for Iswara. Knowledge itself is Isvara. All knowledge is Isvara. that attitrude brings about a chnage. Otherwise the heart inside is rigid. I have seen rigid people who dont open up to the lord. A ritual like this breaks the rigidity. Even though it is an imagined thing, it is an action where there is deliberate cognition of one thing or another, atasmintad biddhih. You invoke one thing in something else snd then worship that.

While it is not like perception, it is just like perseption. If you stand in front of Lord nataraja, wondering what kind of bronze and other metals there are in this alloy, etc., and take a picture, this is called perceptual knowledge.

It would take more than perception to see a Lord in this murti. If you say it is bronze, it is perceptual knowledge, but if you say this is the Lord, it is not perceptual knowledge. You impose something upon it, which makes it the Lord, and then you see the Lord in that bronze. This is called upAsana. You worship what you see.

This is deliberate adhyasa - superimposition.In the case of the snake superimposed on the rope it is not deliberate.

Here what you impose is sreshta, most exalted or utkrshta, on some lesser thing. This makes it upAsana. For upAsana, you have a pratIka a form or pratima a symbol. This worship can be done using materials, like flowers,water etc or it can be done mentally, just as effectively.


This book is very good to get an understanding of prayer and the importance of prayer. I can reproduce some important chapters as a series if permitted by the list memebers.

om namo narayanaya

Lakshmi Muthuswamy


 		
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups gets better. Check out the new email design. Plus there’s much more to come.