PUJA

In his book My Guru and His Disciple, writer Christopher Isherwood details his experiences as an initiate in the Vedanta Society of Southern California.  Much of the book describes the routine at the Society's residence and temple in Hollywood.  He talks about puja as part of the ritual worship there.

Puja is designed to concentrate the mind on God, or Brahman, and thus to heighten devotion.  It is offered to any one of the many aspects of God, often to one of His divine forms such as Kali or Shiva, or to such incarnations as Rama or Krishna.  The deity may be represented by an image, photograph, or other symbol. 

Worship may be performed with sandalpaste and flowers.  It may also be performed with as many as five items, such as, for example, sandalpaste, a flower, a stick of incense, a light, and food, or even with the addition of ten more items.  In most centers of the Ramakrishna Order a ten-item worship is performed daily for benefit of the whole religious community, along with a food offering distributed afterwards.  A sixteen-item worship is offered on special days, such as Kali puja and the birthday of Sri Ramakrishna, to name just two. 

In some Ramakrishna monasteries, Jesus is honored with a Hindu ritual worship, especially at Christmastime. Each gesture or action during a puja must be done with the worshiper's mind concentrated on its symbolic significance, which serves to remind him or her that deity, offerings, utensils, and devotee are all Brahman.  The ritual worship is therefore basically nondualistic. 

The meditations accompanying it embrace Vedanta philosophy, metaphysics, and mythology, and are concretized in the accessories used.  Puja reconciles the path of devotion with the path of knowledge, ranging, as it does, from the devotee's meditation on his or her identity with Brahman, to worship of the deity as an honored guest, physically present.