Question to Radhanath Swami : If God is omnipresent, why worship a Deity?
Radhanath Swami : If God is omnipresent is he not in the Deity too? Be honest and realistic, not to me, but to yourself. Are you able to fix your mind in love and devotion on God present everywhere and in everything? Difficult, isn’t it? Therefore, the Lord is so merciful and so kind that He reveals to us wonderful mediums by which we can completely absorb our consciousness in Him. One is through His name. The name is the Deity of God in sound that we can carry with us everywhere. The Deity in the temple is another manifestation God is so kindly giving us to completely focus our external senses on Him and to serve Him. In the Deity form you can bathe God, you can offer foodstuffs to God, you can meditate on the beauty of God, and you can completely absorb your attention in God. It is simply a most wonderful and sublime form of meditation, which awakens our natural serving propensity and our love for God. God has given the Deity as a wonderful facility and opportunity for us to fix our mind on Him, to love and to serve Him.
