Puja ceremonies

 Have you guys ever sat through Puja ceremonies lasting several hours? Recently, I had to do that every day for eleven days straight. To give a bit of context, our family priest called my dad and told him that, I’m going through a bad phase. So, it’s advisable to perform some rituals for Shanti. I was dead against it initially. I thought it’s an unnecessary expense and didn’t believe in such things. But, finally, I agreed to take part in it. Sitting through such ceremonies for hours together without any other distractions meant I had ample time to ponder on existential questions

  Firstly, What’s the purpose of Puja? I tried to understand the chants the priest is performing. Most of them seemed to praise the God for various deeds he has done to save the humanity/universe. If God managed to listen to them, what does he think? If ever I’m part of a meeting where everyone praises me non-stop for 2 hours, I’d be frustrated (I’m not saying, you guys shouldn’t do it. Who am I to stop you ;) ) Surely, He/She won’t fall for that

   Then comes the part where we listen to stories. There’s a definite pattern to these stories. Most of them say that, if you do this puja, your sins are washed away. If you perform mistakes while doing these ceremonies, great disasters befall you. Surely, God isn’t so petty that he takes revenge on the beings he created over material reasons

   So, what then could be the reason? I observed that all these ceremonies, no matter how cheap or expensive have something in common. That’s charity. All the ceremonies exhort us to donate food/clothes/money to the needy. There is prasad that will be distributed to everyone at the end of the ceremony. Ultimately, it seems to me that all these ceremonies are intended to serve the maxim, ‘Manava Sevaye Madhava Seva’

   I’ll end this writeup with a small side story. One of the priests told me that the ceremony has to be performed by Brahmins. Because, they observe strict rules in their daily life. It seemed to be a rule invented to create exclusivity among beneficiaries. God didn’t mind meat from Bhakta Kannappa who’s a hunter by birth. Would he care for such rules?