--- In [email protected], "Richard J. Williams" wrote: > > > Michael Jackson: > > I am wondering what the deal is on puja anyway. > > Puja is all about placement and positioning.
IMHO, puja is all about moodmaking and the placebo effect, both for the people performing them, and for the people watching them and being instructed in some puja-accompanied technique. TM teachers are actually instructed *to* moodmake while performing the puja, and to "dwell on the meaning of the words" while performing one. Although there are undoubtedly people here who would disagree with me, I never felt much of any- thing while performing a puja. I don't believe that the puja has *anything whatsoever* to do with the effective "transmission of a mantra" or whether the student derives any benefit from the meditation being taught. I have been instructed in mantra-based techniques that involved the chanting of a puja, and in tech- niques that were taught in a group, with no "bells and whistles" at all, just "Here's the mantra." I found no difference the students' experiences -- mine or other people's. I think it's ALL bells and whistles. For the teachers, to lead them to believe that they are part of a long "tradition" that, in the case of TM at least, does not even exist -- Maharishi invented the TM technique, and there is no record of it being taught similarly that anyone can produce. In the case of the people being taught, witnessing a ceremony they don't under- stand, or even understand the language of, invokes their inherent sense of Woo Woo, and leads them to believe that there is something mystical going on. I don't think there is. I think it's all moodmaking. The TM puja does nothing more than chanting a Catholic mass in Latin would do, or chanting nonsense words in a made-up language. It's just bells and whistles used to market a technique and make it seem more than it is. YMMV.
