Puja vs. Seva Which remedy works better? Understanding the mechanism of Sacrifice: Transforming Ignorance into Wisdom   Superstitious awe of astrology makes one an automaton, slavishly dependent on mechanical guidance.  The wise man defeats his planets - which is to say, his past - by transferring his allegiance from the creation to the Creator.  The more he realizes his unity with spirit, the less he can be dominated by matter.  The soul is ever-free; it's deathless because birthless. It can't be regimented by stars. ~~ Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, Ch. 16, "Outwitting the Stars" Ritual Remedial Puja versus Charitable Service (Seva): which works better? Q:  I know you disagree with Pooja as a technology for correcting bad karma. You would be disappointed to know that I got a KSY pooja done for myself recently. A: IMO doing a KSY puja is perfectly OK and won't hurt anything! Plus, it will help the pujari financially. That is a nice thing for the pujari : ) I do not want to put all the pujari's out of work! But I do believe that ritual pujas to be much less remedially effective than direct charitable service.  Furthermore, the choice to serve is even more effective when one's service intelligence is directed toward those who have precisely one's own type of suffering, but in a more severely debilitating version. Puja as Market Commodity Major problem that blocks effectiveness: One is often quite psycho-emotionally disconnected from the puja.  The religious ritual has become a "commodity" to be paid for and consumed. Since the beginning of Kali Yuga, just about everything in life has a price -- and puja is no exception. The originally sacred sacrifice, which is the cornerstone of all religions, has now become, in most applications and in most religions, what Karl Marx called a "fetish".  The core rituals which once evoked the deepest inner connections to the Divine are now (often) mere external fascinations, approach as superstition, apprehended as a power outside oneself.  The power to change must always originate within.  Externalized, outer-material focused rituals are not really capable of creating change. An externalized ritual gives the illusion of "doing something" efficacious, but without the moral and spiritual engagement of direct committed participation in the action, the ritual has no meaning to the native, and it cannot provoke real change. When the puja becomes a commercial commodity that is passively bought and sold, the transformative "intention" of sacrifice is completely lost.  Great Saints Agree During the past three millennia, religious reformers in all the great religions have noticed this degrading of authentic sacrifice in religious practice.  They have tried to correct it by calling the people back to intimate prayer with the Divine and toward charitable service. They knew that "Intention", which is the dedicated purpose and personal engagement of the action, is where the transformative, healing power of human life is rooted. And they were aghast to see that sacrificial religion had become a business.  Think of Jesus Christ turning over the money tables in the Temple in Jerusalem. Think of Martin Luther tacking up 95 theses rejecting the selling of indulgences and annulments. Think of Mahatma Gandhi, redirecting attention to the intentional acts such as cotton spinning and rejecting archaic superstition at every level.  There are hundreds more saints like them who came to earth to reject superstition and materialism in favor of opening to Divine intelligence through humility and intentional practice. There are hundreds more saints like them who came to earth to show the way: reject superstition and materialism in favor of opening to Divine intelligence through humility and intentional practice. True Puja is Sacrifice Sacrifice = sacri + fice, "making sacred". Sacrifice means changing something from a low level of energy to a higher level of energy. Sacrifice means transforming ignorance into wisdom. True puja can be very sincerely and deeply efficacious for a religious person who is intimately and prayerfully involved in the sacrifice.  Unfortunately, in reality, most people "throw money at it" in a state of ego-dysfunctional anxiety. In the materialistic mentality, one feels that one cannot lose the productivity time or that one somehow does not have the "expertise" to conduct a proper sacrifice.  As a result of the anxiety and fear perpetrated by a culture of materialistic superstition, one does not make the necessary effort to change oneself from the inside out (which is what true sacrifice is all about). Thus no sincere change occurs. Without the intention to personally open to the divine, which paid puja does not provide,, there is no benefit.. (Except of course the benefit to the pocketbook of the priest!)  Seva requires Intention Approaching negative karma or suffering with the tool of charitable service or "seva", on the other hand, can give excellent results. Seva requires intention, to be present and personally engaged.  In seva, the energy value being "sacrificed" is one's personal intelligent participation and productivity time.  Highest Values: Time and Intelligence In the modern individualized world, the citizen's waking time and applied intelligence are high-value, essential survival resources.  In mentalized material culture of the present era, time and intelligence are normally used strictly for purposes of generating money, prestige, physical sustenance or relaxation, or some other value of physical, social or material advancement.  "Advancement" = essentially "accumulation" - Accumulating skandhas, which means rather literally getting to the "top of the heap". Each individual receives a certain allocation of these fundamental modern resources. One perceives a trajectory of "success" through material advancement which can be achieved by the skillful utilization of intelligence and time. (Presuming health, time of peace, economic freedom, etc.) When the Competitive-Acquisitive Behavior is Blocked When the advancement is blocked, when one can't mentally "figure out" the next step forward of the material-success trajectory, a modern educated person feels deep frustration leading to suffering.  One is blocked in getting married, getting money, finding a job, getting a house, making a financial deal, landing a movie contract, etc.  These mental blockages which would not have seemed very important to denizens of earlier non-mentalized ages.  Nor do they seem so weighty to those surviving in garbage heaps or being tortured in prisons or fighting infectious disease or dying in war.  Nevertheless the modern agony is real.  Heaping Compulsions: Survival and Guilt The heap-building, acquisitive, ego-justification process that is driven by the mental engine and fueled by the guilty inner voice of "should" is urgently survival-compulsive.   Although spiritual authorities uniformly recommend pulling back from the hysterical quest for more more more material acquisition, the reality is that most people cannot get off the acquisitions addiction.  At root, hoarding is a basic survival instinct programmed into our old carnivore brains. The brain signals that if one is going to have enough life force to produce offspring, one needs to go consume the life force of another animal. The life force moves from container to container, in tantric dance: eat and be eaten, says the oldest part of the human brain.  It's very hard for an individual to separate from the cultural expectations long enough to get a clear perspective on the compulsion. Acquisitive behavior -- "getting" married, "getting" a job, "getting" respect -- is deeply programmed into the survival brain, and widely praised by collective brain of modern culture.  Acquisitive and competitive "heaping" behavior makes us feel socially valued and physically safe.  On a psycho-mental level, very real - to the point where serious blockage on the progress-trajectory causes the native to try removing the blockage via suicide or divorce amongst other catastrophic "solutions".  The Higher Truth Indeed, the best spiritual advice is to completely abandon the heaping process. Compulsive goods-and-status acquisition is well known to be a colossal waste of Earth Life time. Yet, so few people can hear the truth that our Earth incarnations are rare and precious, and should be used for the highest purposes of merging the human consciousness with the Divine.    We should remember that everything but Dharma is useless at death, and instead of wasting our lives on meaningless activities, we should blend our mindstreams with the teachings and with practice.  Doing so benefits us as individuals and benefits the world by strengthening its spiritual basis. ~~  H.H. Dalai Lama. (1994). The Path to Enlightenment. Glenn H. Mullin (Trans. & Ed.). www.snowlionpub.com Reality of the Common Person The higher message is a lot of blah-blah to a person driven by hungry-mind and desperate for social approval. They think, if I don't please my parents and make a good marriage I am going to "die". That is reptile-brain speaking. If I lose my house through bank foreclosure I am going to "die". The inner snake, again.  Periodically the USA news outlets will report married homeowners committing joint suicide because their house payments are too late. They will be forced by finances into what seems to the snake-brain like fatal loss of public dignity leading to certain death. In reality, they must move from a house into a rental apartment.  Looking at this situation from the rational outside view, of course the decision to take one's life for such a superficial reason of local reputation is outrageous and an insult to God. Again, the snakey brain does this work.  The traditional father who believes he must murder his daughter because she will not marry according to his wishes. He too is driven by the terrible urge to control for survival. Accumulate, control, command the material forces: this is the dangerous and pervasive voice of the reptile brain. Compassionate Advice, Then The compassionate approach to solving the blockage problem thus needs to take a step down and presume that the acquisitions addiction will keep barreling forward.  What common folk need is the most effective psychic technology for removing the blockage and re-starting the flow of acquisitions.   Nothing else make sense.   Compassion is the desire for another to have freedom from suffering.   Love is the desire for another to have happiness. ~~ H. H. Dalai Lama Search for Effective Remedies When blocked in desire-driven accumulations, the progress-oriented person seeks a familiar solution in the habitual field of material activity. The material mind is stuck in the modern habit of using the energy of consciousness to generate self-focused physical-mental-social value.   Naturally, one looks for a commodity or technology to open the way toward resumption of heaping.  One makes a thoughtless donation of money or an animal; perhaps a gem of so many rattis; or one purchases a ritual puja.  The natural commercial instinct is simply to trade one heap for another heap - i.e., give a cow or goat or 7 ratti gemstone to a priest. It seems reasonable that paying a penance to a spiritual technician should raise the psychic energy high enought to remove the "roadblock" open my path to a beautiful bride, a healthy child, a new house, or a promotion at work. This is how the material mind works.   Change must come from within Authentic sacrifice cannot be performed on one's behalf, absent one's present-time full-focus engagement, by another person. The exception is when the native is deeply spiritually engaged in austerities and self-reflection, while the priest is simultaneously linking to one's psychic intention. The intention has a clear shape on the astral plane, and if it is consciously harnessed to the puja, this can be indeed efficacious for re-directing the downstream from the astral plane to the material plane - and changing the course of material events.  However this level of spiritual attunement between the practitioner and the priest is exceedingly rare. Personal Engagement Required A bought puja, paid for on the same instinct which tells an ovulating lion to eat a zebra, is just another material-plane solution with no personal spiritual engagement.  Purchased "solutions" which do not require personal engagement do not create true sacrifice that evokes transformative change.   Money exchanges will not "lift" the awareness out of the material plane and up to the astral or mental fields of consciousness, where one might gain the perspective needed to perceive a long-term solution. Nothing originates on the material plane.  The material plane is the outcome, the result, "the buck stops here".  Physical reality is end of a long process originating on the spiritual plane, percolating down to the mental plane, if not apprehended in the mental plane then dropping down to the astral plane, and only if the native cannot grasp any of the higher levels of perception does reality need to manifest on the material plane. Common-sense Material Remedies Material blockage usually does not have a material origin. Most material problems are mental or psycho-emotional in origin. Problems that are indeed material in origin can generally be solved with common-sense material remedies, such as medical treatment for a health problem or professional accounting to resolve financial distress. There can be a lateral transfer of energy on the material plane, but increased awareness requires moving the perspective up to a higher particulate level. First, try mental and spiritual reflection  Before even considering the need to make an energy-transforming sacrifice, one should have already exhausted the common-sense levels of material remedy, including not only technical, professional help -- but also one's own psychic perception Do everything that can be done within one's capability, including both mental and spiritual reflection on the problem.  Meditation, concentration, and reflection are conscious means of access to the mental plane, and most people can do these if they try. Simply entering a restful mental state and asking for divine guidance, or asking for help from the spirits in the moments immediately before falling asleep, can produce deep insight and compelling direction toward real-life solutions in a shockingly speedy way.  If the problems have not resolved after common-sense treatment, meditation and/or prayer, and intelligent personal inquiry into solutions, then the problem is not solvable within one's own capabilities, and an energy transformation on a higher plane will be required. Paid puja is a commercial transaction that occurs strictly on the material plane connecting one to the pujari. Unless some extraordinary circumstance are in place, which might connect one to the pujari on higher planes, continuing to expect improvement on the material plane after the common-sense remedies have been exhausted is not only fruitless but also  really quite superstitious.  Seva raises the consciousness and makes changes at the astral level The practice of Seva, or selfless charitable service, is efficacious for making substantial changes and releasing downflow blockages on the astral plane. Seva is efficacious because the native has injected the material value of one's time and intelligence, the tools of service, with love.  Love (not desire, but love) is the most pure energy in existence. Love is the "glue" which holds together the material, astral, mental, and spiritual planes of reality.  Without love connecting everything to everything else, the whole universe would go kablooey, in an instant! Getting Un-Stuck: Seva is Love, and Love is Flow In the act of commitment to Seva, the native has chosen to act from the motive of love (concern for another, or compassion) rather than the motive of survival (or accumulation).  The Intention to use the assets of time and intelligence for the benefit of others, functions as a "reverse flush" . This psychic back-flush sends "stuck energy" that is plugging up the flow of acquisitions on the material plane, back up to the higher planes.  Love and Money Love is the greatest "open secret" of all material life. The more love one invites into one's life, the more money and power one can access. Consider the amount of money and resources that some contemporary authentic spiritual figures are known to have at their disposal.  They are authentic saints such as Mother Teresa, Ammachi, and H.H. Dalai Lama. They act almost exclusively for the benefit of others, from a motive of compassionate love.  They do not personally hoard more than a few yards of cloth and a couple of pair of shoes. But they can access and control many millions in resources. Love actually does create money. But the person who lives immersed in love usually has no desire to hoard. Love only flourishes when it flows freely.  Intent But let us say that one is not a great saint, and one cannot yet extend the consciousness to imagine living "immersed in love" and owning very little. One would rather live a bit closer to the Earth, enjoying a fat bank account, a happy healthy family, and a peaceful old age. This is achievable.  It does take a bit more effort for the non-saint, though. The natural hoarder does not easily abandon the "me-first" state of mind which allows love to come in. It is easiest to start small, and it is essential to properly target one's service to achieve precise results.  Begin with intent. The very decision to offer conscious service marks the germ-moment of transformative trajectory, out of anxious suffering and into conscious awareness. The decision to sacrifice one's conscious time, for the benefit of others, is truly momentous. Target the Correct Beneficiaries Then, target the time and intelligence toward actions in charitable service for those who have precisely the same problem as oneself, except in a greater degree of painful intensity. This helps to match the "energy going out" to the "energy going in" on the astral plane imagery, where the subconscious expectations are stored. When one is personally involved in the service work, inevitably the intelligence is engaged. Even while the less conscious flow of love and appreciation is ongoing, one is consciously learning something practical and insightful about the patterns of expectation and habitual reaction which trigger and perpetuate the troublesome karma.  There are no victims in this world. Yet many people carry massively negative expectations. Without awareness, negativity in the mind will re-create cycles of poverty and violence almost indefinitely. The dark mind harbors afflicted emotions, such as anger and greed;  assumptions about inevitable failure, and fear-driven reactive behaviors.  Noticing If for example one is having trouble with financial management, and one goes to serve those who subsist on a few paisa each day, one may notice that despite their terrible victim state even this tiny money is partly spent for alcohol or sense pleasure. From one's higher but still similarly-suffering perspective, one may note the negative expectations, the exhaustion, and other aspects of victim-mind which drive the cycles of world poverty. This "noticing" is a moment of sacrifice, when a pattern of ignorance (not knowing how this pattern quite works) changes into a pattern of knowledge. One apprehends and identifies the destructive pattern. One transfers the wisdom of positive new knowledge back into one's own astral field of perception. One's own expectation and presumption is altered by the new knowledge.  Thus the servant of those suffering severely may benefit quickly from insight gathered during the service action.  Similar results might be gained from serving victims of a terrible accident, such as burned children. Are their parents attending with love and grace, not pleading or angry around their healing children but providing the best calm spiritual love environment for healing?  One engaged in charitable service may notice a pattern applicable to one's own life, that the parents who can accept the tragedy without blame or complaint, whose prayers for their child's healing are calm and open to divine guidance, get a much faster healing both emotional and physical for their child.  Transfer this value into one's own field of awareness. Such a point of intelligence is invaluable in aiding one's own solution. Information gained in properly targeted charitable service is usually of immediate usefulness! But anyway that is the power of sacrifice: transforming ignorance into wisdom.  It is unlikely that paying a pujari or wrapping cloth strips around one's head or wearing of talismans or serving milk to statues will ever Directly Engage the native intelligence the way that hands-on, accurately targeted, charitable service can do.
	updated: 22 August 2008   Copyright © 1994-2015 by Barbara Pijan Lama - Contact - Sitemap - How to Request a Jyotisha Reading - www.barbarapijan.com - Barbara Pijan Lama Jyotisha Jyotish Vedic Astrology Horoscope Readings Surya Sun Chandra Moon Mangala Mars Budha Mercury Guru Jupiter Shukra Venus Shani Saturn Rahu Ketu Graha Planets Dasha Timeline Nakshatra Navamsha Marriage Children Wealth Career Spiritual Wisdom Death