BYC Newsletter #22

Dear Yoga students and those interested in Yoga,

YOU ARE INVITED to a puja being performed at the Blackstone Yoga Center this Thursday evening at 7:30.

“Okay...what’s a puja?” While Puja is the name of our cat, that is not what we’re going to witness. Puja (here is a great link) is part of the broader practice of yoga because it is through the act of worship that one achieves yoga, which means union with the object of one’s attention. Everything in life depends on where you place your attention.

When we perform puja (attention) on money, we attract money. When we perform puja on a relationship, we attract that relationship. When we perform puja on an particular ability, like in a sport, we attract excellence in that ability. We all perform puja, we just don’t call it that.

In Yoga, puja is lifted to its highest level. In Yoga one places attention of the Self, one true nature which underlies the superficial self that we call our persona or ego mask. Puja is not the worship of a god; puja is the worship of one’s higher self, and in the view of all the wisdom teachings from Christ to Buddha (both of which include yoga), that higher self is God. Or, one can say, to escape the obstacles the word God presents: Life, Emptiness, the I AM, the Totality, the Absolute, the Formless, the First Cause...or just the present moment.

When puja is performed by realized beings whose attention is their whole being and not just their thought, the worship is very powerful, and actually does transform e a material object or space into a power center. That consciousness of presence or the Totality is focused on a form or space like a magnified beam of sunlight, and the energy vibrations of that object or space is raised to a higher lever of consciousness. Good things happen to you in a power center if you are open to it.

We experience this in our world often. Any instrument of a master, his violin, his brush, or his studio, can be experienced as a sacred place or object. And being there or using that object give power to our intention.

Groups also benefit from puja. When a group gathers for a spiritual purpose, either prayer or self help, each individual is empowered by the higher consciousness and presence of that group. That’s why we have yoga classes.

So there is nothing new in puja. This is a great opportunity to see one performed in its classic form, one that has been handed down from master to disciple for thousands of years.

See you Thursday night.

Thank you,
Ed
Om Peace
1/7/07
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