Somavaara Puja Magic

                                                              The Magic of Shiva Pooja

Many of us keep thinking, I am praying so much. Is there a God even listening to me? We also feel proud and chosen when our prayers are answered and dejected and let down when they aren’t. So, what is the answer? Should we pray or not? Don’t know?

Perhaps this story from the Shiva Puran can help us understand how prayers have helped others. Each of us can decide on what we want to do after reading that.

Sixteen week Somavaara (Monday) Fasting

One day Bholenath and Parvati decided to travel the universe. After all they are Gods. They can roam around at will. During their travels they reach the city of Amaravati and decide to stay at the local Shiva temple. Parvati Devi was bored one day and called Shiva to play chausar (an Indian dice game). At that time, a brahmin enters the temple to offer his prayers.

Parvati laughingly asks the brahmin who is going to win the game. The brahmin carelessly replies, “Shiva, of course”. And after some time, Shiva actually wins the game. Parvati gets angry thinking it was the brahmin who was the cause of his defeat. Shiva tries to  tell her that it was just a coincidence. But Parvati was not to be appeased. She curses him with leprosy.

The brahmin is shocked that he was cursed by Parvati for no fault. He blames it on his own fate and wonders, “I don’t know what my faults are that the divine mother with her great compassion chose to curse me.” With extreme sadness he was bearing his pain. But not losing heart, he went to another Shiva temple and started doing the Shiva Puja there.

One day when he was doing his regular puja with difficulty, he saw a Apsara. The Apsara felt sorry for his condition and told him that he will become better if he worships Shiva with devotion in a proper manner for sixteen weeks on Mondays. She also tells him the process by which the puja has to be performed.

She instructs him “Every Monday have a bath, purify yourself and wear a white cloth. Mix wheat flour with gur and fry it for the prashad. Offer the lord a ghee lamp, beetle nut, a sacred thread, sandalwood paste, flowers and grains of rice. Sing his songs and mantras during the puja.”  She continued “On the seventeenth week, use ten pounds of flour to make the prashad in the same way. On all Mondays and on the last week, do not eat anything other than the prashad.” The brahmin thanked her for her kindness and promised to do so. The Apsara, having done her job ascended to her heavenly abode.

Earlier the brahmin was clueless as to how get better. He was also dejected as he felt that there was no cure for his disease that he got because of a curse from the divine mother herself.

Now he was feeling happy that he atleast got some direction. Perhaps anyone in that position would have been a bit doubtful whether this puja will get them out of their curse. But the brahmin was a complete devotee. He did not question anything that he had to do. He was a simple person who thought, “Anyway I am suffering as I did a bad deed in an earlier birth. Perhaps this puja can help me even if my condition does not change. It will give me something positive to do.”

Thinking so, he sincerely started his prayers from the following Monday. He bathed before sunrise, wore a pure white cloth and did the puja as was instructed. He did not partake anything on Mondays except what he kept as prashad. He spent the whole day in prayers and chanting and yagna.

This continued effort started taking an effect and his pain slowly started subsiding. As the weeks went by, he started getting more and more confident and put more devotion and energy into the puja. By the time he finished his sixteenth week puja, he was almost cured.

With happiness and hope in his heart, he performed the puja for the final week. Once he finished his puja and offered the prashad to the Lord, he was feeling like his old self. He couln’t believe that the Shiva puja had cured him of a terrible disease. He thanked the Apsara for guiding him out of a dark tunnel.

After he was fully cured, one day the brahmin went back to the old temple where the Lord and Devi were playing chausar. They happened to be there. The Goddess was surprised to see him radiant and normal. Parvati asked him how he got cured of the dreadful disease. The brahmin explained the visit of the Apsara and her guidance to him to do the Shiva puja.

The brahmin prayed forgiveness to the divine mother for being flippant when she asked him a question. She smiled and said “It is not your fault. I blamed you for something that happened by chance. I should not have cursed you. I was feeling bad about that and did ask someone to help you. Anyway, I am happy that you are alright.”

The brahmin realised it was the kind mother who had sent the Apsara to guide him to do the Shiva puja. He took the blessings of the divine couple and went on to live a happy and prosperous life.

This story has another interesting twist where Parvati gives the benefits of Shiva Puja to Karthikeya. Karthikeya in turn gives the puja vidhi and benefits to his friend who benefits from it. That story is for another day.

Some of us may wonder as to why this whole episode finds a place in the Shiva Puran. This perhaps shows that these small games that the divine plays is for the benefit of all of us. Just because we do not understand the reason behind these, doesn’t mean that these occurences are without reason or meaning.