Safe hindu practices for the unitiated

[ganeshamylord]

It feels like I'm doubting Him even when I have no logical reason for that. I want to erase these doubts and strengthen my faith. I want to have the faith thet God is always with me and that my life has meaning and purpose.

Namaste.[/quote]
Namaste ekam
Of course He is God because no matter what the society thinks of you, even if your most difficult times, in your happy times,He will be there for you as your guide,as your eternal wellwisher. Haum mantra is called prasada beeja. It brings about the mercy and blessings of God. It is the supreme beeja mantra of Lord Shiva.It brings about supreme intelligence and activates the highest cosmic prana where you align yourself with the wavelength of the Supreme being. It takes you to the state of consciousness where you feel everything is the part of the same Lord,free from all misconceptions of duality and societal standards names and forms. You will be blessed and you will feel His presence everywhere.
Hope this helps.

[Amrut]

Namaste!

First of all, I'm not a hindu (formally).

I'm a westerner, meat eater and not a celibate. And I can't change that in the moment for familiar reasons. But I love hinduism as a whole and I recognize its truths. I studied advaita, the lives of saints, some scriptures, meditation, and many other things. But my relashionship to hinduism is in the moment only on the philosophical side and almost nothing on the practical/ritualistic side (wich I consider of great, or even greater importance).

I've been reading some books about the tantras and I'm convinced that they are the presiding hindu shastra for this kaliyuga. And also I got that the Guru is of primal importance in this tradition.

In the place I live there are no temples or gurus to get initiation.

In some places of the tantric texts it's even said that without a guru, mantra japa, puja, and other rituals are innefective and can even be malefic to the practitioner.

I've been all my life reading the phylosophical aspects of Hinduism, but I can't practice it integrally for the reasons above stated.

I want your opinion on what is safe for me to do at the moment, without a guru, and eating meat.

For example, I tried offering my food to god before eating, but sometimes it contains meat, so I don't know if this would displease de Deity.

I tried doing it for Matangi Devi, because I've read that even chandalas can worship Her and offer Her meat and wine so I thought She wouldn't have any problems with this. But still I'm always unsure if I am doing the right thing for lack of guidance.

The great saints of India like Sri Ramakrishna and Anandamayi Ma advise that one should chant the Lord's name that please you the most. So this is the only spiritual practice that I found safe to be doing at the moment, but still I think it's too little for what I could do.

Namaste.

Ps. I'm not a native english speaker, sorry for any mistakes.

Namaste Ekam,

Welcome to HDF and to Hinduism. I would agree with other members and with Devotee ji and EM ji.

I will try to answer questions

Tantra

Since it involves pranayama, which is a typical process and later on activation of Kundalini, it requires expert guidance. Hence it is not recomended to practice all alone.

Chanting OM

OM is only for advanced meditators. It is not recommended for laymen

How to select your personal deity?

You must ahve read some books, shastras or must have listened to hymns composed for deities like Rama, Krishna, Shiva, Adi Shakti, Ganesha, etc.

If you have a liking for any one God, please select him/her as your ISTA devatA (a personal deity)

IMO, Standard way to find out which form of God suits you is to gaze at front of photo 4'' x 6'' is enough or you may get a bigger one, but not too big. Or you can download photos of 3-4 deities.

Keep photo at your eye level and sit at some distance. Gaze at the face, as face has all 5 senses. If thoughts come, do not stop them. Just keep gazing photo for 3-5 minutes. After some time, say 5-6 hours you gaze at another photo. Next day another.

You will notice that your mind calms down faster when you are gazing one deity. Say it is Lord Shiva. You find it that quickly your mind calms down and speed of thoughts decreases.

Now if you chant his mantra - OM Namah Shivaya, for 5-10 minutes, then you will find it that your find calms down. You can try mantra of other Gods too. One will suits you, your prakruti (nature, temperament, mental makeup). This is the personal deity for you.

Try to be more and more with God. Read hymns composed in his praise. Read his literature whenever possible. If possible read puranas related to that deity. In this case it is Shiva purana and Linga Purana

Please find a detailed explanation here

Meat eating and offering to God:

Do not worry. Some things are not possible to follow because of circumstances. Do not be disheartened. There is a misconception that all Hindus are veg. Marathi speaking people eat meat regularly. Though they do not offer it to Lord.

Since you believe in Sri Ramakrishna, I will pass on his words. Once a devotee of Sri Ramakrishna was drinking wine. His friend didnt like it and objected it. He said, if Ramakrishna will prohibit me to stop drinking, I will stop drinking, but we will not open this issue. Let him speak on his own. Both agreed and went to Sri Ramakrishna. Without the question being asked, Sri Ramakrishna advised his devotee to offer wine to the Lord and then take it as a prasad. Everyone was surprised. Devotee followed it honestly. Gradually, it urge for drinking faded away and I think within a month, he quit drinking.

In your case, due to circumstances, you cannot quite meat eating. But you can offer meat to Lord and ask him to guide you. Technically be it meat or fruit, all are just matter. Nothing more. Meat contains tamas guna so it is not recommended to eat or to offer. But you can pray God to accept it (as nothing else is available) and transform it into sattvik food. Pray ot God and eat it with faith that it will not have any ill effect on you.

Keep praying to show you right direction. In future, God may show you correct approach and it is possible that you may somehow be able to eat veg food.

See, rules for day-2-day life and in crisis are different. Bengal state of India used to be flooded with water for 6 months. So farmers cannot grow any crops. Hence people used to eat Fish. Bengalis do not consider fish as non-veg. For them, it was question of survival. Even great Viswamitra used to eat dog and cow meat but not regularly, only when there was famine or draught.

Even today, fish is served in Dakshineshwar temple, where Ramakrishna used to live and meditate.

I am not justifying meat eating, but it is not possible to always apply rules in every situation.

What you offer, what you do is not important.Intention or motive behind action is more important than action itself. Kali Maa is worshipped for occult powers and by followers of left-hand path. But same Maa Kali was worshipped by Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna worshipped her benign form (and not ferocious form). Ramakrishna worshipped her only for having her divine vision and be at her lotus feet.

Mental worship

Mental worship is considered as very powerful and very effective. Shringeri Shankaracharya also said the same in one of his discourses.

The idea is to bond emotionally with God and to be with him, think of him as much as possible.

Good luck with your spiritual journey.

EDIT:

Oh and chanting God's name is the safest practice.

Another thing to do is to be with nature and offer food to birds, mainly pigeons, dogs and cow if possible. I think offer food suitable to pigeons must be possible. Water plants. Have plants at home, walk in garden, be with nature. Be in tune with nature, feel it. Sit in garden, just breath and calm down, just relax. You will enjoy it.
While offering water to plants smile. It helps. Plantss are living entities. They have emotions. They respond. A loving touch to a branch or a leaf or flower is helpful. They respond to it. Soon you will be able to feel the response if God's grace descends upon you. It happens to many people.

OM

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté

Without God I am lost, nothing in this world has meaning apart from Him.

God illumines the mind and shines within it. One cannot know God by means of the mind. One can but turn the mind inwards and merge in God ... rāmaṇa mahaṛṣi


iti śivaṁ

[Amrut]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté


God illumines the mind and shines within it. One cannot know God by means of the mind. One can but turn the mind inwards and merge in God ... rāmaṇa mahaṛṣi


iti śivaṁ

Namaste,

Yes. It is the mangal sloka of 40 verses of Reality. there are related verses in the same 40 verses ...

Hari OM

[lalit1000]

Namaste!

First of all, I'm not a hindu (formally).

I'm a westerner, meat eater and not a celibate. And I can't change that in the moment for familiar reasons. But I love hinduism as a whole and I recognize its truths. I studied advaita, the lives of saints, some scriptures, meditation, and many other things. But my relashionship to hinduism is in the moment only on the philosophical side and almost nothing on the practical/ritualistic side (wich I consider of great, or even greater importance).

I've been reading some books about the tantras and I'm convinced that they are the presiding hindu shastra for this kaliyuga. And also I got that the Guru is of primal importance in this tradition.

In the place I live there are no temples or gurus to get initiation.

In some places of the tantric texts it's even said that without a guru, mantra japa, puja, and other rituals are innefective and can even be malefic to the practitioner.

I've been all my life reading the phylosophical aspects of Hinduism, but I can't practice it integrally for the reasons above stated.

I want your opinion on what is safe for me to do at the moment, without a guru, and eating meat.

For example, I tried offering my food to god before eating, but sometimes it contains meat, so I don't know if this would displease de Deity.

I tried doing it for Matangi Devi, because I've read that even chandalas can worship Her and offer Her meat and wine so I thought She wouldn't have any problems with this. But still I'm always unsure if I am doing the right thing for lack of guidance.

The great saints of India like Sri Ramakrishna and Anandamayi Ma advise that one should chant the Lord's name that please you the most. So this is the only spiritual practice that I found safe to be doing at the moment, but still I think it's too little for what I could do.

Namaste.

Ps. I'm not a native english speaker, sorry for any mistakes.

Well i know wht u meant by "safe".
So here is a brief list of practices that u can do without initiated bya guru.
1)Recite stotrams ,kavachams,Ashtakams of your favorite Gods and Goddesses.Read their Manasa Pujas for e.g Shiva Manasa Puja etc.
2)Do simple but effective pujas of your chosen deities.
3)You can also recite Vedic Hymns like Sri Rudram,but i think u should do some purification rituals like achaman and nyasas etc before reading them.
4)U can do fasts on the days specific to your chosen deities,like Mondays ,pradoshams for Lord Shiva,Ekadasi Tithis for Lord Vishnu,Fridays for Mother Goddess,Tuesdays for Lord hanuman,Devi Chandi etc and so on.

For all the above practices the basic rule is simple, that u should have a bath and wear clean/washed clothes.Sit on a mat for recitals.
See Hindupedia.com for a wide range of collections of Stotrams of GOds .
16 upacharas puja can also be very simple and be conducted by anyone in their home with very limited knowledge of the scriptures and also with minimum resources at hand..For example a simple Ganesha Puja is like this:

Suklambaradaram Vishnum Sasivarnam Chathurbhujam Prasannavadanam Dhyayet Sarva Vugnopashantayet.(Dhyana Sloka)

Shree Mahaganapathim Dhyayami. Avahayame. Mahaganapataye namah. Asanam samarpayami. Padyam samarpayami. Arghyam samarpayami . Achamaneeyam samarpayami . Madhuparkam samarpayami . Snanam samarpayami . Achamaneeyam samarpayami . Vastralamkaram samarpayami . Yegyopaveetham samarpayami. Gandham dharayami .
Om Sumukhaya namah
Om Ekadantaya namah
Om Kapilaya namah
Om Gajakarnikaya namah
Om Lambodaraya namah
Om Vikataya namah
Om Vignarajaya namah
Om Vinayakaya namah
Om Dhumaketave namah
Om Ganadhyakshaya namah
Om Phalachandraya namah
Om Gajananaya namah
Om Vakratundaya namah
Om Surpakarnaya namah
Om Herambaya namah
Om Skandapoorvajaya namah
Om Mahaganapate namah
Nanavidha parimala patra pushpani samarpayami.
Om Ganapataye namah. Mahaganapati sripadukayam poojayami tarpayami namah (3 times)
Mahaganapataye namah dhupam agrapayami, deepam darsayami, nivedyam samarpayami Madya madya paniyam, uttaraposhanam, hasta prakshalanam, pada prakshalanam, achamaneeyam, tambulancha samarpayami. Karpura Neerajanam darsayami.
Om Tatpurushaya vidmahay Vakratunadaya dheemahi tannodanti prachodayat. Mahaganapataye namah.
Mantrapushpam samarpayami.
Pradikshana namaskaram samarpayami.
Samasta rajopachara, devopacharan samarpayami.
Anaya poojaya bhagavan sarva devatmaka sree ganapati supreeta suprasanno varado bhavatu.