Home Worship

[…] Whatever you do, do it nicely, do it regularly, and consider that Krishna is an honoured guest in your home, in contrast to Krishna in the temple. In the temple, there is honouring of the king, and the king has demands. He can say, there must be this and this at this time. But the honoured guest feels him or herself as a guest and therefore is not making demands. 

At the same time, the host wants the guest to be pleased, so he is very eager to do everything to please the guest. But the guest is not demanding anything. And so the householder, having so many duties for maintaining the household, may have a schedule which is very flexible. They may have responsibilities that mean, like, things can’t go on like in the temple, and that’s ok. 

Srila Prabhupada, of course, said, one is making one’s home into a temple. So to the question of installation of Deities at home, I don’t know of any textual reference for this, but what I suggest to devotees when it comes up: step one - get the blessings of your guru. Preferably invite your guru to be present and to be the presiding priest. If that’s not possible, have the blessings of the guru and make it a small festival. Invite friends. Of course, you can have a fire yajna, although that, I believe, is not essential. Let there be kirtan, let there be abhisheka with the kirtan, then dressing of the Deities, and then worship, offering of a nice feast and distribution of the feast. And if possible, some pravacana, some lecture. And I recommend writing out a standard, which is a sort of declaration, because you are inviting Krishna to come. This is a kind of informal installation. You are inviting Krishna in an informal way, but you are inviting him. 

So many times, we hear devotees say, “well, my Deities are uninstalled”. Well then, the question is, is Krishna present or is Krishna not present? If Krishna is not present, what are you doing? So, we may just in an informal way, invite Krishna and we want Him to stay. And how can we keep Him to stay there? 

One thing we can do is to write out what is our plan, what is going to be our standard. And perhaps before doing that, consult with the temple pujaris. And I think maybe that’s where your question is coming from. You are perhaps a pujariin a temple and some congregational members come to you and say, “we want to install (the Deities), what should we do?”

You can have a consultation to make a plan what exactly their standard is going to be: what to offer, how many offerings a day, maybe a special worship once a week, because during the week all they can do is offer their bhoga. And then have that written and make that a sort of contract: “Yes, Krishna, we are committing ourselves to this”. 

I would say, put a date on it and make this the beginning of a historical record of the Deity, which then would be passed on to the next generation. The idea is, when we install the Deity, it should be understood, this is going to be for good, ongoing worship. 

-From the address of H.H. Krishna Kshetra Swami at the Mayapur Academy Alumni Sanga, on January 18, 2025