In this presentation of Hinduism, I deeply appreciate the coming together of two potent spheres: the hard work of daily survival and the limitless imagination that gives such vitality to ritual, story, painting, shrines, statuary, temples, and gestures, to note just a few elements of puja. Here religion is colorful and entrancing. It is practiced by ordinary people on ordinary days and usually in ordinary places, but all that ordinariness is transformed by an imagination for the infinite that is vivid, passionate, and remarkably sophisticated, and articulated with great subtlety.
The preface goes on to say:
For the average Hindu, the Divine is personal and approachable. The most common word describing worship is darsham, literally translated as "seeing and being seen by God." My own rich experiences in India during the past three decades have led me to a deep understanding of this process of "meeting God." In writing this book, I have attempted to convey the transformative intensity of worship in India as it evokes the heart as well as the mind, and as it involves the active use of all the senses ... Hinduism is a religion of strength, vitality, innovation, and balance. By opening our hearts and minds to its messages, we can enrich our own lives.
I won't try to get into every aspect of Hindu belief or devotion in this post. I covered some of it in a prior post. I'll provide this excerpt, though, since I think it does a good job of summarizing some of the key concepts from the book:
Puja is the ceremonial act of showing reverence to a God or Goddess through invocation, prayer, song, and ritual. An essential aspect of puja for Hindus is communion with the Divine. The worshipper believes that with this contact she or he has established direct contact with the deity. Most often that contact is facilitated through an image: an element of nature, a sculpture, vessel, painting, or print. When the image is consecrated at the time of its installation in a shrine or temple, the deity is invited to invest the image with his or her cosmic energy. In the eyes of most devotees, the icon then comes the deity, its presence reaffirmed by the daily rituals of honoring and invocation. Certainly most Hindus recognize that the magnitude of a God or Goddess is far greater than any image. Nevertheless, most also believe that divine power is so magnificent that it can be present anywhere in the world at any time. In other words, while one image of Shiva in a small town temple is believed by his devotees to be the God incarnate in stone, it is nevertheless consistent in Hinduism that every other sculpture of Shiva in each of hundreds of thousands of shrines throughout the world also contains his divine presence and power. Many Hindu sages have remarked that very few are able to understand the abstract, formless essence of the Absolute. Most individuals, they state, need to approach God through images and with rituals specific to that deity, not so much because the deity requires it but because of the limitations of the devotee. They believe that humans need something concrete on which to focus in prayer. Hinduism fulfills that need through innumerable manifestations. Although many images are exquisitely and elaborately fashioned by sculptors or painters, and, for the devout Hindu, artistic merit is important, it is secondary to spiritual content. Images are created as receptacles for spiritual energy; each is an essential link that allows the devotee to experience direct communion with the Gods.
The principal aim of any puja is this feeling of personal contact with the deity. Darsham, literally translated from Sanskrit as "seeing and being seen by God," is that moment when the worshipper is receptive to recognition by the God or Goddess. Darshan may be achieved in a variety of ways. It may be felt by an individual during his or her daily household pujas or meditations, when the contact is made alone. A person may experience darshan simply by viewing a particularly sacred sculpture or holy spot, perhaps during a pilgrimage or at a festival. Or the individual may feel a special communication with the deity through the intervention of a priest during a strictly regulated temple ritual. Through whatever means it comes, darshan brings both peace and blessing to Hindu devotees, and through it, they believe, miracles can and do occur frequently.
Hinduism is not in general a congregational religion. Its adherents worship singly or in small family units. Most sacred rituals take place in the home or in temples or shrines that may be visited at any time from early morning until late night (in some parts of the country they may be closed for several midday hours). Unlike most other religions, Hinduism has no sermons. Priests are trained to act as liaisons with the Divine, learning the complex prescriptions of rituals that must be enacted precisely to show proper respect to the Gods and to facilitate darshan for the devotee. Learned priests and holy scholars may conduct discussions on sacred texts and philosophies, but there informal meetings are held outside the temple's sanctum. The closest parallel to Judeo-Christian services are bhajanas, in which followers of the Bhakti movement join to sing hymns and praises to their Lord Krishna, yet there still is no preaching as it is known in the West. Although anyone may worship in a temple at any time, there are auspicious times during the day when many people gather to perform pujas. The format is not congregational in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word; instead, each person lines up to get as close as possible to the image of the deity in order to have his or her darshan.
In spit of its focus on the individual, Hinduism still provides many occasions for group activities. Perhaps the most common are the numerous religious festivals held each year, usually joyous celebrations involving the entire community. Although some festivals are centered on the home, most involve special pujas at the appropriate nearby temples, which are thronged with devotees in their finest apparel. Others revolve around huge parades in which consecrated processional images of the deities are brought out once each year for public darshan by the elderly and infirm, who might not be able to visit the temple. Through pilgrimages a large group of devotees from one community can visit sacred spots in other parts of the country, gaining darshan and subsequent merit by performing pujas in these distant shrines and temples. Finally, recitations and reenactments of sacred stories are often held within and outside the temple, and they may be followed by discussions led by scholars and priests.
One of the most popular deities in Bengal (where my father's family is from) is Kali.
To the outsider, Kali is perhaps Hinduism's most confusing deity. She is often envisioned as a hideous black crone with pendulous breasts and lolling tongue, her neck adorned with a string of human skulls, her many hands brandishing weapons (one holding the bloody head of a demon), while she dances upon the seemingly lifeless form of Shiva. Kali is Shiva's wife in her most horrific form. According to legend, she has assumed her terrible role to annihilate evil is all of its guises, but in her rage she devours all existence, even trampling the body of her husband, in order to re-create life. She symbolizes the absolute power of the Divine Feminine (Shakti) for action and change. For her devotees she is uncompromising and direct, demanding total surrender of the ego and detachment from materialism. She is intolerant of complacence and vanity, requiring from her followers rigorous self-honesty. But to her millions of devotees, Kali is also the Divine Mother, the nurturer, the provider. To them, she is beautiful and beloved, enriching and fulfilling the lives of those who follow her path.
Little wonder that Kali is my deity (via my family in India) given the focus on action, change, and surrender.
In closing, perhaps the thing that I most admired about Hindu devotion is how integrated it is into the daily existence of its adherents. While I was in India, I saw religious symbols and shrines everywhere. I saw people doing puja at a small public shrine on a busy sidewalk. There was no separation between one's spiritual life and the rest of their life. That's something everyone - regarding of their religious affiliation or beliefs - can admire and benefit from.
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