u/Aryazaad

My ishta devata is Śrī Rāma and I do a small sadhana dedicated to him everyday ( which I plan on increasing in the future)

I take Hanumanji to be my Guru and elder brother (the latter from quite some time ) and I've been quite attached to him even before getting into Sadhana . So I chant Hanuman Chalisa twice everyday . I plan to increase my Hanuman Sadhana too in the recent future.

Since I plan on doing Sadhana of my deities as long as I exist , I'd like to seek advice from Sadkaks who are more experienced than me on a few points :

1. How do we balance material desires / needs with spirituality ?

Personally I don't do much Sadhana for material needs . I communicate my needs via prayer simply saying that I need help or telling them to take care of it , or telling them that I trust them enough to accept whatever happens as the best for me.

At the same time , I am young and I have material ambitions , and I'm confused on how to balance both. Some claim that it isn't possible to focus on both at once, others say that Sadhana will "ruin" your material life to lift you spiritually, etc. While others will say that as long as you don't compromise spiritual practice/ use spirituality for material gains or get too attached, it's fine .

This is one thing that confuses me .

2. While doing Japa should one visualize the image or written name of the deity or just concentrate on the sound of the name/ mantra

3. ( Perhaps the most common question for Hanuman Sadhana newbies )Is it possible to do Hanuman Sadhana while maintaining er .... marital obligations ?

This is somewhat important to me , because starting a large family is quite important for me and my clan .

There's a lot of conflicting advice on this .

Some say that even for Nitya Sadhana celibacy is non negotiable and it's useless to fo it if you aren't celibate ( and thus you should forget having a wife or gf etc) . In Kerala, where the most elaborate tantra was preserved, there are no independent Hanuman temples , as the priests were never celibate. Similarly in the Himalayas I noticed that a lot of Hanuman temples kept nly young boys as priests.

At the same time others say that marital sex doesn't count ( exceptions being anushthans and Tuesday) and then again , many Hanuman temples have married priests

4. Is it wrong to be fussy about wanting a specific sort of image/ idol?

For example, I dislike that most depictions of Rama have no moustache . Similarly I dislike it if the murti/ image of any deity is not good looking even if it has all important symbolism .

I wonder if this is too frivolous / shallow

I hope someone can shed light on these doubts of mine .

I saw Rajarshi Nandy's video on the difference between worshipping deities and lower entities, and he mentioned that the most important sign that one is actually worshipping a higher deity is sthitaprajna and basically an overall increase in stability of personality in the upasaka .

A few days back , I got into an argument with someone quite close to me over something quite trivial, but it was fully due to my ego. I finally ended up admitting outloud that I knew it was just my ego , and yet I couldn't get over it .

Then it was pointed out to me that I was very egoistic despite doing daily sadhana* of Hanuman and Rama for about 1.5 years . Not only that , I'd begun seeing ego as something not inherently bad , or even somewhat admirable at times.

At first it stung mainly because I felt that shame for being a stain on the name of my deities .

*[ Hanuman Chalisa twice daily . Ramaraksha stotra every evening and 3 maalaa raama naama japa twice daily for a total of six + salutations to other deities every evening]

Then I started to realize that I have become a pretty shitty person . My default expression has basically become one of contempt+ disinterest , I get offended/ egoistic quite easily, my control over my appetite and genitals is a complete joke and my habit of procrastination is as horrible as ever .

I mean , I actually sat down to think of a single good quality I could be proud of myself for , and I nearly burst into tears when I realised there wasn't one that wasn't bare minimum non-dangerous man stuff .

Even though I never miss sadhana , come what may , my attention in it has also become pathetic to the point where often I blank out for about 80% of it while my mouth moves . Until about 3 months ago I really put a good amount of emotion into it , but now it is quite mechanical

I'm getting worried , because well .... this ain't good and this isn't progress . At best it's stagnation if not outright regression . Then I came across RN's video and got seriously worried that I was worshipping something else than Hanumanji and Sri Rama .

Of course , on one hand there is the possibility that I could've been much worse minus sadhana. A lot of the horrible characteristics were developed during preparation for my entrance exams and were thus not necessarily unexplainable Then there is the fact that perhaps that person was a medium for my Rama and Hanuman to directly tell me where I'm erring . Besides, although I have my fair share of quite materialistic desires , I don't do any Sadhana for achieving them and limit any asking to just prayers ..

But at the same time , I have always been told that if your upasana is working , you will start ridding yourself of faults naturally, without much concious efforts ( or atleast you will understand your faults without them having to be pointed out) . And everyone seems to agree that you should atleast be somewhat more saintly if your sadhana is working , ehich isn't really happening .

So I feel afraid that my deities have abandoned me , and I'm worried about the efficacy of my sadhana and whether it was even my deities who responded.

As of now it is Chhinamasta mata .

I mean , I dunno any deity who could be worse offended in this regards consisting her strictness and love of celibacy.

To be clear , I don't worship her . I'm just not qualified and stick to Rama ,Sita and Hanuman, nor am I interested in involving myself in potentially dangerous spiritual practices , especially not ones involving fierce deities ( even versions of the ones I worship ) or celibacy ( sex is my weakness . I can control myself , but to an extent only )

It's come to the point where I can't enjoy sexual activity without fear or begging for forgiveness and praying to my own deities to convey my apologies . even trips to the bathroom become a worrisome affair .

Similarly I really don't want to create a Karmic bold with the godess through my prayers for forgiveness

I know this is a bit embarrassing. But I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem

We have a lot of stories about Apsaras marrying human men . Are there any cases in scripture where Gandharvas married human women ?