Guest Treatment & Response - One small episode from Raamayana

గురు బ్రహ్మ గురుర్ విష్ణుః గురుర్ దేవో మహేశ్వరః

గురు స్సాక్షాత్ పరబ్రహ్మ తస్మై శ్రీ గురవే నమః

శుక్లాం బరధరం విష్ణుం శశివర్ణం చతుర్భుజం

ప్రసన్న వదనం ధ్యాయేత్ సర్వ విఘ్నోప శాంతయే

శ్రుతి స్మృతి పురాణానాం ఆలయం కరుణాలయం

నమామి భగవత్ పాదం శంకరం లోక శంకరం

ఓం నమః శివాయ

When Hanuma started off to Lanka from Mahendra giri parvatham, in search of Sita Maata, he encountered quite a few hurdles (good and bad). He overcame all of those in an extremely tactful manner and these incidents have lots of lessons to learn.

Long long time ago, mountains used to have wings. This means that they could fly and settle down wherever they want. This was found to be very problematic as people used to face problems because of this flying nature of the mountains. So, Lord of Devalokam, Indra, started clipping the wings of all the moutains. He could cut the wings of all the mountains except one - Mainaaka parvatham. This one has golden peaks and glitters wonderfully. Knowing that Indra is clipping the wings of all the mountains, this moutain gets scared and just forgets to use its wings to fly to a safer place. What is our strength today could become our weakness on one day. Hence we should never throw our weight because of our strength/ability/expertise, as that same strength could become our weakness or it would not come to our help when we actually need it. Seeing this, Vaayu devudu (Lord of Winds) offered to help Mainaaka.

So, he takes the mountain and drops it in the ocean. Mainaaka goes to the bottom of the ocean and settled there on top of a big entrance. This entrance was used by the Raakshasaas to enter earth from Paatalam every day. Indra knew about the presence of Mainaaka on the seabed. Realizing that Mainaaka has blocked Raakshasaas entrance, Indra leaves Mainaaka there as he knows that Mainaaka would not attempt at coming out, fearing him.

When Hanuma flies over the ocean, Samudrudu (Lord of Oceans) tells Mainaaka, "You should offer guest treatment to Hanuma for two reasons.
1. It was Hanumas father (Vaayuvu) who had helped you retain your wings. Its Payback time now.
2. More importantly, Hanuma is going on Raama Kaaryam. So, it would be a great thing to offer help on anything related to Raama Kaaryam.
So, even if it means that Indra cuts your wings when you come out of water, you should not bother. You come out of water, ask Hanuma to rest on your mountain. Ask him to have some fruits and honey, rest for a while and then continue his journey to Lanka."

Hearing this Mainaaka comes out of the water and requests Hanuma to rest on his mountain, have some fruits, honey, get some rest and then leave.

Hanuma promptly touches Mainaaka and says, "I am extremely happy with your guest treatment. Kindly dont stop me now. You can consider that you have given all the fruits, honey etc to me and that I have eaten all of those. I am extremely satisfied. I took an oath that I would leave like Raama Baanam to Lanka. And an arrow doesnt stop in between to take rest. It will keep going until it hits the target. Hence kindly let me go."

Once Hanuma leaves with that wonderful response, which leaves Mainaaka very happy, Indra appears. But Mainaaka doesnt bother about fleeing. Indra informs Mainaaka that he is not going to clip his wings because Mainaaka has offered to help some one who is on Raama kaaryam.

Will post the list of all of those who got benefited because of small contribution to Raama Kaaryam, soon.

Never shirk away from Atidhi satkaaram (Honoring guests) and never disappoint hosts. When something is offered to you which you dont like or which you cant consume then, you should touch it once and mention that you have taken what they have offered and explain why you cant take it then.

సర్వే జనాః సుఖినో భవంతు

PS: There could be typos and other mistakes in telugu and english, kindly pardon me with big hearts.

Pooja considerations, importantly special Poojas - 2

గురు బ్రహ్మ గురుర్ విష్ణుః గురుర్ దేవో మహేశ్వరః

గురు స్సాక్షాత్ పరబ్రహ్మ తస్మై శ్రీ గురవే నమః

శుక్లాం బరధరం విష్ణుం శశివర్ణం చతుర్భుజం

ప్రసన్న వదనం ధ్యాయేత్ సర్వ విఘ్నోప శాంతయే

శ్రుతి స్మృతి పురాణానాం ఆలయం కరుణాలయం

నమామి భగవత్ పాదం శంకరం లోక శంకరం

ఓం నమః శివాయ

Please read the post "Pooja considerations, importantly special Poojas" before reading this

So, during this time, the distractions should be completely avoided. Examples -

1. Calling someone to get some item which is not present at the pooja area.

2. Giving directions to your house to your guests over the phone. Telling Brahmin,
"కాస్త నెమ్మదిగా చదువుతారా మంత్రాలు? నా మాట అతనికి వినపడటం లేదు."

3. Checking about the status of the lunch
"భోజనాలు 12 గంటలకి తెమ్మని చెప్పాను. వచ్చాయా?"

4. "Thanx for coming. భోజనాలు చేసి వెళ్ళండి." to your guests.

5. Asking the Brahmin,
"ఇంకా ఎంత టైం పట్టొచ్చు పూజ అవడానికి?"

6. Someone has come in and so should receive that person, otherwise that person might feel bad. Hence getting up in between.

7. Someone has come in and has been there for a while, but you did not see him and so conducting discussions with that person in between.

8. Waving at friends and folks who walk in - Since you should not get up, doesn’t mean you keep saying Hi, Hello, "బావున్నారా sir. రండి కూర్చోండి.", to your guests, keeping God and his entourage in front of you.

9. Becoming restless because the Pooja has crossed the scheduled time and so putting questioning faces to the Brahmin enquiring when it would be complete.
“ఈ పూజ ఆపెలాగా లేడు ఈయన.” Kind of feelings.

MOST IMPORTANT:

There has to be a sync between the mantram being recited and the ఉపచారంbeing done.

Examples of above -
పురోహితుడు"దీపం దర్శయామి." అని అంటున్నప్పుడు మనం ధూపం చూపించడం. తాంబూలం అన్నప్పుడు నివేదన చెయ్యడం.

In case the Brahmin is running like an express in his mantra recitation, you should stop him and tell him that you are still not done with the upachaaram/kriya associated with the earlier mantra.

Obviously, it is easy to say what to do and what not to do, without specifying how to achieve the above. The following are some guidelines.

1.    Ensure that the items required for performing the pooja are kept near the Mandapa and ensure that this information is provided to the Brahmin so that you don’t have to ask anyone.

2.    Appoint relevant and responsible persons for various tasks.

a.   Receiving guests, ensuring that they are comfortable.

b.   Providing information about special guests and how they should be handled

c.    Person to take care of the lunch, coffee and other such arrangements.

d.   Person to handle Mobiles and Phones for giving directions and other things.

3.    Ensure that you don’t have any time constraints and in case the scheduled time is crossed have the lunch and other things served if required so that the Pooja need not be abridged.

4.    Informing Brahmin upfront that he should not finish it off without any coordination between the mantra and your Upachaara/Kriya.

You have to feel that God is actually sitting in front of you and that you are doing all the upachaaras to him personally. For example, during Nivedana (Naivedyam), you should think that he is sitting in front of u and eating what you are serving him. So, don’t finish off the serving in 2 seconds as no one can eat anything in 2 secs. Take that kind of care and you will not realize the time that goes into the pooja.

If we do Pooja with all our focus and concentration on God, I am not sure whether that minister (if at all) would do you a favour or not, but God will CERTAINLY not let you down on your requests.

Note: When a couple is sitting in a pooja, you should never talk to them by going in between or hand over things by going in between them. Always go around them.

సర్వే జనాః సుఖినో భవంతు

PS: There could be typos and other mistakes in telugu and english, kindly pardon me with big hearts.

Pooja considerations, importantly special Poojas

గురు బ్రహ్మ గురుర్ విష్ణుః గురుర్ దేవో మహేశ్వరః

గురు స్సాక్షాత్ పరబ్రహ్మ తస్మై శ్రీ గురవే నమః

 

శుక్లాం బరధరం విష్ణుం శశివర్ణం చతుర్భుజం

ప్రసన్న వదనం ధ్యాయేత్ సర్వ విఘ్నోప శాంతయే

 

శ్రుతి స్మృతి పురాణానాం ఆలయం కరుణాలయం

నమామి భగవత్ పాదం శంకరం లోక శంకరం

ఓం నమః శివాయ

I created this post based on the following

• One of the episodes of Brahmasri Chaaganti KoteswaraRao gaari pravachaanaalu.
• Inputs from a friend of mine.

We invite a very important person to our house. Lets say, this person is a minister. We are looking for some promotion or some contract which is in the hands of the minister. We know that if we take care of this guest well when he visits, our job gets done. On the day of his visit, we do all the following things.

1. We keep our house clean, provide proper sitting place with appropriate air circulation and lighting, with proper decoration.

2. We also keep ourselves neat and clean wearing some good dress. Since the minister is coming to our house, obviously our close friends and relatives also would want to have a look at the minister and if possible, give a shot to be noticed by the minister. So, we invite them as well. We give them clear instructions about the starting time so that they dont keep coming in whenever they want and are assembled much before the minister comes in.

3. Once the ministers car stops outside the gate, we rush out and with great respect get him and his family/colleagues inside. Make them sit in the designated locations.

4. We first give him Water, then coffee or some drink of their choice.

5. Then we start our program. We give a detailed introduction of our minister. We praise him and different members take turns to do the same (if at all we allow them).

6. In between if some of our friends/relatives walk in, we obviously would not leave the minister and his entourage and receive our friends. We put all our attention on our guest and his entourage and the rest of the guests are ignored, if necessary.

7. While sitting with the minister and talking to him and discussing things, we obviously will not ask him to wait there, while we go and conduct another discussion with someone else in between.

8. Then we make food arrangements and take so much care in feeding the minister to ensure that he gets to eat the things that he likes. We would have checked with the close aides of the minister abouts his likes and dislikes and our menu would follow that strictly irrespective of whether we like those or not.

9. We will put in all our efforts to ensure that the minister eats properly and feels contended.

10. We will make some arrangements for his recreation (mostly a TV these days) and provide him a place for rest for some time and once he is ready to leave, we thank him profusely for visiting our house and just before he leaves, we put in our request as well.

11. We provide a proper send off to him and keep looking at his car till it is out of sight.

12. Post that we will start paying attention to our guests who have assembled. We might then apologize to some of the bigger guests among them, stating the reasons for not being able to pay attention to them earlier.

Whenever we do Pooja, this is exactly what we do (rather supposed to do).

1. The minister is none other than God himself (Analogy, not that every Minister is a God).

2. Ministers entourage is none other than all the navagrahas and Indraadi Ashta dikpaalakulu. We keep placing betel leaves with Nuts, coins on the mandapa inviting each devatha (we keep saying ఆవాహయామి)

3. Shodashopachaara (16 upachaaras or activities) pooja, which is performed in every pooja that we do, is nothing but all the activities that I have mentioned above.

…To be continued

సర్వే జనాః సుఖినో భవంతు

PS: There could be typos and other mistakes in telugu and english, kindly pardon me with big hearts.