Journey to Group Livings of WTT in India, Part 6: The Guru Pujas
From January 10th in the evening to January 13th, 2024, there was the celebration of the 63rd Master CVV Guru Puja Celebration at a festival site in Visakhapatnam. The tradition of celebrating a global Yoga Festival was initiated by Master EK in 1962. The yoga of Master CVV is the central theme of these gatherings, and truth seekers from East and West are invited to experience collectively the One Master who manifests in many ways.
Group livings similar to the Guru Pujas are celebrated in many countries on astrologically important days such as full moons, new moons, equinoxes and solstices or the May Call Days to tone up their practices and deepen their understanding. Like in previous years, books and other teachings were available at the Guru Pujas and accommodation, food and other facilities were offered with Love and without demanding monetary contributions. The participants offer their services and resources and learn to transcend mundane considerations by their self-offering. Thus, the Guru Pujas are a grand ritual in the spirit of the Yoga of Synthesis and in tune with the hierarchical Plan.
The core of the Guru Pujas is that the World Teacher Trust worships Lord Krishna as the World Teacher presiding over the universe and Lord Maitreya as the head of the Teaching Hierarchy on this planet. Master KPK had conducted the Guru Pujas from 1984 until 2022, the year of his passing. Now, a team of the managing council of the WTT in India conducts the Guru Pujas as a group activity.
The main focus was on the morning and evening group prayers/meditations. Like in other years, there was a fire ritual, a water ritual and the Lalitha Puja for women in honour of the World Mother, a naming ceremony for small children and initiation to literacy as well as initiation into the Gayatri mantram.
There were lectures by speakers from various centres and book presentations by Kulapathi Book Trust (publication of books by Master EK on “Suparna Suktam”, “Spiritual Personality Development” and “Masters and Disciples in the Modern Age” – PDFs of the books will be published later), by Dhanishta Editions (K. Parvathi Kumar: 108 Names of Kumara) and a booklet from Sadguru Tapovana group, Bengaluru, of a lecture of Master KPK on “Merry Life Day”. There were cultural contributions such as musical programs or group singing.
On 12 January, there was the section on “Fusion of East and West.” Guru Prasad had invited Reiner from Germany, Dona from Spain and me on the dais. He introduced us to the audience and presented the new publications brought from Europe.
Reiner, the treasurer of WTT Germany, spoke about group activities in Germany. Dona, a homoeopath and Ayurveda practitioner from Spain, spoke about her path into healing activities. I gave a talk about the stages of the Externalisation of Hierarchy and the role of Master EK and Master KPK in this regard. Here is the YouTube recording of my talk.
I mentioned that the Guru Pujas had always deeply impressed me ever since I started regularly coming in January from 2001 on. Several times, Master Kumar had pointed out to relate to the Great Ones through the images trying to perceive their invisible Presence. The pictures help us to link to the Masters and the divine beings, and maybe we can experience them when invoked in the group livings through the prayers, the rituals and the wisdom teachings. This way, the Hierarchy inspires our activities and interactions and uplifts us to the planes of experience and be-ness, beyond mental concepts.
Besides these Fusion of East and West talks, all other interactions were in Telugu only – besides an English word or sentence here and there, all was in Telugu only. So, we could only follow by inner linking and turning inside. It is a Saturnian discipline. Last year, I had mentioned the importance of the use of English as the Aquarian language and some had spoken English and Telugu – I didn’t want to bring up this topic again.
I do not want to demand anything or to tell what should be done. But in individual talks I mentioned that I am coming from a small multi-language country where translation is very normal in many social interactions, and that at the last May Call celebration in Germany most of the activities were translated into English to include a few non-German speakers, besides regular translation of WTT Zoom transmissions. And I expressed my hope for an opening of the “Telugu language bubble” to possibly include also people from other Indian language groups and from overseas, to make the group livings global. There is not need to translate everything – it was very helpful and necessary with the teachings of Master Kumar. But may an inner urge be felt by the speakers themselves to make the import of their words also available to a larger audience by integrating English. And that this way, the Guru Pujas might become more inclusive.
In the afternoon of January 12th, I felt the “Indian washing machine” approaching – the yoghurt from the Westerners’ lunch had probably been left in the heat for too long. I started to have diarrhoea – and not just me. So I missed one day of the celebration, stayed in my room and slept a lot until Saturday lunchtime. when I went back to the Guru Puja – and continued drowsing there. This is also one of the Guru Puja experiences I am familiar with – it is a cleansing process with bodily re-adjustments. When in the evening the melody of the “Guru Padukam” sounded at the end of the celebration, I was tired, but felt happy about the experiences and encounters.
