The Importance of Prana Pratistha

You may go to a ship or exhibition of sculptures or idols in the shape and images of manifested forms of gods; you will find they are also laying there as other artifacts, statues or effigies. Be that of Lord Ganesha, Lakshmi, or any other manifestation of divine powers, they are nothing except some archetype of carved stones, metals etc. At times they might be kept haphazardly, even upside down, or crowded on a stand or even on the floor………! But no one - including the idolaters or idol worshippers finds anything unusual in it. No one cares whether the place around is cleaned, whether there is dust on the statues or images. In fact, one hardly even notices it.

But what if the same idol was there in a temple, in the sanctum sanctorum of a holy shrine, or at a worship center? Same face, same form, same image of the manifestation of a god. But now it is worship-able! One won't tolerate or forgive anything trying to touch or displace it? Now it is well decorated, worshipped, looked after by the believers as a god personified. Earlier it was only a physical object. But now it is a deity! Why?

The deities worshipped in the holy shrines are often revered by the devotees as incarnated divine powers. Many of them have been blessed by and have experienced miraculous powers of the deity. it is the devout faith (sraddha) of the pure heart of a devotee that makes god appear before him /her. Many authentic incidences of saints affirm such possibilities. Most people including non-believers also find great peace in the vicinity of the idols enshrined in a temple. Fine! What concerns us in today's discussion is-not why it happens, rather, when does it happen? When does an idol or an image of god-form become Worshipable? The devotees, the believers, Worship only these forms of deity and not the statues kept in the museum or shop. What is the difference between the two stone-carvings/images of the same god-form?

An idol or sculpture of a god-form is enshrined and Worshipped in a temple only after the sacred process of prana-pratistha. To an onlooker, it Would appear like yet another 'customized ritual' of invocation. If it were so, anybody would have been able to utter some prayers and perform the enshrinement steps of the ritual. But that is not correct. In fact this sacrament is a spiritual experiment. Only saintly priests who have devoted themselves to spiritual endeavors for ultimate light, only the dedicated devotees with enlightened hearts that pulsate with sraddha can do prana pratistha. With this, the transcendent divine power of god is invocated and established in the idol. Then the same idol, which was earlier like a toy, would work like god personified for a true devotee. Depending upon the depth of his sriddha, a devotee can communicate with the deity as though one is talking to a living god. I hope you have got a hint of what I am trying to convey. It is the awakening of chitsakti the Prana which makes all the difference. This principle applies everywhere in the world, in every aspect of life.