--- In [email protected], Michael Jackson wrote: > > I am wondering what the deal is on puja anyway. > > This is what good old Tom Ball, Re-certified Governor of North Carolina says > on his blog and website about TM: > > But doesn't the Transcendental Meditation instruction ceremony involve > "offerings?" >  > The TM instruction ceremony derives > from and retains many elements of the traditional Vedic custom of guest > reception: offering a bath, fresh garments, food, etc. â" all done > symbolically during puja as gestures of respect. The puja used in TM > instruction recites the names of the tradition of teachers and honors > them, most prominently acknowledging the latest representative of that > tradition, Maharishi's teacher, Brahmananda Saraswati, or "Guru Dev" > ("great teacher"). > > There is no "offering to gods" or any such thing. It's more like giving an > apple to your teacher â" very simple and natural. > > I heard that the TM instruction ceremony mentions names of gods? > > The secular-type puja performed during Transcendental Meditation > instruction uses the traditional Sanskrit language of honor and respect > that's indigenous to the ancient Vedic culture. Although it may sound foreign > to Western ears, the formal > language is used ceremoniously and not religiously. For example, in this > Vedic performance, when Maharishi's teacher, Brahmananda Sarasvati, is > metaphorically compared to a > traditional deity of that culture, Brahma, the deity itself is not > appealed to or acknowledged one way or another. If you say someone is > "Christ-like," it's a way of expressing high adoration and appreciation. It > doesn't mean that you are engaged in worship or even believe in > Christ. > > There are others like former TM teacher Bob Fickes who say the puja > ceremony helps to refine the awareness of the initiator and gives the mantra > its potency. He has said without the puja the mantra won't have the proper > vibration or potency. > > Still others, specifically Raja Badgett Rogers has said that the mantra > doesn't work unless there is the offering or dakshina of the fruit, flowers > and money, and it is the offering, the gift, that makes the mantra work and > of course the flowers and fruit are part of the puja. > > So to all you TM teachers or former TM teachers, what is the puja actually > for of the above possibilities or is it something different altogether? Or a > combo of the above?
Ah. TM double-speak. They'll be telling us mantras are meaningless sounds next!
