1984 Adi Da Gathers with devotees and Discourses on the true purpose of sacramental service, or puja:
“Pujas, or sacred rituals, are an enactment of the sacrifice that is the Ultimate Transformation of the entire psycho-physical person. They are not merely representational. It is not merely that the lingam ‘means’ something, or that what you throw into the fire ‘means’ something. You could, of course, point to such meanings, and they have some significance, but, fundamentally, the act of the puja itself, with all its elements, is ‘self’-sacrifice, not merely represented but actually performed bodily and in the context of bodily consciousness.
In fact, the body and all the elements of which the body is composed, all the elements (subtle and gross) of which the conditionally manifested personality is composed, and, in fact, all the elements of which the cosmic domain is composed—all of these things are offered, or sacrificed, into the Divine Fire, the Transcendental Spiritual Current, the Very Person of Real God. The Fire does not ‘represent’ the Person of God. The Lingam does not ‘represent’ It. They are It. The Padukas do not ‘represent’ the Divine Avataric Master. They are the Divine Avataric Master, not separately, but by virtue of their Real Condition. This Truth must be understood, and there must be true worship in the context of these ‘objects’ and these elements.
Thus, people must be trained to perform the puja, must be prepared devotionally for it, so that it will not become simply a so-called ‘outer ritual’, a meaningless, or only meaningful, activity. It is to be a real sacrifice, just as meditation is a real sacrifice, except that puja is done in the context of the body rather than in a circumstance in which bodily consciousness is intentionally relinquished, as in meditation. This is the only fundamental difference between meditation and all functional activities.
Puja, or sacramental activity, is a special art form, just as the practice of meditation as I have Described it is a special art form. It is not merely an outer observance. If you rightly participate in the sacred art of puja—as in the Devotional Prayer of Changes, which is another kind of puja—real effects will be observed, a real transformation will be observed, not only in the person of those who enact or participate in these sacred performances, but also in those for whose sake the performances are made, even all beings. The attitude of priests must be to make this act, this gesture, for all and, in fact, to make all beings participate in a sacrifice—though not in any negative sense.
In the Reality-Way of Adidam, priests must make the gesture of surrendering all beings to My Divine Avataric Grace and allow My Divine Avataric Transcendental Spiritual Self-Transmission by means of this act, just as they allow My Self-Transmission through the act of the Devotional Prayer of Changes or through meditation. You are aware that transformations occur through meditation. Likewise, they occur through these sacred performances.”
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