For many years I performed daily Shiva Pooja at home with devotion and felt contented with peace, silence, and support. In recent months, as I have tried to follow the path of Integral Yoga more fully, reading Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, aspiring, and calling the Mother’s peace and light into different parts of my being — I felt the ritualistic, Brahmanical form of worship growing less relevant. I therefore stopped my daily Shiva Pooja a few weeks ago.
Yet my heart still melts with natural bhakti whenever I see the Shiva Liṅga or hear Shiva related stotrams, and a profound peace sets in. Part of me wants to offer myself wholly to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo; another part fears losing this lifelong sacred bond with Shiva. I also wonder how to handle family traditions — our home Pooja room(I rarely step into Pooja room these days), festivals, and the example it sets for the next generation. If I outwardly stop all ritual, will it seem to my family and to the children growing up that I have abandoned what gave me my first doorway to the Divine?
I would be deeply grateful for your guidance: how may I reconcile this natural devotion to Shiva with the Integral Yoga?
Shiva is a mighty god and has a very important role to play in the New Creation. By internalising your bhakti for Lord Shiva you have actually been led by him towards the next logical step of sadhana, from the outer bahyapuja to the inner and truer worship. Knowing your true destiny Shiva himself has led you further to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. How else could you have reached them if Shiva had not allowed. On this path you will find both Shiva and Krishna and all other gods but in their luminous original stature and in harmony with all others. Keep your bhakti for Shiva but let your love and surrender be towards the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. As to rituals it is your choice. But if engage with it do it with the feeling that you are offering everything to the Mother.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
