Finding ways of expressing Bhakti: Puja class at Hindu Centre
The 2-day Puja class concluded on 26th Nov with students from all backgrounds and ages participating with a lot of enthusiasm. Young mothers wanting to explain to their children, in return a son wanting to explain to his mom, husband wanting to do what wife does at home and many such heart-warming scenes were witnessed in this session! The whole session was much appreciated as it was very simple and logical to understand. The students left enjoying the experience and feeling empowered in expressing their bhakti to their Ishta devatas.
Lakshmi Puja - Prosperity for life
The word Aiswaryam has no direct translation in English, the closest is prosperity. Devi Mahalakshmi presides over not one but eight forms of prosperity, practically all that we need for a happy life in this world. This is why Hindu Centre’s 2023 Home Puja class was ‘How to do a Lakshmi Puja’at home effectively.
Students came seeking to understand why, how, and what to do in the puja – to answer the questions in their mind, support and encourage their family members and to learn the formal way of doing puja as ordained in the Sastras. And they all went away empowered, maybe even being able to explain to a 13 year old! As we all know, all this is not easy.
A western author once said God seems to live with the Indians, because they are always inviting Ishwara into their houses every day! And that is what we do in this Puja. In 16 simple steps, we invite Devi Mahalakshmi into our house, offer her water to wash and bathe, fresh clothes, scented chandan and kumkum, jewels, sweets, perfumed incense, and camphor, freshly prepared prasadam. We worship her in all her glory with mantras, namavali, stotrams, bhajans and arathi songs – all with the auspicious deepam and sound of ringing ghanta (the bell). We could have danced – if only we knew how to. In the Bangkok Irawan temple (Of Lord Brahma), one of the offerings is a performance by Thai dance troupe who are hired by devotees after the fulfilment of their prayers!
The prayer comes from the sankalpa that we set in the mind in our puja. This sets the stage for our buddhi and manas (the mind, which is the charioteer in the 5-horse drawn chariot analogy) to engage the 5 senses (which are the horses) in devotion to Devi Mahalakshmi. We do this by engaging all our senses towards her form and offering all our actions at her feet.
What are the benefits of doing the Laxmi Puja?
By doing this puja, we ask the grace or anugraha, of Devi Mahalakshmi to be bestowed upon us. This helps us to obtainin not only the 8 forms of prosperity but also punya or merits that offset our omissions and commissions in daily life. The only way to get out the taste of bitter medicine is to add more and more water or sweetness to it, and this is one of the ways of doing it.
This puja can be one of the 5 daily duties of Hindus – Deva Yajna, the others being Rishi Yagna, Pitr Yajna, Manushya Yajna and Bhuta Yajna. The puja is very powerful because we can also set our sankalpa to bring benefits to our fellow human beings or all this earth in general too.
The puja can be done in 20 minutes, and with minimum ingredients, it can be done in 5 steps too! Alternately, it can be undertaken as a manasa puja in the mind. But of course, the more one does, the better. In this session, we also provided the recordings of the mantras to practise daily.
Let us all prostrate to Devi Mahalakshmi and receive her anugraha.
- Aadi-Lakshmi – Source of creation and moksha pradayini
- Dhana-Lakshmi – Goddess of wealth
- Dhanya-Lakshmi – Goddess of agricultural wealth.
- Gaja-Lakshmi – Giver of animal wealth
- Santana-Lakshmi – Goddess of bestowing offspring.
- Veera-Lakshmi – Goddess of courage and strength for overcoming difficulties in life.
- Vidya-Lakshmi – Goddess of knowledge of arts
- Vijaya-Lakshmi – The giver of success and victory
