Schedule

In the Skanda Purana there is the following description of the result of seeing äarti (worship) of the Deity: “If someone sees the face of the Lord while aarti is going on, he can be relieved of all sinful reactions coming from many, many thousands and millions of years past. He is even excused from the killing of a Brahman or similar prohibited activities.

As Srila Prabhupada says in the Srimad Bhagwadam 4.12.17, purport:

Worship of the arcä-vigraha is not idol worship. The arcä-vigraha is an incarnation of the Lord in a form appreciable by a devotee. Therefore devotees engage in the temple in the service of the Lord as arcä-vigraha, a form made of sthüla (material) objects such as stone, metal, wood, jewels or paint. All of these are called sthüla, or physical representations. Since the devotees follow the regulative principles of worship, even though the Lord is there in His physical form, He is nondifferent from His original, spiritual form. Thus the devotee gets the benefit of achieving the ultimate goal of life that is to say, becoming always absorbed in thought of the Lord.