Pooja - How and why

There are three elements to Pooja: (Reference: Gyananand sravakachara, Brahamchari Rayamall Ji)

1. Guna gaan: Praising the qualities of God
   
2. Alochna: Repenting your faults
   
3. Prarthana: Praying
   

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How does it help (All the rest of blog is based on my understanding and experience. I have not verified with scriptures.):

1. Guna Gaan:

• It is something which takes you close to God, and away from the world. And clears the bad karmas away which comes in between you and God.
  
• It will encourage you to become like God.
• When you have a goal, its always in your mind. Similarly when you want to attain infinite knowledge, you will always have God in mind. When you look at god, you feel bliss, when you look at the world you feel detachment, and fear.
  
• It will wipe away your worldly role models.
• When a runner starts running, he has his eyes set to the goal. Similarly, a Sadhak needs to set his eyes on Sidhha bhagwaan to become like him.
• Veetragta se raag jorrta hai, Raagta se raag torrta hai.
• thrashes 4 ghatiya karma, which helps in progressing in spiritual path further.
  

2. Alochana:

• It would discourage you to repeat the sin. This is how it takes one towards veetragta. (catapult analogy)
  

3. Prarthana:

• It will help you wash away your sins, and help you proceed towards Shudha Bhaav.
• It helps you express your emotions, which helps alleviating Alochna, and gunagana.
  

Poojan helps wash all papa karma including ghatiya karma. And increases right belief(Reference: Sarvartha Sidhhii).

Question: One side you say I should become Veetraagi, and other side you ask me to have have raaga with God. Why?
Answer: You should become veetragi, therefore you should have raaga towards veetraagta. Since God is veetraagi, therefore having raaga with God will help you attain veetragta.

Karma Perspective:
Poojan helps decreases intensity of all papa.
"Deva , shastra, guru ki pooja se samyaktva me vridhhi hoti hai" - Sarvarath Sidhhi Ji, Asrava Adhikar


How Pooja helps in attaining samyakdarshan:
Lets consider an analogy first. If a student wants to clear mathematics exam, he needs lot of things- for example: buy a book, get a tutor, talk to people who already cleared maths exam, solves the sum from book etc. Similarly, to attain samyakdarshan one needs to tatva nirnaya, swadhyaya, pooja etc. Though the connection between getting a tutor and clear maths exam seems trivial, the connection between pooja and attaining samyakdarshan is not trivial. And therefore sometimes people are not able to find the connection and stop doing pooja.

Lets try to understand the connection between pooja and samyakdarshan:

• When one does "guna-gana" of God, his belief of following gets strengthened:

1. Jeeva: He gets to know the pure state of jeeva, which is God, and gets aware of his disease of attachments.
2. Ajeeva: HE gets to know what is different from him.
3. Asrav, Bandha: He gets to know that God left Asrav and Bandha in order to get moksha, therefore his belief to leave asrav, bandha gets strenghthened.
4. Sanvar, Nirjara: He gets to know that God attained veetragta by doing Sanvar, Nirjara, so his belief to adopt sanvar, and Nirjara gets strenthened.
5. Moksha: His belief to attain Moksha gets strengthened.

Hence, Pooja helps strenghtening tatva-gyan and hence helps getting closes to samyak darshan.

• Pooja helps reduce Raaga-dwesha which helps in doing tatva nirnaya
• Pooja reduces intensity of bad karma, which brings favourable conditions to proceed to samyakdarshan
• Motivates one to get rid of attachments and become like God.
  

How pooja helps someone who already has samyajdarshan:
Almost same as above- Majorly it works on Charitra moha, and not darshan moha- if person is Kshayik Samyakdrishti.

Do's and Don'ts:

These are Do's and Dont's for Prarthana:
• Do's:

1. Hey God!! Give me peace as you have.
2. Hey God!! When I see my father I get so happy. And you are father of the whole world, so my happiness crosses limits when I see you. Please show me the path to achieve peace like you.
3. Hey God!! Whoever had you in his heart, got liberated. Now for my liberation, I am coming to you. I am begger and your daas and you are my maalik. Mein jholi failake shanti bhiksha maangne aaya hun. Tere pass dene ko bahut hai.. magar meri tau jholi hi chhoti hai. Log aate hain.. bhar bhar ke le jaate hain. Magar mujh pamar ko tau mangana hi naheen aata. He prabhu kripa karo.
4. Hey God!! Tumhare anant guno ko tau indra, devendra bhi stuti nahen kar pate. Aur mera gyan itna chhota, mein kaise stuti karoon prabhu.
5. Hey God!! I want to come to you everyday and want to have your dhyan all the time. Please give me shakti, so that I can do it.
Now what all things one can do ‘kamna’ for:

1. Moksha(ultimate peace)

2. And all direct cause to Moksha:

----- i. Right belief, knowledge, conduct
----- ii. Muni-hood

3. If above don’t come to you naturally, you can ask for God- “he bhagwaan mujhe tau mangana bhi naheen aata- mein kya maangu tumse- mujhe tau ye naheen pataa mera kalyaan kahaan hai.. mujhe prabhu bata do.. ki mujhe kya karna chahiye.. mein kya karron.. kya naa karron”

• Don’ts:

1. Hey God!! Give me sensual pleasure
2. Give me fame
3. Make me tirthanker
4. Make me saint, so people come and worship me
5. Give me a great body, so that I can do tapa.
6. Make me born in Simandhar swami place, so that I can do sadhna.

Please note here- No 5 and 6 are indirect causes to Moksha, which should not be prayed, since they become Nidaan and there is disadvantage. Only direct causes should be prayed for- like right belief, knowledge, conduct, tapa etc.

References:

• अरहंत भगवान की दृष्टी करता है जो समर्थ हैं, जिन्होने उस काम को कर लिया है उनके गुणो क स्मरण करता है और गुण स्मरण के प्रताप से अपने आप में बल प्रकट करता है आनन्द होने की कोशिश करता है। (रत्नकरण्डश्रावकाचार, पूज्य वर्णी जी प्रवचन, पृष्ठ ३३८)
  

Vinaya (respect) for inanimate objects

When I was at home with my parents, one day the wheat flour got dropped on the floor. I remember my mummy ji telling me - "Do not put the feet on the flour". This is respect for inanimate objects. Here wheat flour supresses our hunger, and hence there is respect.

I wonder how this kind of respect helps? Is there any karma thing involved here?. In west, I do not see people having respect for inanimate objects.

Shudha, Shubha, Ashubha (Part 1)

There are 3 kind of bhaava for a living being:

1. shudh(Pure),
2. shubh(Good),
3. ashubha(Bad):

1. Shudha Bhaav:

When a man fathers a child, he is not able to explain his great feelings in words to an unmarried person - and the only thing he can say is- “When you become a father you will get know”. Similary feeling of ‘shudha’ state can not be explained in words completely. However there are some attributes which can be put down in words:

• Attachments and desires of soul vanishes in this state, the real blissful nature of soul is experienced. There is extraordinary bliss in the shudha state.
• This shudha state causes Sanvar(stoppage) and Nirjara(outflux) of karma, which leads to moksha.
  

Shudha bhaav occurs to a householder and saint both. There is a remarkable difference in the shudha bhaav of a shravak and saint – A saint’s shudha bhaav is far purer than a shravak’s shudhha bhaav. A shravak, being a householder, has many attachments and it does not let him have the shuddha bhaav very frequently. On the other hand a saint has left external attachments, and it helps him win his internal attachments, and it makes it more frequent for him to have shuddhha bhaav.

As number of gunsthan increases, quality of shudhaa bhaav increases.

2,3. Shubha, Ashubha Bhaava:

	Shubha	Ashubha
Examples of this Bhaav	- Compassion on living beings - Worship dev, saints and shastra - Daan - Detachment from world - Tatva chintan - Pratikraman - etc	Mithyatva(wrong belief) Sensual pleasure activities 5 paap: - hinsa (killing) - jhooth (lie) - chori (steal) - parigraha (possessions) - kusheel (bad character) -etc
What does it do?	it brings favourable objects (Bhagwati Aradhna) It purifies soul. (Sarvarath Sidhhi) Exercise: Discuss what do they mean by “purifying” here. How – pooja, daan, tatva chintan, 12 bhavna, pratikraman(repentence) helps purifying soul?	It brings unfavourable objects (Bhagwati Aradhna) Jo aatma ko shubh se bachata hai. (Sarvarath Sidhhi) Exercise: How 5 paap, sensual pleasure does not let us do shubha?

However, in general our bhaav have both shubha and ashubha bhaav. For example- when a householder builds a temple- it have shubh and ashubha bhaava both. Shubha because he his building the temple for a good cause, and Ashubha because building temple involves killing. Therefore an activity which has more shubha and less ashubha, is relatively better than an activity with less shubha and more ashubha.

Disadvantages with Ashubha:

Worldy disadvantages:

Takes to bad forms like hell, animal.

Brings sensual displeasures.

Brings unfavourable conditions.

Keeps one away from favourable conditions.

Spiritual disadvantages:

Hinders from right belief, knowledge and conduct.

Hinders path to moksha

Increases duration fo stay in world.- ghaati, aghati(except 3 aayu), duration gets increased.

Advantages with shubha:

Worldy advantages:

Takes to good forms like heaven

Brings sensual spleasures.

Brings favourable conditions.

Keeps one away from unfavourable conditions.

Spiritual advantages:

Helps in getting right belief, knowledge and conduct.

Helps(in a way) in path to moksha. I said “in a way” because there are some details here. Shubha only helps in path to moksha, if make it to. For example: One person donates money with intention in mind that

Note:

Does not increase the duration of stay in world

Note:

For ‘shudha’ to happen, one has to get rid of Shubha and Ashubha both.

A ‘Sadhak’ minimizes his ashubha, and repents for the ashubha he does. And for ‘shubha’, he thinks he has to do it because he is not able to do ‘shudha’ at that time- and always want to get rid of both shubha and ashubha, and attain ‘shudha’ state.

Question: While talking about 7 tatva, we talked that asrav(influx) has two parts: Paap asrav(=ashubh bhaav), Punya asrav (=shubh bhaav)- is shubh and ashubh asrav upadeya?
Answer: Both Shubha and Ashubha are to be got rid of, howevere if one is ashubha, he should adopt shubha, in order to proceed further to Shudha. Consider shubha as a stair which has to be climbed in order to reach shudha. However doing Shubha does not ensure that Shudha will happen automatically- it needs efforts.

General Misunderstandings:
Misunderstading#1: I can jump straight to shudh from ashubha, and I do not need to do Shubha.
Answer: Shubh has less impurity than ashubha. If we look at table above- ashubha consits of activitis like killing, theft etc which has definitley more ashudha, than shubha. So first, one partially purifies his ashubha bhaav, by adopting shubha, and then attains shudha. Please note that the shubha bhaav is adopted with ‘shudha’ as a goal in mind.
Misunderstading#2: Shubha itself is the right thing for me now. I do not need to do shudha.
Answer: A person who gets satisfied in shubha, is not able to get rid of the cycle in 4 gatis. Therefore one should make all possible efforts to get shudha state in order to outflux his karma and achieve the infinite knowledge, and blissful state of Moksha.

Vairagya-Sanvega

Vairagya = detachment from the world
Sanvega = attachment or enthusiasm towards dharma

1. For vairagya to happen, one has to know the sufferings in the world- and there is no permanent endless happiness in the world.
2. For Sanveg to happen, one has to know that there is permanent endless happiness in Moksha.

If one only knows "1", then he would have detachment but no inspiration for Moksha.
If one only knows "2", then he would want to go to moksha, but would have not much problem if he can not make it.

Therefore, for real detachment and sanvega, one has to realize both 1 and 2.

External Vinaya

Question: Why should we touch feet of elders, when we have respect for them in our hearts.

Answer: In order to understand it, first we need to understand how the following things affects our emotions.
1. the words we speak, or our language
2. our body actions, or body language

I will go through both of them one by one.

1. Language

Lets focus on our language first: When somebody does a favor to us, we feel thankful and express it by saying "Thank you", or "Thank you very much" etc. Lets imagine a world without such kind of good words which convey the emotions- in this world may be most of the people won't have thankful emotions if they didn't have to say thanks after some favor is done. Now if we compare the real world with this imaginary world- people are expressing their emotions by saying "Thanks"- it helps them have good emotions as well. Saying "thanks" does not mean that one really have emotions within- but it definitely helps in bringing those emotions within. And those are good emotions- because we should have a thankful feeling for someone who has done favor to us. And good emotions means good social health, and good karma. So this explains why our language is important in order to have good emotions.

Let me give another example, where language helps bring emotions. When one listens to a patriotic song, one feels great for his nation. Also in gujarata I have seen married man calling other women as "ben(sister)" which helps them reduce physical attraction for other girls.

So in a nutshell, our words- what we listen and what we speak affects our emotions. So the conclusion is we should listen and speak things which are good so that we can have good emotions, and which will build up good karma for us. And good social health also in our present life.

2. Body action or body language:

Now lets consider whether our body has an affect on our emotions or not. For that lets consider an example of a king, who has an army. The king wants to defeat his enemy who has attacked his state. Here the army has to defeat the enemy. And outcome of a war depends a lot on how patriotic the soldiers are. If they are pumped up with emotions, their strength gets doubled. Therefore the King makes them listen to patriotic songs, which helps in their emotion building- as we talked earlier. And he also does something innovative- He brings the effigies of enemy soldiers and asks his soldiers to aim to the effigies when they practice with their guns. And this builds up their emotions more, and hence motivates them more for the battle, and the army strength increases.

Therefore, we see that body action has an effect on our emotions. However it is not necessary that body action will always result in the corresponding emotions, but it does, in general.

Now lets see our parents- if we touch their feet every morning- it helps us have the right emotions- which are respecting our elders. It has other benefits too: Other friends also get inspired when you do that, and this habit gets passed down generation to generation. Since parents have done an exceptionally great favor by bringing us up, and we should have great respect for them.

So the conclusion is we should touch feet of parents in the morning, and in the evening before going to bed.

Other Examples:

Similar kind of thing applies to other situations:
- when a guest comes in our home, we handshake, or hug and invite him in our house. And this body language has a great affect on our emotions.
- Bow down before the God
- Doing worship with 8 dravya
- Keep the sacred books at high level to show respect, and not eating, drinking while reading them.
- etc

Nishchaya vs Vyavhaar

For an effect to happen there has to be a cause. It turns out there could be many causes for an effect to happen. All these causes can be bucketed in two categories:

1. Nishchaya cause:
This cause definitely brings the effect, and makes a direct cause and effect relationship with the effect. If such kind of cause occurs, the effect must occur. And if the effect occured, it must be followed by such cause.

2. Vyavhaar cause:
This is cause of Nishchaya cause. For example: For Moksha to happen, one has to to do shudha bhaav- which is Nishchaya cause. And for Shudha bhaav to happen, one has to make efforts - This efforts are called Vyavhaar cause- which are cause to Nishchaya cause.

This cause does not make the direct cause and effect relation with the effect- However it makes an indirect relation with the effect. If such kind of cause occurs, the effect may occur. However if the effect occured, it must be followed by such a cause.

Examples of vyavhaar cause:Vows, Sanyama, tapa, tatva gyan etc

Why not hinsa? and why ahinsa?

There are two kind of hinsa:
1. which is done out of anger, deliberately
2. which is done out of lazyness, like drinking water which has living beings. The emotions are like this- "marte hain tau marne do(If they die, let them die)"

The result of above hinsa would be as follows. Lets apply karma thoery ( jaisi karni waisi bharni - as you sow so shall you reap)
1. I will be killed by someone deliberately
2. I will be killed with lazyness and not much effort.

Conclusion: Hence both kind of hinsa we should get rid of.

Now lets consider ahinsa-
Here one wants to protect other and do not want to make anybody suffer. He will accumulate such karma that he will not be troubled by others in future, and therefore he would have favorable circumstances to put efforts for Moksha.

Attachments

Anger(krodh) destroys friendship
Pride, ego(maan) destroys respect(vinaya)
Deceipt(maya) destroys trust(vishvaas)
Greed(lobh) destroys everything - Therefore it is said - "Santoshi sadaa sukhi"

Ego - 2 cases example

Lets take 2 extreme cases. We may lie in between these 2 cases. I will take corporate(worldly) cases here first and then draw analogy with spiritual case.

Case 1: "Guy 1"

Executive Level
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Manager
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"Guy 1"
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Subordinates

Guy 1 is ambitious and wants to become an executive.
- When he looks at an executive, he has "wow' feeling, and takes him as a role model. He wants to be with executives, wants to learn from them.
- WHen he looks at manager, he has "wow" feeling, and takes them as role model- but not the ultimate role model. He wants to be like him, but ultimately want to reach the top. He wants to be with manager, wants to learn from them.
- When he looks at subordinates, he has compassion. He want them to get rid of their bads, and attain the goods, and want them to step up and reach to the top.
- When he looks at himself with respect to subordinates- he feels himself to be fortunate to be where he is. And when he looks at his Manager and top ones, he feels sad- criticizes himself- to be where he is. And this feeling pumps him to rise up.
- When he look at others, who are not in the chain of corporate- he feels sad for them. And them to also leave their bads, and attain goods.
- When someone comments on his good abilities which are relevant in his going up- He feels fortunate about having those abilities, and want to improve further. He looks at his role model, and see how much he has to gain still.
- When someone comments on his weaknesses which are relevant in his going up- He criticizes himself and want improve them.
- When someone comments on his abilities/weaknesses which are no relevant in going up- He does not care.

Case 2: "Guy 2"

Executive Level
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Manager
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"Guy 2"
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Subordinates

Guy 2 is ambitious.
- When he looks at an executive, he has "jealous" feeling.
- WHen he looks at manager, he has "jealous" feeling.
- When he looks at subordinates, he has ego, and feels they are not worthy enough to reach to the top.
- When he looks at himself with respect to subordinates- he feels 'ego'. And when he looks at his Manager and top ones, he feels 'jealous'
- When he look at others, who are not in the chain of corporate- he feels 'ego'
- When someone comments on his good abilities which are relevant in his going up- He feels 'ego'
- When someone comments on his weaknesses which are relevant in his going up- He criticizes the one who commented.
-When someone comments on his abilities/weaknesses which are no relevant in going up- He feel 'ego' etc.

Question- what is the inherent difference between Guy 1 and Guy 2 for their behavior?
Answer- For Guy1- the measurement of success is reaching the absolute goal- which is becoming executive. One the other hand for Guy 2- the measurement of success is how he is relatively doing with others- that causes him ego and jealous, and hamper his chances of going forward.

Guy1 has a broader perspective, while guy2 has a narrow perspective.

Question- where do I stand?
Answer: Usually worldly people like me stand in between these 2 cases.

Question- how to draw analogy to spiritual case
Answer- In spiritual case:

Dev(who attained Moksha)
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Guru
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"Guy"
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People below than the 'Guy' in their spiritual progress

- When he looks at a Dev, he has "wow' feeling, and takes him as a role model. (worship etc are included in this feeling)
- WHen he looks at Guru, he has "wow" feeling, and takes them as role model- but not the ultimate role model. He wants to be like him, but ultimately want to reach the top.
- When he looks at people below, he has compassion. He want them to get rid of their bads, and attain the goods, and want them to step up and reach to the top.
- When he looks at himself with respect to people below- he feels himself to be fortunate to be where he is. And when he looks at Guru and top ones, he feels sad- criticizes himself- to be where he is. And this feeling pumps him to rise up.
- When he look at others, who are just in the sad world - he feels sad for them. And feels them to also leave their bads, and attain goods.
- When someone comments on his good abilities which are relevant in his going up- He feels fortunate about having those abilities, and want to improve further. He looks at his role model, and see how much he has to gain still.
- When someone comments on his weaknesses which are relevant in his going up- He criticizes himself and want improve them.
- When someone comments on his abilities/weaknesses which are no relevant in going up- He does not care. For example if he is handsome- he does not have ego or any feeling for it, because that does not help him spiritually.

Question- how to get rid of ego using this knowledge
Answer- try moving from Case 2 to Case 1, and ego will start vanishing. And as it vanished, it will give peace and happiness. One can experiment it. When we change our criteria of success from 'relative success' to 'absolute success'- ego starts vanishes. It makes the person humble.

If there are any comments on this, please let me know. The above analysis is definitely not a final one, and I will changing it depending on comments and my own findings.

Bad-Good karma vs Good-Good Karma

I will use the terminology : "action", "reaction". If you do an action there is a reaction. You can also consider action as a cause, and reaction as the effect.

Lets take examples first:
Case 1: Someone helped a guy with money who wants to make the world better. The reaction woould be such that he himself will get money, and he will have an inclination to do something good. And wih his good deeds, he will accumulate good Karma, which give him better results in future.

Case 2: Someone helped a guy with money who wants to make the world worse. The reaction woould be such that he himself will get money, and he will have an inclination to do something bad. And wih his bad thinking, he will accumulate bad karma, which will take him down to a bad state.

Now the theory is as follows:
When we see someone gets money and power, his previous karma can be of 2 types:
1) Good-Good karma: helping someone who is the right person to be helped.
2) Bad-good karma: helping someone who is the wrong person to be helped.

Now we are going in bad times - Hindus says kalyug, Jains say 5th kaal. In this time, people who have done Bad-good karma in pervious lifes, take birth. While in the earlier time- which hindu call treta, and jains call 4rth kaal, people who have done Good-good karma in previous lives, take birth. Therefore we see in todays world, dishonest people(in general) are more successful, while in olden days honest kings(in general) like Raama, Pandavas were at the peak. (These are general statements, and hold true in general. There are certainly exceptions.)

Since these times dishonest people get success- they become the role model in general. Therefore people are forgetting dharma, and getting in adharma. And similar reasons hold for- why the true dharma propounded by Jina is declining these days, and other dharma are dominating: because people with high Mithyatva(wrong belief) come in the 5th kaal, and hence other religions propagate.