Shabd Puja

Worship Through Words

The Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavatam, the eighteen Puranas — these are acts of Deva-Puja performed by the great poet Valmiki and Maharshi Vedavyasa. Here, the figures of history have been worshipped with flowers made of words.

Shabda is Brahman. There is immense power in a word. The tongue carries both poison and nectar.

Words come in two kinds:

1. Immediate, topical words — those of the moment.
2. Timeless, historical words — those of Sanatan significance.

Topical words bring fleeting, temporary success in politics and daily affairs. But the words that are truly important — the ones that endure — are the historical, Sanatan words. Such life-giving and encouraging words build nations and shape human character. Admittedly, this process of life-building through words is often very slow. Yet the welcome always belongs to such words alone.

A thinker once observed something worth pausing over: roughly ninety-five percent of our everyday speech is consumed by jealousy, criticism, comparison, or complaint. With a little awareness, you can observe this for yourself. Can we not reduce this percentage in our own lives? Wasted words are worse than silence — better to stay quiet.

Beyond this, in every major Dharma of the world, there appears an account of "the word of Bhagwan" — received or heard on occasion. The words of Revelation came to Moses in the Ten Commandments. The Ayats of the Quran came to Prophet Muhammad. The Vedas, too, are not the composition of any single Rishi. That is precisely why they are called Apaurusheya — Impersonal — not of human authorship. The Rishis are not the creators of Vedic Mantras but their Drashtas — the seers. They are the ones who saw. These great souls are worthy of our deepest reverence.

A words that can answer the needs of every era and every generation of humanity, that can meet the demands of every people — without being bent or twisted — such a words are called Shastra. Any person or society, placed under any circumstance of time and place, who can find the answer to life's riddles in those words — without distorting it — that timeless, unbreakable words are Shastra.

The Puranas are principally eighteen in number. The credit for composing all of them has been attributed to Maharshi Vedavyasa. Without Vedavyasa's "brand," as it were, the authenticity of the Puranas would seem to be at stake! Perhaps no single Vyasa composed them all. And that is why we have accepted the tradition of the Vyasapitha — a seat of continuing authorship. There may well have been creators who, out of a Sattvic spirit, merged their own work into the great current and offered something extra to society, willingly letting their own identity dissolve. Even today, unknown, Apaurusheya additions continue to appear in the Prabhatiyas of Narsinh Mehta, the Padas of Mirabai, and the well-known Manache Shlok of Samarth Swami Ramdas. This can be verified through scholarly research.

Now consider: the words of the Vedas, the words of the Upanishadas, the words of the Puranas — set against the words of modern literature, novels, television serials, rap songs, pamphlets, or advertisements. There is bound to be a difference between these kinds of words. Not everything written in Sanskrit qualifies as Shastra, just as not all words carry equal power. Not every word attains the value of a Mantra.

When the factual record of history gets transformed into narratives of Puranas — blended with imagined events and miracles — those facts become less about evidence and more about Dharmik faith. This is precisely why the high culture of the Upanishads and Darshan-Shastra sometimes appears to have been overtaken by the popular culture of the Puranas. Stories of miracles become more widely circulated than cultural wisdom. Even the mythological television serials produced in the last ten or twenty years confirm this pattern. They may have grandeur, but they lack a certain dignity. They may glamorize, but they do not awaken deeper understanding. They fail to build a living connection with our own lives. Faith and Dharmik beliefs will always attract the common person more than intellect and logic.

About words spoken carelessly, Isha-Kundanikaben, a renouned author in Gujarati, says something very beautiful: "To speak without thinking, to speak without need, to keep talking without giving others a chance to speak, to go on at length about pointless matters, to resort to self-importance, self-praise, exaggeration, or pretence while speaking, to pretend to know more than one does, to speak with spite, with sarcasm, or with the deliberate intention of hurting others — all of this is not merely a bad habit. It is the mark of a clouded and immature mind. To speak with love, with goodwill, to speak gently, to not remain silent when speaking is needed, to clearly state the truth when falsehood is being spoken, to refrain from excessively heated arguments in self-defence, to be able to remain silent for long hours — this is good. It reflects the development of character."

Let us think before we speak or write a word. Before accepting any word — anyone's word — at face value, let us place it on the touchstone of Viveka (discernment). That alone is true Shabd Puja — worship through words. Bhagwan, grant us the opportunity and the understanding to practice such worship of the Word.