Coming Before Deities

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata—Worldwide, 10 January 2021, part 4

Question: What should we think of when we stand before the Deity?

That depends upon the practitioner.

When you come in front of the Deities, you must always think, "I must serve the Deities." Sometimes some other thoughts come—sometimes some bad thoughts can also come, sometimes some good thoughts can come. It is not really offensive, you should just ignore that. What is offensive? If you shout in front of the Deities, if you do nonsense things in front of the Deities, if you stretch your legs in front of the Deities, etc.—these things are offences, and we must not do that.

Sometimes you come in front of the Deities many times a day—every time you come in front of Them, you must always pay obeisance to them: it can be a sastanga dandavat (full, prostrated obeisance; touching the ground 'with eight limbs'), a panchanga dandavat (not full obeisance, like the obeisances paid by ladies; touching the ground 'with five limbs'), or at least fold your palms. Always pay obeisance to the Deities, every time you see Them—that is good. We must do that. We must give respect to the Deities.

When we come before Gurudev, we always give him respect—no matter how many times we see him, we offer our obeisance to him every time. You must have the same attitude to the Deities—always pay obeisance to Them, every time you come before Them.

If some other thought comes to your mind, it can come because our mind is always naughty, even some bad thoughts can come. What can we do? We cannot do anything, but we will try to be good and we will do our best so that only good thoughts come to our minds. We can only try...

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