Practical Wisdom Archives

Anandamayi Ma’s Instructions on Diety Puja (Image Worship)

Mother Anandamayi on puja Q: Could you tell me the procedure to perform the standard Deity Puja as it is done in India?

I can tell you something much better than that. I will tell you how Ma Anandamayi told me to do puja.

During a conversation with Ma I asked her if the basic form of doing puja by making offerings with simple mantras was suitable for use in our ashram. To my surprise she told me that there was no need for mantras at all. She was very insistent about this.

She told me that she had long ago instructed the way puja should be done, but after a while all the Anandamayi ashrams (and the individual devotees, apparently) had abandoned that way and taken up the usual puja rituals. When I asked that she tell me the way she preferred worship to be done, she gave me these very simple but wonderful instructions:

Ma’s instruction on puja

Prepare the offerings and keep them to the side.
Take the first offering, place it before the deity and bow.
Close your eyes and imagine the deity present before you in a living form and visualize yourself offering the same thing to the deity. Your mental offering(s) can be as simple or elaborate as you like. Then bow again.
Put the offering to the side by the deity.
Place the next offering before the deity, bow, visualize yourself making the offering(s) in the same way, bow and and continue in the same manner with the other offerings.
After the final bow before the deity you are done.

The real puja, Ma said, is the mental puja, though material offerings are made. Otherwise, without the inner puja, it is not puja at all but just playing with dolls. She was very insistent about this.

Tantra: The Extreme Dangers of the “Path of Power”

tantra text Q: You have written that Tantra is dangerous, having seen half a century of people harmed by it. Could you expand on this? Why is it dangerous? Which practices for example are dangerous? How was it harmful in your observation?

The “path of power” is always dangerous, whether yogic or occult/esoteric. Our nature is consciousness, not shakti, and obsession with and cultivation of shakti leads to delusion.

But the ego, being energy itself, naturally loves it because it will increase the ego and eclipse the Self whose realization puts an end to our involvement in prakriti and the various worlds formed of it. One former Christian (Franciscan) monk who had become deeply involved in a tantric/occult tradition told me: “I feel like I am dying inside.” And he was. There was no way to help him because he was deeply enmeshed in his self-disintegration. It pleased his ego.

The difference between Yoga and Tantra

Tantra is not Yoga, though of course it seems to be so since they appear to have elements in common. But they are opposites, for Tantra is involved with shakti and Yoga deals with consciousness (chaitanya) alone. For example, they both work with mantra and breath. But the mantras and the breath modes are completely different because they do not at all have the same purpose. They are two different paths and do not lead to the same result.

It is the nature of Tantra to alter the configurations of the subtle bodies and the mind rather than to resolve the awareness into Self-awareness. Oh, of course tantrics talk about realization, but it is only talk. Sincerity on their part in no way protects them from the harm they inflict on themselves ignorantly.

Tantric distortion

Just as there are drugs that so distort the mind that the addict is not even aware of the distortions until the drug wears off, so tantric practices do the same. I have met people who lived on the edge of mental collapse from the practices given them by a tantric guru. (Suicide is not unknown among such people.)

Demons and Dunces, Part 1: Why Spiritual People May Encounter Negativity

Negativity: Demons and Dunces Q: I have just finished reading two books about Christian ascetics whose major activities seemed to be “fighting the demons” and being frightened or tormented by evil spirits throughout their lives. Does this really happen to those who try to attain higher consciousness and know God? Even yogis?

Everything that happens to us externally is a matter of karma, the result of past life action. Everything that arises from within us is a manifestation of samskaras, habit patterns and impressions (including memories) from past lives. So everything in our life comes from, and in one sense is a continuation and reaction of/to, our past deeds and mental states.

Therefore the yogi must from the very first realize that whatever happens inwardly or outwardly is a result of his own previous deeds and thoughts. He must understand that his inner and outer life is a revealing of himself, hopefully leading to the revelation of his Self.

There is a Chinese proverb: “When mean-spirited people live behind a door, mean-spirited people come to that door.” The entire universe is a field of vibrating energy, and that energy is magnetic–it tends to gather around itself energies of like character. Our inner and outer experience is determined by our present vibration.

As Yogananda’s greatest disciple, Sister Gyanamata said: “Your own will always come to you. Indeed, you cannot have anything but your own.” This is a fundamental principle that is wise to keep in mind. It means that when something is said or done to us it is an echo of our own speech and action. We say and do it to ourselves. This is very bitter for the ego to face, but unless we do we will never understand anything about our life. It is all karma, and it is our karma.

Now we should consider what could bring about encounters with evil spirits.

Karma

The first cause of such encounters is karma. Those (including yogis) who created karma with evil spirits in past lives by intentionally contacting them in some manner, by practicing witchcraft or magic, or by having it done for them, certainly may encounter evil spirits, but can easily deal with the situation as I outline later.

Religion

A great deal of demonic attack by evil spirits is caused by the very nature of a person’s religion. For example, if much of their beliefs are false such as eternal hell and damnation (especially for others not part of their religion or sect), and they denounce beliefs that are true such as reincarnation, karma, evolution of consciousness and the ultimate salvation of all sentient beings, then they are vulnerable to such misfortune.

All You Need to Know About the Chakras (Not Just Seven, Either!)

Just as the outer universe is a complex of many interrelated points such as suns and planets, in the same way the material and subtle bodies of the yogi–which reflect and react on one another–are a network of life energy points known as chakras. Chakras … Continue reading

Jesus Expounds the Law of Karma in the Aquarian Gospel

“The Lord with Peter, James and John were in Jerusalem; it was the Sabbath day. And as they walked along the way they saw a man who could not see; he had been blind from birth. And Peter said, Lord, if disease and imperfections all are caused by sin, who was the sinner in this case? the parents or the man himself?

And Jesus said, Afflictions all are partial payments on a debt, or debts, that have been made. There is a law of recompense that never fails, and it is summarized in that true rule of life: Whatsoever man shall do to any other man some other man will do to him. In this we find the meaning of the Jewish law, expressed concisely in the words, Tooth for a tooth; life for a life. He who shall injure any one in thought, or word, or deed, is judged a debtor to the law, and some one else shall, likewise, injure him in thought, or word or deed. And he who sheds the blood of any man will come upon the time when his blood shall be shed by man.

Affliction is a prison cell in which a man must stay until he pays his debts unless a master sets him free that he may have a better chance to pay his debts. Affliction is a certain sign that one has debts to pay. Behold this man! Once in another life he was a cruel man, and in a cruel way destroyed the eyes of one, a fellow man. The parents of this man once turned their faces on a blind and helpless man, and drove him from their door.
(Aquarian Gospel 138:1-13)

Afflictions all are partial payments on a debt, or debts, that have been made.

Some troubles are full payment and some are partial. But when it is over, the karmic debt has been reduced. That is the important thing.
“There is a law of recompense that never fails, and it is summarized in that true rule of life: Whatsoever man shall do to any other man some other man will do to him.”

There is a law of recompense that never fails, and it is summarized in that true rule of life: Whatsoever man shall do to any other man some other man will do to him.

Exactly what is done shall be done to us: the very same thing. If I steal, I will be stolen from; I will not just lose something of equal value to what I stole. Another human being will take it from me. This is very important. It is exact, like an echo: only what you say will come back to you, not something merely similar. Sometimes more than one karma will be be neutralized by a single thing that will reflect their general character. But, as I say, it is mostly an exact reaction.

The Wondrous Effect of Gandhi’s Brahmacharya Vow

brahmacharya freedom quote

Part 2 of “Mahatma Gandhi on Brahmacharya (Celibacy)“

“As I look back upon the twenty years of the vow, I am filled with pleasure and wonderment. The more or less successful practice of self-control had been going on since 1901. But the freedom and joy that came to me after taking the vow had never been experienced before 1906.

Before the vow I had been open to being overcome by temptation at any moment. Now the vow was a sure shield against temptation. The great potentiality of brahmacharya daily became more and more patent to me.

Satyagraha and Brahmacharya

The Benefits of Brahmacharya — “Benefits of Brahmacharya” is available as a free PDF in our eLibrary, as well as a paperback and ebook at Amazon and other online bookstores.

The vow was taken when I was in Phoenix. As soon as I was free from ambulance work, I went to Phoenix, whence I had to return to Johannesburg. In [within] about a month of my returning there, the foundation of Satyagraha was laid. As though unknown to me, the brahmacharya vow had been preparing me for it. Satyagraha had not been a preconceived plan. It came on spontaneously, without my having willed it. But I could see that all my previous steps had led up to that goal. I had cut down my heavy household expenses at Johannesburg and gone to Phoenix to take, as it were, the brahmacharya vow.

The knowledge that a perfect observance of brahmacharya means realization of brahman, I did not owe to a study of the Shastras. It slowly grew upon me with experience. The shastric texts on the subject I read only later in life. Every day of the vow has taken me nearer the knowledge that in brahmacharya lies the protection of the body, the mind and the soul. For brahmacharya was now no process of hard penance, it was a matter of consolation and joy. Every day revealed a fresh beauty in it.