The Process of Deity Worship

Giriraj Swami: From one perspective, the history of the Juhu project can be viewed as the story of Srila Prabhupada’s personal service to Sri Sri Radha-Rasabihari. My dear sir, he told Sri Rasabihari, and them both, you just stand here and I will build you a temple. And at the same time as he was serving the deities, he was also training us his disciples in the process of deity worship. In Calcutta, Srila Prabhupada had raised the question, “What is the duty of the spiritual master and what is the duty of the disciple?” And then he had given the answer. The duty of the spiritual master is to serve Krishna and the duty of the disciple is to assist the spiritual master. He had given the example that it was his duty to see that the temple floor was clean, and so the disciple washing the floor could think, It is my spiritual master’s duty to keep the floor clean and I am assisting him by cleaning it.

In his eight stanzas glorifying the spiritual master Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura states, 

śrī-vigrahārādhana-nitya-nānā-
śṛṅgāra-tan-mandira-mārjanādau
yuktasya bhaktāṁś ca niyuñjato ‘pi
vande guroḥ śrī-caraṇāravindam

The spiritual master is always engaged in the temple worship of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna. He also engages his disciples in such worship. They dress the deities in beautiful clothes and ornaments, clean the temple, and perform other similar worship of the Lord. I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of such a spiritual master. That is Sri Gurvashtakam Three.

Srila Prabhupada explains, Sri-Vigraha is the Arca or suitable worshipable form of the Lord. Now the disciples should be engaged in worshiping the deity regularly by sringar, proper decoration and dressing and also by mandira mārjana, the matter of cleansing the temple. The spiritual master teaches the neophyte devotee all these, kindly and personally to help him gradually in the realization of the transcendental name, form, qualities, etc. of the Lord, as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.3.22 purport. So when we, his disciples made mistakes in our service to the deities Srila Prabhupada corrected us. Because of our material conditioning and atheistic tendencies, we may tend to neglect the deity, to think the deity is merely a stone or metal statue, not the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This tendency is acknowledged and criticized in shastra. “One who thinks the deity in the temple to be made of wood or stone, who thinks of the spiritual master in the disciplic succession as an ordinary man, who thinks the Vaishnava to belong to a certain caste or creed, or who thinks of caraṇāmṛta or Ganges water as ordinary water, is taken to be a resident of hell.” That is from the Padma-Purana.

Done in the proper mood with faith and veneration, śrī-mūrtir sadā sevana—worshiping the deity is one of the five most potent processes of devotional service. As stated in Srila Rupa Gosvami’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.2.90, śraddhā viśeṣataḥ prītiḥ śrī-mūrter aṅghri-sevane, with love and full faith one should worship the lotus feet of the deity, but if we mistake the deity for a stone metal or wooden statue or idol we are doomed. Referring to the deity of Krishna, Srila Krishnadasa Kavirāja Gosvami, the author of Śri Caitanya-caritāmṛta states:

sākṣāt vrajendra-suta ithe nāhi āna
yebā ajñe kare tāṅre pratimā-hena jñāna

TRANSLATION

Without a doubt He is directly the son of the king of Vraja. Only a fool considers Him a statue.

sei aparādhe tāra nāhika nistāra

ghora narakete paḍe, ki baliba āra

TRANSLATION

For that offense he cannot be liberated. Rather he will fall into a terrible hellish condition. What more should I say?

COMMENT

That was actually Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā Chapter Five, Texts 225 and 226. 

Commenting on this verse Srila Prabhupada states, “Those who are actually very serious about devotional service do not differentiate between the form of the Lord made of clay, metal, stone, or wood and the original form of the Lord. The statue of Lord Krishna and Lord Krishna Himself, the Supreme Personality of Godhead are not different, because the Lord is absolute. Even if one has not developed this consciousness, one should accept it theoretically from the instructions of the spiritual master, and should worship the Arca-murti or form of the Lord in the temple as non-different from the Lord. And thus Srila Prabhupada kindly trained us in the course of, and as part of his service to the deities. 

So after the big pandal program we had when we first got to Juhu land, Hare Krishna land, one of the devotees made a temporary arrangement to accommodate the deities. To protect the deities and their paraphernalia, a devotee stood guard all night. But one night in April the devotee on duty fell asleep and some thieves slipped under the canvas and stole the deities’ crowns and flutes. There was no door, the pandal was really just a tent so the robbers had just walked in, stepped over the sleeping brahmachari, taken the flutes and crowns and left. 

When Srila Prabhupada heard about the incident he wrote me, “I have got some reports that the deities in Bombay are being much neglected. This is a most abominable affair. Radha and Krishna should not ever be neglected or left unprotected, so I am wondering what you have done to rectify the situation.” When I received the letter from Srila Prabhupada, my mind was reeling. I was shaken to the core that Prabhupada had criticized me so severely, saying that the deities were neglected and calling the situation abominable. Still I tried to maintain my spirit and formulate a proper reply.

I wrote, “You are so merciful to take the time to chastise this useless soul. My sluggishness and thoughtlessness are very shameful. And worst of all, before receiving your letter I was so unconscious of them. But your absolute mercy is such that your chastisement is just as good as your blessings. So I pray that my determination and enthusiasm shall not be shaken in trying to follow your instructions.”

And then I explained what steps we were going to take to provide a better arrangement for the deities. Prabhupada replied later that month, “I am glad to see that all of the programs are going on nicely, especially that the deities are being cared for again properly. Now you give our ladies full facilities and help them by giving them money and other things wherever required by them, so that our deity program will not be lacking.”

I wrote back, “The deity program is expanding and nearly every day a new item appears on the altar. The deities’ lotus has returned dipped in silver and the girls have arranged to purchase marble for the altar. When the deities are moved into their new home, we will feel very relieved and encouraged. Along with the external arrangements, we were also working on our consciousness. We are eagerly awaiting the completion of their new home and meanwhile we are trying to instill in the devotees more awareness of the deities, meaning Radha and Krishna, the object of all our service and love who are in fact Radha and Krishna Themselves.”

So there is a whole history to how we improved the arrangements for the deities, but from what I have already presented you can understand how seriously Srila Prabhupada took the deity worship. How he understood that the deities of Radha and Krishna were in fact Radha and Krishna Themselves, and we the devotees should serve the deities in the consciousness that the deities are actually the Lord Himself. And Srila Prabhupada was also concerned that we keep the deities’ paraphernalia very safely. He encouraged me to proceed with the deity program, but he also cautioned me to be careful. “If you have crowns dipped in gold for the Bombay deities, you must keep them very carefully. I understand that some time ago one crown was stolen from Krishna’s head despite the presence of one brahmachari who was sleeping there and did not even hear the thief coming. So we must take very great precaution to always protect the deities from all kinds of danger.” And a couple of weeks later he added, “You should purchase one iron safe and keep the deities’ jewelry or any other valuables in that. And you may keep it either in my room or in some special room.”

While we were struggling in the hut, Prabhupada was envisioning a grand future for deity worship at Hare Krishna land. He wrote, “The deity program must be improved very gorgeously. Flower garlands should be expanded and all expenditures for the deities must be expanded without any miserly contemplation. Our temple should be so gorgeously decorated that we shall excel all other temples in Bombay. This is my idea; try to fulfill it. When people hear that we decorate our deities so gorgeously, people will throng, especially on festival days such as Janmashtami, Jhulana-yatra etc. So four or five devotees should be always engaged in deity worship.” And he had begun his letter, “If we make our deity worship program extremely opulent and gorgeous, and if all the devotees are always attending ārati and holding kirtan in front of the deities, that will be the best program for attracting the Indian people to the Krishna consciousness movement. So you try to give the pujaris all assistance to improve the standard of deity worship and always render Radha and Krishna the most sincere attention.”

So this gives an idea of how seriously Srila Prabhupada took deity worship. He considered the deities, in this case Sri Sri Radha-Rasabihari to be Radha and Krishna Themselves, and how he did not tolerate any neglect of the deities, and how he trained us to be proper servants of the deities. As I mentioned according to the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu and the Caitanya-caritāmṛta deity worship is one of the five most potent forms of devotional service, so we should take it very seriously. Of course, Srila Prabhupada made a great endeavor to build a beautiful temple for Sri Sri Radha-Rasabihari. And I hope this presentation will inspire you devotees in Santo Domingo the Dominican Republic to also make a nice temple for your deities.

Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

And now if any of the devotees want to ask any questions, or share any reflections, make any comments, they can raise their hands, their physical hand or their virtual hand.

I see Uddhava Bhagat, has his hand raised.

Devotee: All glories to Srila Prabhupada and sādhu-saṅga. You mentioned that deity worship is one of the five most potent forms of worship or service and if you can mention which are the other four.

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Sādhu-saṅga – there is a specific a definition of sādhu-saṅga given by Rupa Gosvami in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. Sajātīyāśaye nigdhe sādhau saṅgaḥ svato vare—that means that one should associate with devotees who have a similar affection for the Lord, and in our case that would mean followers of Srila Prabhupada.

Bhāgavata-śravaṇa – hearing Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Mathurā-vāsa – to live in Mathura or Vrindavan or any similar holy place or temple where the deity of the Lord is installed. 

Mūrtira śraddhāya sevana – as we have been discussing, to worship the deity with faith and veneration.

Madhava Priya devi dasi has her hand raised.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. This is a question from Facebook. If deity worship is so important, why didn’t Srila Prabhupada bring deities when he originally came to the United States? Does that mean that such worship is meant for the grihasthas but not for the sannyasis?

Giriraj Swami: Deity worship is meant for everyone, Srila Madhavendra Puri was a great sannyasi but the deity of Krishna appeared to him and said, “I have been observing you and I have been wondering when you would come to serve me.” Almost all of the six Gosvamis had deities, so certainly sannyasis can engage in deity worship, and grihasthas also. 

As far as Srila Prabhupada not bringing deities with him, I don’t know if it was true, but I know very early in the history of ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada did have deities; small Radha-Krishna deities. So at least from very early if not from the very beginning, Srila Prabhupada did have deities, and he worked hard to establish temples for deities especially in Mayapur, Vrindavan, and Bombay. So Akundo Madhavadas.

Devotee: Guru Maharaja, Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Thank you for your great class and your Zoom so we can have a temple in the Dominican Republic, your blessings, that is a great help you are giving us. I have a question. Is it true that when deities are not worshipped properly they leave?

Giriraj Swami: In a way it is true, because as Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gītā, ye yathā māṁ prapadyante—as one surrenders to Him He reciprocates accordingly. And Prabhupada said that if you treat the deity like Krishna, the deity will speak to you. And if you take the deity as brass or stone it will remain as brass or stone for you forever. So ye yathā māṁ prapadyante, Krishna, as we surrender to Him He reciprocates accordingly and if we treat the deity as Krishna, Krishna will reciprocate and manifest Himself to us. Are you translating or thinking about your deity again? 

Devotee: Sorry, Sorry Maharaja. Please repeat Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: If you treat the deity as Krishna, Srila Prabhupada said, the deity will speak to you. If you treat the deity like wood or stone, or metal then for you, deity will remain like that forever.

Devotee: Yes, Thank you. Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: Yogavita dasa?

Devotee: Thank you so much for your association and being here with us. I have two questions the first one is, why different forms of Krishna? Say for example, Gaura-Nitai is more merciful and doesn’t take offenses, it is more tolerant than say Radha and Krishna. Why is that different if they are the same?

Giriraj Swami: They are the same in the sense that they are all Krishna, expansions of Krishna, but still they have different moods. Once in Los Angeles, the devotee asked Srila Prabhupada about Lord Chaitanya being the most munificent incarnation of Godhead. And Srila Prabhupada replied that that is His mood, that is His nature. Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva has His mood. Different forms of Godhead have different moods, but They are all worshipable. Lord Nityananda is very merciful.

Devotee: Do you want to say something else or that was your answer?

Giriraj Swami: That is my answer.

Devotee: Okay. We have a dream regarding the temple construction and that dream is our aspiration. If you can kindly do a thirty-second video motivating the rest of the world to give support to our initiative for building a temple.

Giriraj Swami: I should make a video to encourage people to support the temple construction?

Devotee: Yes.

Giriraj Swami: All right, I will do it.

Devotee: We thank you so much, so much, thank you. Whenever you have it ready, you may send it to Mukunda Madhava.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, I will. So we have Madhava Priya.

Devotee: Thank you Maharaja, again, my obeisances to you. Some eastern temples there is a scarcity of pujaris to take care of the deities to worship, and that is happening in the Puerto Rico temple. The standard takes a toll because of that. The community is small and at the beginning there were a lot of pujaris but they are not there anymore so the standards have lowered. Can you give us some instructions on how to manage this?

Giriraj Swami: In what way is the standard lower?

Devotee: They are not doing Kartik anymore at 3:00 p.m., the instances are less.

Giriraj Swami: And what deities do you have?

Devotee: Gaura-Nitai, Krishna-Balarama, Radha-Shyam.

Giriraj Swami: I have a few thoughts. Are we making devotees? Are we preaching, distributing books, having festivals that will attract new devotees?

Devotee: There is only one devotee distributing books, and because the community is so small we really don’t have the resources to do frequent festivals and that type of thing.

Giriraj Swami: Well just do the best you can under the circumstances. Are there grihasthas who do not live in the temple who can come and do service for the deities?

Devotee: Yes, there are grihasthas but usually during weekdays they are busy with the grihasthas way of life, and then they usually only come during weekends.

Giriraj Swami: Well, do the best you can and pray to the deities to accept whatever service you are able to offer and perhaps send more devotees who can do more deity service. 

Devotee: I have a question. That brings us to the point because say we do this deity worship and there is arti, and the dressing and the flowers and the paraphernalia and everything, and then on the other hand it is what we have in our hearts. If we have a lot of love but not the resources to do the opulent thing, is it still valuable or does it have to necessarily be prescribed by Srila Prabhupada and the spiritual master then it has it has to be like this this this and this and you cannot go away from that?

Giriraj Swami: The main consideration is Bhakti—love and devotion. At the same time, we should, as far as possible, keep the standards that Srila Prabhupada gave us for deity worship. But if we don’t have [Unintelligible], Sanatan Goswami, he didn’t have resources so he was just offering his deity, dry chapati. But he was at that level that his deity would speak with him, so his deity was complaining that “all you are offering Me is dry chapati, and Sanatana Gosvami said, “Well I offer You whatever You are sending me. That is all You are sending me so that is all I am offering You.” And then the deity said, ”Well you don’t even offer salt!” “I don’t have salt.” So a little while later there is a big barge, it means a boat, a big barge carrying a huge quantity of salt on the Yamuna river to Agra, and the barge got stuck on the sand of the Yamuna and it could not go any further. So the owner didn’t know what to do but he saw that there is a light so he came to Sanatana Gosvami and Madan Mohan. And Sanatana Gosvami said “I can’t help you but if you ask my deity Madan Mohan He might be able to help you.” So by Madan Mohan’s mercy, the barge got free and that merchant whose name was Kapoor was able to reach Agra and sell his salt. He felt so grateful and indebted to Madan Mohan that he used some of the profits he made from selling his salt, to build a nice temple for Madan Mohan. 

Devotee: Hare Krishna guru Maharaja. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada, all glories to your divine lotus feet. Thank you for a wonderful class. I had a question about deity worship at home. I love doing deity worship at home but I feel like I am not doing it properly. I try to find some course online but I was not able to find anything. So if I am not doing it properly, is it an offense? That is my question.

Giriraj Swami: The GBC has published a book, Archana Paddhati—The Process of Deity Worship, and your friend was Rego Sundari, I am speaking to this devotee that she is friends with Rego Sundari who is also here online. And I think Rego Sundari can also help guide you about your deity worship at home.

Devotee: Thank you guru Maharaja. Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: Nar Tamvilas dasi. 

Devotee: Hare Krishna guru Maharaja. Maharaja, my question is sometimes we see that devotees we are not so much conscious for the deities, like in Vrindavan you go to the Radha Raman temple then only what is there center on Radha or like this now they are fully dedicated to the deity. Sometimes we don’t see that mood in the temples. What can we do to fix our mentality better?

Giriraj Swami: Well of course at a temple like Radha Raman, in Vrindavan there is a lot of devotion for the deity. But Srila Prabhupada established ISKCON as a preaching movement, and so we have not only deity worship but we have book distribution, festivals, and satsaṅgas. But there should be a relationship, a reciprocation between the pujaris and deities and the preachers. In Los Angeles the pujaris had the mood that they wanted to worship the deities very nicely so that the preachers would feel inspired, and the preachers who met new people on saṅkīrtana, would want to bring the new people to the temple to see the deities and get their mercy. So there is a nice reciprocation between the pujaris and the deities and the preachers. 

Devotee: Can you please take two more questions from Malati dasi and one from Facebook?

Giriraj Swami: Malati dasi.

Devotee: Hare Krishna guru Maharaja. Guru Maharaja, deity worship is an elaborate affair and as you go on serving more you build a relationship between the deities and you. You become personal and as you become personal the deities actually expect more from you. The more you do the more they want but then at home it becomes little difficult because deity worship and then cooking and then many other activities, many other services to be done. So how do you get that mood of having that love and devotion and not thinking that it is just mechanical doing these services and you have to do it but that ingredient of love and devotion should be always there. So my question is how to maintain that mood?

Giriraj Swami: We are in the stage of sādhana-bhakti and if we serve the deities according to the rules and regulations, we will develop loving feelings. Actually the whole process of bhakti is the development of faith, shraddha. All the other developments, ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgaḥ tatha bhajana-kriyā, anartha-nivṛttiḥ, niṣṭhā, ruciḥ, then āsaktis, bhāva, prema—they are all just further developments of sraddha. So we should serve the deities according to the regulated principles, and as we do so our loving feelings will develop.

Once Srila Prabhupada’s early disciple, Gargamuni, when he was first coming he said to Srila Prabhupada that “I see all the devotees are bowing down to you but I don’t feel like bowing down.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Still you should bow down and the feeling will come.” So in sādhana-bhakti we often do things without the feeling and by doing them the feeling comes.

Devotee: Thank you guru Maharaja. Hare Krishna.

Devotee: There is still one question from Facebook. 

Devotee: Maharaja, how can we do proper service at home for the deities and what is the most important thing that we should do for the deities to be pleased with our worship?

Giriraj Swami: Of course the general answer is love and devotion, if we serve the deities with love and devotion they will be pleased. Otherwise, Srila Prabhupada said the two most important factors in deity worship are cleanliness and punctuality. Punctuality means everything on time, but that would apply more for deities in the temple. It is saying that the deity in the temple should be served like a king and everything should be done according to the king’s schedule and the king’s wishes. But the deity at home can be more like a house guest. When the family eats, the guest also eats. So the worship of the deity at home, of course cleanliness must be there in any case, but as far as punctuality you can set some standard of timings for some elements but it won’t be like in the temple, and that is all right at home. But the main thing is to think of the deity as the Lord, that is the main thing.

If we are going to end now, I suggest we conclude with Vaishnava praṇāma.