Questioner:  After the ritual of pran-pratishta (instilling life in an idol), does the power of the idol increase?
Dadashri:  Yes it does.  If one does pran-pratishta on a hooko (smoking pipe with smoke filtered through water), it too will become powerful. However, an idol carries projected feelings of thousands of worshippers. It will give results when life is instilled in it. Nowadays however, a true pran-pratishta does not occur. ‘We’ (Dadashri and the fully enlightened Lord within) are able to perform true pran-pratishta but only when the circumstance arises. ‘We’ do pratishta for the salvation of humanity. The pratishta performed by others depends upon their spiritual level and powers. But what kind of bhaav (internal state) is their pratishta performed with? It is performed with kalushit bhaav (in the presence of the inner anger, pride, illusion and greed). They do pratishta when their internal kashays are still present and these negativities have a stronghold over them. The priests retaliate at the slightest provocation, so how effective can their pratishta be? Only the one in whom all kashays have gone has the right to perform a pratishta Not only that but such a person must not evoke the slightest kashay in other beings. Such a person falls in the category of the Panch Parmeshti (five stages of enlightenment after Self-realization) and pratishta is to be performed only by such a being. Nevertheless, as the saying goes ‘something is better than nothing’. But in reality the pratishta must be such that after it is done, the idol will smile at you and converse with you. Wherever ‘We’ have performed pratishta, the idols talk and smile at the worshipper. ‘We’ have a tremendous desire that such pratishta be performed in all the temples, but it is not in ‘our’ hands. It is under the control of vyavasthit (scientific circumstantial evidence) and that is why even the pratishta that ‘We’ do is according to the dictates of vyavasthit.
‘We’ do pratishta even within you and that is why you spontaneously and naturally say, “I am Shuddhatma.” When even the pratishta the Gnani performs in an idol of stone gives results, would it not give results when performed in a living person who spontaneously exclaims, ‘I am a pure Soul’?
Until you meet a Gnani Purush who gives you the darshan of the formless God (amurta), you should continue to worship the idol (murti; the one with form). You should sing songs of devotion and praise of the Lord. If you continue to worship the idol, you will meet the idol (the one with the form) and you will have all the material comforts. But when you meet a Gnani Purush, you will get the darshan of the formless (amurta) and that will liberate you. You have done idol worship for countless past lives, have you not?  But the Gnani Purush himself is murtamurta i.e. one with form and without form, and you will attain liberation by worshipping Him.