Good morning everyone!
Over the past few days, I’ve been incorporating a puja into my morning routine. What’s a puja you ask? It basically just means to worship. So literally anything you do to worship/honor God/Universe/Spirit is a puja. There’s no ‘wrong’ way to go about puja.
Often, a puja will consist of making offerings of food to ancestors, but I don’t do that. When I began my puja practice, I made a point of honoring the 5 senses. I would light a candle and pay attention to the sight and smell of it; I would play some music to hear it; I would drink some warm tea for taste; and I would spend time doing some dry skin brushing so that I would feel it. With each of these, I would pay attention to the senses and be grateful that I was able to use them. Now (a few days later), I still do many of the same things, but instead of honoring the senses, it’s more about me honoring the One that made such things. For example, when I light my candle, I think about how the One made light. Or, when I listen to music, I think about how the One made sound.
As far as spiritual things go, I’m personally on the Christian side of things, but I can’t call myself religious at all, because that’s the same as putting a label on something. I take pieces from many religions to use in my spiritual practice. In the Hindu religion, there’s a text called the Rig Veda. At one point, it says “God is one; the wise call Him by many names”. And Richard Rhor (video 10:11) talks about how there is a Universal Christ. “Christ” is simply when matter and Spirit are operating as one. So Christ is really a universal concept. When the world began at the “big bang,” that’s when matter and Spirits began working in tandem, and that’s when Christ began.
That concept is the basis for a universal, natural religion. It’s so sad to me that this concept was lost (and still is lost today for the most part), and humans got in so many wars and fights and relationships were torn apart over religions that no one realizes are all under the same umbrella.
Before I go too far down this rabbit hole and put all the different concepts is this post, I’ll wish y’all a great day and sign off.
Metta my friends.
Frugal Treehugger 