Worship

[wcrow]

Hello,
I am interested in knowing how, and why hindus worship. I know there is Puja, and mantras, but how often does the average hindu do this? And to which god(s) - is it only your Ishta-devata? I know I have seen mention of worship of Ganesha before doing the main puja.
Also, prayer. how is this done, and what kind of prayers are considered suitable?

Thank you all very much in advance.

[ScottMalaysia]

It depends, really. Some Hindus, like my wife's grandfather, perform daily puja. He does it twice a day - once in the early morning and again in the evening. Others, like my in-laws, never do it. I don't do it at the moment because my wife and I are staying with my mother and we don't have a proper shrine and proper puja equipment.

Regarding the gods to which it is done: While most Hindus have an Ishta Devata, home shrines generally have quite a few pictures. Yes, Lord Ganesha is worshipped before starting a puja, and when performing puja, you offer each item to Him first. The number of pictures depends - some people have a lot, others have only a few. Not long before returning to New Zealand, we visited some friends of my in-laws in Ipoh. They had a lot of pictures in their puja room. Last Dipavali, we visited other friends of my in-laws, who had a separate temple building beside their house. It has no pictures, only a sacred rock with a snake living somewhere underneath. My wife's grandfather has (from memory) Lord Ganesha, Lord Hanuman, Lord Shiva, Goddess Durga, several pictures of Murugan, Sathya Sai Baba and a picture of Goddess Saraswati to the right of the main altar. Some people place pictures of Jesus Christ on their altar, and I've heard of one man with a picture of Elvis Presley in his puja room.

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam wcrow:

As Scott has said, it varies ... a lot. The Hindu religions are many and vast. Its practices reflect this. Even the concept of ishta-devata isn't contained within them all.

There are two common and basic reasons we pray. (There are probably more, but these two general ones would cover most of it) One is the prayer of gratitude. When we pass an exam, have a child, get a job etc., Hindus often go to a temple or shrine, and mentally say, "Thank you so much" in whatever language they think in, Sanskrit or otherwise.

The other one would be broadly defined as the 'Remover of Obstacles' (Lord Vignesvara, as Ganesha, but in effect any deity) prayer. This would mean easing the karma of yourself or others in some way. This would include prayers for good health, wealth, safe trips, a good spouse, success in school, good birth next lifetime, a drawing closer to You, more time for meditation, health of the Haitian community... and many more. This type of prayer can be very general, or very specific, but the general idea is something in the future to be eased or made easy.

Many would say that God doesn't often work with 'selfish' prayers like more money, millionaire etc., or with adharmic prayers, like praying for someone to be injured. So most educated Hindus would never offer up such prayers.

Prayer is often done on behalf of someone else as well, like a proxy vote.

That basically sums up why we pray.

How we pray is just as diverse. Some will make elaborate offerings. Some will just be general like a sort of 'Help me." thing. Others will be very specific in mind. Still others will write prayers down and place them in havans, believing mystically that the devas will read them, thus getting the message better. But regardless of how it is done, there is one essential commonality, and that is faith. Clearly most Hindus believe prayers are answered, or else this practice would have stopped years ago.

Hope this is some benefit.

Aum Namasivaya

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
Namast� wcrow,

Hello,
...I know I have seen mention of worship of Ganesha before doing the main puja.
.

Why gaṇeśa ? - He is the the remover of obstacles� - hence if done 1st , the notion is to have a clear path created for one's worship/adoration.

oṁ gaṇeśvarāya namaḥ
ॐ गणेश्वराय हमः

Regarding worship/adoration - there is outward and inward adoration. There comes a time in one's development when all actions are worship/adoration. That the SELF, brahman, is part of each and every breath, everything seen is the expansion and expression of the Divine - and with that all actions are worship... this say the wise is the fully integrated person. The exponent of Reality.
praṇām

references

More on gaṇeśa see this HDF post/string: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=4837

[sanjaya]

Hello,
I am interested in knowing how, and why hindus worship. I know there is Puja, and mantras, but how often does the average hindu do this? And to which god(s) - is it only your Ishta-devata? I know I have seen mention of worship of Ganesha before doing the main puja.
Also, prayer. how is this done, and what kind of prayers are considered suitable?

Thank you all very much in advance.

It's worth noting, as EM mentioned, that not all Hindus have an Ishta-devata. Actually, I never even knew about the concept until I started doing more in-depth research into Hinduism. Now partly it's because I've never been the most knowledable Hindu. But also it's because my family has always done worship of many gods. We have many images of Lord Vishnu, but also of Ganesha and various gurus. We also worship Lord Shiva.

As far as frequency goes, I can't comment on the average Hindu, but I know that my father does the Vishnu Sahasranama (1008 names of Lord Vishnu) every morning, and that my mother does daily prayers to her guru. We also do the Satyanarayana puja every month, although this is a more recent trend due to my insistence (they had sort of stopped this practice after my brother and I moved out of the house for college).

[ScottMalaysia]

It's worth noting, as EM mentioned, that not all Hindus have an Ishta-devata. Actually, I never even knew about the concept until I started doing more in-depth research into Hinduism. Now partly it's because I've never been the most knowledable Hindu. But also it's because my family has always done worship of many gods. We have many images of Lord Vishnu, but also of Ganesha and various gurus. We also worship Lord Shiva.

I think most Hindus have images of multiple Gods in their home shrines. But many Hindus have one specific God out of those Gods that they pray to. My mother-in-law is a devotee of Kali Ma, but they have several pictures on their altar (however they have a picture of Durga instead of Kali). I think my wife's grandfather is a devotee of Lord Murugan (he has three Murugan pictures on his altar) but he also has pictures of Lord Ganesha, Lord Shiva, Lord Hanuman, Goddess Durga, Sathya Sai Baba, along with a picture of Goddess Saraswati to the right of the main shrine.

So the way I see it (and I could be completely wrong), most Hindus have pictures of various Gods on their altars whom they worship, but they have one special God whom they direct most of their devotions and prayers to. For me, that is Goddess Durga. When I go to the temple, I will offer prayers to Lord Rama, Goddess Seeta (whom I ask to protect my wife who shares her name), Lord Lakshmana, Lord Hanuman, Radha-Krishna, and Shiva-Parvati as well as Goddess Durga, but when I pray outside of the temple, in my own house or whenever else I need to pray, I mainly pray to Goddess Durga (whom I just call "Holy Mother").

As far as frequency goes, I can't comment on the average Hindu, but I know that my father does the Vishnu Sahasranama (1008 names of Lord Vishnu) every morning, and that my mother does daily prayers to her guru. We also do the Satyanarayana puja every month, although this is a more recent trend due to my insistence (they had sort of stopped this practice after my brother and I moved out of the house for college).[/quote]

[wcrow]

Thank you all for your answers, it seems that you pray and worship for much the same reason as many other religions!
But about yoga - is this seens as something seperate and additional to worship? I guess what I am asking is what is the main goal in a hindus spiritual life - is it worship that is most important or something else?
Also, it is interested that ScottMalaysia and sanjanya have said that thier families worship more than one god, and do not take much note of sectarian differences. Would it be correct to say that the average hindu does not care for sects?

Again, thankyou very much, and I eagerly await your answers.

[Eastern Mind]

wcrow: Good questions. Yoga has several meanings, and branches, or types, sort of. From a mountaintop perspective (advaita) all yogas would integrated.
But they have been separated into jnana, bhakti, hatha, karma etc. So the answer to your question might be easier if you defined yoga for us first. What do you mean by yoga?

Regarding sects, I think it would be fair to say that most Hindus don't take much notice of it. (I used to think differently, but changed my mind because of discussions here on HDF) However, some do. Some know exactly what sect they follow, and will let you know. Most (but not all) are tolerant of other sects.

There is also the geography and linguistic factors. This leads to some people being sectarian and practicing their version of Hinduism, but not knowing it is a sectarian version. For example, a person living in Bengal would quite likely be a Kali worshipper because kali worship is common in Bengal. So technically they would be Shaktite, or at least leaning to Shaktism. But if you asked them, they wouldn't know it.

I was talking to a young lady last night at the temple I go to, and she said she didn't know who Murugan was, yet in South India, everyone does.

So it varies... a lot. There are even Hindus who only worship a formless God. Also a lot of people are just polite. So they can be whatever they want to be as the situation arises. I know one fellow who is a hard core Smarta, where the temple he helped start has the traditional Smarta setup. But when pressed, he'd say he has "One' ishta. But if you asked him which one, he'd never tell you. I assume he just didn't want to insult you. Another time we hired a priest to do the puja for Vinayaka Chaturthi. Everything was going along nicely in a very traditional South Indian way that pujas go, excellent sanskrit, etc. Then just as the final aarti was about to happen, he stopped cold, and gave us all a one hour very boring lecture on Vedanta. So there is no standard answer. At the temple I go to we get very much a cross section of all of India. if you asked some simple question like, What is karma?, or Who is the Supreme God? You'd get at least 15 different answers to both.

Personally, I love the diversity.

Aum Namasivaya

[sanjaya]

Thank you all for your answers, it seems that you pray and worship for much the same reason as many other religions!
But about yoga - is this seens as something seperate and additional to worship? I guess what I am asking is what is the main goal in a hindus spiritual life - is it worship that is most important or something else?
Also, it is interested that ScottMalaysia and sanjanya have said that thier families worship more than one god, and do not take much note of sectarian differences. Would it be correct to say that the average hindu does not care for sects?

That's a good question. I honestly don't know the answer, but I would like to. What I can say is that "sectarianism" in Hinduism takes a very different form than what you might expect from the usual meaning of the word. I don't know of any Hindus whose sectarianism leads to exclusivity. Often, many Hindus have preferred methods of worship, but in all cases that I've seen, they are always tolerant of other methods.

[wcrow]

wcrow: Good questions. Yoga has several meanings, and branches, or types, sort of. From a mountaintop perspective (advaita) all yogas would integrated.
But they have been separated into jnana, bhakti, hatha, karma etc. So the answer to your question might be easier if you defined yoga for us first. What do you mean by yoga?

I guess what I mean by yoga is the means which you use to attain self-reaization and Moksha. There are four paths, as far as I can understand, and these are bhakti, jnana, karma and raja. Some sects and philosophies place more emphasis on one or more paths. Of cource, I have gathered this mainly from wikipedia and other online sources, so I am most likely getting something wrong - which is why I asked.