About Puja Services

Please read through the following information carefully before requesting puja services.  

Cost

The cost for Puja is $350 which covers: 
​- the items used in the ceremony: fruits, coconuts, flowers, incense, herbs, milk, sandalwood, oil for lamps, etc, 
- the cost for mailing prasad (blessed items) to you after the puja, 
- Swamiji's time analyzing your birth chart, meditating on your situation, and discussing it with you, if necessary
- Time for set up and clean up,  
- and the 2 hour ceremony. 
- your contribution helps us to open our new property for use as a home base for providing spiritual teachings and services 

How to Request Puja Services
To request a puja, please pay for the ceremony at the puja services page.  

Protocol for Puja Service
Once your payment has been received. 
1) Someone from the Soma Matha Center will respond to you to collect a little information about your reason for requesting puja services and your birth data. 
2) Swamiji will review your birth chart to make personal recommendations. Swamiji spends time analyzing the birth chart and meditating on your situation before contacting you. It is not possible to rush this process.  This generally takes between two days and 1 week.  In rare cases Swamiji may determine that he is not able to help you, in which case your payment will be refunded.  Once Swamiji has reviewed your birth chart, 
3) Someone will contact you to set a time to talk briefly with Swamiji . A 30 minute appointment will be set to briefly discuss your situation and for Swamiji to make personal recommendations including a mantra you can practice to work at home on your situation and to deepen the effects of the puja.  Other practices may be recommended as well. Swamiji can talk on phone or skype as you prefer.  If you want to ask questions during this time, please write them down in a concise form to take advantage of the time.  After the appointment, if people have questions about Swamiji's recommendations, they may ask him a few questions through email. Due to Swamiji's schedule email correspondence must be limited to a couple of emails.  Questions may be directed to info@somamatha.org.  
4) Then Puja Ceremonies are conducted. During the conversation,we can set an auspicious time for the ceremony. It is advisable to sit for the whole 2 hour ceremony on skype or phone, when possible. This helps you to derive greater benefits from the offerings being made for you. Hearing the healing sounds of the sacred mantras has a deep effect upon consciousness. 
5) After the puja, you will be mailed a small amount of prasad (items blessed in the ceremony), along with instructions for what to do with them.  This will generally include fruits, flowers, holy water and a red thread for tying on the wrist for blessings.  Occasionally other items may be included.  For people living outside the US, certain items may be limited according to customs regulations of the country where you live. After the puja, generally a follow up is not necessary. However if people feel the need, they may contact us at info@somamatha.org with questions or concerns. In rare cases, Swamiji may determine that a brief follow-up consultation is useful.              

How Puja Works
Puja works on a person's karmas, helping to resolve inner attachments both conscious and unconscious. These inner attachments are the manifestation of past karmas, which have a direct bearing on a person's experiences. These attachments tend to cause an openness to negative energies and situations.  Puja helps to cleanse the subconscious, purifying the aura. It releases negative energies from within and averts negative forces around a person.  The energy generated through the sacred sound and offerings of the Puja leads a person's consciousness to a place of peace and happiness, which releases dark thoughts and feelings and helps to mitigate karma. It is a positive action effective in mitigating negative actions leading to karma. The various puja offerings are used by the Devas (angels) from the inner realms to send blessings to the person for whom puja is conducted. In this way, puja serves as the perfect remedy to avert the influence of inauspicious planetary placements, ghosts, black magic, demons, negative energies, and family and individual karma. 

What a Person Will Experience       
The experience will vary greatly from person to person, based upon their need, their situation, and their level of intuition. Many people report experiencing a deep sense of peace or bliss during the puja. In many cases, people feel that their burden has been lightened through the process. Some people experience flashes of insight which shed light upon their life and situation. Sometimes people experience visitation in the dreams or meditations from a deity, Swamiji, or Swamiji's teachers. Sometimes the energy of the puja will make a person feel very sleepy, in which case we recommend that they sleep. It is not uncommon for people to experience some negative thoughts, feelings, or bad dreams in the days before, during, or after a puja. This does not always happen, but if it does occur, people are encouraged to understand that this is a natural part of the process and to be open to the experience, taking time to simply watch the thoughts and feelings as they pass. If a person does experience this sort of purging effect from the puja, they should not be concerned, but understand that this is a temporary process which generally lasts only a few days and that after this they should feel much better. To pour pure water into a cup of dirt will cause the dirt to pour out from the glass. The healing energy from a puja sometimes causes a release of negative thoughts and feelings from the subconscious. For the same reason, people with health problems sometimes experience an increase of symptoms around the time of puja which is a part of a physical cleansing process.  People must remember that their outer situation will only change once they have shifted their inner attachments, and this is why work on your own with mantra is very useful to achieve the desired results for the puja. Though a puja can clear away all sorts of negative energies and provide a huge energetic support for people, a person must make themselves open for transformation to occur with to shift their karmas in the world. Depending on the nature of these attachments a person's experience will be unique. What is needed most at the moment is always what a person receives.    

What you can do to Derive Greater Benefit from Your Puja 
- Before requesting a puja, get a clear sense of your goals and the problems you wish to address. Express these clearly and succinctly as you describe to us the reasons you want a puja. Your description of the problems you wish to address lets Swamiji know what you are comfortable to work on, and so your clear description of your situation is very useful. In certain cases we may recommend other things which would be useful to address after reviewing the birth chart. 
-Pray and meditate on your situation in the days before and after puja; take time to process any thoughts and feelings that may arise and be open to whatever you are experiencing. It may be necessary to purge doubts, fears, and other thoughts and feelings related to the areas of life you are working on. Be open to any new insights that may arise for you through the process.
- When having puja done for a specific problem, try not to limit the potential benefit by praying for a specific outcome. If people knew how to solve their problems, they would not require help. We must always assume that the Universe knows best how to resolve our problems and leave the solution to the higher wisdom and power of the Divine. To open oneself to the highest potential for any situation, it is recommended that a person pray expressing their concerns and desires and then that they leave those desires at the feet of the Lord, having faith that the prayer has been heard and that the Lord is working toward a solution in the right time.     
- Though it is not necessary, it can be useful when possible to donate even more than our recommended fees.   
Paying for spiritual services opens a channel through which healing energy can be sent to the person who pays. A person's openness to the healing energies generated through puja will determine how much they benefit.  One way to make oneself more open is to donate more.  Though Swamiji prays for others, he has no direct connection to their karmas. He did not cause their suffering and he cannot release them from their suffering. For people to get free from their karmas, they must make themselves open to the process of the puja. Regular donation over time helps connect a person to the ongoing healing ceremonies performed here, and it helps us to provide more services and teachings for the benefit of humanity.    
-As Puja ceremonies are being conducted for you, sit attentively open to the experience, or you may practice the mantra recommended to you or other recommendations which have been made. Pay attention to the thoughts and feelings you experience as you sit (or practice your mantra). When practicing a mantra, plan to set aside a little time daily if possible to devote your full attention to the process and try not to focus on other tasks or distractions at this time. While it may be convenient to practice a mantra during a commute to work, this will not be as effective as sitting in a calm, quite space at home and practicing when there is no distraction.     
- At the time of puja or mantra practice, Light a candle or oil lamp, and incense, if possible. This offering allows the Devas (angels) to send blessings to the physical realm in your location. The pranas (subtle nutrients) of these offerings are used by the Devas to manifest healing energy in your space. If it is not possible to burn a candle or incense, at least try to offer some flowers.  
- Set aside time around the day of receiving blessed items from the puja to process things inwardly.  At this time in particular, it is helpful to take some time to contemplate your situation. Meditate on the healing energies which are working on you and take time to release negative thoughts and feelings by writing them down and burning them.   
- Be cautious to try not to start or stop any important tasks or relationships around the time of puja. Sometimes around the time of a puja, strong urges may come up for a person. This happens on account of unresolved past situations and the clearing process of the puja. Though people often feel inclined to act upon such impulses, it is usually not wise to do so. If people are able to sit with such strong feelings without acting on them, they tend to pass in time. We recommend, when possible, that people strive to wait from the time they request a puja until a few weeks after the puja to make any big changes in their life, to help insure that they are not being impulsive and causing themselves greater difficulties.