Home
 Mha Puja
Mha Puja Description
|
Meeting with Anada Bhante
|
2009 Mha puja celebration video
|
[ Continue ]... before we can recognize others Mha puja is refining, strengthening and understanding of oneself.
Mha puja carries all the grandeur that a typical Newa festival or ritual possesses. It also is different from other Hindu or
Buddhist worships in that it is the worship of oneself and not the usual worship of Gods and Goddesses or others.
Mha puja exposes the association of a person with the surrounding nature and the cosmos. Understanding of one's role in life
makes him/her more knowledgeable and unselfish. Worshipping and blessing onself to achieve unselfishness and generosity is
unique by itself. It is also for prosperity and physical well being. No other Newa festival is solely devoted to enriching
oneself both physically and spiritually. The religious and spiritual aspects of Mha puja fall perfectly in line with the
socio- religious nature of Newar festivals. Incidentally, Mha puja is performed and celebrated on the New Year's Day
giving it additional social flavor.
MAHA PUJA
Or a honey bee would say, “Festival of Honey, yummy”.
This is one unique festival that does not involve worshiping gods and goddesses. It is a festival that purifies, strengthens, and brightens the soul of a person. However, the term, soul, is not taken literally.
Many people believed that to understand the surrounding and the world; the person must first understand oneself. So, in order to do this, some people came up with a social event to help understand the purpose of their life. This would make people more knowledgeable about one’s role in this microscopic world which would lead to people being happy and unselfish.
So, this festival was identified as a Newari festival. However, this does not mean that people from other culture or religion cannot join and celebrate. This is meant to be for everyone and anyone.
On October 22, 2006, Newa Guthi (Newari Committee) had held Maha Puja in Brampton, Canada. It was a blast. Lots of people had attended to celebrate this unique festival. Everyone had a chance to meet new people. It is a first step to promoting and preserving a Nepali culture. This was mainly done for the kids. So, they will be familiar with their culture and won’t forget their role as a Nepali-Canadian.
This event was not only for kids. It also gave the ladies to wear their precious sari and jewelry that they brought from Nepal (SHOW OFF!!). So, it was a joyous event for everyone. There was mouth watering food (yummy), dancing, laughing, jumping, shouting, and most of all having fun. Beside the fact that the balloons kept falling down from the ceiling and the kids playing with it, everything was perfect.
Special thanks to our chefs, decorators and event managers. This was a very successful event and we hope to see even more people on this year’s Maha puja.
Raunak Raj Karmacharya
|
|
