Puja - A Child Game ?!

Jai Gurudev !!

Normally we offer prayers to the divine daily , weekly or special Prayers during festivals. We call it as Puja or Pooja .

Pooja is a Sanskrit word meaning an action that comes out of fullness.

In the sense , Pooja is done as an act of gratitude arising out of fulfillment or contented attitude .

Whenever we say Pooja, the things that come to our mind are  cleansing with  Water   , Flowers , Fruits , Food items offered as Prasad , Incense sticks , Camphors , Aarti , the Bell sound etc.

And also what we can notice here is , the Puja , what we perform is an imitation of what Nature is doing us . Puzzling ?! 

Just bringing to our mind , recollecting our childhoos games , one would not miss out the game played with toys with such an involvement . Generally , a girl child imitates her mom and the boy child would love to imitate his dad.

The girl child will have a toy doll and it's a fun watching her play with it  . She gives bath to the doll , feeds her with a bottle , talks to her , dresses her up and does what all her mom does for her.

 She makes her sleep , nurses her carefully as though the doll baby has fallen ill .

    

    On the otherhand , the boy child would imitate his dad , his profession . He would play as a conductor or a doctor or any profession  . That's a lovely game which no one would have ever missed out in those days of yesteryears - childhood  games . Also , they play the game of the impressive characters , which they see in their daily routine as teachers, milkman, postman , thief, washerman , bus conductor, driver etc . The children would just love playing this imitating games . It's a common sight to watch.                        

If we take a closer look at the way we offer prayers or Puja , it is something similar to the kids game of imitating elders .

For instance , during a Pooja, the place is well cleaned , disinfected with naturally available items like turmeric, cowdung etc and a beautiful design pattern is drawn on the ground with various colours smeared on the patterns called as Rangoli .

Infact , the Divine makes our life colourful , providing us lots of entertainments and each one of our life is like a unique rangoli pattern .

And in that case , are we not imitating the Divine ? 

Then , during the Puja , we decorate the place with flowers , lit lamps , burn the incense sticks to spread the fragrance ,  offer flowers , fruits , various delicacies  , sing songs , play musical instruments and make aartis with Camphor . And then we bow down to God as an act of surrender.

If we observe  , the Divine Nature gives us flowers , fruits , vegetables, Cotton for clothes and literally everything to us .

The Nature causes the birds to chirp - multiple sounds produced by different birds , similar to the vocal songs and instrumental sounds.

 

And the Nature provides us the ample light and heat by making the Sun to move around us , rather makes the Earth move around the Sun

and makes the living on this planet earth a reality . Otherwise, no one can think of life on Earth at all. How kind is the Nature towards us ?!

This is similar to the aarti , we do , in response to the moving around of the sun , an act of gratitude towards the Sun and the Nature , in turn.  

So, do you agree with the fact that we offer prayers or perform Puja to God , as an imitation of  what the Divine Nature does to us , living beings with so much love and care ?!

Love & smiles.....