My first puja was a Guru Puja in 1977. I was at work and then someone phoned me.
‘Can you come over? We’ll have a puja,’ he said.
I didn’t know what a puja was, but I went. We were something like eight or nine people and an Indian pujari. This was the first time that I was seeing a puja. I sat down and it all felt and looked quite new.
It was in the lounge of a house, with just ten people, as opposed to many thousands today. We had a large piece of paper with a chakra chart drawn and we offered rice and flowers to each of the chakras on the chart, saying mantras for each chakra. That puja was just a small one but there is a picture of Mother who is holding the flowers between Her Feet. That puja was done differently from the way we do it today, which is to do the puja directly to the Goddess, and wash Her Feet. At that time, we did wash Her Feet, but at the same time we used the chakra chart, making offerings to the various chakras.
Djamel Metouri