DEITY DEPARTMENT

DEITY DEPARTMENT DEITY DEPARTMENT

Extra day opened up for service by community members

From Saturday 27th February, the Deity Department allowed members of the community to come for pujari services on Saturdays. This means that both Saturdays and Sundays are now open for devotees living outside the temple to come and render pujari services.

Below is a selection of special darshans outside of the usual Temple festivals.

New Year’s Day Darshan

On January 1st, Sri Sri Radha-Londonisvara were offered beautiful flower crowns made out of fresh flowers as part of a special darshan.

Vasant Panchami – Tuesday 16th February

Vasant Panchami marks the beginning of spring. The sastric instruction is that on the fifth day of the waxing moon, one should celebrate the arrival of spring in Vrindavana by offering many types of flowers to Krishna.

Inspired by this festival which is celebrated with great beauty in ISKCON temples in India, flowers were sponsored and extra flower garlands and ornaments made for a special Vasant Panchami darshan for Their Lordships’ pleasure.

Deity Worship at Home Course

The UK version of the Deity Worship at Home course, an online course facilitated by the ISKCON Deity Worship Ministry, took place over six Saturdays, from Saturday 6th February to Saturday 13th March.

It provided an in-depth training covering the knowledge, skills and values required for the daily worship of Deities in one’s home and introduced participants to concepts that are applicable both in the home worship environment as well as the temple.

There was a balance between the theory and practical aspects of Deity worship in the home.

The necessity of cleanliness was explored as well as the transcendental nature of the Deity. Each session covered different aspects of Deity worship practices and philosophy and built upon the prior sessions.

Over 50 participants took part from across the UK with a few attendees from Europe and the US. “I feel I have received a thorough grounding in all aspects of Deity worship at home for which I’m very grateful. The course has been very educational and inspires me to try to serve my home Deities better. “

The course was very well organised, with experienced teachers, an intuitive easyto-use learning platform, and access to a lot of resources. It was a great mix of live sessions and independent assignments to further embed our learning. There was also opportunity to learn from other students’ experiences and insights via the interactive Facebook group.

Throughout the course, I felt wellsupported with facilitators approachable outside of the sessions should I need.

The best online course I have attended by far!”

Devaki devi dasi “The course was really well planned and lots of additional resources were available. The course was practical and easy to follow each week. The facilitators were all fantastic and answered questions on chat and were very approachable. I would recommend this course to anyone who has Deities and wants to serve Them nicely. I liked the videos showing how to wake up, drees/ bathe, and offer arati. I will be watching these a few times more to get this right.”

Yashvini Saci devi dasi “This course was very well taught and the homework was very relevant and comprehensive to the topics of Deity worship - it was fun and enjoyable too! I would recommend this course to anyone who has Deities at home because you learn so many useful practical tips and the videos were invaluable. I look forward to more courses from the Ministry of Deity

Worship!”

Mani Gill