What is Puja?
A question asked by a colleague from a different faith. Normally, it’s quite easy to explain – Puja is a ritualistic offering to a deity – is what you would probably get from Google or AI. But is it?
Here is an explanation from WisdomLib:
Pūjā (पूजा) is usually translated as “worship”. It derives from the multivalent Sanskrit root puj, meaning “to worship”. This root also means “to honor”; “to serve”; “to collect or bring together”; “’intelligent”; “to shine”. Pūjā is therefore “an intelligent bringing together of luminous elements (in the form of a mūrti) in order to honor or worship”. Thus, a pūjā is a type of ritual that, unlike in a Vedic sacrifice (yajña),employs the use of an image (mūrti). The term pūjā is used to denote a ritual of worship of an image or an aniconic form of a deity as well as of any other object that is considered to possess special power and be sacred. Any such ritual worship, whether performed with a special ritual procedure or not, by a person trained in cover ritualism or not, in a temple or in a home, can be referred to as a “pūjā”.
I did some reading over the past week, especially Swami Krishnananda’s take on pujas, and thought a lot about how to explain this seemingly easy concept to someone who doesn’t understand it. But then I realised that a lot of people who actually do the puja themselves may not have understood it. So well, here is my take on it.
Every religion or belief system has a set of processes or procedures to pray. What does pray mean? I would say, prayer is your personal communication with the divine – God, consciousness, whatever name you call this force. It’s intimate, it’s personal, and it’s your hotline to the ultimate.
It’s quite amazing to feel that you do have this direct connection to the one who created everything that you know, and you don’t know, isn’t it? Imagine – you don’t have a direct line to your head of government, but here you are, communicating to God directly!
Such is the power of prayer.
Puja is the mechanism by which you pray. Let’s say it’s the set of procedures that help you tune to the right frequency – else all you get is noise. It prepares you for such divine communication, but it isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need many, or for that matter, any other stuff – no silver utensils, no flowers, no ghee, nothing. Yes, you bring these along to beautify the process, and to present a pleasing appearance of your offerings, much like you don new clothes, clean your house, and be at your best when welcoming guests home. These are nice, but not necessary. All you need is pure devotion – that love for God (by whatever name you know God) that is not conditional to blessings granted, that love for the divine that represents your thankfulness for all that you have received, that pure feeling you lost in the process of growing up, but rediscovered as you rediscovered God..thats all. Nothing less, nothing more.
Swami Krishnananda emphasized that the ultimate goal of puja is the total dissolution of the devotee’s ego in the presence of the Divine. While a beginner requires an external idol to focus their scattered mind, the ritual is designed to gradually break down the false boundary between the worshiper and the worshiped. By investing deep emotion and reverence into a sacred symbol, the practitioner begins to see that the life animating the deity is the very same life animating their own heart. Puja is therefore not an end in itself, but a highly scientific psychological training ground meant to elevate human consciousness from the limited self to the unlimited Absolute.As the practice matures into Manasika Puja (mental worship), the external paraphernalia of flowers, incense, and lamps are cast aside for the internal offerings of the soul.
In this advanced state, worship ceases to be an occasional action and instead becomes a continuous state of being. Swami Krishnananda taught that when the mind is fully purified through ritual, it realizes that God cannot be confined to a single altar or timeframe. The entire universe transforms into a living temple, everyday duties become acts of consecration, and the individual’s very existence becomes an unceasing, silent prayer of communion with the cosmic whole.
That, my friend, is puja.