Essentials of Hinduism - Devata Pujana And Daily Prayers

Essentials of Hinduism

Devata Pujana And Daily Prayers

DEVATA PUJANA:

Devata Pujanas involve paying our respects everyday to the Devatas and the Supreme God, Paramatma Vasudeva.

External Purification: We should take Bath (Snana) everyday before we start our Devata Pujanas.

Internal Purification: To get our Internal Purification, we have to perform Devata Pujanas. Devata Pujanas are classified into Veda chantings and Sloka chantings. Veda chantings, otherwise termed as Veda Gosha can easily be distinguished clearly from other Sloka chantings.

Veda Mantras have to be chanted with perfect voice modulations (Udadatta, Anudatta, Swarita and Prathaya) as prescribed by the ancient Seers. It is highly recommended that these Veda Mantras are learned only with the help of a Knowledgeable Guru.

The Slokas may be read aloud and clear with a Mono Tone. Also, we may be able to learn these Slokas relatively easily and may even be Self Taught.

Many vedic hymns in praise of Lord in the form of Vishnu, Shiva etc., exist and are chanted on various auspicious joyous occasions like Marriage, Grihapravesa and so on. The Veda Mantras are chanted by the Temple Priests, and by the Priests who perform ceremonies for good and bad causes, as well as, by Spiritually Oriented Hindus for their Family Welfare. Though learning the entire Vedic corpus (writings) is prescribed, but due to constraints of modern lifestyle, provided below are exclusively Selected Veda and Sloka chantings that are most popularly in practice today.

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Selected chantings for the Spiritual Uplift:

Pancha Suktas - there are five prominent Suktas. These are the Purusha Sukta, Narayana/ Vishnu Sukta, Sri Sukta, Durga Sukta and Bhu Sukta.

Srirudra- Rudraprashnaha, Chamakaprashnaha and Mahanyasaha are all discussed in Detail in Chapters 15 and 25 respectively. Chapter 15 also discusses all types of Sahasranamas. Other popular Prayers chanted often are Devi Mahathmiya, Soundarya Lahiri, Aditya Hrudaya etc.

First, it is mandatory to perform all the prescribed Nitya Karmas. Second, It is highly recommended to do the Parayanas of the following important Slokas and Veda Mantras everyday:

(1) Vishnu Sahasranama; (2) Sri Rudra Prashnaha; (3) Purusha Sukta; (4) Sri Sukta; (5) Durga Sukta; (6) Select and read a section of the Bhagavad Gita with Devotion; (7) Select and read Sundara Kanda Slokas (this is part of Srimad Ramayana); (8) Mahavakya of the four Vedas; (9) Select and read a passage from any of the Upanishads, preferably the Taittariya Upanishad.

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DAILY PRAYERS

Prayer is a Devotional Action. Its result is what is called the Grace of God. We obtain the Grace of God through the Act of Prayer; we require His Grace to remove the obstacles, problems and difficulties. We should seek God’s help to cleanse our minds of all the Impurities.

We pray for the strength, the clarity, the serenity to accept gladly and gracefully what we cannot change. A Prayer is always directed to the God. We Pray because we seek His help. Prayer brings about an internal change, because we become submissive. God is free from hunger, thirst, sukha and dukha; He is always in Ananda and is always Satisfied. He does not need anything, except, our Prayers. Prayer is a way to contact God. Prayer produces strength, courage and joy into our heart. It therefore Teaches us how to bravely endure things and how to draw Power and Wisdom from the Divine.

When one is confronted with problems, Praying to God to bless all those who are responsible for creating the problems will not only ease one’s pain but will also bestow right understanding, peace and happiness. This way you are doing the right thing by forgiving others for their faults. Pray to God to give you the right guidance and strength to deal with them and act in the right way. Remember, unless we love God and God Alone, more intensely than anything else in the World, we cannot achieve real Spiritual Progress. Pray to God to give you such intensity that your mind always stays at His feet. That is, the mind should be totally focused on the Prayer with absolutely no external distraction. Prayer is effective only when Mind, Speech and Body – all of them Act together.

There are several forms of Prayers – reciting Slokas, chanting Bhajans, doing Puja, performing Homa, chanting of Veda Mantras, observing silence and mentally requesting God for His help to resolve your personal problems, etc.

THE PURPOSE OF PRAYER

Prayer is a humble act to invoke God’s Grace and obtain God’s help to fulfill one’s desires. Without a desire, there is no Prayer. Prayer differs from person to person – it can be said in simple words or it can be an elaborate Ritual.

Prayer always has a purpose. We pray because we want something from God or praise God or for our mental satisfaction or to thank God for providing all things that we enjoy everyday. We may want something specific or we may want Peace of Mind (Antahkarana Shuddhi).

I can Pray for the sake of achieving something for myself or for the sake of someone else. When I see someone is unhappy, who is suffering, I am affected by the condition of that other person and I also suffer. I want the person to be happy, which really means that I want to be happy. Therefore, a Prayer for others is also for the sake of my own Happiness. When I Pray, “Please protect my Family,” there is an extended me, a me that gets affected all the Times. The Purpose of Prayer is to eliminate or neutralise one’s daily wrongdoings and God extends His help to us when we Pray. Prayer helps us to remove our Ego. When we Pray, we derive Spiritual Strength from God and we remove our Ego.

God is the Strength of all goodness. We require the Strength to lead a noble life and it is called the Spiritual Strength. God is the one who will provide us this strength. We Pray for Strength. Prayer helps us to remove our Ego. Therefore, we need to Pray to God, because, we get the necessary strength to follow our Dharma.

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THE POWER OF PRAYER

Prayer is Powerful, whether it is for one’s own sake or other’s sake. We Pray expecting result (Phala). One result of our Prayer is immediate. By Praying for something, such as mental clarity, we are recognising another Power, a power higher than our self. We are also accepting the limitation of our own Power and Knowledge. To be objective, a Person must accept his or her limitations. This is a great thing, because, it implies an acceptance on our part, not only of our limitations, but also the acceptance of a limitless source. It is not easy to sit and Pray. This implies we have gotten rid of our Ego. This is due to the Power of Prayer. Then there is also an unseen result of Prayer, based on Faith. The person says during Prayer, “this is what I want.” The action and the expressed desire bring about a result, which is purely subtle in nature that cannot be seen. This unseen result will manifest in time and this is what we call God’s Grace.

Prayer has the power to produce the desired result. We may argue, “ I have been praying daily, but nothing happens.” Answer for this is, “if we did not Pray, a lot of wrong things may have happened”. Every one of us has access to deep reserves of Vital Energy that we are not aware. Prayer helps in releasing this Vital Energy for our use.

THE BENEFITS OF PRAYER:

The most important benefit of doing Prayer is it relieves our stress. Prayer removes the bad Vasanas (carryover of our personality from Past Life) and prepares us for acquiring Good Vasanas. Prayer bestows clarity of the ideas, strengthens our Will, concentrates the Mind and purifies it.

ACKNOWLEDGE OUR HELPLESSNESS:

That I can pray is a Blessing. But how I pray is very important. We should not be shy. We seek His help through Prayer. We need to acknowledge our helplessness and totally surrender to God. The Prayer should be well directed. Remember, God is ready to help us at all times. Sometimes we do not know what is right for us. So, instead of asking something specific, we should let God decide what is best for us and Pray accordingly!

ACCEPT WHAT WE CANNOT CHANGE:

When I blame a situation or person for my being what I am – Mother, Father, spouse, children, friend, boss, society, the economic systems, my horoscope, my health, my education – when I blame any one of them, I must realize that I have not accepted my past Karma. Whatever has happened I cannot change and it is a fact. I have to accept them gracefully and not blame any one. I need to pray to God to provide the Strength, the maturity, clarity of Mind, the serenity to accept gladly, gracefully, what I cannot change. Also, I need to seek help from God to provide me adequate “will” to bring about changes, desirable changes, in my attitudes towards people, towards money, towards my health, towards my future as a wholesome approach.

One of the most popular Prayer words run like this: O God, may I have the maturity to accept gracefully what I cannot change; may I have the will and the effort to change what I can; and may I have the wisdom to know the difference between what I can change and what I cannot change.

Realize that God is not far away, but dwells inside us!

In Mahabharata, when Draupadi was disrobed by Dushshasana, she prayed, “Krishna! Dvarakavasin (resident of Dvaraka)! Where are You? Please come and save my Honor!” the Lord took a few moments before coming to her aid. Draupadi successfully emerged from the ordeal. Later, she asked Krishna why He did not come immediately. The Lord explained, “you addressed Me as the resident of Dvaraka. I had to come from Dvaraka and I took some time to appear before you; Had you summoned Me as “Hrudaya Nivasin (Dweller in the Heart), I would have surely come to your aid immediately”. The Story illustrates that God is immediate!

Measuring our Prayer’s Success:

Besides the fulfillment of our Prayers, the other indications for success are: getting good sleep, increasing level of tolerence, cheerfulness, efficiency in carrying out tasks, development of higher purpose in Life etc.

TRULY SPEAKING, PRAYER IS ONLY PART OF THE PUJA PACKAGE:

In reality, every Religious Person does prayer in some form or the other. He is praying inside a Temple, praying inside his Home or praying on the way to Work etc. However, most people do not perform a Puja (an elaborate Ritual) that should be done by everyone by sitting in front of an Altar.

A simplified format of Puja will consist of the following:

1) Brahmamuhurta (early Morning Auspicious Time) is 4.00 AM to 6.00 AM. Wake up between 4 AM and 5 AM. After bath, wear dhoti in the Panchakacha Style (this style has a loop and does not allow dissipation of the Mantra energy into the Ground and worn by married men). Apply Vibhuti or Thirumann Nama & Srichurna or Gopichandan on the fore head and body as applicable.

2) Perform “Prata Sandhyavandana” before the Sunrise.

3) Clean the Altar Area and decorate the deity with flower, ornament etc. and light a lamp (Vilakku).

4) Sit on a wooden plank facing East and do Achamana.

5) Prayer to Lord Ganesha.

6) Pranayama.

7) Perform complete Sankalpa stating Thithi, Day of the week, Nakshatra etc.

8) Perform Puja to the Deity of your choice - offer Flower, Tulasi or Akshata.

9) Now chant all the desired Slokas like the Vishnu sahasranama, Aditya Hrudhaya or chant the desired Veda Mantras such as Rudra Prashnaha, Chamaka Prashnaha, Purusha Sukta etc. Chant a short “Shanti Mantra” before beginning and after ending all other chantings.

10) Offer the Naivedya

11) Pray to the Paramatma with Total Devotion.

12) Kshamaa prarthana using the mantra Kayena Vacha....

13) Achamana.

Chapter Re-cap:

DEVATA PUJANAS

1) Practice the following five important recommendations while learning to chant the Veda

Mantras:

(i) Learn the Veda Mantras chanting properly from an authentic source, that is, with the help of your Guru, or a learned Scholar.

(ii) Be aware that the Veda Mantras should be chanted correctly with the appropriate svaras.

(iii) Make a sincere attempt to know the meaning of the Mantras;

(iv) To achieve the correct Pronounciation, you have to try to become familiar with Sanskrit;

(v) Make a dedicated effort to learn the Veda Mantras and chant from your Memory.

DAILY PRAYERS

1) God Alone is Permanent and Dependable! We need to Pray Everyday to God with Total Devotion.

2) Bless Me with Steady Vision and Deep Devotion. Please Guide Me Everyday how to carry out all my Actions.

3) God! Whatever faults I may have committed in my past, Please Forgive Them.

4) Beloved God! Help Me to save Me from My Delusory Attachments.

5) May I never again get condemned to fall into another womb! I am requesting Moksha from You after this Life.

6) I am doing Total Saranagaty to You (Complete Surrender) as I am unaware of any other way to come to You permanently.

7) Request God’s Grace Everyday for concentration and devotion to Him.

8) When we are engaged in the Prayer, Worldly Thoughts should not come to us.

9) Prayer should be done with Total Bhakti and is strictly between You and the God. Do not let any outside person or thought to enter. It is difficult to practice this but over a long period of time you are guaranteed of Success. Remember, God’s help will be in proportion to the amount of dedication and bhakti you do in your Prayer.

10) You are doing all your everyday Spiritual Activities for “your Atma Tripti (Self Satisfaction)”. Try not to discuss these details with Anyone at Anytime. The value of your efforts will

diminish considerably.

11) Pray Everyday because you want to Pray, not because, you have to Pray.

12) Remember to thank Paramatma everytime before putting food into your mouth.

13) One beautiful contrast we should understand between the description of Purusha Sukta that describes Narayana as Huge Size with thousand heads, thousand eyes and thousand feet (also Visvarupa stated in Vishnu sahasranama and Bhagavad Gita); and, the description of Narayana Sukta that describes the same Narayana residing in our tiny lotus-like-heart inside the Miniature Space (also stated in the Mahabharata He is stated as the Hrudaya- Nivasin), justifies to us that Narayana can take any form!

14) God, I Surrender myself to you totally. I am giving to You all of my today’s Karmas. Kayena Vacha....Samarppayami.

This article is a snippet from the Book Essentials of Hinduism, Authored by G.S Nilakantan. Hinduism for All is available online at www.giri.in & across Giri Trading Agency Private Limited, A chain of Speciality Stores dealing in all kinds of products needed in Indian Culture & Tradition.