On 01/23/2013 06:36 AM, turquoiseb wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "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.
This was done before or after you learned TM? You've also mentioned before that you've taught meditation without doing a puja. But this was after you had been practicing TM. How do you know that you had not developed enough shakti to enliven a mantra anyway without a puja? Thing is, you don't. I think many people who have been practicing meditation for a while (and it doesn't have to be TM) would develop enough shakti to teach meditation. Or as one astrology teacher of mine (who had also been a tantric) said, "once initiated you can use any mantra." So, IOW unless one has NEVER meditated before and gives a mantra to somebody and it works then we really can't conclude anything. And even then it might have more to do with the person receiving the mantra and their state. I've always maintained that performing the puja before giving out the mantra was just a way to create many teachers without waiting for each one individually to have enough shakti to teach. It's just a device.
