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.....
