4. Iraivan Homa Sadhana
When it is your turn to offer the grains into the sacred homa fire, while holding the grains in you right hand visualize that you are infusing them with your prana as well as your love for and praise of God Śiva. Then offer them into the sacred fire. During the final arati, visualize God Śiva standing in the center of the fire sending back to you as blessings all the prana, love and praise that you and all the other devotees placed into homa. §
Gurudeva gives an insight on the importance of prana in temple worship in the section of Loving Ganesha on offering of food. “Keep the offering covered until the pint in the puja when the pranas (life energies) of the food are offered to the Deity. Keeping the food covered helps to preserve purity and contain the pranas, which the Gods and devas can see and absorb and enjoy and reflect back into the auras of devotees to cleanse them. §
Quote from Gurudeva§
As we come closer to the wonderful Gods of Hinduism, we come to love them in a natural way, to be guided by them and to depend on them more than we depend on ourselves.§
Supplementary Reading§
Merging with Śiva, Lesson 140: Grace of the Gods§
When you worship the God in the temple through puja and ceremony, you are bringing that Divinity out of the microcosm and into this macrocosm. You supply the energy through your worship and your devotion, through your thought forms, and even your physical aura. The pujari purifies and magnetizes the stone image for this to take place. The Gods and the devas are also magnetizing the stone image with their energy, and finally the moment is ready and they can come out of the microcosm into this macrocosm and bless the people. You observe that they stayed only for an instant, but to them it was a longer time. The time sense in the inner worlds is different.§
If you want to get acquainted with the Gods, first get to know Lord Ganesha. Take a picture and look at it. Put a picture of Lord Ganesha in your car or in your kitchen. Get acquainted through sight. Then come to know Him through sound by chanting His names and hymns. This is how you get acquainted with your personal Deity. You will get to know Him just as you know your best friend, but in a more intimate way, for Ganesha is within you and there ahead of you to guide your soul’s evolution. As you get acquainted with Him, Ganesha then knows that you’re coming up on the spinal climb of the kundalini. He will work with you and work out your karma. Your whole life will begin to smooth out. Religion is the connection between the three worlds, and temple worship is how you can get your personal connection with the inner worlds. You never really lose connection with the inner worlds, but if you are not conscious of that connection, then it appears that you have.§
The Gods of Hinduism create, preserve and protect mankind. It is through their sanction that all things continue, and through their will that they cease. It is through their grace that all good things happen, and all things that happen are for the good. Now, you may wonder why one would put himself under this divine authority so willingly, thus losing his semblance of freedom. But does one not willingly put himself in total harmony with those whom he loves? Of course he does. And loving these great souls comes so naturally. Their timeless wisdom, their vast intelligence, their thoroughly benign natures, their ceaseless concern for the problems and well-being of devotees, and their power and sheer godly brilliance—all these inspire our love. §
Additional Resources §
Dancing with Śiva, Lexicon: yājña§
