Pujari-Portrait: Dhira Krsna dasa, disciple of H.H. Bhakti Caru Swami.
In which place are you serving? Since when?
Radhadesh, Belgium. I joined the temple full time in April 1992.
Since when are you serving the Deities and how did you get attracted to that seva?
I received second initiation in October 1994 and since then started doing Deity Worship in Radhadesh. I started dressing the Gaura Nitai Deities which are now in Amsterdam and at that time They were hosted in Radhadesh because there were no devotees in Amsterdam who could take care of Them. That was in the years 1995-1996. Soon I also learned to cook for the Deities and found this to be a very sattvic service, which matches perfectly with my personality.
What inspires you the most in your seva to the Deities?
What inspires me is that through this service we are able to directly serve the Lord, as if we were serving Him in the spiritual world. Deity Worship is the Lord’s Mercy upon his devotee. The contact with the Deity is like seeing Krsna in front of you and attending to His desires. Krsna likes to eat opulent, so we cook delicious dishes for Him, He likes to be dressed in beautiful clothes and wear ornaments, and we can dress Him personally, like His servants in Gokula Vrndavan. As pujaris we often get those dreams where we are in anxiety, we may be late in dressing and the curtains have to open right now! Or everything is a mess on the altar and we have to clean up quickly before the darshan time. Those dreams generally happen in reality as well, only the dreams exaggerate the situation. Pujaris relish every minute they are on the altar serving Krsna.
Did you have personal experiences with the Deities which you would like to share? I have had some very nice dreams where I saw Lord Jagannatha. One dream Lord Jagannatha had His altar very high up in a skyscraper, with a huge kitchen next to it and the altar looked like a big stage as in a theater, with the curtains and all. Another dream I saw Lord Jagannatha sitting in a row of sannyasis (yes, he is Jagannatha Swami!) and He had a knife and fork in His hands and He was looking at me with a mood like: “When is My Prasadam coming?”. I also have been so lucky to take Lord Jagannatha on His Ratha Yatra almost every time we had a Ratha Yatra in the Benelux since 1999 when His pujari at that time went to do other things. I think of all the Deities, Lord Jagannatha, Lord Balarama and Lady Subhadra are my favorite Ones.
What kind of advice would you give to a young devotee to get attracted to Deity Worship?
It’s a natural process. I would say, come and do some service for the Deities, even if you are not second intitiated yet, or still a Bhakta or Bhaktin, you can do some service as a pujari helper washing paraphernalia or doing some maha-prasadam transfers. If it is a service that matches to you, you can’t avoid becoming attracted. In fact, one of my first services during the bhakta program was doing the last transfer in the evening. Obviously hard to avoid the temptation of taking some maha prasadam afterwards, but it is hard to wake up the next morning then for mangala arati! Nevertheless new bhaktas should eat a lot of maha prasadam, it’s a good way to survive the attacks of Maya.