Mansik Puja and the benefits of connecting with the form and sound of the Divine
Understanding the components of puja and how the mansik puja is considered superior to the other forms or puja and why?
Any type of puja or for that matter any spiritual practice has one underlying purpose and that is the expansion of human consciousness. In Vedic Puja this is achieved through certain rituals which can be repeated again and again by different people to get the same results.
Puja has several components to it, and let us look at what they are.
The form of the deity that one is worshipping
The offerings - these can be again broken down into different types and categories but I will not dwell on that for the moment.
The mantra or the chant that one uses to worship the deity
Time is also an important consideration
Place is also important in several pujas and
The sadhak himself.
By looking at the above points you will notice that essentially there is the object of worship and the rest the tools to accomplish that. The tools are like the connection between the sadhak and the deity. Why do we need tools? The reason being that the rishis did not want to leave the results to chance. It is perhaps entirely possible that an individual can worship and feel great devotion to deity without offering these but in case that is not happening the rituals enable one to get to that stage. If one is truly devoted, he or she will worship the deity with love and the best ingredients, but the corollary is if you worship the deity with these rituals and the ingredients then the same bhakti will be awakened in you.
Offerings
For any Puja to enable the expansion of consciousness of the sadhak, it has to first prepare the sadhak himself and his various subtle bodies which are the vehicles of the soul in the different planes so that he or she is capable of understanding and registering the different experiences. For this purpose the different offerings are used which are essentially the means to purify the five elements composing the subtle bodies of the sadhak. The purity of the items being offered are of utmost importance, why? Any items which are offered are to be used to uplift the quality of the subtle bodies of the sadhak, any impurity in them will be detrimental to the purpose and lead to imperfect results. According to vedas everything has consciousness and that includes all the items. By offering flowers and the various specific items the sadhak is exposing his subtle bodies to the vibrations of these items which are pure and then offering them to the divine in an act of gratitude. All these items also have an impact on the subtle bodies of the sadhak which are uplifted, not to mention the environment where the puja is being done.
Mantra
So basically after the purification is done and the initial offerings are made, comes the time to do the japa. The japa consists of mantras, and mantras are the sounds which are used to invoke the specific deities. There is a very good book called The thought forms by Charles W Leadbeater which details the various types of the sounds and music and the associated forms that are created in the subtle matter as a result of that. There was also an experiment conducted by some people interested in the science of the sound and they got a Vedic scholar from Varanasi to chant the Bhairav Tantra in the tonality and the correct pronunciation as explained in the vedas, to everyone’s amazement in the room the device which was nothing but sand on a stretched piece of rubber had the exact form of Lord Bhairava when the scholar finished chanting the tantra. The chant had created the exact form of the Lord and one wonders if it serves as the vehicle for the Lord to then transmit his energies for the benefit of the devotees. Every sound has a form associated with it and in sanskrit that has been studied in great detail and nothing is left to chance. Every sound and mantra has been selected so as to create the optimum forms which are useful and beneficial for the person who is using that language. The question that naturally arises in the mind is where is the form created? The answer to that will be quite clear to any student of the occult. The pranamyakosha and the various other subtle bodies that surround and interpenetrate our physical bodies is where the forms are created. The mantras create the forms similar to or a representation of the deity in our subtle bodies. Once we know that these forms are created then the possibilities of such an enterprise become quite obvious, the etheric forms are the containers which are then ensouled by the living energy of that particular deity. Much like the body which houses the soul the etheric container now contains the deity himself. What will be the result of such an act when done well? There are numerous examples in the stories which gives one a sense of that. It is perhaps infinite.
Time
This esoteric undertaking has to be done in a manner which allow for the maximum chance of success and allows the devotee to overcome several obstacles in terms of the prana and the impurities in the environment. Remember the most important thing that we are looking for is an elevated environment where the Puja can bring about the requisite results, as any impurity will cause the quality of the prana to be less suitable for it to serve as a vehicle of the energy of an exalted deity when it is used to create the forms for such a deity. Certain times were noted based on astrology when the energy of the environment was found suitable to undertake this kind of an enterprise and the energies were right to invoke a particular deity as it would be a lot more easier to connect to the energy of the deity. Think of it as tapping into 5G, you cannot do that with an old handset and also you need the waves to actually exist. This is a crude example for something like this but that is what it is. The devotee has to use the right method and create the right conditions in the subtle matter and when the energy in the environment is also suitable then tapping into the conscious energy of the deity is a lot easier and can give the devotee immense spiritual benefits along with several material benefits that follow. Thus, certain days are used to worship specific deities.
Place
The place where the Puja is done is also very important, a place which is suitable depends on the type of deity one wants to invoke. This is since the deity can be thought of as embodying a specific type of an energy and certain places have this energy or are in harmony with that energy. Thus when one does the puja the energy of the environment which is being used in the creation of the forms can be more suitable to serve as the vehicle for the conscious energy of that deity. That is why the temple of certain deities are at specific locations as the natural energy of certain places are apt for invoking that specific deity due to the quality of prana that is found there. Think of this as if there is a place where there is a lot of platinum, you will not be using the techniques to drill for oil there or go searching for oil. Thats not the smartest thing to do.
Sadhak
Now coming to the sadhak for whom the entire thing is arranged and is in a way the most important factor in this equation. The purity of the elements and the offerings are emphasized to help the sadhak be uplifted and resist the pull of the lower energies. How far the consciousness of the sadhak is raised depends also upon from where he starts. Hence a sadhak who has been purifying himself will find that what he or she gains from each puja, increases day on day and month on month. Whereas a sadhak who has not done so will experience little change. Offerings alone are not enough to purify. The energy generated in any sadhana has to be conserved so that the cumulative effect of it can be seen and experienced. Anger, violence of any form including mental, hurting others through action(and sometimes by inaction), lying etc lead to loss of the energy generated during the sadhana. Hence it is often seen that a sincere sadhak retires to place where he can pursue the sadhana quietly without being disturbed, accumulating slowly the energy generated during the sadhana and not letting it fritter away. Tremendous changes can be seen when a sadhak practices a high level of purity and they have all been detailed. This is perhaps also the reason why in earlier ages sincere sadhaks would retire to a remote place and do their sadhana as the energy in the environment would be a lot less polluted. Master Choa in his book Psychic self defense for home and office talks about this psychic energy of the environment and its impact on the residents there in detail.
Conclusion
We have managed to cover all the aspects of the puja in detail and naturally the next question in the mind is how we maintain such purity of place and ingredients etc. Well, that is where the manasik puja comes in. The fact that the offerings are made mentally mean that the chance for any of them to be impure is almost nil. Also, it means that the sadhak has complete awareness and is not doing the process mechanically. Remember bhakti is most important and according to Om Swami the author of the book ancient science of mantras it is the most important ingredient. Without bhakti pooja and mantra do not take anyone too far. However, with regular puja one develops the devotions, or the bhakti needed towards the deity that one has chosen.
It is time to end this rather long post now. Hope this was of some use and if you would like to do the mansik puja then the app to look at is the sadhana app. You can go to sadhana.app and be guided from there. Again I am not associated with the app in any way, it is something which has made my sadhana a lot easier and hence I like to use it and recommend it to others. Pray that your sadhana leads you closer to divine !