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)