Maha Satyanarayana Puja at Meenakshi Temple
By M. K. Sriram
PEARLAND: Ardent devotees look forward to the Maha Sathyanarayana Puja at Sri Meenakshi Temple every year. This year, a record 200 families sponsored and participated in the puja conducted at the Ganesh Temple, with great enthusiasm, even though the event had been postponed by a week due to inclement weather warnings. This surge of devotion can be attributed to only the greatness of the God who is the embodiment of Truth. The word “Sathya”means “Truth”, and “Narayana” means “that which is abiding in everybody and everything”. Lord Sathyanarayana, who is none other than Lord Vishnu himself, recommends that in order to overcome difficulties and problems in this world either caused by this life or previous births, one has to begin worshipping truth. Worshipping truth means being truthful to oneself and to others. The reasons for the popularity of this puja are many. First of all, it is very simple and easy to perform, and secondly, it can be performed by anyone; young or old, man or woman, belonging to any caste or creed. It thus proves that as far as God is concerned, all are equal. It is only the sincerity, faith and devotion of the bhakta (devotee) that counts. This puja can be performed on any day and at any time, although full moon day evenings are considered more auspicious.
The temple Religious Activities Committee with its volunteers were very active planning weeks in advance which helped in executing this event so smoothly. The participant families were seated in neatly laid out rows, each of them being provided with a picture of the Lord and puja materials such as rice, kumkum, flowers, deepam, prasadam etc. Priest Pawan Kumar led and guided the devotees through the puja and was well supported by Priest Sreedharan Raghavan. The volunteers and temple silpis and staff worked tirelessly to make sure that the puja materials were distributed to more and more devotees that joined. The main highlights of the puja were the Sankalpam, Vigneshwara puja, Navagraha puja, Ashtadikpalaka puja, Abhishekam to Lord Sathyanarayana & Sri Lakshmi with individual family participation, alankaram, Ashtotharashatha Namavali archana and upacharam. One of the most important aspects of the puja is the recital of the Sathyanarayana story. Eager volunteers lined up to read the five chapters, while all the devotees listened to it intently. There are many great lessons to be learned from the stories such as one should never forget to fulfil one’s promise, or not be ungrateful to the Lord and respect all and not feel superior and look down upon others.
The Sathyanarayana puja is not complete till the final arathi, and so it was such a beautiful arathi sung to the bhajan Jai Jagdeesh Hare. Nor it is final till the Lord’s blessing in the form of ‘prasad’ is distributed to and eaten by each and every one. Finally, the devotees were fed a sumptuous lunch by the temple, thanks to a most generous donor’s contribution.
The 2016 Maha Sathyanarayana puja will certainly go down as one of the most well attended, well planned and executed and above all performed with supreme devotion. Chairman Narayanan thanked the priests, staff , all the volunteers and the event coordinators Chandrakala and Karunakar