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Thread: Manasika Puja

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    Manasika Puja

    There is a type of puja called Manasika Puja. In this way, everything you offer to the Divine is in your mind or vision. And all the materials as well.

    You first seat the Divine in your heart. Then offer your puja but using the vision of the mind-scape. You imagine each. A flower, etc..

    Does anyone practice Manasika Puja? Please give an example if so. Or does anyone object to Manasika Puja?

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    Re: Manasika Puja

    Namaste..
    Yes.. The manasa puja, I have done that..
    There is also stotra dedicated to it by Adi Shankaracharya Ji..
    I will like to hear other members and their experience and proper way to do this Pooja
    Pranam
    Aasato ma sat gamay
    tamaso ma jotirgamay
    mrityorma amrutamgamay
    (Bring me from asat to sat, bring me from darkness (ignorance) to light (knowledge), bring me from death to immortality)
    Om Namah Shivay
    Om Vishnave Namah

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    Re: Manasika Puja

    Quote Originally Posted by ShivaFan View Post
    There is a type of puja called Manasika Puja. In this way, everything you offer to the Divine is in your mind or vision. And all the materials as well.

    You first seat the Divine in your heart. Then offer your puja but using the vision of the mind-scape. You imagine each. A flower, etc..

    Does anyone practice Manasika Puja? Please give an example if so. Or does anyone object to Manasika Puja?
    Namaste Shiva Fan ji

    I do it regularly. I do not have the complete scriptural knowledge. I will tell what I do, with an example. Say Sundara Kaanda Paaraayanam (reading the Sundara Kaanda of Srimad Raamayana). I have Vaalmiki Raamayana book with me and it has information on the slokas to read before starting the Paaraayanam. They are basically to invite the Gods to ascend and show your hospitality.

    Lets say you don't have any information or any material, all you know is just Shiva.

    If i were to do Maanasi Puja, I ll invite him and his consort and ask them seated in my heart. Then I will speak to him as though you would speak to a close relative whom you haven't met for long time. Wash them, scent them, feed them, praise them, talk your heart out. In the end you can ask them to retire.

    This is more effective than any other form of prayer (me thinks).

    Please keep one thing in your mind: When you are going invite God into your heart, please make sure the place is clean
    Anirudh...

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    Re: Manasika Puja

    Namaste..
    Amritabindu Upanishad says “manaeva manushyaanaaam kaaranam bandha moksha yoh”. Mind alone is responsible for both bondage and freedom.

    And I think this is the purpose of this Pooja, to concentrate mind on Lord. What we offer physically is just useless sometimes.. As we can't offer anything which is not belongs to him.. Everything is his.. But what we offer is for love and to convey our surrender but in most cases people offer flowers, leaves without love, just as machine and mind wandering in other material things..
    But in manas Pooja once mind should be fully concentrated to visualize and hence there we feel more bhāv..
    Also it's great that either offering flowers, fruits, milk physically to God offer them mentally and from the money you saved just buy any toy or clothes to some orphan kids or to help someone
    Pranam


    Haha I just noticed after posting this post that one thread is here recently on hdf with the same quote I posted from Upanishad nice coincidence =)
    Aasato ma sat gamay
    tamaso ma jotirgamay
    mrityorma amrutamgamay
    (Bring me from asat to sat, bring me from darkness (ignorance) to light (knowledge), bring me from death to immortality)
    Om Namah Shivay
    Om Vishnave Namah

  5. #5
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    Re: Manasika Puja

    Namaste to all...

    Yes, this is something I do, quite often as a matter of fact. I imagine being at my shrine with all my puja items, even envisioning the lamp and incense, flowers, offerings, etc. I have seen this referred to as antharyagam puja, and is described in the Mahabharata by Sri Krishna to Arjuna.

    http://www.bnaiyer.com/Hindu-Special-Articles/Devotion/d-puja-05.html

    The paragraph beginning "As an example, there is a story in Mahabharatha... "

    And this http://sivanandaonline.org/public_ht...ection_id=1016

    MANASIKA PUJA

    Manasika Puja is doing worship of the Lord without any external materials. All materials necessary for Puja are imagined in the mind and you feel that you are offering all of them to the Lord as in formal worship. This is more powerful than external worship. For, concentration is more in Manasika Puja than in Bahya Puja.

    Mentally feel all that you do in external worship. Enthrone the Lord in your heart. Do Puja, offer Arati, ­Arghya etc. mentally. Do Shodasopachara-Puja mentally. This is only a feeling of what is otherwise done actually with hands. Feeling is more effective than action.
    śivasya hridayam viṣṇur viṣṇoscha hridayam śivaḥ

  6. #6

    Re: Manasika Puja

    Namaste

    Here are a couple of examples from the Gaudia tradition.

    The Story of Nrsimhananda Brahmacari

    When Nrsimhananda Brahmacari heard that Lord Caitanya was going to Vrndavan, he decided to mentally decorate the Lord’s path with beds of stemless flowers and jewels. Nrsimhananda Brahmacari did it all in his mind, via his strong spiritual desire to serve Lord Caitanya with a pathway beautified with gems and flowers and ghats and lakes. He mentally planted bakula flower trees on both sides of the road, and at intervals he dug and filled multiple excavations with the pure waters of transcendental lakes, intermittently bedecked with jeweled bathing ghats. He mentally filled the nectarean waters of the lakes with yellow and blue and red lotus flowers, and he placed chirping birds upon the branches of flowering trees — birds singing in sweet harmony, reverberating with the expert arrangements of vina and mrdanga accompaniment.

    Srila Prabhupada writes in his transcendental purport, Madhya 1.162P, “For a pure devotee, it is the same whether he materially constructs a path or constructs one within his mind. This is because the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Janardana, is bhava-grahi, or appreciative of the sentiment. For Him a path made with actual jewels and a path made of mental jewels are the same. Though subtle, mind is also matter, so any path -- indeed, anything for the service of the Lord, whether in gross matter or in subtle matter -- is accepted equally by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord accepts the attitude of His devotee and sees how much he is prepared to serve Him. The devotee is at liberty to serve the Lord either in gross matter or in subtle matter. ” Thus even the poorest devotee can serve the Lord with great opulence within his mind, and offer the subtle elements of his mind, presenting precious gifts, clad in gold and fitted with rare sparkling jewels, along with a great variety of exotic flowers and scents, and he will get the same result as that of an affluent devotee who offers a great wealth of real jewels and fragrant substances. Any offering of the sincere devotee, whether given in either gross or subtle matter, are both accepted by Lord Krishna, as both are the same, when done in the attitude of pure love.

    The Story of the poor Brahmana in South India

    This story comes from the Brahma-vaivarta Purana, that in the city of Pratisthanapura in South India, there was once a poor brahmana who thought that because of his past misdeeds and the desire of Lord Krishna that he did not have sufficient money to worship his Lord as he desired to do with great opulence. Once he was hearing a lecture from a great realized soul, that the activities of devotional service can be performed by meditation, and the results of such mental visualization will bring the same results as if he was actually doing that service physically.

    Fixed up with great determination to worship his Lord with great pomp, and in his mind alone, the South India brahmana took bath in the Godavari River, and then sat in a secluded place on the bank of the river. He practiced yoga and pranayama in order to fix the form of the Lord firmly within his mind, and then imagined that he was dressing the Lord in very costly clothing and ornaments and helmets and other paraphernalia. He then fell down to offer obeisances, and then cleansed the temple very nicely. Next he filled water jugs made of silver and gold with water from the river Godavari, and also the rivers Yamuna and Ganges, and the Narmada and the Kaveri. Generally a brahmana will collect water from all these rivers by chanting mantras, but in his case, he mentally went to all these 5 rivers with pots of gold and silver and took water from each river, even though they were thousands of miles apart. He then collected exotic flowers and fruits and incense and sandalwood pulp.

    And so the brahmana went into a deep meditation on his Lord and placed the waters and flowers, and scented articles before the Lord, and then he offered arotik with ghee lamps and camphor, and other silver articles, arranged nicely upon a golden arotik tray. Then he fanned his Lord with a golden handled yak tail fan and a peacock fan. He would daily execute these offerings to his lord, Lord Sri Krishna, very punctually, every morning with great joy and reverence. Then one day he was cooking sweet rice for the Lord, and he happened to test the temperature of the prep with his finger, and quickly withdrew his finger because it was very hot. At that moment he broke from his meditation and saw that his finger was burned in both worlds, in his meditation, and on his physical finger, showing that the meditation of cooking a prep is just as real as cooking in a kitchen.

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