Living the Puja - Devi Mandir

Last Updated on April 2, 2021 by

As Pujaris, we must want to extend the principles of sadhana to every type of puja we perform.

We know there are five parts to every puja: preparation, purification, invitation, union, and offers.

In formal worship this means:

Preparation: gathering the materials, organizing the altar, preparing the offerings, preparing the worshipper and your asana.

Purification: cleaning the worshipper, wearing clean clothes, asana shuddhi, Pushpa shuddhi, bhuta shuddhi; all the ways to create greater purity.

Invitation: Avahan, sthapan.

Union: Nyasa, japa, dhyanam.

Offering: Naividyam, stotram, pranam.

Let’s apply these functions to any other activity. Our first example will be cooking.

*Preparation: preparing the menu, gathering the materials, organizing the utensils, organizing the ingredients, and the workspace.
*Purification: cleaning the vegetables, measuring and cutting the ingredients, making sure that all are capable of being added in an appropriate way.
*Invitation: We invite all the ingredients to our utensils and to be combined in an appropriate way according to the recipe.
*Union: Also in the same way we will mix every in the pot until all the ingredients are blended perfectly.
*Offering: We invite the Gods, friends, and family to partake of the prasad.

Let’s apply this to an administrative situation, to someone who works in an office with a computer.

*Preparation: We organize the workspace for optimum efficiency.
*Purification: We segregate the tasks, and take the Sankalpa of prioritizing each function to be performed.
*Invitation: We invite all the data to join us on our computer.
*Union: We combine the data into relevant information, which will bring us closer to our goal of outputting inspiring knowledge.
*Offering: We share that inspiration through whatever media we choose to output!

It is all puja! As we study and practice, we can recognize the steps of puja in everything we are doing, and thereby we become sadhus, true Pujaris, who are capable to make every action a part of the puja.