Incense: Bhakti Med or Plain Med

[Guest guest]

True that things like incense are distracting to the mind, but

this "negative-distraction" doesn't apply to Bhakti-based

meditations.   If you're "meditating" on a problem or idea, or

principle, then obviously music or incense is going to be a distraction

(like turning down the car's radio when you're lost).   These aids,

which "Engage the senses", are helpful in distracting us from the

outside world when we enter a temple or puja room, and provide a

psychological "anchor" over time.

 

Amma also says about chanting the LS, that you should let the lack of

such things as incense  keep you from chanting, because it's the

chanting itself that takes priority (my paraphrasing).

 

Even now, the smell of Amriteshvari incense always reminds me of the

earliest Ammachi satsangs I attended.

 

tom