Home Deity Worship Course

Want to learn the rituals and practices for worshipping the divine form? Join us for the interactive course where you will learn about the art of worshipping the Deity at your home, in line with the standards of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

Deity Worship is an integral aspect of devotional service in Gaudiya-Vaishnavism. In ISKCON especially, the Founder-acarya Srila Prabhupada repeatedly emphasized how we could make each home, non-different from the spiritual realm by keeping the Deity in the center and nicely executing the worship. Therefore, delving deep into what Deity worship means and entails is both necessary and helpful for spiritual growth.

Home worship has also its own unique character that this course will elaborate upon. It will help the attendees deepen their personal relationship with the Deity and learn how to offer their best in our service.

This introductory course is for practitioners interested in developing their deity worship skills at home primarily. However, the aspects learnt in this course, may also be helpful for basic puja-related participation in the temple, e.g. executing Srila Prabhupada arati, Tulasi arati etc. It is even more relevant for aspiring/budding pujaris.

The course covers philosophical and practical details. There will also be an opportunity to apply the acquired knowledge.

You will learn:

• Purpose of Deity worship
• Home altars: where and how?
• Procedures for acamana, arati, bhoga offering
• Basics of dressing the Deity
• Practical implementations

Language: English

Free entry

About facilitator

Devasri Radhika Devi Dasi was born in Calcutta in 1992 and was introduced to Krishna-consciousness in her childhood. She met her spiritual master, His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami, in the year 2003. In 2008, at the age of 16, she completed Bhakti Sastri and from a very young age has been actively learning from and serving different ISKCON projects. In 2015, she received Harinama initiation from HH BCS and served as his secretary from 2015-2017. In 2022, she received brahmin initiation from her second spiritual master His Holiness Krishna Kshetra Swami. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Legal Anthropology at Universität Bern after having completed her M.A. in South Asian Studies at Universität Heidelberg, Germany - wherein she was also elected as President (Fachrat) of the student body. She was also associated with the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and Rule of Law as a research assistant. Prior to this, in 2015, she graduated from NUJS - a premier law school in India and successfully cleared the All-India Bar Examination (AIBE) in 2017 to become a registered member with the Bar Council of India.

In 2019, she briefly also served as secretary to the GBC Sastric Advisory Council. In 2021, she joined the editorial team for Spiritual Connections – a magazine started by His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami, inspiring its revival and has been serving as secretary to Srila Bhakti Charu Swami Samadhi Committee. From September, 2020 – October, 2022, she also undertook the learning and experience of living in an ashram at ISKCON Zürich and served as the Temple Commander. She is currently involved in overseeing and improving Tulasi Care at the temple, although now serving as a congregation devotee. Since 2021, she is also an integral part of the ISKCON Constitution Committee.