On 01/22/2013 03:22 PM, 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. — 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 — 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?
>
All the puja does is charge up the initiator with enough shakti to make
the mantra enlivened. One could probably recite any number of Sanskrit
mantras to achieve that. In other traditions it is not necessary
because the guru won't allow you to teach meditation until you have
achieved enough shakti in your daily life to charge the mantra and
precede giving it with shaktipat. The puja is like jump starting a dead
battery.
