Hello again to all!

[ThouArt]

I have been away a long time, moved away from the Chicago area and have had a life-changing experience with that move. While living in a new home I practiced daily devotion to lord Shiva and of course, Hsri Ganesha. One day I asked Lord Shiva in my daily bhakti to change my life and to destroy the person that I was and create my life anew so I may focus on bhakti...within a couple days my house burned to the ground..beloved pets (fellow beings on this journey) and everything was lost.
This included my altar, all puja items, all, all, all. Two things survived this fire, a brass Ganesha and a much honored wooden Shiva, his head emerging from a lotus blossom.
This most precious item is quite burned and my question is this: Do I continue to keep it while I rebuild my altar or is there a proper way to dispose of it?
With months of grieving and soul searvhing I have found this mighty lord, the magnificient Mahadeva has made it clear to me what has occurred.
My heart, my life, my soul is recovering from this tremendous upheaval, one that I most assuredly asked for but NEVER expected to receive in such a way.

Namaste
Thou Art

[Eastern Mind]

Cracked idols (murthis) are considered inauspicious and often disposed of in a river... or water of any kind...Here at Ganesh Vijarjana one year some devotees disposed of a cracked marble one in this way. Just my ideas..others will likely differ..wow to your experiences..Siva accelerating karma for sure... one of the reasons I never approach the temple and prayer without full thought involved.
Aum Namashivaya

[Agnideva]

Namaste Thou Art,

I am sorry to hear of your loss - both property and beloved pets. Whatever Mahadeva does is for the best, of this we can be certain. As for the damaged murtis, I think EM is quite correct. Damaged murtis are generally submerged in a body of water and not used anymore. You may, however, wish to ask the priest in your local temple what is the best thing to do, as he will be able to give you the best advice.

Aum Namah Shivaya.
A.

[satay]

Namaskar!

Damaged murthi like damaged rudrakshas and puja smagri after puja should be 'let go' of in a body of water.

As I read this message of ThouArt, I couldn't help but think how mysteriously Lord works when granting 'prayers'. For example, many millions of people are probably asking for this and that for many many years yet their prayers remain unanswered and yet thouart asks something and it gets accepted in a literal sense!!

Amazing are the ways Lord works...

:bowdown:

ps: not to take away from the mystery but did you find out what was the cause of the fire?

[atanu]

---One day I asked Lord Shiva in my daily bhakti to change my life and to destroy the person that I was and create my life anew so I may focus on bhakti...within a couple days my house burned to the ground..beloved pets (fellow beings on this journey) and everything was lost.
This included my altar, all puja items, all, all, all. Two things survived this fire, a brass Ganesha and a much honored wooden Shiva, his head emerging from a lotus blossom.
This most precious item is quite burned and my question is this: Do I continue to keep it while I rebuild my altar or is there a proper way to dispose of it?
-----
Namaste
Thou Art

Namaste Thou Art,

Like satay, I am also interested to know how it happened, if it is not painful to relate. Yet it is true that the auspicious appears to be utterly inauspicious.

Regarding keeping the damaged Murti, those who are proficient in shastras have offered the wisdom. I offer another angle, a story. It is said that an idol developed a crack in its arm in Dakhinesvar Kali temple. Priests there all argued for disposing off the idol. Ramakrishna asked them whether they would dispose off their daughter, if she broke her arm?

Do not worry about a decision, and then whatever will happen will be Lord's doing only. However, if your mind gets disturbed about preserving the damaged idols, on account of shastrik rules, then lovingly let them go in a river.

Om Namah Shivaya

[saidevo]

Here is a different view on your cracked image of Shiva. Once a husband-wife devotee supplicated to Kanchi Paramacharya to direct them towards some devotional service. The sage ordered them to locate, wash, decorate and do puja to images of Ganesha (wherever they were installed for the public, temples, banks of ponds or under the peepul tree) within one kilometer radius of the Kumbakonam town in Tamilnadu where the sage was camping at that time. Within three days, along with the help of another devotee, they located and performed puja to over 168 images. In that process they asked Paramacharya as to what they should do with the images that are damaged, and this was the sage's reply:



When we asked, "Should we do puja to the PiLLaiyar images that remain binna (broken) at their hands or legs?", Periyavaa said, "Why, are there not people with broken hands or legs in the world? It is the same case here," and ordered us to do te puja even to those images.

(Source: A Tamil book on the experiences of Paramacharya's devotees.


The sage was in camping in another state of India when they completed their devotional service. When they went and told him, he told them using his prevision that the trio had omitted to locate six images and told them their locations!

In the case of Kanchi Paramacharya, who was an Advaitin of the Shankaracharya tradition and did extensive daily puja to Lord Shiva and Devi Shakti, the performer and the deity merged into one being. Yet in the case of mortals like us, it seems to me that it is our love for the image that decides whether to keep and sanctify it, though that love is now tinged with pangs of sorrow. Perhaps you can wait and Lord Shiva himself will show you the way.

I am sorry to hear about your loss but be sure that Lord Shiva and Ganesha will give you the strength and facilities to start over.

[ThouArt]

Namaste to all...

Thank you all for your kind responses; after almost one year of not attending my much beloved temple here in Chicago. I returned just two days ago and asked a very kind swami there who told me that the burned Shiva that rested so solemnly and holy on my home altar should be released to a body of water (river).

He also said that it is possible that I may have angered God during prayer because I probably am not pronouncing the words properly! He then stated meditation and affirmations are probably the best way for me to go.

That disappointed me of course. And also scared me. I feel my most precious religion is out of my reach.

I am now living in western North Carolina and temples are NOWHERE in sight, the nearest is four hours away in Raleigh, N.C. A very watered down extremely westernized bhuddism/hinduism/new ageism thing is available but the purity of faith is extremely important to me; I call Hinduism my religion because of it's depth and not because "it's cool"...

And, the fire report was never able to find the source of the fire....

Thank you all

Thou Art

[Eastern Mind]

Namaste to all...

He also said that it is possible that I may have angered God during prayer because I probably am not pronouncing the words properly! He then stated meditation and affirmations are probably the best way for me to go.

That disappointed me of course. And also scared me. I feel my most precious religion is out of my reach.

Thou Art

I'm sorry, but I beg to differ in a strong way with the swami's opinion. God angry? What kind of Hindu God is that? Hindu God's are loving, forgiving, and benevolent. I feel it was simply some karma of yours, and you understand this. As for the pronunciation... well, that I believe is a crock too. Its in the heart, not in the pronunciation. Of course the pronunciation is important to a degree. Everyone mispronounces any language when they're first learning it. Anyways, take that for what its worth. Regarding your distancing from a temple, it is kind of unfortunate, but again sometimes performing one's dharma here in the west leads to exactly that. But I've been in home shrines that are far more powerful energy wise than some temples. So build the vibration up yourself. Aum Namasivaya

[satay]

Here is my simple engineering mind logic:

"mama wa"
Mommy gives water to child. Does she get angry that the child can't pronounce water properly? Mother knows the child will one day and what of those children who will never do because of some disability?

I also think that this 'god got angry at mispronouncing' can not be correct. I don't buy it. It is opposite of the grace of God.

God/Shiva is full of grace.