Meaning of Doing Puja

So by doing the puja, means when you offer anything that you have got to offer, anything that you offer is – say, flowers, if you want to offer flower to God, you don’t have to speak anything, you have to just offer, that “this is for You.” Anybody can understand offering, for that you don’t have to have even a tongue. Even if a blind man is there, if he wants to give you something, he can just give you like this. And that expression is sufficient for anybody to be convinced that he can offer it. You don’t have to say anything about it. So now, when you offer a flower to God, even if you don’t say a mantra it is offered – all right, it’s given. But whether it is accepted or not is a problem. But now, when you are a realized soul and you offer anything, it is acceptable to God even if you don’t say anything. But what about you getting any reward out of it? After realization when you offer anything to God, He accepts, because it’s coming from a realized soul, so He accepts.

Now, how do we get blessed by Him, by giving a flower to God? Now if you don’t say anything about it, you just offer a flower, then you might be rewarded with many flowers automatically in life. Or you may be, whatever material things you offer, you may be blessed materially. Then in a subtler way if you say something, as you say for offering somebody that humble way of saying that “I’ll be happy if You would accept this,” will be even subtler results of that maybe, which could be much wider, maybe much deeper. Now, you do something symbolic which is very, the essence, the principle of something. Like flowers are the – they represent the principle of the Mother Earth. Now, so the symbolicism of all the things that we can offer to God has been meditated upon, and has been found out.

So they use five things called as panchamruta, as we have here.

Because if you have hit the principle, then you have really hit the whole, isn’t it. Because spiritual well-being is a total well-being. It’s not just partly that your material well-being or your physical well-being, or your emotional well-being, or your mental well-being. It’s a total one, completely balanced into totality.

Now when you offer these other things like the, we call them akshadas, what do you call ? Turmeric. Turmeric rice, you see, this yellow thing, you see. When you offer this, you know, the yellow color is that of the Swadishthana Chakra. And rice is very dear to all the gods. Now there’s a trick in it, because it’s a human trick. Gods are fond of rice. So they put turmeric on it, means that “We offer to You a rice which is yellow-colored” – means, “You should give us blessings of our creativity.” When you eat it, more creativity will flow and we’ll be blessed by that deity – it’s a trick. The whole thing of puja is the trick of human saints, you see, how to trick God to give more blessings! But whatever God likes, it has to be auspicious and holy. So ultimately it works out for the holiness of saints and their simple hearts.

Now, the Puja cannot be done by a person who is not a realized soul. A person who preaches also has to be a realized soul, the one who does namaz has to be a realized soul, the one who prays has to be a realized soul. So all the utensils that are used are to be worshipped in a way that they are to be holy things, they are to be respected things. You cannot use anything, say the one you are using in the bathroom and you use the same thing for the puja, is absurd.

Three things are very important, is a ghatah, means (waterpot) the vessel, vessel that contains the kundalini, the vessel that contains the primordial desire within us to get to God, is first to be worshipped, our desire. Is the ghatah, is the one made here. And on top is called as a Shriphala. Shriphala means this also has got water in it, if you see, the coconut represents the same thing. Now in the subtler form it is the water of all the rivers of the world. And the coconut is the water of all the oceans. The water from the ocean or sea rises through the tree-trunk of the coconut, and becomes the sweet water in the coconut. It’s a symbolic thing. So this is the vessel called ghatah-puja, this is the ghatah-puja.

Now, I don’t want to go to details today, because we have to talk about Ganesha. The same is – now that is water, all right.

Then we have to worship Ghanta (bell) and Shankha (shell).

These are two representing the sound.

Shell. [Shri Mataji repeats it for the French translator who did not rememberl]

Actually the Shankha represents the ether. Then we have the Deepa, means what? It’s the light, represents the light element, called as tejas (flame).

Normally also to the Goddess they also give Her a fan, which represents the air element. So this is how all the five elements are pleased beforehand, using them. So the essences of these or the causal essences of these five elements should be pleased at this time, should be supporting the puja.

Now there are also all kinds of other things, like your family deities, you might be worshipping in your family some deities. They should not be also at this time upsetting the puja; or maybe the forefathers who are dead. All these things are to be quietened, so that they should be told that this is a puja like this, and you do not disturb us at this time. Means even thoughts should not come, their thoughts or their – any disturbances. So everything is to be first made into peace. Now this is the one aspect I have told you in short, because it’s a very long thing. If I have to speak about it I’ll have to speak at least three times, and with three hours each time, still it may not be finished.

Now we come to the second aspect, which question I asked you “What do you, how do you get benefited by it?” So apart from this technique, to have the best effect of the blessings or the best flow of the Grace within us, we say mantras. The sound of mantras, the sound, the sound echo into the being of God. And they are re-echoed on our chakras, and then the chakras start opening more. So the flow of the Grace of God is received.

But only a realized soul should chant a mantra. Because without connection, how will it reach God? It is a vicious circle. Now one may say that “Mother, you cannot get realization unless and until you get the Grace of God. And the chakras won’t open by a person who is not a realized soul. And without opening the chakras you cannot get realization.” That’s how the play of the Mother comes in, and of all the saints, like you. I would say the Sahaja yogis have to break this vicious circle. You have to raise the kundalini yourself. Once you raise the kundalini, the kundalini opens the chakras a little bit, because you have given your vibrations to the chakras. So once she knows there is a Sahaja yogi standing behind the seeker, she rises. She knows you are her brothers and sisters, and that you belong to the same family as she does. She knows the land where she has to grow, you see, so she can feel that, and then she rises in her dignity. That’s how she breaks this vicious circle.

That’s why in the beginning we don’t tell them about the mantras, because in the mantras you have to accept Me as the Deity. In this advent of Mine it is made compulsory that you have to recognize Me. Because this is very precarious, the Resurrection Time we can call it, or the time of your Last Judgment. First the realization has to be given without any recognition. But not to those who are denying or insulting Me. Under any circumstances they cannot get realization, whatever you may try. Even after realization if people start thinking against Me, vibrations will stop, because of Sahasrara. And the heart has to be completely in unison with Me, otherwise Sahasrara is closed.

Now those people who are simple, who are full of open heart, you see, such people understand Me very well and they just put Me in their hearts. After realization, after going through the understanding of Sahaja Yoga, through their mental activity, also the intellectuals understand Me and recognize Me in a little circuitous way. After the puja, when they receive the blessings, a very blissful state they achieve, then they realize the value of puja also – afterwards.

Now in India, where the puja system has been traditionally coming and has been maintained quite a lot, they understand it without any mental processes. But when they meet somebody, an intellectual, who has become a Sahaja yogi, you see they can’t understand them. They don’t want to listen about it, the whole rigmarole of the whole movement of the brain. And some of them who try, you see, a little westernized, they try, you see; they develop an inferiority complex, and they go to the left side. But there is no need to understand it with mental, I mean, to all the time analyzing through your mental process, and then to understand everything, and then become Sahaja yogis with the heart open. This is rather very circuitous. But what to do? They have gone that way, so they have to come that way. Because even if they become Sahaja yogis, they start questioning and thinking about it, and worrying about it. So the false people just mesmerize them and take advantage of that mesmerism. So one should not feel bad. If you feel like analyzing, you should go ahead with it, because I cannot stop your speed, I’m not going to mesmerize you. In Sahaja Yoga the freedom is to be respected. But we do not allow people to come for puja who have not achieved a certain amount of understanding mentally of Sahaja Yoga – from the Western people, not in India, but here there is a restriction. Because supposing in India I do not explain to them, they don’t want to know. They know that they’ll get vibrations. They already know about vibrations, so I don’t have to tell them “You will get more vibrations.” If they get more vibrations they know I am the Shakti, that’s all, I don’t have to explain it. Like as you can make out which is the best wine, they can make out who is the real person. They know the taste of it. Now, once in a puja I had about six thousand people that touched My Feet. So I said, “In a puja now, please don’t have – the people need not touch My Feet.” I said it. But they thought it was Dhumal who suggested, so they all got after his life. They said, “You only want to take all the blessings from Mother’s Feet, and you didn’t want us to take it”, and they got after him.

Another thing is, you see, in the West I never used to make the panchamruta with My Feet but with My Hands, because here people would think that that’s a dirty thing feet is, and we should not have of the feet, you see. But actually the Feet are very powerful, and they can never be dirty.

Like the River Ganges has vibrations. If you have the water of Ganges you will see that it will never be dirtied. On the contrary, whatever are inside that because it’s never sort of very kept clean, whatever dirt has gone into it, it settles down and doesn’t dirty the thing at all. It’s very clean water, all the time vibrating.

So one must understand whatever is pure, which is responsible for purity, which is the source of purity, can cleanse any impurity. So how it can be impure? But with the brain if you think it, it’s so limited. You cannot think of something which is just the embodiment of purity. This is the point we have come now, where I think I should talk about the Absolute. That is Shri Ganesha. Today is His Puja. It’s a very great thing that this Puja we are doing in Geneva in Switzerland. Geneva is the right Heart, I think. The way it is against right Heart. Everybody’s life is a tragedy, like Rama in Ayodhya. And that is why it is very important that Shri Ganesha should be worshipped here.

Now Shri Ganesha, as you know, is the embodiment of innocence. Now Ganesha’s color is red or orangish. Because the child, when it is conceived as a fetus, the first color it sees is orange of the red wall of the mother’s womb, of the blood. In Sahaja Yoga, now you must have learnt that every action has a reaction, which acts. The color of the original, we can say the primordial Ganesha is just of the clay, because He is made out of Mother Earth. Now when the Gauri, the Mother of Ganesha created Him to protect Her chastity while She was having Her bath, She colored Him red, because everybody could see that there’s somebody sitting there to protect Her. So when you see the red color around you as a fetus, then you absorb that color, and your Ganesha gets colored with the red in the same beautiful manner. Just it has a reaction of that getting red and it acts, means red color of a Ganesha, the one who has a red color of a Ganesha, frightens others. They know there is Ganesha sitting there, a pure, changed personality with all the fieriness of the Ganesha is there.

Now this Ganesha when He is in a childhood, as you see, when the child is born, the children are extremely protective or fiery, you can say, about anybody touching their innocence. When they are absolutely young they are not even aware of it. But slightly, as soon as they start growing, they become very aware and they don’t like their clothes to be taken out in the presence of others. They become very shy of their innocence. I mean, not shy, shyness is not – in the sense of their nudity, very shy of their nudity, so that their innocence should not be attacked. If their innocence is not attacked and if they are pure, if they see a nude woman they’ll close their eyes. They would not like to see a nude woman, or a nude man. So this is an innate understanding, an intuitive understanding that it is important that they must preserve their innocence.

Now, what is the innocence within us? What does it do to us? As it is, already I’ve told you that it gives us wisdom. All kinds of stupidity we do with our ego; as I was describing the president and so many others at that age and at that height of their positions, it is because the Ganesha is missing completely.